# Encyclopedia of Islam and The Muslim World

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> Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: William F. McCants, Encyclopedia of Islam and The Muslim World, bahai-library.com.
> ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
> 
> Encyclopedia of
> 
> Islam
> and the
> Muslim World
> Editorial Board
> 
> Editor in Chief
> Richard C. Martin
> Professor of Islamic Studies and History of Religions
> Emory University, Atlanta
> 
> Associate Editors
> Saïd Amir Arjomand
> Professor of Sociology
> State University of New York, Stony Brook
> 
> Marcia Hermansen
> Professor of Theology
> Loyola University, Chicago
> 
> Abdulkader Tayob
> University of Cape Town, South Africa
> International Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World, Netherlands
> 
> Assistant Editor
> Rochelle Davis
> Teaching Fellow, Introduction to the Humanities Program
> Stanford University
> 
> Editorial Consultant
> John O. Voll
> Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding
> Georgetown University
> 
> ii
> Encyclopedia of
> 
> Islam
> and the
> Muslim World
> Editor in Chief
> Richard C. Martin
> 
> Volume 1
> A-L
> Encyclopedia of
> 
> Islam
> and the
> Muslim World
> Editor in Chief
> Richard C. Martin
> 
> Volume 2
> M-Z, Index
> Encyclopedia of Islam
> Richard C. Martin, Editor in Chief
> 
> © 2004 by Macmillan Reference USA.                    For permission to use material from this           While every effort has been made to
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> No part of this work covered by the copyright
> hereon may be reproduced or used in
> any form or by any means—graphic,
> electronic, or mechanical, including
> photocopying, recording, taping, Web
> distribution, or information storage retrieval
> systems—without the written permission of
> the publisher.
> 
> Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
> 
> Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim world / edited by Richard C.
> Martin.
> p. cm.
> Includes bibliographical references and index.
> ISBN 0-02-865603-2 (set) — ISBN 0-02-865604-0 (v. 1) — ISBN
> 0-02-865605-9 (v. 2)
> 1. Islam—Encyclopedias. I. Martin, Richard C.
> BP40.E525 2003
> 909’.097671—dc21
> 2003009964
> 
> This title is also available as an e-book.
> ISBN 0-02-865912-0
> Contact your Gale sales representative for ordering information.
> 
> Printed in the United States of America
> 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
> Contents
> 
> Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
> List of entries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii
> List of contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxiii
> Synoptic outline of entries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxxi
> List of maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxxv
> 
> ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ISLAM AND THE MUSLIM WORLD
> 
> Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 749
> Appendix: Genealogies and Timelines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 755
> Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 785
> 
> v
> Editorial and Production Staff
> 
> Kate Millson and Corrina Moss
> Project Editors
> 
> Joann Cerrito, Melissa Hill, and Mark Mikula
> Editorial Support
> 
> Jonathan Aretakis
> Copy Chief
> 
> Nancy Gratton
> Copy Editor
> 
> Ann McGlothlin Weller
> Proofreader
> 
> Barbara Cohen
> Indexer
> 
> Barbara Yarrow
> Manager, Imaging and Multimedia Content
> 
> Dean Dauphinais
> Senior Editor, Imaging and Multimedia Content
> 
> Lezlie Light
> Imaging Coordinator
> 
> Deanna Raso
> Photo Researcher
> 
> Shalice Shah-Caldwell
> Research Associate
> 
> Cynthia Baldwin and Jennifer Wahi
> Art Directors
> 
> Autobookcomp
> Typesetter
> 
> vi
> Editorial and Production Staff
> 
> Mary Beth Trimper
> Manager, Composition
> 
> Evi Seoud
> Assistant Manager, Composition
> 
> Rhonda Williams
> Print Buyer
> 
> MACMILLAN REFERENCE USA
> 
> Frank Menchaca
> Vice President
> 
> Hélène Potter
> Director, New Product Development
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                  vii
> Introduction
> 
> A growing number of scholars and pundits have declared that the twenty-first century will be the
> era of Islam. Such predictions, whether intended in a positive or negative light, err in failing to
> appreciate the spread and influence of Islam during the past millennium and a half, especially on
> the continents of Asia and Africa. Nonetheless, events during the first decade of the new
> millennium have underscored the importance of knowing about Islamic history and understanding the great diversity and richness of Muslim social, cultural, and religious practices. Suicide
> bomber attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington,
> D.C., on September 11, 2001, killed over three thousand persons. These tragic events and the
> media coverage of the aftermath as well as of the two wars subsequently fought in the Muslim
> countries of Afghanistan and Iraq have dramatically shown how little is known in the West about
> Islam and the Muslim world. Islam is, and has been for nearly fifteen centuries, a global religious
> and political phenomenon. Muslim networks of communication, from the annual pilgrimage to
> Mecca to the vast new power of the World Wide Web, have enabled Muslims to establish
> postmodern identities in a rapidly changing world, while at the same time preserving and
> reinvigorating a variety of time-honored traditions and practices. The Encyclopedia of Islam and the
> Muslim World is a sourcebook of information about Islam, its past and present, addressed to
> students and general readers as the twenty-first century begins its first decade.
> 
> The Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World presents in two volumes some 504 articles,
> alphabetically arranged, in incremental lengths generally of 200, 500, 1,000, 3,000, and 5,000
> words. The work of some 500 scholars appears in these pages, carefully reviewed and edited in a
> common style for easy access by readers who may presently have limited or no knowledge of
> Islam. It has also been prepared as a teaching and learning resource for teachers and students,
> from the high school grades through university. The alphabetical ordering of articles that follow,
> in the List of Articles, will enable readers to locate topics of interest quickly. A synoptic outline of
> the contents of the Encyclopedia, found within the frontmatter on pages xxxi–xxxiv, provides
> readers with an overview by topic and subtopic of the range and kinds of information presented in
> the main body of the Encyclopedia. Approximately 170 photographs, drawings, maps, and charts
> appear throughout the two volumes. A glossary in the back matter of volume two, which lists
> commonly used Arabic and other Islamic terms, such as shari
a, or “Islamic law,” will enable
> general readers to determine quickly the meaning of essential but perhaps less familiar terms in
> Islamic studies.
> 
> The Encyclopedia is truly an international work that reflects the diversity of ideas and practices
> that have characterize the Islamic world throughout its history. This diversity is reflected among
> the editors who organized and compiled this work and the scores of scholars who wrote the
> articles contained in it. The associate editors’ national origins are Canada, Iran, and South Africa;
> their religious affiliations or backgrounds include Sunni and Shi
ite Islam; and their scholarly
> training has been in sociology, the history of religions, and Islamic studies. An even greater
> 
> ix
> Introduction
> 
> diversity exists among the contributing scholars who live and teach in North America, Europe,
> Africa, and Asia, including the Middle East. They represent the fields of history, philosophy,
> religious studies, anthropology, sociology, political science, and the fine arts, among others. In its
> totality, then, this work represents a broad expanse of scholarly knowledge about Islam, accessible
> in two volumes.
> 
> Islam increasingly is recognized as a vital force in the contemporary world, a source of
> collective social identity, and religious expression for over one billion people around the world,
> who comprise a fifth of the global population. Public interest in learning about Islam is a very
> recent phenomenon, however. Events of the past few decades have generated a demand for
> information about Islam on an unprecedented scale in the history of Islamic studies in the West.
> In negative terms, these events include violence: the colonial and postcolonial encounters
> between Europeans and Muslims in Asia and Africa, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Hindu-
> Muslim clashes in South Asia, Serbian ethnic cleansing of Muslim populations in the Balkans, and
> the heavily televised American-led wars in the Gulf, Afghanistan, and Iraq. In positive terms, the
> recent years have seen productive Muslim diaspora communities emerge in Europe and the
> Americas, Islamic patterns of democracy and civil society develop in some countries in Africa and
> Asia, and venues of dialogue arise among Muslims, Jews, and Christians about their common
> moral and social concerns as well as their differences. That non-Muslims are learning more about
> Islam and their Muslim neighbors through tools like this encyclopedia must also be counted as a
> positive turn, and a much-needed one.
> 
> Scholars, journalists, and writers of all sorts have responded robustly to this newly recognized
> importance of Islam and the Muslim world, thus creating a wealth of information about Islam
> now available in bookstores, libraries, and newsstands around the world. More significant for
> readers of this work, the Internet hosts an expanding plethora of Web sites on Islamic teachings,
> practices, sectarian groups, and organizations. Many Web sites are sponsored by Muslim
> scholars, organizations, and institutions and provide authentic, and sometimes competing,
> information about Islamic beliefs and practices. Unfortunately, others offer hostile interpretations of Islam. The Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World is designed to help students and
> general readers cope with this growing demand and almost overwhelming supply of information.
> 
> The decision to call this work the Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World was made after
> considering other, less felicitous alternatives. The editors wanted to produce a work that was
> about Islamic cultures, religion, history, politics, and the like as well as the people who have
> identified with Islam over the past fourteen centuries. For the scope of the social and cultural
> aspects of the subject matter of the Encyclopedia, the editors chose the phrase “Muslim World.”
> The label “Muslim World” is not meant to suggest that diversity and variety are lacking in what
> Muslims think, believe, and do as Muslims. Nor is the Muslim World as represented in this work
> to be thought of as separate from the rest of the world. Indeed, it will be clear to readers of articles
> on virtually all topics included below that Islamic history and Muslim people have been deeply
> and richly engaged in and interacting with world history and are perhaps even more so in the
> modern world, as the late Marshall G. S. Hodgson so persuasively argued in his monumental
> three-volume work, The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a World Civilization (1974).
> 
> The growing demand for accessible knowledge about Islam in recent decades has produced a
> number of histories, encyclopedias, and dictionaries that serve different purposes. In addition to
> Hodgson’s comprehensive historical essay on Islamic civilization, The Cambridge History of Islam
> (1970) brought together substantial treatments of historical periods and geographical regions of
> Islamic societies. Another important and even older work that is widely used by scholars is the
> ongoing project known as the Encyclopaedia of Islam. The first edition was published in four
> volumes in Leiden (1908–1938); the second and much larger edition recently reached its
> completion in twice as many volumes with a significantly expanded list of contributing scholars;
> and the third edition is now being planned. The Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World brings
> to general readers in accessible form the rich tradition of serious scholarship on Islam and Muslim
> peoples found in the Cambridge History and the Encyclopaedia of Islam, and it addresses information
> about Islam in the twenty-first century that is not discussed in the older sources. More recently,
> 
> x                                                                                                 Islam and the Muslim World
> Introduction
> 
> the Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World (1995) appeared in four volumes. The focus of
> this latter work is, as the title suggests, on Islam in the modern world, generally dated from the
> beginning the eighteenth century through the last decade of the twentieth. The Encyclopedia of
> Islam and the Muslim World by contrast seeks to contextualize contemporary Islam within the
> longer history of Islam, and it includes discussion of significant world events involving the Islamic
> world over the past decade.
> 
> In preparing this new resource on Islam, the editors sought to frame some of the traditional as
> well as the more recent aspects of Islam in newer categories. Thus, for example, readers will find
> articles covering “Material Culture,” “Vernacular Islam,” “Identity, Muslim,” “Secularism,”
> “Disputation,” and “Expansion of Islam.” A major feature of the Encyclopedia is the large number
> of brief biographical sketches (nearly two hundred) of major figures in Islamic history, men and
> women, past and present. The editors also included articles on several important and sometimes
> contested ethical and social issues, including “Ethnicity,” “Gender,” “Homosexuality,” “Human
> Rights,” and “Masculinities,” along with the more traditional entries on gender (usually
> concentrating on the feminine roles) and marriage. The events of September 11, 2001, occurred
> after the Table of Contents was prepared and authors were commissioned to write the articles.
> Nonetheless, new articles on “Terrorism,” “Usama bin Ladin,” and “al-Qa
ida,” among others,
> were added.
> 
> History, of course, will continue to unfold for humankind worldwide, including Muslims. The
> Encyclopedia includes a number of interpretive articles, such as “Ethics and Social Issues,” which
> provide frameworks for understanding ongoing events in Islamic history.
> 
> Editorial style is a matter of great importance in a work such as the Encyclopedia. Readers can
> easily get lost in technical terms and diacritical marks on words borrowed from Arabic and
> Persian. Integrating work from a great number of scholars from around the world, each with
> differing practices in academic expression and in transliterating Islamic languages into Latin
> letters, presented some challenges to the academic editors and the editorial staff at Macmillan.
> To make things easier on readers, especially for those not initiated into the argots of Islamic
> technical terms, the editors decided to minimize the diacritical marks on loanwords from Arabic,
> Persian, Urdu, Turkish, and other Islamic languages. We encouraged authors and copy editors to
> romanize those Islamic terms that have made it into the English language, such as jihad, hajj, and
> Ramadan, as evidenced by their inclusion in modern dictionaries such as Webster’s Third New
> International Dictionary. Where it seemed helpful, editors supplied brief parenthetical definitions
> and identifications, both in the text and in the Glossary.
> 
> The people who made this project possible brought great ideas to it, are extremely talented
> and competent, and were wonderful to work with. Hélène Potter, Macmillan’s Director of New
> Product Development, designed the project and brought to it a considerable knowledge about
> Islam. More than an industry leader, Hélène became first and foremost a friend and colleague.
> She is an accomplished professional with an uncanny understanding of the knowledge industry
> she serves. Corrina Moss, an Assistant Editor with Macmillan, worked on the project throughout
> and kept in touch daily on editorial matters large and small. To Corrina went the unpleasant task,
> pleasantly administered, of keeping the associate editors and especially me on task. Elly
> Dickason, who was the publisher in 2000 when this project was approved, and Jonathan Aretakis,
> chief copy editor, also deserve expressions of praise and gratitude—Elly for supporting the
> project from the moment she reviewed it, and Jonathan for making sure the articles are factually
> and stylistically appropriate.
> 
> My colleagues Saïd Arjomand, Marcia Hermansen, and Abdulkader Tayob served as Associate Editors. The associate editors brought broad vision and detailed knowledge to their tasks of
> helping to organize the contents of the Encyclopedia, and I am indebted to them for making my
> own knowledge limitations less problematic in producing it. Rochelle Davis, a specialist in Arabic
> and Islamic studies, served as Assistant Editor, responsible for reading page proofs and preparing
> the Glossary. However, she contributed much more to the Encyclopedia, with an eye for
> grammatical and content errors that greatly improved the penultimate draft. My friend and
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                  xi
> Introduction
> 
> colleague of many years, John Voll, Editorial Consultant, kindly advised Hélène Potter and me of
> matters we should consider in the formative stages of planning the Encyclopedia, and he
> contributed several important articles to it.
> 
> On behalf of Saïd, Marcia, Abdulkader, Rochelle, and John, I would like to dedicate this
> project to our many Muslim and non-Muslim colleagues around the world, with whom we share
> the task of teaching and writing about Islam in a high-tech, troubled world that needs to know
> more about itself. To that end we hope this work will help disseminate useful knowledge about
> one of the world’s great civilizations to those who have a desire and need to know.
> 
> Richard C. Martin
> Creston, North Carolina
> August 15, 2003
> 
> xii                                                                                        Islam and the Muslim World
> List of Entries
> 
> 
Abbas I, Shah                  Abu ‘l-Hasan Bani-Sadr        Ahmad Ibn Idris
> Rudi Matthee                    Mazyar Lotfalian              Knut S. Vikør
> 
> 
Abd al-Baha                   Abu ‘l-Hudhayl al-
Allaf      Ahmadiyya
> William McCants                 M. Sait Özervarli             Avril A. Powell
> 
> 
Abd al-Hamid Ibn Badis         Abu ‘l-Qasem Kashani          Ahmad Khan, (Sir) Sayyid
> Claudia Gazzini                 Mohammad H. Faghfoory         David Lelyveld
> 
> 
Abd al-Hamid Kishk (Shaykh)    
Ada                          Ahmad, Mirza Ghulam
> Joel Gordon                     Tahir Fuzile Sitoto           Avril A. Powell
> 
> 
Abd al-Jabbar                  Adab                          
Aisha
> M. Sait Özervarli               Barbara D. Metcalf            Sa’diyya Shaikh
> 
> 
Abd al-Karim Sorush            Adhan                         Akbar
> Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi         Muneer Goolam Fareed          Gregory C. Kozlowski
> 
> 
Abd al-Nasser, Jamal           Afghani, Jamal al-Din         Akhbariyya
> Joel Gordon                     Sohail H. Hashmi              Robert Gleave
> 
> 
Abd al-Qadir, Amir             Africa, Islam in              Akhlaq
> Peter von Sivers                David Robinson                Azim Nanji
> 
> 
Abd al-Rahman Kawakibi         African Culture and Islam     
Ali
> Sohail H. Hashmi                Abdin Chande                  Diana Steigerwald
> 
> 
Abd al-Razzaq al-Sanhuri       Aga Khan                      Aligarh
> Khaled Abou El-Fadl             Azim Nanji                    David Lelyveld
> 
> 
Abd al-Wahhab, Muhammad Ibn    Ahl al-Bayt                   Allah
> Sohail H. Hashmi                Juan Eduardo Campo            Daniel C. Peterson
> 
> 
Abduh, Muhammad                Ahl-e Hadis / Ahl al-Hadith   American Culture and Islam
> Sohail H. Hashmi                Barbara D. Metcalf            Ihsan Bagby
> 
> Abu Bakr                        Ahl al-Hadith                 Americas, Islam in the
> Rizwi Faizer                    R. Kevin Jaques               Sylviane Anna Diouf
> 
> Abu Bakr Gumi                   Ahl al-Kitab                  Andalus, al-
> Roman Loimeier                  Stephen Cory                  Aaron Hughes
> 
> Abu Hanifa                      Ahmad Ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi    Angels
> Brannon M. Wheeler              Roman Loimeier                Peter Lamborn Wilson
> 
> xiii
> List of Entries
> 
> Arabia, Pre-Islam           Bahaallah                        Calligraphy
> Gordon D. Newby             John Walbridge                    Sheila S. Blair
> Jonathan M. Bloom
> Arabic Language             Bahai Faith
> Kees Versteegh              John Walbridge                   Capitalism
> Timur Kuran
> Arabic Literature           Balkans, Islam in the
> Gert Borg                   Frances Trix                     Cartography and Geography
> Karen C. Pinto
> Arab League                 Bamba, Ahmad
> Juan Eduardo Campo                                           Central Asia, Islam in
> Lucy Creevey
> Devin DeWeese
> Architecture                Banna, Hasan al-
> Central Asian Culture and Islam
> Santhi Kavuri-Bauer         Sohail H. Hashmi                  Devin DeWeese
> Art                         Baqillani, al-                    Childhood
> Sheila S. Blair             M. Sait Özervarli                 Elizabeth Warnock Fernea
> Jonathan M. Bloom
> Basri, Hasan al-                  Christianity and Islam
> 
Asabiyya                    Rkia E. Cornell                   Patrice C. Brodeur
> Aaron Hughes
> Ba
th Party                       Circumcision
> Ash
arites, Ash
aira                                           Kathryn Kueny
> F. Gregory Gause III
> M. Sait Özervarli
> Bazargan, Mehdi                   Clothing
> Askiya Muhammad                                                Charlotte Jirousek
> Mazyar Lotfalian
> Ousmane Kane
> Bedouin                           Coinage
> Asnam                                                          Abdullah Saeed
> Rochelle Davis
> Uri Rubin
> Colonialism
> Bid
a
> Assassins                                                      Jamal Malik
> Nico J. G. Kaptein
> Farhad Daftary
> Communism
> Bin Ladin, Usama
> Astrology                                                      Richard C. Campany, Jr.
> Richard C. Martin
> Ahmad S. Dallal
> Conflict and Violence
> Astronomy                   Biography and Hagiography          A. Rashied Omar
> Ahmad S. Dallal             Marcia Hermansen
> Conversion
> 
Atabat                     Biruni, al-                        Peter B. Clarke
> Neguin Yavari               Marcia Hermansen
> Crusades
> Ataturk, Mustafa Kemal      Body, Significance of               Warren C. Schultz
> A. Uner Turgay              Brannon M. Wheeler
> Dar al-Harb
> Awami League                Bourghiba, Habib                   John Kelsay
> Sufia Uddin                  John Ruedy
> Dar al-Islam
> Bukhara, Khanate and Emirate of    John Kelsay
> Ayatollah (Ar. Ayatullah)
> Robert Gleave               Florian Schwarz                  Da
wa
> David Westerlund
> Azhar, al-                  Bukhari, al-
> Christer Hedin
> Diana Steigerwald           Asma Afsaruddin
> Torsten Janson
> Babiyya                     Buraq                             Dawla
> William McCants             Carel Bertram                     Sohail H. Hashmi
> Bab, Sayyed 
Ali Muhammad   Cairo                             Death
> William McCants             Aslam Farouk-Alli                 Juan Eduardo Campo
> 
> Baghdad                     Caliphate                         Deoband
> Mona Hassan                 Muhammad Qasim Zaman              Barbara D. Metcalf
> 
> xiv                                                                Islam and the Muslim World
> List of Entries
> 
> Devotional Life                     Erbakan, Necmeddin           Genealogy
> Gerard Wiegers                      Linda T. Darling             Marcia Hermansen
> 
> Dhikr                               Ethics and Social Issues     Ghannoushi, Rashid al-
> Earle Waugh                         Ebrahim Moosa                Gudrun Krämer
> 
> Dietary Laws                        Ethiopia                     Ghayba(t)
> Muneer Goolam Fareed                Haggai Erlich                Robert Gleave
> 
> Disputation                         Ethnicity                    Ghazali, al-
> Richard C. Martin                   Amal Rassam                  Ebrahim Moosa
> 
> Divorce                             Eunuchs                      Ghazali, Muhammad al-
> Ziba Mir-Hosseini                   Jane Hathaway                Qamar-ul Huda
> 
> European Culture and Islam   Ghazali, Zaynab al-
> Dome of the Rock
> Jorgen S. Nielsen            Ursula Günther
> Sheila S. Blair
> Jonathan M. Bloom                  Europe, Islam in             Globalization
> Jorgen S. Nielsen            Saïd Amir Arjomand
> Dreams
> John C. Lamoreaux                  Expansion                    Grammar and Lexicography
> Fred M. Donner               Kees Versteegh
> Du
a
> Muneer Goolam Fareed               Fadlallah, Muhammad Husayn   Greek Civilization
> Mazyar Lotfalian             Oliver Leaman
> East Asia, Islam in
> Jacqueline M. Armijo               Falsafa                      Hadith
> Parviz Morewedge             Harald Motzki
> East Asian Culture and Islam
> Jacqueline M. Armijo               Farrakhan, Louis             Hajj Salim Suwari, al-
> Aminah Beverly McCloud       Abdulkader Tayob
> Economy and Economic Institutions
> Nora Ann Colton                    Fasi, Muhammad 
Allal al-    Haj 
Umar al-Tal, al-
> David L. Johnston            Abdin Chande
> Education
> Jonathan Berkey                    Fatima                       Hallaj, al-
> Ursula Günther               Herbert W. Mason
> Empires: Abbasid
> Matthew Gordon                     Fatwa                        HAMAS
> Daniel C. Peterson           Tamara Sonn
> Empires: Byzantine
> Fedaiyan-e Islam            Harem
> Nadia Maria El Cheikh
> Fakhreddin Azimi             Etin Anwar
> Empires: Mogul
> Feminism                     Haron, Abdullah
> Iqtidar Alam Khan
> Ghazala Anwar                Shamil Jeppie
> Empires: Mongol and Il-Khanid
> Fez                          Hasan
> Charles Melville
> Claudia Gazzini              Michael M. J. Fischer
> Empires: Ottoman                    Fitna                        Hashemi-Rafsanjani, 
Ali-Akbar
> Donald Quataert                     Sandra S. Campbell           Majid Mohammadi
> Empires: Safavid and Qajar          Fundamentalism               Healing
> Rudi Matthee                        Sohail H. Hashmi             Abdullahi Osman El-Tom
> Empires: Sassanian                  Futuwwa                      Heresiography
> Henning L. Bauer                    Reeva Spector Simon          Aaron Hughes
> Empires: Timurid                    Gasprinskii, Isma
il Bay     Hijra
> Paul D. Buell                       A. Uner Turgay               Rizwi Faizer
> 
> Empires: Umayyad                    Gender                       Hijri Calendar
> Alfons H. Teipen                    Zayn R. Kassam               Ahmad S. Dallal
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                            xv
> List of Entries
> 
> Hilli, 
Allama al-                  Ibn Hanbal                  Islamic Jihad
> Robert Gleave                        Susan A. Spectorsky         Najib Ghadbian
> 
> Hilli, Muhaqqiq al-                 Ibn Khaldun                 Islamic Salvation Front
> Robert Gleave                        R. Kevin Jaques             David L. Johnston
> 
> Hinduism and Islam                  Ibn Maja                    Islamic Society of North America
> Juan Eduardo Campo                   Asma Afsaruddin             R. Kevin Jaques
> Anna Bigelow
> Ibn Rushd                   Isma
il I, Shah
> Hisba                                 Oliver Leaman               Sholeh A. Quinn
> Robert Gleave
> Ibn Sina                    Ja
far al-Sadiq
> Historical Writing                    Shams C. Inati              Liyakatali Takim
> Konrad Hirschler
> Jahannam
> Ibn Taymiyya
> Hizb Allah                                                        Juan Eduardo Campo
> James Pavlin
> Tamara Sonn
> Jahiliyya
> Identity, Muslim
> Hojjat al-Islam                                                   Rizwi Faizer
> Daniel C. Peterson
> Robert Gleave
> Jama
at-e Islami
> Ijtihad
> Hojjatiyya Society                                                Jamal Malik
> Muneer Goolam Fareed
> Majid Mohammadi
> Jami

> Ikhwan al-Muslimin            Muneer Goolam Fareed
> Holy Cities
> David L. Johnston
> Aslam Farouk-Alli                                              Jamil al-Amin, Imam
> Ikhwan al-Safa                Edward E. Curtis IV
> Homosexuality
> Azim Nanji
> Everett K. Rowson                                              Jam
iyat-e 
Ulama-e Hind
> Imam                          Jamal Malik
> Hosayniyya
> Muhammad Qasim Zaman
> Rasool Ja
fariyan                                              Jam
iyat-e 
Ulama-e Islam
> Imamate                       Jamal Malik
> Hospitality and Islam
> Robert Gleave
> Khalid Yahya Blankinship                                       Jam
iyat-e 
Ulama-e Pakistan
> Imamzadah                     Jamal Malik
> Hukuma al-Islamiyya, al- (Islamic
> Government)                          Anne H. Betteridge
> Janna
> Gudrun Krämer                      Internet                      Juan Eduardo Campo
> Human Rights                          Bruce B. Lawrence
> Jevdet Pasha
> Ursula Günther                       Miriam Cooke
> Linda T. Darling
> Humor                               Intifada
> Jihad
> Irfan A. Omar                        Philip Mattar
> Sohail H. Hashmi
> Husayn                              Iqbal, Muhammad
> Jinnah, Muhammad 
Ali
> Michael M. J. Fischer                David Lelyveld
> Rasul Bakhsh Rais
> Husayni, Hajj Amin al-              Iran, Islamic Republic of   Judaism and Islam
> Philip Mattar                        Nancy L. Stockdale         Gordon D. Newby
> Husayn, Taha                        Ishraqi School              Kalam
> Sohail H. Hashmi                     Seyyed Hossein Nasr        Parviz Morewedge
> 
Ibadat                             Islam and Islamic           Kano
> Gerard Wiegers                      John O. Voll               Thyge C. Bro
> 
> Ibn 
Arabi                          Islam and Other Religions   Karaki, Shaykh 
Ali
> William C. Chittick                 Patrice C. Brodeur         Rula Jurdi Abisaab
> 
> Ibn Battuta                         Islamicate Society          Karbala
> Thyge C. Bro                        R. Kevin Jaques            Diana Steigerwald
> 
> xvi                                                                  Islam and the Muslim World
> List of Entries
> 
> Kemal, Namek                 Liberation Movement of Iran   Marwa, Muhammad
> Linda T. Darling             Claudia Stodte                Paula Stiles
> 
> Khalid, Khalid Muhammad      Libraries                     Marwan
> William Shepard              John Walbridge                Rizwi Faizer
> 
> Khamanei, Sayyed 
Ali       Madani, 
Abbasi               Masculinities
> Majid Mohammadi              Claudia Gazzini               Marcia Hermansen
> 
> Khan                         Madhhab                       Mashhad
> Gene Garthwaite              Brannon M. Wheeler            Rasool Ja
fariyan
> 
> Khanqa (Khanaqa, Khanga)     Madrasa                       Masjid
> Leonor Fernandes                                           Patrick D. Gaffney
> John Walbridge
> Khan, Reza of Bareilly                                     Maslaha
> Mahdi
> Barbara D. Metcalf                                         Richard C. Martin
> Marcia Hermansen
> Kharijites, Khawarij                                       Material Culture
> Mahdi, Sadiq al-
> Annie C. Higgins                                           Hassan Mwakimako
> John O. Voll
> Khidr, al-                                                 Maturidi, al-
> Mahdist State, Mahdiyya        M. Sait Özervarli
> Hugh Talat Halman
> Shamil Jeppie
> Khilafat Movement                                          Maududi, Abu l-A
la
> Gail Minault                Mahr                           Jamal Malik
> Ziba Mir-Hosseini
> Khirqa                                                     Mazalim
> Margaret Malamud            Majlis                         Osman Tastan
> Saïd Amir Arjomand
> Khiva, Khanate of                                          Mazru
i
> Touraj Atabaki              Majlisi, Muhammad Baqir        Randall L. Pouwels
> Rula Jurdi Abisaab
> Khoi, Abo l Qasem                                        Medicine
> Majid Mohammadi             Makassar, Shaykh Yusuf         Gail G. Harrison
> R. Michael Feener             Osman M. Galal
> Khojas
> Azim Nanji                  Malcolm X                     Mihna
> Edward E. Curtis IV           Muhammad Qasim Zaman
> Khomeini, Ruhollah
> Nancy L. Stockdale          Malik, Ibn Anas               Mihrab
> Jonathan E. Brockopp          Sheila S. Blair
> Khutba                                                      Jonathan M. Bloom
> Patrick D. Gaffney          Mamun, al-
> Military Raid
> Muhammad Qasim Zaman
> Kindi, al-                                                  Rizwi Faizer
> Jon McGinnis                Manar, Manara
> Minbar (Mimbar)
> Knowledge                     Sheila S. Blair
> Richard T. Antoun
> Jonathan M. Bloom
> Parviz Morewedge
> Minorities: Dhimmis
> Komiteh                      Manicheanism
> Patrick Franke
> Majid Mohammadi              Elton L. Daniel
> Minorities: Offshoots of Islam
> Kunti, Mukhtar al-           Mansa Musa
> Robert Gleave
> Khalil Athamina              Ousmane Kane
> Miracles
> Law                          Marja
 al-Taqlid               Marcia Hermansen
> Osman Tastan                 Robert Gleave
> Mi
raj
> Lebanon                      Marriage                       Frederick Colby
> Farid el Khazen              Ziba Mir-Hosseini             Michael Sells
> 
> Liberalism                   Martyrdom                     Modernism
> Charles Kurzman              Daniel W. Brown               Charles Kurzman
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                   xvii
> List of Entries
> 
> Modernity                                Muhammad, Elijah                Nationalism: Iranian
> Javed Majeed                             Edward E. Curtis IV             Fakhreddin Azimi
> 
> Modernization, Political: Administra-    Muhammadiyya (Muhammadiyah)     Nationalism: Turkish
> tive, Military, and Judicial Reform       Robert W. Hefner                A. Uner Turgay
> Aslam Farouk-Alli
> Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlevi      Nation of Islam
> Modernization, Political: Authoritari-    Stephanie Cronin                Aminah Beverly McCloud
> anism and Democratization
> Claudia Stodte                          Muhammad, Warith Deen           Nawruz
> Anne-Sophie Froehlich                    Edward E. Curtis IV             Anne H. Betteridge
> 
> Modernization, Political:                Muharram                        Nazzam, al-
> Constitutionalism                         David Pinault                   M. Sait Özervarli
> Sohail H. Hashmi
> Muhasibi, al-                   Networks, Muslim
> Modernization, Political:                                                 Bruce B. Lawrence
> Rkia E. Cornell
> Participation, Political Movements,                                       Miriam Cooke
> and Parties                              Muhtasib
> Quintan Wiktorowicz                                                     Nikah
> Robert Gleave
> Ziba Mir-Hosseini
> Modern Thought                           Mujahidin
> Charles Kurzman                                                         Niyabat-e 
amma
> Amin Tarzi
> Robert Gleave
> Mojahedin-e Khalq
> Mulla Sadra
> Juan Eduardo Campo                                                      Nizam al-Mulk
> Seyyed Hossein Nasr
> Warren C. Schultz
> Mojtahed-Shabestari, Mohammad
> Murjiites, Murjia
> Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi                                                 Nizari
> Shalahudin Kafrawi
> Azim Nanji
> Molla
> Music
> Kamran Aghaie                                                           Nur Movement
> Munir Beken
> Berna Turam
> Mollabashi
> Mansur Sefatgol                         Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj
> Nuri, Fazlallah
> Asma Afsaruddin
> Mohammad H. Faghfoory
> Monarchy
> Saïd Amir Arjomand                      Muslim Student Association of   Nursi, Said
> North America
> Moravids                                                                  A. Uner Turgay
> Aminah Beverly McCloud
> Peter B. Clarke                                                         Organization of the Islamic
> Mu
tazilites, Mu
tazila         Conference
> Mosaddeq, Mohammad                        Shalahudin Kafrawi              Qamar-ul Huda
> Fakhreddin Azimi
> Nader Shah Afshar               Orientalism
> Motahhari, Mortaza
> John R. Perry                   Qamar-ul Huda
> Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi
> Nahdlatul Ulama (NU)            Pakistan, Islamic Republic of
> Mu
awiya
> Nelly van Doorn-Harder          Rasul Bakhsh Rais
> Suleman Dangor
> Naini, Mohammad Hosayn         Pan-Arabism
> Mufti
> Mohammad H. Faghfoory           Sohail H. Hashmi
> Muneer Goolam Fareed
> 
> Muhammad                                 Najaf                           Pan-Islam
> Rizwi Faizer                             Mazyar Lotfalian                Sohail H. Hashmi
> 
> Muhammad Ahmad Ibn 
Abdullah             Nar                             Pan-Turanism
> Mohamed Mahmoud                          Juan Eduardo Campo              Touraj Atabaki
> 
> Muhammad 
Ali, Dynasty of                Nasai, al-                     Pasdaran
> Joel Gordon                              Asma Afsaruddin                 Majid Mohammadi
> 
> Muhammad al-Nafs al-Zakiyya              Nationalism: Arab               Persian Language and Literature
> Liyakatali Takim                         Nancy L. Stockdale              Franklin D. Lewis
> 
> xviii                                                                         Islam and the Muslim World
> List of Entries
> 
> Pilgrimage: Hajj                       Rashidun                            Sadr
> Kathryn Kueny                          Muhammad Qasim Zaman                Andrew J. Newman
> 
> Pilgrimage: Ziyara                     Rawza-Khani                         Sadr, Muhammad Baqir al-
> Richard C. Martin                      Kamran Aghaie                       Majid Mohammadi
> 
> Pluralism: Legal and Ethno-Religious   Refah Partisi                       Sadr, Musa al-
> Irene Schneider                        Linda T. Darling                    Majid Mohammadi
> 
> Pluralism: Political                   Reform: Arab Middle East and        Sahara
> Gudrun Krämer                         North Africa                         F. Ghislaine Lydon
> Sohail H. Hashmi
> Political Islam                                                            Saint
> Gudrun Krämer                         Reform: Iran                         Arthur F. Buehler
> Hossein Kamaly
> Political Organization                                                     Saladin
> Linda T. Darling                      Reform: Muslim Communities of the    Warren C. Schultz
> Russian Empire
> Political Thought                       Allen J. Frank                     Salafiyya
> Louise Marlow                                                              John O. Voll
> Reform: South Asia
> Polygamy                                Ahrar Ahmad                        Saleh bin Allawi
> Ziba Mir-Hosseini                                                          Abdin Chande
> Reform: Southeast Asia
> Property                                Mark R. Woodward                   Saudi Dynasty
> Timur Kuran                                                                F. Gregory Gause III
> Religious Beliefs
> Prophets                                R. Kevin Jaques                    Sayyid
> Brannon M. Wheeler                                                         Robert Gleave
> Religious Institutions
> Purdah                                  Abdulkader Tayob                   Science, Islam and
> Gail Minault                                                               Aaron Hughes
> Republican Brothers
> Qadhdhafi, Mu
ammar al-                  John O. Voll                       Secularism, Islamic
> Ali Abdullatif Ahmida                                                      Charles Kurzman
> Revolution: Classical Islam
> Qadi (Kadi, Kazi)                       Saïd Amir Arjomand                 Secularization
> Ebrahim Moosa                                                              Mahmood Monshipouri
> Revolution: Islamic
> Qa
ida, al-                            Revolution in Iran                  Shafi
i, al-
> Richard C. Martin                      Kristian Alexander                  Christopher Melchert
> 
> Qanun                                  Revolution: Modern                  Shaltut, Mahmud
> Khaled Abou El-Fadl                    Saïd Amir Arjomand                  Sohail H. Hashmi
> 
> Qibla                                  Reza Shah                           Shari
a
> Gerard Wiegers                         Stephanie Cronin                    Jonathan E. Brockopp
> 
> Qom                                    Riba                                Shari
ati, 
Ali
> Rasool Ja
fariyan                      Timur Kuran                         Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi
> 
> Quran                                 Rida, Rashid                        Sharif
> Farid Esack                            Sohail H. Hashmi                    Robert Gleave
> 
> Qutb, Sayyid                           Ritual                              Shar
it Shangalaji, Reza-Qoli
> Sohail H. Hashmi                       Gerard Wiegers                      Paula Stiles
> 
> Rabi
a of Basra                        Rumi, Jalaluddin                    Shaykh al-Islam
> Rkia E. Cornell                        Franklin D. Lewis                   Robert Gleave
> 
> Rahman, Fazlur                         Rushdie, Salman                     Shaykhiyya
> Marcia Hermansen                       Amir Hussain                        Paula Stiles
> 
> Rashid, Harun al-                      Sadat, Anwar al-                    Shi
a: Early
> Sebastian Günther                      Joel Gordon                         Devin J. Stewart
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                   xix
> List of Entries
> 
> Shi
a: Imami (Twelver)              Suyuti, al-             Turabi, Hasan al-
> David Pinault                       E. M. Sartain           John O. Voll
> 
> Shi
a: Isma
ili                     Tabari, al-             Tusi, Muhammad Ibn al-Hasan
> Farhad Daftary                      Christopher Melchert   (Shaykh al-Ta
ifa)
> Robert Gleave
> Shi
a: Zaydi (Fiver)                Tablighi Jama
at
> Robert Gleave                       Barbara D. Metcalf     Tusi, Nasir al-Din
> Zayn R. Kassam
> Shirk                               Tafsir
> R. Kevin Jaques                     Kathryn Kueny          Ulema
> Robert Gleave
> Siba
i, Mustafa al-                 Tahmasp I, Shah
> Paula Stiles                        Sholeh A. Quinn        
Umar
> Khalid Yahya Blankinship
> Silsila                             Tajdid
> Arthur F. Buehler                   John O. Voll           Umma
> Abdullah Saeed
> Sirhindi, Shaykh Ahmad              Taliban
> Arthur F. Buehler                   Amin Tarzi             Umm Kulthum
> Kimberly McCloud        Virginia Danielson
> Socialism
> F. Gregory Gause III               Tanzimat                United States, Islam in the
> Linda T. Darling        Edward E. Curtis IV
> South Asia, Islam in
> Scott A. Kugle                     Taqiyya                 Urdu Language, Literature,
> and Poetry
> South Asian Culture and Islam        Robert Gleave
> Christopher Shackle
> Perween Hasan                      Taqlid
> Usuliyya
> Southeast Asia, Islam in             Robert Gleave
> Ahmad Kazemi Moussavi
> Nelly van Doorn-Harder             Tariqa
> 
Uthman Dan Fodio
> Southeast Asian Culture and Islam    Carl W. Ernst
> Roman Loimeier
> Nelly van Doorn-Harder             Tasawwuf
> 
Uthman ibn 
Affan
> Succession                           Carl W. Ernst
> Rizwi Faizer
> Mark Wegner                        Ta
ziya
> Veiling
> Suhrawardi, al-                      Kamran Aghaie           Ghazala Anwar
> John Walbridge                                              Liz McKay
> Terrorism
> Sukayna                              Juan Eduardo Campo     Velayat-e Faqih
> Rizwi Faizer                        Caleb Elfenbein         Robert Gleave
> Sultanates: Ayyubid                 Thaqafi, Mukhtar al-     Vernacular Islam
> Carole Hillenbrand                  Christopher Melchert    Joyce Burkhalter Flueckiger
> Sultanates: Delhi                   Timbuktu                Wahdat al-Wujud
> Iqtidar Alam Khan                   Ousmane Kane            William C. Chittick
> 
> Sultanates: Ghaznavid               Touba                   Wahhabiyya
> Walid A. Saleh                      Lucy Creevey            Sohail H. Hashmi
> 
> Sultanates: Mamluk                  Traditionalism          Wajib al-Wujud
> Warren C. Schultz                   R. Kevin Jaques         Shams C. Inati
> 
> Sultanates: Modern                  Translation             Wali Allah, Shah
> Hassan Mwakimako                    Lamin Sanneh            Marcia Hermansen
> 
> Sultanates: Seljuk                  Travel and Travelers    Waqf
> Saïd Amir Arjomand                  Thyge C. Bro            Gregory C. Kozlowski
> 
> Sunna                               Tribe                   Wazifa
> Daniel W. Brown                     Amal Rassam             Mansur Sefatgol
> 
> xx                                                               Islam and the Muslim World
> List of Entries
> 
> Wazir                        Young Ottomans         Zand, Karim Khan
> Richard C. Martin            Murat C. Mengüç        John R. Perry
> 
> West, Concept of in Islam    Young Turks            Zanzibar, Sa
idi Sultanate of
> John O. Voll                 Murat C. Mengüç        Abdin Chande
> 
> Women, Public Roles of       Youth Movements        Zar
> Etin Anwar                   Ali Akbar Mahdi        Adeline Masquelier
> 
> Yahya bin 
Abdallah Ramiya   Yusuf Ali, 
Abdullah   Zaytuna
> Hassan Mwakimako             Abdulkader Tayob       Claudia Gazzini
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                            xxi
> List of Contributors
> 
> Rula Jurdi Abisaab                      Kristian Alexander                        Khalil Athamina
> University at Akron, OH                 University of Utah                        Birzeit Univeristy, Palestine
> Karaki, Shaykh 
Ali                     Revolution: Islamic Revolution in Iran    Kunti, Mukhtar al-
> Majlisi, Muhammad Baqir
> Richard T. Antoun                         Fakhreddin Azimi
> Khaled Abou El-Fadl                      State University of New York,             University of Connecticut
> Binghamton                             Fedaiyan-e Islam
> University of California, Los Angeles, Law School                      Minbar (Mimbar)                           Mosaddeq, Mohammad
> 
Abd al-Razzaq al-Sanhuri                                                         Nationalism: Iranian
> Ghazala Anwar
> Qanun                                   University of Canterbury, New
> Ihsan Bagby
> Zealand
> Asma Afsaruddin                                                                     University of Kentucky
> Feminism
> University of Notre Dame, South                                                    American Culture and Islam
> Veiling
> Bend, IN
> Bukhari, al-                                                                     Henning L. Bauer
> Etin Anwar
> Ibn Maja                                Hamilton College, NY                      University of California, Los Angeles, NELC
> Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj                    Harem
> Empires: Sassanian
> Nasai, al-                             Women, Public Roles of
> 
> Saïd Amir Arjomand                        Munir Beken
> Kamran Aghaie
> State University of New York,             University of Washington
> University of Texas, Austin
> Stony Brook                            Music
> Molla
> Globalization
> Rawza-Khani                                                                      Jonathan Berkey
> Majlis
> Ta
ziya (Ta
ziye)                                                                 Davidson College
> Monarchy
> Revolution: Classical Islam               Education
> Ahrar Ahmad
> Revolution: Modern
> Black Hills State University, SD                                                 Carel Bertram
> Sultanates: Seljuk
> Reform: South Asia                                                                University of Texas, Austin
> Jacqueline M. Armijo                       Buraq
> Ali Abdullatif Ahmida
> Stanford University
> University of New England                East Asia, Islam in                     Anne H. Betteridge
> Qadhdhafi, Mu
ammar al-                   East Asian Culture and Islam             University of Arizona
> Imamzadah
> Iqtidar Alam Khan                       Touraj Atabaki                             Nawruz
> Aligarh Historians Society, Aligarh    University of Utrecht, The
> India                                  Netherlands                           Anna Bigelow
> Empires: Mogul                         Khiva, Khanate of                         Loyola Marymount University
> Sultanates: Delhi                      Pan-Turanism                              Hinduism and Islam
> 
> xxiii
> List of Contributors
> 
> Sheila S. Blair                      Richard C. Campany, Jr.               Stephen Cory
> Boston College                       Senior Analyst, Harris Corporation    University of California, Santa
> Art                                  Communism                                Barbara
> Calligraphy                                                                Ahl al-Kitab
> Dome of the Rock                    Sandra S. Campbell
> Manar, Manara                        Santa Barbara, CA                    Lucy Creevey
> Mihrab                               Fitna                                 University of Connecticut,
> Torrington
> Juan Eduardo Campo                     Bamba, Ahmad
> Khalid Yahya Blankinship
> University of California, Santa       Touba
> Temple University, PA
> Barbara
> Hospitality and Islam
> Ahl al-Bayt                          Stephanie Cronin
> 
Umar
> Arab League                           University College, Northampton,
> Jonathan Bloom                        Death                                    England
> Boston College                       Hinduism and Islam                    Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlevi
> Art                                  Jahannam                              Reza Shah
> Calligraphy                          Janna
> Mojahedin-e Khalq                    Edward E. Curtis IV
> Dome of the Rock
> Nar                                   University of North Carolina,
> Manar, Manara
> Terrorism                                Chapel Hill
> Mihrab
> Jamil al-Amin, Imam
> Abdin Chande                           Malcolm X
> Gert Borg
> Sidwell Friends School, Washing-      Muhammad, Elijah
> University of Nijmegen, The
> ton, D.C.                          Muhammad, Warith Deen
> Netherlands
> African Culture and Islam             United States, Islam in the
> Arabic Literature
> Haj 
Umar al-Tal, al-
> Thyge C. Bro                          Saleh bin Allawi (Jamal al Layl)     Farhad Daftary
> Stilliitsvej                         Zanzibar, Sa
idi Sultanate of         Institute of Ismaili Studies, London
> Ibn Battuta                                                                Assassins
> William C. Chittick                    Shi
a: Isma
ili
> Kano
> State University of New York,
> Travel and Travelers
> Stony Brook                      Ahmad S. Dallal
> Ibn 
Arabi                            Stanford University
> Jonathan E. Brockopp
> Wahdat al-Wujud                       Astrology
> Bard College, Annandale, NY
> Malik, Ibn Anas                                                            Astronomy
> Peter B. Clarke
> Shari
a                                                                    Hijri Calendar
> King’s College, University of
> London
> Patrice C. Brodeur                                                         Suleman Dangor
> Conversion
> Connecticut College                                                        University of Durban, South Africa
> Moravids
> Christianity and Islam                                                     Mu
awiya
> Islam and Other Religions           Frederick Colby
> Elton L. Daniel
> Duke University
> Daniel W. Brown                                                             University of Hawaii
> Mi
raj
> Mount Holyoke College, MA                                                  Manicheanism
> Martyrdom                           Nora Ann Colton
> Sunna                                                                     Virginia Danielson
> Drew University
> Harvard University
> Economy and Economic Institutions
> Arthur F. Buehler                                                           Umm Kulthum
> Louisiana State Univeristy, Baton   Miriam Cooke
> Rouge                            Duke University                      Linda T. Darling
> Saint                                Internet                              University of Arizona
> Silsila                                                                    Erbakan, Necmeddin
> Sirhindi, Shaykh Ahmad              Rkia E. Cornell                        Jevdet Pasha
> University of Arkansas                Kemal, Namek
> Paul D. Buell                         Basri, Hasan al-                      Political Organization
> Western Washington University        Muhasibi, al-                         Refah Partisi
> Empires: Timurid                     Rabi
a of Basra                       Tanzimat
> 
> xxiv                                                                           Islam and the Muslim World
> List of Contributors
> 
> Rochelle Davis                     Rizwi Faizer                              Osman M. Galal
> Stanford University                Independent Scholar, Canada               University of California, Los Ange-
> Bedouin                            Abu Bakr                                    les, School of Public Health
> Hijra                                     Medicine
> Devin DeWeese                       Jahiliyya
> Indiana University                 Marwan                                   Patrick Franke
> Central Asia, Islam in             Military Raid                             Martin-Luther-Universität,
> Central Asian Culture and Islam                                                  Germany
> Muhammad
> Minorities: Dhimmis
> Sukayna
> Sylviane Anna Diouf                 Uthman ibn 
Affan
> New York University                                                         Patrick D. Gaffney
> Americas, Islam in the                                                       University of Notre Dame
> Muneer Goolam Fareed
> Khutba
> Wayne State University, MI
> Fred M. Donner                                                                Masjid
> Adhan
> University of Chicago              Dietary Laws                             Gene Garthwaite
> Expansion                          Du
a                                      Dartmouth College
> Ijtihad                                   Khan
> Nadia Maria El Cheikh
> Jami

> American University of Beirut,
> Mufti                                    F. Gregory Gause III
> Lebanon
> University of Vermont, Burlington
> Empires: Byzantine                Aslam Farouk-Alli                          Ba
th Party
> University of Cape Town, South            Saudi Dynasty
> Caleb Elfebein
> Africa                                 Socialism
> University of California, Santa
> Cairo
> Barbara
> Holy Cities                              Claudia Gazzini
> Terrorism
> Modernization, Political: Administra-     Princeton University
> tive, Military, and Judicial Reform    
Abd al-Hamid Ibn Badis
> Farid el Khazen
> American University of Beirut,                                               Fez
> R. Michael Feener
> Lebanon                                                                  Madani, 
Abbasi
> University of California, Riverside
> Lebanon                                                                      Zaytuna
> Makassar, Shaykh Yusuf
> Abdullahi Osman El-Tom                                                       Najib Ghadbian
> Leonor Fernandes
> National University of Ireland                                               University of Arkansas
> American University in Cairo,
> Healing                                                                      Islamic Jihad
> Egypt
> Khanqa (Khanaqa, Khanga)                 Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi
> Haggai Erlich
> Tel Aviv University, Israel                                                  Georgia State University
> Michael M. J. Fischer
> Ethiopia                                                                     
Abd al-Karim Sorush
> Massachusetts Institute of
> Mojtahed-Shabestari, Mohammad
> Technology
> Carl W. Ernst                                                                 Motahhari, Mortaza
> Hasan
> University of North Carolina,                                                Shari
ati, 
Ali
> Husayn
> Chapel Hill
> Tariqa                                                                      Robert Gleave
> Joyce Burkhalter Flueckiger
> Tasawwuf                                                                     University of Bristol, England
> Emory University
> Akhbariyya
> Vernacular Islam
> Farid Esack                                                                   Ayatollah (Ar. Ayatullah)
> Union Theological Seminary, NY                                               Ghayba(t)
> Allen J. Frank
> Quran                                                                       Hilli, 
Allama al-
> Independent Scholar
> Hilli, Muhaqqiq al-
> Reform: Muslim Communities of the
> Mohammad H. Faghfoory                   Russian Empire                        Hisba
> Mary Washington College,                                                     Hojjat al-Islam
> Fredricksburg, VA               Anne-Sophie Froehlich                      Imamate
> Abu ‘l-Qasem Kashani               Der Spiegel, Germany                      Marja
 al-Taqlid
> Naini, Mohammad Hosayn            Modernization, Political: Authoritari-    Minorities: Offshoots of Islam
> Nuri, Fazlallah                      anism and Democratization               Muhtasib
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                     xxv
> List of Contributors
> 
> Niyabat-e 
amma                        Modernization, Political:            Aaron Hughes
> Sayyid                                    Constitutionalism                  University of Calgary, Canada
> Sharif                                 Pan-Arabism                           Andalus, al-
> Shaykh al-Islam                        Pan-Islam                             
Asabiyya
> Shi
a: Zaydi (Fiver)                   Reform: Arab Middle East and North    Heresiography
> Taqiyya                                   Africa                             Science, Islam and
> Taqlid                                 Rida, Rashid
> Tusi, Muhammad Ibn al-Hasan            Shaltut, Mahmud                      Amir Hussain
> (Shaykh al-Ta
ifa)                  Qutb, Sayyid                          California State University,
> Ulema                                  Wahhabiyya                               Northridge
> Velayat-e Faqih                                                              Rushdie, Salman
> Mona Hassan
> Matthew Gordon                                                               Shams C. Inati
> Princeton University
> Miami University, Ohio                                                       Villanova University, Pennsylvania
> Baghdad
> Empires: Abbasid                                                             Ibn Sina
> Jane Hathaway                          Wajib al-Wujud
> Joel Gordon                              Ohio State University
> University of Arkansas                                                      Torsten Janson
> Eunuchs
> 
Abd al-Hamid Kishk (Shaykh)                                                 Lund University, Sweden
> 
Abd al-Nasser, Jamal                 Christer Hedin                         Da
wa
> Muhammad 
Ali, Dynasty of              Stockholm University, Sweden
> Rasool Ja
fariyan
> Sadat, Anwar al-                       Da
wa
> Independent Scholar
> Sebastian Günther                                                             Hosayniyya
> Robert W. Hefner
> University of Toronto, Canada                                                Mashhad
> Boston University
> Rashid, Harun al-                                                            Qom
> Muhammadiyya (Muhammadiyah)
> 
> Ursula Günther                                                               R. Kevin Jaques
> Marcia Hermansen
> University of Hamburg, Germany                                               Indiana University, Bloomington
> Loyola University, Chicago
> Fatima                                                                       Ahl al-Hadith
> Biography and Hagiography
> Ghazali, Zaynab al-                                                          Ibn Khaldun
> Biruni, al-
> Human Rights                                                                 Islamicate Society
> Genealogy
> Islamic Society of North America
> Hugh Talat Halman                       Mahdi
> Religious Beliefs
> University of Arkansas                 Masculinities
> Shirk
> Khidr, al-                             Miracles
> Traditionalism
> Rahman, Fazlur
> Gail G. Harrison                        Wali Allah, Shah                     Shamil Jeppie
> University of California, Los Ange-                                          University of Cape Town, South
> les, School of Public Health      Annie C. Higgins                         Africa
> Medicine                               University of Chicago                 Haron, Abdullah
> Kharijites, Khawarij                  Mahdist State, Mahdiyya
> Perween Hasan
> Dhaka University, Bangladesh          Carole Hillenbrand                    Charlotte Jirousek
> South Asian Culture and Islam          University of Edinburgh, Scotland     Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
> Sultanates: Ayyubid                   Clothing
> Sohail H. Hashmi
> Mount Holyoke College, MA             Konrad Hirschler                      David L. Johnston
> 
Abd al-Rahman Kawakibi                University of London, England         Yale University
> 
Abd al-Wahhab, Muhammad Ibn           Historical Writing                    Fasi, Muhammad 
Allal al-
> 
Abduh, Muhammad                                                             Ikhwan al-Muslimin
> Afghani, Jamal al-Din                 Qamar-ul Huda                          Islamic Salvation Front
> Banna, Hasan al-                       Boston College
> Dawla                                  Ghazali, Muhammad al-                Shalahudin Kafrawi
> Fundamentalism                         Organization of the Islamic           Binghamton University, NY
> Husayn, Taha                              Conference                         Murjiites, Murjia
> Jihad                                  Orientalism                           Mu
tazilites, Mu
tazila
> 
> xxvi                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> List of Contributors
> 
> Hossein Kamaly                        Timur Kuran                           Akbar Mahdi
> Columbia University                   University of Southern California,    Ohio Wesleyan University
> Reform: Iran                             Los Angeles                        Youth Movements
> Capitalism
> Ousmane Kane                           Property                             Mohamed Mahmoud
> Columbia University                   Riba                                  Tufts University, MA
> Askiya Muhammad                                                             Muhammad 
Ahmad Ibn Abdullah
> Mansa Musa                           Charles Kurzman
> Timbuktu                              University of North Carolina,        Javed Majeed
> Chapel Hill                         English Scholar
> Nico J. G. Kaptein                     Liberalism                             Modernity
> Leiden University, The                Modernism
> Netherlands                        Modern Thought                       Margaret Malamud
> Bid
a                                 Secularism, Islamic                   New Mexico State University, Las
> Cruces
> Zayn R. Kassam                        John C. Lamoreaux                      Khirqa
> Pomona College, CA                    Southern Methodist University,
> Gender                                   Dallas                            Jamal Malik
> Tusi, Nasir al-Din                    Dreams                                 University of Erfurt, Germany
> Bruce B. Lawrence                       Colonialism
> Santhi Kavuri-Bauer                                                           Jama
at-e Islami
> San Francisco State University        Duke University
> Internet                               Jam
iyat-e 
Ulama-e Hind
> Architecture                                                                 Jam
iyat-e 
Ulama-e Islam
> Networks, Muslim
> Jam
iyat-e 
Ulama-e Pakistan
> Ahmad Kazemi Moussavi
> Oliver Leaman                           Maududi, Abu l-A
la
> International Institute of Islamic
> University of Kentucky
> Thought and Civilization,
> Greek Civilization                   Louise Marlow
> Malaysia
> Ibn Rushd                             Wellesley College, MA
> Usuliyya
> Political Thought
> David Lelyveld
> John Kelsay
> William Paterson University,         Richard C. Martin
> Florida State University,
> Wayne, NJ                          Emory University
> Tallahassee
> Ahmad Khan, (Sir) Sayyid              bin Ladin, Usama
> Dar al-Harb
> Aligarh                               Disputation
> Dar al-Islam
> Iqbal, Muhammad                       Maslaha
> Gregory C. Kozlowski                                                         Pilgrimage: Ziyara
> Franklin D. Lewis
> DePaul University, Chicago                                                  Qa
ida, al-
> Emory University
> Akbar                                                                       Wazir
> Persian Language and Literature
> Waqf
> Rumi, Jalaluddin
> Herbert W. Mason
> Gudrun Krämer                         Roman Loimeier                         Boston University
> Free University of Berlin, Germany    University of Bayreuth, Germany       Hallaj, al-
> Ghannoushi, Rashid al-                Abu Bakr Gumi
> Hukuma al-Islamiyya, al- (Islamic                                          Adeline Masquelier
> Ahmad Ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi
> Government)                                                              Tulane University, LA
> 
Uthman Dan Fodio
> Pluralism: Political                                                        Zar
> Political Islam                      Mazyar Lotfalian
> Berkeley                             Philip Mattar
> Kathryn Kueny                          Abu ‘l-Hasan Bani-Sadr                U.S. Institute of Peace, Washing-
> Lawrence University, KY               Bazargan, Mehdi                           ton D.C.
> Circumcision                          Fadlallah, Muhammad Husayn            Husayni, Hajj Amin al-
> Tafsir                                Najaf                                 Intifada
> Pilgrimage: Hajj
> F. Ghislaine Lydon                    Rudi Matthee
> Scott A. Kugle                         University of California, Los         University of Delaware
> Swarthmore College, PA                   Angeles                            
Abbas I, Shah
> South Asia, Islam in                  Sahara                                Empires: Safavid and Qajar
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                    xxvii
> List of Contributors
> 
> William McCants                        Ziba Mir-Hosseini                      Seyyed Hossein Nasr
> Princeton University                   School of Oriental and African         George Washington University
> 
Abd al-Baha                             Studies, University of London,      Ishraqi School
> Babiyya                                   England                             Mulla Sadra
> Bab, Sayyed 
Ali Muhammad              Divorce
> Mahr                                  Gordon D. Newby
> Marriage                               Emory University
> Aminah Beverly McCloud
> Nikah                                  Arabia, Pre-Islam
> DePaul University, Chicago
> Polygamy                               Judaism and Islam
> Farrakhan, Louis
> Muslim Student Association of North   Majid Mohammadi                        Andrew J. Newman
> America                                                                    University of Edinburgh, Scotland
> State University of New York,
> Nation of Islam                           Stony Brook                         Sadr
> Hashemi-Rafsanjani, 
Ali-Akbar
> Kimberly McCloud                                                              Jorgen S. Nielsen
> Hojjatiyya Society
> Monterey Institute for Interna-                                               University of Birmingham,
> Khamanei, Sayyed 
Ali
> tional Studies, CA                                                            England
> Khoi, Abo l Qasem
> Taliban                                                                       Europe, Islam in
> Komiteh
> European Culture and Islam
> Pasdaran
> Jon McGinnis
> Sadr, Muhammad Baqir al-              A. Rashied Omar
> University of Missouri, St. Louis      Sadr, Musa al-                         Notre Dame, IN
> Kindi, al-
> Conflict and Violence
> Mahmood Monshipouri
> Liz McKay                               Quinnipiac University, CN             Irfan A. Omar
> University of Canterbury, New          Secularization                          Marquette University,
> Zealand                                                                        Milwaukee, WI
> Veiling                               Ebrahim Moosa                            Humor
> Duke University
> Christopher Melchert                    Ethics and Social Issues              M. Sait Özervarli
> University of Oxford, England          Ghazali, al-                           Center for Islamic Studies, Istan-
> Shafi
i, al-                            Qadi (Kadi, Kazi)                         bul, Turkey
> Tabari, al-                                                                   
Abd al-Jabbar
> Parviz Morewedge                        Abu ‘l-Hudhayl al-
Allaf
> Thaqafi, Mukhtar al-
> Rutgers University, New                Ash
arites, Ash
aira
> Brunswick, NJ                       Baqillani, al-
> Charles Melville
> Falsafa                                Maturidi, al-
> Pembroke College, Cambridge            Kalam
> University, England                                                        Nazzam, al-
> Knowledge
> Empires: Mongol and Il-Khanid                                                James Pavlin
> Harald Motzki                            Rutgers University, New
> Murat C. Mengüç                         University of Nijmegen, The                Brunswick, NJ
> McGill University, Canada                 Netherlands                          Ibn Taymiyya
> Young Ottomans                         Hadith
> Young Turks                                                                  John R. Perry
> Hassan Mwakimako                        University of Chicago
> Barbara D. Metcalf                      University of Nairobi, Kenya           Nader Shah Afshar
> University of California, Davis        Material Culture                       Zand, Karim Khan
> Adab                                   Sultanates: Modern
> Yahya bin 
Abdallah Ramiya (Shaykh)   Daniel C. Peterson
> Ahl-e Hadis / Ahl al-Hadith
> Brigham Young University, UT
> Deoband                               Azim Nanji                              Allah
> Khan, Reza of Bareilly                 Institute of Ismaili Studies, Lon-     Fatwa
> Tablighi Jama
at                          don, U.K.                           Identity, Muslim
> Aga Khan
> Gail Minault                            Akhlaq                                David Pinault
> University of Texas, Austin            Ikhwan al-Safa                         Santa Clara University, CA
> Khilafat Movement                      Khojas                                 Muharram
> Purdah                                 Nizari                                 Shi
a: Imami (Twelver)
> 
> xxviii                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> List of Contributors
> 
> Karen C. Pinto                        Lamin Sanneh                             Tamara Sonn
> University of Alberta, Canada         Yale University Divinity School          The College of William and Mary,
> Cartography and Geography             Translation                                 Williamsburg, VA
> HAMAS
> Randall L. Pouwels                    E. M. Sartain                             Hizb Allah
> University of Arkansas                American University in Cairo,
> Mazru
i                                  Egypt                                Susan A. Spectorsky
> Suyuti, al-                              City University of New York
> Avril A. Powell
> School of Oriental and African                                                 Ibn Hanbal
> Irene Schneider
> Studies, University of London,
> University of Halle, Germany           Diana Steigerwald
> England
> Ahmadiyya                              Pluralism: Legal and Ethno-Religious    California State University, Long
> Ahmad, Mirza Ghulam                                                               Beach
> Warren C. Schultz                         
Ali
> Donald Quataert                        DePaul University, Chicago               Azhar, al-
> Binghamton University, NY             Crusades                                 Karbala
> Empires: Ottoman                      Nizam al-Mulk
> Saladin                                 Devin J. Stewart
> Sholeh A. Quinn                        Sultanates: Mamluk                       Emory University
> Ohio University
> Shi
a: Early
> Isma
il I, Shah                      Florian Schwarz
> Tahmasp I, Shah                       Ruhr University Bochum, Germany         Paula Stiles
> Bukhara, Khanate and Emirate of          University of St. Andrews, Scotland
> Rasul Bakhsh Rais
> Quaid-i Azam University, Pakistan                                              Marwa, Muhammad
> Michael Sells                             Shar
it Shangalaji, Reza-Qoli
> Jinnah, Muhammad 
Ali
> Haverford College, PA                    Shaykhiyya
> Pakistan, Islamic Republic of
> Mi
raj                                   Siba
i, Mustafa al-
> Amal Rassam
> Mansur Sefatgol
> Queens College, City University of                                            Nancy L. Stockdale
> New York                           University of Tehran, Iran
> University of Central Florida
> Ethnicity                             Mollabashi
> Iran, Islamic Republic of
> Tribe                                 Wazifa
> Khomeini, Ruhollah
> Nationalism: Arab
> David Robinson                        Christopher Shackle
> Michigan State University             School of Oriental and African
> Claudia Stodte
> Africa, Islam in                         Studies, University of London,
> England                               Der Spiegel, Germany
> Everett K. Rowson                      Urdu Language, Literature, and           Liberation Movement of Iran
> New York University                      Poetry                                Modernization, Political: Authoritari-
> Homosexuality                                                                     anism and Democratization
> Sa’diyya Shaikh
> Uri Rubin                              Temple University, PA                   Liyakatali Takim
> Tel Aviv University, Israel                                                    Independent Scholar
> 
Aisha
> Asnam                                                                          Ja
far al-Sadiq
> William Shepard                           Muhammad al-Nafs al-Zakiyya
> John Ruedy
> University of Canterbury,
> Georgetown University                                                         Amin Tarzi
> Christchurch, New Zealand
> Bourghiba, Habib
> Khalid, Khalid Muhammad                  Monterey Institute of International
> Studies, CA
> Abdullah Saeed
> University of Melbourne, Australia   Reeva Spector Simon                       Mujahidin
> Coinage                               Columbia University                      Taliban
> Umma                                  Futuwwa
> Osman Tastan
> Walid A. Saleh                        Tahir Fuzile Sitoto                       Ankara University, Turkey
> University of Toronto, Canada         University of Natal, South Africa        Law
> Sultanates: Ghaznavid                 
Ada                                     Mazalim
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                        xxix
> List of Contributors
> 
> Abdulkader Tayob                     Knut S. Vikør                      Brannon M. Wheeler
> University of Nijmenen, The          University at Bergen, Norway       University of Washington
> Netherlands                       Ahmad Ibn Idris                    Abu Hanifa
> Hajj Salim Suwari, al-                                                  Body, Significance of
> Religious Institutions              John O. Voll
> Madhhab
> Yusuf Ali, Abdullah                  Georgetown University
> Prophets
> Islam and Islamic
> Alfons H. Teipen                      Mahdi, Sadiq al-                  Gerard Wiegers
> Furman University, SC                Republican Brothers                Leiden University, The
> Empires: Umayyad                     Salafiyya                               Netherlands
> Tajdid                             Devotional Life
> Frances Trix
> Turabi, Hasan al-                  
Ibadat
> University of Michigan, Ann Arbor    West, Concept of in Islam          Qibla
> Balkans, Islam in the
> Ritual
> Peter von Sivers
> Berna Turam                           University of Utah                Quintan Wiktorowicz
> McGill University, Canada            
Abd al-Qadir, Amir                Rhodes College, TN
> Nur Movement
> Modernization, Political:
> John Walbridge
> A. Uner Turgay                                                             Participation, Political Movements,
> Indiana University, Bloomington
> McGill University, Canada                                                 and Parties
> Bahaallah
> Ataturk, Mustafa Kemal               Bahai Faith                      Peter Lamborn Wilson
> Gasprinskii, Isma
il Bay             Libraries                          Independent Scholar
> Nationalism: Turkish                 Madrasa                            Angels
> Nursi, Said                          Suhrawardi, al-
> Sufia Uddin                                                              Mark R. Woodward
> Elizabeth Warnock Fernea            University of Arizona
> University of Vermont, Burlington    University of Texas, Austin
> Awami League                                                            Reform: Southeast Asia
> Childhood
> Nelly van Doorn-Harder                                                  Neguin Yavari
> Earle Waugh
> Valparaiso University, IN                                               Columbia University
> University of Alberta, Canada
> Nahdlatul Ulama (NU)                                                    
Atabat
> Dhikr
> Southeast Asia, Islam in
> Muhammad Qasim Zaman
> Southeast Asian Culture and Islam   Mark Wegner
> Brown University
> Tulane University, LA
> Kees Versteegh                                                           Caliphate
> Succession
> University of Nijmegen, The                                             Imam
> Netherlands                      David Westerlund                    Mamun, al-
> Arabic Language                      Uppsala University, Sweden         Mihna
> Grammar and Lexicography             Da
wa                              Rashidun
> 
> xxx                                                                          Islam and the Muslim World
> Synoptic Outline of Entries
> 
> This outline provides a general overview of the conceptual structure of the Encyclopedia of Islam
> and the Muslim World. The outline is organized under nine major categories, which are further
> split into twenty-five subcategories. The entries are listed alphabetically within each category or
> subcategory. For ease of reference, the same entry may be listed under several categories.
> 
> Biographies: Political and other             Saladin                                          Biruni, al-
> Public Figures                               Saleh bin Allawi                                 Bukhari, al-
> 
Abbas I, Shah                               Shar
it Shangalaji, Reza-Qoli                    Fadlallah, Muhammad Husayn
> 
Abd al-Qadir, Amir                          Sirhindi, Shaykh Ahmad                           Farrakhan, Louis
> 
Abd al-Rahman Kawakibi                      Tahmasp I, Shah                                  Fatima
> 
Abd al-Hamid Kishk (Shaykh)                 Uthman dan Fodio                                 Ghannoushi, Rashid al-
> 
Abd al-Karim Sorush                         Wali Allah, Shah                                 Ghazali, al-
> 
Abd al-Nasser, Jamal                        Yahya bin 
Abdallah Ramiya                       Ghazali, Muhammad al-
> 
Abd al-Razzaq al-Sanhuri                    Zand, Karim Khan                                 Ghazali, Zaynab al-
> Abu l-Qasem Kashani                                                                           Hajj Salim Suwari, al-
> Ahmad Ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi                                                                    Haj 
Umar al-Tal, al-
> Biographies: Religious and Cultural
> Ahmad Khan, (Sir) Sayyid                                                                      Hallaj, al-
> Figures
> Akbar                                                                                         Haron, Abdullah
> Askiya Muhammad                               
Abd al-Baha
> Hasan
> Ataturk, Mustafa Kemal                       
Abd al-Hamid Ibn Badis                          Hashemi-Rafsanjani, 
Ali-Akbar
> Bourghiba, Habib                             
Abd al-Jabbar                                   Husayn
> Erbakan, Necmeddin                           
Abd al-Wahhab, Muhammad Ibn                     Husayn, Taha
> Fasi, Muhammad 
Allal al-                    
Abduh, Muhammad                                 Husayni, Hajj Amin al-
> Gasprinskii, Isma
il Bay                     Abu Bakr                                         Khidr, al-
> Isma
il I, Shah                              Abu Bakr Gumi                                    Karaki, Shaykh 
Ali
> Jevdet Pasha                                 Abu Hanifa                                       Hilli, 
Allama al-
> Kemal, Namik                                 Abu ’l-Hasan Bani-Sadr                           Hilli, Muhaqqiq al-
> Khalid, Khalid Muhammad                      Abu ’l-Hudhayl al-
Allaf                         Ibn 
Arabi
> Mahdi, Sadiq al-                             Afghani, Jamal al-Din                            Ibn Battuta
> Mansa Musa                                   Aga Khan                                         Ibn Hanbal
> Marwan                                       Ahmad, Mirza Ghulam                              Ibn Khaldun
> Mosaddeq, Mohammad                           Ahmad Gran                                       Ibn Maja
> Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlevi                   Ahmad ibn Idris                                  Ibn Rushd
> Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj                         
Aisha                                          Ibn Sina
> Nader Shah Afshar                            
Ali                                             Ibn Taymiyya
> Nizam al-Mulk                                Bab, Sayyed 
Ali Muhammad                        Iqbal, Muhammad
> Nuri, Fazlallah                              Bahaallah                                       Ja
far al-Sadiq
> Nursi, Said                                  Bamba, Ahmad                                     Jamil al-Amin, Imam
> Qadhdhafi, Mu
ammar al-                       Banna, Hasan al-                                 Jinnah, Muhammad 
Ali
> Reza Shah                                    Baqillani, al-                                   Khamanei, Sayyed 
Ali
> Rushdie, Salman                              Basri, Hasan al-                                 Khan, Reza of Bareilly
> Sadat, Anwar al-                             Bazargan, Mehdi                                  Khoi, Abol Qasem
> 
> xxxi
> Synoptic Outline of Entries
> 
> Khomeini, Ruhollah                 Mihrab                               Ethnicity
> Kindi, al-                         Ta
ziya                              Eunuchs
> Kunti, Mukhtar al-                 Vernacular Islam                     Feminism
> Madani, 
Abbasi                                                         Gender
> Malik, Ibn Anas                    Culture: Disciplines and Fields of   Harem
> Majlisi, Muhammad Baqir            Knowledge                            Healing
> Malcolm X                          Akhlaq                               Homosexuality
> Nasai, al-                        Astrology                            Hospitality and Islam
> Makassar, Shaykh Yusuf             Astronomy                            Human Rights
> Maturidi, al-                      Falsafa                              Mahr
> Maududi, Abu l-A
la               Kalam                                Marriage
> Mojtahed-Shabestari, Mohammad      Law                                  Masculinities
> Motahhari, Mortaza                 Medicine                             Maslaha
> Mu
awiya                           Music                                Nikah
> Muhammad                           Tasawwuf                             Polygamy
> Muhammad, Elijah                   Science, Islam and                   Purdah
> Muhammad, Warith Deen                                                   Women, Public Roles of
> Muhammad Ahmad Ibn 
Abdullah                                            Veiling
> Culture: Concepts
> Muhammad al-Nafs al-Zakiyya
> 
Asabiyya
> Muhasibi, al-                                                           Geography: Regions
> 
Ada
> Mulla Sadra                                                             Americas, Islam in the
> Adab
> Naini, Mohammad Hosayn                                                 Africa, Islam in
> Knowledge
> Nasai, al-                                                             Balkans, Islam in the
> Madhhab
> Nazzam, al-                                                             Central Asia, Islam in
> Sadr
> Qutb, Sayyid                                                            East Asia, Islam in
> Rabi
a of Basra                                                         Europe, Islam in
> Rahman, Fazlur                     Culture: Language and Literature     South Asia, Islam in
> Rashid, Harun al-                  Arabic Language                      Southeast Asia, Islam in
> Rida, Rashid                       Arabic Literature                    United States, Islam in the
> Rumi, Jalaluddin                   Biography and Hagiography            West, Concept of
> Sadr, Muhammad Baqir al-           Grammar and Lexicography
> Sadr, Musa al-                     Persian Language and Literature
> Translation                          Geography: Countries, Cites and
> Shafi
i, al-                                                             Locales
> Shaltut, Mahmud                    Urdu Language, Literature, and
> Poetry                              Andalus, al-
> Shari
ati, 
Ali                                                         Arabia, Pre-Islam
> Siba
i, Mustafa al-                Vernacular Islam
> Baghdad
> Suhrawardi, al-                                                         Bukhara, Khanate and Emirate of
> Sukayna                            Culture: Regional                    Cairo
> Suyuti, al-                        African Culture and Islam            Ethiopia
> Tabari, al-                        American Culture and Islam           Fez
> Thaqafi, Mukhtar al-                Central Asian Culture and Islam      Holy Cities
> Turabi, Hasan al-                  East Asian Culture and Islam         Iran, Islamic Republic of
> Tusi, Muhammad Ibn al-Hasan        European Culture and Islam           Kano
> (Shaykh al-Ta
ifa)                South Asian Culture and Islam        Lebanon
> Tusi, Nasir al-Din                 Southeast Asian Culture and Islam    Mashhad
> 
Umar                                                                   Najaf
> Umm Kulthum                        Culture: Other                       Pakistan, Islamic Republic of
> Uthman ibn 
Affan                  Dreams                               Qom
> Yusuf Ali, 
Abdullah               Education                            Sahara
> Identity, Muslim                     Timbuktu
> Culture: Arts, Architecture, and   Humor in Islam                       Touba
> Culture                            Libraries                            Zanzibar
> Architecture                       Rawza-Khani                          Zaytuna
> Art
> Calligraphy                        Family, Ethics and Society           Groups, Organizations, Schools,
> Clothing                           Childhood                            and Movements: Political
> Dome of the Rock                   Conflict and Violence                 Arab League
> Khanqah (Khanaqah, Khanga)         Divorce                              Awami League
> Manar, Manara                      Education                            Ba
th Party
> Material Culture                   Ethics and Social Issues             Communism
> 
> xxxii                                                                       Islam and the Muslim World
> Synoptic Outline of Entries
> 
> Intifada                            Coinage and Exchange              Riba
> Khojas                              Economy and Economic Institu-     Shari
a
> Komiteh                              tions                            Taqlid
> Nahdatul Ulama (NU)                 Education
> Organization of the Islamic         Libraries                         Politics and Society
> Conference                         Religious Institutions            Military Raid
> Refah Partisi                       Waqf                              Minorities: Dhimmis
> Taliban                                                               Minorities: Offshoots of Islam
> Young Ottomans                      History: Periods, Dynasties,      Modernization
> Young Turks                         Governments                       Monarchy
> Arabia, Pre-Islam                 Nationalism
> Groups, Organizations, Schools,     Ayyubids                          Pan-Arabism
> and Movements: Religious            Bukhara, Khanate and Emirate of   Pan-Islam
> Aligarh                             Colonialism                       Pan-Turanism
> Ash
arites, Asha
ira                Empires: Abbasid                  Pasdaran
> Assassins                           Empires: Byzantine                Pluralism: Legal and Ethno-
> Ahmadiyya                           Empires: Mongol and Il-Khanid      Religious
> Deoband                             Empires: Mogul                    Pluralism: Political
> Fedaiyan-e Islam                   Empires: Ottoman                  Political Islam
> HAMAS                               Empires: Safavid and Qajar        Political Organization
> Hizb Allah                          Empires: Sassanian                Political Thought
> Ikhwan al-Muslimin                  Empires: Timurid                  Polygamy
> Ikhwan al-Safa                      Empires: Umayyad                  Reform: Arab Middle East and
> Islamic Jihad                       Expansion                          North Africa
> Islamic Society of North America    Hijra                             Reform: Iran
> Majlis                              Hijri Calendar                    Reform: Muslim Communities of
> Muslim Student Association of       Khiva, Khanate of                  the Russian Empire
> North America                     Mahdist State, Mahdiyya           Reform: South Asia
> Salafiyya                            Modernity                         Reform: Southeast Asia
> Shaykhiyya                          Monarchy                          Republican Brothers
> Tablighi Jama
at                    Moravids                          Revolution: Classical Islam
> Ulema                               Muhammad 
Ali, Dynasty of         Revolution: Islamic Revolution in
> Umma                                Rashidun                           Iran
> Usuliyya                            Sultanates: Delhi                 Revolution: Modern
> Wahhabiyya                          Sultanates: Ghaznavid             Saudi Dynasty
> Youth Movements                     Sultanates: Mamluk                Secularization
> Sultanates: Modern                Succession
> History: Concepts                   Sultanates: Seljuk                Tanzimat
> 
Asabiyya                           Tribe                             Velayat-e Faqih
> Dawla
> Genealogy                           History: Catalysts of Change      Religion: Groups, Movements, and
> Historical Writing                  Globalization                     Sects
> Hukuma al-Islamiyya, al- (Islamic   Greek Civilization                Ahl al-Bayt
> Government)                        Internet                          Ahl al-Hadith
> Modernity                           Liberation Movement of Iran       Ahl al-Kitab
> Orientalism                         Terrorism                         Ahl-e Hadis / Ahl al-Hadith
> Secularism                          Mihna                             Akhbariyya
> Socialism                           Networks, Muslim                  Babiyya
> Traditionalism                      Succession                        Bahai Faith
> Tajdid                            Bedouin
> History: Events                     Travel and Travelers              Fundamentalism
> Religious and Political                                               Futuwwa
> Intifada                            Law                               Hojjatiyya Society
> Mihna                               
Ada                              Ishraqi School
> Modernization                       Law                               Islamic Salvation Front
> Muharram                            Mazalim                           Jam
iyat-e 
Ulama-e Hind
> Mufti                             Jam
iyat-e 
Ulama-e Islam
> History: Institutions               Muhtasib                          Jam
iyat-e 
Ulama-e Pakistan
> Caliphate                           Property                          Jama
at-e Islami
> Capitalism                          Qanun                             Kharijites, Khawarij
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                           xxxiii
> Synoptic Outline of Entries
> 
> Khilafat Movement                     Mi
raj                            Circumcision
> Liberalism                            Modern Thought                    Da
wa
> Madhhab                               Nar                               Devotional Life
> Modernism                             Niyabat-e
amma                    Dhikr
> Mojahedin-e Khalq                     Prophets                          Dietary Laws
> Mujahidin                             Qibla                             Disputation
> Muhammadiyya (Muhammadiyah)           Quran                            Du
a
> Murjiites, Murjia                   Riba                              Fatwa
> Mu
tazilites, Mu
tazila               Shirk                             Fitna
> Nation of Islam                       Silsila                           
Ibadat
> Nizari                                Sunna                             Ijtihad
> Nur Movement                          Tafsir                            Khutba
> Qa
ida, al-                           Taqiyya                           Martyrdom
> Religious Beliefs                     Taqlid                            Muharram
> Religious Institutions                Tasawwuf                          Nawruz
> Shi
a: Early                          Ta
ziya (Ta
ziye)                 Pilgrimage: Hajj
> Shi
a: Imami (Twelver)                Wahdat al-Wujud                   Pilgrimage: Ziyara
> Shi
a: Isma
ili                       Wajib al-Wujud                    Ritual
> Shi
a: Zaydi (Fiver)                  Wazifa
> Tariqa                                Zar                               Religion: Relations with Non-
> Traditionalism                                                          Muslims
> Umma                                  Religion: Institutions            Christianity and Islam
> Azhar, al-                        Conversion
> Religion: Ideas, Beliefs, Concepts,   Caliphate                         Crusades
> and Doctrines                         Deoband                           Globalization
> Allah                                 Hisba                             Hinduism and Islam
> Angels                                Khanqa (Khanaqa, Khanga)          Islam and Other Religions
> Asnam                                 Madrasa                           Judaism and Islam
> Bid
a                                 Masjid                            Manicheanism
> Body, Significance of
> Buraq                                 Religion: Places and Sites        Religion: Titles and Offices
> Dar al-Harb                           
Atabat                           Ayatollah (Ar. Ayatullah)
> Dar al-Islam                          Dome of the Rock                  Hojjat al-Islam
> Death                                 Hojjatiyya Society                Imam
> Ghayba(t)                             Holy Cities                       Islam and Islamic
> Hadith                                Hosayniyya                        Islamicate Society
> Harem                                 Imamzadah                         Khan
> Heresy                                Jami
                             Mahdi
> Imamate                               Karbala                           Marja
 al-Taqlid
> Jahiliyya                             Mashhad                           Molla
> Janna                                 Mihrab                            Mollabashi
> Jahannam                              Minbar                            Qadi (Kadi, Kazi)
> Jihad                                 Najaf                             Saint
> Kalam                                                                   Sayyid
> Khirqah                               Religion: Practices and Rituals   Sharif
> Mahdi                                 Adhan                             Shaykh al-Islam
> Miracles                              Bid
a                             Wazir
> 
> xxxiv                                                                       Islam and the Muslim World
> List of Maps
> 
> Maps accompany the following entries, and are located on the provided pages.
> 
> Africa, Islam in . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
> Arabia, Pre Islam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
> Balkans, Islam in . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
> Balkans, Islam in . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
> Crusades . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
> Europe, Islam in . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
> Expansion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243
> Ibn Battuta . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Volume one color insert
> Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 408
> Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 410
> Muhammad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 478
> Networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 509
> South Asia, Islam in . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 639
> Southeast Asia, Islam in . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 646
> Sultanates: Ayyubids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 659
> 
> xxxv
> A
> 
ABBAS I, SHAH (1571–1629)                                             See also Empires: Safavid and Qajar.
> 
> Shah 
Abbas I, the fifth ruler of the Safavid dynasty, ruled Iran       BIBLIOGRAPHY
> from 1587 until 1629, the year of his death. Shah 
Abbas came          Matthee, Rudolph P. The Politics of Trade in Safavid Iran: Silk
> to power at a time when tribal unrest and foreign invasion had           for Silver, 1600–1730. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge Unigreatly reduced Iran’s territory. Once on the throne he set              versity Press, 1999.
> out to regain the lands and authority that had been lost by his        Savory, Roger. Iran under the Safavids. Cambridge, U.K.:
> immediate successors. His defeat of the Uzbeks in the north-              Cambridge University Press, 1980.
> east and the peace he made with the Ottoman Empire, Iran’s
> archenemy, enabled Shah 
Abbas to reform Iran’s military                                                                Rudi Matthee
> and financial system. He diminished the military power of the
> tribes by creating a standing army composed of slave soldiers
> who were loyal only to him. These so-called ghulams (military
> slaves) were mostly Armenians and Georgians captured dur-              
ABD AL-BAHA (1844–1921)
> ing raids in the Caucasus. In order to increase the revenue
> needed for these reforms the shah centralized state control,           
Abd al-Baha 
Abbas, also known as 
Abbas Effendi, was the
> which included the appointment of ghulams to high adminis-             son of Bahaallah (Mirza Husayn 
Ali, 1817–1892), the founder
> trative positions.                                                     of the Bahai religion. In his final will and testament, Bahaallah designated him as his successor and authoritative expounder
> With the same intent he fostered trade by reestablishing           of his teachings. Born in Tehran on 23 May 1844, he grew up
> road security and by building many caravan series throughout           in the household of a father committed to the teachings of the
> the country. Under Shah 
Abbas, Isfahan became Iran’s                  Babi movement and consequently shared his father’s fate of
> capital and most important city, endowed with a new com-               exile and intermittent imprisonment until the Young Turk
> mercial and administrative center grouped around a splendid            revolution of 1909.
> square that survives today. His genius further manifested
> itself in his military skills and his astute foreign policy. He           As a result, 
Abd al-Baha received little formal education
> halted the eastward expansion of the Ottomans, defeating               and had to manage the affairs of his father’s household at a
> them and taking Baghdad in 1623. To encourage trade and                very early age. Despite these setbacks, he demonstrated a
> thus gain treasure, he welcomed European merchants to the              natural capacity for leadership and a prodigious knowledge of
> Persian Gulf. He also allowed Christian missionaries to settle         human history and thought.
> in his country, hopeful that this might win him allies among
> European powers in his anti-Ottoman struggle. Famously                    
Abd al-Baha corresponded with and enjoyed the respect
> down to earth, Shah 
Abbas was a pragmatic ruler who could             of a number of the luminaries of his day, including the
> be cruel as well as generous. Rare among Iranian kings, he is          Russian author Leo Tolstoy and the Muslim reformer Mutoday remembered as a ruler who was concerned about his                hammad 
Abduh. He left behind a small portion of what is a
> own people.                                                            large corpus of still-unexplored writings that include social
> commentaries, interpretations, and elaborations of his fa-
> A detail from a miniature painting of 
Abbas I (1571–1629)             ther’s works, mystical treatises, and Quranic and biblical
> appears in the volume one color plates.                             exegeses.
> 
> 
Abd al-Hamid Ibn Badis
> 
> Upon his release from house imprisonment in 1909, 
Abd         schools for adults, where traditional Quranic studies could
> al-Baha traveled to North Africa, Europe, and North Amer-         be taught.
> ica advocating a number of reforms for all countries, including the adoption of a universal auxiliary language, global             In May 1931 he founded the AUMA (also Association of
> collective security, mandatory education, and full legal and       Algerian Muslim Ulema), which gathered the country’s leadsocial equality for women and minorities. He also warned of a      ing Muslim thinkers, initially both reformist and conservacoming war in Europe and called for a just system of global        tive, and subsequently only reformist, and served as its president
> government and international courts where disputes between         until his death. Whereas the reformist programs promoted
> nations could be resolved peacefully.                              through Al-Shihab had managed to reach an audience limited
> to the elite educated class of the country, the AUMA became
> 
Abd al-Baha died on 28 November 1921. According to            the tool for a nationwide campaign to revive Islam, Arabic,
> his will and testament, his eldest grandson, Shoghi Effendi        and religious studies, as well as a center for direct social and
> Rabbani, became the head of the Bahai community and the           political action. Throughout the country he founded a netsole authorized interpreter of his grandfather and great-          work of Islamic cultural centers that provided the means for
> grandfather’s teachings.                                           the educational initiatives he advocated and the establishment of Islamic youth groups. He also spearheaded a cam-
> See also Baha
allah; Baha
i Faith.                                 paign against Sufi brotherhoods, accusing them of introducing
> blameworthy innovations to religious practice, and also of
> William McCants       cooperating with the colonial administration. He played an
> important political role in the formation of the Algerian
> Muslim Congress in 1936, which arose in reaction to the
> victory of the Popular Front in France, and was active
> 
ABD AL-HAMID IBN BADIS                                            politically in the country until his premature death in 1940.
> (1889–1940)                                                        Thanks to his activities as leader of the AUMA and to his
> writing in Al-Shihab, Ibn Badis is considered by some to be
> 
Abd al-Hamid Ibn Badis was the leader of the Islamic              the most important figure of the Arab-Islamic cultural revival
> reformist movement in Algeria and founder of the Association       in Algeria during the 1930s.
> des Uléma Musulmanes Algériens (AUMA). He was born in
> 1889 in Constantine, where he also died in 1940. After             See also Reform: Arab Middle East and North Africa;
> receiving a traditional education in his hometown, Ibn Badis       Salafiyya.
> (locally referred to as Ben Badis) studied at the Islamic
> University of Zaytuna, in Tunis, from 1908 to 1912. In the         BIBLIOGRAPHY
> following years he journeyed through the Middle East, par-
> Merad, Ali. Le Réformisme Musulman en Algérie de 1925 a
> ticularly in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, where he came into              1940. Paris: Mouton, 1967.
> contact with modernist and reformist currents of thought
> Safi, Hammadi. “Abdel Hamid Ben Badis entre les exigenspreading within orthodox Sunni Islam.
> cies du dogme et la contrainte de la modernité.” In
> Penseurs Maghrébins Contemporains. Casablanca: Editions
> Ibn Badis became the most prominent promoter of the
> EDDIF, 1993.
> Islamic reformist movement in Algeria, first through his
> preaching at the mosque of Sidi Lahdar in his hometown,
> and, after 1925, through his intensive journalistic activity. He                                                  Claudia Gazzini
> founded a newspaper, Al-Muntaqid (The critic), which closed
> after a few months. Immediately afterwards, however, he
> began a new and successful newspaper, Al-Shihab (The meteor), which soon became the platform of the reformist             
ABD AL-HAMID KISHK (SHAYKH)
> thinking in Algeria, until its closure in 1939. Through the        (1933–1996)
> pages of Al-Shihab, Ibn Badis spread the Salafiyya movement
> in Algeria, presented his Quranic exegesis, and argued the        A pioneering “cassette preacher” of the 1970s, 
Abd alneed for Islamic reform and a rebirth of religion and religious    Hamid Kishk was born in the Egyptian Delta village of
> values within a society that, in his view, had been too influ-      Shubrakhut, the son of a small merchant. Early on he experienced by French colonial rule. He further argued that the          enced vision impairment, and lost his sight entirely as a young
> Algerian nation had to be founded on its Muslim culture and        teen. He memorized the Quran by age twelve, attended
> its Arab identity, and for this reason he is also considered a     religious schools in Alexandria and Cairo, then enrolled at alprecursor of Algerian nationalism. He promoted the free            Azhar University. He graduated in 1962, first in his class, but
> teaching of Arabic language, which had been marginalized           rather than an expected nomination to the teaching faculty,
> during the years of French rule, and the establishment of free     he was appointed imam at a Cairo mosque.
> 
> 2                                                                                               Islam and the Muslim World
> 
Abd al-Karim Sorush
> 
> Kishk ran afoul of the Nasser regime in 1965. He claimed       lost books, Sharh al-usul al-khamsa by Qiwam al-Din Mankdim
> he was instructed to denounce Sayyid Qutb, refused, and           and al-Muhit bi’l-taklif by Ibn Mattawayh, are also available.
> subsequently was arrested and tortured in prison. In the early
> 1970s, cassette recordings of his sermons and lessons began       See also Kalam; Mutazilites, Mutazila.
> to proliferate throughout Egypt; by the late 1970s he was
> arguably the most popular preacher in the Arab world.             BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Attendance at his mosque skyrocketed, reaching 100,000 for        Frank, Richard M. “The Autonomy of the Human Agent
> Friday sermons by the early 1980s. In September 1981 he was          in the Teaching of 
Abd al-Gabbar.” Le Museon 95
> arrested as part of Anwar al-Sadat’s crackdown on political          (1982): 323–355.
> opponents, and was in prison when Sadat was assassinated.         Heemskerk, M. T. Suffering in the Mu
tazilite Theology: Abd
> Upon his release he regained his following. He published his        al-Jabbar’s Teaching on Pain and Divine Justice. Leiden:
> autobiography, The Story of My Days, in 1986. He died a             Brill, 2000.
> decade later, in 1996.                                            Hourani, George F. Islamic Rationalism: The Ethics of Abd al-
> Jabbar. Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon Press, 1971.
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                      Peters, J. R. T. M. God’s Created Speech: A Study in the
> Jansen, Johannes J. G. The Neglected Duty: The Creed of Sadat’s      Speculative Theology of the Mu
tazili Qadi l-Qudat Abul-
> Assassins and Islamic Resurgence in the Middle East. New          Hasan 
Abd al-Jabbar bn Ahmad al-Hamadani. Leiden:
> York and London: Macmillan, 1986.                                 Brill, 1976.
> Kepel, Gilles. Muslim Extremism in Egypt: The Prophet and
> Pharaoh. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of Califor-                                                    M. Sait Özervarli
> nia Press, 1993.
> 
> Joel Gordon
> 
ABD AL-KARIM SORUSH (1945– )
> 
Abd al-Karim Sorush is the pen-name of Hassan Haj-Faraj
> 
ABD AL-JABBAR (935–1025)                                         Dabbagh. Born in 1945 in Tehran, Sorush attended Alavi
> High School, an alternative school that offered a rigorous
> 
Abd al-Jabbar was a Mu
tazilite theologian and Shafi
ite          curriculum of Islamic studies in addition to the state-mandated,
> jurist, known as Qadi 
Abd al-Jabbar b. Ahmad al-Hamadani.        standardized education in math and sciences. He studied
> He was born in Asadabad in Iran about 935, studied kalam          Islamic law and exegesis with Reza Ruzbeh, one of the
> with Abu Ishaq al-
Ayyash in Basra, and associated with the       founders of the school. He attended Tehran University, and
> prominent Mu
tazilite scholar Abu 
Abdullah al-Basri in           in 1969 graduated with a degree in pharmacology. He contin-
> Baghdad. 
Abd al-Jabbar was appointed as chief judge of Rayy      ued his postgraduate education in history and philosophy of
> with a great authority over other regions in northern Iran by     science at Chelsea College in London. In 1979 he returned to
> the Buyid wazir Sahib b. 
Abbad in 977. Following his             Iran after the revolution, and soon thereafter was appointed
> dismissal from the post after the death of Ibn 
Abbad, he         by Ayatollah Khomeini to the Cultural Revolution Council.
> devoted his life to teaching. In 999 he made a pilgrimage to      He resigned from this controversial post in 1983.
> Mecca through Baghdad, where he spent some time. He
> taught briefly in Kazvin (1018–1019) and died in 1025 in Ray.          In his most celebrated book, Qabz va Bast-i Teorik-i
> Shari
at (The theoretical constriction and expansion of the
> As the teacher of the well-known Mu
tazilites of the          shari
a), Sorush developed a general critique of dogmatic
> eleventh century, such as Abu Rashid al-Nisaburi, Ibn             interpretations of religion. He argued that, when turned into
> Mattawayh, Abu ’l-Husayn al-Basri, and as the master of           a dogma, religion becomes ideological and loses its universal-
> Mu
tazilism in its late period, 
Abd al-Jabbar elaborated and     ity. He held that religious knowledge is inevitably historical
> expanded the teachings of Bahshamiyya, the subgroup named         and culturally contingent, and that it is distinct from religion,
> after Abu Hashim al-Jubbai. He synthesized some of the           the truth of which is solely possessed by God. He posited that
> Mu
tazilite views with Sunni doctrine on the relation of          culture, language, history, and human subjectivity mediate
> reason and revelation, and came close to the Shi
ite position     the comprehension of the revealed text. Therefore, human
> on the question of leadership (imama). He is also a significant    understandings of the physical world, through science, for
> source of information on ancient Iranian and other monothe-       instance, and the changing nature of the shared values of
> istic religions.                                                  human societies (such as citizenship and social and political
> rights) inform and condition religious knowledge.
> 
Abd al-Jabbar wrote many works on kalam, especially on
> the defense of the Quran, and on the Prophet of Islam. Some         There was a contradiction between Sorush’s understandof his books, including most of his twenty-volume work al-        ing of epistemological problems of human knowledge, which
> Mughni, have been published. Commentaries on two of his           he saw as logical and methodical, and his emphasis on the
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                       3
> 
Abd al-Nasser, Jamal
> 
> historical contingencies of the hermeneutics of the divine          Egypt’s nationalization of the Suez Canal Company. The
> text. This contradiction was resolved in his later writing in       tripartite British-French-Israeli invasion failed to topple his
> favor of a more hermeneutical approach. In his early work, he       regime and solidified his reputation. Frustrated with the pace
> was influenced by analytical philosophy and skepticism of a          of social and economic reform, in the early 1960s Nasser
> post-positivist logic, whereas in his later writings he adopted     promoted a series of socialist decrees nationalizing key seca more hermeneutical approach to the meaning of the sacred          tors of industry, agriculture, finance, and the arts. Egypt’s
> text. In his earlier work he put forward epistemological            relations with the Soviet bloc improved, but Nasser never
> questions about the limits and truthfulness of claims regard-       turned entirely away from the West. In regional affairs the
> ing knowledge, but in two important later books, Siratha-yi         years after Suez were marked by a series of setbacks. The
> mustaqim (1998, Straight paths) and Bast-e tajrubih-e Nabavi        United Arab Republic (1958–1961) ended with Syria’s cessa-
> (1999, The expansion of the prophetic experience), he em-           tion, and the Yemeni civil war (1962–1967) entangled Egypphasized the reflexivity and plurality of human understand-          tian troops in a quagmire.
> ing. In his plural usage of the Quranic phrase “straight
> paths,” Sorush offered a radical break with both modernist              Many contend that Nasser never recovered from the
> and orthodox traditions in Islamic theology.                        disastrous defeat by Israel in June 1967. Yet he changed the
> face of Egypt, erasing class privileges, narrowing social gaps,
> In the 1990s, Sorush emerged as one the most influential          and ushering in an era of optimism. If Egyptians fault his
> Muslim thinkers in Iran. His theology contributed to the            failure to democratize and debate the wisdom of Arab socialemergence of a generation of Muslim reformers who chal-             ism or the state’s secular orientation, many still recall his
> lenged the legitimization of the Islamic Republic’s rule based      populist intentions. When he died suddenly of a heart attack
> on divine sources rather than on democratic principles and          on 28 September 1970, millions accompanied his coffin to
> popular consent.                                                    the grave.
> 
> See also Iran, Islamic Republic of; Khomeini, Ruhollah.             See also Nationalism: Arab; Pan-Arabism.
> 
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                        BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Sadri, Mahmoud, and Sadri, Ahmad, eds. Reason, Freedom, &
> Gordon, Joel. Nasser’s Blessed Movement: Egypt’s Free Officers
> Democracy in Islam: Essential Writings of 
Abdolkarim Soroush.
> and the July Revolution. 2d ed. Cairo: American University
> Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.
> in Cairo Press, 1996.
> Jankowski, James. Nasser’s Egypt, Arab Nationalism, and the
> Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi
> United Arab Republic. Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 2002.
> 
> Joel Gordon
> 
ABD AL-NASSER, JAMAL
> (1918–1970)
> The Egyptian leader who dominated two decades of Arab               
ABD AL-QADIR, AMIR
> history, Jamal 
Abd al-Nasser was born 15 January 1918, the         (1807–1883)
> son of a postal official. Raised in Alexandria and Cairo, he
> entered the military academy and was commissioned in 1938.          During the early nineteenth century, 
Abd al-Qadir governed
> Thereafter, he joined a secret Muslim Brotherhood cell,             a state in Algeria. His family, claiming descent from Muhamwhere he met fellow dissidents with whom he later founded           mad, led a Qadiriyya brotherhood center (zawiya) in western
> the Free Officers. On 23 July 1952 the Free Officers seized           Algeria. In 1831 the French conquered the port of Oran from
> power; within a year they outlawed political parties and            the Ottomans. Fighting broke out in the Oranais among
> established a republic. In 1954, they dismissed the figurehead       those tribes formerly subjected to Turkish taxes and those
> president Muhammad Najib (Naguib) and repressed all op-             privileged to collect them. The Moroccan sultan, failing to
> position. Elected president in June 1956, Nasser ruled until        pacify the tribes on his border, designated 
Abd al-Qadir’s
> his death. Under his leadership Egypt remained a one-party          influential but aging father as his deputy. He, in turn, had
> state. The ruling party changed names several times; the Arab       tribal leaders proclaim his son commander of the faithful
> Socialist Union, formed in 1962, survived until 1978 when           (amir al-muminin) in 1832.
> Nasser’s successor, Anwar al-Sadat, abolished it.
> The highly educated and well-traveled new amir negoti-
> A charismatic leader, Nasser drew regional acclaim and           ated two treaties with France (1834–1837). Happy to cede the
> international notoriety for his championship of pan-Arabism         job of tribal pacification to an indigenous leader, the French
> and his leadership role in the Non-Aligned Movement. His            acknowledged him as the sovereign of western Algeria. 
Abd
> popularity soared during the 1956 Suez Crisis, sparked by           al-Qadir received French money and arms with which he
> 
> 4                                                                                               Islam and the Muslim World
> 
Abd al-Razzaq al-Sanhuri
> 
> organized an administration, diplomatic service, and supply        from various Muslim countries aimed at charting the reform
> services, including storage facilities, a foundry, and textile     of Muslim peoples.
> workshops, for a standing army of six thousand men. Unfortunately, frequent disputes, and even occasional battles, punc-    See also Modernization, Political: Administrative, Militured the treaties. The final rupture came when 
Abd al-            tary, and Judicial Reform; Modernization, Political:
> Qadir began expanding into eastern Algeria. In response, the       Authoritarianism and Democratization; Moderniza-
> French decided on a complete conquest of Algeria and               tion, Political: Constitutionalism; Modernization,
> destroyed 
Abd al-Qadir’s state (1839–1847), exiling him to        Political: Participation, Political Movements, and
> Damascus. During his exile, the amir immersed himself in           Parties.
> religious studies. He reemerged briefly into the public eye
> when riots shook Damascus in July 1860. It was then that           BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Muslim resentment against perceived advantages enjoyed by          Husry, Khaldun S. Three Reformers: A Study in Modern Arab
> Christians under the Ottoman reform edict of 1839 exploded           Political Thought. Beirut: Khayats, 1966.
> into widespread killings and lootings. Virtually alone among
> Kramer, Martin. Islam Assembled: The Advent of the Muslim
> the notables of Damascus, 
Abd al-Qadir shielded Christians          Congresses. New York: Columbia University Press, 1986.
> from Muslim attackers.
> 
> See also Tasawwuf.                                                                                             Sohail H. Hashmi
> 
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Aouli, Smaï; Redjala, Ramdane; and Zoummeroff, Philippe.           
ABD AL-RAZZAQ AL-SANHURI
> Abd el-Kader. Paris: Fayard, 1994.
> (1895–1971)
> Danziger, Raphael. Abd al-Qadir and the Algerians: Resistance
> to the French and Internal Consolidation New York: Homes
> 
Abd al-Razzaq al-Sanhuri was one of the most distinguished
> & Meier, 1977.
> jurists and principal architects of modern Arab civil laws. Al-
> Sanhuri, a native of Alexandria, Egypt, obtained his law
> Peter von Sivers    degree from what was then known as the Khedival School of
> Law of Cairo in 1917. He held different public posts including that of assistant prosecutor at the Mixed Courts of
> Mansura and as a lecturer at the Shari
a School for Judges. In
> 
ABD AL-RAHMAN KAWAKIBI                                            1921, he was awarded a scholarship to study law at the
> (1849?–1902)                                                       University of Lyon in France. In France, he wrote two
> doctoral dissertations, one on English law and the other on
> An Arab nationalist and reformer, 
Abd al-Rahman Kawakibi          the subject of the caliphate in the modern age. In 1926, alwas born in Aleppo, Syria, where he was educated and worked        Sanhuri returned to Egypt where he became a law professor
> as an official and journalist until being forced by Ottoman         at the National University (now the Cairo University), and
> opposition to relocate to Cairo in 1898. He joined the circle      eventually became the dean of the law faculty. Because of his
> of Arab intellectuals surrounding Muhammad 
Abduh and              involvement in politics, and defense of the Egyptian Consti-
> Rashid Rida. Kawakibi’s ideas are elaborated in two books,         tution, he was fired from his post in 1936, and left Egypt to
> Tabai
 al-istibdad (Characteristics of tyranny) and Umm al-       become the dean of the Law College in Baghdad.
> qura (Mother of cities). In the first, he argues that the
> Muslims’s political decline is the result of their straying from       After one year, he returned to Egypt where he held several
> original Islamic principles and the advent of mystical and         high-level cabinet posts before becoming the president of the
> fatalist interpretations. Such passivity, he argues, plays into    Council of State in 1949. Initially, al-Sanhuri supported the
> the hands of despotic rulers, who historically have benefited       movement of the Free Officers who overthrew the Egyptian
> from false interpretations of Islam. The book was a condem-        monarch in 1952, but because of al-Sanhuri’s insistence on a
> nation of the rule of the Ottoman Turks, and particularly of       return to civilian democratic rule and his defense of civil
> the sultan 
Abd al-Hamid II. A revival of Islamic civilization     rights, he was ousted from his position and persecuted. After
> could come only after fresh interpretation of law (ijtihad),       1954, al-Sanhuri withdrew from politics and focused his
> educational reforms, and sweeping political change, begin-         efforts on scholarship and modernizing the civil codes of
> ning with the institution of an Arab caliphate in the place of     several Arab countries. Al-Sanhuri heavily influenced the
> the Ottoman Turks. The theme of renewed Arab leadership            drafting of the civil codes of Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Libya, and
> in the Muslim umma is developed in the second book. The            Kuwait. One year before his death in Egypt, al-Sanhuri
> title is taken from a Quranic reference to Mecca, where           completed a huge multivolume commentary on civil law,
> Kawakibi places a fictional conference of representatives           called al-Wasit fi sharh al-qanun al-madani, which is still
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                      5
> 
Abd al-Wahhab, Muhammad Ibn
> 
> considered authoritative in many parts of the Arab world. He        for intercession with God. More generally, following a line of
> also wrote several highly influential works on Islamic con-          argument developed much earlier by Ibn Taymiyya, Ibn 
Abd
> tractual law, the most famous of which are Masadir al-haqq fi        al-Wahhab challenged the authority of the religious scholars
> al-fiqh al-Islami and Nazariyyat al-aqd fi al-fiqh al-Islami. One      (ulema), not only of his own time, but also the majority of
> of al-Sanhuri’s most notable accomplishments was that he            those in preceding generations. These scholars had injected
> integrated and reconciled the civil law codes, which were           unlawful innovations (bid
a) into Islam, he argued. In order to
> French based, with classical Islamic legal doctrines. For           restore the strict monotheism (tawhid) of true Islam, it was
> instance, he is credited with making Egyptian civil law more        necessary to strip the pristine Islam of human additions and
> consistent with Islamic law.                                        speculations and implement the laws contained in the Quran
> as interpreted by the Prophet and his immediate companions.
> See also Law; Modernization, Political: Constitution-               Thus, Ibn 
Abd al-Wahhab called for the reopening of ijtihad
> alism.                                                              (independent legal judgment) by qualified persons to reform
> Islam, but the end to which his ijtihad led was a conservative,
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                        literal reading of certain parts of the Quran.
> Hill, Enid. Al-Sanhuri and Islamic Law. Cairo: American
> University of Cairo Press, 1987.                                    Aspects of Ibn 
Abd al-Wahhab’s teachings, including
> asceticism, simplicity of faith, and emphasis on an egalitarian
> Khaled Abou El-Fadl       community, quickly drew followers to his cause. But his
> condemnation of the alleged moral laxity of society, his
> challenge to the ulema, and to the political authority that
> supported them estranged him from his townspeople and,
> 
ABD AL-WAHHAB, MUHAMMAD                                            some claim, even from his own family. In 1740, he returned to
> IBN (1703–1792)                                                     his native village of 
Uyayna, where the local ruler (amir)
> 
Uthman b. Bishr adopted his teachings and began to act on
> Muhammad Ibn 
Abd al-Wahhab was a religious scholar and             some of them, such as destroying tombs in the area. When
> conservative reformer whose teachings were elaborated by            this activity caused a popular backlash, Ibn 
Abd al-Wahhab
> his followers into the doctrines of Wahhabism. Ibn 
Abd al-         moved on to Dir
iyya, a small town in the Najd near present-
> Wahhab was born in the small town of 
Uyayna located in the         day Riyadh. Here he forged an alliance with the amir Muham-
> Najd territory of north central Arabia. He came from a family       mad b. Sa
ud (d. 1765), who pledged military support on
> of Hanbali scholars and received his early education from his       behalf of Ibn 
Abd al-Wahhab’s religious vocation. Ibn 
Abd
> father, who served as judge (qadi) and taught hadith and law at     al-Wahhab spent the remainder of his life in Dir
iyya, teachthe local mosque schools. Ibn 
Abd al-Wahhab left 
Uyayna           ing in the local mosque, counseling first Muhammad b. Sa
ud
> at an early age, and probably journeyed first to Mecca for the       and then his son 
Abd al-
Aziz (d. 1801), and spreading his
> pilgrimage and then continued to Medina, where he re-               teachings through followers in the Najd and Iraq.
> mained for a longer period. Here he was influenced by the
> See also Wahhabiyya.
> lectures of Shaykh 
Abdallah b. Ibrahim al-Najdi on the neo-
> Hanbali doctrines of Ibn Taymiyya.
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> From Medina, Ibn 
Abd al-Wahhab traveled to Basra,              Philby, Harry St. John Bridger. Arabia. New York:
> where he apparently remained for some time, and then to               Scribners, 1930.
> Isfahan. In Basra he was introduced directly to an array of
> Smith, Wilfred Cantwell. Islam in Modern History. Princeton,
> mystical (Sufi) practices and to Shi
ite beliefs and rituals. This     N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1957.
> encounter undoubtedly reinforced his earlier beliefs that
> Islam had been corrupted by the infusion of extraneous and
> Sohail H. Hashmi
> heretical influences. The beginning of his reformist activism
> may be traced to the time when he left Basra around 1739 to
> return to the Najd.
> 
> Ibn 
Abd al-Wahhab rejoined his family in Huraymila,             
ABDUH, MUHAMMAD
> where his father had recently relocated. Here he composed           (1849–1905)
> the small treatise entitled Kitab al-tawhid (Book of unity), in
> which he most clearly outlines his religio-political mission.       Muhammad 
Abduh was one of the most influential Muslim
> He castigates not only the doctrines and practices of Sufism         reformers and jurists of the nineteenth century. 
Abduh was
> and Shi
ism, but also more widespread popular customs               born in the Nile River delta in northern Egypt and received a
> common to Sunnis as well, such as performing pilgrimages to         traditional Islamic education in Tanta. He graduated from althe graves of pious personages and beseeching the deceased          Azhar University in Cairo in 1877, where he taught for the
> 
> 6                                                                                               Islam and the Muslim World
> Abu Bakr
> 
> next two years. It was during this period that he met Jamal al-    philosophers, he argues that reason and revelation are sepa-
> Din Afghani, whose influence upon 
Abduh’s thought over             rate but inextricably linked sources for ethics: “The ground of
> the next decade would be profound. When Afghani was                moral character is in beliefs and traditions and these can be
> expelled from Egypt in 1879, 
Abduh was also briefly exiled         built only on religion. The religious factor is, therefore, the
> from Cairo to his native village. He returned to Cairo the         most powerful of all, in respect both of public and of private
> following year to become editor of the official government          ethics. It exercises an authority over men’s souls superior to
> gazette, al-Waqai
 al-Misriyya (Egyptian events), and began       that of reason, despite man’s uniquely rational powers” (p. 106).
> publishing articles on the need for reform in the country.
> When the British occupied Egypt following the 
Urabi revolt        See also Afghani, Jamal al-Din; Reform: Arab Middle
> of 1882, 
Abduh was sentenced to three years’s exile for           East and North Africa; Rida, Rashid; Salafiyya.
> assisting the nationalists. He lived briefly in Beirut before
> joining Afghani in Paris, where the two would publish the          BIBLIOGRAPHY
> short-lived but highly influential journal al-
Urwa al-wuthqa       
Abduh, Muhammad. The Theology of Unity. Translated by
> (“The firmest grip,” based on the Quranic references 2:256            Ishaq Musa
ad and Kenneth Cragg. London: George
> and 31:22). 
Abduh returned to Beirut following the journal’s         Allen & Unwin, 1966.
> demise in 1884, and it was during this sojourn that he first met    Hourani, Albert. Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age: 1798–1939.
> Rashid Rida, who would become his chief biographer and               Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1983.
> most distinguished disciple.                                       Kerr, Malcolm H. Islamic Reform: The Political and Legal
> Theories of Muhammad 
Abduh and Rashid Rida. Berkeley:
> In 1888, following his increasing estrangement from               University of California Press, 1966.
> Afghani and a consequent rethinking of his earlier revolutionary ideas, 
Abduh was allowed to return to Cairo. He soon
> Sohail H. Hashmi
> began a rapid ascent in Egyptian judicial and political circles.
> Beginning as a judge in the new “native courts” created by the
> Egyptian government, 
Abduh became a member of the
> newly created administrative board for al-Azhar University in      ABU BAKR (573–634)
> 1895. In 1899, he was appointed a member of the Legislative
> Council, an advisory body serving at the behest of the             Abu Bakr b. Abi Quhafa, the first caliph (r. 632–634), and a
> khedive, the ruler of Egypt, and more importantly became in        member of the clan of Taym of the tribe of the Quraysh, was
> the same year the grand mufti, or the chief Islamic jurist, of     the first adult male convert to Islam, and the Prophet’s close
> Egypt. As the head of Egypt’s religious law courts, 
Abduh         companion. A merchant and an expert on the genealogies of
> championed reforms that he saw as necessary to make shari
a        the Arab tribes, Abu Bakr came to be known as al-Siddiq, the
> relevant to modern problems. He argued that the early              truthful, or the one who trusts, a reference to the fact that he
> generations of Muslims (the salaf al-salihin, hence the name       alone immediately believed the Prophet’s story of his night
> Salafiyya, which is given to 
Abduh and his disciples) had          journey to Jerusalem. Recognized even in Mecca as the
> produced a vibrant civilization because they had creatively        foremost member of the Muslim community after Muhaminterpreted the Quran and hadith to answer the needs of           mad, he is credited with the purchase and release of several
> their times. Such creative jurisprudence (ijtihad) was needed      slaves, including Bilal, renowned for proclaiming the first
> in the present, 
Abduh urged. In particular, modern jurists        Muslim call to prayer. Abu Bakr was chosen by Muhammad
> must consider public welfare (maslaha) over dogma when             to accompany him on his “flight” or hijra to Medina in 622
> rendering judgments. The legal opinions (fatwas) he wrote          C.E. He became Muhammad’s father-in-law when his young
> for the government and private individuals on such issues as       daughter, 
Aisha, married the Prophet.
> polygamy, divorce, and the status of non-Muslims bore the
> imprint of his reformist attitudes.                                    Taking the title Khalifat rasul Allah, meaning Successor to
> the Messenger of God, Abu Bakr became the first caliph of
> During the last years of his life, 
Abduh collaborated with     Islam upon Muhammad’s death in 632 C.E. Just before his
> Rashid Rida in publishing the journal al-Manar, founded by         death, Abu Bakr refused to recall the expedition sent to Syria.
> Rida in 1898. The journal became a forum for not only              At the same time, he was forced to battle the wars of Apostasy,
> 
Abduh’s legal rulings and reformist essays, but also a Quranic   or Ridda, against the Yemen, Yamama, and the tribes of Asad,
> commentary that had reached the middle of the fourth sura          Ghatafan, and Tamim, who refused to pay the tithe or zakat,
> (chapter) when 
Abduh died in 1905. Rida would continue            which was considered an integral part of accepting Islam. It
> publishing the journal until his death in 1935.                    was because of the death of many leaders during these battles
> that Abu Bakr, on the advice of 
Umar, ordered Zayd b.
> The most systematic presentation of 
Abduh’s approach          Thabit to compile a collection of the Quranic verses.
> to Islamic reform is found in his essay Risalat al-tawhid (The
> theology of unity). In opposition to European positivist           See also Caliphate; Succession.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                        7
> Abu Bakr Gumi
> 
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                      See also Modern Thought; Political Islam; Wahhabiyya.
> Kennedy, Hugh. The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphate.
> London: Longman Group Ltd., 1986.                               BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Motzki, Harald. “The Collection of the Quran: A Reconsid-        Loimeier, Roman. Islamic Reform and Political Change in
> eration of Western Views in Light of Recent Methodo-              Northern Nigeria. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University
> logical Developments.” Der Islam 78 (2001): 1–34.                 Press, 1997.
> Watt, Montgomery W. “Abu Bakr.” In Encyclopedia of Islam.         Tsiga, Ismaila A. Sheikh Abubakar Gumi: Where I Stand.
> 2d ed. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1960.                                  Ibadan, Nigeria: Spectrum Books Ltd., 1992.
> 
> Rizwi Faizer                                                   Roman Loimeier
> 
> ABU BAKR GUMI (1922–1992)                                         ABU HANIFA (699–767)
> Abu Hanifa al-Nu
man b. Thabit b. Zurti was the eponymous
> Abu Bakr Gumi, born in Gumi/Sokoto province, northern
> founder of the Hanafi school (madhhab) of Islamic law. His
> Nigeria, was a leading personality in the development of the
> birth dates are given variously but the year 699 is considered
> Nigerian Islamic reform movement and author of a number
> the most sound based on many biographical dictionaries. Abu
> of influential works, such as Al-
aqida as-sahiha bi-muwafaqat
> Hanifa died and was buried in Baghdad, though sources differ
> ash-shari
a (The sound faith according to the prescriptions of
> concerning the month of his death. A shrine was built in 1066
> the shari
a) and Radd al-adhhan fi ma
ani al-quran (Reconsidover the site of his tomb, and the quarter of the city is called
> ering the meaning of the holy Quran).
> the al-A
zamiyyah after Abu Hanifa’s epithet al-Imam al-
> Gumi was one of the first northern Nigerians to experi-        A
zam, the “Great Imam.”
> ence a dual education in the Islamic sciences as well as in the
> In his Jawahir al-mudiyya, Ibn Abi al-Wafa provides a
> British colonial education system. After completing his
> genealogy, on the authority of Abu Ishaq Ibrahim b. Muham-
> Quranic as well as primary school education, Gumi attended
> mad al-Sarifini (d. 1243), which links Abu Hanifa’s family
> the Sokoto Middle School from where he went to the Kano
> with the Sassanian kings, the Kayyanid kings, and Judah, the
> Law School to be trained as a qadi (Muslim judge) from 1942
> eldest son of the prophet Jacob. Many sources mention that
> to 1947. After graduation he worked briefly as scribe to Alkali
> Abu Hanifa was of Persian descent, that his family were
> Attahiru in Sokoto. In 1947 he became a teacher at the Kano
> sellers of silk. Shams al-Din al-Dhahabi (d. 1374) reports that
> Law School and was transferred to Maru, Sokoto Province, in
> Abu Hanifa’s grandfather Zurti (also given as Zuta) is said to
> 1949, where he had a confrontation with a local imam as well
> have been a slave brought from Kabul to Kufa where the
> as the sultan of Sokoto over the question of tayammum, the
> family was attached to the Arab tribe of Taym-Allah b.
> ritual ablution with sand. In the context of this confrontation
> Tha
laba. Other sources claim that Abu Hanifa’s family was
> with the established authorities Gumi was supported by
> from Babylon, or the city of Anbar (on the Euphrates about
> Ahmadu Bello, the future prime minister of northern Nigeforty miles from Baghdad).
> ria, who in 1955 called upon Gumi to act as his advisor in
> religious affairs and in 1956 appointed him deputy grand kadi         Most Muslim biographical dictionaries focus on the relaof northern Nigeria. In this position, and later (from 1962) as   tive authority of Abu Hanifa as a transmitter of hadith
> grand kadi, Gumi was able to carry out a number of reforms in     reports. It is said that a number of the younger ahaba
> the judicial system of northern Nigeria and to fight effec-        (Companions) were still alive during the lifetime of Abu
> tively against the influence of the Sufi brotherhoods, especially   Hanifa but he only transmitted hadith from one of these, the
> the Qadiriyya and the Tijaniyya. After Bello’s assassination in   well-known Anas b. Malik (d. 709 or 711). Among the tabi
un
> 1966, Gumi lost his institutional backing and started to          (Followers) from whom he transmitted hadith reports are
> develop a network of followers that became, in the 1970s,         
Ata b. Abi Rabah (d. 732 or 733), al-Sha
bi (d. 724) and
> northern Nigeria’s first reformist Muslim organization, the        Nafi
, the client of Ibn 
Umar. Many authorities regard Abu
> Jama
at izalat al-bid
a wa-iqamat as-sunna (Association for       Hanifa as a trustworthy transmitter but others question the
> the removal of innovation and for the establishment of the        authority of his sources. In his Mizan al-i
 tidal, al-Dhahabi
> sunna, 1978). Gumi remained influential in Nigerian relig-         cites opinions that Abu Hanifa should be considered weak as a
> ious politics in the 1980s when he acted as advisor to presi-     transmitter of hadith, and that his legal opinions rely upon
> dents Shehu Shagari (1979–1983) and Ibrahim Babangida             personal opinion (ray). Abu Ishaq al-Shirazi (d. 1083) criti-
> (1985–1993). From 1962, Gumi was also a member of the             cizes Abu Hanifa for having received most of his knowledge
> Rabitat al-
alam al-Islami (Muslim World League), where he        of hadith reports from Ibrahim al-Nakhai rather than from
> sat in the Legal Committee, and a member of the World             the sahabah who were still reliable transmitters during his
> Supreme Council for the Affairs of Mosques.                       lifetime.
> 
> 8                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Abu ’l-Hasan Bani-Sadr
> 
> In terms of his reputation as a jurist, Abu Hanifa is          al-
Alim wa al-muta
allim and the Fiqh al-absat, which contain
> credited with founding the Hanafi school of law, and is given       a series of questions and answers between Abu Hanifa and his
> the epithet “imam” because of this role. In his Tadhkirat al-      disciple Abu Muti
 al-Balkhi (d. 799). Extant is a letter written
> huffaz, al-Dhahabi repeats a conversation in which Yazid b.        by Abu Hanifa to 
Uthman al-Batti, which resembles the
> Harun says that Sufyan al-Thawri (d. 778) was more knowl-          perspective found in these other works. Also attributed to
> edgeable in hadith but Abu Hanifa was more knowledgeable           Abu Hanifa is the Fiqh al-akbar, the so-called Fiqh al-akbar II,
> in jurisprudence and law. Even Muhammad b. Idris al-Shafi
i         and the Wasiyyat Abi Hanifa. The ten creedal articles of the
> (d. 820), whose legal opinions often rival those of the Hanafis,    Fiqh al-akbar closely parallel the views found in the Fiqh alis reported to have attributed great learning in jurisprudence     absat, but scholars such as Arent Jan Wensinck have assigned
> to Abu Hanifa. Many sources refer to Hammad b. Abi                 later dates to the Fiqh al-akbar II and the Wasiyyat Abi Hanifa,
> Sulayman (d. 738) as Abu Hanifa’s primary teacher in juris-        though they may have been influenced by the earlier works.
> prudence, and Joseph Schacht considers Abu Hanifa to have          The creedal works of later Hanafis such as Tahawi and Abu
> adapted the bulk of his legal opinions from him. Yazid b.          al-Layth al-Samarqandi (d. 993) may also show the influence
> Harun also states that he did not know anyone more pious           of Abu Hanifa’s theology. Because of Abu Hanifa’s close
> and rational than Abu Hanifa. Bishr b. al-Walid reports that       association to these creedal statements, later scholars have
> Abu Hanifa used to pray all night, and that he never learned       emphasized the influence of Abu Hanifa on the development
> or transmitted a hadith that he did not himself practice.          of widespread and officially sanctioned definitions of Muslim belief.
> After Abu Hanifa’s death his legal opinions and the hadith
> reports that he transmitted were compiled into texts. There        See also Law; Madhhab.
> are no extant collections of works composed by Abu Hanifa
> himself. His legal opinions can be found in the Ikhtilaf Abi       BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Hanifa wa Ibn Abi Layla and the al-Radd 
ala siyar al-Awza
i,
> Abu Zahra, Muhammad. Abu Hanifa. 2d ed. Cairo: 1947.
> both attributed to Abu Yusuf (d. 798), one of Abu Hanifa’s
> closest disciples. To another of Abu Hanifa’s disciples, Muham-    Dhahabi, Shams al-Din Muhammad b. Ahmad. Mizan
> al-i 
tidal fi naqd al-rijal. Beirut: Dar al-Ma
arif, n.d.
> mad al-Shaybani (d. 805), is attributed the al-Hujjah fi ikhtilaf
> ahl Kufah wa ahl al-Madinah and the Kitab al-asl fi al-furu
,       Dhahabi, Shams al-Din Muhammad b. Ahmed. Kitab tadhkirat
> both containing the legal opinions of Abu Hanifa which later         al-huffaz. Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-
Ilmiyya, n.d.
> became the basis for Hanafi legal scholarship. Some of the          Dhahabi, Shams al-Din Muhammad b. Ahmed. Siyyar a
lam
> hadith reports transmitted by Abu Hanifa can be found                al-nubala. Beirut: Mu
assasat al-Risala, 1993.
> collected in the Sharh ma
ani al-athar and Bayan mushkil al-       Ibn Abi al-Wafa, 
Abd al-Qadir b. Muhammad. Al-Jawahir
> hadith of Ahmad b. Muhammad al-Tahawi (d. 933), and in the            al-mudiyya fi tabaqat al-Hanafiyya. Beirut: Muassasat allater Jami
 masanid Abi Hanifa compiled by Abu al-Muayyad            Risala, 1993.
> Muhammad b. Mahmud al-Khwarizmi (d. 1257).                         Ibn Hajar, Ahmad b. 
Ali. Tahdhib al-tahdhib. Beirut: Dar al-
> Kutub al-
Ilmiyya, 1994.
> Classical Hanafi jurisprudence developed primarily as
> Ibn al-
Imad, Abd al-Hayy. Shadharat al-dhahab fi akhbar min
> compendia and commentaries on the legal opinions of Abu
> dhahab. Beirut: Dar al-Afaq al-Jadida, n.d.
> Hanifa and their interpretation by his main students, Abu
> Schacht, Joseph. Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence. 2d
> Yusuf and Muhammad al-Shaybani. The Mukhtasar fi al-fiqh
> ed. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 1953.
> Abi Hanifa al-Nu
man by Ahmad b. Muhammad al-Quduri (d.
> 1037) contains a collection of the opinions of these three         Wensinck, Arent Jan. The Muslim Creed: Its Genesis and
> Hanafi authorities, as does the Kitab al-mabsut of Muhammad           Historical Development. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1932.
> b. Ahmad al-Sarakhsi (d. 1090). The works of later Hanafi
> scholars such as Abu Bakr b. Mas
ud al-Kasani (d. 1191), 
Ali
> b. Abi Bakr al-Marghinani (d. 1197), 
Abdallah b. Ahmad al-                                                  Brannon M. Wheeler
> Nasafi (d. 1310), 
Uthman b. 
Ali al-Zayla
i (d. 1342), Ibn
> Nujaym (d. 1562), and 
Abd al-Hakim al-Afghani (d. 1907)
> are largely based upon these earlier compilations of opinions
> going back to Abu Hanifa and his immediate disciples. These        ABU ’L-HASAN BANI-SADR (1933– )
> works, building upon the opinions of Abu Hanifa and his
> main students, show the influence of Abu Hanifa upon the            Abu ’l-Hasan Bani-Sadr, born in 1933 to a clerical family
> development of Islamic legal theory and case law.                  from the city of Hamadan, became the first president-elect of
> the Islamic Republic of Iran after the 1979 revolution. He
> Abu Hanifa is also credited with a number of creedal and       studied Islamic law and economics at the University of
> theological works, though some scholars assign the reaction        Tehran, then continued his studies at the Sorbonne, in Paris,
> of these to followers of Abu Hanifa. Two such works are the        where his focus was on economics and the role of Islam in
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                        9
> Abu ’l-Hudhayl al-
Allaf
> 
> social change. Like many of his contemporaries, who com-           beliefs. His nephew and critic Abu Ishaq al-Nazzam as well as
> bined western European training with an Islamic education,         Yahya b. Bishr and Abu Ya
qub al-Shahham were among his
> he developed a focus on interpreting Islam as a “unitarian”        closest students.
> ideology (towhidi) for economic and cultural independence
> from the West, based on the notion of divine unity.                    Abu ’l-Hudhayl’s numerous works are not extant, though
> some of his views are quoted in early kalam sources. His
> Bani-Sadr lived in exile in Europe from 1963 until 1979, as     metaphysics of created beings, indivisible atoms, motion, and
> a result of his political activities at Tehran University. In      the cause-effect process of generation (tawallud) provoked
> Europe he became one of the most important activists of the        intellectual discussions and controversies among Mu
tazilites.
> National Front in Iran and abroad and a key organizer of           In order to protect the unity (tawhid) of God as the main
> Iranian students outside Iran. He came in contact with             principle, he denied the essential nature of things as well as
> Ayatollah Khomeini first in 1972, in Najaf, and later in            the potentiality of being prior to its existence. He also
> France where Khomeini spent his last days in exile. In 1980,       rejected a division between the essence and attributes of God.
> Bani-Sadr became the first president-elect of the Islamic           Abu l-Hudhayl found no contradiction between the author-
> Republic of Iran with 75 percent of the vote. He did not           ity of God and His doing good actions with wisdom, since it is
> represent any organization or political party. In contrast, his    unthinkable that God does evil or injustice with a total
> opponents in the Islamic Republic Party (IRP) were well-           absence of deficiency in Him. Therefore, He would only
> organized and made advances in the parliamentary election,         create the best and the most convenient (aslah) circumstances
> and in the spring of 1980 they dominated the parliament. In        for His creatures.
> 1980 and 1981 effective power shifted to the IRP parliamen-
> Abu ’l-Hudhayl’s atomistic ontology and highly philotary majority who named Prime Minister Raja I ignoring
> sophical terminology shaped the mind of later Mu’tazilites,
> Bani-Sadr’s candidates for the cabinet. He later lost his
> and his systematic reflections on theological topics make him
> presidency to conservative rivals in the IRP, as a result of a
> one of the most influential thinkers of Mu
tazilite thought at
> parliamentary vote of incompetence and impeachment. Later
> the beginning of its classical age.
> he fled the country and once again joined the exiled opposition in Paris.                                                     See also Mutazilites, Mutazila.
> See also Iran, Islamic Republic of; Revolution: Islamic
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Revolution in Iran.
> Dhanani, Alnoor. The Physical Theory of Kalam: Atoms, Space,
> and Void in Basrian Mu
tazili Theology. Leiden: Brill, 1994.
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Ess, Josef van. “Abu’l-Hudhayl in Contact: The Genesis of
> Keddie, Nikki R. Roots of Revolution: An Interpretive History
> an Anecdote.” In Islamic Theology and Philosophy: Studies in
> of Modern Iran. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University
> Honor of George F. Hourani. Edited by Micheal Marmura.
> Press, 1981.
> Albany: State University of New York Press, 1984.
> Frank, Richard M. The Metaphysics of Created Being According
> Mazyar Lotfalian         to Abu’l-Hudhayl al-Allaf: A Philosophical Study of the Earliest Kalam. Istanbul: Nederlands Historisch-Archaeologisch
> Instituut, 1966.
> Frank, Richard M. “The Divine Attributes According to the
> ABU ’L-HUDHAYL AL-
ALLAF                                              Teaching of Abu’l-Hudhayl al-Allaf.” Le Museon 82
> (750–C. 850)                                                          (1969): 451–506.
> Frank, Richard M. Being and their Attributes: The Teachings of
> Muhammad b. al-Hudhayl b. 
Ubaydallah al-Abdi was the                Basrian School of the Mu
tazila in the Classical Period. Albany:
> first philosophically minded theologian of the Mu
tazilite             State University of New York Press, 1978.
> school. Born in Basra around 750 C.E., he lived in the neighborhood of foragers (
allafun), where he spent the early part of                                                 M. Sait Özervarli
> his life. He was a student of 
Uthman al-Tawil, who was one
> of the disciples of Wasil b. 
Ata, the founder of al-Mu
tazila.
> He moved to Baghdad in 818 and lived a long life, as various
> dates between 840 and 850 are given for his death. Abu ’l-         ABU ’L-QASEM KASHANI
> Hudhayl opposed some views of his contemporary theologi-           (1882–1962)
> ans, such as the skeptic dualism of Salih b. 
Abd al-Quddus,
> the determinism of Dirar b. Amr, the physics of Abu Bakr al-       Born in Tehran, Abu ’l-Qasem Kashani studied in Najaf and
> Asamm, and the ethical theory of Bishr b. Ghiyas al-Marisi.        became a mujtahid (religious scholar) at the age of twenty-
> He also engaged in polemical discussions with the followers        five. He began his political activities in Najaf against the
> of other religions, especially those of the ancient Iranian        British domination of Iraq. In 1916, Kashani’s father was
> 
> 10                                                                                              Islam and the Muslim World
> 
Ada
> 
> killed in an uprising and British authorities condemned               law, it is the Quran as God’s revealed word that is rated as the
> Kashani to death in absentia. He fled to Iran in 1921 and              first primary source. Prophet Muhammad’s sunna, that is, his
> began teaching and preaching in Tehran.                               conduct, authentic sayings, acts, and behavior that he approved is rated as the second primary source. In addition to
> Kashani was imprisoned in the 1930s because of his pro-           these two sources there other sources (or legal principles)
> German activities. In 1949, after an attempt on the Shah’s            such as the consensus (ijma
) of Muslim jurists or scholars and
> life, he was exiled to Lebanon. In June 1950, he returned to          analogical reasoning (qiyas)—these combined then constitute
> Iran, was elected to the Majlis, and became its Speaker.              what have become the normative formal sources of Islamic law.
> During the crisis over the nationalization of Iran’s oil
> However, notwithstanding the accepted normative hierindustry and the ensuing conflict with the British (1950–1953),
> archy of what constitutes formal sources, Islam’s encounter
> Kashani made and broke alliances with the Fedaiyan-e Islam
> with other host cultures has compelled Islamic legal theory to
> and the National Front of Dr. Mohammad Mosaddeq. He
> evaluate the status of custom. For example, through such
> was instrumental in the assassination of the prime ministers
> encounters, 
ada, that is, the hitherto ambiguous source, has
> 
Abd al-Husayn Hazhir and Husayn 
Ali Razmara.
> throughout the history of Islamic legal theory served as a
> Kashani was an anti-British, anticolonialist, anticommunist,       flexible legal principle that helps Islamic law to evolve and
> constitutionalist, nationalist, and pan-Islamist religious-           thus meet the challenge of changing circumstances and times.
> political leader. Although Kashani’s opinions about Iranian           This assertion finds ample support in Muslim juristic thinknationalism, the role and function of the shari
a, and attitude       ing. For example, a reflection on the founding jurists of the
> toward the West differed from his clerical predecessors and           two main Sunni schools of Islamic law, namely, the Maliki
> successors, political activities of the Shi
ite ulema after World     and Hanafi schools, shows how various legal rules that were
> War II were greatly inspired and influenced by his views and           passed by the founders of these schools were based on the
> activities. Indeed, many of his ideas were elaborated by              strength of communal practice and norms. A good example
> leaders of the revolution of 1978 and 1979, including Ayatol-         here is the ruling passed by Imam Malik b. Anas (d. 795 C.E.)
> lah Khomeini, and formed the foundation of the Islamic                that a woman cannot contract herself in marriage. On the
> government.                                                           same question, the Hanafi jurist, Imam Abu Hanifa (d. 767
> C.E.) gave a different ruling that allowed a mature woman to
> See also Feda
iyan-e Islam; Iran, Islamic Republic of;                contract herself. What is crucial to note here, though, is not
> Majlis; Mosaddeq, Mohammad.                                           so much the question of which of the two opinions is better,
> but rather the fact that the basis of the two legal rulings is
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                          primarily informed by social reality and what is popular
> Akhavi, Shahrough. “The Role of Clergy in Iranian Politics,           communal practice. Noel James Coulson in his seminal
> 1949–1954.” In Mosaddiq, Iranian Nationalism, and Oil.              article titled “Muslim Case Law” has presented a cogent
> Edited by James Bill and Roger Louis. Austin: University            argument in which he demonstrates that the opinion of Malik
> of Texas Press, 1988.                                               reflects the dominant view of marriage and the position of
> Faghfoory, Mohammad H. “The Role of the Ulama in                      women within a predominantly patriarchal tribal society of
> Twentieth Century Iran with Particular Reference to                Medina. And by contrast, Abu Hanifa’s judgment mirrors the
> Ayatullah Hajj Sayyid Abulqasim Kashani.” Ph.D. diss.,
> cosmopolitan nature of Kufa where women enjoyed a slightly
> University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1978.
> more accommodating environment than in Medina.
> 
> Mohammad H. Faghfoory               Although often denied, the impact of 
ada in Muslim legal
> theory is also evident in Muhammad b. Idris al-Shafi
i (d. 819
> C.E.), founder of the Shafi
i school. For instance, the force of
> 
> 
ADA                                                                  communal praxis and the ethos of Egypt obliged al-Shafi
i to
> change a range of legal rulings that he sanctioned while in
> Like all legal systems and theories, Islamic law and its legal        Baghdad before his migration to Egypt.
> theory are not free from ambiguity and tensions. Nowhere is
> In addition to the aforementioned early jurists, the effi-
> such ambiguity more pronounced than in the treatment of
> cacy of 
ada is also stressed by Abu Ishaq al- Shatibi (d. 1388)
> 
ada or custom (alternatively called 
urf) in Islamic legal theory.
> whom Wael Hallaq in his A History of Islamic Legal Theories
> Generally, the term 
ada is derived from Arabic, and               regards as representing the “culmination” of maturity in
> means local customs, recurring habits, and social mores of the        Islamic legal theory. A critical reading of Shatibi’s legal
> people. In the context of the epistemology of Islamic law,            philosophy illustrates that 
ada, though often measured under
> especially as it relates to what constitutes formal sources of        the concept of maslaha (public good), does occupy a central
> law, classical Islamic jurisprudence does not recognize cus-          position in his legal thought. For Shatibi, Islamic law in its
> tom as a formal source. In the normative structure of Islamic         early phase, that is, in the prophetic era of Muhammad,
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                         11
> Adab
> 
> simply confirmed most of the pre-Islamic Arabian customs              Kamali, Mohammad Hashim. Principles of Islamic Jurisprupracticed by the people before their acceptance of Islam. For          dence. Selangor, Malaysia: Pelanduk Publications, 1989.
> example, Islamic laws like diya (blood money), rituals of hajj       Libson, Gideon. “On the Development of Custom as a
> (pilgrimage), and interestingly even the Jum
a (Muslim Fri-             Source of Law in Islamic Law.” Islamic Law and Society 4,
> day congregational prayers), though taking a strict Islamic             no. 2 (1997): 131–155.
> identity, were initially practices that were predominant in          Masud, Khalid M. Islamic Legal Philosophy: A Study of Abu
> pre-Islamic Arabia. As habitual and popular customs these              Ishaq al-Shatibi’s Life and Thought. Delhi: International
> were rehabilitated by Islamic law and confirmed as Islamic              Publishers, 1989.
> practice.                                                            Ziadeh, Farhat. “
Urf and Law in Islam.” In The World of
> Islam: Studies in Honor of Philip K. Hitti. Edited by J.
> Moving away from the formative classical period into the            Kritzek and R. Winder. London: Macmillan, 1959.
> modern period, especially from the eighteenth to the twentieth century, examples gleaned from Africa and Asia also show                                                     Tahir Fuzile Sitoto
> that the predominance of custom not only shaped and influenced shari
a, but custom became a law operating on its own
> right independent of shari
a. What is discernible here is that
> custom in the modern context ceases to be merely a creative          ADAB
> legal tool whose utility is only limited to make Islamic law
> adaptable to changing circumstances, but as “customary law”          The term adab fundamentally denotes a custom or norm of
> it becomes part of a dual legal system that is on par with           conduct. In the early centuries of Islam, the term came to
> shari
a. Again, Coulson provides a good example when he              convey either an ethical implication of proper personal qualipoints out how in both Africa and Asia local practices,              ties or the suggestion of the cultivation and knowledge of a
> range of sensibilities and skills. In its plural form, adab
> especially as they pertain to land tenure, were mostly “reguacquired the meaning of rules of conduct, often specified for a
> lated by customary rules” (p. 261). These either compleparticular social or occupational group, like the aadaab (pl.) of
> mented shari
a or simply subsumed it. For instance, in the
> the legist or the prince. In addition, adab specified the
> Indian subcontinent this is illustrated in the popular “shari
a
> accomplishments that made one polished and urbane, an
> act of 1937” that was initially designed to cater to all Muslims
> expert in the arts not subsumed under the category of religin the region. However, as it turned out, a majority of
> ious learning. Often, in recent times, adab has meant simply
> Muslims preferred to be exempted from shari
a thus giving
> literature in the narrow sense.
> primacy to customary laws over the former.
> Underlying the concept of adab is a notion of discipline
> Finally, it can be concluded that social exigencies, espeand training, indicating as well the good breeding and refinecially in the sociocommercial spheres, have compelled a
> ment that results from such self-control and training. In all its
> majority of Muslim jurists, albeit reluctantly, to recognize         uses, adab reflects a high value placed on the employment of
> 
ada as a reliable legal tool. This recognition has come largely     the will in proper discrimination of correct order, behavior,
> through what these jurists normally refer to as “creative legal      and taste. The term implicitly or explicitly distinguishes
> devices.” In particular, it is through these creative legal tools,   cultivated behavior from that deemed vulgar, for example,
> of which custom is one of the central principles, that popular       from pre-Islamic custom. The term’s root sense of proper
> religious practices that would otherwise be rejected by shari
a      conduct and discrimination, of discipline, and moral forma-
> find acceptance. Thus maxims such as: “What is known                  tion, especially fostered in the Sufi tradition, has been brought
> through custom is legally binding” and “what is evident              to the fore in many modern reform movements. In that sense,
> through custom is as authentic as the text or shari
a” became        adab is often coupled with akhlaq (“manners,” “ethics”) and is
> acceptable principles in Islamic legal theory.                       now understood to be within the reach of ordinary people and
> not only educated or holy specialists.
> See also Africa, Islam in; American Culture and Islam;
> Law; South Asia, Islam in; Southeast Asian Culture                   See also Arabic Literature; Ethics and Social Issues.
> and Islam.
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                         Gabrieli, F. “Adab.” In Vol. 1, Encyclopedia of Islam. 2d ed.
> Coulson, Noel James. “Muslim Custom and Case Law.” In                  Leiden: Brill, 1960.
> Islamic Law and Legal Theory. Edited by Ian Edge. New              Metcalf, Barbara D., ed. Moral Conduct and Authority: The
> York: New York University Press, 1996.                               Place of Adab in South Asian Islam. Berkeley: University of
> Hallaq, Wael. A History of Islamic Legal Theories: An Introduc-        California Press, 1984.
> tion to Sunni Usul al-Fiqh. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge
> University Press, 1993.                                                                                       Barbara D. Metcalf
> 
> 12                                                                                               Islam and the Muslim World
> Africa, Islam in
> 
> political activist by accepting a post in the government of
> ADHAN                                                              Afghanistan. Over the next thirty years he traveled to or
> resided in Istanbul, Cairo, Paris, London, Tehran, and St.
> The adhan along with its abridged accompaniment, the iqama, is
> Petersburg, frequently being forced to relocate because of his
> an oral rite linked to mosques, daily prayer, sacred identity,
> reformist views and political activities. Afghani is commonly
> and birth rites. The adhan and the iqamah are usually called
> viewed as the nineteenth century’s chief ideologue of panoutside and inside mosques, respectively: The former signals
> Islamism. But his ideas, many of them expressed through the
> prayer times, and the latter the beginning of congregational
> journal al-
Urwa al-wuthqa (The firmest grip; a reference to
> prayer. The adhan given in public signals the presence of
> Quran 2:256, 31:22), which he copublished with Muham-
> Islam, and gives members of a largely decentralized faith a
> mad 
Abduh, never amounted to a coherent ideology. More
> sense of belonging. The adhan functions as a disjuncture
> than anything else, Afghani was driven by opposition to
> between the sacred and the profane, between the Friday
> European imperialism in Muslim countries, which he argued
> prayer, for instance, and the world of trade. It also distincould be fought only by a rejuvenation of Islamic culture.
> guishes Islam from other religions: When Muslims needed
> some means to announce the prayer, they asked for a horn, a        See also Reform: Arab Middle East and North Africa;
> Christian symbol, but were providentially directed to the          Pan-Islam.
> adhan, instead. Finally, the adhan is chanted into the right ear
> of a newborn and the iqama into the left ear.                      BIBLIOGRAPHY
> The adhan consists of invocations and attestations: Four        Hourani, Albert. Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age: 1798–1939.
> Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1983.
> glorify God, two attest to His Oneness, two attest to Muhammad being Messenger, two call to prayer, two call to success,      Keddie, Nikki R. An Islamic Response to Imperialism: Political
> two glorify God, and one declares His Oneness. The Shi
ites          and Religious Writings of Sayyid Jamal ad-Din “al-Afghani.”
> Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983.
> add: 
Ali is the friend of God, and prayer is the best of deeds.
> For a while some mosques in Europe replaced the muezzin
> who called the adhan with a tape recorder, while in Turkey, in                                                  Sohail H. Hashmi
> 1948, the government decreed that the adhan be given in
> Turkish. Both these efforts ultimately failed.
> 
> See also Devotional Life; Ibadat; Masjid.                         AFRICA, ISLAM IN
> Islam has an important past and present within Africa. It has
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> been present in Africa since the very early days of the faith,
> Parkin, David, and Headley, Stephen C., eds. Islamic Prayer        and it constitutes the practice of roughly half the population
> across the Indian Ocean: Inside and Outside the Mosque.
> of the continent, or some 250 million people. While most of
> Surrey, U.K.: Curzon, 2000.
> the Muslims live in the northern half, important communities
> can be found in South Africa, Malawi, and other parts of
> Muneer Goolam Fareed
> southern Africa. This history and this importance are often
> misunderstood in the West and in the Mediterranean centers
> of the Islamic world. Scholars and the intelligent lay public do
> AFGHANI, JAMAL AL-DIN                                              not naturally identify Africa with Islam.
> (1839–1897)                                                           Indeed, Africa is usually equated with sub-Saharan or
> “black” Africa in most definitions. Egypt and the Maghreb
> Jamal al-Din Afghani, one of the most influential Muslim            are lumped with the Middle East in the language of the
> reformers of the nineteenth century, was most likely born in       World Bank, U.S. State Department, and most ministries of
> Asadabad, Iran, into a Shi
ite family. Throughout his life,        foreign affairs, as well as in this encyclopedia. The defining
> however, he emphasized his Afghan ancestry, perhaps to             characteristic of Islam is often the Arabic language, as the first
> broaden his appeal to Sunni Muslims. Little concrete infor-        language of communication in the home, business, governmation is available about his early life, but he probably          ment, and the media, as well as identification with the Arab
> received a traditional Islamic education in Iran and Iraq.         world and thus the origins of Islam. This is not a clear
> During a visit to India around 1855, he was exposed to             definition, however, since Berber languages are still widely
> Western scientific and political thought for the first time. His     spoken in the Maghrib and the Sahara, while Arabic is spoken
> stay in India coincided with the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857 (the         by much of the Sudan and important minorities across sub-
> Indian revolt against the East India Company), and his             Saharan Africa.
> attitudes toward European and particularly British imperialism may have begun to form then. Around 1866, Afghani                This article focuses on sub-Saharan Africa and deals with
> began his peripatetic career as a Muslim intellectual and          Muslim societies rather than “Islam” in one area or another.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                      13
> Africa, Islam in
> 
> These societies, throughout history and to the present, dem-        able to coexist with Christians and other non-Muslim comonstrate all of the varieties of the faith that one might expect:   munities most of the time.
> orthodox practice, radicalism, Sufism, and many creative
> combinations with local, non-Islamic practices. Muslims in          Gateways of Islam in Africa
> Africa have practiced the jihad of the sword from time to           The History of Islam in Africa (2000) identifies two main
> time, but they have also demonstrated a great deal of toler-        “gateways” of Islamization in the continent. One is the East
> ance of other practices—“pagan,” Christian, and other. The          African coast, which became accessible to sailors and mer-
> Maliki school of law has traditionally been dominant in north       chants coming down the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, just as
> and west Africa, while the Shafi
ite pattern has prevailed           it had been for previous centuries for Southeast Asians. The
> along the Red Sea and the Swahili coast.                            other is Egypt, and by extension the Maghreb and the Sahara.
> 
> Northeast Africa                                                        The first Muslims on the East African coast followed in
> The earliest Muslim presence in Africa actually antedates the       the wake of a lot of other maritime travelers from the Near
> event known as the hijra, when Muhammad left Mecca for              East, South, and Southeast Asia. They used an old, well-
> Medina in 622 C.E. At a time when the Prophet was already           tested technology of sailing close to the coast, down the Red
> beginning to feel the hostility of his Meccan compatriots, he       Sea or the Persian Gulf, and then along the Indian Ocean.
> sent a large portion of his followers—about one hundred             Primarily Arab, they were interested in acquiring ivory, gold,
> according to the principal hadith—to the Christian emperor          other metals, leather goods, and some slaves. They interacted
> of Aksum (ancient Abyssinia), an important state in northeast       with the fishing and agricultural peoples along the coast who
> Africa, for safekeeping in 615 and 616 C.E. This is sometimes       spoke the language that today is called Swahili, which takes its
> called the first hijra. Muhammad called for this community to        name from the plural of sahil, and literally means “people of
> return after he established himself in Medina, and there is         the coast.” Over time, roughly the last one thousand years,
> little evidence of any ongoing Muslim group in Aksum or any         the Swahili language evolved to include a considerable Arabic
> other part of Ethiopia at this time. But the brief exile demon-     vocabulary, in addition to some Malay and other infusions,
> strates the presence at that time of Ethiopians, including          within a basic Bantu lexicon and language structure.
> Ethiopian Orthodox Christians, in Mecca and other areas
> around the Red Sea, as well as the good relations between the           The language was the basis for a culture, and both were
> early Arab Muslims and people in northeast Africa.                  built around small towns along the ocean, running about two
> thousand miles from Mogadishu in the north (today’s Somalia)
> Reasonably good ties continued after Muslim communi-            to Sofala in the south (today’s Mozambique). Most of the
> ties emerged in northeast Africa close to the Red Sea. Most of      towns were autonomous city-states, confined essentially to
> these communities lived in the lowland and eastern areas, but       islands or the coast, with very small hinterlands devoted to
> some spread into the mountainous region called Abyssinia,           farming. The inhabitants of these city-states were committed
> which was dominated by Aksum and then a series of other             to the vocations of agriculture, fishing, shipbuilding, and
> states that privileged Christianity and the Orthodox Church.        trade. They lived in the cosmopolitan world built around the
> Relations between the two faith communities worsened when           Indian Ocean and practiced Islam, but acknowledged local
> these states, with their Christian and Solomonic ideology,          gods and customs. The more wealthy Swahili often claimed
> expanded to the east in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries;      paternal origins among the Arabs or Persians. They used
> they executed many Muslims and forced the conversion of             Islamic forms in the architecture of their homes, as well as for
> others. Muslims responded to this in the movement led by            mosques and other public buildings. Many of them fulfilled
> Ahmad ibn Gran, a cleric and warrior from the coastal region        the pilgrimage obligation, which was easier to perform than
> in the sixteenth century. This conflict, often characterized by      from other parts of the African continent.
> the terms “crusade” and “jihad” in the registers of the two
> faiths, has often been taken as characteristic of Ethiopia and          The most prosperous period for the Swahili city-states ran
> the Horn of Africa. Hostile confrontations have certainly           roughly from 1250 to 1500 C.E. Lamu, located in an archipeloccurred: for example, cases of forced conversion of Muslims        ago along the northern coast of modern Kenya, Mombasa, a
> by expansive Christian emperors in the late nineteenth cen-         larger city on the southern coast, and Zanzibar, the island
> tury, or the conflict over the brief tenure of Lij Iyasu as          which forms part of Tanzania, were among the best-known
> Menilik’s successor as emperor of Ethiopia between 1913 and         and most active cities. The most prosperous was probably
> 1916. Lij Iyasu came from a family that included both               Kilwa, an island off the southern coast of Tanzania. It was tied
> Muslims and Christians, and he sought to bring some Mus-            in to the interior trade, including the commerce in gold that
> lims into positions in his brief government. He failed because      tapped into the old Zimbabwe states.
> of his own inexperience, the strong Christian and church
> predilections of the court, and the conflict between the Axis           The main location of the Swahili language, culture, and
> and Allies during World War I. But Ethiopia’s population            people, and of the practice of Islam, was concentrated on this
> today is close to 50 percent Muslim, and Muslims have been          East African littoral until very recent times. Most of the
> 
> 14                                                                                              Islam and the Muslim World
> Africa, Islam in
> 
> 0          200     400 mi.
> Algiers
> 0     200 400 km                          Tanjah       Ceuta                              Tunis
> Med
> iterr
> anea
> Suilmasa                                 Tripoli                     n Sea
> 30°N                                                                                                 Benghazi
> Alexandria
> 
> Asyût
> Asy
> 
> Aswan
> 
> 20°N
> 
> Re
> Nile
> 
> d
> Bilma
> 
> Se
> R.
> 
> a
> G h a n a                                            Agades
> 
> R.
> g er
> Ni
> ba
> n   ga
> 10°N                             Ka
> 
> Benin                   A F      R      I   C    A
> 
> go R.
> Con
> 10°W
> 0°
> 
> Islam in Africa
> N
> Earliest centers of
> Islamic activity
> Routes of penetration
> of Islam
> Trans-Saharan
> trade routes
> River routes
> Other city                     10°S
> 
> 0°                         10°E
> 
> Islam penetration routes into Africa. XNR PRODUCTIONS, INC./GALE
> 
> Muslims were Sunni, but some belonged to the Kharijite                                           interior who were largely non-Muslim. The spread of Islam
> persuasion through their connections with Oman, a small                                          into the interior, and of the Swahili language and culture, did
> state at the southeastern end of the Arabian peninsula. The                                      not begin until the late eighteenth century, under the impetus
> literate elite, and especially the “professional” Muslims, un-                                   of Omani Arabs, who made Zanzibar their base. The Omani
> derstood and wrote Arabic, but Islam was typically taught                                        sultans controlled a significant portion of the Swahili region
> orally through Swahili explanations. The recourse to expla-                                      in what we could today call Tanzania and Kenya, primarily
> nation in the local language was common practice through-                                        for commercial reasons. They continued to trade in ivory and
> out Africa and many parts of the Islamic world. Beginning                                        gold, but now added a significant commerce in slaves. Some
> about three hundred years ago some scholars and writers                                          were sent to the Middle East and South Asia, while others
> began to adapt the Arabic alphabet to the language, and                                          were used at the coast to produce cloves and grain for export.
> thereby create a written or 
ajami literature alongside the                                      The Zanzibari system resulted in more active contact beolder oral one. The written corpus contained the same                                            tween coast and hinterland, and the spread of Islam and the
> stories, chronicles, and poetry as the one that had been                                         Swahili culture to the entrepôts and towns of the interior.
> transmitted orally down the generations.
> These networks laid the basis for the widespread practice
> The Swahili Muslims did not emphasize the spread of                                          of Islam in East Africa in the nineteenth and twentieth
> Islam into the interior, by preaching, colonization, or the                                      centuries. The main agents of islamization were merchants
> military jihad. They were generally content to practice their                                    and teachers, not the reform-minded scholars who became so
> faith, ply their trades, and interact with the people of the                                     prominent in West Africa. The Omanis themselves were
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                                                         15
> Africa, Islam in
> 
> A mud brick mosque in Timbuktu, Mali, built in the European medieval period. Timbuktu was founded by a nomadic tribe called the Tuareg,
> who only kept loose control of it. Eventually, it became a part of the Muslim empire of Sudan, and functioned as a major trading post that
> connected North Africa with West Africa and thereby facilitated the spread of Islam. © WOLFGANG KAEHLER/CORBIS
> 
> Kharijites, but most of the older Swahili communities as well          became very important in the Saharan and sub-Saharan
> as many of the slaves were Sunni. Relations across these               interior of West Africa from an early time, and for many
> doctrinal lines were not difficult. The jihadic tradition re-           centuries was the motor force of Islamic practice.
> mained a minor theme, except when it came to resistance to
> European domination.                                                      North Africans often called sub-Saharan Africa the Bilad
> al-Sudan, the “land of the blacks.” Geographers and histori-
> The “Egyptian” or North African gateway is usually                 ans have used this term and divided it into western, central
> emphasized in treatments of islamization in Africa. The                and eastern portions. The eastern or Nile section corre-
> Saharan region obviously marked the “entrance” to sub-                 sponds to the modern nation of Sudan, while the western
> Saharan Africa. It was not an obstacle to trading caravans, but        portion corresponds to most of the West African Sahel.
> it was to armies. Indeed, there is only one example—the
> Moroccan expedition of 1591—of a military force success-                   The greatest amount of literature about Islamic practice,
> fully crossing the desert and winning victories on the south-          generated by internal and external observers, deals with the
> ern side. Arabs used the expression sahil or “coast” to apply to       West African region. Scholars have used this material to
> the two edges of the desert. The Arab and Berber Muslims of            create a threefold pattern of islamization. Islam was first a
> North Africa established networks of trade on both sides of            minority religion, practiced essentially by traders; it then
> the desert and rhythms of caravan trade that resembled the             became the practice of Muslim courts; and finally, either by
> movement of ships along the Indian Ocean coast of East                 processes of military jihad or Sufi orders, or both, it became
> Africa. By 1000 it is possible to identify indigenous as well as       the practice of those living in the rural areas, farmers and
> North African Muslim communities in the towns of West                  pastoralists. It was at this point that it became the dominant
> Africa connected to the trans-saharan trading networks. In             religion, in the last two to three centuries. This formula can
> contrast to the pattern in East Africa, merchant capital               be useful, if it is applied selectively and discretely to the
> 
> 16                                                                                                   Islam and the Muslim World
> Africa, Islam in
> 
> different parts of the Sahel and to areas further south in the     this belt, along the Swahili coast, and in the East African
> continent.                                                         interior. Sufi practice was not challenged by reform movements, akin to the Salafiyya or the Wahhabiyya, until the
> The eastern Sudan or Sahel, what is called the Sudan           mid-twentieth century.
> today, is something of an exception to this rule. Adjacent to
> the Nile River, it lay along a natural axis of advance from            Indeed, Sufism was the principal vehicle by which Islamic
> Egypt to the south. Egyptian travelers and armies, whether in      practice spread from city to countryside in the Sudan or
> ancient or Islamic times, had often advanced up the Nile,          Sahel. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries it was
> and communities in the region sometimes returned the fa-           accompanied by reform movements, led by scholars who
> vor. Once the Muslims had established control of Egypt,            increasingly complained of the lax, mixed, or corrupt practice
> they confronted the Nubian kingdoms that had adopted               of the faith in the cities, courts, and countryside. Increasingly
> Monophysite or Orthodox forms of Christianity as the state         these scholars, usually with Sufi affiliations of their own,
> religion in earlier centuries. Muslims and Christians then         resorted to the jihad of the sword and led military movements
> worked out a pact, called baqt, by which the weaker Christian      to replace the regimes that they criticized. The most successstates paid a small tribute and allowed trade through their        ful of these movements, in terms of its breadth, depth, and
> areas in exchange for noninterference in their affairs. This       literary heritage, was the one led by 
Uthman dan Fodio in
> arrangement endured for several centuries. It was endan-           Hausaland in the early nineteenth century. It resulted in the
> gered by the limited participation of some Nubian armies in        Sokoto Caliphate, a regime that dominated most of the
> the European-led Crusades of the twelfth century, and finally       northern part of Nigeria as well as the southern fringe of
> ended by the Mamluks in the fifteenth century. After this           today’s Niger. Many Muslims of northern Nigeria today see
> period Arabic became the dominant language of the northern         the caliphate as a kind of social charter for the present day and
> Nile valley and the lingua franca of the wider region.             have pushed for the establishment of shari
a (Islamic law).
> 
> West African Patterns                                                  The strongest fusion of Sufi identity and militant reform
> In the western and central Sudan the process was different.        came in the mid-nineteenth century with the mobilization led
> The early Muslim communities were merchants who lived in           by Umar Tal, a scholar and pilgrim whose origins were in
> good relations with and on the sufferance of non-Muslim            Senegal. Umar made the pilgrimage to Mecca, was initiated
> courts. These early Muslims were Arab and Berber but they          into the highest ranks of the Tijaniyya order by a Moroccan
> were soon joined by Soninke, Mandinka, and other commu-            in Medina, and returned to West Africa in the 1830s to
> nities of local origin. By the time of the empire of Mali (fl.      pursue a career of teaching and writing. In 1852, however,
> 1200–1400), some ruling classes had adopted Islam, although        after some campaigns of recruitment, he launched a jihad of
> not necessarily to the exclusion of local or “ethnic” religious    the sword against the non-Muslim states of the Upper and
> practices. Mali in particular is remembered for the pilgrimage     Middle Niger and the Upper Senegal Rivers. He particularly
> of Mansa Musa in 1324 and for the visit that Ibn Battuta paid      targeted the Bambara Kingdom of Segu, which he defeated in
> to the court of his brother and successor, Mansa Sulayman, in      1860 and 1861. He also had some encounters with the French
> 1352 and 1353. The court of the Songhay Empire (fl. c.              and an expansive governor named Faidherbe in Senegal, and
> 1450–1591) is also remembered for adherence to Islam.              this has given him and his Tijaniyya affiliation an aura of
> Indeed, Askiya Muhammad (1493–1528) is remembered not              resistance to European conquest. At the end of his life Umar
> just for his pilgrimage but also for his discussions with the      attacked the Muslim state of Masina or Hamdullahi, princifamous jurisconsult al-Maghili and for some serious efforts to     pally because of their aid for the “pagan” Bambara of Segu.
> spread the faith in the Niger Buckle (the area around Timbuktu     This conflict between two Muslim armies and communities,
> and Gao) in the early years of his reign. The state of Bornu, in   both of Pulaar or Fulbe culture, caused great consternation in
> the area of Lake Chad in the central Sudan, is remembered          the West African Islamic world. It also led to Umar’s death in
> for an early adoption of Islam at the court as well as for its     1864 and to the premature limitation of the ambitious movelongevity (about one thousand years, into the nineteenth           ment that he launched.
> century).
> The greatest expansion of Islam in sub-Saharan Africa
> In the last 250 years Islam has spread much more widely        took place in the colonial period, particularly under the
> throughout northern Africa thanks to Sufi orders and reform         overrule of the British in Nigeria and the Sudan and the
> movements. The oldest order was the Qadiriyya, but its             French through most of the old western and central Sudan. In
> network for some time consisted principally of an elite group      these instances Islam provided an alternative tradition to the
> of scholars across the Sudan, the Sahara, and North Africa. A      secular or Christian identities of the rulers and the mission-
> Qadiriyya revival and spread in the late eighteenth century        aries who typically accompanied them. It has often meant
> was followed by rivalry with the Tijaniyya and other orders        closer approximation to the styles of dress, architecture, and
> with strong bases in North Africa and the Holy Cities. The         roles of women characteristic of the Middle East. Europeans
> competition increased in the nineteenth century, all across        rulers, on the other hand, sought to develop institutions and
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                      17
> Africa, Islam in
> 
> practices for dealing with their Muslim subjects. They co-         of the prosperity they brought through trade. They were not
> opted portions of the Islamic legal and educational systems,       about to try transforming the Dar al-kufr in which they lived
> tried to control the pilgrimage, and sought to create “colo-       into a Dar al-Islam.
> nial” forms of Islam. The best-known creation was Islam noir,
> the “black Islam,” which was supposed to characterize French           Over time the juula colonies developed a theological
> rationale for their relations with non-Muslim ruling classes
> West Africa. The European colonial authorities often styled
> and subjects on the basis of the teachings of Suwari. He made
> themselves as “Muslim powers” and made comparisons with
> the pilgrimage to Mecca several times and devoted his intelpractices in India, Indonesia, and other areas.
> lectual career to reflection upon the situation of Muslim
> By the time of independence in most sub-Saharan coun-          minorities. Drawing upon Middle Eastern jurists and theolotries in the 1960s, Muslim communities had established             gians, he reformulated the obligations of the faithful. Muscloser ties with the faithful in the Middle East, and particu-     lims must nurture their own learning and piety, and thereby
> larly in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. The centrality of these areas,    furnish good examples to the non-Muslims who lived around
> combined with the pilgrimage and institutions such as Al-          them. They could accept the jurisdiction of non-Muslim
> Azhar University, encouraged this process. At the same time        authorities, as long as they had the necessary protection and
> conditions to practice the faith. In this position Suwari
> the Arab Muslim communities made significant human and
> followed a strong predilection in Islamic thought for any
> material investments in sub-Saharan Africa. This investment
> government, albeit non-Muslim or tyrannical, as opposed to
> stimulated some criticism of Sufi and other African Muslim
> none. The military jihad was a resort only if the faithful were
> practices, particularly in the Sudan, Nigeria, and adjacent
> threatened. In essence, Suwari esteemed that God would
> areas. In other regions the “Arab” and Saudi influence was
> bring non-Muslims to convert in His own time, and it was not
> not as pronounced, and patterns such as the “maraboutic” (a
> the responsibility of the Muslim minorities to decide when
> synonym for a cleric, derived from the term “almoravid”)
> ignorance or unbelief would give way to faith.
> domination of Islam characteristic of Senegal were maintained.
> In practice, of course, the Muslims and non-Muslims did
> The Suwarian Pattern                                               not function in isolation. Across the many times and places of
> One of the most intriguing and original creations of Muslims       the woodlands and forest, they were in constant contact with
> in Africa is the Suwarian tradition. This term, coined by the      each other, and conceived of the relationship as two estates:
> historian Ivor Wilks, goes back to a certain Al-Hajj Salim         the merchant estate, which was Muslim, and the ruling
> Suwari, a learned cleric from the Middle Niger region who          classes, which were “pagan” or at least “ignorant” from the
> lived around 1500. The Suwarian tradition expresses the            standpoint of Islam. But the ruling classes typically esteemed
> rationale used by Muslims who lived as minorities in “pagan”       the merchants and their religion, and sought the baraka or
> regions, particularly the communities of merchants who             blessing that Muslims might bring to the political realm. This
> originally left the western Sudan for regions of woodland and      esteem was reflected in a number of ways, for example, in the
> forest to the south, in search of gold and other items of trade.   demand for amulets produced by clerics for their “pagan”
> This began in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, when        hosts. A British traveler in the early nineteenth century,
> the Empire of Mali was at its height and sent out colonies of      Joseph Dupuis, gives an account of this demand in the
> traders, juula, who retained their ties with the state, the        Kingdom of Asante (today’s Ghana) in his Journal of a
> Mandinka language, and their Muslim identity. It continued         Residence in Ashantee:
> into the twentieth century.
> 
> Juula came to be an ethnic, linguistic, and religious desig-      The talismanic charms fabricated by the Muslims, it is
> nation for these people, who typically lived in demarcated            well known, are esteemed efficacious according to the
> various powers they are supposed to possess, and here
> neighborhoods within the main commercial towns and oris a source of great emolument, as the article is in public
> ganized trade between the forest areas of the south and the
> demand from the palace to the slave’s hut; for every
> Sahel to the north. They left the realm of “politics” to their        man (not by any means exempting the Muslims) wears
> local hosts. They constituted a Muslim minority within a              them strung around the neck. . . . Some are accounted
> non-Muslim majority, corresponding to the first “phase” of             efficacious for the cure of gunshot wounds, others for
> islamization mentioned above. They worshiped, educated                the thrust or laceration of steel weapons, and the
> their children, distributed their property, and in almost every       poisoned barbs of javelins, or arrows. Some, on the
> respect conducted their lives as would Muslims anywhere in            other hand, are esteemed to possess the virtue of
> Africa or the rest of the world. They were no less learned nor        rendering the wearer invulnerable in the field of battle,
> and hence are worn as a preservative against the casualpious than believers elsewhere, and they did not compromise
> ties of war.
> their faith. But they could not afford to, and generally did not
> want to, change the religious identities of their hosts, who          Besides this class of charms, they have other cabalistic
> welcomed their presence and accorded them favors because              scraps for averting the evil of natural life: These may
> 
> 18                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> African Culture and Islam
> 
> also be subdivided into separate classes; some, for           under increasing criticism in the last two centuries from
> instance, are specific nostrums in certain diseases of the     movements of reform and the closer integration of subhuman frame, some for their prevention, and some are          Saharan Africa with the Middle East.
> calculated either to ward off any impending stroke of
> fortune, or to raise the proprietor to wealth, happiness      See also Ahmad Ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi; Ahmad Ibn Idris;
> and distinction. (London, 1824, 1966, appendix, page xi)      Hajj Salim Suwari, al-; Suyut, al-; Tariqa; Zar.
> 
> The relationship between leading merchants and rulers is      BIBLIOGRAPHY
> captured well in another passage from the same author, in the    Abun-Nasr, Jamil. The Tijaniyya. A Sufi Order in the Modern
> same kingdom. Merchants, clerics, and rulers were all resi-        World. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 1965.
> dents of the same city, Kumasi, the capital of Asante. The       Brenner, Louis. West African Sufi. The Religious Heritage and
> speaker here is the head of the local Muslim community, and         Spiritual Search of Cerno Bokar Saalif Tall. London:
> he talks of his role with the Muslim estate, mainly through         Hurst, 1984.
> education, and his ties to the power structure:                  Brenner, Louis. Controlling Knowledge. Religion, Power and
> Schooling in a West African Muslim Society. London:
> Hurst, 2001.
> “When I was a young man,” said the Bashaw (Pasha), “I
> Clarke, Peter. West Africa and Islam. London: Edward
> worked for the good of my body. I traded on the face of
> Arnold, 1982.
> God’s earth, and traveled much. As my beard grew
> strong [I became older] I settled at Salgha [a trading        Cooper, Barbara. Marriage in Maradi: Gender and Culture in a
> center] and lastly removed to this city. I was still but an     Hausa Society in Niger, 1900–1989. London: Heinemann
> indifferent student [of Islam] when, God be praised, a          and Currey, 1997.
> certain teacher from the north was sent to me by a            Cruise O’Brien, Donal. The Mourides of Senegal. Oxford,
> special direction, and that learned saint taught me the         U.K.: Oxford University Press, 1971.
> truth. So that now my beard is white, and I cannot
> Dupuis, Joseph. Journal of a Residence in Ashantee (1824).
> travel as before, [but] I am content to seek the good of
> London: Frank Cass, 1966.
> my soul in a state of future reward. My avocations at
> Kumasi are several, but my chief employment is a              Hiskett, Mervyn. The Development of Islam in West Africa.
> school which I have endowed, and which I preside over            London: Longman, 1984.
> myself. God has compassionated my labors [i.e., made          Last, D. Murray. The Sokoto Caliphate. London: Humanities
> them prosper], and I have about 70 pupils and converts           Press, 1967.
> at this time.
> Levtzion, Nehemia, and Hopkins, J. F. P. Corpus of Early
> Besides this, the king’s heart is turned towards me, and        Arabic Sources for West African History. Cambridge, U.K.:
> I am a favored servant. Over the Muslims I rule as qadi,        Cambridge University Press, 1981.
> conformably to our law. I am also a member of the             Levtzion, Nehemia, and Pouwels, Randall, eds. The History of
> king’s council in affairs relating to the believers of          Islam in Africa. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2000.
> Sarem and Dagomba [areas to the north with signifi-            Mazrui, Ali, and Shariff, Ibrahim. The Swahili: Idiom of an
> cant Muslim populations].” (Dupuis, p. 97)                      African People. Trenton, N.J.: Africa World History, 1994.
> Robinson, David. The Holy War of Umar Tal. The Western
> The Suwarian tradition was a realistic rationale for Mus-       Sudan in the Mid-Nineteenth Century. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford
> University Press, 1985.
> lims living in the woodland and forest regions of West Africa
> in the last five or six centuries. It suggests the kinds of       Robinson, David. Paths of Accommodation. Muslim Societies and
> positions which many Muslims throughout the world have             French Colonial Authorities in Senegal and Mauritania, 1880
> taken when they found themselves in situations of inferior         to 1920. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2000.
> numbers and force, took advantage of their networks for
> trade, and enjoyed generally good relations with the local                                                    David Robinson
> authorities because of the goods and prosperity that they
> could attract.
> 
> Some Muslims have searched for wisdom and inspira-            AFRICAN CULTURE AND ISLAM
> tion within African societies. They have established links
> with indigenous healing practices, divination systems, and       Islam, an Afro-Asiatic faith, has long been known to be a
> cosmologies. They have created worlds of mediating spirits       religion of great synthesis that has interacted with local
> and possession cults, such as the bori of Hausaland or the       cultures, enriching them and being enriched by them. It has
> gnawa of Morocco. These fused religious worlds have come         impacted on African society in various ways for almost a
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                 19
> African Culture and Islam
> 
> millennium, if not longer, adding to the fabric of these           put it, for the African, the ethnic group is the matrix in which
> cultures.                                                          his religion takes shape, the meaning of myth communicated,
> and a person’s sacramental relation to nature experienced.
> Spread of Islam in Africa                                          This means that when the symbols of the ethnic group are
> Islam made its presence felt in much of Africa (the East coast     challenged by a new system, recombination of old and new
> and Horn of Africa as well as West Africa) mainly through          forms may appear to reorganize the group and to compensate
> trade and migration. In West Africa, for instance, Islam was       for any loss. More specifically, becoming a Muslim and
> introduced from North Africa by the Berbers through the            joining this universal umma involves offering prayers in a
> trans-Saharan trade as early as the ninth century. Later,          mosque frequented by members of other ethnic groups,
> trading networks developed among local African groups such         adoption of Muslim behavior patterns and dress code in some
> as the Mande (Dyula/Wangara) whose area of operation               cases, and using a certain language (e.g., for quite a long time
> spanned a wide area extending from as far west as Senegal to       Kiswahili in the case of East Africa). The Kano Chronicle, a
> northern Nigeria in the east. This trade network, or diaspora,     record of Hausa kings of sixteenth or seventeenth century
> was closely associated with the diffusion of Islamic studies,      inspiration first written down in the nineteenth century
> including mysticism in the later centuries, and enabled Islam      whose sources were largely oral, brings out clearly the strugto penetrate peacefully beyond the Sahel—the semiarid re-          gle between the two religious systems, the Islamic and the
> gion of African between the Sahara and the savannahs—into          traditional one, after the symbolic tree is cut down and a
> the savannah area. In the coastal trading communities of East      mosque built in its place.
> Africa the process of interaction between the Middle Eastern
> immigrants, mainly south Arabians, and the dominant Afri-          Indigenous Culture and Islam
> can groups created a new urban ethos in which Islam blended        The old forms and symbols of the indigenous system are
> with the indigenous local culture to produce Swahili Islam.        often not discarded but retrieved and reinforced and recast in
> The cross-cultural trade in many parts of Africa, apart from       a new form. In the artistic and architectural domains, for
> reinforcing cultural self-identity and nurturing religious com-    instance, there has been a unique blending of Islamic strucmitment, fostered a pluralist structure in which commerce,         ture and African representation. Once a balance had been
> Islam, and the indigenous system supported the urban net-          reached between the local religious practices and the univerwork. In this way a balance was established between local          sal ritual prescriptions of Islam the next step was to cast the
> ritual prescriptions and those of universal Islam.                 imagery and iconography of African ancestral pillars, shrines,
> and so on into Islamized form. Where Islam was introduced
> Islam in Africa therefore was primarily an urban religion      such items as charms, amulets, certain types of clothing, and
> (with an urban ethos) that fostered commitment to its relig-       prestige goods were incorporated into local societies. More
> ious system ranging from ethnic self-identity to Islamic self-     importantly, the local altar-shrine was transformed into the
> identity, universal and transethnic in scope. Islamic penetra-     mosque in such a way that the physical configuration repretion in the rural areas, on the other hand, made piecemeal         sented a qualitative leap into verticality. Thus, as Labelle
> infiltration over a long period of time with significant gains       Prussin notes, the single, towering pyramidal earthen cone
> awaiting a much later period. The religion therefore entered       became the mihrab (it also served as a minaret) with its system
> much of Africa peacefully through the agency of trade and          of projecting wooden pickets extending out of this massive
> later gained status after the migrant community (purveyors of      structure. The ends of these wooden pickets served as a
> the written word and the visual symbols of Islam) was inte-        scaffold for workers to climb and repair the walls. The
> grated into the political setup before finally the ruling elite     ancestral conical structure pillar (the Voltaic tradition) was
> embraced the faith and appropriated its symbols for political      now redirected to a new focal center, that of Mecca. In certain
> purposes.                                                          cases, as Prussin and Rene Bravmann have observed, some of
> the mosques that were built in Mali had mihrabs that evoked
> The intensity of Islam varied from one region of Africa to     the image of an African mask (which traditionally represents
> another and was influenced by a number of factors, including        powerful forces). This is how the mosques were constructed
> the length of interaction between Islam and the traditional        by the Mande of West Africa with Islam clearly inspiring the
> religion, the compatibility or incompatibility of the worldviews   use of certain architectural features in the spatial configuraof the two religious systems, and the level of resilience of the   tion. The Islamic architectural tradition (mediated through
> indigenous integrative symbols to sustain traditional struc-       the Maghrebian heritage) in turn inspired the architectural
> tures of the local religion. Islam has its written scripture, a    imagery or style represented by the thatched domes of the
> prescribed ritual, a historical and systematized myth, and a       Senegal-Guinea area for mosques and maraboutic (referring
> supra-ethnic religious identity. Its interaction with African      to a Muslim scholar or saint in North Africa or parts of West
> traditional religions is therefore governed by the tension         Africa) shrines following the example of the domed cities of
> between its supra-ethnic universality of its umma and the          Tripoli and Cairo. Islamic-type designs were also emulated
> ethnocentrism of African traditional religion. As Dean Gilland     and led to the adoption of arabesque wall patterning instead
> 
> 20                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> African Culture and Islam
> 
> This was the period when the learned Muslims, as in West
> African kingdoms, played a key role in administration and
> diplomacy. Eventually, however, a number of these African
> rulers adopted Islam and in doing so may partly have undermined the basis of their legitimacy as guardians of African
> ancestral religious traditions. Nevertheless, they did not
> completely renounce ties with the African traditional religion, which continued to be the religion of many of their
> subjects. This arrangement assisted in maintaining order
> although it did not please some West African Sufi leaders of
> the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries who launched their
> jihads (reform movements) of Islamic revivalism (some of
> which had mahdist/messianic overtones) to establish Islamic
> states. The theme of Islamic revivalism will be discussed later.
> 
> Colonialism
> Colonialism facilitated the growth of Islam in areas of Africa
> as far apart as Tanzania (Tanganyika) in East Africa and
> Senegal in West Africa through the activities of Muslim
> brotherhoods (Sufi orders), traders, and others. For some
> African groups the loss of power with the onset of colonial
> rule made them gravitate toward Islam, which was seen as an
> alternative to the prevailing colonial order. The difficulties of
> a new life under the colonial system, which uprooted the
> African from his traditional universe, presented Islam with an
> opportunity to provide a new framework as meaningful and
> all-embracing as the old African one. This, for instance,
> A mud brick mosque in Mopti, Mali, in Northwest Africa. Africa is   happened with Amadou Bamba’s Murid brotherhood in
> home to more than one billion Muslims. © CHARLES AND JOSETTE        Senegal, which converted thousands of people whose earthly
> LENARS/CORBIS                                                       kingdoms had been destroyed by colonialism. In 1888 Bamba
> established Touba/Tubaa as a great holy city (some say) to
> rival Mecca, and he was buried there in 1927. Every year
> of the attached African charms. This calligraphy allowed for a
> hundreds of thousands of his followers visit his tomb on the
> new system of spatial organization. More than this, Islamic
> anniversary of his death. For the uprooted African who joined
> script was used in decorative ways even in non-Muslim areas
> such as modern-day Ghana, where in the nineteenth century           the faith, the Muslim supra-ethnic umma provided a solidarthe Asantehene, head of the Asante confederacy, wore clothes        ity and a sense of belonging not very different from that of the
> with Arabic writing in various colors. Islam had clearly            African village/ethnic one. Moreover, while the Islamic pre-
> filtered through Asante politicoreligious structure such that        scriptions replaced the indigenous ones, in matters of worboth in terms of ideas and in the realm of the arts it provided a   ship, however, the Muslim ritual prayer did not completely
> medium through which the ideology of the Asante was                 dislodge the traditional rituals of seeking to appease the
> communicated.                                                       ancestors. In fact, the Muslim religious leaders and teachers
> came to perform the same kind of role as the African healers
> Islam, which for many centuries coexisted well with tradi-      and medicine men in curving out the domain of popular
> tional African religion, gradually over time attempted to           religion.
> replace it as the dominant faith of some regions without
> major clashes. What made this possible was the fact that the        Indigenization of Islam
> Islamic faith was much more adaptable in Africa with very           Yet, despite Muslim efforts to purge African elements from
> minimal requirements for new members who at the very least          their faith, their religion continued to display a level of
> were expected to change their names after reciting the testi-       “Africanness” that revealed the indigenization of Islam in
> mony of faith. The observance of Islamic duties along with          these regions of West Africa. How else would one explain the
> the understanding of the faith were supposed to follow later.       continued presence of, for instance, the bori cult in northern
> For the first generation of Muslims, introduction to Islamic         Nigeria? There, women tend to follow the traditional cults
> cultural values was what came first whereas Islamization itself      even with the sustained impact of Islam in Hausaland for
> could take generations to realize. At this level there was          centuries, including producing such well-known major religaccommodation to social and political structures of authority.      ious Fulani reformers of the nineteenth century such as
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                       21
> African Culture and Islam
> 
> Shaykh 
Uthman dan Fodio? There must be a level of affinity         acknowledging the entanglements and creative encounters
> between the two religious systems that allows this to happen.      between and within cultures? It remains to be seen what the
> For instance, the belief in mystical powers (jinn/invisible        outcome of this clash will be. It is clear though that underlysupernatural creatures) allows Islam to be accommodated to         ing the conflict between them are struggles for power and
> the African spirit world that is so important to understanding     control of the Muslim community by these competing groups.
> the African religious universe. In fact, the ancestral beliefs
> have been recombined with Muslim practice to form a new            Gender and Islam in Africa
> “folk” religion with emphasis on, say, saint veneration (which     What type of cultural interface has taken place between Islam
> and Africa in the area of gender relations? More specifically,
> popular Islam and Sufism reinforce) that approximates local
> what has been the role of Islam with respect to the status of
> ancestor veneration.
> women in the regions of Africa where Islam has been intro-
> The practice of curing illnesses attributed to occult forces   duced? Did Islam introduce patriarchy in Africa? Many
> provided an opportunity for the Muslim healing system to           African societies were patriarchal (polygamous as well) even
> flourish and allowed for the services of Muslim healers/holy        before their encounter with Islam. Nevertheless, where Islam
> men (who provided additional healing choices to local practi-      was introduced and its values incorporated in the socioecotioners) to be in high demand. The appearance of new               nomic and political structures of these societies (especially
> epidemic diseases such as smallpox and cholera, which arose        those with a propensity for state/empire building) a hierarin the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in hinterland East       chical social organization resulted in which there were clear
> Africa (and which the local people could not adequately deal       demarcations of male and female spheres of activity. This, of
> with), led the people to turn increasingly to the Muslim           course, did vary from society to society. For instance, the
> healing system. Muslim prayers and amulets were more               Yoruba women of southwestern Nigeria continued to be
> market women even after the coming of Islam whereas their
> popular than Muslim secular remedies in this atmosphere of
> Hausa counterparts in northern Nigeria tended to lead more
> suspicion (which took the form of sorcery and witchcraft
> secluded lives. It is significant to note that the Mahdiyya
> accusations). Apart from the fact that Muslim amulets were
> movement, which was established in 1941 in Ijebul-Ode in
> believed to embody the words of the Supreme Being and not
> southern Nigeria by the southern Muslim scholar, Muhamthat of the intermediary powers (making them therefore
> mad Jumat Imam, emphasized the education of women, their
> more potent, as the Asante believed), Muslim literacy played
> attendance of mosques together with men, and their inclua role as a potential source of healing. Furthermore, Sufi
> sion in public affairs (hence no Quranic basis for the practice
> masters who had attained a closeness to God through followof purdah, or female seclusion. By way of comparison, among
> ing the path of spiritual enlightenment were believed to have
> the Tuareg-Berbers of the Sahara (who tend to be matriarspecial powers that made their prayers efficacious. This
> chal) their unveiled women continued to enjoy far more
> baraka (blessing power that heals) was passed on in families
> freedom of movement than their Arab counterparts in
> and explains why the scholarly Sufi lineages of the Sahara
> North Africa.
> have played a pivotal role in mediating Islam between North
> and West Africa.                                                      The Sufi dhikr (chant) practices and the spirit possession
> cults (bori among Hausas in West Africa and zar in Ethiopia
> While the influence of the tariqa (Sufi orders) has been          and Sudan) have offered women possibilities for autonomous
> undermined to some extent in some parts of Africa such as          spiritual expression and for creation of networks of mutual
> Tanzania, the commitment to Sufistic engagement with faith          support. Mysticism in particular has opened the room for the
> nevertheless continues to be strong in West Africa and             acceptance of female authority (for instance, Sokna Magat
> especially in Senegal, although even there it is facing the        Diop of the Murids) or religious leadership located within the
> challenge of the Salafi reformers. Sufism, far from being a          female realm. Moreover, the Qadiriyya order accepted the
> predominantly rural phenomenon that would fade away as             female leadership of Shaykha Binti Mtumwa (a former slave
> Muslim societies became increasingly modernized, has con-          or person of low status) who founded a branch of the order in
> tinued to thrive and to engage African Muslims of the urban        Malawi and was successful in attracting many women. Therecenters as well. Yet for some educated young African Muslims       fore, both possession cults and Sufi brotherhoods have alwho are discomfited by magical practices, saint veneration,         lowed women to establish a sphere of action in hierarchical
> hierarchy, and the authoritarianism of some Sufi orders, the        societies where control of the state is a male domain. These
> Salafi message has seemed attractive.                               orders have incorporated women in both East and West
> Africa, especially in the area of education, fund raising, and
> The Salafi reform is itself at some level quite conservative    the like, although women have a much larger scope in Senegal
> and traditional; to the extent that this is true, Salafi reform     than in Nigeria in leadership of brotherhoods.
> and Sufi traditionalism are constantly engaged in an overlapping movement of interaction. Will they creatively synthe-            During the period of economic hardships in the last
> size from the values of their common Islamic heritage while        several decades, issues of cultural authenticity have become
> 
> 22                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> African Culture and Islam
> 
> rooted in Islamic identity in opposition to what has been          Muslim judges to apply Islamic civil and family law except in
> perceived as Western cultural domination. These women              criminal matters, which were tried by European courts. In the
> reject Western feminism, which they see as an extension of         postcolonial period the scope of Islamic law, where it is
> Western cultural domination worldwide, a domination that           applied, is limited to religious issues and civil cases; the
> makes Western values and ideas be the normative values that        modern trend, with its emphasis on equal rights of citizens, is
> everyone else should strive for. The role of these women has       to have laws that apply across the board without recognizing
> expanded as liberalization of the political process and the        any distinctions based on religion or gender.
> emergence of multiparty politics have led them to establish
> organizations and to embrace a particular agenda, including            Recognition of Islamic laws in many African states after
> the Muslim dress code, and involvement in cultural politics.       independence has created tensions and political controversy
> The Islamists and radical reformist activists are engaged in       especially when the secular elites have sought to forge a
> contesting existing gender relations and social justice. They      uniform system of law or at least have attempted to modify
> use the text (scripture) as their framework whereas the secular    Muslim personal law (in aspects such as marriage for girls) to
> activists’ frame of reference is based on certain abstract         bring it in line with the inherited Western law and African
> concepts such as egalitarianism, humanism, human rights,           customary practices. There has been a wide variety of reand pluralism, concepts that have emerged from Western             sponses to the dilemma of how much scope to give to
> discourses on the subject.                                         religious laws. Mozambique, for instance, has made attempts
> to recognize traditional and religious marriages (thus doing
> The roles of men and women are constantly changing due          the basic minimum) whereas Sudan has made shari
a the law
> to urbanization, education, and cross-cultural contacts. For       of the land. The call by Muslim groups in northern Nigeria
> some women these changes have generated new freedom and            for nationalization of Islamic law (to apply beyond northern
> opportunities for self-improvement.
> Nigeria) has unleashed the shari
a debate, a source of tension
> Islamic Law and Politics                                           in national politics in a country where at the very least only
> As a political force, Islam united much of Africa in the past      half or slightly more than half the population is Muslim. In
> and was willing to accommodate local (including legal) prac-       African Muslim societies in general, however, it has been
> tices. Nevertheless, as the level of Islamization deepened the     noted that there is often an antistate discourse underlying the
> learned Muslim scholars began to call for a strict interpreta-     call for Islamic law by Muslim groups, which seek to foster
> tion of the shari
a (Islamic law), which they saw as different     their religious and cultural autonomy in societies (with failed
> from the African legal or customary practices. Some obvious        political institutions and secular ideologies such as socialism)
> areas of difference included, for instance, Islamic emphasis on    in which state and secular institutions have failed to respond
> individual ownership of land (and property inheritance through     to their needs.
> the male side of the family) whereas in various African
> societies land belonged to the community. Also, the way
> Coexistence of Islam and African Religion
> The coexistence of Islam and African traditional religion has
> Islamic law was interpreted (some have suggested) tended to
> give men considerably more power over property matters             cultural and linguistic implications as well. The Arabic lanthan perhaps was the case in some African societies. Scholars,     guage has provided abstract concepts, particularly religious
> however, need comparative data across a number of African          ones, that reveal Islamic modes of thought and expression.
> societies to make a meaningful comparison.                         Islamic influence is, in fact, revealed both at the explicit and
> suggestive levels in languages as different as the Berber
> Unlike African customary law, which is unwritten, Islamic      dialects, Hausa, Swahili, and Somali to name just a few. These
> law (which covers both public and private life) is written and     languages have absorbed the Islamic worldview (though at
> provides an extensive framework within which Muslim qadis          some level languages such as Swahili have been progressively
> (judges) analyze legal issues and deduce new laws to handle        secularized over time during and after the colonial period,
> new situations in the umma. Islamic law emphasizes the rights      making them more neutral).
> or obligations of individuals whereas African customary law
> (in which economic and social relations, especially in “state-         Islamic culture has generally held the written word in such
> less” societies, were regulated by customs maintained by           high esteem that wherever Islam has reached in Africa versocial pressure and the authority of elders) is based on kinship   sions of its script have been adopted in those regions of
> ties in matters of marriage and property. It extends to com-       sustained contact. Moreover, Islamic penetration of Africa
> mercial and criminal law and also has rules regarding the          introduced Arabic as the language of religious discourse
> conduct of political leaders or those entrusted with authority.    among scholars, official correspondence between Islamized
> In their encounter with other legal systems European colo-         states, and historical writing during the period of the Muslim
> nial powers left these systems functioning in some societies       kingdoms. Good examples of important records that were
> (for instance, Sudan and Nigeria as part of the Britain’s self-    produced by Timbuktu scholars were the monumental Tarikh
> serving policy of indirect rule) while in others they allowed      al-Fatash and Tarikh al-Sudan. Both East and West Africa
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                      23
> Aga Khan
> 
> have also produced Afro-Islamic literature (from the panegyrics     Chande, Abdin. “Radicalism and Reform in East Africa.”
> of the Prophet to poetry) based on the local languages, which         In The History of Islam in Africa. Edited by Randall Pouwels
> have absorbed a lot of Arabic loanwords in the spheres of             and Nehemia Levitzion. Athens: Ohio University
> religion, politics, and commerce. In some of these areas,             Press, 2000.
> however, the written word has competed with the oral litera-        Clark, Peter. West Africa and Islam. London: Edward Arnold
> ture especially among such clan-based people as the Somali.            Ltd., 1982.
> Dunbar, Roberta Ann. “Muslim Women in African His-
> In the linguistic dimension it is often assumed that when         tory.” In The History of Islam in Africa. Edited by Randall
> Arabic and an African language such as Swahili, Berber,               Pouwels and Nehemia Levitzion. Athens: Ohio Univer-
> Hausa, Fulani, Harari, Somali, and others come into contact           sity Press, 2000.
> the latter will invariably be influenced by the former. It is, of    Gilland, Dean S. African Religion Meets Islam: Religious Change
> course, undeniable that as a result of contact with Arabic             in Northern Nigeria. Lanham, Md.: University Press of
> these languages (which are related in their ethos to Arabic)           America, 1986.
> have absorbed many Arabic loanwords. In fact, some had in           Harrow, Kenneth, ed. Faces of Islam in African Literature.
> the past a written tradition in Arabic script. Nevertheless,          Portsmouth, N.H.: Heinemann, 1991.
> there is an unstated assumption that these languages have           Owusu-Ansah, David. Islamic Talismanic Tradition in Nineborrowed from Arabic rather passively without contributing            teenth Century Asante. Lewiston, N.Y.: Mellen, 1991.
> anything back. This may explain the fact that while there are a     Pouwels, Randall, and Levitzion, Nehemia, eds. The History
> number of studies that trace Arabic loanwords in various              of Islam in Africa. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2000.
> African languages, fewer comparable studies, if any, have           Pouwels, Randall. Horn and Crescent. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambeen undertaken to study, say, the influence of Swahili on the         bridge University Press, 1987.
> Arabic dialects spoken in Oman or south Yemen (Hadhramaut).         Prussin, Labelle. Hatumere: Islamic Design in West Africa.
> This influence should be expected given that the Red Sea                Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California
> separates the Arabian peninsula from Africa and this proxim-           Press, 1986.
> ity resulted in a profound interaction in a number of spheres.      Sanneh, Lamin. Piety and Power. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis
> The Arabs, by their own tradition, recognize African ancestry          Books, 1996.
> through Ishmael’s mother Haggar, who was Egyptian. Also,            Westerlund, David, and Rosander, Eva Evers, eds. African
> Arabs recognize the active presence of Africans in the evolu-         Islam and Islam in Africa: Encounters between Sufis and
> tion of pre-Islamic Arabic culture and the important role that        Islamists. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1997.
> Ethiopia and Ethiopians played in the early history of Islam.
> Abdin Chande
> How will both Islam and African indigenous traditions
> fare in the twenty–first century in the era of globalization?
> Can both systems penetrate Western secular culture, whose
> secular institutions and ideologies have not functioned well in     AGA KHAN
> Africa? Are African religious traditions destined to die out as
> socioeconomic changes (not to mention the colonial experi-          Aga Khan is the title inherited by the modern imams of the
> ence) have disrupted the cultural nexus in which these tradi-       Shi
a Nizari Isma
ili Muslims. The title was first granted by
> tions have thrived? This is rather unlikely as African indigenous   the Iranian ruler Fath 
Ali Shah to Imam Hasan 
Ali Shah
> cultures have demonstrated much resilience even as their            (1804–1881), who also served as governor of Qum, Mahallat,
> followers enter the fold of either Islam or Christianity (Ali       and Kirman. Forced to leave Iran, he settled eventually in
> British-ruled India. His son, Shah Ali Shah, Aga Khan II
> Mazrui’s triple heritage) and the African ancestors are poised
> (1830–1835), was imam for four years and was succeeded
> to raise their heads once again in the synthetic and syncretic
> after his death by his eight-year-old son who became well
> religious universe. With one quarter of the world’s 1.2 billion
> known internationally as Sir Sultan Muhammad Shah, Aga
> Muslims living in Africa (making Muslims, half the conti-
> Khan III (1877–1957). He guided the community into the
> nent’s population, the most numerous followers of any religtwentieth century by locating social welfare, educational,
> ion) the final chapter of the unfolding global resurgent Islam
> economic, and religious institutions within the framework of
> is yet to be written.
> a structured community constitution to promote better or-
> See also Africa, Islam in; Bamba, Ahmad; Timbuktu;                  ganization and governance. His leadership played a crucial
> Touba; Zar.                                                         role in enabling the community, some of whose members had
> migrated from India to Africa, to adapt successfully to historical change and modernity.
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Bravmann, Rene A. African Islam. Washington, D.C.: The                 In addition to his responsibilities as imam and spiritual
> Smithsonian Institution, 1983.                                   leader for the welfare of his followers, Aga Khan III played an
> 
> 24                                                                                              Islam and the Muslim World
> Ahl al-Bayt
> 
> cultural and geographical diversity, acknowledge the spiritual
> authority of the imam and have responded actively to his
> guidance. This has enabled them to build further on inherited
> institutions and to create common purpose in their endeavors
> through well-coordinated local, national, and international
> institutions.
> 
> Aga Khan IV also created the Aga Khan Development
> Network, to promote a humanitarian, intellectual, and social
> vision of Islam and tradition of service to society. Its international activities have earned an enviable reputation for their
> commitment to the development of societies, without bias to
> national or religious affiliation, and to the promotion of
> culture as a key resource and enabling factor in human and
> social development. The Award for Architecture and the
> Trust for Culture promote concern and awareness of the
> built environment, and cultural and historical preservation.
> Various institutions of higher education, such as the Aga
> Khan University, Central Asian University, and the Institute
> of Ismaili Studies promote scholarship and training in a wide
> variety of fields.
> 
> The Aga Khan’s leadership and vision continue to be
> reflected in the increasingly significant global impact that
> these community institutions and the network are having in
> the fields of social, educational, economic, and cultural
> development.
> 
> See also Khojas; Nizari.
> 
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Sir Sultan Muhammed Shah Aga Khan, known as Aga Khan III,            Aziz, K. K., ed. Aga Khan III: Selected Speeches and Writings.
> became the leader of the Shi
a Nizari Isma
ili Muslims of India in      London: Kegan Paul International, 1998.
> the late nineteenth century at the age of eight. As the Indian
> subcontinent evolved politically in the beginning of the twentieth   Daftary, Farhad. The Ismailis: Their History and Doctrines.
> century, Aga Khan spoke out for education, social change, and          Cambridge, U.K: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
> women’s rights. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, THE
> 
> Azim Nanji
> important role as a statesman in international and Muslim
> affairs. He was president of the League of Nations from 1937
> to 1938 and also played an important role in the political
> evolution of the Indian subcontinent. Deeply committed to
> AHL AL-BAYT
> social reform and education among Muslims of Africa and
> Ahl al-bayt, or “people of the house,” is a phrase used with
> Asia he assisted in the creation of several institutions such as
> schools, hospitals, and the East African Muslim Welfare              reference to the family of the prophet Muhammad, particu-
> Society. He was also an eloquent advocate for the education          larly by the Shi
a. In early Arabian tribal society, it was a
> of women and the advancement of their social and public role.        designation for a noble clan. It occurs only twice in the
> In addition to other writings and speeches, he wrote two             Quran, once in regard to Ibrahim’s family (11:73), but more
> books, India in Transition (1918) and his Memoirs (1954). He         significantly in a verse that states, “God only wishes to keep
> died in 1957 and is buried in Aswan, Egypt.                          uncleaness away from you, O people of the house, and to
> purify you completely” (33:33). The context suggests that this
> Aga Khan IV, Shah Karim al-Husayni, was born in 1936              statement pertains to women in Muhammad’s household, a
> and was educated in Europe and at Harvard University.                view held by Sunni commentators. Some authorities have
> During his leadership, a worldwide community emerged                 applied it more widely to descendants of Muhammad’s clan
> successfully through complex and turbulent changes. The              (Banu Hashim), the Abbasids, and even the whole community
> Ismailis, who live in some thirty countries and represent            of Muslims. Since the eighth century C.E., however, the Shi
a
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                        25
> Ahl-e Hadis/Ahl-al Hadith
> 
> and many Sunnis have maintained that Quran 33:33 refers            such as Sayyida Zaynab (
Ali’s daughter; Cairo) and Fatima
> specifically to five people: Muhammad, 
Ali b. Abi Talib              al-Ma
suma (daughter of the seventh imam; Qom, Iran).
> (Muhammad’s cousin), 
Ali’s wife Fatima (Muhammad’s                 Nizari Isma
ilis (Khojas) make pilgrimages to their living
> daughter), and their two children, Hasan and Husayn. Ulema          imam, the Aga Khan, also a direct descendent of the Prophet’s
> invoke hadiths in support of this view, as seen in Tabari’s         household.
> Jami
 al-bayan (c. tenth century C.E.). Thus, in South Asia,
> they are called “the five pure ones” (panjatan pak). They are            Contemporary heads of state in several Muslim countries
> also known as “people of the mantle” (kisa) in remembrance         have claimed blood-descent from the family of the Prophet to
> of the occasion when the Prophet enveloped them with his            obtain religious legitimacy for their rule: the 
Alawid dynasty
> mantle and recited this verse.                                      of Morocco (1631–present), Hashimite dynasty of Iraq
> (1921–1958) and of Jordan (1923–present), and many of the
> Belief in the supermundane qualities of the ahl al-bayt and     ruling mullahs in Iran, including the Ayatollah Khomeini (r.
> the imams descended from them form the core of Shi
ite              1979–1989), whose tomb has become a popular Iranian
> devotion. They are the ideal locus of authority and salvation       Shi
ite shrine. Even former President Saddam Husayn of Iraq
> in all things, both worldly and spiritual. As pure, sinless, and    (r. 1979–2003) has claimed descent from ahl al-bayt.
> embodiments of divine wisdom, they are held to be the
> perfect leaders for the Muslim community, as well as models         See also Hadith; Imam; Imamate; Karbala; Mahdi; Sayyid;
> for moral action. Many believe that they possess a divine light     Sharif; Shia: Imami (Twelver); Shia: Ismaili.
> through which God created the universe, and that it is only
> through their living presence that the world exists. Twelver        BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Shi
ite doctrine has emphasized that the pain and martyrdom         Ayoub, Mahmoud. Redemptive Suffering in Islam: A Study of
> endured by ahl al-bayt, particularly by Husayn, hold redemp-          the Devotional Aspects of 
Ashura in Twelver Shi
ism. The
> tive power for those who have faith in them and empathize             Hague: Mouton Publishers, 1978.
> with their suffering. Moreover, they anticipate the messianic       Hoffman-Ladd, Valerie J. “Devotion to the Prophet and His
> return of the Twelfth Imam at the end of time, and the                Family in Egyptian Sufism.” International Journal of Midintercession of the holy family on the day of judgment.               dle East Studies 24 (1992): 615–637.
> During the middle ages, Nizari Isama
ili da
is in northern          Schubel, Vernon James. Religious Performance in Contempo-
> India even identified the ahl al-bayt with Hindu gods (Brahma,          rary Islam: Shi
i Devotional Rituals in South Asia. Columbia:
> Vishnu, Kalki, Shiva, and the goddess Shakti) and the Pandavas,        University of South Carolina Press, 1993.
> the five heroes of the Mahabharata epic. The Shi
ite ritual
> calendar is distinguished by holidays commemorating events                                                   Juan Eduardo Campo
> in the lives of the holy family, and it is common for the “hand
> of Fatima,” inscribed with their five names, to be displayed in
> processions and to be used as a talisman.
> AHL-E HADIS/AHL-AL HADITH
> Sunnis also revere the ahl al-bayt, attributing to them
> many of the sacred qualities that the Shi
a do. This is             The Ahl-e Hadis emerged as a distinctive orientation among
> especially so in Sufi tariqas (brotherhoods), most of which          Indian ulema in the late-nineteenth-century milieu of retrace their spiritual lineage to Muhammad through 
Ali.             formist thought, publication, debate, and internal proselytiz-
> Several tariqas hold special veneration for the holy five and        ing. Like other reformers, they fostered devotion to the
> the imams, such as the Khalwatiyya, the Bektashiyya, and the        prophet Muhammad and fidelity to shari
a. Unlike them, they
> Safawiyya, which established the Safavid dynasty in Iran            opposed jurisprudential taqlid (imitation) of the classic law
> (1502–1722). In many Muslim communities, high social                schools in favor of direct use of hadith. They also opposed the
> status is attributed to those claiming to be sayyids and sharifs,   entire institution of Sufism, a stance that further marginalized
> blood-descendants of the ahl al-bayt. Indeed, many Muslim           them. Like the Deobandis, they claimed to be heirs of Shah
> scholars and saints are members of these two groups, and            Wali Allah (d. 1763), and they encouraged simplification of
> their tombs often become pilgrimage centers.                        ceremony and the practice of widow remarriage. Their practices in the canonical prayer (including uttering “amen” aloud
> Although the Saudi-Wahhabi conquest of Arabia (nine-             and lifting their hands at the time of bowing) led to conflicts
> teenth to early twentieth centuries) led to the destruction of      ultimately settled in British courts.
> many ahl al-bayt shrines (including Fatima’s tomb in Medina),
> elsewhere their shrines have attracted large numbers of pil-           Core supporters of the Ahl-e Hadis came from educated
> grims in modern times. These include those of 
Ali (Najaf,          and often well-born backgrounds. Cosmopolitan in orienta-
> Iraq), Husayn (Karbala, Iraq and Cairo, Egypt), 
Ali al-Rida        tion, they identified themselves with similar groups in Afghani-
> (the eighth imam; Mashhad, Iran), and also of women saints          stan and Arabia. Within India, they turned to princes for
> 
> 26                                                                                              Islam and the Muslim World
> Ahl al-Kitab
> 
> support, most famously with the marriage of Maulana Siddiq         their refusal to recant their beliefs in the eternal nature of the
> Hasan Khan (1832–1890) to the ruling Begum of Bhopal.              Quran. After the Mihna, the Ahl al-Hadith led an anti-
> Siddiq Hasan supported the classic interpretations of jihad,       rationalist movement that forced advocates of rationalist
> without the apologetic glosses of the day. Despite his writing     thought underground. In the centuries following the initial
> to the contrary, he was suspected of disloyalty, as was another    triumph of the Ahl al-Hadith, a middle ground emerged that
> major figure in the movement, Sayyid Nazir Husain (d.               placed greater emphasis on a combination of reason and
> 1902), who was briefly arrested as a “Wahhabi,” as supporters       tradition. The Ahl al-Hadith formed a school of legal thought
> of the Arab Muhammad Abd al Wahhab (1703–1792) were                named after Ahmad Ibn Hanbal that continued to pursue
> called. Suspicion of the Ahl-e Hadis abated by 1889, marked        legal methods that focused less on uses of reason and more on
> by the success of a campaign to drop the word “Wahhabi” in         tradition. The Hanbali fixation on tradition led to a series of
> official British colonial correspondence.                           reform movements that have sought to “revive” the moral
> and ethical standards of the first generations of Muslims. The
> The armed Lashkar-e Tayyiba, affiliated with the Ahl-e           contemporary influence of Ahl al-Hadith ideology continues
> Hadis in Pakistan, is alleged to have been active both within      to be important for a number of diverse groups. Organiza-
> Pakistan and Kashmir since the 1990s.                              tions such as the Indonesian Muhammadiyah and the Islamic
> Society of North America, as well as the violent al-Qa
ida and
> See also Deoband; Fundamentalism.
> Islamic Jihad, each bases its ideologies on ideas that emerged
> out of the Ahl al-Hadith and Hanbali movement over the last
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                       eight centuries.
> Metcalf, Barbara Daly. Islamic Revival in British India: Deoband
> 1860–1900. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University                 See also Ibn Hanbal; Kalam; Mutazilites, Mutazila;
> Press, 1982.                                                     Traditionalism.
> Saeedullah. The Life and Works of Muhammad Siddiq Hasan
> Khan, Nawwab of Bhopal. Lahore, Pakistan: Sh. Muham-            BIBLIOGRAPHY
> mad Ashraf, 1973.                                               Hallaq, Wael. A History of Islamic Law and Legal Theories.
> Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
> Barbara D. Metcalf      Schacht, Joseph. The Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence.
> Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon Press, 1950.
> 
> R. Kevin Jaques
> AHL AL-HADITH
> The Ahl al-Hadith (people of the traditions) appear to have
> developed out of a pious reaction to the assassination of          AHL AL-KITAB
> Caliph Yazid b. Walid (d. 744). Prior to Yazid’s assassination,
> scholars who emphasized hadith (traditions of the prophet          The term ahl al-kitab, or people of the book, refers to
> Muhammad) as the primary source for interpreting the Will          followers of scripture-possessing religions that predate the
> of God were disorganized and fairly removed from the               Quran, most often Jews and Christians. In some situations
> widespread emphasis on applying varying levels of reason to        other religious groups, such as Zoroastrians and Hindus, have
> the Quran. Yazid’s assassination was interpreted by more          been considered to be people of the book. Some Quranic
> conservative groups as a revolution against the predestined        verses also reference the Sabeans, who are usually understood
> plan of God. Whether or not the early Ahl al-Hadith were           to be one of several gnostic Judeo-Christian sects such as the
> aligned with the Umayyad caliphate, as were many of the            Mandeans, the Elchasaites, or Archontics. Muslims recog-
> Jabriyya (advocates of predestination), it is clear that many      nize the holy books possessed by the Jews (al-Tawrah: Torah;
> understood Yazid’s assassination as a sign of the general decay    al-Zabur: Psalms) and Christians (al-Injil: Gospel) as legitiof the Muslim community, the blame for which they assigned         mate revelations. However, they believe that some portions
> to the uncontrolled use of personal opinion by the Ahl al-Ra
y     of these scriptures were abrogated and superceded by the
> (people of considered opinion). After the Abbasid revolution       Quran and the Christians and Jews corrupted others.
> (c. 720–750), the Ahl al-Hadith developed into the main
> group opposed to the dominance of the rationalist theology             The Quran provides an ambivalent picture of the people
> of the Mu
tazilites. During the religious inquisition or Mihna     of the book, sometimes praising and sometimes condemning
> (833–850) many of the Ahl al-Hadith were imprisoned for            them. Muslims are said to worship the same God as the
> refusing to agree to the doctrine of the Created Quran.           people of the book, who were likewise honored with divine
> Members of the Ahl al-Hadith, such as Ahmad Ibn Hanbal (d.         revelations (Q 2:62). However, the people of the book are
> 855), became important religious and social leaders due to         also criticized for certain faults and sometimes referred to as
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                       27
> Ahl al-Kitab
> 
> unbelievers (Q 5:18, 9:29–35). These differences in tone                Islamic literature from the eleventh through eighteenth
> seem to be connected with the circumstances in which Quranic       centuries generally deals with ahl al-kitab within the context
> revelations were delivered. In Mecca the Prophet’s message          of their dhimmi status. Although dhimmis were understood to
> was directed against the idolaters who opposed him, and             be inferior to Muslims, some Jews and Christians managed to
> Muhammad believed that the Jews and Christians, as fellow           attain high positions in Islamic states. A few, such as John of
> monotheists, would recognize him as a prophet. After his            Damascus (d. c. 748), even engaged in theological discussions
> arrival in Medina, however, it became apparent that most            with Muslims. Islamic polemical literature associated with
> Jews and Christians were not going to submit to Islam. As a         scholars such as Ibn Hazm of Córdoba (d. 1064), Ibn alresult, the Meccan suras generally express more favorable           
Arabi (d. 1148), and al-Ghazali (d. 1111) repeated earlier
> opinions of the people of the book, and the Medinan suras           criticisms of Jews and Christians, posited different theories to
> more negative images.                                               explain the corruption of their scriptures, and assigned blame
> for this calamity to well-known figures such as the Old
> Despite recognizing the privileged place of the Jews as         Testament prophet Ezra, the Christian apostle Paul, and the
> having received multiple prophets, the Quran criticizes them       Byzantine emperor Constantine. The people of the book
> for resisting God and corrupting or hiding his Scriptures (Q        were also accused of concealing biblical prophecies foretell-
> 2:75, 3:78, 4:46f, 5:13, 5:41). They are also charged with          ing the coming of Muhammad and the triumph of Islam. Sufi
> teaching falsehoods (Q 2:78, 3:79), and with immoral prac-          works, such as the poetry of Jalal al-Din Rumi, look to Jesus
> tices such as greed, theft, idolatry, persecuting the prophets,     and other biblical saints as models but contain similar criticharging interest, and failing to honor the Sabbath (Q 2:49–61,     cisms of Jews and Christians. All these texts reflect a belief in
> 65, 3:75, 4:153–156, 160–161, 5:56–64, 7:163–166). Because          Muhammad as the bearer of God’s crowning revelation,
> of their sins, the Quran asserts that God cursed the Jews (Q       supplanting the partial revelations of the biblical Scriptures.
> 5:13). Those Jews who did not submit to Islam faced the same
> During modern times, substantial changes in the relationeternal punishment as polytheists and other unbelievers
> ship between the Islamic world and the West led to shifts in
> (Q 2:80f).
> Muslim attitudes toward the people of the book. From the
> early 1800s, Islamic modernists acknowledged that Muslims
> Christians are generally portrayed sympathetically in the
> could learn some things from the “Christian” West, but they
> early suras. They are described as being the closest friends to
> continued to assert Islam’s superiority as a religious system.
> Muslims, while Jews and idolaters are said to be hostile to
> Colonizing European states attempted to impose Western
> Islam (Q 5:82). However, the Quran disagrees with Chrisvalues upon Islamic populations, but westernizing Muslim
> tians over several doctrinal issues. Although the Muslim holy
> governments failed to achieve the promised prosperity. With
> book recognizes Jesus’ prophethood (Q 3:45–53), it denies
> the breakdown of the dhimmi system and the rise of nationalthat he was divine or was crucified (Q 4:157–158, 5:116–117).
> ism, ethnic and religious violence has erupted throughout the
> It also rejects the Christians’ doctrine of the Trinity and their
> Muslim world. This is most noticeable in the region of
> teaching that Jesus was the Son of God (Q 4:171–172, 19:35),
> Palestine, where many Muslims see the establishment of
> accusing proponents of these doctrines of being unbelievers,
> Israel as a Western colonial project. During the late twentieth
> in danger of hellfire (Q 5:76f). As with the Jews, Christians        century, Islamic revivalists (or “Islamists”) increased their
> are also charged with distorting the Scriptures.                    influence and largely rejected the “compromises” of the
> modernists. The Islamists advocate a return to the glorious
> Muslim representations of ahl al-kitab in hadith and early
> Islamic civilization of the past, with its division of the world
> juristic literature demonstrate an increased familiarity with
> into dar al-islam and dar al-harb (“house of war”; i.e., that part
> Jewish and Christian beliefs and practices, because the people
> of the world not ruled by Islamic government) and returning
> of the book initially represented the majority population in
> non-Muslim minorities to their former dhimmi status.
> the expanded Muslim empire. On the whole, this literature
> presents ahl al-kitab in a negative light. Many hadiths seem        See also Christianity and Islam; Islam and Other Religconcerned about their undue influence and warn Muslims not           ions; Judaism and Islam; Minorities: Dhimmis.
> to imitate them. Hadith literature also lays the groundwork
> for the practice of assigning protected status (known as            BIBLIOGRAPHY
> dhimmi status) to people of the book who submitted to               Busse, Heribert. Islam, Judaism, and Christianity: Theological
> Muslim political authority. This arrangement made it possi-           and Historical Affiliations. Translated by Allison Brown.
> ble for Jews and Christians to practice their faiths while living     Princeton, N.J.: Markus Weiner Publishers, 1998.
> in Muslim societies. Although treated as second-class citi-         Goddard, Hugh. Muslim Perceptions of Christianity. London:
> zens, non-Muslim communities were largely able to coexist             Grey Seal, 1996.
> peacefully with Muslims for centuries, without experiencing         Lazarus-Yafeh, Hava. Intertwined Worlds: Medieval Islam and
> the active persecution that minority religious groups often           Bible Criticism. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
> encountered in Europe.                                                Press, 1992.
> 
> 28                                                                                               Islam and the Muslim World
> Ahmad Ibn Idris
> 
> Lewis, Bernard. The Jews of Islam. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton      able to advance as far as Harar, where he was stopped in 1559
> University Press, 1984.                                          by Imam Nur b. al-Mujahid, al-Ghazi’s nephew and succes-
> Ridgeon, Lloyd, ed. Islamic Interpretations of Christianity. New   sor. Al-Mujahid ruled Adal-Harar until his death in 1568.
> York: St. Martin’s Press, 2001.
> See also Africa, Islam in; Ethiopia; Jihad.
> Watt, William Montgomery. Muslim-Christian Encounters:
> Perceptions and Misperceptions. London: Routledge, 1991.
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Abir, Mordechai. Ethiopia and the Red Sea: The Rise and Decline
> Stephen Cory
> of the Solomonic Dynasty and Muslim-European Rivalry in the
> Region. London: Frank Cass, 1980.
> 
> Roman Loimeier
> AHMAD IBN IBRAHIM AL-GHAZI
> (1506–1543)
> Ahmad b. Ibrahim al-Ghazi is known in Ethiopian Christian          AHMAD IBN IDRIS (1750–1837)
> literature as Ahmad Gran, “the left-handed,” political leader
> of an Islamic jihad movement in sixteenth-century Ethiopia.        Ahmad b. Idris was a Sufi teacher who influenced the forma-
> He rose to power in the context of a century-old struggle for      tion of many reforming Sufi brotherhoods in the nineteenth
> domination in Ethiopia between the Christian emperors who          century.
> reigned in Ethiopia’s central and northern highlands and the
> Although he never formed tariqa (brotherhood) of his
> rulers of a number of Muslim emirates in that region’s eastern
> own, Ibn Idris was a key figure in the development of Sufi
> high- and lowlands. In the 1510s and 1520s, the emperor
> thought in the nineteenth century. Being firmly based in
> Libna Dingil (r. 1508–1540) had managed to overcome the            traditional Sufism, in the line from Ibn 
Arabi, Ibn Idris
> resistance of the Amir of Adal, Garad Abun, as well as of Iman     promoted the idea of tariqa Muhammadiyya—focusing the
> Mahfuz, the Amir of Zaila.                                         Sufi experience on following the example of and having
> mystical encounters with the Prophet—while vehemently
> Ahmad b. Ibrahim al-Ghazi grew up in the province of
> rejecting blind imitation (taqlid) of earlier scholars. Accord-
> Hubat south of Adal’s capital city of Harar and had married
> ing to his teaching, it is the responsibility of each generation
> Bati Del Wanbara, a daughter of Imam Mahfuz. In the
> of Muslim scholars to discover the Muslim path by relying
> desperate situation of 1527, he was able to unite, under his
> directly on the sources of divine revelation and not be
> leadership a number of Somali war bands as well as the forces
> restricted to what earlier and fallible human authorities have
> of the Muslim emirates to defeat an Ethiopian army. With
> decreed.
> the support of Ottoman artillery, al-Ghazi’s army was subsequently able, in 1529, to inflict a crushing defeat upon               Ibn Idris was born in Maysur, a village near Larache in
> Ethiopia’s united army. Thereupon, he decided to embark on         Morocco, and received his basic training in the reformist
> a jihad with the aim to conquer Ethiopia as a whole.               scholarly milieu in Fez of the late eighteenth century, before
> moving through Egypt to Mecca in 1799. He stayed in Mecca
> Al-Ghazi led a number of campaigns, recorded by his             during the Wahhabi occupation, unlike many colleagues, and
> companion, the Yemenite scholar Shihab al-Din Ahmad b.             had an ambivalent relationship to the Wahhabis; he shared
> 
Abd al-Qadir, under the title Kitab Futuhat al-Habasha al-        some of their reformist views but rejected their recourse to
> Musamma Bahjat az-Zaman. Al-Ghazi’s Muslim armies were             anathema and violence against other Muslims. After a later
> able to conquer, between 1529 and 1535, almost all the             disturbance in Mecca, he left in 1828 and settled in Sabya, the
> Ethiopian Christian territories, from Showa in the south to        capital of 
Asir, then a part of Yemen, where he stayed for the
> Tigray in the north. Ethiopia’s transformation into a Muslim       remainder of his life. Several of his students formed imporimamate was, however, preempted by the intervention of             tant Sufi brotherhoods to disseminate his ideas, among them
> the Portuguese in 1541. Also, Ethiopia’s new emperor,              the Sanusiyya of the Sahara, the Khatmiyya and Rashidiyya/
> Galawdewos (r. 1540–1559), managed to reorganize the               Dandarawiyya of Sudan, Egypt, and the Indian Ocean re-
> Christian forces and to stop al-Ghazi’s advance.                   gions, and the Salihiyya of Somalia.
> 
> In a battle near Woyna Dega, in Dembya province, al-           See also Africa, Islam in; Tariqa; Tasawwuf; Wahhabiyya.
> Ghazi was killed by a Portuguese fusilier. The Muslim empire
> of Ethiopia subsequently disintegrated as quickly as it had        BIBLIOGRAPHY
> been conquered, and most Christians who had converted to           O’Fahey, Rex S. Enigmatic Saint: Ahmad Ibn Idris and the
> Islam after 1529 converted back to Ethiopian Christianity. In        Idrisi Tradition. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University
> the aftermath of al-Ghazi’s death, Emperor Galawdewos was            Press, 1990.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                      29
> Ahmad Gran
> 
> Radtke, Bernd; O’Kane, John; Vikør, Knut S.; and O’Fahey,          Raj. Although his personal dynamism, including the fear he
> Rex S. The Exoteric Ahmad Ibn Idris: A Sufi’s Critique of the     inspired through the issuing of death prophecies, was respon-
> Madhahib and Wahhabis. Leiden: Brill, 2000.                      sible for his notoriety among his Punjab enemies, it also drew
> Thomassen, Einar, and Radtke, Bernd, eds. The Letters of           many initiates, mainly from Sunni Islam. On his death, a
> Ahmad Ibn Idris. London: Hurst, 1993.                            disciple, Maulvi Nur al-Din, became his khalifa (successor;
> 1908–1914).
> Knut S.Vikør
> The movement took stronger institutional form on 27
> December 1891, when Ghulam Ahmad called the first annual
> gathering at Qadiyan, subsequently the center for all Ahmadi
> AHMAD GRAN See Ahmad Ibn                                           activities. Newspapers were soon established, including Al-
> Ibrahim al-Ghazi                                                   Hakam (1897) and The Review of Religions (1902). Directed by
> Ghulam Ahmad that Ahmadis should demand separate categorization from Sunnis in the 1901 census, and that non-
> Ahmadi Muslims were kafirs (unbelievers), that intensified
> Sunni hostility. The community nevertheless prospered.
> Although scorned for their allegedly low social origins, many
> AHMADIYYA
> Ahmadis were of middle-class professional status (landowners, entrepreneurs, doctors, and lawyers). Those of lower
> The Ahmadiyya movement was founded by Mirza Ghulam
> origins took advantage of opportunities offered within the
> Ahmad in the Punjab province of British India in 1889, at a
> community to raise their educational level and hence status.
> time of competition for converts among new Muslim, Hindu,
> Many Ahmadi women were well educated. Numbers rose to
> Sikh, and Christian reform and missionary movements. Diviapproximately nineteen thousand in Punjab by 1911, rising to
> sions among Sunni Muslims on appropriate responses folabout twenty-nine thousand by 1921. Careful marriage arlowing the failure in 1857 of a widespread rebellion against
> rangements, as well as missionary activity, helped increase the
> the British were reflected in the growth of new religious
> membership, which then spread outside India, particularly in
> movements in the north west, particularly at Deoband and
> Africa and Southeast Asia, through well-organized overseas
> Aligarh. Ghulam Ahmad’s claims to be the recipient of
> missionary programs.
> esoteric spiritual knowledge, transmitted to him through
> visions, attracted attention in such a setting. Doctrinally, he        A split in 1914 divided the movement in the Punjab but
> aroused hostility among Sunnis mainly because of his own           did not obstruct progress, for those who remained at Qadiyan,
> claim to prophethood. His definition of jihad as concerned          and the new, Lahore-based, secessionary branch, continued
> with “cleansing of souls,” rather than with military struggle,     to use similar missionary and disciplinary methods to consoliwas less controversial at a stage when most Muslims had            date their communities. Differing mainly on understandings
> accepted the practical necessity of acquiesence to British rule.   of Ghulam Ahmad’s status, the Qadiyanis retained the caliphal
> Some have viewed the insights that drew disciples to him as        leadership, whose incumbents (since 1914 the sons and grandsufistic in essence, though his denunciation of rivals caused       sons of Ghulam Ahmad) have reinforced belief in the founder’s
> detractors to question the spirituality of the movement.           prophetic claims. The Lahoris, organized as the Ahmadiyya
> Anjuman-e Isha 
at-e Islam, regarded Ghulam Ahmad as the
> In 1889, shortly after publishing his first book Al-Barahin
> “mujaddid [reformer] of the fourteenth century,” and are less
> al-Ahmadiyya (Ahmadiyya proofs; 4 vols, 1880–1884), Ghulam
> easily distinguishable from Sunni Muslims, except in holding
> Ahmad began to initiate disciples. His claims two years later
> Ghulam Ahmad to have been the “promised messiah.” The
> that he was both masih (messiah) and mahdi (rightly guided
> crucial difference over prophethood has maintained the sepaone), and subsequent claims to powers of prophethood,              rate identities of the branches wherever Ahmadiyya has since
> caused outrage among Muslims, which was expressed in               spread, although missionary work among non-Muslims, estracts and newspapers and in fatawa condemning him for             pecially overseas, tends to stress common ground in Islam.
> denying the doctrine of khatm al-nabuwwa (finality of Muham-        While Ghulam Ahmad’s direct successors, notably his son,
> mad’s prophethood). Public controversies also marked rela-         the second caliph, Bashir al-Din Mahmud Ahmad, together
> tions with his non-Muslim rivals, notably the Arya Samaj           with Sir Muhammad Zafrullah Khan, have contributed the
> Hindu revivalist leaders with whom he clashed frequently,          most influential publications to Qadiyani proselytism, the
> especially after he claimed to be an avatar of Krisna, and with    Lahoris received notable intellectual and missionary leader-
> Protestant Christian missionaries in the Punjab. Christians        ship from Maulana Muhammad 
Ali in the Punjab, and
> objected to his view that Jesus had died naturally in Kashmir,     Khwaja Kamal al-Din in London.
> and that Ghulam Ahmad was the promised “second messiah.”
> He cultivated good relations, however, with the British colo-         During the period of overt nationalist struggle in India in
> nial authorities who appreciated his advocacy of loyalty to the    the 1920s and 1930s some Lahoris began to support wider
> 
> 30                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Ahmadiyya
> 
> Members of the Muslim Ahmadiyya group, including their leader, Hazrat Mirza Tahir Ahmad Khalifatul Masih IV, left, begin the Initiation
> ceremony at an international Ahmadiyya convention in Germany in 2001. In the late nineteenth century, Ahmadiyya’s founder, Mirza Ghulam
> Ahmad, started this branch of Islam after claiming to be a prophet who received spiritual visions. AP/WIDE WORLD PHOTOS
> 
> Indian-Muslim agendas. Even though Zafrullah Khan was                 continual pressure on the community culminated in the
> made president of the Muslim League conference in 1931,               National Assembly’s declaration of the Ahmadis as nonmost Qadiyanis maintained their strong pro-British stance             Muslim in 1974. The military rule of Zia ul-Haq, which
> while clashing verbally and violently with some militant              favored Islamization policies on a narrowly Sunni basis,
> Sunni movements, notably the Ahrars. Yet both groups’                 proved disadvantageous to all minorities: His Ordinance XX
> generally loyal stance ensured them considerable practical            of April 1984 prohibited Ahmadis from calling themselves
> protection against possible recriminations from Muslims               Muslim. Subsequent prohibitions, notably on publishing,
> while colonial rule lasted.                                           and on calling their places of worship mosques, have severely
> restricted Ahmadi religious life in Pakistan. The head of the
> Independence and Partition brought new problems for               Rabwa community, the fourth khalifa, Mirza Tahir Ahmad,
> both groups. When the Gurdaspur district was allotted to              migrated to London in the mid-1980s, after which many
> India many Qadiyanis migrated to Pakistan, where they                 South Asian Ahmadis have settled outside the subcontinent,
> established a new headquarters at Rabwa. Pakistan has not             thereby strengthening the generally economically prosperproved congenial to the interests of either branch, although          ous Ahmadi missionary communities, belonging to both
> Zafrullah Khan was made Pakistan foreign minister and                 branches, which were already established in many parts of
> others initially gained important posts in the civil service,         Africa, in Fiji, and in Southeast Asia, as well as in North
> army, and air force. Latent antagonism escalated during the           America and Europe. Although both branches report growth,
> constitution-making controversies of the late 1940s, coming           there are no reliable statistics on numbers and distribution.
> to a head in 1953 when anti-Ahmadiyya riots, encouraged by            Both branches continue to publish prolifically, but there has
> ulema seeking the constitutional declaration of Ahmadis as            been little scholarly evaluation of academic and institutional
> non-Muslims, resulted in many deaths. Although the govern-            developments, most accounts using the general term Ahmadi
> ment fell and a judicial inquiry condemned the attacks,               to describe both branches.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                         31
> Ahmad Khan, Sayyid
> 
> See also Ahmad, Mirza Ghulam; Pakistan, Islamic                    that future generations transformed into a movement for the
> Republic of; South Asia, Islam in.                                 creation of Pakistan as a separate state for South Asian
> Muslims.
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> See also Aligarh; Education; Liberalism, Islamic; Mod-
> Ahmad, Hazrat Mirza Ghulam. Islami usul ki filasafi, (1896).
> ernism; Modern Thought; Pakistan, Islamic Republic
> Translated by Muhammad Zafrulla Khan as The Philosophy of the Teachings of Islam. Tilford, Surrey, U.K.: Islam      of; South Asia, Islam in; Urdu Language, Literature,
> International Publications Ltd., 1996.                           and Poetry.
> Friedmann, Yohanan. Prophecy Continuous: Aspects of Ahmadi
> Religious Thought and its Medieval Background. Berkeley,        BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Los Angeles, and London: University of California               Lelyveld, David. Aligarh’s First Generation: Muslim Solidarity
> Press, 1989.                                                       in British India. 2d ed. New Delhi: Oxford University
> Jones, Kenneth W. Socio-Religious Reform Movements in Brit-           Press, 1996.
> ish India. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University                Troll, Christian W. Sayyid Ahmad Khan: A Reinterpretation of
> Press, 1989.                                                      Muslim Theology. New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House, 1978.
> Khan, Sir Muhammad Zafrullah. Ahmadiyyat: The Renaissance
> of Islam. London: Tabshir Publications, 1978.                                                                  David Lelyveld
> Lavan, Spencer. The Ahmadiyah Movement: A History and
> Perspective. Delhi: Manohar Book Service, 1974.
> AHMAD, MIRZA GHULAM
> Avril A. Powell
> (LATE 1830s–1908)
> Mirza Ghulam Ahmad was born into a landowning Sunni
> AHMAD KHAN, (SIR) SAYYID                                           family at Qadiyan in Gurdaspur district, Punjab, northwest
> (1817–1898)                                                        India. He initiated disciples into his Ahmadiyya movement in
> 1889, after announcing that messages received in visions
> Sayyid Ahmad Khan was an educational and political leader          designated him the mujaddid (renewer of Islam) for the age.
> of Muslims who were living under British rule in India. He         He also claimed to be the masih-i maw
ud (promised Mesdeveloped concepts of religious modernism and community            siah), and the mahdi (rightly guided one), and to have powers
> identity that mark the transition from Mogul India to the          of miracle and prophecy. Most Sunni Muslims deemed such
> rise of representative government and the quest for self-          a denial of khatm al-nubuwwa (finality of Muhammad’s
> determination. Born and educated in Delhi in the surviving         prophethood) heretical, but his movement grew to nearly
> remnant of the Mogul regime, Sayyid Ahmad embarked on a            twenty thousand adherents in his lifetime. He was succeeded
> career in the British subordinate judicial service, the lower-     in 1908 by the first khalifa of the Ahmadiyya movement,
> level law courts where Indian judges presided and cases were       Maulawi Nur al-Din.
> conducted in Indian languages, and was posted in a series of
> See also Ahmadiyya.
> north Indian towns and cities. During these years he published historical and religious texts and was one of the
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> pioneers of the printing of Urdu prose. He remained loyal to
> the British during the 1857 revolt, and worked to reconcile        Ahmad, Hazrat Mirza Ghulam. Islami usul ki filasafi. (1896).
> Indian, Muslim, and British institutions and ideologies. In          Translated by Muhammad Zafrulla Khan as The Philosophy of the Teachings of Islam. Tilford, Surrey, U.K.: Islam
> 1864, he founded the Scientific Society in Ghazipur (shifted
> International Publications Ltd., 1996.
> the following year to Aligarh), which was devoted to translating practical and scientific works into Urdu. In 1869, he           Friedmann, Yohanan. Prophecy Continuous: Aspects of Ahmadi
> Religious Thought and its Medieval Background. Berkeley,
> traveled to England to write a defense of the life of the
> Los Angeles, and London: University of California
> Prophet and to examine British educational institutions.
> Press, 1989.
> While in England, he conceived the idea of founding a
> residential college primarily for Muslims and devoted the rest
> Avril A. Powell
> of his life to the cause of the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental
> College, Aligarh, which was founded in 1875. During this
> period, he became a prolific writer on religious, social, and
> political issues. In 1887, he announced his opposition to the      
AISHA (614–678 C.E.)
> Indian National Congress on the grounds that representative
> government was not in the best interests of Muslims. Knighted      
Aisha bint Abi Bakr was the favorite wife of the prophet
> by the British in 1888, he left a legacy of political separatism   Muhammad and a significant religious and political figure in
> 
> 32                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Akbar
> 
> early Islam. The daughter of Umm Ruman and one of the               historical antagonisms between the two. Many Shi
ite Mus-
> Prophet’s companions, Abu Bakr (the first caliph of Islam            lims reviled 
Aisha, whereas Sunni Muslims embraced her as
> after the death of the Prophet), she married Muhammad at a          a revered wife of the Prophet. Tradition holds that she was
> young age. Her intelligence, beauty, and spirited personality       consulted on theological, legal, and other religious issues, and
> are well recorded in historical sources.                            was also known for her poetic skills. She is buried at al-Baqi
> in Medina.
> The hadith tradition records a unique level of intimacy
> shared by the Prophet and 
Aisha. They bathed in the same          See also Ali; Bukhari, al-; Fitna; Muhammad; Shia:
> water, he prayed while she lay stretched out in front of him,       Early; Sunna.
> he received revelation when they were under the same blanket, and he expressed a desire to be moved to 
Aisha’s
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> chambers when he knew his death was approaching. Affection and playfulness also characterized their relationship.         Abbott, Nabia. 
Aishah: The Beloved of Muhammad. Chicago:
> University of Chicago Press, 1942.
> They raced with each other and enjoyed listening to the
> singing of Ethiopian musicians together. The Prophet re-            Mernissi, Fatima. The Veil and the Male Elite: A Feminist
> lated that when 
Aisha was pleased with him, she would swear         Interpretation of Women’s Rights in Islam. Reading, Mass:
> “By the God of Muhammad” and when she was annoyed with                Addison Wesley, 1992.
> him she would swear “By the God of Abraham.” She regularly          Spellberg, Denise A. Politics Gender and the Islamic Past: The
> engaged the Prophet on issues of revelation and religion.              Legacy of 
Aisha Bint Abi Bakr. New York: Columbia
> Recognizing her intelligence and perceptiveness, he told the           University Press, 1994.
> Muslims “Take two-thirds of your religion from al-Humayra,”         .
> the term of affection referring to the rosy-cheeked 
Aisha.
> Sa
diyya Shaikh
> A scandal once surrounded 
Aisha, who was mistakenly
> left behind during a caravan rest stop on an expedition with
> the Prophet. She returned to Medina escorted by a young
> man who had found her waiting alone. Amid the ensuing
> gossip and speculation about 
Aisha’s fidelity, one of the
> AKBAR (1542–1605)
> Prophet’s companions, 
Ali, advised Muhammad to divorce
> Jalal al-Din Akbar was born in 1542 as his father Humayun
> her. This caused her to bear deep resentment against 
Ali,
> fled India before the forces of the Afghan warlord Sher Shah
> which manifested itself in her later opposition to him as
> Sur. After thirteen years of exile, his father returned to rule
> Muhammad’s successor. Finally a Quranic revelation exon-
> India, but died in a fall in a matter of months. Akbar came to
> erated her of all suspected wrongdoing, proclaiming her
> the throne at the age thirteen in 1555. He ruled until his own
> innocence. This same revelation established the punishment
> death in 1605.
> for false accusations of adultery.
> 
> In the lifetime of the Prophet she, together with Muham-            Akbar’s reputation as the true founder of the Mogul
> mad’s other wives, was referred to as “Mother of the Believ-        empire rests partly on his own reign of fifty years and partly
> ers.” She is known to have transmitted approximately 1,210          on the writings of Abu ’l-Fazl, a loyal companion who was
> traditions (hadiths), only 300 of which are included in the         Akbar’s ardent supporter. Abu ’l-Fazl’s Ain-i Akbari and
> canonical hadith collections of Bukhari and Muslim. She is          Akbarnamah presented the image of Akbar as a political
> said to have transmitted hadith to at least eighty-five Mus-         genius. Abu ’l-Fazl saw Akbar as the “perfect man” (insan-i
> lims, as well as to have corrected inaccuracies in the hadiths      kamil) of Sufi lore: a master of both the temporal and spiritual
> reported by some of the Prophet’s male companions.                  realms. He, therefore, inflated Akbar’s reputation whenever
> possible.
> After the death of the Prophet, she was critical of the third
> caliph, 
Uthman, but also called his killers to accountability          In practical terms, Akbar adopted some of the administraduring the caliphate of 
Ali. Together with the Companions          tive practices of the defeated Sher Shah. As the influence of
> Zubair and Talha, she mobilized opposition to 
Ali, culminat-       his grandfather and father’s aging courtiers declined, Akbar
> ing in the Battle of the Camel (656 C.E.). The name of the          was free to recruit a new corps of advisors, like Abu ’l-Fazl.
> battle reflects the centrality of 
Aisha’s role in the conflict,     These advisors depended on his patronage for their own
> seated on her camel in the middle of the battlefield. This           status. During Akbar’s reign, India saw an influx of silver
> struggle over succession marked the development of a major          bullion as European traders began massive purchases of
> civil war (called fitna) in Islam, which ultimately contributed      Indian cloth. Because of the cash nexus created by increased
> to one of the most significant religious and political divisions     commerce, Akbar was able to manage a system in which
> in the Muslim world. The representations of 
Aisha in              officials received salaries either directly from the imperial
> subsequent Shi
ite and Sunni polemics reflected some of the          treasury or through assignments of the government’s revenue
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                       33
> Akhbariyya
> 
> allotment from the capitol of the province for specific dis-          hadith in these books should not be examined by the traditricts. The central authority gained an unprecedented degree         tional means of establishing historical accuracy. Furtherof control over state officials. Akbar’s reputation was further       more, the Akhbariyya maintained that these traditions were
> enhanced as the British came to rule India. They saw him as a        never ambiguous in meaning, and were in no need of intermodel for their own style of rule: religiously neutral, but strict   pretation. In this sense, the Akhbariyya can be viewed as
> in his assertion of central power.                                   literalist, or even fundamentalist.
> 
> See also Empires: Mogul; South Asia, Islam in.                           The Akhbariyya drew on the diverse areas of Safavid
> Twelver intellectual life. There were Akhbaris who were
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                         influenced by mysticism and philosophy, such as Muhammad
> Alam, Muzaffar, and Subrahmanyam, Sanjay, eds. The Mughal            Taqi al-Majlisi (d. 1659/1660) and Muhsin Fayd al-Kashani
> State 1526–1750. New Delhi: Oxford University                     (d. 1680), as well as the stricter, more legalistic manifestations
> Press, 1998.                                                      of Shi
ism, such as Mulla Muhammad Tahir Qummi (d.
> 1686) and al-Hurr al-Amili (d. 1693). What they shared was a
> Gregory C. Kozlowski       common attitude toward the manner in which the shari
a
> might be known. They were, then, in the main a movement of
> law, and often referred to themselves as a madhhab (school of
> AKHBARIYYA                                                           law). As an intellectual force, the Akhbariyya died out in Iran
> and Iraq in the early nineteenth century, though they contin-
> Akhbariyya was a movement in Twelver Shi
ism that empha-             ued for a short time thereafter to be influential in India. Even
> sized a return to the sources of the law (Quran and hadith).        today, there continue to be scholars who follow a methodol-
> Hadith in Twelver Shi
ism include accounts of the sayings            ogy similar to Akhbarism in the Shi
ite world, particularly in
> and actions of the imams (normally termed akhbar). The               the Persian Gulf area and southern Iran.
> Akhbariyya styled themselves as followers of the imams
> (through the akhbar) that record their rulings, rather than the      See also Law; Mutazilites, Mutazila; Shia: Imami
> interpretations of these texts by later scholars. The origins of     (Twelver).
> the Akhbari movement are a debated point both within the
> Twelver tradition, and among Western commentators. The               BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Akhbaris themselves, however, see their movement as the              Gleave, Robert. Inevitable Doubt: Two Theories of Shi
i Jurisoriginal Shi
ism, which was later corrupted by scholars who            prudence. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2000.
> had imitated Sunni methods of jurisprudence. Their oppo-
> Tabatabai, H. Modarresssi. “Rationalism and Traditionnents, termed Usulis (or in some texts, mujtahids), considered
> alism in Shi
i Jurisprudence.” Studia Islamica 59
> the Akhbaris an innovative movement (bid
a), arising in the
> (1984): 141–158.
> sixteenth century with the work of Muhammad Amin al-
> Astarabadi (d. 1626). There is evidence to support both
> interpretations of the movement’s origins. Early Muslim
> Robert Gleave
> heresiographical works, such as Shahrastani’s Kitab al-milal
> wa al-nihal (c. 1127), talk of the division of the imamiyya into
> mu
taziliyya and akhbariyya. Whether these early Akhbaris
> can be linked to the later, better-defined, movement is
> AKHLAQ
> unclear.
> Akhlaq, the plural form of khuluq, refers to innate disposition
> In biographical works, Astarabadi is normally described          or character and, by extension in Muslim thought, to ethics.
> as the founder of the movement, though Astarabadi viewed             In the Quran the term is used to refer to the prophet
> himself as its “reviver.” He was followed by a number of             Muhammad’s exemplary ethical character (68:4). The Quran
> scholars who explicitly identified themselves with the                also emphasizes the significance of ethically guided action as
> Akhbariyya. What united these scholars was a call for the            the underpinning for a committed Muslim life. Quranic
> return to the sources in a belief that the meaning of the            ethics emphasize in particular the dignity of the human being,
> imams’ words and actions was readily available, but had been         accountability, justice, care and compassion, stewardship of
> lost by centuries of excessive interpretation. They identified        society and the environment, and the obligation to family life
> this excessive interpretation with the introduction of the           and values. Faith and ethics are thus intertwined in the
> doctrine of ijtihad into Shi
ite legal thinking by al-
Allama al-    Quran and linked further to the Prophet as a moral exemplar.
> Hilli (d.1325). Akhbaris also criticized other juristic practices
> linked with the theory of ijtihad. In particular, they viewed the       In elaborating and further developing ethical thought,
> “canonical four books” of Twelver Shi
ite hadith as contain-         Muslims, throughout history, developed a diverse set of
> ing only “sound” (sahih) traditions. They believed that the          expressions: philosophical, theological, legal, and literary.
> 
> 34                                                                                                Islam and the Muslim World
> 
Ali
> 
> These expressions were framed within a context of vigorous             BIBLIOGRAPHY
> intellectual debate and in interaction with the legacies of            Cook, Michael. Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong
> many ancient traditions, including the works attributed to               in Islamic Thought. New York: Cambridge University
> Aristotle and Plato, and Iranian, Indian, Jewish, and Chris-             Press, 2000.
> tian thought.                                                          Izutsu, Toshihiko. Ethno-Religious Concepts in the Quran. Montreal: McGill University Press, 1966
> The Muslim philosophical tradition of ethics developed
> an intellectual framework for rationally grounded moral
> action. Some of the key thinkers who contributed to this were                                                              Azim Nanji
> al-Farabi (d. 950), Ibn Miskawayh (d. 1030), Ibn Sina (d.
> 1037), and Nasir al-Din Tusi (d. 1273/74). Their works in
> turn influenced other major figures, including the Sunni
> scholar al-Ghazali (d. 1111), who did not always agree with            AKHUND See Molla
> them. The philosophical tradition, in common with other
> early groups such as the Mu
tazila and the Shi
a, emphasized
> reason and logic in arguing for a universal ethical framework.
> Ethical action in their view did not oppose religiously grounded
> ethics, rather it sought to enhance their meaning and appre-           
ALI (600–661)
> ciation by philosophical reasoning and took account of personal and social, as well as political, virtues. Al-Farabi’s classic   
Ali ibn Talib, born in Mecca about 600 C.E., was the cousin
> al-Madinah al-Fadilah (The excellent city) explores the ideals         and son-in-law of the prophet Muhammad, father of the
> of a political community that produces the greatest good for           Prophet’s grandsons Hasan and Husayn, and fourth caliph
> all its citizens.                                                      (656–661) of the Muslim umma (community of believers).
> 
> Muslim legal tradition also developed a framework for                 At a very young age, 
Ali was adopted by Muhammad, who
> guiding individual and social behavior. In Muslim law (shari
a)        brought him up like his own son. When Muhammad received
> jurists classified acts according to their moral value, ranging         the divine revelation, 
Ali was still a very young boy. He was
> from obligatory, meritorious, indifferent, disapproved, and            the first male to accept Islam, and to dedicate all his life to the
> the forbidden. All actions thus fell within these normatively          cause of Islam. 
Ali’s courage became legendary because he
> and juristically defined categories and provided religiously            led several important missions.
> defined prescriptions that could be enacted at a personal as
> well as a social level to followers by scholars trained in                 At the Prophet’s death, the community split into two
> jurisprudence and religious sciences.                                  major groups contending for political succession. During a
> gathering of the ansar (helpers), Abu Bakr was elected first
> Mystically grounded ethics as developed in the Sufi tradi-          caliph. A group led by 
Ali and his supporters (Zubayr, Talha,
> tion emphasized the necessity of an inner orientation and              Miqdad, Salman al-Farsi, and Abu Dharr Ghifari, among
> awareness for guiding human action, leading to greater inti-           others) held that 
Ali was the legitimate heir of the Prophet.
> macy, knowledge, and personal experience of the divine.                To preserve the unity of the Muslim umma, 
Ali is said to have
> Ethical acts were linked to spiritual development, and Sufi             kept a low profile and concentrated his efforts on religious
> teachers wrote manuals, guides, and literary works to illus-           matters. The first version of the Quran was attributed to him
> trate the way—tariqa—which represented, in their view, the
> by some of his contemporaries. In the period preceding his
> inner dimension of outward acts.
> caliphate, 
Ali, known for his learning in Quran and sunna,
> In the modern period, as Muslims have come into greater             had given advice on secular and spiritual matters. On several
> contact with each other and with the rest of the world, their          occasions, he disagreed with Uthman (the third caliph) and
> ethical legacy, while still continuing to be influential in its         criticized him on the application of certain Islamic principles.
> traditional forms, is also being challenged to address emerg-
> Following Uthman’s murder, the ansar invited 
Ali to
> ing issues, changing needs, and social transition. Muslim
> accept the caliphate and he agreed only after a long hesitascholars are debating and formulating responses to a variety
> tion. All through his brief governing period, 
Ali faced strong
> of issues, prominent among which are the ethical bases of
> opposition. First he was opposed by 
Aisha, Muhammad’s
> political, social, and legal governance; the ethics of a just
> wife, but the strongest opposition came from Mu
awiya, who
> economic order; family life; war and peace; biomedical ethics;
> human rights and freedoms; the ethics of life; and the broader         had his stronghold in Syria. Two companions of the Prophet,
> question raised by globalization, degradation of the environ-          Talha and Zubayr, already frustrated in their political ambiment, and the uses and abuses of technology.                           tions, were further disappointed by 
Ali, in their efforts to
> secure for themselves the governorships of Basra and Kufa.
> See also Adab; Ethics and Social Issues; Falsafa.                      Thus they broke with him and asked to bring Uthman’s
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                           35
> 
Ali
> 
> murderers to trial. 
Ali appointed 
Abd Allah b. 
Abbas governor of Basra, and went to Kufa in order to gain support
> against Mu
awiya. He formed a diverse coalition, comprised
> of men like 
Ammar b. Yasir, Qays b. Sa
d b. 
Ubada, Malik
> Ashtar, and Ash
at b. Qays Kindi.
> 
> 
Ali opened negotiations with Mu
awiya, hoping to gain
> his allegiance. Mu
awiya insisted on Syrian autonomy under
> his own leadership. Thus he mobilized his Syrian supporters
> and refused to pay homage to 
Ali, on the pretext that his
> people had not participated in his election. After a few
> months of confrontation, 
Amr b. 
As advised Mu
awiya to
> have his soldiers raise parchments inscribed with verses of the
> Quran on their spearheads; the goal was to bring about the
> cessation of hostilities between the people of Iraq, who
> formed the bulk of 
Ali’s army, and the people of Syria. 
Ali
> saw through the stratagem, but only a minority wanted to
> pursue the fight. Hence he ended the fight and sent Ash
at b.
> Qays to find out Mu
awiya’s intentions. Mu
awiya suggested
> that each side should choose an arbiter; together, the two
> men would reach a decision based on the Quran. This
> decision would then be binding on both parties. 
Amr b. 
As,
> the Syrian representative, and Abu Musa Ash
ari, the Iraqi
> representative, met to draft an agreement, but in the meantime 
Ali’s coalition began to collapse. The arbiters and other
> Although many Muslims forbid representing the Prophet and his
> eminent persons met at Adruh in January 659 to discuss the        family in images, this fresco depicts 
Ali ibn Abi Talib, fourth caliph
> selection of the new caliph. Both parties agreed to the choice    of Islam, and the cousin and brother-in-law of Muhammad.
> of 
Ali and Mu
awiya and were willing to submit the selection     Muhammad raised 
Ali like a son, and 
Ali became the first male to
> accept Islam. Here, 
Ali holds the body of an imam killed during
> of the new caliph to an electorate body (shura). In the public    political power struggles after Muhammad’s death. © SEF/ART
> declaration that followed, Abu Musa kept his part of the          RESOURCE, NY
> agreement, but 
Amr b. 
As deposed 
Ali and declared
> Mu
awiya caliph.
> his grave. Under the Safavid Empire, his grave became the
> Meanwhile, Mu
awiya had followed an aggressive course
> focus of much devoted attention, exemplified in the pilgrimof action by making incursions into the heart of Iraq and
> age made by Shah Isma
il I (d. 1524) to Najaf and Karbala.
> Arabia. By the end of 660 
Ali, who was regarded as caliph
> Today a gold-plated dome rises above 
Ali’s tomb. The
> only by a diminishing number of partisans, lost control of
> interior is decorated with polished silver, mirror work, and
> Egypt and Hijaz. He was struck with a poisoned sword by a
> ornamental tiles. A silver tomb rises over the grave itself, and
> Kharijite named 
Abd-al-Rahman b. Muljam while praying in
> the courtyard has two minarets. The recitation of special
> a mosque at Kufa. 
Ali died at the age of sixty-three and was     prayers over 
Ali’s grave is considered particularly beneficial
> buried near Kufa in late January 661. 
Ali’s death brought to     in view of 
Ali’s role as intercessor on the Day of Judgment.
> an end the era of Rashidun, the four “rightly-guided” caliphs.    Sunni polemicists have often accused the Shi
ites of prefer-
> The Sunnis believe that the order of merit corresponds to the     ring pilgrimages to the tombs of 
Ali and other imams over
> chronological historical order of succession of the four first     the pilgrimage to Mecca.
> caliphs (Abu Bakr, 
Umar, 
Uthman, and 
Ali). The Shi
ites
> preferred 
Ali over the first three caliphs; they never accepted      It is important to note that 
Ali’s position became impor-
> Mu
awiya or any later caliphs, and took the name shi
at 
Ali,     tant to different groups of Muslims starting from the early
> or 
Ali’s Party.                                                  period. For the Shi
a, he is said to have participated in the
> Prophet’s ascension (mi
raj) to heaven and acquired several
> Several places are mentioned as 
Ali’s shrine. But most       honorific titles. The 
Alyaiyya believed in the divinity of
> Shi
ite scholars are in agreement that 
Ali was buried in         Muhammad and 
Ali, and gave preference in divine matters to
> Ghari, west of Kufa, at the site of present-day Najaf. These      
Ali. Among Sufis he is renowned as a great Sufi saint for his
> scholars explained the discrepancies among the various re-        piety and poverty as well as the possessor of esoteric knowlports by maintaining that 
Ali himself requested to be buried     edge. The early Shi
ite traditions regarded 
Ali as the most
> in a secret place so as to prevent his enemies from desecrating   judicious of the Companions and the Prophet nicknamed him
> 
> 36                                                                                               Islam and the Muslim World
> 
Ali
> 
> Abu Turab (Father of Dust) because he saw him sleeping in              Most High was this: “O Apostle, declare all that has
> the courtyard of the mosque. Some sources agree that 
Ali was          been sent down to thee from thy Lord. No part of it is
> a profoundly religious man, devoted to the cause of Islam and          to be withheld. God will protect you against men, for
> the rule of justice in accordance with the Quran and the sunna.       he does not guide the unbelievers” (5:71). Because of
> this positive command to appoint 
Ali as his successor,
> One of the basic differences between Shi
ism and Sunnism           and perceiving that God would not countenance furconcerns the question of the respective roles of 
Ali (and the         ther delay, he and his company dismounted in this
> other imams) on the one hand, and Muhammad on the other.               unusual stopping place. The day was hot and he told
> Shi
ism shares with Sunnism the belief that Muhammad, as               them to stand under shelter of some thorn trees . . .
> seal of the prophets, was the last to have received revelation         when the crowd had all gathered, Muhammad walked
> (wahy). Classical Shi
ite doctrine holds that 
Ali and the other       up on to the platform of saddles and called 
Ali to stand
> at his right. After a prayer of thanks he spoke to the
> imams were the recipients of inspiration (ilham). But it is only
> people, informing them that he had been forewarned
> the legislative prophecy that has come to an end, that is, the
> of his death, and saying, “I have been summoned to the
> previous prophets such as Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Muham-
> Gate of God, and I shall soon depart to God, to be
> mad, the last of the legislative prophets, introduced a new            concealed from you, and bidding farewell to this world.
> religious law while abrogating the previous one; the guidance          I am leaving you the Book of God [Quran], and if you
> of humanity must continue under the walaya (Institution of             follow this you will not go astray. And I am leaving you
> the Friends of God) of an esoteric prophecy (Nubuwa batiniyya).        also the members of household [ahl al-bayt], who are
> Thus 
Ali, the first imam, is designated as the foundation              not to be separated from the Book of God until they
> (asas) of the imamate. He is the possessor of a divine light           meet me at the drinking fountain of Kawthar.” He then
> (nur) passed on from Muhammad to him, and later from him               called out, “Am I not, more precious to you than your
> on to the other imams. The Sunnis believe that the Prophet             own lives?” They said “Yes.” Then it was that he took
> did not explicitly name his successor after his death; the             
Ali’s hands and raised them so high that he showed the
> Shi
ites, on the contrary, hold that he explicitly named his           whites of his armpits, and said, “Whoever has me as his
> successor 
Ali at Ghadir Khumm, an oasis between Mecca                 master (mawla) has 
Ali as his master. Be friend to his
> and Medina.                                                            friend, O Lord, and be an enemy to his enemies. Help
> those who assist him and frustrate those who oppose
> According to the Shi
a, a passage in the Quran (2:118)            him.” (Donaldson, p. 5)
> shows that the imamate is a divine institution; the possessor
> thereof must be from the seed of Ibrahim: “And when his
> Lord tested Abraham with certain words, and he fulfilled                 This sura concluded the revelation: “This day I have
> them. He said, ‘Behold, I make you a leader [imam] for the          perfected your religion for you, and have filled up the measpeople.’ Said he, ‘And of my seed?’” Even the Sunnis hold           ure of my favors upon you, and it is my pleasure that Islam be
> that the true caliph can only be one of the Quraysh tribe, but      your religion” (5:5). The event of Ghadir Khumm is not
> based on this verse the Shi
a maintain that the divinely            denied by Sunnis but interpreted differently by them. For the
> appointed leader must himself be impeccable (ma
sum). The           Sunnis, Muhammad wanted only to honor 
Ali. They underprimeval creation of 
Ali is therefore a principle of the Shi
ite   stood the term mawla in the sense of friend, whereas the Shi
a
> faith. According to them, as expressed by Muhammad Baqir            recognized 
Ali as their master; the spiritual authority of 
Ali
> Majlisi (d. 1698), Muhammad explicitly designated (nass jali)       was passed afterward to his direct descendants, the rightful
> 
Ali as his successor by God’s command:                             guides (imams). The successor of the Prophet, for the Sunnis,
> is his khalifa (caliph), the guardian of religious law (shari
a),
> while for the Shi
ites, the successor is the inheritor (wasi) of
> When the ceremonies of the pilgrimage were comhis esoteric knowledge and the interpreter, par excellence, of
> pleted, the Prophet, attended by 
Ali and the Muslims,
> the Quran. Since Muhammad was the last Prophet who
> left Mecca for Medina. On reaching Ghadir Khumm,
> he [the Prophet] halted, although that place had never           closed the prophetic cycle, the Shi
a believe that humanity
> before been a halting place for caravans. The reason for         still needs spiritual guidance: the cycle of imamate must
> the halt was that verses of the Quran had come upon             succeed the cycle of prophecy. Another tradition gives us
> him, commanding him to establish 
Ali in the Caliphate.          some insight into the key role of 
Ali, based on the status of
> Before this he had received similar messages, but had            Aaron: “O people, know that what Aaron was to Moses, 
Ali is
> not been instructed explicitly as to the time for 
Ali’s         to me, except that there shall be no prophet after me.”
> appointment. He had delayed because of opposition                (Poonawala and Kohlberg, p. 842). The imamate is a cardinal
> that might occur. But if the crowd of pilgrims had gone
> principle of Shi
ite faith. It is only through the imam that true
> beyond Ghadir Khumm they would have separated
> and the different tribes would have gone in various              knowledge can be obtained. 
Ali, as the Wasi, assisted Mudirections. This is why Muhammad ordered them to                 hammad in his task. The Prophet received the revelation
> assemble here, for he had things to say to 
Ali which he         (tanzil) and established the religious law (shari
a), while 
Ali,
> wanted all to hear. The message that came from the               the repository of the Prophet’s knowledge, provided its
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                         37
> Aligarh
> 
> spiritual exegesis (tawil). Thus the imamate, the heart of         carried Noah in the ark, I am Jonah’s companion in the belly
> Shi
ism, is closely tied to 
Ali’s spiritual mission. For Sunnis,   of the fish. I am Khadir, who taught Moses, I am the Teacher
> the imamate is necessary because of the revelation and is           of David and Solomon, I am Dhu al-Qarnayn” (Poonawala
> considered a law among the laws of religion. For them, the          and Kohlberg, p. 847). According to another tradition (Amirimamate is not part of the principles of religion and belief,       Moezzi, p. 30), Muhammad and 
Ali were created from the
> whereas for Shi
ites, the imamate is a rational necessity and an    same divine light (nur) and remained united in the world of
> obliged grace (lutf wajib).                                         the spirits; only in this world did they separate into individual
> entities so that mankind might be shown the difference
> From the beginning, Shi
ite Islam has emphasized the           between Prophet and Wali. It is only through him that God
> importance of human intellect placed in the service of faith.       may be known.
> The origins of the encouragement given to intellect goes
> back to 
Ali the commander of the faithful (amir al-muminin).      See also Caliphate; Imamate; Shia: Early; Succession.
> According to a saying attributed to him, there is an intimate
> bond between intellect and faith: “Intellect [
aql] in the heart    BIBLIOGRAPHY
> is like a lamp in the center of the house” (Amir-Moezzi, p. 48).
> Amir-Moezzi, Mohammad Ali. The Divine Guide in Early
> The heart’s eye of the faithful can see the divine light (nur)
> Shi
ism. Translated by David Streight. Albany, N.Y.: State
> when there is no longer anyone between God and him; it is
> University of New York, 1994.
> when God showed Himself to him, since 
aql is the interior
> Corbin, Henry. History of Islamic Philosophy. Translated by
> guide (imam) of the believer.
> Liadain Sherrard and Philip Sherrard. London: Kegan
> Paul International, 1993.
> In early Sufi circles, 
Ali was especially renowned for his
> piety and poverty. He is said to have dressed simply. His           Donaldson, Dwight M. The Shi
ite Religion. London:
> biographies abound in statements about his austerity, rigor-          Luzac, 1933.
> ous observance of religious duties, and detachment from             Hollister, John. The Shi
a of India. London: Luzac, 1955.
> worldly goods. He is also described as the most knowledge-          Jafri, S. H. M. The Origins and Early Development of Shi
a
> able of the Companions, in terms of both theological ques-              Islam. London and New York: Longman, 1979.
> tions and matters of positive law. Abu al-Qasim al-Junayd (d.
> Momen, Moojan. An Introduction to Shi
i Islam: The History
> 910) considered 
Ali as his “master in the roots and branches         and Doctrines of Twelver Shi
ism. New Haven, Conn.: Yale
> [of religious knowledge] and in perseverance in the face of           University Press, 1985.
> hardship” (Poonawala and Kohlberg, p. 846). With the growth
> Mufïd, Shaykh al-. Kitâb al-Irshâd. Translated by I. K. A.
> of Sufi doctrine in the tenth and eleventh centuries, increas-
> Howard. New York: Muhammadi Trust, 1981.
> ing emphasis was placed on 
Ali’s possession of a knowledge
> Poonawala, Ismail K., and Kohlberg, Etan. “
Ali b. Abi
> imparted directly by God (
ilm laduni). Most of the Sufis
> Taleb.” In Vol. 1, Encyclopaedia Iranica. London and Bosbelieve that each shaykh or pir (sage) inherited his knowledge
> ton: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982.
> directly from 
Ali. The investment of the cloak as a symbol of
> the transmission of spiritual powers is closely associated to
> 
Ali: the two precious things shown to Muhammad during the                                                       Diana Steigerwald
> mystical ascent (mi
raj) were spiritual poverty and a cloak that
> he had placed on 
Ali and his family (Fatima, Hasan, and
> Husayn).
> ALIGARH
> Sufi orders flourished particularly in Central Asia and
> Persia; Muslim scholars became imbued with Shi
ite specula-         The north Indian city of Aligarh, site of Aligarh Muslim
> tive theology and Sufism. One of the earliest representatives        University, has played a leading role in the political life and
> of this trend was 
Ali b. Mitham Bahrani (d. 1281), who saw in      intellectual history of South Asian Muslims since the mid-
> 
Ali the original shaykh and founder of the mystical tradition.     dle of the nineteenth century. The importance of Aligarh
> For them 
Ali’s mission is seen as the hidden and secret aspect     arose initially under the leadership of Sayyid Ahmad Khan
> of prophecy. This underlying idea is based on the Khutbat al-       (1817–1898). Through a series of organizations and institubayan: “I am the Sign of the All-Powerful. I am the Gnosis of       tions, the “Aligarh movement” (the social, cultural, and
> mysteries. I am the companion of the radiance of the divine         political movement founded by Sayyid Ahmad Khan) sought
> Majesty. I am the First and the Last, the Manifest and the          to prepare Muslims for changes in technology, social life, and
> Hidden. I am the Face of God. I am the mirror of God, the           politics associated with British rule, the rise of nationalism,
> supreme Pen, the Tabula secreta. I am he who in the Gospel          and the conditions of modernity. In 1865, Aligarh became the
> is called Elijah. I am he who is in possession of the secret of     headquarters of the Aligarh Scientific Society, and, in 1875,
> God’s Messenger” (Corbin, p. 49). Or this next one: “I              the Mahomedan Anglo-Oriental College, the forerunner of
> 
> 38                                                                                              Islam and the Muslim World
> Allah
> 
> the university established there in 1920. Aligarh was the first      BIBLIOGRAPHY
> headquarters of the Muslim League, a party established in           Graff, Violette. “Aligarh’s Long Quest for ‘Minority’ Status:
> 1906 to secure recognition of Muslims as a separate political         AMU (Amendment) Act. 1981.” Economic and Political
> community within India, a concept that ultimately led in              Weekly 25, no. 32 (1980): 1771–1781.
> 1947 to the partition of India and the creation of Pakistan as a    Hasan, Mushirul. “Nationalist and Separatist Trends in
> separate nation-state for South Asian Muslims. After parti-           Aligarh, 1915–47.” The Indian Economic and Social History
> tion, the Aligarh Muslim University remained one of a small           Review 22, no. 1 (1985): 1–34.
> group of national universities in India.
> Lelyveld, David. Aligarh’s First Generation: Muslim Solidarity
> in British India. 2d ed. New Delhi: Oxford University
> In its early years, the Aligarh College attracted patronage
> Press, 1996.
> and recruited students from Muslim communities throughout India, both Sunni and Shi
a, as well as significant numbers
> of Hindus. Aside from some short-lived efforts to include                                                           David Lelyveld
> Arabic studies and Urdu as a language of instruction, the
> college followed the standard British imperial curriculum.
> Official British patronage became more significant after 1887,
> when Sayyid Ahmad Khan called for Muslim opposition to              ALLAH
> the newly founded Indian National Congress. In the twentieth century, Aligarh became an arena for opposing political         Allah is the Arabic equivalent of the English word God, and is
> tendencies among Muslims, including supporters of Indian            the term employed not only among Arabic-speaking Muslims
> nationalism and international socialism, as well as of Muslim       but by Christians and Jews and in Arabic translations of the
> separatism. Aligarh graduates achieved prominence as writ-          Bible. A contraction of al-ilah, meaning “the god,” Allah is
> ers, jurists, and political leaders. At the same time, Aligarh      cognate with the generic pan-Semitic designation for “God”
> was the target of much opposition, particularly for its associa-    or “deity” (Israelite/Canaanite El, Akkadian ilu) and is partion with social reform and religious modernism. In 1906 the        ticularly close to the common Hebrew term Elohim and the
> Aligarh Zenana Madrasa provided separate education for              less frequent Eloah. It is thus, strictly speaking, not a proper
> girls, and became the Aligarh Women’s College in 1925.              name but a title.
> 
> When Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan died in 1898, his succes-                In the Islamic context, as in Jewish and Christian usage,
> sors initiated a campaign to establish an autonomous, all-          Allah refers to the one true God of monotheism. This is how
> India educational system for Muslims under the auspices of          the term occurs in the shahada or “profession of faith,” the
> an affiliating university. The university established in 1920,       simplest, earliest, and most basic of Islamic creeds, in the first
> however, was confined to Aligarh and remained under British          part of which the believer affirms that there is no “god” (ilah)
> control. In response, Mohandas K. Gandhi and two Aligarh            but “God” or “the god” (Allah). However, the shahada itself
> graduates, the brothers Shaukat 
Ali and Muhammad 
Ali, led         seems to imply that Allah was already known to the first
> a noncooperation campaign that established an alternative           audience of the Islamic revelation, and that they were called
> nationalist institution, the Jami
a Milli
a Islamiya, outside the   upon to repudiate other deities. And this is precisely the
> campus gates and subsequently relocated to Delhi. In the            picture given in the Quran. “If you ask them who created
> final years before independence and partition, Aligarh stu-          them,” the Quran informs the prophet Muhammad regarddents toured India on behalf of the Pakistan cause, though          ing his pagan critics, “they will certainly say ‘Allah.’” (43:87;
> others devoted themselves to the ideal of a united and              compare 10:31; 39:38). Pagan Arabs swore oaths by Allah (as
> secular India.                                                      witnessed at 6:109; 16:38; 35:42).
> 
> Zakir Hussain, the first postindependence vice chancellor            Pre-Islamic Arabs believed in supernatural intercessors
> of Aligarh Muslim University, and later president of India,         with God (10:18; 34:22), for whom they appeared to claim
> succeeded in preserving the university’s Muslim identity as a       warrant from Allah. (See, for example, 6:148.) Indeed, Allah
> way of preparing Muslims for full participation in national         seems (in their view) to have headed a pantheon of prelife. A center for Urdu writers and historians of Mughal India,     Islamic deities or supernatural beings, not altogether unlike
> many of them Marxists, the university has so far been able to       El’s rule over the Canaanite pantheon, and, like El, he seems
> fend off efforts to undermine its role as an national center for    to have been rather distant and aloof. While the data are
> Indian Muslims.                                                     fragmentary and open to some question, pre-Islamic Arabs
> seem to have paid more attention to Allah’s daughters and to
> See also Ahmad Khan, (Sir) Sayyid; Education; Mod-                  the jinn (or genies) than to him. Even the Quran seems to
> ernism; Pakistan, Islamic Republic of; South Asia,                  concede genuine existence to a divine retinue (as at 7:191–195;
> Islam in; Urdu Language, Literature, and Poetry.                    10:28–29; 25:3). However, just as the Canaanite gods are
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                       39
> Allah
> 
> This tilework at the tomb of Baba Qasim in Isfahan, Iran, spells Allahu Akbar, or “God is Great.” Allah, the Arabic name for God, appears
> frequently in Islamic art and architecture in calligraphic script. © ROGER WOOD/CORBIS
> 
> replaced by an angelic court in Israelite faith, Islam rejects the     and the Quran is centered on absolute “submission” (islam)
> independent deities of pagan Arabia in favor of a very much            to his will.
> subordinated “exalted assembly” (see 37:8; 38:69) that exists
> to carry out the decrees of the one true God, who is, says the             The Quran describes God as “Allah, one; Allah, the
> Quran, nearer to the individual human than that person’s              eternal refuge. He does not beget nor is He begotten, and
> jugular vein (50:16). In this, as in other respects, Islam regards     there is none equal to Him” (112:1–4). In subsequent Islamic
> itself as a restoration of the religion taught by earlier prophets     thought, such straightforward denial of divine family life
> but marred by successive human apostasies (see 42:13).                 (probably aimed at both the pre-Islamic pantheon and Christian concepts of God the Father and God the Son) was
> The Quran identifies Allah as the creator, sustainer, and          expanded into a much broader doctrine of the divine unity,
> sovereign of the heavens and the earth. (See, for example,             denoted by the non-Quranic word tawhid (“unification” or
> 13:16; 29:61, 63; 31:25; 39:38; 43:9, 87.) Following the               “making one”). Philosophers and theologians debated such
> scriptural text, Muslims characterize him by the ninety-nine           questions as whether God’s attributes were identical to God’s
> “most beautiful names” (7:180; 17:110; 20:8), which serve to
> essence, or whether, being multiple, they must be additional
> identify his attributes. (Eventually, repetition of and meditaand in a sense external in order not to compromise the utter
> tion upon these names became an important practice in the
> and absolute simplicity of the divine essence. They debated
> tradition of Sufi mysticism.) They portray a being who is selfhow the undeniably manifold cosmos had emerged out of the
> sufficient, omnipotent, omniscient, eternal, merciful yet just,
> pure oneness of God. The issue of whether God’s speech (i.e.,
> benevolent but terrible in his wrath. The picture of Allah in
> the Quran) was coeternal with him, or subsidiary and crethe Quran employs distinctly anthropomorphic language
> ated, rising to political prominence in the second and third
> (referring, for example, to the divine eyes, hands, and face),
> centuries after Muhammad. The overwhelming personality
> which, virtually all commentators have long agreed, are to be
> depicted in the revelations of Muhammad became the Necestaken figuratively.
> sary Existent (wajib al-wujud), and the obvious dependence of
> Allah has revealed himself throughout history via mes-              life on his will (particularly apparent in the harsh desert
> sages to various prophets by means of both the seemingly               environment of Arabia) was taken to point to the utter
> routine processes of nature and the periodic judgments and             contingency of all creation upon a God who brought it into
> catastrophes directed against the rebellious. He will reveal           being out of nothing. Perhaps not unrelated was the rise to
> himself even more spectacularly at the end of time when, as            dominance in Islam of a doctrine of predestination or deterjudge of humankind, he pronounces doom or blessing upon                minism, which had obvious roots in the Quran itself (as, for
> every individual who has ever lived. The faith of Muhammad             example, at 13:27; 16:93; 74:31). In the meantime, though,
> 
> 40                                                                                                  Islam and the Muslim World
> American Culture and Islam
> 
> while the philosophers were elaborating a view of Allah            this interface is the influence of Muslims and Islamic culture
> tending to extreme transcendence, Sufi theoreticians were           on American culture and the American public’s perception of
> emphasizing his immanence and experiential accessibility           Muslims and Islam.
> and, in practice, often breaking down the barrier between
> The Muslim community itself is multilayered. A sizable
> Creator and creatures—and occasionally shocking their felportion of the Muslim community consists of those who do
> low Muslims.
> not attend a mosque, associate with other Muslim organiza-
> The famous “Throne Verse” (2:255) offers a fine sum-            tions, and do not practice Islam. This group has little interest
> mary of basic Islamic teaching regarding God: “Allah! There        in maintaining Islamic culture and, therefore, they are the
> most willing to assimilate into American culture. For many of
> is no god but he, the Living, the Everlasting. Neither slumber
> them, their identity as American is paramount. This article
> nor sleep seizes him. His are all things in the heavens and the
> does not focus on this group, but instead focuses on those
> earth. Who is there who can intercede with him, except by his
> Muslims who identify and associate with Muslim groups.
> leave? He knows what is before them and what is behind
> them, while they comprehend nothing of his knowledge                   The Muslims who do associate with mosques and Muslim
> except as he wills. His throne extends over the heavens and        organizations are composed of immigrants (the majority
> the earth. Sustaining them does not burden him, for he is the      being first generation), the children of immigrants (largely
> Most High, the Supreme.” The depth of Muslim devotion to           second generation) and converts (largely African American
> Allah is apparent virtually everywhere in Islamic life, includ-    with significant numbers of Caucasian and Hispanic Ameriing even the use of elaborate calligraphic renditions of the       cans). The dynamics of the interface of American and Islamic
> word as architectural and artistic ornamentation.                  culture in these groups differ. First-generation immigrants
> bring to America a set of customs shaped by the Muslim
> See also Asnam; Qur
an; Shirk.                                     world, and these customs are affected by the American
> environment. Converts, already acculturated when they adopt
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                       Islam, modify their American culture to fit into the new
> environment of Islam. The children of immigrants, raised in
> Ghazali, al-. The Incoherence of the Philosophers. Translated by
> America, are acculturated to two cultures and they must
> Michael E. Marmura. Provo, Utah: Brigham Young Unidecide how each one fits.
> versity Press, 2000.
> Rahbar, Daud. God of Justice: A Study in the Ethical Doctrine of   American Culture’s Impact on Muslims
> the Quran. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1960.                           In the early decades of the Muslim presence in America
> Watt, W. Montgomery. Islamic Philosophy and Theology: An           (1920–1970), Muslim immigrant groups, possibly pressured
> Extended Survey. 2d ed. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University          by the dominant paradigm of the melting pot, allowed for the
> Press, 1985.                                                     inclusion of many American cultural practices (e.g. dancing
> Williams, Wesley. “Aspects of the Creed of Imam Ahmad ibn          the twist in the youth associations and Saturday night bingo
> Hanbal: A Study of Anthropomorphism in Early Islamic             in the mosque). Also, converts to the major heterodoxical
> Discourse.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 34,     Islamic groups, such as the Nation of Islam and the Moorish
> no. 3 (2002): 441–463.                                           Science Temple, mixed freely Islamic and American practices
> (e.g. chairs in the mosque, hymns, and fasting during
> Christmas).
> Daniel C. Peterson
> All of that changed beginning in the 1970s when large
> waves of newly-arrived, Islamically self-confident immigrants
> opposed the earlier immigrants’s “Americanized” mosques,
> ALMORAVIDS See Moravids                                            and convert groups began trying to incorporate “authentic”
> Islam into their practice. The new paradigm of ethnic pride
> and multiculturalism gave greater acceptance and legitimacy
> to the “foreignness” of Muslim practice, and the new powerful trend of Islamic revivalism gave motivation to Muslims to
> retain their Islamic practice. The overtly American cultural
> AMERICAN CULTURE AND ISLAM                                         practices disappeared in mosques and Muslim organizations.
> 
> The interface between American culture and Islamic culture             Thirty years later, the Muslim community has aged and
> in the American Muslim community is a multifaceted issue.          mellowed, and a new consensus is emerging that American
> Understanding this interface entails exploring the influence        Muslims should adhere to those aspects of Islam that are truly
> of American culture on the Muslim community and how                Islamic as opposed to old-world cultural practices, and then
> American Muslims view American culture. Another aspect of          allow the adaptation of those aspects of American culture that
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                      41
> American Culture and Islam
> 
> while in America the mosque is a center of activities with
> community dinners and festivals with games and gifts for
> children. American marriages are often events for the entire
> mosque community, as opposed to the extended family.
> 
> The role of the imam in America has likewise changed
> dramatically. In the Muslim world the imam is simply the
> prayer leader, but the imam in America serves more as a
> pastor—much of his time spent in counseling, administering
> the mosque, and serving as spokesman for the mosque to the
> wider community.
> 
> Marriage. Muslim marriage customs in America have changed
> but not significantly. One major shift is that the signing of the
> marriage contract is sometimes a public event and not a
> private family affair as in the Muslim world. The public
> signing event resembles an American wedding ceremony
> with some differences—the bride and groom sit and often
> face the congregation. Signing the contract and the traditional wedding banquet (walima) in America often occur on
> the same occasion, which is not always the case in the Muslim
> world. Marriage gifts are often brought to the wedding
> banquet, which is the American custom, as opposed to the
> Muslim world where gifts are more often brought before the
> banquet.
> 
> Arranged marriages among Muslim immigrants are still
> common but in many cases the marriage is only half arranged:
> the son/daughter picks a mate and then informs the parents
> who begin the process of arranging the marriage. Muslim
> Muslim men leave a mosque in Washington, D.C. Muslims who        youth in America are certainly more involved in choosing a
> associate with mosques are composed of immigrants, second-       mate than their counterparts in the Muslim countries. One of
> generation Americans, and converts to Islam. © CATHERINE
> the results is that interethnic marriages are slowly increasing.
> KARNO/CORBIS
> One of the persistent legal questions in the immigrant community occurs when the son or daughter desires to marry a
> good Muslim of another ethnic group, and the parents
> are not contradictory to Islam. This is a new paradigm that      prohibit the marriage. More and more imams are taking the
> guards against changes in core religious practices while wel-    side of the youth and pressuring the parents to relent. The
> coming the assimilation of certain American cultural prac-       traditional dowry (mahr) in America is usually a very reasontices. The idea is to be fully Muslim and American. Overall,     able amount whereas in the Muslim world the dowry is often
> the impact of American culture on the Muslim community           high because of its role in reinforcing status and class. For
> has been significant but it has not touched basic Islamic         many individuals, especially those who do not have a family in
> practice. In other words, Saturday night bingo has not re-       America, Muslim matchmaking services are very popular.
> turned to the mosque, but pizza is the favorite food at mosque   The matrimonial sections in Muslim magazines are widely
> dinners.                                                         used and Internet services, such as MuslimMatch.com and
> Zawaj.com, offer an array of services.
> The mosque. The greatest impact of the American environment on the Muslim community has been the transformation         Gender. The issue of gender equity has become one of the
> of the role of the mosque and the imam. Muslims have             most controversial issues in the Muslim community. About
> adopted a congregational model for the mosque as a self-         one-quarter of regular mosque participants in America are
> governed community center, which is unlike the Muslim            women, and in African American mosques over one-third of
> world where the mosque is simply a place of prayer, and the      participants are women. These percentages are extremely low
> family and other institutions perform key cultural tasks. In     for Christian churches but in comparison to the Muslim
> America the mosque is a center for educating children,           world, where women have no role in the mosque, this is a
> socialization, and major cultural events like marriages and      significant difference. Women are most active in administerfunerals. For example, celebrating the major Muslim holidays     ing the weekend school and other social events. Two-thirds
> in the Muslim world is largely tied to the extended family       of mosques allow women to sit on their governing board, but
> 
> 42                                                                                           Islam and the Muslim World
> American Culture and Islam
> 
> Mosques in the United States have developed as self-governed community centers, providing sites for educating children, socialization, and
> major cultural events. This is unlike the mosque’s role in the Muslim world it is simply a place for prayer. © G. JOHN RENARD/CORBIS
> 
> only one-half have had women sit on their board in the last            not present in Muslim youth groups, except that Imam
> five years. Many Muslim women, who are unhappy with the                 Warith Deen Muhammad’s organization provides limited
> progress of American mosques, have moved outside the                   occasions where dancing is permitted. Imam Muhammad is
> mosque to organize. On the local level, women have estab-              the son and successor to Elijah Muhammad, founder of the
> lished numerous study groups. On the national level Muslim             Nation of Islam. In 1975, when Imam Muhammad took the
> women’s groups have been established, such as Muslim                   reins of the Nation of Islam, he transformed the organization
> Women’s League, North American Council for Muslim                      into a “mainstream” Islamic group. The organization has
> Women, and Muslim Women Lawyer’s Committee for                         gone through many name changes, and the present name
> Human Rights (KARAMA). Some Muslim organizations                       since 2002 is American Society of Muslims. It is the largest
> have become more inclusive of women: In 2000 the Islamic               African American Muslim group.
> Society of North America elected for the first time a female
> vice president, and there are a significant number of Muslim               The loser in all this is not so much Muslim religious
> student associations, dominated by second-generation immi-             practice but ethnic cultural practice. Many youth are shedgrants, that have female presidents. The clear trend is that           ding their ethnic identity but maintaining a Muslim identity
> women’s involvement is growing.                                        that supercedes all other identities. Muslim youth are, therefore, less interested in how Islam is practiced back in their
> Youth. Youth bear the greatest pressure to assimilate Ameri-           parents’s home countries and more interested in identifying a
> can culture, and as a result many immigrants and African               legitimate Islamic tradition that is scripturally based and
> Americans have ceased to practice Islam. The issue of the              relevant to life in America. Muslim youth best exemplify the
> assimilation of Muslim youth is, therefore, a major problem            new paradigm of retaining core Islamic practices while adoptin the eyes of most Muslims. The Muslim youth who have                 ing American culture.
> maintained their association with the Muslim community
> evince outward aspects of American culture such as dress,              Holidays and patriotism. The Muslim community in America
> sports, food, and entertainment—Muslim youth groups have               does not practice any of the American holidays as a group.
> their own “Islamic” rap music, and comedy shows—but they               Thanksgiving probably receives the most recognition from
> have fit it all within the boundaries of Islam. Dancing is still        Muslims as a holiday. Christmas and Easter are tied closely to
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                            43
> American Culture and Islam
> 
> Christianity and therefore unacceptable. The national holi-       Shaheen has estimated that only 5 percent of movies that
> days such as the Fourth of July and Memorial Day have not         include Muslims or Arabs show a human image of them.
> had any official recognition except in the American Society of     Since the late 1970s the image has been that of terrorists—
> Muslims under the leadership of Imam Muhammad. Patri-             from Black Sunday (1977) to Iron Eagles (1986) to The Siege
> otic symbols such as the flag and patriotic rhetoric are largely   (1998). Nevertheless signs of change have appeared as some
> absent from mosques and Muslim gatherings, except again           of the more positive images of Muslims and Islam in movies
> for Imam Muhammad’s organization. However, this is slowly         have appeared in the 1990s—Robin Hood Prince of Thieves
> changing, especially after the terrorism attacks of 11 Septem-    (1991), 13th Warrior (1999), and Three Kings (1999).
> ber 2001. Many national Muslim advocacy groups have extended Fourth of July greetings, and the Islamic Society of           Negative stereotyping is reflected in the poor approval
> North America displayed American flags on their platform           rating for Muslims in the American public, although signifi-
> during their annual conference. Individual Muslims do ob-         cant changes have occurred since 11 September 2001. Before
> serve some of these holidays: Some have family dinners with       11 September 2001 the public’s approval of Muslims hovered
> turkey on Thanksgiving and even fewer have Christmas trees        around 25 percent, but ironically with President George W.
> and let their children trick-or-treat on Halloween.               Bush’s strong endorsement of mainstream Islam, approval
> ratings shot up to a high of 47 percent in October 2001 but
> Muslim perception of American culture. The vast major-            have since begun to dip (Waldman and Caldwell).
> ity of Muslims recognize the good of American culture—
> political and religious freedom, self-reliance, and business      Sufism. The most popular Muslim poet in America is Rumi
> practices—but they are critical of aspects of American cul-       and with this popularity has come some appreciation for
> ture, especially the moral laxity in sexual mores, and alcohol    Sufism. Sufi groups starting with Hazrat Inayat Khan’s Sufi
> and drug consumption. In one study over one-third (37%) of        Order in the West in the early 1900s and more recently a
> Muslims agreed that America is immoral, while over half           group led by Shaykh Nazim al-Haqqani has had moderate
> (54%) disagreed. Mosque leaders are even more disturbed: 67       success in attracting Americans, largely white. Although Sufi
> percent agree that America is immoral compared to 33              groups are a small percentage of the total Muslim population
> percent who disagree (Bagby).                                     in America, their more positive image has translated into
> greater acceptance in certain circles of intellectuals and
> The Muslim community is virtually unanimous in believ-        New Agers.
> ing that Muslims should be involved in the civic and political
> life of America—93 percent of Muslims (Zogby) and 89              African American community. While Islam might have
> percent of mosque leaders (Bagby) agree that Muslims should       been invisible in Caucasian America, the impact of Islam on
> be involved in politics. Isolation from American society is       African American peoples has been substantial. The Nation
> firmly rejected. Yet a large portion of American Muslims feel      of Islam (1930–1975), although a heterodoxical movement
> that Muslims are unwelcome in the public sphere: 57 percent       within Islam, still brought the idea of Islam to millions of
> of Muslims believe that the attitude of America toward            African Americans. Malcolm X, who left the Nation of Islam
> Muslims is unfavorable since 11 September 2001 (Zogby); 56        to embrace a more mainstream understanding of Islam, is
> percent of mosque leaders feel that American society is           an icon in African-American history. The minister Louis
> hostile to Islam (Bagby).                                         Farrakhan, who resurrected the Nation of Islam in 1979, has
> maintained great popularity in the African-American com-
> Influences of Islam on American Culture                            munity, especially among its youth. Imam W. Deen Muham-
> Muslims and Islam are no longer invisible in America—they         mad has garnered much respect due to his interfaith efforts.
> have been given recognition and, in some respects, accept-        In light of this history, Islam has signified black pride and
> ance by major shapers of culture.                                 militancy for African Americans.
> 
> Presence of Islam. President Ronald Reagan was one of the            Muslims have also played a key role in the 1990s effort to
> first U.S. presidents to mention mosques alongside churches        bring about a gang truce throughout the nation. Louis
> and synagogues as part of the religious fabric of America.        Farrakhan and Imam Jamil Al-Amin (former H. Rap Brown)
> Mention of Muslims with the other religions is commonplace        were active in the gang summits that started in 1992 to broker
> now, especially after President George W. Bush visited a          a cease-fire between the rival gangs known as the Bloods and
> mosque and pronounced Islam a religion of peace soon after        the Crips. The decline in gang violence through the 1990s
> the terrorism attacks of 11 September. Iftar (meal at the end     can be linked to these gang truces.
> of the fasting day) dinners at the White House during
> Ramadan have become regular occasions since the mid-1990s.        African American culture. Islam has also impacted African
> American culture. One obvious manifestation is the adoption
> Perception of Muslims in the media. Movies have been less         of Muslim names, undoubtedly an influence of the celebrities
> kind to Muslims and Islam. Ugly stereotyping of Muslims           and sports figures who are Muslim or have Muslim parents—
> and Arabs in particular has a long history in Hollywood. Jack     Muhammad Ali, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Ahmad Rashad, Tupoc
> 
> 44                                                                                           Islam and the Muslim World
> Americas, Islam in the
> 
> Shakur, and others. From the 1970s to the present, the names       Curtis IV, Edward E. Islam in Black America: Identity, Libera-
> Jamal, Kareem, Ali, and Rashad have become popular African           tion, and Difference in African-American Islamic Thought.
> American names. One of the top African American female               Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002.
> names is now Aaliyah, obviously the result of the popularity       Eck, Diana L. A New Religious America: How a “Christian
> of the singer by the same name.                                      Country” Has Become the World’s Most Religiously Diverse
> Nation. New York: Harper San Francisco, 2001.
> Other cultural manifestations occur in the hats and garb of     Haddad, Yvonne Yazbeck, and Esposito, John L. Muslims on
> African Americans, especially when they want to express their        the Americanization Path? New York: Oxford University
> black consciousness. Through the influence of the large               Press, 2000.
> number of Muslims in prisons, the impact of Islam might also
> McAlister, Melani. Epic Encounters: Culture, Media, and U.S.
> be detected in popular African American culture in the baggy         Interests in the Middle East, 1945–2000. Berkeley: Univerpants look and even in hugging among men, which is now a             sity of California Press, 2000.
> common form of greeting. The fact that major gangs call
> McCloud, Aminah Beverly. African American Islam. New
> themselves “nations” can also be seen as an influence by the
> York: Routledge, 1995.
> black nationalism of the Nation of Islam.
> Shaheen, Jack G. Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a
> Hip-Hop. In entertainment Islam has had a tremendous                 People. New York: Olive Branch Press, 2001.
> impact on hip-hop culture. The ideology of the Nation of           Smith, Jane I. Islam in America. New York: Columbia Univer-
> Islam and the Five Percenters, both heterodoxies within              sity Press, 1999.
> Islam, have had the greatest influence, but some rappers have       Waldman, Steven, and Caldwell, Deborah. “Americans’ Surbeen influenced by mainstream Muslim leaders such as Imam             prising Take on Islam: A New Poll Shows That Ameri-
> Muhammad and Imam Jamil Al-Amin. Public Enemy and                    cans Have Not Turned Anti-Islam.” Beliefnet. 9 Janu-
> Chuck D, Ice Cube, Queen Latifah, Big Daddy Kane, and                ary 2002. http://www.beliefnet.com/story/97/story_
> Sister Souljah are just a few names that mention in their lyrics     9732.html (2 Februrary 2003).
> Minister Farrakhan or the ideas of the Nation of Islam and         Zogby International and Project Maps. “American Muslim
> the Five Percenters. Other rappers such as Mos Def, Q-Tip,           Poll (Nov/Dec 2001).” Project Maps. 19 December 2001.
> Everlast, Styles of Beyond, Devine Styler, and Jurassic 5 have       http:// www.projectmaps.com/pmreport.pdf (2 Februroots in the mainstream Muslim community. A few rap                  ary 2003).
> groups such as Native Deen market themselves exclusively to
> the Muslim community.                                                                                                Ihsan Bagby
> 
> Communication. Muslim youth and certain Muslim groups
> have enthusiastically embraced the Internet. Major Web sites
> exist for news, information, books, and Islamic resources,         AMERICAS, ISLAM IN THE
> such as IslamiCity.com, IslamOnline.com, Ummah.com, and
> SoundVision.com. Web sites of Muslim Student Associa-              The Islamic presence in pre-Columbian times is a point of
> tions are also numerous and full of useful information and         contention, with some writers asserting that Arab and West
> resources. Muslims who are on the fringes of mosques and           African Muslims settled in the Americas between the elev-
> Muslim organizations are the most active in the use of the         enth and the fourteenth centuries; others dispute these asser-
> Web. Muslim women in particular have benefited immensely            tions, citing a lack of archaeological and other historical
> from the presence of a cyber-sisters community. Ideological        evidence.
> groups are also quite active on the web. Many Muslims
> sometimes bemoan the proliferation of these sites and the              The undisputed spread of Islam in the Americas started in
> emergence of the cyber mufti who have few links to the             the early sixteenth century with the arrival of a small number
> Muslim community. Many mosques, however, are far behind            of Moriscos (Muslims forced to adopt Christianity who may
> the curve—many do not have computers and others do not             have maintained their faith in secret) from Spain, and miluse them for communication.                                        lions of enslaved West Africans. It is estimated that 15 to 20
> percent of the twelve to fifteen million Africans deported
> See also Americas, Islam in the; Farrakhan, Louis;                 through the Atlantic slave trade were Muslim. Their prayers,
> Malcolm X; Muhammad, Warith Deen; Nation of                        fasts, refusal of pork and alcohol, circumcision, collecting of
> Islam.                                                             zakat, mosques, Quranic schools, and importation of Qurans
> from Africa and Europe have been documented for countries
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                       as diverse as Peru, Brazil, the United States, Jamaica, Trini-
> Bagby, Ihsan; Perl, Paul M.; and Froehle, Bryan T. The             dad, Guyana, and Cuba. Manuscripts written in Arabic have
> Mosque in America: A National Portrait. Washington, D.C.:        been recovered in several countries, most notably in Bahia,
> Council of American-Islamic Relations, 2001.                     Brazil, where Muslims from Nigeria led a series of revolts
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                     45
> Andalus, al-
> 
> between 1807 and 1835. There is evidence that the African         Kettani, M. Ali. Muslim Minorities in the World Today. Lon-
> Muslims succeeded in converting both enslaved and free              don: Mansell Publishing Limited, 1986.
> people to Islam, and accusations of Islamic proselytism among
> Native Americans surfaced in the sixteenth century. West                                                    Sylviane Anna Diouf
> Africans maintained Islam in America during four centuries
> of slavery, but could not transmit the religion to the generations who were born in the Americas. With the end of the
> international slave trade in the late 1860s, Islam disappeared    ANDALUS, AL-
> as an overtly practiced religion among people of African
> descent. However, cultural and linguistic traces remain today.    Al-Andalus is the geographic term used to denote those areas
> of modern Spain that came under Muslim control in the
> In the nineteenth century, Islam emerged again in the          Middle Ages. Today, the term (Spanish, Andalucía) refers to a
> Americas with the arrival of Asian and Arab Muslims. After        particular territory located in southern Spain. Al-Andalus or
> the abolition of slavery in the British colonies in 1834,         Muslim Spain (both terms will be used interchangeably), with
> Muslim indentured laborers from India were introduced to          its famous mosques, irrigated gardens, developments in po-
> Trinidad and Guyana, along with the much larger numbers of        etry, philosophy, and science, is often referred to as the
> Hindus. Between 1890 and 1939 the Dutch brought inden-            cultural golden age of Islam. The actual Muslim presence
> tured Muslim workers to Dutch Guiana (Surinam) from their
> there lasted 781 years (711–1492 C.E.) and its influence on
> colony in Indonesia. They now represent 75 percent of the
> everything from architecture to science is still palpable. For
> Muslim population of Suriname, the country with the highest
> the sake of convenience, what follows is divided into three
> percentage of Muslims (about 25%) in the Americas.
> parts: history and main developments, cultural achievements,
> By the end of the nineteenth century, religious and politi-   and the Jews of al-Andalus.
> cal unrest, along with economic transformations in the Otto-
> History and Main Developments
> man Empire, led to the emigration of Syrians and Lebanese,
> Prior to the arrival of the Muslims, Spain was under the
> who established themselves throughout North and South
> control of the Visigoths, who maintained firm control of the
> America. Among them was a minority of Muslim Lebanese
> region with the help of a rigid church hierarchy. In 711, Arab
> and Syrians who migrated, concentrating their settlements in
> and Berber forces, under the leadership of Tariq b. Ziyad,
> Brazil—which counts the largest Muslim population in Latin
> defeated the Visigothic King Rodrigo at the River Barbate.
> America—Argentina, Venezuela, Mexico, and Canada. In
> The Arab armies tried to move as far as France but were
> South and Central America most were traders, while in
> eventually repelled in 732 by Charles Martel. During the first
> Canada, the majority were farmers.
> decades after 711, al-Andalus functioned as a frontier outpost
> In the twentieth century new Muslim populations settled       with the Umayyad caliph in Damascus appointing its goverin the Americas. After World War I, a small number of             nor. Around the year 750, however, a dynastic struggle in the
> followers of the Indian-founded Ahmadiyya sect settled in         East led to change in rule from the Umayyads to the Abbasids.
> South America and the Caribbean; and Albanians and                Significantly, in 756, an Umayyad prince by the name of 
Abd
> Yugoslavs migrated to the Canadian prairies. Palestinians         al-Rahman I arrived in Spain. He was able to gain sufficient
> started to arrive after 1948 and again, in successive waves,      political support there, thereby creating an independent and
> following the Middle Eastern wars of 1967 and 1973.               sovereign state, referred to as the Marwanid dynasty, based in
> Cordoba.
> Today, Islam continues to spread throughout the Americas through the natural growth of the existing Muslim popu-           The high point of the Marwanid dynasty occurred during
> lation, conversions, and continued immigration from Muslim        the rule of Abd al-Rahman III, who reigned for fifty years
> nations. Statistics are unreliable, but there are an estimated    (912–961). This coincided with a period of stability after he
> 1.4 million Muslims living in Latin America and the Car-          had subdued revolting factions and stopped the advances of
> ibbean, 253,000 in Canada, and about 6 million in the             the neighboring Christians—something his predecessors had
> United States.                                                    been unable to accomplish. He was also responsible for the
> construction of the monumental royal city, Madinat al-
> See also American Culture and Islam; United States,               Zahra, just outside of Cordoba. Under his rule, Cordoba
> Islam in the.                                                     became a true cosmopolitan center, rivaling the great cities of
> the Islamic East and far surpassing the capitals of Western
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                      Europe. After the death of Abd al-Rahman III, the central
> Diouf, Sylviane A. Servants of Allah: African Muslims Enslaved    caliphate gradually fragmented into a number of smaller
> in the Americas. New York: New York University                  kingdoms (tawaif, sing., taifa), ruled by various “party kings”
> Press, 1998.                                                    (muluk al-tawaif).
> 
> 46                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Andalus, al-
> 
> The fourteenth-century Alhambra Palace and Fortress in al-Andalus in southern Spain shows the influence of the nearly eight hundred-year
> Muslim presence there which began early in the Middle Ages. © PATRICK WARD/CORBIS
> 
> The history of al-Andalus in the eleventh-century is one           Alhambra, with its open courts, fountains, and irrigated
> of gradual diminishment as various Christian monarchs at-             gardens, is today one of the best preserved medieval castles in
> tempted to encroach upon the area held by the Muslims, an             Europe. In 1492, under the leadership of King Ferdinand of
> area that they felt compromised the national and religious            Aragon and Queen Isabella of Castile, the Reconquista was
> unity of Spain. This reconquering (Spanish, Reconquista)              completed. All those who were not Christian (i.e., Muslims
> became so vigorous that the various Muslim kingdoms had no            and Jews) were expelled from Spain.
> choice but to seek help from the Almoravids, a dynasty based
> in North Africa. The result was that al-Andalus, for all intents      Cultural Achievements
> and purposes, lost its independence, becoming little more             From a cultural and philosophical perspective, the achievethan an annex of a government situated in North Africa.               ments associated with the inhabitants of al-Andalus are
> unrivalled. The Marwanid capital, Cordoba, alone had over
> In 1147, the puritanical Almohades, another dynasty based         seventy libraries, which encouraged many great architects
> in North Africa, invaded Spain. This dynasty was determined           and scientists to settle there. The caliphs and rich patrons, in
> to put an end to the religious laxity that they witnessed among       turn, established schools to translate classical philosophic and
> the Andalusian intellectual and courtier classes. They de-            scientific texts into Arabic. Although the center at Cordoba
> manded, inter alia, the conversion of all Christians and Jews         gradually fragmented into a number of kingdoms, there
> to Islam. It was during this period that many Jews left Spain:        nevertheless ensued a rich intellectual, cultural, and social
> the majority went north to Christian territories. According to        landscape that was grounded on the notion of adab, the polite
> some modern commentators, the Almohade invasion sig-                  ideal of cultured living that developed in the courts of
> naled the end of one of the most fascinating and eclectic eras        medieval Islam. The adab (pl., udaba) was an individual
> of world history.                                                     defined by his social graces, literary tastes, and ingenuity in
> manipulating language.
> By the thirteenth century, al-Andalus was essentially comprised of Granada and its immediate environs. Here the                   One of the main developments within Andalusian litera-
> Nasrid dynasty, with its royal palace in the al-Hamra                ture was the muwashshah. The muwashshah, which seems to
> (Alhambra), ruled as quasi-vassals of the Christian king. The         have originated in the ninth century, is a genre of stanzaic
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                         47
> Andalus, al-
> 
> poetry whose main body is composed in classical Arabic with         place. Legend has it that the Jews not only welcomed, but also
> its ending written in vernacular, often in the form of a            physically helped, the Muslims conquer the oppressive Visigoth
> quotation (kharja). The main themes were devoted to love,           rulers. The cooperativeness of the Jews and their ability to
> wine, and panegyric; eventually, this genre proved popular          integrate into Andalusian Arab society subsequently created
> among Sufis (e.g., ibn Arabi). The muwashshah was also               an environment in which Jews flourished. Arabic gradually
> a popular genre among non-Muslims, especially among                 replaced Aramaic as the language of communication among
> Hebrew poets.                                                       Jews: By adopting Arabic (although they would write it in
> Hebrew characters, and today this is called Judeo-Arabic),
> Al-Andalus is also associated with some of the most
> Jews inherited a rich cultural and scientific vocabulary. It was
> famous names of Islamic intellectual history. Unlike the great
> during the tenth century, for example, that Jews first began to
> majority of philosophers in the Muslim East, the overarching
> write secular poetry (although written in Hebrew, it emconcern of Andalusian Islamic thinkers was political science.
> ployed Arabic prosody, form, and style).
> Questions that they entertained were: What constitutes the
> perfect state? How can such a state be realized? What is the            The names of famous Jews who lived in al-Andalus reads
> relationship between religion and the politics? And, what           like a “who’s who” list of Jewish civilization. Shmuel hashould the philosopher, who finds himself in an unjust state,        Nagid (993–1055), for example, became the prime minister
> do? Another important feature of Islamic philosophy in al-          (wazir) of Granada. His responsibilities included being in
> Andalus was an overwhelming interest in intellectual mysti-         charge of the army (i.e., having control over Muslim soldiers),
> cism, which stressed that the true end of the individual was        in effect becoming one of the most powerful Jews between
> the contact (ittisal) between the human intellect and the           Biblical times and the present day. His poetry recounting
> Divine Intellect.
> battles is among the most expressive of the tradition. The fact
> Philosophy in al-Andalus reached a high-point with Ibn          that a Jew could attain such a prominent position within
> Bajja (d. 1139). His Tadbir al-mutawahhid (Governance of the        Muslim society reveals much about Jewish-Muslim relations
> solitary) examines the fate of a lone individual who seeks truth    in Spain. Other famous Hebrew poets included Moshe ibn
> in the midst of a city that is concerned primarily with financial    Ezra (d.1138) and Judah Halevi (d.1141), whose sacred pogain and carnal pleasures. Such an individual must, according       etry is still part of the Jewish liturgy. Al-Andalus was also the
> to Ibn Bajja, seek out other like-minded individuals and avoid      birthplace of the most famous Jewish philosopher: Moses
> discussing philosophy with non-philosophers. Ibn Tufayl (d.         Maimonides (d.1204), who attempted to show the compati-
> 1185) picks up this theme in his philosophical novel Hayy ibn       bility between religion and philosophy by arguing that the
> Yaqzan. The goal of this work is to show that the unaided           former was based not on superstition, but rational principles.
> human intellect is capable of discovering Truth without the
> In sum, al-Andalus was not only a region, but also repreaid of divine revelation. Ibn Tufayl, according to tradition,
> sented a way of life that Muslims and Jews look back at with
> was also responsible for encouraging the young Ibn Rushd (d.
> 1198) to write his commentaries on the works of Aristotle.          fondness. With its rich contributions to science, literature,
> Within this context, Ibn Rushd wrote not one but three              architecture, and interfaith relations, al-Andalus played a
> commentaries to virtually the entire Aristotelian corpus.           prominent role in Islamic history.
> These commentaries, in their Latin translations, were the
> See also European Culture and Islam; Judaism and
> staple of the European curriculum until relatively recently.
> Islam.
> Sufism, or Islamic mysticism, was also a prominent feature
> of the intellectual and cultural life of al-Andalus. In fact, one   BIBLIOGRAPHY
> of the most important Sufis, Ibn Arabi (d. 1240), was born in        Ashtor, Eliayahu. The Jews of Moslem Spain. Philadelphia:
> Murcia in southeastern Spain. After a mystical conversion as a         Jewish Publication Society of America, 1973–1979.
> teenager, he set out on a life of asceticism and wanderings.        Brann, Ross. The Compunctious Poet: Cultural Ambiguity and
> Ibn Arabi essentially interpreted the entire Islamic tradition         Hebrew Poetry in Muslim Spain. Baltimore, Md.: Johns
> (jurisprudence, the Quran, hadith, philosophy) through a              Hopkins University Press, 1991.
> mystical prism.
> Ibn Arabi. Sufis of Andalusia: The Rûh al-quds and al-Durrat alfâkhira of Ibn 
Arabî. Translated by R. W. J. Austin.
> The Jews of al-Andalus
> Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971.
> The culture of al-Andalus would also have a tremendous
> impact on non-Muslim communities living there. The adab             Ibn Bâjja. Tadbîr al-mutawahhid/El régimen del solitario. Edited
> ideal (mentioned in the previous section) proved to be very            and translated by Miguel Asín Palacios. Madrid: n.p., 1946.
> attractive to the local population (both Jewish and Christian),     Ibn Tufayl. Hayy ibn Yaqzân: A Philosophical Tale. Translated
> who adopted the cosmopolitan ideals of Islamicate culture,             by Lenn E. Goodman. Los Angeles: Gee Tee Bee, 1983.
> including the use of Arabic. Within the history of Jewish           Kennedy, Hugh. Muslim Spain: A Political History of alcivilization, al-Andalus (Hebrew, ha-Sefarad) holds a special         Andalus. London: Longman, 1996.
> 
> 48                                                                                              Islam and the Muslim World
> Angels
> 
> Menocal, María Rosa; Scheindlin, Raymond P.; and Sells,               From the soles of his feet to this head, Israfil, angel of the
> Michael, eds. The Literature of al-Andalus. Cambridge,          Day of Judgment, has hairs and tongues over which are
> U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2000.                         stretched veils. He glorifies Allah with each tongue in a
> Watt, W. Montgomery. A History of Islamic Spain. Edin-            thousand languages, and Allah creates from his breath a
> burgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1965.                        million angels who glorify Him. Israfil looks each day and
> each night toward Hell, approaches without being seen, and
> Aaron Hughes      weeps; he grows thin as a bowstring and weeps bitter tears.
> His trumpet or horn has the form of a beast’s horn and
> contains dwellings like the cells of a bee’s honeycomb; in
> these the souls of the dead repose.
> ANGELS
> Mikail was created by God five thousand years after
> The word “angel” appears frequently in the Quran, having         Israfil. He has hairs of saffron from his head to his feet, and his
> entered the Arabic language (in pre-Islamic times) as a loan      wings are of green topaz. On each hair he has a million faces
> from Aramaic or Hebrew, possibly via Ethiopic, and so             and in each face a million eyes and tongues. Each tongue
> indicating Christian as well as Jewish cultural influences. In     speaks a million languages and from each eye falls seventy
> any case the word has always been accepted as an exact            thousand tears. These become the Kerubim who lean down
> equivalent of the Greek angelos, angel or messenger, used in      over the rain and the flowers, the trees and fruit.
> pre-Christian times to define the functions of certain “messengers of the gods” such as Hermes or Iris (the rainbow).           Jibrail was created five hundred years after Mikail. He
> The remarkable homogeneity of “Abrahamic” Jewish/                 has sixteen hundred wings and hair of saffron. The sun is
> Christian/Islamic angelology cannot convincingly be traced        between his eyes and each hair has the brightness of the moon
> to a “Mosaic” source but derives very obviously from              and stars. Each day he enters the Ocean of Light 360 times.
> Zoroastrian influences on Judaism during the Babylonian Exile.     When he comes forth, a million drops fall from each wing to
> become angels who glorify God. When he appeared to the
> Despite the unanimity of the Quran, hadith, and sunna         Prophet to reveal the Quran, his wings stretched from the
> on the doctrine of belief in angels, a certain ambiguity arises   East to the West. His feet were yellow, his wings green, and
> when these beings are considered in both theology and             he wore a necklace of rubies or coral. His brow was light, his
> metaphysics. How precisely does angelic nature situate itself     face luminous; his teeth were of a radiant brightness. Between
> between earth and heaven, between human and divine? It            his two eyes were written the words: “There is no god but
> may be said that monotheism simply cannot do without a            God, and Muhammad is the Prophet of God.”
> means of immanence, lest the gulf of God’s transcendence
> end by severing all possible relations between the two levels        The angel of death, 
Izrail, is veiled before the creatures
> of reality. Put simply, the angels provide a third term, a        of God with a million veils. His immensity is vaster than the
> metaphorical bridge or ladder between earth and heaven.           heavens, and the East and West are between his hands like a
> Thus the Prophet spoke of each raindrop having its angel,         dish on which all things have been set, or like a man who has
> and of the angels as messengers bearing God’s revelation to       been put between his hands that he might eat him, and he eats
> humans, and human prayers to God. The task of angelic             of him what he wishes; and thus the angel of death turns the
> theology consists in justifying this metaphysical “need” with-    world this way and that, just as men turn their money in their
> out detracting from God’s ominipotence and unity.                 hands. He sits on a throne in the sixth heaven. He has four
> faces, one before him, one on his head, one behind him, and
> The standard Islamic angelology is based on both Quranic     one beneath his feet. He has four wings, and his body is
> and extra-Quranic tradition; for instance “the Spirit” (al-      covered with innumerable eyes. When one of these eyes
> ruh) is mentioned in the Quran, but is identified by tradition    closes, a creature dies.
> with Metatron, the Jewish angel “nearest to the Throne.”
> The angel of death is mentioned (Q. 32:11) but not named;             In part from Greek philosophy, especially neo-Platonism,
> tradition knows him as 
Izrail. Jibril (Jibrail) (Gabriel) is   Islamic tradition elaborated a cosmic angelology based on the
> named three times, Mikail (Mikal) (Michael) once. Israfil,        celestial Spheres—as for instance in the many versions of the
> who will blow the trumpet at Resurrection, appears neither in     Prophet’s mir
aj or Night Ascension into the Heavens, where
> the Quran nor hadith, but became very popular—and sym-           he learns the ritual of prayer from the angels in their ranks.
> bolically necessary to form a quaternity of great archangels,     He is at first carried by the Buraq, a strange hybrid of mule,
> under the Spirit and above the countless ranks of the heavenly    angel, woman, peacock, and then accompanied by Jibrail.
> host. Munkar and Nakir, the angels who weigh or question          Even this greatest angel, however, cannot accompany Muthe souls of the dead in their graves, are likewise absent from   hammad to “the Lote Tree of the Farthest Limit” (that is, the
> canonical sources but much discussed by established authori-      beatific vision of theophany). This symbolizes the theological
> ties and universally accepted by believers. The following         premise that angels, although more perfectly spiritual than
> might represent a traditional Islamic angelography:               humans, are in fact ontologically less central. God orders the
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                      49
> Angels
> 
> This Persian miniature depicts Adam among the angels. According to the Quran, God demands
> that the angels worship Adam, even though they are closer to the divine than Adam is. When the
> angel Iblis refuses to bow to Adam, Iblis falls from God’s grace and becomes Satan. © RéUNION DES
> MUSéES NATIONAUX/ART RESOURCE, NY
> 
> 50                                                                                        Islam and the Muslim World
> Arabia, Pre-Islam
> 
> angels to bow and worship Adam (in a legend probably               constructed, evocations and seances performed. Like their
> adapted from the heretical Christian “Adam and Eve Books”)         medieval and Renaissance counterparts in Europe, Islamic
> even though Adam is created of clay and the angels of              hermeticists sought and practiced the “angelic conversation.”
> light. The angel Iblis refuses to acknowledge the divine in        At its highest level of sophistication this magical angelology
> the human, and thus falls from grace and becomes Satan.            aims at no benefit other than existential participation in the
> (The sufi al-Hallaj therefore praised Iblis as the only true        divine or angelic consciousness. “By philosophy man realizes
> monotheist!) As an angel Iblis should be “made of” light, but      the virtual characteristics of his race. He attains the form of
> in some versions he is described as a great jinni and therefore    humanity and progresses on the hierarchy of beings until in
> of a fiery nature. The jinni constitute a different class of        crossing the straight way (or ‘bridge’) and the correct path, he
> supernatural beings, also attested in the Quran; some of          becomes an Angel” (Brethren of Purity [Risalat al-jami
ah]).
> them were converted to true faith by Solomon or Muhammad
> himself.                                                           An artistic representation of Muhammad’s ascent to heaven
> appears in the volume one color plates.
> 
Abd al-Karim al-Jili (a Sufi influenced by Ibn 
Arabi)
> describes the angelic Spheres thus: The first heaven is that of     See also Miraj; Religious Beliefs.
> the Moon. The Holy Spirit is here, “so that this heaven might
> have the same relation to earth as spirit to body.” Adam           BIBLIOGRAPHY
> dwells here in silvery-white light. The second heaven is that      Corbin, Henry. Avicenna and the Visionary Recital. Translated
> of Mercury (identified with the Egyptian Hermes and the               by Ralph Manheim. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
> prophets Idris and Enoch). Here the angels of the arts and           Press, 1969.
> crafts reside bathed in a gray luminousness. The third heaven,     Hallaj, Mansur. The Tawasin. Translated by A. A. atthat of Venus, is created from the imagination and is the            Tarjumana. Berkeley, Calif.: Diwan Press, 1974.
> locale of the World of Similitudes, the subtle forms of all
> Rumi, Maulana Jalaluddin. The Mathnawi. Translated by
> earthly things, the source of dreams and visions. The prophet        Reynold A. Nicholson. London: Luzac & Co., 1978.
> Joseph lives here in yellow light. The heaven of the Sun is
> Wilson, Peter Lamborn. Angels. London: Thames & Hudcreated from the light of the heart; Israfil presides over a host
> son, 1980.
> of prophets in a golden glow. The heaven of Mars, of the
> death-angel 
Izrail, is blood-red with the light of judgment.
> That of Jupiter is blue with the light of spiritual power                                                  Peter Lamborn Wilson
> (himma) and is lorded over by Mikail. Here reside the angels
> of mercy and blessing, shaped as animals, birds, and men;
> others appear, in Jili’s words, “as substances and accidents
> which bring health to the sick, or as solids and liquids that
> ARABIA, PRE-ISLAM
> supply created beings with food and drink. Some are made
> half of fire and half of ice. Here resides Moses, drunk on the      The term “Arabia” has been variously applied in both modern
> wine of the revelation of lordship.” The seventh heaven (first      and ancient times to refer to a vast territory stretching from
> to be created from the substance of the First Intelligence) is     the borders of the Fertile Crescent in northern Syria to the tip
> that of Saturn, and consists of Black Light, symbolic of fana,    of the Arabian Peninsula and from the borders of the Euphrates
> annihilation in the divine Oneness.                                to the fertile regions of the Transjordan. For the ancients,
> this vague term, “Arabia,” referred to the dwelling places of
> The grandeur of this cosmic vision is given a metaphysical      the varieties of South Semitic speakers lumped together
> dimension by the Persian philosopher Ibn Sina (Avicenna)           under the term “Arab.” For speakers of Hebrew and Aramaic,
> who, speaking of the angels, says, “The soul must grasp the        the term Arab (
arab) carried the semantic notion of the desert
> beauty of the object that it loves; the image of that beauty       or the wilderness (
arabah), since the Arabs they encountered
> increases the ardor of love; this ardor makes the soul look        were primarily the nomadic and seminomadic desert dwellers
> upward. Thus imagination of beauty causes ardor of love,           engaged in long-distance commerce, animal husbandry, or
> love causes desire, and desire causes motion” on the level         supplying cavalry troops to imperial armies. The result is that
> both of the Spheres (which are drawn in love toward their          ancient textual references to Arabia and its inhabitants, the
> Archangel-Intellects) and of human souls (who are drawn in         Arabs, are both inconsistent and imprecise in terms of geolove toward their guardians or personal angels).                   graphic boundaries, ethnic identity, and language use. The
> meager textual evidence available to us shows us that many of
> On the fringes of Islamic orthodoxy such mystical              the northern Arabs used Aramaic and Hebrew as well as
> angelology shaded into occultism. Elaborate concordances of        varieties of Arabic in pre-Islamic times. After the rise of
> angelic correspondences, names, powers, symbols, and the           Islam, however, the Arabic of northwest Arabia, the region of
> like evolved out of the late classical synthesis (e.g., those      the Hijaz, became the dominant language of the Arabs, and it,
> described in the Egyptian Magical Papyri). Amulets were            along with its cognate dialects, formed the Arabic known today.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                      51
> Arabia, Pre-Islam
> 
> of Roman domination of the eastern Mediterranean. Much
> Religion of                   legendary material has influenced the writings of the early
> Pre-Islamic Arabia                history of Arabia, particularly the biblical legends, which hold
> Al-Mausil       Nineveh                     Modern border          that the Amelikites were the first “Arabs.” This legend is
> Christianity
> Judaism
> adopted by Arabs themselves, who link themselves to the
> Berytus                                   Ctesiphon
> Busra
> Makkan religion        Israelite soldiers who annihilated the Amelikites and settled
> Wa\sit               Zoroastrianism
> in the Hijaz in their stead. R. Dozy and D. S. Margoliouth
> Ma˚a\n                       Al-Bas∫ra
> Sakaka                                                        elaborated a secularized version of the biblical legends to
> Fajr
> rsi                               make Arabia the Semitic prototypical home and Arabic the
> 
> Pe
> Tabuk                Tayma&                                  an
> Gul                    prototypical Semitic language. Associated with this theory is
> Al-Hijr
> Al-˚Uqayr                 f
> Khaybar             Fadak                                              Suh∫ar   the so-called desiccation theory of Arabia, which holds that
> Yathrib¶Medina                                    Masqat ∫ 
> Al-Ja\r                                                                           Arabia was lush and verdant in prehistorical times, only
> Al-Dafêna
> becoming dry later, driving out the Semitic inhabitants into
> Mecca                                                         the Mediterranean basin. While modern geological explora-
> Al-Fa\w                                       tion of Arabia has substantiated a shift in climate in the
> Red
> 
> peninsula from more wet toward dry, there is no evidence to
> Sea
> 
> N
> 
> INDIAN       substantiate any of the theories that Arabia was the original
> Ma^rib
> San˚a&
> OCEAN        home of the Semites or that all Semitic languages derive
> Aksum
> (Ethiopia) Mukha                                                            from Arabic.
> ˚Adan
> 
> According to a report that combines inscriptional evi-
> 0           200        400 mi.
> dence and legend, Arabia was the temporary capital of
> 0      200 400 km
> Nabonidus (556–539 B.C.E.), the last ruler of Babylon. In the
> third year of his reign, he invaded the Hijaz as far as Yathrib
> (Medina), and dominated the famous Arabian caravan cities
> Location of Christianity, Judaism, the Makkan religion and                                    in the northwest quadrant. Some scholars see his motives as
> Zoroastrianism in pre-Islamic Arabia. XNR PRODUCTIONS/GALE
> economic, while others dismiss the historicity of the whole
> event as part of a Jewish midrashic invention.
> The geography and natural ecology of the Arabian penin-
> Inhabitants
> sula has affected both the culture and the history of Arabia. It
> Among the important pre-Islamic peoples of Northwest
> is bounded in the north by a desert of soft sand, the Nafud, as
> Arabia were the Nabataeans, who, by the time of the arrival of
> well as a desert in the south, the Rub
 al-Khali, the so-called
> Roman imperial presence in the eastern Mediterranean,
> Empty Quarter. Both the Red Sea on the west and the Gulf
> dominated the region’s trade from around Damascus to the
> on the east are barriers to entry with few natural ports. There
> Hijaz. They had been pastoral nomads who had settled in
> are no permanent water-courses in Arabia and only scattered
> their heartland around Petra. The Nabataeans plied their
> oases in the interior. The ancient geographers used the term
> trade through the areas of Transjordan, across the Wadi
> natura maligna for Arabia, and even when using Arabia Felix,
> 
Arabah to Gaza and al-
Arish (Rhinocolura). There is also
> “Happy Arabia,” for the south, they intended some irony. Its
> evidence that they used the interior route of the Wadi Sirhan
> average rainfall is less than three inches per year, and much of
> that falls within a period of just four or five days. Because of                               to carry goods to Bostra for distribution to Damascus and
> the forbidding landscape and the harsh climate, for much of                                   beyond. Nabataean wealth and influence attracted the Romans
> Arabia’s history, it resisted successful invasion. Such harsh                                 into an unsuccessful invasion of Arabia in 26 B.C.E. unconditions, however, have provided refuge for those fleeing                                    der the leadership of Caesar Augustus’s Egyptian prefect,
> persecution and those seeking the economic opportunities of                                   Aelius Gallus. The Nabataeans were able to resist Roman
> long-distance trading. Trade was assisted because Arabia was                                  domination until 106 C.E., when Arabia Nabataea became a
> the home of the domestication of the West Asiatic camel, the                                  Roman province. In later history, the name “Nabataean”
> dromedary, and the invention, around the beginning of the                                     became identified with irrigation and agriculture, because the
> first millennium C.E., of the North Arabian camel saddle,                                      Nabataeans are credited with the development of hydraulic
> which enabled camels to be used for cavalry warfare as well as                                technology in the region. In modern Arabic, “Nabataean”
> for transporting trade goods.                                                                 (nabati) refers to vernacular poetry in the ancient style.
> 
> History                                                                                          Most modern historians regard the Nabataeans as Arabs,
> Historical knowledge of Arabia goes back to the Greek                                         but the picture is more complex and illustrative of the probhistorian Herodotus, to a few Akkadian texts, and to the                                      lems of ethnic identification in the pre-Islamic period. The
> Bible, but sound historical records only come from the period                                 Nabataeans were philhellenes, using Greek art and culture,
> 
> 52                                                                                                                        Islam and the Muslim World
> Arabia, Pre-Islam
> 
> and Aretas III issued coins with Greek legends after 82 B.C.E.
> They used a form of Arabic as their language for trade within
> the Arabian peninsula, writing it down in a modified Aramaic
> script that influenced the development of the North Arabian
> alphabetic script. They acted as a culture-bridge between the
> Arabian interior and the Roman Hellenized Mediterranean,
> and, depending on who was reporting, they could present a
> different face to different peoples, Greek, Aramaic, or Arabic.
> 
> Jews had been inhabitants of Arabia from biblical times,
> but the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 C.E. sent
> larger numbers into Arabia. Around this time the apostle Paul
> spent time in Arabia after his conversion to Christianity,
> possibly to recruit converts, as did another Pharisee, Rabbi
> Akiba, who went to Arabia to obtain support for Simon Bar
> Kochba in the Second Roman War in 132 C.E. Some Jews
> formed independent communities in Arabia, such as the small
> enclaves of priests, who kept themselves isolated to avoid
> ritual contamination so that they would be ready under
> Levitical strictures to resume their duties if the Temple
> Treasury, Petra, Jordan; built by the Nabataeans between the
> should be rebuilt. Most, however, seem to have joined existthird century B.C.E. and the first century C.E. The Nabataeans were a
> ing communities comprised of Jews and non-Jews along the            wealthy, important tribe of the pre-Islamic era who had been
> trade routes stretching from the Hijaz to Yemen. The most           nomadic and then settled around Petra. Their culture bridged
> prominent of these settlements was the city of Yathrib,             Arabic and Hellenic cultures, incorporating elements of both. THE
> ART ARCHIVE
> known in both Aramaic and Arabic as Medina.
> 
> Roman Arabia
> By 106 C.E., the Romans dominated most of the former                by the Palestinian regions of Auranitis and Trachonitis, with
> territories of the Nabataeans and the adjacent Syrian cities of     Bostra as the capital, and a southern province, with Petra as
> capital. The southern province, united to Palestine by the
> Gerasa and Philadelphia (modern Jarash and Amman in
> emperor Constantine I “the Great,” became known as
> Jordan), creating a province through the formal annexation of
> Palaestina Salutaris (or Tertia) when detached again in 357
> the Nabataean kingdom under the Roman emperor Trajan.
> and 358 C.E. The cities of both provinces enjoyed a marked
> This province, known as Provincia Arabia, was bounded by
> revival of prosperity in the fifth and sixth centuries and fell
> the western coast of the Sinai Peninsula, the present Syrianinto decay only after the Arab conquest after 632 C.E.
> Lebanese border to a line south of Damascus, and the eastern
> coast of the Red Sea as far as Egra (Madain Salih in the Hijaz).      During the period in which the Judaean Desert finds were
> Gaza prospered as a major seaport and outlet for the prov-          deposited in the caves, the area containing the discovery sites
> ince’s commerce. This trade continued under Roman domi-             remained off the main conduits of trade and communication,
> nation, and the borders were fortified by semipermeable lines        and it is their remoteness that, for the most part, provided
> of fortifications and client states. Under the Romans, Bostra        their value as retreats from the demands of the central settled
> (Bozrah; now Busra ash-Sham) in the north became the                world. The practice of using the Judaean Desert caves as
> capital around a legionary camp. Petra remained a religious         genizot, religious treasuries, continued from the time of the
> center until the penetration of Christianity in the area. The       Roman Wars through as late as the eleventh century C.E. The
> construction of a highway, the Via Traiana Nova, linking            presence of Byzantine Greek and Arabic texts indicates that
> Damascus, via Bostra, Gerasa, Philadelphia, and Petra, to           the local populations both knew of the existence of the caves
> Aelana on the Gulf of Aqaba, set the border of Arabia (Limes        and made use of them as depositories for important docu-
> Arabicus) along the lines of an ancient biblical route. Paved by    ments. This fact has had important implications in discus-
> Claudius Severus, the first governor of Provincia Arabia in          sions about the presence of copies of the “Damascus Covenant”
> about 114 C.E., it improved communication and established a         found in the Cairo Genizah. None of the texts found at the
> modicum of control over the influx of pastoral nomads into           Judaean Desert discovery sites mentions Provincia Arabia or
> settled territory. More importantly, the road insured the           other geographic terms associated with Arabia. The texts,
> increase in prosperity of the cities along the route.               particularly the texts from the Byzantine and Islamic periods,
> indicate that the inhabitants of the region, who deposited the
> At the end of the third century, the Roman emperor                finds, were well connected not only with Palestine but also
> Diocletian divided Arabia into a northern province, enlarged        with Egypt and the larger world of the Mediterranean.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                          53
> Arabia, Pre-Islam
> 
> Southern Arabia                                                   of Africa. Because southern Arabia was the home of those
> The southern portion of Arabia, known generically as the          much-sought-after aromatics and the trans-shipment point
> Yemen, had ancient connections with Africa, India, and the        for Asian and African trade goods, including slaves, it was a
> Far East, as well as the Mediterranean. It was culturally and     much-desired location for colonies and extensions of emlinguistically connected with the Horn of Africa. Among the       pires. These products were sought as luxury trade-goods
> theories of the Arabian origin of the Semites, some have cited    from as early as Old Kingdom Egypt, when this was known as
> the presence of speakers of a Semitic language unlike Arabic      the land of Punt. They were used for funerary and liturgical
> in Yemeni highlands. Additionally, the relationship between       ceremonies, often in large quantities. The use of frankincense
> South Arabian and Ethiopic languages points to continuous         is attested in the biblical offerings mentioned in Leviticus
> contacts between the two areas. Attempts, however, to devise      2:14–16 and 24:7, and also in the Talmud as a medicine and a
> a comprehensive ethnographic categorization of the inhabi-        painkiller. In Christian liturgy, incense was an important part
> tants of Arabia have so far failed. This is in part due to        of the celebration of the mass. Trade in aromatics, gold, and
> problems with categorization itself (what is a Semite, for        luxury items from Africa and India made the west coast of
> example) and in part due to the paucity of evidence. Relying      Arabia the conduit to the Mediterranean and linked southern
> on Arabian histories and indigenous theories of ethnography       Arabia with the settled areas of Syria.
> are problematic, because all were written after the rise of
> Islam, which advances the religious notions of the family             Knowledge of Persian interest in Arabia begins with
> relationship among all Arabs and promotes the elaboration of      Darius I (r. 521–485 B.C.E.). He sent an exploratory expedition
> the explanation of that relationship through genealogy. The       from India to the Red Sea, probably to increase trade.
> so-called Table of Nations from Genesis 10 was invoked by         Greek interest was stimulated first by Alexander the Great
> early Islamic scholars, and the figures of Joktan, Hazarmaveth,    and Nearchus of Crete, but Alexander died in 328 B.C.E.,
> and Sheba are identified with Qahtan, Hadramawt, and the           just before executing plans to conquer the peninsula. This
> Sabaeans.                                                         interest prompted the Greek naturalist and philosopher
> Theophrastus (c. 372–287 B.C.E.) to describe South Arabia,
> An increasing amount of archaeological and inscriptional      providing one of the earliest historical accounts. The Ptolemies
> evidence support the meager and legendary historical mate-        of Egypt, successors to Alexander’s rule, pursued ambitions in
> rial surrounding the histories and influence of at least four      the Red Sea. The Syrian Seleucids promoted the use of the
> major kingdoms in southern Arabia, the Sabaeans, or king-         northern routes to India, probably in an attempt to diminish
> dom of Sheba; the Minaeans; the kingdom of Qataban; and           Egyptian and Arab domination of eastern luxury goods. The
> the kingdom of Hadramawt. These kingdoms were sup-                establishment of the Parthian state in the mid-third century
> ported by a combination of trade and agriculture. Elaborate       B.C.E. weakened the Seleucids, but Antiochus III was still
> 
> aqueducts, dams, and terracing helped sustain these king-         strong enough to conduct an expedition in 204 and 205
> doms as well as giving evidence of their ability to marshal       against Gerrha on the Arabian shore of the Persian Gulf.
> considerable resources for their construction and maintenance. We do not know the reasons for the demise of these            In the second and first centuries B.C.E., major changes took
> kingdoms. The Quran (34:15–16) attributes the breaking of        place in the economy and power of the southern kingdoms of
> the dam at Marib in the kingdom of the Sabaeans as divine        Arabia. The Mediterranean world learned the secret of the
> retribution for their sins. Secular theories attribute the de-    use of the monsoon trade winds to navigate to India, and
> mise of organized agriculture in the southern region to the       mountain tribes began invading the settled kingdoms. By the
> combined factors of the repeated breaking of dams and             end of the first century B.C.E., the Sabaean kingdom was under
> waterworks and the rise of the influence of Ethiopia in            the rule of the tribe of Hamdan, and the kingdoms of Ma
in
> southern Arabia.                                                  and Qataban were destroyed. Roman attempts to conquer
> Arabia Felix failed, but Rome’s influence was extended first
> It is probably from the time of the breaking of the Marib     through the Nabataeans and later through Egyptian and
> dam that some southern Arabian tribes migrated north,             Ethiopic Christianity.
> intermixing with the Arabs of the Hijaz in many places,
> including the city of Yathrib/Medina. This migration may              Sometime around 50 C.E., an anonymous author wrote the
> also be linked with increasing economic opportunities in the      Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, an account in Greek of the
> northern part of Arabia resulting from the domestication of       ethnography and trade in the Red Sea. In the middle of the
> the camel, the invention of the North Arabian camel saddle,       second century C.E., the geographer Claudius Ptolemy (fl.
> and the increasing use of camel cavalry forces in the armies of   127–151 C.E.) wrote a detailed description of Arabia from the
> the Roman and Persian empires.                                    perspective of Roman interests in the region. While some
> scholars identify some sites mentioned by Ptolemy with
> Premodern Arabia possessed little arable land, but south-      modern Arabian cities, like Macoraba as Mecca and Yathrippa
> ern Arabia was the habitat for frankincense and myrrh, the        as Yathrib/Medina, others discount this identification and
> aromatic resins from conifers found in Arabia and the Horn        claim that knowledge of ancient Arabia cannot be derived
> 
> 54                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Arabia, Pre-Islam
> 
> from from the Greco-Roman sources. In the case of the                 from Arabia. The southern portion of Arabia remained under
> identification of Yathrippa as Yathrib, there is inscriptional         Persian control until the rise of Islam.
> support, however, from a Minaean inscription, where Ythrib
> is found. The general picture from these sources is that an           Religions
> active culture of trade and agriculture linked Arabia with            Shortly before the birth of Muhammad in 570 C.E., Mecca and
> Africa, South Asia, and the East Mediterranean world.                 its environs in the Hijaz rose to historical prominence. In
> part, this view is in retrospect from the vantage of knowing
> Arabia Between Two Empires                                            that Islam came from there, but it is also in part because the
> By the middle of the third century C.E., religious and political      dominant Meccan tribe seems to have been able to amass
> competition between the Roman empire and the new Persian              some political and economic hold over the region. The tribe
> Sassanian empire had intensified with Arabia as one of the             of Qureish, whose name possibly means “dugong,” was likely
> centers of the conflict. Both sides were intent on political and       a group of Arabs involved in the Red Sea trade and moved
> economic domination through conversion. For the Romans,               inland with the decline of Roman authority in that sea. Their
> that meant Christianity, and sometime around 213 C.E.,                rule was both economic and theocratic. Their major shrine
> Origen visited Arabia, probably at Petra, to bring that area          was the Ka
ba at Mecca, one of several such Ka
ba in Arabia at
> into religious and political orthodoxy. In 244 C.E., M. Julius        the time. They managed to import the worship of many local
> Philippus, known as Philip the Arab, acceded to the Roman             Arabian deities to Mecca, so that polytheism under the
> imperial throne, and there is strong evidence that he was a           Qureish became a kind of federal cult.
> Christian. His predecessor, Gordianus III, had defeated the
> It is difficult to speak with any precision about the native
> second Sassanian emperor, Shapur I (r. 241–272 C.E.), and,
> polytheism of the Arabs, because almost all of what is known
> although he concluded a peace with the Persians, continued
> comes through hostile Islamic sources. Allah was worshipped
> attempts to control Arabia. The Persians, whose official
> as a creator deity and a “high god,” but the everyday cult
> religion was the nonproselytizing Zoroastrianism, used
> seems to have been dominated by several astral deities,
> Nestorian Christian and Jewish missionaries as their agents
> ancestors, and chthonic spirits, such as the jinn. Animal
> in Arabia.
> sacrifices seem to have been used to propitiate the more than
> three hundred deities mentioned by early Muslim historians.
> Knowledge of Arabian history from the fourth through
> Circumambulation of the Ka
ba and other cultic objects was
> the beginning of the sixth centuries is meager because of the
> also a usual practice, often during “sacred” months of pillack of written sources. In part, this is due to the decline of the
> grimage to religious sites. Little is known of the theological
> urban centers in Arabia. While Arabia was no less strategior moral nature of pre-Islamic polytheism in Arabia, and the
> cally important to the two empires during this period, the
> Muslim critique of the pre-Islamic period portrays it as
> creation of the buffer-states of the Lakhmids on the Sassanian
> devoid of all redeeming features. From the scanty evidence
> side and the Ghassanids on the Roman/Byzantine side proavailable, the cult promoted loyalty to family, clan, and tribe,
> vided both empires indirect means of controlling the flow of
> a sentiment that Arabs carried over into the Islamic period as
> goods and traffic into the settled areas. Because the buffer
> Islam was characterized as a “super-tribe” uniting all Arabs
> states were a main source of camel cavalry, some scholars have
> under one common genealogy.
> noted a process of Bedouinization corresponding to the
> decline of urban areas in this period as it became more                   While Christianity was present from an early period in
> profitable to raise and sell camels. The Ghassanids and the            Arabia, and there is evidence of the political connections and
> Lakhmids mirrored their sponsor-states by engaging in war-            dimensions of Arabian Christians to their coreligionists in the
> fare, even when Rome and Persia were ostensibly at peace.             surrounding countries, little is known of Arabian Christian
> beliefs and practices except through Islamic sources. Quranic
> In the sixth century C.E., conflicts again arose, this time
> evidence indicates that, while the full range of Gospel narrathrough the agency of the Persian-sponsored Jewish state in           tives is not represented, the Quran represents particularly
> the Yemen under Yusuf Dhu Nuwas and Byzantium’s                       the Gospel of Luke quite accurately and with close read-
> Monophysite ally, the kingdom of Aksum. When Dhu Nuwas                ings. Recent scholarship in this area is challenging the earattempted to return Najran to his control, he met resistance          lier notions that the Quran portrayed only a heterodox
> from armed Christian missionaries, whom he defeated. With             form of Christianity and is pointing to a more mainstream
> Byzantine naval support, the Aksumites invaded Arabia, de-            pre-Islamic Christianity, albeit divided among the various
> feated Dhu Nuwas, and established an Abyssinian-ruled cli-            Christological heresies of the day.
> ent state. Its ruler, Abraha, rebuilt the Marib dam erected a
> cathedral in San
a, and attempted to conquer Mecca. His                 As seen from the above survey of Arabian history, religion
> defeat, traditionally in 570 C.E. and recorded in Quran 105,         among the pre-Islamic Arabs was closely tied to the political
> coupled with an invasion of the Yemen by the Sassanian ruler          ambitions of several foreign powers that wished to dominate
> Khusraw I Anushirwan (r. 531–579 C.E.), drove the Abyssinians         Arabia. At the time of the rise of Islam, converting to one of
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                         55
> Arabia, Pre-Islam
> 
> The ruins of the Marib Dam, created circa the sixth century B.C.E. in Marib, Yemen, by the Sabaens, one of four major kingdoms of southern
> Arabia to predate Islam. Aqueducts and dams were an important part of the Sabaeans’s infrastructure and rise to power. Secular historians
> have postulated that the decline of pre-Islamic kingdoms may have had to do with the breakdown of their dams and aqueducts; the Quran
> attributes the destruction of the Marib Dam to divine punishment of the Sabaeans’s sins. The Balaq mountains are in the background.
> © ARCHIVO ICONOGRAFICO, S.A./CORBIS
> 
> the varieties of Judaism or Christianity in Arabia meant                travel songs, and the panegyrics of the courts of the Arab
> choosing not only a religion but also a political and social            dynasties along the borders of the Roman and Persian empires.
> agenda dominated by a foreign power.
> There is also speculation that this language was used for
> Literary Legacy                                                         formal prose in treaties, formal agreements, and in writing
> One of the major legacies of pre-Islamic Arabian culture to             Jewish and Christian scripture, but, as mentioned above,
> later Arab and Islamic culture was the development of the               there is little evidence of biblical translations into Arabic in
> poetic and formal language often termed “classical” Arabic.             the pre-Islamic period. Instead, there is more evidence that
> In the century or century and a half before the birth of                Jews and Christians had their own “dialects” of Arabic, with
> Muhammad in 570 C.E., the Arab tribes in the Hijaz devel-               added vocabulary from the Jewish and Christian languages of
> oped a literary form of Arabic that stood alongside the various         the eastern Mediterranean. These dialects likely served as the
> dialects. This was a composite, formal language with a highly           conduits for much of the foreign religious vocabulary that
> inflected grammatical system. It also had a flexible system for           found its way into Arabic.
> generating new vocabulary based on extensive use of the
> Arabic verbal root system that allowed for easy adoption of                The poetry that has survived from the pre-Islamic period
> new terms and concepts within the language itself. It was also          was transmitted orally and only transcribed in the Islamic
> open to the adoption of terms from the surrounding lan-                 period. It was composed by a poet to be preserved and recited
> guages of Hebrew, Aramaic, Latin, Ethiopic, among others.               by a reciter, a rawi, who may also have been a poet or an
> As a “meta-language” it undoubtedly reflected the growing                apprentice. In this poetry, each poetic line had independent
> political expansion of the Qureish and their economic unifi-             meaning, and the entire poem was comprised of thematic
> cation of the Hijaz, but it also seems to have grown from the           sections, which concentrated on travel, love, praise, and so
> common experiences of local religious practices, Bedouin                on. The most famous of these “odes,” termed qasidas, are
> 
> 56                                                                                                    Islam and the Muslim World
> Arabia, Pre-Islam
> 
> known as the Mu
allaqat, or “suspended odes.” Various sto-           Korotaev, A. V. Ancient Yemen: Some General Trends of Evoluries are given to explain the name, but the writers of these           tion of the Sabaic Language and Sabaean Culture. Oxford,
> poems became known as the masters of Arabic poetic compo-              U.K. and New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.
> sition, and their style of poetry so influential that later Islamic   MacAdam, H. I. Studies in the History of the Roman Province of
> poetry in Persian and other Islamic languages as well as               Arabia: The Northern Sector. Oxford, U.K.: B.A.R., 1986.
> Arabic survived until modern times.                                  Montgomery, J. A. Arabia and the Bible. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1934.
> The style of poetry known as saj
, rhymed prose, was
> another influential poetic form, apparently used by seers and         Newby, G. D. A History of the Jews of Arabia: From Ancient
> holy men for prognosticative pronouncements. This form of              Times to Their Eclipse under Islam. Columbia: University of
> poetic language is found in many places in the Quran, giving          South Carolina Press, 1988.
> rise to the accusation that Muhammad was a poet or man-              Peters, F. E. Jerusalem and Mecca: The Typology of the Holy City
> tic seer.                                                               in the Near East. New York: New York University
> Press, 1987.
> A photo of an alabaster relief of a camel and its rider appears in
> Peters, F. E. The Arabs and Arabia on the Eve of Islam.
> the volume one color plates.                                         Aldershot, Hampshire, U.K., and Brookfield, Vt.:
> Ashgate, 1999.
> See also Arabic Language; Arabic Literature; Asabiyya;
> Empires: Sassanian; Muhammad.                                        Peters, F. E., and NetLibrary Inc. Muhammad and the Origins
> of Islam. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994.
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                         Philby, H. S. J .B. The Land of Midian. London: Benn, 1957.
> Arnold, W. T., et al. Studies of Roman Imperialism. Manches-         Phillips, W. Qataban and Sheba: Exploring the Ancient Kingter, U.K.: Manchester University Press, 1906.                         doms on the Biblical Spice Routes of Arabia. New York:
> Bowersock, G. W. Roman Arabia. Cambridge, Mass.: Har-                   Harcourt Brace, 1955.
> vard University Press, 1983.                                       Playfair, R. L. A History of Arabia Felix or Yemen, From the
> Breton, J.-F. Arabia Felix from the Time of the Queen of Sheba:         Commencement of the Christian Era to the Present Time:
> Eighth Century B.C. to First Century A.D. Notre Dame,                Including an Account of the British Settlement of Aden. Salis-
> Ind.:University of Notre Dame Press, 1999.                           bury, N.C.: Documentary Publications, 1978.
> Burton, R. F., et al. Sir Richard Burton’s Travels in Arabia and     Ricks, S. D. Western Language Literature on Pre-Islamic Cen-
> Africa: Four Lectures from a Huntington Library Manuscript.           tral Arabia: An Annotated Bibliography. Denver, Colo.:
> San Marino, Calif.: Huntington Library, 1990.                         American Institute of Islamic Studies, 1991..
> Bury, G. W. The Land of Uz. London: Macmillan and Co.                Salibi, K. S. The Bible Came from Arabia. London: Pan
> Ltd., 1911.                                                           Books, 1987.
> Cleveland, R. L. An Ancient South Arabian Necropolis: Objects        Sawyer, J. F. A., and Clines, D. J. A. Midian, Moab and Edom:
> from the Second Campaign, 1951, in the Timnaí Cemetery.             The History and Archaeology of Late Bronze and Iron Age
> Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins Press, 1965.                          Jordan and North-west Arabia. Sheffield, U.K.: JSOT
> Crone, P. Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam. Princeton, N.J.:         Press, 1983.
> Princeton University Press, 1987.
> Schippmann, K. Ancient South Arabia: From the Queen of Sheba
> Díabrowa, E., and Uniwersytet Jagielloiínski. Instytut Historii.        to the Advent of Islam. Translated by Allison Brown. Prince-
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> Colloqium [sic] Held at the Jagiellonian University, Kraków
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> Jagielloínskiego, 1994.                                              Adjacent Sand Seas. Reston, Va.: U.S. Dept. of the Interior
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> Cambridge University Press, 1988.                                  Segal, Arthur. Town Planning and Architecture in Provincia
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> Esin, E. Mecca, the Blessed; Madinah, the Radiant. New York:
> Crown Publishers, 1963.                                           Shahid, Irfan. Rome and the Arabs: A Prolegomenon to the Study
> Graf, D. F. Rome and the Arabian Frontier: From the Nabataeans to      of Byzantium and the Arabs. Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton
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> Vt.: Ashgate, 1997.                                                Simon, R. Meccan Trade and Islam: Problems of Origin and
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> Publications Universitaires, 1963.                                 Sowayan, Saad Abdullah. Nabati Poetry. Los Angeles: Univer-
> Hoyland, R. G. Arabia and the Arab: From the Bronze Age to the         sity of California Press, 1985.
> Coming of Islam. New York, Routledge, 2001.                        Spijkerman, A., and Piccirillo, M. The Coins of the Decapolis
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> Ann Arbor, Mich.: Journal of Roman Archaeology, 1996.                 Press, 1978.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                        57
> Arabic Language
> 
> Van Beek, G. W. Hajar Bin Humeid; Investigations at a Pre-         some similarities with the South Arabian of the South Ara-
> Islamic Site in South Arabia. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hop-         bian kingdoms, while at the same time preserving the traces
> kins Press, 1969.                                                of its relatedness to the Northwest Semitic languages.
> Zwemer, S. M. Arabia: The Cradle of Islam: Studies in the
> Geography, People and Politics of the Peninsula, with an             Around the fifth century Arabic-speaking tribes lived in
> Account of Islam and Mission-Work. New York and Chi-             large parts of the Arabian peninsula as well as in the areas to
> cago: F. H. Revell Company, 1900.                                the north of the peninsula as far as the Syrian desert and the
> Sinai; some of them even settled in sedentary areas such as the
> city of Aleppo. These tribes were Christians. The Bedouin
> Gordon D. Newby
> tribes in the peninsula were polytheists. They greatly increased their influence when they took over the caravan trade
> from the South Arabian kingdoms and settled themselves as
> middlemen in places like Mecca.
> ARABIC LANGUAGE
> The al-Namara inscription is written in a language with a
> A people with the name of Aribi is first mentioned in a             declensional system, similar to the language of the precuneiform inscription from the eighth century B.C.E., where it     Islamic poems. It was in this language that the Quran was
> denotes a nomadic tribe. In later centuries tribes named 
rb       revealed. According to the indigenous tradition all tribes at
> are mentioned in several sources, for instance in the Torah        the eve of Islam used this language as their vernacular
> (Jeremiah 25:24). It is not known what kind of language these      language, although later grammarians document a number of
> people spoke but it is clear that they had some connection         differences between the varieties of the various tribes (lughat).
> with the North Arabian desert, even though they did not            Thus, for instance, the eastern tribes are said to have used a
> dwell in the Arabian Peninsula itself. Probably their language     phoneme // (hamza), which was absent in the dialect of the
> belonged to the continuum of Semitic languages that was            western tribes, but present in the language of poetry and the
> spoken all over the Middle East and that included Aramaic,         Quran. According to others the vernacular language of the
> Hebrew, Canaanite, and others.                                     tribes had already shifted to a different type of language, in
> which, for instance, case-endings had disappeared. In this
> The full penetration of the Arabian Peninsula dates from a     view, the language of poetry and the Quran was a literary
> later period. In the southern part of the peninsula the South      language that was no longer used as a spoken language but
> Arabian kingdoms such as those of the Minaeans and the             served as a kind of supra-tribal variety, based on the language
> Sabaeans flourished from the thirteenth century B.C.E. on-          of the eastern tribes (sometimes called poetico-Quranic koine).
> ward. Their language was South Arabian, a language related
> to the Ethiopian languages. They had domesticated the              The Spread of the Arabic Language
> camel, which was used for carrying loads but not yet as a          After the death of the prophet Muhammad the Islamic
> conquests brought the religion and the language of the Arab
> riding animal. The South Arabians maintained frequent trade
> tribes into a large area stretching from Islamic Spain to
> relations with the Middle East, usually by the sea route, and
> Central Asia. The languages originally spoken in this area
> through these contacts the camel was introduced in the north
> (Coptic, Persian, Syriac, Berber) gave way to the linguistic
> as well. Around the beginning of the common era when a
> onslaught of Arabic, and even though some of the speakers
> riding saddle was developed for the camel, it became possible
> remained bilingual, the entire area was Arabized within a
> to penetrate the desert and even live there permanently.
> century. The Arabic as spoken by the inhabitants of this vast
> Presumably, some of the tribes that wandered in the border
> empire differed considerably from the language of the Quran,
> area between sedentary land and the desert fringe eventually
> especially in the sedentary centers that were established in the
> made the shift to a nomadic life in the desert and thus
> early years of the conquest, such as Basra, Kufa, Fustat, and
> developed what may be called a Bedouin society.
> Kairouan. There was a reduction of the phonemic inventory
> (loss of interdentals, merger of the phonemes dad and za),
> In the northern part of the peninsula thousands of (usually
> loss of case-endings and modal endings, reduction of gramshort) inscriptions attest to the presence of a language that
> matical categories, and emergence of a genitive exponent and
> was very much akin to the Arabic language as it is known
> aspectual particles. Syntactically speaking, the language had
> today. This language was characterized by the form of the
> shifted from a synthetic to an analytic type, usually called
> article, h- or hn-, as distinct from the Arabic article al-, but
> New Arabic.
> related to the Hebrew form ha-. This language type is usually
> called Early North Arabic; it was divided into several varieties      There are many theories about the reasons for this change,
> such as Thamudaean and Lihyanitic. The first inscription in a       which affected all domains of grammar. Those who believe
> language that may be recognized as Arabic is the inscription       that even before Islam the vernacular language of the Bedfrom al-Namara in Syria (328 C.E.) erected by Imru al-Qays        ouin already exhibited some New Arabic changes tend to
> who calls himself “King of the Arabs.” The language shows          minimize the role of the new learners of the language. They
> 
> 58                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Arabic Language
> 
> This modern example of Arabic calligraphy by Aziz Muhammad Al Shabli reads: “Thanks be to God the Lord of the Universe,” which is the first
> line of the Quran. Originating in the Near East, Arabic was brought by Islamic conquests in the century after Muhammad’s death to a vast
> geographical area reaching from parts of Spain to Central Asia. AZIZ MOHAMMED AL SHABLI/ACCESS
> 
> believe the various vernaculars of the Bedouin were homog-             to codify the language in their grammar books lest the
> enized when members from different tribes were thrown                  language of the holy scriptures become incomprehensible for
> together in the conquering armies. As a result, the vernacular         later generations.
> varieties that emerged after the conquests became very different from the language of the Quran. Others look for the                   The original conquest was just the first stage in the
> cause of the linguistic changes in the languages spoken by the         Arabization process since it reached only the sedentary areas,
> inhabitants of the conquered territories. According to them,           in particular the new garrison towns established by the Arab
> this substratal influence affected the structure of New Arabic          armies. Later centuries brought successive waves of Bedouin
> by carrying over features of languages such as Coptic, Per-            migrants to the conquered territories. These were responsisian, Syriac, and Berber to the Arabic language, as spoken by          ble for the Arabization of much larger areas. In some cases
> its new speakers. Yet another factor to be taken into account          they re-Bedouinized the sedentary dialects of the cities. In
> is the process of language acquisition itself. In every language-      Baghdad, for instance, the dialect of the Muslims became
> learning process in an informal setting the native speakers            Bedouinized while the Christians and Jews retained the
> tend to simplify their language and the new learners apply             original sedentary dialect. In North Africa the second wave of
> universal strategies of simplification to this input. The result        migration is associated with the invasion of the Bedouin
> is a drastic reduction of the phonemic inventory and of                tribes of the Banu Hilal and the Banu Sulaym in the tenth and
> grammatical categories, a general disappearance of redun-              eleventh centuries C.E., which brought Arabic to large parts of
> dancy, and a restructuring of the language.                            the countryside.
> 
> Whatever the causes of the linguistic changes, there can               There is no consensus about the language these Bedouin
> be no doubt that very early on in the conquests there was a            spoke. Those who maintain that the vernacular of the Bedmarked difference between the language of the religious and            ouin tribes in the pre-Islamic period had already changed in
> literary heritage on one hand, and the colloquial speech of the        the direction of New Arabic believe that there was not much
> Arab empire on the other. According to the classic descrip-            difference between the dialects of the first and the second
> tion of this situation by Ibn Khaldun, the scholars of Arabic          invasion. Others believe that the Bedouin tribes continued to
> became concerned about this corruption of speech and started           speak a type of Arabic that was basically identical with the
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                            59
> Arabic Language
> 
> pre-Islamic Arabic of poetry and Quran. In this view, the          Arabic remained the language par excellence of the Islamic
> Bedouin did not lose their speech until the fourth century of    empire for well over five centuries, until the Mongol conthe Hijra (Islamic calendar). This is corroborated by the        quest of Baghdad in 1258. Even in Mamluk Egypt, where the
> grammarians who explain that the Bedouin dialects became         political and military elite consisted of Turkic-speaking peocorrupted through exposure to the sedentary way of speaking.     ple, Arabic continued to be regarded as a language of prestige.
> Mamluk intellectuals used it in writing, even though Qipcaq
> Arabic in Islamic Society                                        Turkic was their colloquial language. In the East the position
> At the beginning of Islam, Arabic became the language of         of Arabic as a religious, cultural, and administrative language
> both private and public life in the Arab empire. During a        started to change from the tenth century onward. Middle
> transitional period the indigenous languages remained in use,    Persian, the language of the Persian empire, had become
> for instance in Egypt where Greek and Coptic were used for       marginalized after the conquests, but New Persian (Farsi)
> administrative purposes along with Arabic. But at the end of     became popular as the language of poetry in the ninth
> the first century of the Hijra, Arabic was firmly established as   century. The dynasty of the Samanids reintroduced it as the
> the official language of the empire. The languages that used      language of the court, and in the sixteenth century the Safavid
> to be spoken in the conquered territories disappeared or         dynasty started to use it as the new “national” language of
> remained in use in a restricted domain only, such as Coptic      Iran. As a result, the spreading of Islam in South and Southand Syriac. In the Arab West, Berber remained in use in the      east Asia took place in Persian, particularly when the Moguls
> countryside and has indeed never been replaced completely        began to use it as their literary language. In the Islamic East,
> by Arabic until the present day.                                 Arabic was retained solely as the language of the Quran,
> Persian having become the language of preaching, literature,
> The codification of standard Arabic by the grammarians        and administration.
> started during the second century of Islam, but even before
> that there must have existed some kind of norm in writing,           With the advent of the Turkic peoples Arabic gradually
> possibly connected with the emergence of an epistolary style     lost its position in the Islamic West as well. In the Seljuk
> in the chancelleries. The earliest Arabic documents, the         Empire and later in the Ottoman Empire the language of
> Egyptian papyri from the first century of the Hijra, already      administration became Ottoman Turkish, while Persian was
> contain “mistakes” that show the existence of a standard as      the language used by the intellectual elite for cultural purtarget in writing. Such mistakes are very common and with        poses. Arabic was relegated to the domain of religion, althe growth of literacy they became even more frequent. In        though it continued to serve as a source for thousands of
> modern linguistic terminology texts containing deviations        loanwords in both Persian and Turkish, ranging from learned
> from the grammatical norms of the standard language are          words such as mo
allem “teacher” in Persian and akide “dogma”
> usually called “Middle Arabic.” This term does not denote a      in Turkish to common words such as ve- ‘and’ in both
> well-defined variety of the language but is used as a general     languages. Yet, when the Arab world became integrated in
> label for all nonstandard texts. Some of the mistakes reflect     the Ottoman Empire, spoken Arabic was treated as a minor
> the vernacular language, for instance, when people write la      provincial language and its written variety was only used for
> yaktubu “they do not write” rather than the more formal la       religious purposes. Even though most inhabitants of the Arab
> yaktubuna, but very often one encounters pseudo-corrections,     provinces did not know Turkish, official contacts with the
> when people in their attempt to write standard Arabic over-      empire had to take place in that language.
> step their target, for instance when they write lam yaktubuna
> “they did not write” instead of lam yaktubu. The introduction       The nineteenth-century Arab renaissance (Nahda) brought a
> of vernacular features in written language could also serve to   change in the self-awareness of the Arabs and the position of
> create a humorous effect. This occurs particularly in litera-    Arabic. In Egypt, Muhammad 
Ali initiated a movement to
> ture aiming at a popular audience, such as the stories in the    translate European writings into Arabic. In its wake a new
> Arabian Nights or in dialect poetry.                             idiom was created to convey the new ideas, and the language
> was modernized through the introduction of a host of new
> The acceptance of deviations from the norms was particu-     terms in the fields of the technical sciences, economics, and
> larly strong in non-Muslim circles. Jewish and Christian         politics. Once again, Arabic became a language in which
> writers, who did not have the same attachment to the lan-        political and administrative issues were discussed.
> guage of the Quran, felt free to use a more popular kind of
> language. Thus we find Jewish writers using certain vernacu-         The fall of the Ottoman Empire signified a new beginning
> lar constructions when writing to fellow Jews, but studiously    for Arabic but the simultaneous invasion of the colonial
> avoiding these when writing for a more general Muslim            powers introduced a new danger to the language. Because of
> audience. One might even say that this kind of Arabic became     the military and cultural dominance of the English and the
> an in-group language with a special status. This Judaeo-         French the attitude toward Arabic was often a negative one.
> Arabic was written in Hebrew characters and contained a          After the Arab countries gained their independence Arabic
> large number of Hebrew loanwords.                                became the official language of most of these countries and
> 
> 60                                                                                           Islam and the Muslim World
> Arabic Language
> 
> the symbol of Arab nationalism. In the Mashreq, it did not           divisiveness and regionalism (iqlimiyya). It is widely believed
> take long before English was replaced by Arabic, but in the          in the Arab world that during the colonial period the Euroformerly French-dominated countries it took decades before           pean powers intentionally propagated the study and the use of
> the French language had disappeared from the administra-             the dialect in order to divide the Arab world. Even today,
> tive, educational, and legal systems.                                Western interest in dialectology is still regarded as a manifestation of neo-imperialism. This creates a problem for Arab
> Fusha and 
Ammiyya                                                   politicians who wish to show their adherence to the ideals of
> The contemporary linguistic situation in the Arab world is           Arab nationalism but at the same time their strong ties with
> characterized by diglossia, in which two varieties of the            the population. Politicians like Jamal 
Abd al-Nasser made a
> language have strictly separate roles or functions in the            skillful use of the language variation by mixing standard and
> speech community. The so-called High variety, called fusha           vernacular in their political speeches. The connection with
> or al-
arabiyya, is the language learned at school as the carrier    the standard language is especially strong in those countries
> of a rich religious and literary heritage; it is the language that
> that emphasize their role in the Arab nationalist movement.
> is used in writing, both in the educational system and the
> The different attitudes toward Arab nationalism correlate
> media, and in formal speech. The Low variety, called 
ammiyya
> with the attitude toward the vernacular. In those countries
> or in North Africa darija, is the colloquial language, which is
> where Arab nationalism is part of the dominant ideology the
> the mother tongue of all speakers. It is the language of
> use of standard Arabic is emphasized and attempts to replace
> everyday communication, the language of friends and family,
> it with the vernacular are met with severe criticism.
> the language of informal speaking.
> The attitude toward the dialect is not wholly negative,
> The coexistence of two varieties of the language is not
> however. In a country such as Egypt the 
ammiyya may be said
> without its problems. Since the standard language is learned
> to hold a special position. Because of the pride they take in
> at school, only those who are literate have access to the
> their country Egyptians are also proud of the Egyptian
> written production. For the vast majority of the population
> dialect, and although they share with other Arab countries the
> the formal language is not immediately comprehensible so
> mistrust toward the imperialists who used the dialect to
> that a large part of linguistic communication in the commufurther their own interests and although in Egypt, too, the
> nity is beyond their linguistic competence. The two varieties
> fusha holds a special prestige position, the use of the dialect is
> have quite different associations, the standard language being
> widespread even in situations where in other countries it
> associated with education and therefore with social success
> would be unthinkable to use dialect. Thus, Egyptian presiand wealth, whereas the vernacular is associated with illiterdents are never averse to using partly Egyptian dialect in their
> acy and poverty. At the same time, its function as the language
> political speeches—at least for internal use; in their contacts
> of informal talk makes it the symbol of in-group communication, whereas the standard language is seen as a stereotyped         with other Arab countries they tend to switch to standard
> and distanced means of communication.                                Arabic. Since the Egyptian film industry and more recently
> the television soaps have gained enormous popularity outside
> Language choice between standard and vernacular de-              Egypt, knowledge of this dialect in other Arab countries is
> pends on a number of factors such as the person of the               widespread and many speakers of other dialects are familiar
> interlocutor, the topic being spoken about, and the setting of       with Egyptian.
> the speech act. By their language choice speakers express
> their attitude toward these factors, their evaluation of the             In North Africa the linguistic policies of the French have
> situation and the interlocutor. Since language variation is not      left unmistakable traces. After independence there was a class
> a matter of choice between two discrete varieties, but takes         of intellectuals who only knew French and could not commuplace on a continuum between the highest standard and the            nicate in Arabic. The first decades after gaining indepenlowest vernacular, there are endless possibilities of language       dence were therefore characterized by a movement toward
> choice. Such linguistic behavior is often indicated with the         Arabization, the replacement of French by Arabic in domains
> term of code-mixing. Since the span of the continuum attain-         such as administration and education. Several school reforms
> able for the individual speaker directly depends on the degree       were needed before at least primary and secondary schools
> of literacy, most people may be said to have only a relatively       adopted Arabic as the main medium of instruction. Even
> small variation at their disposal. But even the best educated        today French/Arabic bilingualism in North Africa is widespeakers are unable to extemporize in standard Arabic and            spread and French has retained a special position of prestige.
> inevitably mix vernacular elements in their speech.                  In particular among intellectuals the mixing of French and
> Arabic in franco-arabe has remained popular.
> Because of its symbolic value as a binding element for
> all Arabic-speaking peoples language choice is intimately               In the Levant, Syria, and Lebanon became independent
> connected with Arab nationalism. The fusha is the symbol             from French colonial rule with a somewhat different outof Arab unity, whereas the vernacular dialects stand for             come. In Syria, French never took hold the way it did in the
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                         61
> Arabic Language
> 
> Maghreb. In Lebanon, however, bilingualism was connected             period of code-switching in which they mix their home
> with a widespread feeling, both among Muslims and Chris-             language and the language of the country they are living in.
> tians, that Lebanon was a bicultural country. The civil war
> has changed this situation in the sense that Arabic-French               The main role of Arabic outside the Arab world is that of
> being the language of the Quran, even though in many
> bilingualism has become associated more exclusively with the
> regions it was not the language of the Islamic spreading of the
> Christian community.
> faith (da
wa). This role was played in the East by Persian, and
> Arabic as a World Language                                           further east by Malay. In Africa, the language in which Islam
> After the Arab conquest of the Iberian Peninsula in 711 C.E.,        was preached was Hausa or Swahili. Yet, for all Muslims
> the influence of the Arabic language spread beyond the                Arabic has a special status as the language chosen by God for
> borders of the Islamic world. Due to its role as the language in     his last revelation. The reverence for this status does not lead,
> which Greek philosophy and science were transmitted, Euro-           however, to intensive study of the language itself. Ordinary
> pean scholars came to regard Arabic as the language of               Muslims in countries such as Iran, Turkey, Indonesia, Pakiculture and scholarship. A large amount of translations of           stan, Nigeria, and Senegal do not know more Arabic than a
> Arabic texts circulated in Western Europe, and through the           few ayahs from the Quran, even though in some of these
> contact with Arab culture in al-Andalus many loanwords,              countries there is an extensive public or private network of
> such as algebra, zero, algorithm, alchemy, sugar, artichoke, apri-   Quran schools where the text of the Holy Book and the basic
> cot, and admiral, entered the European languages. This inter-        elements of Arabic are being taught.
> national role of Arabic ended with the Renaissance when                  Historically, Arabic functioned in Africa not only as a
> Western Europe rediscovered the Greek sources and no                 religious language but also as a language of trade. Even before
> longer needed Arabic as an intermediary.                             West Africa was Islamicized, Arabic was used there as a lingua
> franca between the courts of different kingdoms. This is also
> Nowadays, Arabic is spoken as a mother tongue outside
> clear from the loanwords in African languages, which are not
> the Arab world in a number of linguistic enclaves, such as
> restricted to the domain of religion but comprise also other
> Anatolian Arabic in Turkey, and tiny pockets of speakers in
> semantic domains. In Hausa, for instance, such words as
> Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Iran, and Cyprus. Malta is a differ-
> “book” (littaafi) and “news” (laabaari) derive from Arabic as
> ent case altogether. Here, the Maltese language, written in
> do some conjunctions such as saboo da “because,” from Arabic
> Latin characters, has become the only Arabic dialect with the
> sabab “reason.” In Swahili something like 30 percent of the
> status of a national language. The Maltese, who are Chrislexicon is derived from Arabic. Most of these loans were
> tians, tend to deny the connection of their language with the
> introduced by a small class of so-called mallams (Ar. mu
allim
> Arabic-speaking world and prefer to regard the language as a
> “teacher”) who maintained the ties with Arabic even after the
> remnant of the Phoenician language.
> trade connections had been severed.
> Apart from these enclaves, large numbers of Arabs have              In Asia, Islam was spread by Persian-speaking traders and
> migrated outside the Arab world (mahjar). In the Americas,           missionaries. Here the Arabic language was known excluearly immigrants came mostly from Lebanon and Syria. Most            sively from the text of the Quran. Even though the ordinary
> of them were merchants, who assimilated without difficulty            believers did not know Arabic, they became used to some of
> to their new countries, especially in Latin America. Most of         the religious terms through the recitation of the Quran.
> them retained Arabic and in countries such as Brazil and             Other Arabic words entered the Asian languages through
> Argentina they even managed to establish a thriving literary         Persian, as evidenced by their phonological shape, for intradition.                                                           stance, in Urdu hazirin “audience,” with Persian z for Arabic
> dad. A further source of borrowing was the written medium. A
> The immigration of speakers of Arabic to western Europe
> small class of scholars used their pilgrimage to Mecca in order
> has a different background. In the early 1960s the western
> to study the Islamic sciences and through their books they
> European countries started to hire unskilled laborers from
> introduced hundreds or even thousands of loanwords from
> the Mediterranean countries on a large scale. The original
> Arabic. It has been estimated that in Malay more than three
> plan was to hire these people for a restricted period of time
> thousand words were borrowed in this way, for instance, the
> and then remigrate them to the countries of origin. Soon it
> word hukum “judgment,” which gave rise to the derived verb
> became apparent that they were there to stay. As a result the
> menghukumkan “to pronounce judgment.”
> western European countries suddenly realized that they had a
> sizable Arabic-speaking minority. In most of these countries            The relatively low level of knowledge of Arabic may be
> the official policy of the government consisted in providing          changing with the increasing influence of Arabic sites on the
> education in the home language of the immigrants’ children.          Internet. In some countries, such as Mali, learning Arabic has
> Nonetheless, many children of the second and third genera-           become quite fashionable among young people. In other
> tion are losing their language of origin and shifting to the         countries, international Islamic contacts may lead to an indominant language. In most cases they go through a lengthy           crease in Arabic as the primary language of Islam.
> 
> 62                                                                                               Islam and the Muslim World
> Arabic Literature
> 
> See also African Culture and Islam; Arabic Literature;             “education,” “general knowledge,” and “decency.” It is de-
> Grammar and Lexicography; Identity, Muslim; Pan-                   rived from the pre-Islamic dab (pl. adab) that denotes “good,
> Arabism; Persian Language and Literature; Qur
an;                  accepted practice.” In medieval Arab society adab can prob-
> South Asian Culture and Islam; Urdu Language, Lit-                 ably be best compared to the concept of “belles lettres.” It
> erature, and Poetry.                                               does not, however, include the most esteemed form of Arabic
> literature of shi
r, or poetry, as a category.
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> To understand the status of shi
r, its early development
> Ayalon, Ami. Language and Change in the Arab Middle East:
> within pre-Islamic society has to be discussed. This society
> The Evolution of Modern Political Discourse. New York and
> was divided along lines of families, tribes, and clans. Within
> Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 1987.
> the clan the prominent social characters were the sayyid
> Bakalla, Muhammad Hasan. Arabic Linguistics: An Introduc-
> (chief), the kahin (the soothsayer, expert of the supernatural),
> tion and Bibliography. London: Mansell, 1983.
> and the sha
ir, the keeper of earthly knowledge memorized in
> Blau, Joshua. The Beginnings of the Arabic Diglossia: A Study of   a nonscriptural society. This sha
ir—or “poet”—knew by
> the Origins of Neo-Arabic. Malibu, Calif.: Undena, 1977.
> heart the clan’s history, the affiliations with other clans, and
> Bulliet, Richard W. The Camel and the Wheel. 2d ed. New            the battle deeds of the clan in skirmishes with other clans.
> York: Columbia University Press, 1990.                          Battle cries, invectives of the enemy, and boasting of the hero
> Diem, Werner. Hochsprache und Dialekt: Untersuchungen zur          were commonly uttered in poetical form and were memoheutigen arabischen Zweisprachigkeit. Wiesbaden: F.              rized by the poet, in order to be handed down to the next
> Steiner, 1974.                                                   generation.
> Ferguson, Charles A. “The Arabic Koine.” Language 25
> (1959a): 616–630.                                                  In a development for which we have no record, another
> Ferguson, Charles A. “Diglossia.” Word 15 (1959b): 325–340.        kind of poetry emerged in this pre-Islamic society called the
> qasida (or “ode”). These poems, too, were memorized by the
> Fischer, Wolfdietrich. Grundriss der arabischen Philologie, Vol.
> 1: Sprachwissenschaft. Wiesbaden: L. Reichert, 1983.            poet. In the course of time he started to compose this kind of
> poetry himself. The practice of memorizing and composing
> Fischer, Wolfdietrich, and Jastrow, Otto. Handbuch der
> poetry was a craft that was handed down from one generation
> arabischen Dialekte. Wiesbaden: O. Harrassowitz, 1980.
> to next, the poet’s apprentice being called rawi or “transmit-
> Holes, Clive. Modern Arabic: Structures, Functions and Varieter” (pl. ruwat).
> ties. London and New York: Kegan Paul International, 1995.
> Miller, Ann M. “The Origin of the Modern Arabic Sedentary          Pre-Islamic Arabic Poetry
> Dialects: An Evaluation of Several Theories.” Al-
Arabiyya       An Arabic poem was composed on the basis of two form
> 19 (1986): 47–74.                                                principles: meter and rhyme. Each poem had a fixed meter
> Rouchdy, Aleya. The Arabic Language in America. Detroit:           that could be chosen from the sixteen metrical patterns that
> Wayne State University Press, 1992.                              Arabic prosodical tradition defined, although it has to be said
> Versteegh, Kees. The Arabic Language. 2d ed. Edinburgh:            that classical poets were mainly using only six of these.
> Edinburgh University Press, 2001.                                Contrary to Western metrical tradition, the Arabic meters
> were based on the length of syllables rather then on stress.
> Kees Versteegh     This does not mean that Arabic poetic language knew no
> stress, but it was not the principle for metric scansion. The
> poet is expected to retain the same meter throughout each
> poem he composes, which may run into dozens of verses.
> ARABIC LITERATURE
> Apart from this feature, called monometer, the poet uses
> Literature may be defined in numerous ways, but in Arabic           the same rhyme throughout the poem, which is called
> literature some of the prominent phenomena that are associ-        monorhyme. The rhyme cluster is always based on one
> ated with the modern concept of literature—individual crea-        specific consonant accompanied with long or short vowels. In
> tivity, authenticity of feeling, and fictionality—will not easily   the correct rhyme a limited variation of vowels is allowed.
> be detected by an unaware reader. Arabic literature as well as     Each line of poetry is divided into two hemistichs, which
> other non-Western literatures is firmly rooted in its own           deceptively makes the poem in print seem like two columns.
> tradition and can hardly be appreciated otherwise.
> This elaborated form requires a high degree of craftsman-
> Arabic Literature: Notions and Concepts                            ship and it suggests a long evolution, but no sources are
> The modern Arabic equivalent for literature is adab, but in its    available for this. It may also seem that in its form Arabic
> traditional context this concept also refers to notions like       poetry is extremely monotonous, but it is often the subtle play
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                      63
> Arabic Literature
> 
> between the formal rules, the listeners expectation, and the      Shifting themes and forms. Shortly before the emergence
> poet’s elegant solutions that makes this poetry a vibrant art.    of Islam, Arabic poetry underwent a few thematic innovations: Love poetry gradually became an independent genre,
> Pre-Islamic (or pre-classical) Arabic poetry can be divided   introducing the beloved as taking part in a—probably
> thematically into two groups: short, monothematic poems,          fictitious—dialogue. In this period one also finds religious
> often “situational” poetry, and long, polythematic poems          poetry reflecting a set of (popular) Christian and Jewish
> called qasidas.
> monotheistic concepts among the urban class of traders, as
> Qasida. The qasida is the most prestigious poetical creation      opposed to pagan worship of natural objects or polytheism
> throughout Arab history. Even nowadays it is deemed the           that were still widespread on the Arabian Peninsula.
> ultimate work of artistic achievement of Arab culture. It is a
> In cases where prestigious poetry was not deemed suittripartite composition that follows a thematic sequence: In
> able, other literary forms were in use: The meter rajaz served
> the nasib the poet—often in a dialogue with his companions—
> all kinds of “situational” poetry like working songs, invectives,
> recalls his memory of a love affair. To give in to his grief
> obscene poetry, and exhortations. Later this meter was used
> meant that the poet broke his self-control (sabr). The immefor lengthy didactic poems.
> diate occasion he uses to legitimize this is his coming across
> the remnants of the camp left by the tribe to which his              Rhymed prose (saj
) was used for soothsayer predictions
> beloved belongs. This description is usually vivid and realis-    and enchantments, for folkloric sayings and proverbs, and,
> tic, although to our modern taste the beloved is hardly           finally, for the text of the Quran.
> portrayed as an actual person.
> Poetry in Early Islam and the Umayyad Era
> In the second part of the qasida the poet distances himself    The production of poetry subsided remarkably with the
> from this emotional reminiscence by dwelling on his travels       beginning of Islam. First, the prophet Muhammad’s attitude
> through the desert, describing his mount and the desert           toward poetry was ambiguous. He renounced poetry and
> environment with its specific fauna (rahil). Sometimes this
> poets when he was accused of being a “poet” himself. A quote
> second part is very short, condensed to the words da
 dha:
> from the Quran runs, “And the poets—the perverse follow
> “leave that (love affair) behind!”
> them; hast thou not seen how they wander in every valley and
> The final part of the qasida offers the poet a relative         how they say that which they do not,” a reference to their
> freedom in the choice of his theme. He may address the chief      baseless boasting (Arberry, trans., 26:224–226). On the other
> of a tribe with a panegyric ode (madih), use his poem as a        hand he realized that his status, comparable with that of a prewarning against an enemy, indulge in boasting on his own          Islamic chief, demanded the presence of a “court poet” as
> exploits, or simply offer a vivid description of a natural        well, in his case the famous Hassan b. Thabit (d. 670).
> phenomenon like an all-refreshing shower.                         Another reason for the declining popularity of poetry may
> well have been the general preoccupation of the new Muslims
> The traditional qasida, its form, and its content, have        with the expansion and stabilization of the new state. This
> remained influential not only for Arabic literature, but also      decline in poetic production, however, was only temporary.
> for later developments in Turkish and Persian literature.         The Umayyad era quickly gave an impetus for new developments in Arabic poetry.
> Marthiya. Apart from the qasida another genre adopted this
> prestigious form. From a traditional wailing exclamation,            Although the polythematic qasida as the masterpiece par
> probably common to the universal rituals of death, Arab           excellence never ceased to exist, its parts developed into
> women developed a kind of poetic dirge that kept the middle       separate kinds of poetry in the Umayyad era. The nasib
> between “situational” poetry and the qasida. The marthiya         developed into love poetry and the rahil with its descriptions
> was composed in remembrance of a deceased brother, hus-           of nature into forms of bucolic poetry like descriptions of
> band, or father, but it followed the formal (not the thematic)    hunting parties and gardens. Together with older poetic
> requirements of the qasida. The reason for this is that marathi   kinds like wine poetry (khamriyya) and the general topic of
> were considered poetry of the public domain, inciting to          description (wasf), these parts constituted the plethora of
> blood vengeance in case of violent death and helping to           themes that a poet from this era could address.
> reinvigorate social values and the ideal of knightly vigor on
> which women and children depended for their security.                The dichotomy of early Islamic society, its division into a
> Contemporary to the early emergence of Islam the poetess al-      Bedouin and a trader class, becomes clear in love poetry. In
> Khansa (d. c. 645) produced a considerable number of such        the nasib-part of the qasida, the beloved is mainly a nonpresent
> dirges on her brothers in which one might read a stance of        entity. She has left with her tribe and all that the poet can do is
> opposition toward the social changes that the new religion        regret her departure and remember their past afair. Followbrought with it against such pre-Islamic virtues as bravery,      ing this tradition the 
udhri type of love poetry (named after
> hospitality, generosity, and tribal loyalty.                      the tribe 
Udhra) creates an even greater division between the
> 
> 64                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Arabic Literature
> 
> poet and his beloved: She becomes the unreachable projec-          Trouvères” tradition in southern France through Arab-ruled
> tion of the poet’s love from which he can only suffer and then     al-Andalus (southern Spain).
> whither away from passion. This kind of poetry might best be
> called “idealistic” and it provided Arabic literature with some        The poetry of the Abbasid era provided a huge, sparkling
> almost mythical love pairs like Majnun and his Layla.              collection of love poems, obscene poetry, repentance poetry
> for unbecomely behavior, semi-religious poetry pondering
> With the emergence of Islam and the continued ritualistic       mortality, and detailed descriptions of gardens and gadgets in
> pilgrimage to Mecca, the population in the Hijaz cities like       everyday life. In short every possible theme that an affluent
> Mecca and Medina became gradually more affluent. Once a             class of intellectuals can think of was represented. The same
> year they provided an intertribal and international forum          period witnessed the emergence of literary theory and literwhere all Muslims could gather. The huge crowds involved in        ary criticism. Inspired by the “philological” culture that
> the hajj consisted of both men and women, offering many            Islamic society was (the Quran being the verbatim reproducopportunities for both sexes to meet and have affairs. These       tion of God’s word), both poets and linguists set out to
> paved the way for the so-called hijazi love poetry, in which the   explore the possibilities of the Arabic language, a discipline
> poet vividly describes his adventures, and cites extensively       that inevitably led to mannerism and far-fetched metaphors
> from (fictitious) dialogues between his beloved’s companions        in poetry.
> and her or between the protagonists themselves. As opposed
> to 
udhri love poetry, this new development can be called             Abu Tammam and the ninth-century poet al-Buhturi (d.
> “realistic” love poetry.                                           897/898) opposed this tendency by presenting two collections of poetry (both called Hamasa: courage) for which they
> In many ways the poetic developments of the Umayyad             selected canonical poetry of the Umayyad and pre-Islamic
> era reflect the development from a tribal society with              periods.
> nonhereditary succession to an urban society with dynastic
> power and an affluent court life in which the poet serves to            During the tenth century the central authority in Baghdad
> embellish the environment of his maecenas.                         started to lose its grip on some of the outer regions like Egypt
> and Syria. As a consequence local “kings” established their
> Poetry in the Abbasid Era                                          own courts and court cultures in which one or more poets
> The transition from the Umayyad to the Abbasid dynasty and         were essential assets. By this time some poets had reached an
> the transfer of the seat of the caliphate from Damascus to         independent status, so that they could allow themselves to be
> Baghdad can be considered the revolution of the mawali, or         hired by the most bidding party, like the famous poet alsecond- and third-generation converted Muslims who were            Mutanabbi (d. 965) who started his career with Sayf al-Dawla
> not of Arab origin, but descendants of Persian or Byzantine        (d. 967), ruler of Aleppo, then moved to the court of Kafur in
> families. Often these families had held high positions in the      Cairo and finally joined the Buwayhid court of 
Adud al-
> Sassanid kingdom in Persia.                                        Dawla (d. 983) in Iraq. This mobility shows how poets had
> gained a role as spokesmen for the rulers of the time, voicing
> In the early Abbasid era Arabic poetry consolidated its        the king’s greatness and acting as the laureate poets on
> courtly functions. Most poets were in one way or another           important occasions.
> attached to the court, the highest-ranking poets being companions of the caliphs themselves.                                 Al-Andalus
> The downfall of the Umayyad caliphate had caused one of the
> The bond of Arabic literature with its pre-Islamic, Bed-       members of the Umayyad family, 
Abd al-Rahman I (d. 788),
> ouin basis became more and more symbolic, although one of          to flee westward to the Iberian Peninsula where he estabthe greatest poets of this era, Abu Nuwas (d. c. 814), had had     lished the kingdom of Cordoba in 752. This marked the
> his poetic training through living with Arab tribes. His           beginning of Andalusian history, an outstanding period in
> allegiance to the urban lifestyle motivated his utter contempt     Islamic history. This period is still referred to by Arabs as the
> for those primitive conditions that he expressed in ridiculing     multicultural “state” par excellence because it meant the
> Bedouin life. His most famous poems are the khamriyyat             peaceful coexistence of Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Al-
> (about drinking scenes) and the mujun, more or less obscene        Andalus soon disintegrated into petty kingdoms like Toledo,
> poems about (pederastic) love.                                     Sevilla, and Granada, but this never impeded cultural and
> intellectual progress. Only periods of foreign rule by ortho-
> In this poetry by Abu Nuwas and by the later Abu               dox Muslim forces from North Africa could temporarily
> Tammam (d. 845), the hijazi tradition of realistic love poetry,    infringe on it, until finally Granada fell to the Spanish
> of the self-confident individual, lives its triumph. The idealis-   Reconquista in 1492, the formal end of Andalusian history.
> tic 
udhri love poetry comes to an end with the late-eighthcentury poet al-
Abbas b. al-Ahnaf (b. c. 750). His courtly love       At the various courts in the main cities of al-Andalus,
> poetry has often (but probably not rightly) been interpreted       literature reached a remarkable apogee. One of the contribuas the source of courtly love poetry in the “Toubadours et         tions Andalusion poets made to Arabic literature was the
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                      65
> Arabic Literature
> 
> innovative form of the muwashshah, a poem with a strophical            Apart from these adab-works, Arabic popular culture
> structure. It is unclear what the origin of this poem was.          knew a strong storytelling tradition, but what remained of it is
> Certain types of strophic poetry were known in the East by          scarce: outlines of heroic adventures and etiologies of perthe eighth century, but they never reached the level of             sonal names.
> prestigious poetry. The origin of the muwashshah, with its
> rhyme structure divided into stanzas and choruses and its              Bringing the sub-literary storytelling and the adab genre
> idiosyncratic meter, should probably be sought in local             together was an innovation introduced from outside the Arab
> world, generating “mirrors of princes,” like Kalila wa-Dimna,
> Romance poetic traditions, probably in songs. This is at least
> an adaptation into Arabic by Ibn al-Muqaffa
 (d. c. 760) of the
> suggested by the use of vernacular Arabic, Hebrew, and even
> original Indian Pancatantra.
> the local Romance dialect, for instance, in the last verse of
> some muwashshahs, as a kind of humorous clue.                          Among the class of the cultural elite in the later Abbasid
> era a unique genre emerged that used rhymed prose as its
> The Centuries of Decline: Amateur Poetry
> form and was composed following a more or less fixed
> In the classical period the poet was a respected craftsman,
> structure with a story of two characters meeting in an urban
> famous for composing his art in courtly circles. Meanwhile in
> environment without recognizing each other. After a humorurban society the high status of Arabic-Islamic education,          ous description of chaos and confusion, recognition occurs
> with its emphasis on language and the ornate use of it,             and all ends in a kind of comical clue. This maqama remained
> produced an even greater number of literati who were able to        popular well into the nineteenth century. With time it beproduce verse at any given occasion. A great number of these        came less bound to its original structure and could be used for
> “occasional” poems concerning every possible aspect of life         didactic purposes as well.
> (but often, of course, on the theme of love) are still to be
> found scattered in many adab-works on a wide range of                 Fiction in the modern sense of the word entered Arabic
> subjects, often helping to embellish the context.                   culture with the Arabian Nights, in which the frame story and
> a number of sub-stories are from an Indian-Persian origin
> It was mainly this class of literati that composed poetry        and enlarged with a number of Egyptian popular stories.
> between the thirteenth and eigteenth centuries (the qurun alinhitat, or the centuries of decline in Arab culture). It is hard   Modern Arabic Literature
> to name any famous poets of this period, but recent research        Normally the entering of the Arab world into modern times is
> has shown that poetry probably never stopped to be of high          identified with Napoleon Bonaparte’s temporary occupation
> quality and originality. This is, however, a period that needs      of Egypt (1789–1801). The obvious difference in culture,
> more attentive study than it has hitherto received.                 scientific knowledge, and social structure between the two
> worlds caused Muhammad 
Ali (1769–1849), an Albanian
> Arabic Prose                                                        officer who freed Egypt from Ottoman rule, to direct his
> The oldest fragments of Arabic prose are the accounts of            attention to the West, mainly France. He sent a mission of
> intertribal skirmishes on the Arab peninsula. These accounts,       scholars to Paris to gather scientific knowledge that could be
> interlaced with poetry, may not be very accurate as a reflec-        translated and applied in Egypt. The witness report of this
> tion of reality, but on the other hand they cannot be regarded      mission, written by al-Tahtawi (d. 1873), is one of the earliest
> as fiction. A second prose collection was the Prophet’s biog-        accounts of the new confrontation between East and West.
> raphy, the sira, which by its nature cannot be considered
> Another channel of communication between East and
> fiction. The structure of these stories—chain of spokesmen,
> West had remained open for much longer: the contacts
> followed by the story itself, with short poems in between—
> between the Maronite community in Syria and the Roman
> remains the same in later prose collections. However, the
> Catholic Church of Rome. This contact was parallelled by
> context often became more frivolous like in al-Isfahani’s (d.       American-based Presbyterian missionary activities in Lebanon.
> 967) Kitab al-Aghani (Book of songs), a huge collection of          This new phase in Middle Eastern history, known as the
> stories about poets and singers. One should be careful to use       Nahda (sometimes translated as Renaissance), led to the
> these for historic purposes because they are of an anecdotal        establishment of printing presses and newspapers, to Westerncharacter, representing neither pure historical facts nor pure      style schooling, and to flourishing cultural activities. In the
> fiction.                                                             field of literature it proved to be less obvious to copy Western
> standards and genres. Arab authors initially tried to use old
> Another development within Arabic prose is the abundant          forms, like the maqama, as a substitute for the narrative genre.
> growth of adab literature in the Abbasid era, probably best        The theme of these regenerated maqamas often had somerendered as “belles lettres,” the well-wrought discourse for        thing to do with the East-West opposition.
> which any subject could serve as a topic. Al-Jahiz (d. 868), the
> homo universalis of his time, was the unrivaled champion of            In poetry it was even more difficult to adopt Western
> the genre.                                                          standards, so that well in the twentieth century the old
> 
> 66                                                                                              Islam and the Muslim World
> Arabic Literature
> 
> monorhyme/monometer standard of the qasida remained                      Another innovation came from Iraq: the Free Verse moveundisputed. These poets could, however, not escape from               ment. It advocated the complete abolishment of all tradiexpressing modern themes. So-called neo-Classicist poets              tional forms like meter and rhyme, thereby producing blank
> could well be expected to eulogize the introduction of radio          verse or prose poetry.
> in the 1920s in the most lofty of ways.
> Poetry that was so politically motivated could in the end
> The Mahjar                                                            only produce its counterpart, in this case the group of poets
> As a result of deteriorating economical, social, and political        who were being identified with the periodical Shi
r in Beirut
> circumstances in the second half of the nineteenth century in         (1957–1969). Their poetry can be qualified as intellectual,
> the-then Ottoman province of Syria/Lebanon, a great num-              highly sensitive, and open to the West. On the other hand
> ber of Arabs from these regions migrated to the Americas.             symbols that refered to ancient times (Phoenician culture for
> Literary aspirations emerged within these Arab communities,           the poets in Syria/Lebanon; Sumerian and Akkadian culture
> resulting in the establishment of Arabic newspapers, literary         for those from Iraq) became popular as an expression of
> periodicals, and societies, the most prominent of which               nationalist feelings. The most significant poet among this
> became al-Rabita al-Qalamiyya (The Pen Club) in the Bos-              generation was the Syrian 
Ali Ahmad Said (also known as
> ton/New York area (1920). Its most famous member (and its             Adunis (b. 1930), together with Nizar Qabbani (d. 1998), one
> chairman) was Jibran Khalil Jibran (d. 1931).                         of the most popular poets until the present period.
> 
> Far from their homeland, confronted with an alien envi-              Meanwhile in Iraq, but even more so in Egypt, under the
> ronment, and having lived through the aftermath of existen-           influence of socialist ideology, iltizam poetry developed to
> tial shocks like the First World War and the Titanic disaster,        social realistic poetry, which in its turn paved the way for
> these young poets dared to experiment and address ideas,              Palestinian resistance poetry with its strong political bias.
> themes, and personal emotions that were hitherto unknown
> in Arabic literature. The thematical innovations of this Mahjar-      The Arabic Novel
> generation only had their influence on literature in the               Under the influence of Western fiction, especially by French
> homeland much later, if at all.                                       romantic novelists, the first attempts to write novels can be
> considered emulations of Western models. The genre of the
> The Romantic Poets and Apollo                                         novel was almost entirely strange to Arabic tradition. Some
> In Egypt the important poets of the 1920s and 1930s were              early attempts were still shaped like the medieval Arabic
> deeply influenced by English romantic poets such as William            maqama, but this rhymed prose structure was soon given up.
> Blake (d. 1827), Samuel Coleridge (d. 1834), Lord Byron
> Just before the beginning of the twentieth century the
> (d.1824), and Percy Shelley (d. 1822). Love, subjectivism,
> historic novel emerged, inspired by the works of Sir Walter
> inward concentration, and dreamy nationalism were among
> Scott (1771–1832) and Alexandre Dumas (1802–1870). With
> the ingredients of this poetry.
> the rise of nationalism around 1910 in Egypt, the scope of
> At first the young poets in the Diwan group, named after a         early novels changed to realistic stories placed in the vivid
> study in literary criticism, advocated traditional forms, but         environment of the contemporary Egyptian countryside (e.g.,
> later another group of poets gathered around the periodical           Zaynab by Muhammad Husayn Haykal [d. 1956], considered
> Apollo promoted experiments in the use of form, partly as a           as the first serious novel in the Arab world, and al-Ayyam by
> consequence of their romantic inspiration, which sometimes            Taha Husayn [d. 1973]).
> came close to escapism.
> In the 1920s the influence of French realism and of
> Arabic Poetry after World War II                                      Russian prose made itself felt in short-story writing, but
> The Second World War hardly had a direct impact on the                Arabic prose really went its own way from the 1930s onward,
> Arab world, but it was all the more influential in its conse-          when it obtained the psychological dimension of realistic
> quences. The divide between capitalism and socialism split            autobiography, humor, and social criticism. This opened the
> the Arab world as well as Europe, not to mention the                  way to the main directions of post-World War II prose:
> beginning struggle in many countries for independence from            existentialism (Lebanon), social realism (Egypt, Algeria,
> the colonialist powers.                                               Morocco), social criticism (Egypt, Palestine), neo-realism
> (Egypt), and feminism (throughout the Arab world). A mod-
> As a reaction to the Romanticism of the twenties and              ern generation that started to publish in the 1960s added a
> thirties post–World War II poetry became extremely politi-            lyrical , ironical, and plainly realistic flavor as a result of which
> cal, the slogan being iltizam: political commitment. A number         modern Arabic prose nowadays complies to international
> of these poets gathered around the periodical al-Adab that            standards, without losing the local color that Arab novelists as
> was published in Beirut. The members of this group became             real storytellers will never neglect. Nagib Mahfuz (b. 1911) is
> split by the choice between Marxism and Arab nationalism.             rightly considered to be one of the great international novel-
> Iltizam as a concept kept playing a sigificant role until the 1980s.   ists of the twentieth century.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                            67
> Arab League
> 
> Allen, Roger; Kilpatrick, Hilary; and De Moor, Ed, eds.
> Love and Sexuality in Modern Arabic Literature. London:
> Saqi, 1995.
> Badawi, M. M. A Critical Introduction to Modern Arabic Poetry.
> Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1975.
> Brugman, J. An Introduction to the History of Modern Arabic
> Literature in Egypt. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1984.
> Grunebaum, Gustave E. von. Themes in Medieval Arabic
> Literature. London: Variorum Reprints, 1981.
> Jad, Ali B. Form and Technique in the Egyptian Novel 1912–1971.
> London: Ithaca Press, 1983.
> Jayyusi, Salma Khadra. Trends and Movements in Modern
> Arabic Poetry. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1977.
> Jones, Alan. Early Arabic Poetry, Vol. 1: Marathi and Su‘luk
> Poems (Edition, Translation and Commentary). Oxford, U.K.:
> Ithaca Press, 1992.
> Kilpatrick, Hilary. The Modern Egyptian Novel: A Study in
> Social Criticism. London: Ithaca Press, 1974.
> Lichtenstadter, Ilse. Introduction to Classical Arabic Literature.
> New York: Schocken Books, 1976.
> Meisami, Julie S., and Starkey, Paul, eds. Encyclopedia of Arabic
> Literature. London and New York: Routledge, 1998.
> Moreh, Shmuel. Modern Arabic Poetry 1800–1970. Leiden:
> E. J. Brill, 1976.
> Pinckney-Stetkevych, Suzanne. The Mute Immortals Speak:
> Pre-Islamic Poetry and Poetics of Ritual. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cor-
> Novelist Nagib Mahfuz, pictured here, won the Nobel Prize in          nell University Press, 1993.
> literature in 1988. The novel was a completely new genre in
> Arabic when, early in the twentieth century, writers in the Arab   Somekh, Sasson. The Changing Rhythm: A Study of Najib
> world began their attempts at long prose. Though these early         Mahfuz’s Novels. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1973.
> works were heavily dictated by the style of French and Russian
> novels, by the 1930s writers of prose in Arabic began developing   Stetkevych, Jaroslav. Muhammad and the Golden Bough. Bloomin many different directions. NEW YORK TIMES PICTURES                 ington: Indiana University Press, 1996.
> 
> Gert Borg
> The main reason for the rapid development of prose
> should be sought in the fact that—as opposed to poetry—it
> was a relatively new form in Arabic literature, not burdened
> by age-old tradition.
> ARAB LEAGUE
> In the West, Arabic literature is best known for two
> creations: the Arabian Nights and the novels of Nagib Mahfuz       Also known as the League of Arab States (Jami
at al-Duwal
> that earned him the Nobel prize for literature in 1988,            al-
Arabiyya), the Arab League was founded in 1945 as a
> although it is paradoxical that neither can be considered as       grouping of Arab states. The Arab League’s objectives are to
> representative of the Arabic literary tradition.                   solidify cooperation among its members in the areas of
> defense, politics, communications, society, and culture. It has
> See also Arabic Language; Biography and Hagiography;               its roots in pan-Arab nationalism and anticolonialism, but it
> Historical Writing; Persian Language and Literature;               recognizes in principle the independence and sovereignty of
> Qur
an.                                                            the diverse nation-states that constitute its membership. Its
> founding members are Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria,
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                       Saudi Arabia, and Yemen. Permanently based in Cairo, the
> Allen, Roger. The Arabic Literary Heritage: The Development of     Arab League now has twenty-two members, the most recent
> Its Genres and Criticism. Cambridge U.K.: Cambridge             to join being Djibouti (1977) and the Comoros Islands
> University Press, 1998.                                         (1993). The Palestine Liberation Organization (now the
> Allen, Roger M. A. An Introduction to Arabic Literature. Cam-      Palestinian Authority) was launched and given observer stabridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2000                  tus by the League in 1964; it won full member status in 1976.
> 
> 68                                                                                              Islam and the Muslim World
> Architecture
> 
> The League houses a number of specialized agencies, includ-        Defining Islamic Architecture
> ing those dealing with communication, labor, Palestine, civil      Although Islamic architecture is infinitely varied in plan,
> aviation, and cities. It also convenes the Arab Summit, a          elevation, building material, and decorative programs, there
> periodic gathering of Arab heads of state.                         are several recurring forms found in all types of buildings, be
> they religious, secular, public, or private. These basic compo-
> The Arab League has established ties of cooperation and
> nents are the dome, the arch, and the vault (Fig. 1 a–c). Before
> mutual consultation with other international and regional
> describing the different aspects of Islamic architecture it is
> organizations, including the United Nations and the Organiimportant to pause and ask if such a categorization is viable.
> zation of African Unity. Islamic religion does not constitute
> either its core ideology, nor its primary purpose; Islam is
> This question stems from three considerations. First is the
> notably absent from the League charter. Moreover, the overt
> fact that the forms and decorative practices of these buildings
> secular influence that Jamal 
Abd al-Nasser’s Egypt exercised
> are largely adaptations of pre-Islamic models. Thus it is not
> over the League was a major factor in the creation of the
> improper to ask if Islamic architecture should in fact be
> Muslim World League in 1962. Nonetheless, the Arab League
> labeled Classical, Sassanian, or Hindu. If all that was being
> does maintain formal relations with the Organization of the
> considered were forms emptied of meaning and function then
> Islamic Conference. Islam has also shaped its organizational
> the answer to this question would be a resounding yes. The
> style, as reflected in its flag, which has a crescent moon (hilal)
> second consideration derives from the fact that many of the
> on a green field.
> architectural forms considered as Islamic architecture were
> The League’s effectiveness has often been called into          built for secular purposes. How, then, can a religious category
> question. Its efforts to forge a common front against Israel       designate houses, inns, baths, or even cities? Are there essenhave been unsuccessful, as evidenced by the expulsion of           tial qualities of these secular spaces that give them meaning as
> Egypt for signing the Camp David peace accords with Israel         Islamic architecture? Finally, there is a question of fit. If
> in 1979 (Egypt was reinstated in 1987). In March 2002,             Christians, Jews, and Hindus living within an Islamic region
> however, it unanimously supported a Saudi-sponsored peace          build similar forms then would not the designation be too
> initiative that offered recognition of Israel in return for that   narrow? And, conversely is the designation too broad? For
> state’s withdrawal from the West Bank and the Golan Heights.       how can a Malaysian congregational mosque built in the
> The League has also had mixed success in resolving conflicts        twenty-first century be placed under the same analytic cateamong its own member states, as demonstrated by its failure        gory as an Umayyad congregational mosque of the eighth
> to prevent Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990, and its inability    century, when they are not built of the same materials and do
> to force Iraq’s withdrawal in the face of international            not display common decorative practices or forms?
> intervention.
> While such considerations are beyond the scope of this
> See also Abd al-Nasser, Jamal; Organization of the
> article, it is important to realize that contemporary historians
> Islamic Conference.
> of Islamic architectural history weigh these questions critically. Some have responded by introducing more specified
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> categories of Islamic architecture, such as those based on
> Hasou, Tawfiq Y. The Struggle for the Arab World: Egypt’s           regional, dynastic, and chronological designations. Others
> Nasser and the Arab League. London, Boston: KPI, 1985.           have introduced new analytic models, for example, by studying the development of certain architectural forms, such as
> Juan Eduardo Campo        the minaret, or a practice, such as the use of public inscriptions. Taken together, recent scholarship of Islamic architecture presents a more historically contingent and culturally
> ARCHITECTURE                                                       varied approach to the study of Islamic architecture. Many of
> the problems associated with the category of Islamic architec-
> Islamic architecture is in part comprised of those buildings       ture arise from what is taken as the meaning of architecture. If
> and built environments intended for use in Islamic worship,        Islamic architecture is simply a material entity, composed of
> commemoration, and instruction. Among the architecture of          classical forms, then the notion of Islamic architecture as
> this group are mosques, madrasas or schools, mausoleums,           being distinct from Byzantine or Sassanian becomes quesand shrines. Islamic architecture may also be considered as        tionable. However, if by architecture we mean a dynamic
> the creation of patrons and builders who profess Islam or          space that produces relationships between people and helps
> those that live in a region ruled by Muslims. These buildings      individuals understand and articulate their identity through
> can generally be described as secular, and include suqs (mar-      their engagement (or disengagement) with that space then
> ketplaces), hammams (public baths), khans (inns), caravanseries    the meaningfulness of Islamic architecture can be seen as a
> or roadside inns, palaces, and houses.                             distinct construction.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                      69
> Architecture
> 
> Basic architectural components
> 
> a. Dome                                      b. Arch                               c. Muqarnas Vault
> 
> Figure 1.
> 
> The Mosque                                                          artisans practiced in mosaic design to decorate their struc-
> The mosque is the preeminent dynamic space that stands at           tures with dazzling images of vegetation, jewelry, and Quranic
> the center of Islamic society and culture. It is both a spiritual   inscriptions. Over time, the practice of employing local
> site of worship and a social site of education, debate, and         building techniques, decorative practices, and architectural
> discussion of religion, politics, and current events. Arab          forms resulted in mosques of different regions and periods of
> caliphs and their governors were the first builders of architec-     the Islamic world appearing visually dissimilar. They are,
> tural mosques. Emerging from a Bedouin culture that did not         however, all connected by their principal function: to provide
> necessitate permanent architecture, these early Islamic rulers      a central space for the Islamic community to unite, pray, and
> adopted and adapted the building traditions of the cultures         exchange information.
> they conquered to guide the formation and style of the new
> mosques. Two notable sources that contributed to the early             The prophet Muhammad’s house was the first constructed
> mosques’s forms and styles were the Byzantine and Sassanian         mosque (Fig. 2). Established soon after his community moved
> Empires. In the conquered regions previously dominated by           to Medina in 622 C.E., it was a simple, unremarkable enclothese cultures Arabs established garrison cities and ordered        sure. The principal consideration of Muhammad’s mosque
> the founded mosques to provide the Islamic community with           was to provide a large, open, and expandable courtyard so the
> a space to meet and pray. The mosques that appeared in the          ever-growing community could meet in one place. The walls
> first centuries of Islamic history were either renovated struc-      of the courtyard were made of mud-brick and had three
> tures, for example, Christian churches converted into mosques,      openings. The walls surrounded an open space of about 61
> or they were new buildings constructed from recycled parts of       square yards (56 meters). On the east side of the courtyard
> abandoned buildings, particularly columns of Roman ruins.           were the modest living quarters of Muhammad and his
> Some Islamic rulers, such as the Umayyad builders of the            family. Palm tree trunks were used for the columns and palm
> Dome of the Rock (completed in 692 C.E.) and the Great              leaves for the roof of a covered area called the zulla, which was
> Mosque of Damascus (706–714 C.E.), employed Byzantine               built to protect worshipers from the midday sun. The zulla
> 
> 70                                                                                              Islam and the Muslim World
> Architecture
> 
> very top of the minbar is never occupied as it is symbolically
> House of the prophet Muhammad, Medina                          reserved as the space of Muhammad, the original imam.
> 
> In large mosques another platform called the dikka is
> Zulla (Portico)
> provided at the rear of the sanctuary, or in the courtyard, and
> along the same axis as the mihrab. A qadi repeats the sermon
> and prayer from the dikka for those standing too far from the
> minbar. Located outside of some mosques is a minaret that,
> along with the dome, has become the architectural symbol of
> Islam due to its ubiquitous presence and high visibility.
> Constructed as a tower, it either stands outside the mosque
> precinct or it is attached to the outer walls or portals of the
> Figure 2.                                                         mosque. The minaret varies in shape, ornamentation, and
> number depending on the region and building conventions of
> the patron. Besides visually broadcasting the presence of the
> marked the direction Muslim prayer was originally oriented—       mosque and Islam within a city or landscape the minaret also
> north, toward the holy and venerated city of the Jews,            serves as an effective place for the muadhdhin or “caller” (also
> Jerusalem. Later, Muhammad, while in prayer, received di-         muezzin) to perform the adhan (call to prayer) and be heard
> vine enlightenment that caused him to change the direction        for a great distance. The maqsurah is a later addition made to
> of prayer south to the Ka
ba in Mecca. The zulla was there-       the hypostyle-plan mosque. It is a differentiated, protective
> fore moved to concur with the new qibla (direction of prayer).    space, adjacent to the qibla wall. The maqsurah is found in
> Besides the qibla, another architectural form introduced at       mosques where the imam or ruler wanted either to be prothe first mosque was the minbar (stepped platform or pulpit)
> tected or ceremonially separated from the congregation. It
> from which Muhammad addressed the growing Islamic
> was originally built as a raised platform separated with a
> community.
> wooden screen that allowed total to partial concealment of its
> The Prophet’s mosque, with its austere plan, large square     occupants.
> enclosure, orientation toward the qibla, and minbar, provides
> Types of Mosques. There are two general types of mosques.
> the basic elements of subsequent mosque architecture. The
> The first is the congregational mosque, known as the jami

> first mosque type to emerge was the hypostyle plan (Fig. 3).
> masjid. The jami
 (from the Arabic word for “to gather”) is
> Its basic unit, the bay (a covered area defined by four columns), could be expanded upon so the mosque could grow            built on a large scale to accommodate the entire Islamic
> with the community. The hypostyle mosque typically has an         community of a town or city. The second type is known
> inner courtyard, called the sahn, surrounded by colonnades or     simply as masjid (from the Arabic word meaning “to prostrate
> arcades (riwaqs) on three sides. Within the courtyard there is    oneself”). Masjids are small community mosques used daily
> usually an ablutions fountain, where the wudu (minor ablu-       by members of a quarter, or an ethnic group within a city.
> tion) is performed before the salat (prayer). There are three     Masjids were also constructed as subsidiary structures next to
> entrances into the sahn. The principal entrance can be a          mausoleums, palaces, caravanseries, and madrasas. Early masjids
> monumental portal as built in Cairo in the Fatimid Mosque of      and jami
 masjids, while different in size, shared the same
> al-Hakim (1002 C.E.). Passing through the sahn, the worshiper     architectural forms and style. However, as Islamic rulers grew
> walked into a covered sanctuary area or haram. The haram of       in wealth and power starting in the late seventh century, they
> the Great Mosque of Cordoba (786, 962–966 C.E.) is one of         built monumental jami
 masjids in their cities to reflect the
> the most visually breathtaking. The arches of the double-arch     preeminence of Islam and the permanence of their dynasty.
> arcades are composed of alternating red brick courses and         Adapting the basic building elements of vaults, arches, and
> pale stone voussoirs that when viewed from within the sanc-       domes, these rulers built mosques that from the exterior
> tuary produce a visually captivating labyrinthine configura-       appeared to span large areas and soar to great heights. To
> tion over one’s head. Once inside the sanctuary of a mosque       create a stunning visual experience in the interior the jami

> the focus is the qibla, a directional wall that indicated which   masjids were ornamented with complex geometric and araway to pray. In the center of the wall was often a semicircular   besque or vegetal decoration in mosaic and stucco. Quartered
> niche with an arched top, known as the mihrab. In large           marble decorated the lower walls, or dados, and Quranic and
> mosques a minbar located to the right of the mihrab was also      historical inscriptions in stucco and mosaic Arabic script
> included. It was from atop the minbar that on Fridays the         engaged the intellect.
> khutba (sermon) was delivered by the imam or prayer-leader.
> The minbar is based on the stepped platform that was used by      Regional Variation of Mosques. Although there is no one
> Muhammad. It ranges from a simple three-step elevation to a       style to unify the mosques of the Islamic world, they can be
> highly decorated monumental stairway of many steps. The           divided into broad regional variants. The mosque style of
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                     71
> Architecture
> 
> Hypostyle Plan
> 
> Minaret
> HARAM
> Qibla Wall
> 
> Riwaq
> 
> Mihrab       Minbar
> 
> Riwaq
> 
> Dikka
> 
> Portal
> Ablutions Fountain
> SAHN
> 
> Figure 3.
> 
> central Arabia was an early development influenced by church-               parallel to the qibla wall, supported a gabled ceiling. Albuilding of the Syrian Byzantine Empire and palace-building                Walid, wanting to outdo the neighboring churches and
> of the Sassanian Persian Empire. In the east, the ground plans             temples, employed Syrian-Christian artisans to richly decoof the Great Mosques of Kufa (638 C.E.) and Basra (635 C.E.)               rate the interior of the mosque with imported gold and
> were square like those of Zoroastrian temples. When the                    colored mosaics and marble, and even used rock crystal for
> Great Mosque of Kufa was rebuilt in 670, its haram was based               the mihrab.
> on the apadanas or throne rooms of Achaemenian kings: five
> rows of tall stone columns supporting a teak ceiling. Simi-                   The early Abbasid caliphate, ruling from Baghdad from
> larly, the Great Mosque of Damascus, built by the Umayyad                  749 to 847, first built their mosques with square floor plans as
> caliph al-Walid between 706–714, was based on indigenous                   the early Umayyads had done in the region. However, after
> building conventions. Architects used the preexisting enclo-               the Abbasids moved their capital to Samarra, their mosques
> sure of the temenos and church, but since the mosque had to be             reflected the rectangular hypostyle form favored by the later
> oriented to the south, the qibla wall was on the longer side of            Umayyads. The Great Mosque of Samarra, built by althe rectangular space. Also, due to the constraints of the                 Mutawakkil from 848 to 852, was the largest hypostyle
> preexisting quadrangle, the courtyard was transversal in ori-              mosque of its time with nine rows of columns in the sanctuary
> entation rather than longitudinal. The haram contained a                   that supported a thirty-five-foot-high ceiling. The mosque is
> short, wide central nave with a gabled roof and a wooden                   most famous for Malwiyya, the colossal spiral minaret. Once
> dome in its center. Three aisles of double-tiered arches,                  faced with gold tiles, Malwiyya’s great size and unusual shape
> 
> 72                                                                                                    Islam and the Muslim World
> Architecture
> 
> made the Great Mosque of Samarra a highly visible presence               From their start, the mosques of South Asia were syncretic
> in the surrounding landscape.                                        structures. They were the by-products of hired Hindu masons, indigenous architectural material taken from destroyed
> Sub-Saharan West African mosques are unique in their              or decaying Hindu buildings, and necessary elements of
> use of organic materials that are constantly replenished over        mosque architecture such as the mihrab. The mosques were
> time, such as tamped earth, timber, and vegetation. Due to           trabeated at first and decorated with popular Hindu motifs
> seasonal deterioration during the wet and dry seasons, the           such as vegetal scrolls and lotuses. The plans of South Asian
> mosques are constantly being repaired and resurfaced. The            mosques ranged from traditional hypostyle, to Persian fourpredominant quality of these structures is their rounded             iwan types, and to single-aisle domed plans. The earliest
> organic form, reinforced with projecting timber beams or             mosques of the Delhi sultanate (1192–1451) were hypostyle
> torons, which also serve as supports for scaffolding when the        and built out of reused materials from Hindu and Jain temples
> mosque is being resurfaced. The Great Mosque of Djenné               such as the Quwwat al-Islam in Delhi of the late twelfth
> (thirteenth century) is the most representative of the West          century. The greatest achievement of this mosque is the
> African mosques. Its tall rounded towers and engaged col-            monumental minaret, the Qutb Minar. Standing at 238 feet it
> was a victory tower that announced the power of the new
> umns, which act as buttresses, easily flow into each other and
> religion to the surrounding landscape.
> give the structure its characteristic verticality and overwhelming
> majesty.                                                                 The next significant mosque type of South Asia is the
> single-aisle plan with five bays that used stucco and colored
> The central-planned, domed mosque of the Ottomans is             stones as surface decoration and squinch and muqarnas vaultyet another distinctive type. When the Ottomans conquered            ing. These mosques had monumental central portals and
> Constantinople in the fifteenth century they converted the            domes. The Bara Gumbad mosque in Delhi, built by Sultan
> Byzantine church of Hagia Sophia into a mosque by framing            Sikandar Lodi in 1494, and the Qala-e-Kuhna mosque of
> it with two pointed minarets. Later in the nineteenth century        Sher Shah (1540–1545) exemplify this style. It was this basic
> they added roundels inscribed with calligraphic writing of the       form of mosque architecture that was later adopted by the
> names of Muhammad, Allah, and the early caliphs. Using the           great Mogul dynasty (1426–1848). Two exemplary Mogul-
> Hagia Sophia as their prototype, Ottoman rulers built mosques        style mosques are Akbar’s Great Mosque of Fatehpur Sikri
> in the principal cities of their empire. The mosques were            (1571–1572) and Shah Jahan’s Great Mosque at Delhi
> defined by large spherical domes, with smaller half-domes at          (1650–1656). These mosques have large courtyards and are
> the corners of the square, and four distinctively shaped             built from the local red sandstone combined with white
> minarets—tall, fluted, and needle-nosed—that were typi-               marble to create decorative geometric and vegetal patterns.
> cally placed at the exterior corners of the mosque complex.          The distinctive feature of Akbar’s mosque at Fatehpur Sikri is
> The Selimiye Cami (Mosque of Selim) in Edirne, Tur-                  the monumental portal on the south side called the Buland
> key (1507–1574), best characterizes the central-plan Otto-           Darwaza. Its form is that of a colossal pishtaq (tall central
> man mosque.                                                          portal), derived from Timurid origins. It is embellished with
> native Indian architectural elements as well such as small
> Moving further east to Seljuk Iran, another type of mosque       open pavilions called chatris and lotus-shaped medallions.
> emerges known as the four-iwan mosque. The iwan is an open           Located on the west side of the great courtyard is the
> vaulted space with a rectangular portal or pishtaq. In a Seljuk      sanctuary, a three-domed prayer-hall with a central pishtaq.
> mosque four of these iwans would be oriented around a                The Great Mosque of Delhi was based on the four-iwan plan.
> central courtyard. The Great Mosque of Isfahan, built in this        Three onion-shaped bulbous marble domes surmount the
> style in the twelfth century, is a monumental four-iwan              qibla iwan, the same shape used for the dome of the Taj
> mosque. Of these, the principal or qibla iwan is the largest,        Mahal. The minarets are divided into four parts and are
> capped with small pavilions. Smaller, private mosques built
> with a large domed maqsura and muqarnas vaulting. To lend it
> for the Mughal palaces of Lahore, Agra, and in Delhi reflect
> further visual impact, two minarets were added at the corners
> the fine marble carving skills of the Indian artisans. Faced
> of the portal. The iwan that stood opposite the qibla iwan
> with white marble, elegantly carved with vegetal patterns,
> followed in size, and it was both smaller and shallower. The
> these mosques were then topped with graceful onion-shaped
> lateral iwans were the smallest. While the exterior of the
> domes with lotus molding and metallic finials. These private
> mosque was unadorned, the inward-facing iwans were decoimperial mosques were the architectural counterparts of the
> rated with architectural ceramic tiles of turquoise, cobalt
> elegant gems so highly prized by the Mughals.
> blue, white, deep yellow, and green. The decorative designs
> contained geometric and arabesque patterns as well as Kufic           Shrines and Mausoleums
> inscriptions. The layout of the Great Mosque of Isfahan              Shrines and mausoleums that commemorate important places
> influenced countless other mosques in Iran, Central Asia, and         and people of the Islamic world comprise another important
> South Asia.                                                          component of sacred Islamic architecture. The first great
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                      73
> Architecture
> 
> shrine was al-Haram al-Sharif or Dome of the Rock in                famous Taj Mahal (1631–1643) of Shah Jahan in India. In
> Jerusalem. Built between 687 and 691 by the Umayyad caliph          eleventh-century Egypt another type of mausoleum emerged
> 
Abd al-Malik, it covers a renowned irregular rock formation.       called the canopy mausoleum, because it was open to the
> Muslims believe that is was from this rock that Muhammad            elements. An example of this type is the Fatimid funerary
> began his night journey, or isra, to heaven. Located on the        complex of Saba Banat in Fustat. A later Fatimid develop-
> Temple Mount of Mount Moriah its golden dome is seen for            ment of the mausoleum form is the mashhad, a large square
> miles reflecting in the landscape. The sanctuary of the Dome         domed tomb connected to a three-room unit entered through
> of the Rock is in the shape of an octagon and is surmounted by      a portal and organized around a courtyard that served pila tall drum and dome. The rock is surrounded by a screen and        grims. The mashhad of Sayyida Ruqayya, an 
Alid saint, built
> then a circular arcade of alternating columns and piers. Next       in 1133, is an example of this type of mausoleum. The final
> is an octagonal arcade that is surrounded by the outer walls        type of mausoleum to be considered here makes skillful use of
> that together create a double ambulatory. A frieze of Kufic          one of the most famous architectural forms: the muqarnas. A
> inscriptions in gold tile on blue background is found on the        stalactite squinch usually found in the transitional zones
> inside and outside of the octagonal arcade. It is the first          between wall and dome, the muquarnas was used in all types of
> occurrence of Quranic inscription in Islamic architecture.         Islamic architecture. During the Ayyubid (1099–1250) and
> Adding to the sumptuous quality of the interior are other           Mamluk (1250–1517) periods, the mausoleum was brought
> mosaics of turquoise, blue, and green tiles that could be           out of the cemetery and into the urban fabric. With their
> depictions of the lush foliage of Paradise, and royal insignia of   increased visibility these tombs became centers for transmitthose vanquished by Muslim conquest.                                ting political information and education of the Sunni religious schools of law. They were also gathering centers for the
> The mausoleums of imams, rulers, the wealthy, and saints
> followers of Sufism. Building the mausoleum in the city of
> comprise the other part of Islamic commemorative architec-
> Cairo compelled a few changes in design. As there was little
> ture. Although the prophet Muhammad dictated that burials
> room to build laterally, the focus of the architecture was on
> should be simple and without grave markers mausoleums are
> found throughout the Islamic world. Following the forms of          the drum and dome of the building, built ever higher and with
> the Dome of the Rock and the Byzantine martyrium, which             more richly textured transitional zones and domes.
> the former was also inspired by, the Muslims founded their
> Secular Architecture
> own funerary architecture. The basic form of the mausoleum
> One of the secular types of Islamic architecture is the palace,
> was a square enclosure, derived from the shape of a house
> which matches the mosque in reflecting the rich variety of
> where the dead were traditionally buried, surmounted by a
> forms, ornamentation, and the sophisticated skills of artisans.
> dome. In cities such as Mamluk Cairo (1250–1517), the
> Built as large complexes rather than singular units, Islamic
> domed square plan compelled builders to plan vertically
> palaces were generally self-sustaining, and most contained
> instead of laterally due to spatial and structural constraints of
> bastion walls, towers, gates, baths, stables, private quarters,
> preexisting streets. To deflect the admonitions of the Muslim
> public meeting spaces, workshops, offices, hospitals, harams
> orthodox that perceived tomb building as irreligious, Arab
> builders in North Africa, Egypt, the Arabian Peninsula, and         or zenanas (reserved for the women of the palace), libraries,
> the Levant made the mausoleum part of larger religious              pavilions, fountains, and gardens. These palaces were built as
> complexes. The mausoleum is thus often one part of a                the architectural embodiment of the ruler, the spatial metacomplex composed of a mosque, madrasa, or religious school,         phor of his dominion, and, if built in idyllic settings with
> and sometimes a hospital or khanqa (residence of a Sufi              surrounding gardens, were considered earthly paradises. The
> leader). Although the buildings had unique functions, they          first palaces were built by the Umayyads and were modeled
> shared the same architectural elements. The architects uni-         after Roman villas. Serving as hunting lodges or rural resi-
> fied the complex with geometric and arabesque designs to             dences these include the Qasr al-Hayr, Khirbat al-Mafjar,
> decorate the buildings, marble revetment, muqarnas or stalac-       and Khirbat al-Minya of the eighth century. Other welltite vaults (also called honeycomb vault), and ceramic tiles,       known palaces are the Fatimid Palace of al-Qahira (1087–1092),
> among countless other regional variants and conventions.            Umayyad Madinat al-Zahira of Cordoba (936–976), the Nasrid
> Alhambra in Granada, Spain (early fourteenth century), the
> While the mausoleum met with periodic waves of disap-            Ottoman Topkapi complex, and Mogul Fatehpur Sikri and
> proval in the Arabian world it was a fully acceptable form in       Red Fort, built in Delhi during the sixteenth century.
> the Persianate world of Iran, Anatolia, Iraq, Central Asia,
> Afghanistan, and South Asia. The two basic forms of Persianate         Islamic secular architecture is also public in nature. Among
> mausoleum are the yurt-inspired tomb tower such as the              these buildings are the caravanseries and hammams. The
> northern Iranian Gunbad-e Qabus (1007) and the domed                caravanserai was a stopping place for travelers to rest and
> square and later octagonal tombs, like the Tomb of the              water and feed their animals. A typical caravanserai had a
> Samanids in Bukhara (tenth century), the Ilkhanid Sultaniya         large open courtyard with a single large portal. Inside, along
> mausoleum of Iljeytu (early fourteenth century), and the            the walls, were covered arcades that contained identical stalls
> 
> 74                                                                                              Islam and the Muslim World
> Art
> 
> to accommodate a traveler, and his servants. Animals were           Bloom, Jonathan. Minaret: Symbol of Islam. Oxford, U.K.:
> usually kept in the courtyard or stables located in the corners.       Oxford University Press, 1989.
> Caravansaries were usually fortified with bastions and turreted      Creswell, K. A. C. A Short Account of Early Muslim Architecwalls. As with mosques and palaces, caravansaries vary in             ture. 2d ed. Aldershot, U.K.: Scholar Press, 1989.
> ornamentation and form from region to region. Inside the            Frishman, Martin, and Hasan-Uddin, Khan, eds. The Mosque:
> city the khan housed the travelers and merchants. These                History, Architectural Development & Regional Diversity.
> structures were multistoried and overlooked a central court-           London: Thames and Hudson, 1994.
> yard. The animals and goods were kept on the ground floor            Grabar, Oleg. The Formation of Islamic Art. New Haven,
> and apartments were located above.                                    Conn.: Yale University Press, 1987.
> Hillenbrand, Robert. Islamic Architecture: Form, Function and
> The public bath or hammam was another architectural
> Meaning. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999.
> form found in many Islamic cities. Along with the khan it was
> located in the suq or marketplace. Adopted from the Romans,         Hoag, John D. Islamic Architecture. New York: Abrams, 1977.
> the hammam was used for washing and purification before              Michell, George, ed. Architecture of the Islamic World: Its
> Friday prayer. It was composed of large rooms for steam               History and Social Meaning (1978). New York: Thames and
> baths as well as others for soaking in hot and cold water, all of     Hudson, 1984.
> which communicated through waiting halls. Utilizing marble
> covered floors and walls, arches, large ornamented domes                                                       Santhi Kavuri-Bauer
> that helped circulate hot air, muqarnas vaults, and stucco
> decoration, some public baths were highly luxurious environments. Men and women bathed separately either in their own
> hammam, if there were two in a town, or on different days or
> ART
> at designated times.
> Islamic art is generally reckoned to cover all of the visual arts
> Residential Architecture                                            produced in the lands where Muslims were an important, if
> The final type of Islamic architecture to be considered is the       not the most important, segment of society. Islamic art
> domestic. The typical house built in Islamic societies is           differs, therefore, from such other terms as Buddhist or
> oriented inward. A bent entrance that turns at a sharp angle        Christian art, for it refers not only to the arts produced by or
> marks the transition from the outside world to the home. The        for the religion of Islam but to the arts of all Islamic cultures.
> entrances of homes do not usually align with those across the       Islamic art was not necessarily created by or for Muslims, for
> street, so the privacy of the interior is maintained. On the        some Islamic art was made by Christian, Jewish, or even
> inside the rooms are arranged around a central courtyard and        Hindu artists working for Muslim patrons, and some Islamic
> range from the private spaces of the family to semiprivate          art was created for non-Muslim patrons. The term does not
> spaces where male guests, who were not members of the               refer to a particular style or period, but covers a broad
> family, could enter. The open courtyard ventilates the house.       purview, encompassing the arts produced over one-fifth of
> A central basin or fountain, part of most courtyards, also          the globe in the traditional heartland of Islam (from Spain to
> provides a cooling effect and the soothing sound of falling         India) during the last fourteen hundred years.
> water. In more prosperous households delicately carved
> At the beginning of the twenty-first century Islam is the
> wooden screens called mashraabiyyat were used to create
> world’s fastest growing religion. It has spread beyond the
> private space, filter air from the outside, and allow light to
> traditional heartland of Islam in North Africa, the Near East,
> enter the home. The exterior of an Islamic house is often left
> and west Asia to southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
> unadorned. Only upon entering the home will the visitor
> Muslims comprise nearly one-quarter of the world’s populaknow the class status of the owner.                                 tion; the largest Muslim populations are in southeast Asia,
> and there are sizable Muslim communities in Europe and
> See also Adhan; Art; Dome of the Rock; Holy Cities;
> North America. The term Islamic art is therefore becoming
> Jami; Manar, Manara; Mashhad; Masjid; Mihrab;
> increasingly unwieldy, and in current usage concerning mod-
> Minbar (Mimbar); Religious Institutions.
> ern art, the adjective “Islamic” is often restricted to purely
> religious expressions such as calligraphy.
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Abu-Lughod, Janet. “The Islamic City: Historical Myth,                 The idea of an Islamic art is a distinctly modern notion,
> Islamic Essence, and Contemporary Relevance.” Interna-            developed not by the culture itself but by art historians in
> tional Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 19 (1987): 155–176.      Europe and America trying to understand a relatively unfa-
> Blair, Sheila S., and Bloom, Jonathan M. “The Mirage of             miliar world and to place the arts created there into the newly
> Islamic Art: Reflections on the Study of an Unwieldy              developing field of art history. In light of the nationalism that
> Field.” Art Bulletin 85 (2003): 152–184.                         developed during the early twentieth century, some scholars,
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                        75
> Art
> 
> particularly those in the Islamic lands, questioned the use of           Most fine manuscripts made in the Islamic lands also had
> the term, opting instead for nationalistic names, speaking of,        fine decoration. In early times the calligrapher seems to have
> say, Turkish or Persian art. But these terms are also mislead-        also been responsible for the illumination, which was usually
> ing, for Islam has traditionally been a multiethnic and               added after the writing. For example, the famous scribe
> multicultural society, and it is impossible to distinguish the        known as Ibn al-Bawwab (his nickname literally means “son
> contribution of, for example, Persian-speaking artists in what        of a doorman”) did both the writing and the decoration in a
> is today Turkey. Other scholars, particularly in the late             fine but small copy of the Quran made at Baghdad between
> twentieth century, have questioned the term Islamic art as too        1000 and 1001. In early times calligraphers may have pregeneral, since it refers neither to the art of a specific era nor to   pared all their own materials, but from the fourteenth century
> that of a particular place or people. Instead, they opt for           onward, the crafts became increasingly specialized, and we
> regional or dynastic categories such as Maghribi (i.e., North         know of distinct calligraphers, illuminators, and binders. In
> African) or Mamluk (i.e., Egyptian and Syrian, thirteenth to          the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, they were joined by a
> sixteenth centuries) art. While these terms can be useful, they       host of other specialists, ranging from draftsmen to gold
> overlook the common features that run through much of the             beaters, gold sprinklers, rubricators (those who drew the
> art created in the traditional lands of Islam and fragment the        lines), and the like. All worked together in a team to produce
> picture, particularly for those who are unfamiliar with this          some of the most sublime books ever created in which all the
> area and its rich cultural traditions. Without slighting the          elements were carefully harmonized in a unified and baldifferences among the arts created in different regions in            anced whole.
> different periods, this entry focuses on the common features
> that run through many of the arts created within the broad            Textiles. A second major art form popular in the traditional
> rubric of Islamic art: the distinct hierarchy of forms and the        Islamic lands is textiles. They were the most important
> themes of decoration.                                                 economically and have often been likened to the heavy
> industries of modern times. The four main fibers used were
> Forms
> wool, cotton, linen, and silk, but the making of fine textiles lay
> Apart from architecture, the arts produced in the Islamic
> not only in producing the fibers, but even more in the expense
> lands follow a different formal hierarchy than that of Western
> of procuring the dyes, the mordants to fix the colors, the
> art, where painting and sculpture are the two most important
> materials for the looms, and the transport of both fibers and
> forms and are used to make religious images for worship.
> finished goods. It is often hard for modern viewers to appreci-
> These forms play a relatively minor role in Islamic art, where
> ate these textiles, since few have survived from medieval times
> instead the major forms of artistic expression are the arts of
> the book, textiles, ceramics, woodwork, metalwares, and               intact. Most were literally worn to shreds, and, unlike in other
> glass. In Western art, these are often called the “minor,”            cultures, only a handful were preserved as grave goods since
> “decorative,” or “portable” arts, but such labels are pejora-         Muslims traditionally wrap the body in a plain white sheet for
> tive, implying that these forms are secondary, less meaningful        burial. Nevertheless in their own times, these textiles were
> and less permanent than the more important, stable, and               immensely valuable not only in the Muslim lands but also
> therefore “noble” arts of painting and sculpture. To use such         across the globe: Medieval Europeans commonly used imterms is to view the world of art from the vantage point of the       ported Islamic textiles to wrap the bones of their saints, and
> West, and one of the significant features of Islamic art is that       hence, paradoxically, most medieval Islamic textiles have
> it introduces the viewer to different ways of looking at art.         been preserved in Christian contexts.
> 
> Bookmaking. Of all the arts created in the Islamic lands, the             Textiles were also important for the history of art. Until
> most revered was the art of the book, probably because of the         large sheets of paper to make patterns and cartoons became
> veneration accorded to writing the revealed word of God.              readily available in the fourteenth century, motifs and designs
> Calligraphers were deemed the most important type of artist           were often disseminated through the medium of textiles.
> and paid the most for their work. They penned many fine                Textiles are readily portable—they can be folded and carried
> manuscripts, but the fanciest were exquisite copies of the            on an animal’s back without fear of breaking—and were
> Quran. Those made for use in a congregational mosque were            transported over vast distances between Spain and Central
> large, multivolume sets, often divided into either seven or           Asia. The mechanical nature of weaving on a loom also
> thirty parts so that the entire text could be read over the           encouraged the production of multiples and the use of symcourse of a week or a month. Personal copies of the Quran            metrical, repeating, and geometric designs that are characterwere generally smaller, but they, too, often had fine penman-          istic of much Islamic art.
> ship. The great reverence for writing spilled over into the
> production of other texts, particularly in Iran, India, and               Of all textiles, the one most identified with the traditional
> Turkey, and it was one of the reasons that printing with              Islamic lands is the knotted carpet. Indeed the traditional
> movable type only began to be adopted in the Islamic lands in         heartland of Islam is often dubbed “the rug belt.” Technically
> the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.                              the knotted carpet consists of a textile in which additional
> 
> 76                                                                                                Islam and the Muslim World
> Art
> 
> Bold geometric designs were typical patterns used by Muslim artists. This tile mosaic was created in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. © GERARD
> DEGEORGE/CORBIS
> 
> threads, usually wool or silk, are knotted into a woven             Ottoman dynasties set up state workshops with room-sized
> substratum to form a furry surface. The origins of the              looms that required teams of weavers to produce carpets
> technique are obscure and controversial, with different ethnic      measuring over twenty feet across. Unlike the carpet-weaving
> groups claiming precedence. Carpet weaving was already              of nomads, which could be put down or picked up at will,
> practiced for a millennium before the advent of Islam and           these large-scale enterprises required vast amounts of materimay well have been developed by nomads to take advantage            als prepared and purchased before work began to insure a
> of the materials at hand, namely the wool produced by the           uniform product. Designers prepared paper patterns with
> sheep they herded. Nomads typically used portable looms,            elaborate floral designs that could only be executed successwhich could be dismantled and carried on horseback when             fully with hundreds of knots per square inch. Some designs
> the camp moved, to weave small carpets with a limited               even emulated the design of traditional Persian gardens, with
> repertory of geometric designs that were generated from the         depictions of water channels filled with fish, ducks, and geese
> technique of weaving itself.                                        crossing and dividing rectangular parterres planted with
> cypresses, fruit trees, and flowers. When the carpet was
> In the fourteenth century this individual or family craft        spread on the floor, the person sitting on it would have been
> was transformed into a cottage or village industry. Carpets         surrounded by a verdant refreshing garden.
> became larger and were made in multiples, with some groups
> available for export. They were expensive items used by the         Metals, Ceramics, and Glasswares. Other common artrich and powerful as status symbols. Depictions of enthroned        forms created in the Muslim lands comprise metalwares,
> rulers ranging from Mongol manuscripts of the Persian               ceramics, and glasswares. These techniques have been dubbed
> national epic to Italian panel paintings of the Madonna and         the “arts of fire” as they are based on the use of fire to
> Child prominently display Islamic knotted carpets beneath           transform minerals extracted from the earth into works of art.
> the throne, testifying to their international status.               The discovery of fire to transform humble materials into
> utensils was one of the hallmarks of the rise of civilization in
> Carpet-weaving was transformed again in the sixteenth            West Asia, and the manufacture of shimmering metalwares,
> century into a national industry. Rulers of the Safavid and         ceramics, and glass continued to be characteristic of the
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                       77
> Art
> 
> Islamic lands until modern times. Iron and copper alloys were
> crafted into weapons, tools, and utensils, while silver and gold
> were made into jewelry and coins. Ceramics were used for
> storage, cooking, and serving food, and glass was used for
> lighting, keeping and serving foods, and storing perfumes and
> medicines. Unlike the Christian lands, where vessels of silver
> and gold were used in church liturgy, Islam required no such
> luxury objects in the mosque, and the finest bowls, plates, and
> pitchers are merely expensive versions of objects used in
> daily life.
> 
> Base metal, ceramic, and glass shapes were also made in
> such rare and costly materials as gold and silver, rock crystal,
> jade, and ivory. The pious disapproved of using gold vessels,
> and many items of precious metal were melted down for coin
> in times of need. A rare silver box made for the Spanish
> Umayyad heir-apparent Abu Walid Hisham in 976 is the
> same shape and dimensions as an ivory example made for the
> Spanish Umayyad chamberlain 
Abd al-Malik in Spain between 1004 and 1005. The metal box even copies the details
> of the ivory box, including the strap over the top, which is
> hammered from the same sheet of silver as the rest of the lid.
> The strap is useless on the silver box, but imitates the metal     Known for detailed ceramic work, this Islamic ceramic was found
> strap that would have held the lid in place on a wooden or         within the tomb of Muhammad in Mecca. © ARCHIVO ICONOGRAFICO,
> S.A./CORBIS
> ivory box.
> 
> Another case of similar vessels in different media is the
> series of small jugs made for the Timurid rulers of Central        Figural Imagery. Many people believe that images of people
> Asia in the fifteenth century. Some gold ones are illustrated in    are forbidden in Islam, but this assumption is wrong. The
> Quran forbids idolatry, but it has little to say on the subject of
> contemporary manuscripts, and examples survive in several
> figural representation, which was apparently not a subject of
> materials, including jade, metal, and ceramic. The jugs, which
> great importance in Arabia during the late sixth and early
> measure about 6 inches (15 centimeters) high, have a globular
> seventh centuries. Furthermore, Muslims have little need to
> body and short cylindrical neck with a handle shaped like a
> depict images in their religious art. For Muslims, God is
> dragon. The shape derives from Chinese porcelains. The
> unique, without associate; therefore He cannot be repreinscriptions on the Timurid examples make it clear that they
> sented, except by His word, the Quran. Muslims worship
> were wine jugs, and the various materials correspond to the
> God directly without intercessors, so they have no need for
> rank of the patron. Jade, technically a type of white nephrite,
> images of saints, as Christians do. The prophet Muhammad
> became available after the Timurids seized the jade mines in
> was human, not divine, so Muslims do not worship him as
> Khotan in Chinese Turkestan. The use of jade was reserved
> Christians worship Jesus. Furthermore, the Quran is not a
> for rulers, as it was not only rare and expensive but also
> continuous narrative. Thus, Muslims do not need religious
> thought to counteract poison. Timurid rulers and their courti-     images to proselytize in the way that Christians use depicers also commissioned similar jugs made of brass, sometimes        tions of Christ or stories from the Bible to teach their faith.
> inlaid with gold and silver, but some anonymous examples
> were probably made for sale on the open market as were the             Over time this lack of images hardened into law, and the
> cheaper ceramic ones.                                              absence of figures, technically known as aniconism, became a
> characteristic feature of Islamic religious art. Thus, mosques,
> Themes of Decoration                                               mosque furnishings such as minbars (pulpits) and mihrabs
> Unlike other artistic traditions, particularly the Chinese,        (recesses in the wall facing Mecca), and other types of religwhere form alone can be considered sufficient to turn an            ious buildings such as madrasas do not usually contain picobject into a work of art, much Islamic art is highly decorated.   tures of people. But there is no reason that Muslims cannot
> Surfaces were elaborately adorned using a wide variety of          depict people in other places and settings. Thus palaces
> techniques and motifs. While different styles of decoration        could, and indeed often did, have images of people, particuwere popular at different times and places, several themes of      larly servants, guards, and other members of a ruler’s retinue.
> decoration occur everywhere. These include figural decora-          Similarly, bathhouses were often decorated with bathers,
> tion, flowers, geometry, color, and writing.                        sometimes nude, and other scenes of relaxation and pleasure.
> 
> 78                                                                                              Islam and the Muslim World
> Art
> 
> These types of secular building were often more architectur-         Prophet’s face is visible, but by Ottoman times a conservative
> ally inventive than religious structures, which tended to            reaction had set in and artists often covered his face and even
> follow traditional lines. But secular structures have not sur-       his body with a veil.
> vived as well as mosques and religious structures, which were
> continuously venerated and maintained, and so the historical             Since figural imagery was unnecessary in Islamic religious
> record is spotty, and many of the best-known secular build-          art, other themes of decoration became more important.
> ings to survive in the Islamic lands are those that have long        Many of them had been subsidiary elements in the arts of prebeen abandoned. Archaeological excavation and restoration            Islamic times. In Byzantine art, for example, depictions of
> of such sites as the bathhouse at Qusayr Amra, built in the          people had been set off, framed, or linked by vegetal designs
> Jordanian desert by the Umayyads in the early eighth cen-            (that is, stylized fruits, flowers, and trees) and geometric
> tury, and Samarra in Iraq, the sprawling capital built by the        elements (shapes and patterns). In Islamic times, these sub-
> Abbasids upstream from Baghdad in the mid-ninth century,             sidiary elements were transformed into major artistic themes.
> show that already in early Islamic times bathhouses and              At first artists used recognizable elements, such as trees or
> palaces were decorated with pictures of people engaging in           plants, as in the mosaics used in the Great Mosque of
> activities inappropriate in religious situations.                    Damascus erected by the Umayyad caliph al-Walid in the
> early eighth century. With the growing reluctance to depict
> Similarly, copies of the Quran do not have pictures of          figures, such specific and realistic representations were repeople, but many nonreligious books made in the Islamic              placed by more stylized, abstracted, and geometricized motifs.
> lands do. These range from scientific treatises to histories,
> chronicles, and literary works, both prose and poetry. Some-         Geometry. Such an abstract style was already popular by the
> times, illustrations were needed to explain the text, as in          ninth century and is found on carved plaster and woodwork
> copies of al-Sufi’s treatise on the fixed stars, al-Kawakib al-        made from North Africa to Central Asia. The extraordinary
> thabita. They show that the classical tradition of depicting the     range of this style suggests a common origin in the Abbasid
> capitals of Iraq, and German excavations at the site of Samarra
> constellations as humans and animals was continued in Islamic
> in the early twentieth century uncovered many examples in
> times. Sometimes, however, illustrations were added even
> molded and carved stucco. The most distinct type uses a
> when the text did not demand them. One of the most
> slanted, or beveled, cut, which allowed the plaster slab to be
> frequently illustrated texts to survive from medieval Islamic
> released quickly from the mold. In the beveled style, motifs
> times is al-Hariri’s Maqamat (Seances or Sessions). Eleven
> are abstracted and geometricized and the distinction between
> illustrated copies produced before 1350 have survived, and
> foreground and background is blurred.
> the number suggests that there were once many more. This
> work recounts the picaresque adventures of the cunning                   This type of design based on natural forms such as stems,
> merchant Abu Zayd as he travels throughout the Muslim                tendrils, and leaves rearranged to form infinite geometric
> world, hoodwinking his rivals. The success of the text, which        patterns became a hallmark of Islamic art produced between
> became very popular among the educated bourgeoisie of the            the tenth century and the fifteenth. To describe it, Europeans
> Arab lands, depended on its verbal pyrotechnics, with triple         coined the word “arabesque,” literally meaning “in the Arab
> puns, subtle allusions, and complex rhymes. The illustrations        style,” in the fifteenth or sixteenth century when Renaissance
> emphasize a different aspect of the text—the protagonist’s           artists incorporated Islamic designs in book ornament and
> adventures in faraway lands—and provide rare glimpses of             decorative bookbindings. Over the centuries the word has
> daily life in medieval times, including scenes of villages,          been applied to a wide variety of winding, twining vegetal
> markets, and libraries.                                              decoration in art and meandering themes in music.
> 
> The tradition of figural imagery was particularly strong in           The nineteenth-century Viennese art historian Alois Riegl
> the Persian world, which had a long history of figural repre-         laid out the principal features of the arabesque in Islamic art.
> sentation stretching back to pre-Islamic times, and the illus-       In it, the tendrils of the vegetation do not branch off from a
> trated books made there and in the nearby Persian-speaking           single continuous stem, as they do in nature, but rather grow
> lands such as India from the fourteenth century onward have          unnaturally from one another to form a geometric pattern.
> some of the most stunning illustrations ever painted. Virtu-         He pointed out that the arabesque also has infinite correally all of them include people and animals, both real and           spondence, meaning that the design can be extended indefi-
> imaginary. A few even include images of the prophet Mu-              nitely in any direction. The structure of the arabesque gives
> hammad, but these are not meant as religious icons but to            the viewer sufficient information to extend the design in his
> illustrate historical or literary texts. The mi
raj, the Prophet’s   or her imagination.
> mystical journey from Jerusalem to heaven and back mentioned in the Quran (17:1), was elaborated, particularly by            The popularity of the arabesque was due no doubt to its
> Sufis or mystics, and scenes illustrating it commonly show the        adaptability, for it was appropriate to virtually all situations
> Prophet on his mystical steed Buraq. In some cases the               and media, from paper to woodwork and ivory. It was used on
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                        79
> Art
> 
> the illuminated pages that were added to decorate the beginning and end of fine manuscripts, particularly copies of the
> Quran. These decorated pages became increasingly elaborate and are often called carpet pages. The largest and finest
> were produced in Egypt and Syria during the period of rule
> by the Mamluks (r. 1250–1517). The frontispieces in these
> grand manuscripts of the Quran (some measure a whopping 30 inches, or 75 cm, high) are decorated with elaborate geometric designs of polygons radiating from central
> star shapes.
> 
> From the fourteenth century the arabesque was gradually
> displaced by more naturalistic designs of chrysanthemum,
> peony, and lotus flowers, motifs adopted from Chinese art
> during the period of Mongol rule in Iran. This floral style was
> disseminated westward to the Ottomans, rulers of the eastern
> Mediterranean region after 1453 from their capital at Istanbul. Artists working at the court of the longest-reigning
> and most powerful of the Ottoman sultans, Suleyman (r.
> 1620–1666), developed a distinct floral style with composite
> flowers and slender, tapering leaves with serrated edges.
> Designers working in the court studio drew up patterns in
> this style, which craftsmen then executed in various media,
> ranging from ceramics to textiles.
> 
> The pervasiveness of geometric designs throughout Islamic
> art has been traced to the importance of textiles, and Golombek
> coined the phrase “the draped universe of Islam.” The pro-
> “Prince on a Brown Horse,” Mogul miniature painting, eighteenth
> duction of fibers and dyes formed the mainstay of the medie-        century. Mogul emporers employed large numbers of painters
> val Islamic economy. In addition to clothing, textiles were the    who became known for their depictions of humans and animals in
> main furnishings of dwellings and even, in the form of tents,      a naturalistic style. © THE BURSTEIN COLLECTION/CORBIS
> the dwellings themselves. The central role of textiles is
> underscored by the Ka
aba in Mecca, which Muslims believe
> most expensive pieces of woodwork were mosque furnishings
> is the house that Ibrahim (Abraham) erected for God and
> such as maqsuras (screens to enclose an area in front of the
> which is the central shrine of Islam, a cubic stone building
> mihrab), minbars (pulpits), and Quran stands. The designs
> that has been veiled in cloth coverings since the dawn of the
> on these pieces were usually geometric, with elaborate interfaith. The structure of weaving favors angular designs based
> lacing and strapwork patterns. Perhaps the most stunning is
> on the intertwining of warp and weft, and interlaced designs,
> the stupendous minbar made in 1137 at Cordoba for the
> found even in writing, may be another example of the textile
> Almoravid mosque in Marrakesh, which has thousands of
> mentality that permeated Islamic society.
> individual panels meticulously carved in a variety of rare and
> Color. Another theme that runs through much Islamic art is         exotic woods with arabesque designs. These panels were
> the exuberant use of color. Bright and vivid colors are found      fitted flawlessly into a complex geometric scheme, so that the
> not only in illustrated manuscripts, but also in media where       decoration can be equally appreciated from near and far away.
> they might not be expected. For example, metalworkers in
> the Islamic lands developed the technique of inlay, in which a         Islamic ceramics are also notable for their wonderful
> vessel made of one metal (typically bronze or brass) is inlaid     colors. Potters constantly invented new and different techwith another (typically, silver, copper, or gold). Designs were    niques of over- and underglaze painting. Their finest effort
> further set off in a bituminous black that absorbs light, in       was the development of the luster technique, in which vessels
> contrast to the surrounding metallic surfaces that reflect it. In   and tiles were painted with metallic oxides and then fired in a
> this way, metal workers could decorate their wares with            reducing atmosphere so that the oxygen burned away, leaving
> elaborate scenes that resembled paintings or work out enor-        the shimmering metal on the surface. The technique may
> mous inscriptions that seem to glow from the object and set        have been invented by glassmakers in Egypt and Syria in the
> off the patron’s name or Quranic text in lights, as it were.      eighth century, but soon passed to potters, who developed its
> full potential, first in ninth-century Iraq, then in Fatimid
> Woodworkers achieved similar effects by combining ivory         (969–1171), Egypt, and finally in Iran. Luster potters workor bone with ebony, teak, and other precious woods. The            ing there in the city of Kashan in the late twelfth and early
> 
> 80                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Art
> 
> thirteenth centuries also developed the overglaze-painted               The texts inscribed on works of Islamic art range in
> technique known as minai or enameling, in which several             subject matter. Some contain verses from the Quran, Tradicolors and gold are painted on top of already-glazed wares,         tions of the Prophet (called hadith in Arabic), and other
> which are then fired a second time at a relatively low tempera-      religious texts. Others are short pious phrases recalling God’s
> ture. Luster and minai ceramics represent the most expensive        power and omnipotence (the most common is al-mulk lillah,
> kind of pottery made in medieval times, for they required           dominion belongs to God) or invoking the name of the
> costly materials, special kilns, and extra fuel for a second        Prophet, his family, and other significant religious figures
> firing. The techniques may well have been kept secret, and, to       such as the Four Orthodox caliphs who succeeded Muhamjudge from signed works and treatises, the craft tradition          mad as leaders of the Muslim community in the early seventh
> passed down through certain families.                               century. Probably the most common type of text inscribed on
> works of Islamic art comprises benedictions and good wishes,
> The decorative combination of blue and white, so often           which can range from a single word (the most common is
> identified with Chinese porcelains, derived from the Islamic         baraka, blessing) to long phrases with rhyming pairs of nouns
> lands where potters invented the technique of painting in           and adjectives.
> cobalt under a transparent glaze. The technique, developed
> by the same Kashan potters working in Iran in the early                 These inscriptions, particularly on expensive pieces, somethirteenth century, was then exported to China where it             times contain historical information, including the name of
> appears on blue-and-white porcelains made in the fourteenth         the patron, the date, the place the object was made, and even
> century. Indeed, potters in the Islamic lands were constantly       the name of the artist. Art historians always look for this type
> in competition with their colleagues in China, and ideas            of information since it helps to localize a work of art, but it is
> bounced back and forth from culture to culture. Thus, Kashan        important for other reasons as well. Historical information
> potters probably adopted an artificial or stone-paste body to        also implies that the work of art was a specific commission,
> imitate the hard body of porcelain, made by the Chinese with        made for a particular individual at a specific moment or to
> kaolin, an element not available in Iran and other Mus-             commemorate a specific event. The historical information
> lim lands.                                                          also tells us in which direction to view a work of art, since this
> information is usually included at the end of the text. Signa-
> Various explanations have been proposed for this lavish          tures allow us to establish the biographies of artists, a type of
> use of color throughout much of Islamic art. Some scholars          person not generally recorded in histories and chronicles, and
> trace it to the drab and dusty landscape that pervades the          thereby fill out the artistic record.
> heartland of Islam. (The word khaki, for example, derives
> from the Persian word meaning dusty or dust-colored.) This              Many different styles of script were used to decorate
> explanation is insufficient, however, as people from other           works of Islamic art. Historical information was often written
> desert or steppe regions do not necessarily value color as          in a more legible rounded hand, because the patron or artist
> highly as Muslims do. Other scholars see the extensive use of       wanted his name to be clear. In contrast, aphorisms and pious
> color as evoking Paradise, described in the Quran as a rich        phrases were often written in a more stylized angular script.
> and verdant place where men recline on silken pillows.              Some might have been intended as puzzles designed to amuse
> Muslims, particularly mystics, often elaborated the symbolic        or even tease the user. For example, a group of slip-covered
> values of color, but these values were often contradictory and      earthenware vessels made in northeastern Iran and Central
> meaningful only in specific geographical or chronological            Asia in the ninth and tenth centuries (when the area was
> contexts. Black, for example, was adopted by the Abbasids as        under the domination of the Samanid dynasty) is inscribed
> their standard, and their rivals, the Fatimids, adopted white.      with aphorisms in Arabic such as “Knowledge is bitter to the
> The auspicious or heavenly associations may have been out-          taste at first, but sweeter than honey in the end” or “He who is
> weighed by practical considerations, since copper oxide, a          content with his own opinion runs into danger.” These
> ubiquitous coloring agent, produces a green color in a lead         aphorisms are written in brown or black against the cream
> glaze and a turquoise blue color in an alkaline one.                slip in an extremely complex script in which the letters are
> stretched out or distorted and the strokes braided and inter-
> Writing. Of all the themes that run through Islamic art, the        twined. The texts are very difficult to read, and somewhat like
> most important is writing. Islam, perhaps more than any             a modern cryptic puzzle; decipherment was part of the
> other religion, values writing, and inscriptions permeate           enjoyment they engendered.
> Islamic art more than any other artistic tradition. The value
> of the word is due to the sanctity of the revelation, and from           In other cases the difficulty in deciphering the inscriptions
> earliest Islamic times virtually all types of Islamic art were      on a work of Islamic art may have been due to the artist’s
> decorated with writing, even when the medium makes it               illiteracy. The person who drew up the inscription was not
> difficult to add an inscription. Sometimes writing supple-           necessarily the same person who executed it on the work of
> ments an image, but often writing is the sole type of decoration.   art, and some artists may not have been literate, particularly
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                        81
> 
Asabiyya
> 
> those of lower status who worked with cheaper materials in
> repetitive forms. A group of overglaze-painted earthenware
> 
ASABIYYA
> vessels made in the Abbasid lands in the ninth century is often
> The English equivalent of the term 
asabiyya is akin to “social
> decorated in the center with a few lines of text containing
> solidarity” or “tribal loyalty.” It is an abstract noun that
> blessings and the name of the potter. The texts are formulaic
> derives from the Arabic root 
asab, meaning “to bind.” It
> and often unreadable, with words cut off, and the inscriptions
> refers to a special characteristic or set of characteristics that
> show that the pieces were not a specific commission but made
> defines the rather vague essence of what constitutes a particufor sale on the open market. Nevertheless, they are eloquent
> testimony for a world in which writing and written senti-            lar group. As a sociological principle, it would be especially
> ments were appreciated at all levels of society.                     significant within the political thought of Ibn Khaldun
> (1332–1406). 
Asabiyya, according to him, is the social bond
> See also Architecture; Calligraphy; Mihrab.                          that is particularly evident among tribal groups and is based
> more on social, psychological, physical, and political factors
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                         than on those of genetics or consanguinity. It is not unique
> Baer, Eva. Metalwork in Medieval Islamic Art. Albany: State          among the Arabs; rather, each group possesses its own dis-
> University of New York Press, 1983.                               tinct 
asabiyya. In this way, Ibn Khaldun identified a Jewish
> Baer, Eva. Islamic Ornament. Edinburgh: Edinburgh Univer-            
asabiyya, a Greek 
asabiyya, and so on. He also perceived an
> sity Press, 1998.                                                 intimate connection between 
asabiyya and religion. For a
> Blair, Sheila S. Islamic Inscriptions. Edinburgh: Edinburgh          religion to be effective it must evoke a feeling of solidarity
> University Press, 1998.                                           among all the members of the group. In this way one could
> Blair, Sheila S., and Bloom, Jonathan M. The Art and Architec-       have diverse 
asabiyyat; for example, an 
asabiyya to one’s tribe,
> ture of Islam: 1250–1800. New Haven, Conn. and London:            one’s guild, and ultimately to one’s religion. Ibn Khaldun
> Yale University Press, 1994.                                      argues that Islam brought a strong sense of 
asabiyya to the
> Bloom, Jonathan M., and Blair, Sheila S. Islamic Arts. Lon-          Arabs and was responsible for the benefits that Islamic civilidon: Phaidon, 1997.                                               zation produced.
> Brend, Barbara. Islamic Art. London and Cambridge, Mass.:            See also Ibn Khaldun.
> British Museum Press/Harvard University Press, 1991.
> Ettinghausen, Richard, Grabar, Oleg, and Jenkins-Madina,
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Marilyn. Islamic Art and Architecture: 650–1250. New
> Haven, Conn. and London: Yale University Press, 2001.             Baali, Fuad. Society, State, and Urbanism: Ibn Khaldun’s Sociological Thought. Albany: State University of New York
> Ferrier, R. W., ed. The Arts of Persia. New Haven, Conn. and
> Press, 1988.
> London: Yale University Press, 1989.
> Golombek, Lisa. “The Draped Universe of Islam.” In Content
> Aaron Hughes
> and Context of Visual Arts in the Islamic World. Edited by
> P. P. Soucek. University Park, Pa., and London: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1988.
> Grabar, Oleg. The Formation of Islamic Art. New Haven,               ASH
ARITES, ASH
AIRA
> Conn.: Yale University Press, 1973.
> Grabar, Oleg. The Mediation of Ornament. Princeton, N.J.:            The Ash
arites, who were also known as al-Ash
ariyya, were
> Princeton University Press, 1992.                                  the largest Sunni theological school, and were named after
> Hattstein, Markus, and Delius, Peter, eds. Islam: Art and            the school’s founder, Abu ’l-Hasan al-Ash
ari, who lived in
> Architecture. Cologne: Könemann, 2000.                             the late ninth and early tenth centuries (873–935). Little is
> Hillenbrand, Robert. Islamic Art and Architecture. London:           known of al-Ash
ari’s personal and scholarly life. The most
> Thames and Hudson, 1999.                                          often repeated information in the sources is that at the age
> Irwin, Robert. Islamic Art in Context: Art, Architecture, and the    forty, after a series of visions, he changed his position in
> Literary World. New York: Abrams, 1997.                           Islamic theology. He left his Mu
tazilite teacher Abu 
Ali al-
> Pope, Arthur Upham, and Ackerman, Phyllis, eds. A Survey of          Jubbai over a theological dispute on divine grace and human
> Persian Art from Prehistoric Times to the Present. London          responsibility (exemplified by the famous example of three
> and New York: Oxford University Press, 1938–1939.                  brothers with different eschatological fates), and accepted the
> Raby, Julian, ed. Catalogue of the Nasser D. Khalili Collection of   authority of Ahmad b. Hanbal. Al-Ash
ari thus adhered to the
> Islamic Art. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 1992.          principles of the traditionalist Sunni majority (Ahl al-sunna
> wal-jama
a), although despite their opposition he defended
> the necessity of using rational argumentation, which was
> Sheila S. Blair     widely practiced by Mu
tazilites, in justifying these princi-
> Jonathan M. Bloom        ples. Following his conversion he even wrote a short treatise
> 
> 82                                                                                                Islam and the Muslim World
> Ash
arites, Ash
aira
> 
> in favor of the argumentative method in Islamic theology. In      of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, though officially
> combining Sunni doctrines with Mu
tazilite methodology he         Maturidite, also contributed to this philosophical production
> was regarded as the founder of the first and later dominant        by their commentaries and marginal notes on the works of the
> theological school among Sunnis. There were some other            above-named Central Asian Ash
arites.
> independent scholars who tried partly to apply rational methodology to Sunni doctrines before Al-Ash
ari, such as Ibn             The Ash
arite school continued to exist in the seventeenth
> Kullab, Harith al-Muhasibi, and Abul-
Abbas al-Qalanisi, but      century in the works of the Egyptian al-Lakani and the Indian
> they were not recognized as the masters of a school by later      al-Siyalkuti. After a continuous modernization process in the
> Sunni theologians. With the exception of the followers of the     Muslim world that took place in the eighteenth and nine-
> Hanafite theologian Abu Mansur al-Maturidi in Central Asia,        teenth centuries, the Sunnis from both the Ash
arite and
> almost all Sunni theologians were regarded as Ash
arite,          Maturidite traditions, such as Muhammad 
Abduh of Egypt,
> although they departed from al-Ash
ari in some points.            Shibli Nu
mani of India, and Izmirli Ismail Hakki of Ottoman Turkey, attempted a methodological renovation within
> Al-Ash
ari’s immediate students, Abu ’l-Hasan al-Bahili,       Islamic theological thought. During this period of moder-
> Ibn Mujahid al-Tai, and others, were not influential in the       nity, sectarian concerns and identities weakened among Mushistory of Ash
arism. However the following generation,           lim intellectuals, since they took an eclectic and broader
> among them Abu Bakr al-Baqillani (d. 1013), Ibn Furak (d.         approach in order to satisfy the demands of their age. The
> 1015), Abu Ishaq al-Isfaraini (d. 1027), and 
Abd al-Qahir al-   contemporary Muslim modernists followed their predeces-
> Baghdadi (d. 1037), played a major role in the formation of       sors in detaching themselves from a strict identification with a
> the school. Al-Baqillani, for instance, was regarded as the       particular school of thought. However, Ash
arism still consecond founder, due to his contributions in rationalizing the     tinues to maintain its existence in Sunni societies today.
> Ash
arite school through his doctrines of atomism, nonexist-
> Ash
arite thinkers, following al-Mu
tazila, dealt with the
> ence, and so on.
> main theological issues of Islamic faith, including arguments
> for the existence of God, divine unity, revelation, prophecy,
> Although Ash
arite scholars suffered for a while from the
> and eschatology. They aimed to refute the opposing views of
> persecution of Buwayhid sultans and the Seljuk Wazir alother religions and philosophical schools in a rational dialec-
> Kunduri in the eleventh century, their conditions rapidly
> tical method. But they also discussed the controversial theochanged shortly after gaining a wide support of the Seljuks
> logical issues first raised by the Mu
tazilites, such as the
> during the time of the famous intellectual wazir Nizam alexistence of attributes of God (sifat Allah), the nature of divine
> Mulk. He established the Nizamiyya madrasa (school) in
> speech (kalam Allah), the possibility of seeing God in the
> Nishapur, in which Ash
arite views were officially taught, and
> future life (ruyat Allah), the question of divine omnipotence
> then spread to other parts of the Islamic world as far away as
> and human free will (irada), and the fate of a believing sinner
> North Africa and Muslim Spain. At this time leading Ash
arite
> (murtakib al-kabira). In Ash
arite theology God has eternal
> thinkers were Imam al-Haramayn al-Juwayni (d. 1085) and
> attributes such as knowledge, speech, and sight, which are, in
> his student Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (d. 1111), both of whom
> their system, essential for His knowing, speaking, or seeing.
> taught at the Nizamiyya School. Al-Juwayni and al-Ghazali
> Since it belongs to his eternal attribute of speech, the Quran
> imported some philosophical terms and topics into Ash
arite
> as God’s word was uncreated. Unlike the traditionalist Sunni
> kalam and legitimized the use of formal Aristotelian logic in
> school and al-Ash
ari himself, later Ash
arites did not oppose
> both Islamic theological and legal theories.
> the metaphorical interpretation of corporeal terms attributed
> In the twelfth century, a philosophical trend dominated       to God in the Quran. As for the question of free will and
> among the so-called modern or later theologians (al-              predestination, Ash
arites took a middle position between the
> Mu
tazilites and Jabrites in emphasizing God’s creation of
> mutaakhkhirun). This trend gained in strength with the
> human acts, which each person freely chooses.
> works of later independent-minded thinkers of the school,
> such as Fakhr al-Din al-Razi (d. 1209), Sayf al-Din al-Amidi         There are some differences between the Ash
arites and
> (d. 1233), and Qadi al-Baydawi (d. 1286). Ash
arite thought       Maturidites, the second Sunni theological school, but they
> came under the influence of Avicennan Neoplatonist cosmol-         are usually regarded as methodological and nonessential.
> ogy and mostly absorbed the Islamic philosophical tradition       Ash
arites, for instance, rejected takwin (which means “to
> in Sunni theology after a major but ineffective stand by the      bring into existence”) as a divine attribute, the eternalness of
> well-known philosopher Averroes. Thinkers of genius from          God’s actions, unlike his attributes, and the necessity of
> Central Asia, especially 
Adud al-Din al-Iji (d. 1355) and his    believing in the existence and unity of God through rational
> students Sa
d al-Din al-Taftazani (d. 1389) and Sayyid Sharif     arguments in the absence of divine revelation, which are
> al-Jurjani (d. 1413), contributed to the interpretation and       among the Maturidite theses.
> expansion of Ash
arite thought by producing large commentaries throughout the fourteenth century. Ottoman thinkers        See also Kalam; Mutazilites, Mutazila.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                      83
> Askiya Muhammad
> 
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                     expansion of the Songhai Empire occurred after his reign. He
> Frank, Richard M. “Bodies and Atoms: The Ash
arite Analy-        was deposed in 1528 by his son Musa.
> sis.” In Islamic Theology and Philosophy. Edited by Michael
> E. Marmura. Albany: State University of New York              See also Africa, Islam in; African Culture and Islam.
> Press, 1984.
> Frank, Richard M. “The Science of Kalam.” Arabic Science and     BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Philosophy 2 (1992): 7–37.                                    Hiskett, M. The Development of Islam in West Africa. London
> Frank, Richard M. Al-Ghazali and the Ash
arite School. Durham,      and New York: Longman, 1984.
> N.C.: Duke University Press, 1994.                            Hunwick, John, ed. Shari
a in Songhai: The Replies of Al-
> Gimaret, Daniel. La doctrine d’al-Ash
ari. Paris: Cerf., 1990      Maghili to the Questions of Askia al-Hajj Muhammad. Oxford,
> U.K.: Oxford University Press, 1985.
> Gwynne, Rosalind W. “Al-Jubba’i, al-Ash
ari and the Three
> Brothers: The Uses of Fiction.” The Muslim World 75, no.
> 3–4 (1985): 132–161.
> Ousmane Kane
> Makdisi, George. “Ash
ari and the Ash
arites in Islamic Religious History.” Studia Islamica 17 (1962): 37–80.
> Makdisi, George. “Ash
ari and the Ash
arites in Islamic Relig-   ASNAM
> ious History.” Studia Islamica 18 (1963): 19–39.
> Nakamura, Kojiro. “Was Ghazali an Ash’arite.” In Memoirs of      Asnam is the Arabic word for “idols” (sing., sanam). The
> the Research Department of the Toyo Bunko. Tokyo: The          origin of the term is found in the Semitic root S.L.M. (by a
> Oriental Library, 1993.                                        shift of l into n), which denotes “image.” Hence, the Arabic
> Watt, W. Montgomery. The Formative Period of Islamic Thought.    sanam is basically the corporeal image of the deity.
> Oxford, U.K.: Oneworld Press, 1998.
> The term asnam occurs in the Quran, and in all instances
> Watt, W. Montgomery. “al-Ash
ariyya.” In Vol. 1, Encyclopebut one it refers to the idols worshiped by Abraham’s pagan
> dia of Islam. 2d ed. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1999.
> adversaries (6:74; 21:57; 26:71). Twice the idols worshiped by
> the latter are called awthan (sing., wathan; see 29:17, 25).
> M. Sait Özervarli
> Abraham’s contemporaries worship the asnam/awthan “apart
> from” (min duni) God, which means that belief in these idols
> represents what the Quran labels elsewhere as shirk (“asso-
> ASKIYA MUHAMMAD                                                  ciation”), that is, worshiping deities that are considered God’s
> associates. Three of God’s “associates” are mentioned by
> (R. 1493–1529)                                                   name in another Quranic passage (53:19–23): Allat, Manat,
> and al-
Uzza. The Quran sets out to deny that they were
> The ruler of the Songhai Empire between 1493 and 1529,
> God’s daughters, a typical element of shirk, and denounces
> Muhammad b. Abi Bakr Ture is also known as Askiya al-Hajj
> them as sheer names. In yet another Quranic passage (71:23),
> Muhammad, or Askiya Muhammad. His origins are debated.
> five “gods” (aliha) worshiped by Noah’s contemporaries are
> According to the two Tawarikh, or “histories” (Tarikh almentioned by name.
> Sudan and Tarikh al-Fattash), he belonged either to the Ture
> or the Sylla clan of the Soninke. Because they were associated       In extra-Quranic sources, the dichotomy between the
> with trade, the Soninke were one of the earliest groups to       worship of the asnam and the monotheistic legacy of Ibrahim,
> convert to Islam south of the Sahara. Askiya al-Hajj Muham-      the founder of the Ka
ba in Mecca, is retained. The traditions
> mad overthrew the dynasty of the Sunni in 1493, and estab-       say that when Mecca became too small for the descendants of
> lished the dynasty known as the Askiya who ruled the Songhai     Abraham and Ishmael, they looked for dwellings outside
> Empire from 1493 until the Moroccan invasion of the Songhai      Mecca, taking with them stones from the homeland, which
> in 1591. Unlike his predecessor, Sunni 
Ali, Askiya Muham-       they cherished and turned into idols. Nevertheless, according
> mad was said to be a pious Muslim, and very supportive of        to these sources even far away from Mecca they preserved
> Muslim scholars in Timbuctu, and other parts of Songhai. In      many of Abraham’s values, such as the rites of the pilgrimage
> 1496, Askiya Muhammad set off for the pilgrimage to Mecca.       to Mecca, but they contaminated them with various elements
> On his way to Mecca, he visited Egypt, and was appointed by      of shirk. The shrines of some of these idols are said to have
> the Abbassid caliph al-Mutwakkil as his deputy to rule Songhai   been built on the model of the Ka
ba, and sometimes were
> in his name. Askiya al-Hajj Muhammad consulted two major         even called “Ka
ba.”
> Muslim scholars on how to rule Songhai according to the
> shari
a. One of them was 
Abd al-Karim al-Maghili (d. 1503          Conversely, idolatry is said to have been imported into
> or 1504), and the other was Jalal al-din al-Suyuti (d. 1505).    Arabia from outside by one 
Amr b. Luhayy of the tribe of
> Askiya Muhammad extended the Songhai Empire to include           Khuza
a, who ruled in Mecca before the advent of Quraysh.
> tributary lands to the east, west, and north. No further         He is said to have imported idols mainly from Syria. Among
> 
> 84                                                                                           Islam and the Muslim World
> Assassins
> 
> them the five idols of Noah’s time are mentioned. The                 Frankish ruling circles in the Near East. The Syrian Nizaris
> establishment of the worship of Hubal at the Ka
ba is also           permanently lost their political prominence when they were
> attributed to this 
Amr. Names of numerous additional asnam          subdued by the Mamluks in the early 1270s.
> are mentioned in the sources with details about the tribes who
> worshiped them.                                                          The Nizaris and the Crusaders had numerous military
> encounters in Syria from the opening decade of the twelfth
> Of the three “daughters” of God, Manat is said to have            century. But it was in Sinan’s time (1163–1193) that the
> been the first to be introduced in Arabia, then Allat, then al-       Crusaders and their occidental observers became particularly
> 
Uzza. Manat’s shrine was in Qudayd (near Mecca, on the              impressed by the highly exaggerated reports and widespread
> Red Sea shore), Allat’s in al-Taif, and al-
Uzza’s in Nakhla.       rumours about the Nizari assassinations and the daring be-
> Pilgrims brought votive gifts to the shrines and sacrificial          havior of their fidais, or devotees, who carried out suicide
> slaughter took place on special stones (nusub) there.                missions against their community’s enemies in public places.
> The Nizari Isma
ilis became infamous in Europe as “the
> Apart from the collective idols, some traditions speak
> Assassins.” This term, which appears in medieval European
> about domestic asnam whose carved wooden images were
> literature in a variety of forms (Assassini, Assissini, and
> held in each family household (dar) in Mecca. There are also
> Heyssisini), was evidently based on variants of the Arabic
> reports about similar tribal and domestic idols in pre-Islamic
> word hashishi (plural, hashishiyya or hashishin), which was
> Medina. The shrines of the main idols as well as the domestic
> applied pejoratively to the Nizaris of Syria and Iran by other
> images were reportedly destroyed in Muhammad’s days,
> Muslims. The term was used in the sense of “low-class
> following the spread of Islam in Arabia.
> rabble” or “people of lax morality” without claiming any
> Modern scholars have doubted the historicity of the no-          special connection between the Nizaris and hashish, a prodtion of Arabian idolatry being a deformed version of an initial      uct of hemp. This term of abuse was picked up locally in Syria
> Ibrahimic monotheism centered on the Ka
ba, and have                 by the Crusaders as well as by other European travelers and
> rejected it as reflecting Quranic and Islamic concepts pro-          emissaries and was adopted to designate the Nizari Isma
ilis.
> jected back into remote pre-Islamic phases of history. On the
> other hand, other Islamicists noted the possibility that Ibrahim’s       Medieval Europeans, and especially the Crusaders, who
> image as a monotheistic prototype could have been known              remained generally ignorant of Islam and its divisions, were
> already in pre-Islamic Arabia.                                       also responsible for fabricating and disseminating, in the
> Latin Orient as well as in Europe, a number of intercon-
> See also Allah; Shirk.                                               nected legends about the secret practices of the Nizaris,
> including the “hashish legend.” It held that as part of their
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                         training this intoxicating drug was systematically adminis-
> Hawting, G. R. The Idea of Idolatry and the Emergence of Islam:      tered to the fidais by their beguiling chief, the “Old Man of
> From Polemic to History. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge                the Mountain.” The so-called Assassin legends revolved
> University Press, 1999.                                            around the recruitment and training of the Nizari fidais,
> Lecker, Michael. “Idol Worship in Pre-Islamic Medina                 who had attracted the Europeans’ attention. These legends
> (Yathrib).” Le Muséon 106 (1993): 331–346.                         developed in stages and culminated in a synthesized version
> Rubin, Uri. “The Ka
ba—Aspects of Its Ritual Functions.”             popularized by Marco Polo, who applied the legends to the
> Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 8: 97–131.                   Iranian Nizaris and created the “secret garden of paradise,”
> where the fidais supposedly received part of their indoctrina-
> Uri Rubin      tion. Henceforth, the Nizari Isma
ilis were portrayed in
> European sources as a sinister order of drugged assassins bent
> on senseless murder and mischief.
> 
> ASSASSINS                                                                Subsequently, Westerners retained the name Assassin in
> general reference to the Nizari Isma
ilis, even though the
> Assassins was a name originally applied by the Crusaders and         term had now become in European languages a new common
> other medieval Europeans, starting in the twelfth century, to        noun meaning a professional murderer, although its etymolthe Nizari Isma
ilis of Syria. Under the initial leadership of       ogy had been forgotten. Silvestre de Sacy (1758–1838) finally
> Hasan Sabbah (d. 1124), the Nizaris founded a state centered         succeeded in solving the mystery of the name Assassin and its
> at the stronghold of Alamut, in northern Iran, with a subsidi-       etymology, but he and other orientalists subscribed variously
> ary in Syria. The Nizari state in Iran was destroyed by the          to the Assassin legends. Modern scholarship in Isma
ili stud-
> Mongols in 1256. In Syria the Nizaris reached the peak of            ies, based on genuine Isma
ili sources, has now deconstructed
> their power and glory under Rashid al-Din Sinan (d. 1193),           the Assassin legends revealing their fanciful nature and also
> the original “Old Man of the Mountain” of the Crusaders,             showing that the name Assassin is a misnomer rooted in a
> who had extended dealings with the Crusaders and their               doubly pejorative appellation without basis in any communal
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                      85
> Astrology
> 
> or organized use of hashish by the Nizari Isma
ilis or their         the launching of military campaigns. Another popular form
> fidais, Shi
ite Muslims who were deeply devoted to their             of astrological prediction was mawalid (nativities), which
> community.                                                           involves charting the horoscopes of the beginnings of both
> personal and collective occurrences, including the birth of
> See also Crusades; Shia: Ismaili.                                  individuals, as well as the birth of prophets, historical leaders,
> religions, and nations. The classic work of Arabic astrology is
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                         Abu Ma
shar al-Balkhi’s (d. 886) Kitab al-madkhal al-kabir
> Daftary, Farhad. The Assassin Legends: Myths of the Isma
ilis.       (The great introduction).
> London: I. B. Tauris and Co., 1994.
> Yet, although astrology continued to have appeal within
> Lewis, Bernard. The Assassins: A Radical Sect in Islam. London:      the elite political culture and in popular practice, the larger,
> Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1967.                                     socially based religious culture vehemently opposed it. Moreover, while many astronomers served as court astrologers,
> Farhad Daftary       many more condemned astrology and distanced themselves
> from it. Most of these astronomers did not treat astrology as a
> valid scientific discipline, and went out of their way to
> distance their exact science from it. Despite its continued
> ASTROLOGY                                                            practice, a clear line was drawn between astrology and astronomy. Thus, of the hundreds of Arabic works dealing with the
> Despite consistent critiques of astrology by Muslim scientists       sciences of the stars, the vast majority are on astronomy,
> and religious scholars, astrological prognostications required       while only a small portion of this legacy relates to astrological
> a fair amount of exact scientific knowledge, and thus gave            subjects.
> partial incentive for the study and development of astronomy.
> See also Astronomy; Science, Islam and.
> In the early Arabic sources, the term 
ilm al-nujum was used to
> refer to both astronomy and astrology. Soon after, however,
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> astronomy was unambiguously differentiated from astrology,
> and a clear terminological and conceptual distinction was            Kennedy, E. S., and Pingree, David. The Astrological History
> of Mashaallah. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
> made between the two sciences. The titles 
ilm al-falak (the
> Press, 1971.
> science of the celestial orb) and ilm al-haya (the science of the
> configuration of heavens) were used to refer to the exact             Pingree, David. The Thousands of Abu Ma
shar. London: The
> Warburg Institute, 1968.
> science of astronomy, while 
ilm ahkam al-nujum (judicial
> astrology), or simply 
ilm al-nujum (the science of the stars),      Saliba, George. “Astronomy, Astrology, Islamic.” In Vol. 1,
> referred exclusively to astrology. Both fields were rooted in            Dictionary of the Middle Ages. Edited by J. R. Strayer. New
> York: Scribners, 1978.
> the Greek, Persian, and Indian traditions, and were cultivated
> for many centuries in Muslim societies. In all of these earlier
> Ahmad S. Dallal
> traditions, interest in the science of astronomy has been
> closely connected to astrology.
> 
> The connection between astronomy and astrology in the            ASTRONOMY
> inherited scientific legacies was founded on the idea of a
> correlation between stellar configurations and events in the          Before Islam, Arab knowledge of the stars was limited to the
> sub-lunar world. Thus, for example, the same cosmology               division of the year into precise periods on the basis of star
> underlying Ptolemy’s Almagest—the most influential Greek              risings and settings. This area of astronomical knowledge was
> astronomical work—provided the theoretical foundations of            known as anwa, and it was largely overshadowed by the
> the Tetrabiblos, an influential astrological work by the same         traditions of Arabic mathematical astronomy that emerged in
> author. In Muslim societies, astrology continued to be prac-         the Islamic period. From its beginnings in the ninth and
> ticed and to draw on and encourage astronomical knowledge,           through the sixteenth centuries, astronomical activity in the
> and a good portion of the funding for astronomical research          Muslim world was widespread and intensive. The first astrowas motivated by the desire to make astrological predictions.        nomical texts that were translated into Arabic in the eighth
> A number of observatories were funded and founded for the            century were of Indian and Persian origin. The earliest extant
> professed objective of conducting observations that could be         Arabic astronomical texts date to the second half of the eighth
> used in astrological computation. Astrology was also com-            century and were influenced by the Indian and Persian
> monly practiced in courts. In particular, one such form of           traditions. However, the greatest formative influence on
> court astrology was iktiyarat—a branch of astrology that             Arabic astronomy is undoubtedly Greek, on account of the
> aimed at determining the optimal astrological conditions for         use in Greek astronomy of effective geometrical representainitiating large undertakings, such as the building of cities or     tions. The Almagest of Ptolemy (second century C.E.), in
> 
> 86                                                                                                Islam and the Muslim World
> Astronomy
> 
> particular, exerted a disproportionate influence on all of
> medieval astronomy through the whole of the Arabic period
> and until the eventual demise of the geocentric astronomical
> system. However, at the same time the first Arabic translation
> of this text were prepared, original work of Arabic astronomy
> was also produced. Thus, original astronomical research went
> hand in hand with translation and, from its very beginnings in
> the ninth century, Arabic astronomy attempted to revise,
> refine, and complement Ptolemaic astronomy, rather than
> simply reproduce it.
> 
> In its earlier stages, Arabic astronomy reworked and
> critically examined the observations and the computational
> methods of Greek astronomy and, in a limited way, was able
> to explore problems outside its set frame. Arabic astronomy
> witnessed further developments in the tenth and eleventh
> centuries as a result of systematic astronomical research as
> well as developments in other branches of the mathematical
> sciences. In this period, steps were also taken toward the
> establishment of large-scale observatories. Subsequently, several programs of astronomical observations involved the
> establishment of observatories in institutional setups where
> collective programs of astronomical research were executed.
> Advances in trigonometry resulting from the full integration
> of the Indian achievements in the field, as well as from new
> discoveries in the tenth and eleventh centuries, played a          The Great Bear, from a seventeenth-century Persian manuscript
> of the constellations, after the tenth-century Book of Stars by alcentral role in the further development of Arabic astronomy.
> Husayn. ART ARCHIVE/NATIONAL LIBRARY OF CAIRO/DAGLI ORTI
> As a great synthesis of the Greek, Indian, and Arabic astronomical traditions, the al-Qanun al-Mas
udi of the illustrious
> astronomer al-Biruni (973–c. 1048) represents the culmination of this first stage in the development of Arabic astronomy.    direction of one locality with respect to another, a problem
> that requires determining the longitudes and latitudes of
> Following its systematic mathematization, the rethinking       these localities as well as other aspects of mathematical
> of the theoretical framework of astronomy was further devel-       geography. The “Islamic” problems, on the other hand, were
> oped after the eleventh century, leading to a thorough evalua-     problems related to Islamic worship such as determining the
> tion of its physical and philosophical underpinnings. One of       times of prayer, the time of sunrise and sunset in relation to
> the main objectives of this reform tradition was to come up        fasting, the direction of the qibla (the direction of the Ka
ba in
> with models in which the motions of the planets could be           Mecca, which Muslims have to face during prayer), crescent
> generated as a result of combinations of uniform circular          visibility in connection with the determination of the beginmotions, while at the same time conforming to the accurate         ning of the lunar month, and calendar computations. The
> Ptolemaic observations. The Ptolemaic models were consid-          methods employed to solve these problems varied from
> ered defective because they posited physically impossible          simple approximative techniques to complex mathematimodels in which spheres rotate uniformly around axes that do       cal ones.
> not pass through their centers. The reform tradition continued well into the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and the list       Problems like the determination of the direction of the
> of astronomers working within it comprises some of the             qibla and the times of prayer also gave a great impetus to the
> greatest and most original Muslim scientists. The work             science and art of instrument building. Astrolabes, quadrants,
> produced within this tradition had a formative influence on         compass boxes, and cartographic grids of varying degrees of
> the work of Copernicus.                                            sophistication were designed and introduced to solve some of
> these problems. Many of these same instruments were also
> In addition to theoretical astronomy, practical astronomi-     used for other astronomical observations and computations;
> cal problems occupied a great many astronomers who were            the most important of these is the astrolabe, which was a
> responsible for significant advances in the field. Some of           versatile medieval observational instrument and calculator.
> these problems had a specific Islamic character, whereas            Extensive tables were also compiled in connection with time
> others had to do with the general practical needs of society.      keeping, finding the direction of the qibla, and other astro-
> The general kind includes such problems as finding the              nomical functions.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                        87
> 
Atabat
> 
> See also Astrology; Biruni, al-; Hijri Calendar; Science,          persecution for those Iranian Shi
ite scholars of the Qajar and
> Islam and; Translation.                                            the early Pahlevi periods who have spoken out against the
> ruling establishment at home. Ayatollah Khomeini, the leader
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                       of the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran, was exiled to the 
atabat
> (Najaf) by Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlevi in 1963. In turn,
> King, David. Astronomy in the Service of Islam. Aldershot,
> after the success of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, those
> Hampshire, U.K.: Variorum, 1993.
> clerics opposed to the religious and political stance of the
> Rashed, Roshdi, ed., in collaboration with Morelon, Régis.
> ruling hierarchy of the Islamic Republic have used the 
atabat
> Encyclopedia of the History of Arabic Science, Vol. 1:
> as relatively secure bases from which to continue their doctri-
> Astronomy—Theoretical and Applied. London and New York:
> Routledge, 1996.                                                nal warfare against the religious establishment in Iran. However, it must also be borne in mind that since the 1980s, the
> Saliba, George. A History of Arabic Astronomy: Planetary Theo-
> Shi
ite community and religious leaders resident in the 
atabat
> ries During the Golden Age of Islam. New York: New York
> were themselves targeted by the Ba
thist government of
> University Press, 1994.
> former President Saddam Husayn in Iraq. Minority leaders,
> Samso, Julio. Islamic Astronomy and Medieval Spain. Aldershot,     the ulema of the 
atabat, especially of Najaf and Karbala, have
> Hampshire, U.K.: Variorum Reprints, 1994.
> been subjected to numerous incarcerations and assassinations, intensified in the wake of the first Gulf War (1991).
> Ahmad S. Dallal
> Another important feature in the social fabric of the
> 
atabat, directly related to their centrality in settling doctrinal
> orthodoxy and implementing political agendas, is the vast
> 
ATABAT                                                            network of patronage and the nature of finances in the shrine
> cities. These networks are comprised mainly of donations and
> 
Atabat, or exalted thresholds, are the Shi
ite shrine cities      religious dues provided by the Shi
ite communities worldlocated in modern Iraq. The 
atabat contain the tombs of six       wide, with significant portions from the merchant classes of
> of the Shi
ite imams as well as other pilgrimage sites. The        northern India, to the maraji
 al-taqlid who reside there.
> 
atabat are located in Najaf, Karbala, Kazamayn, and Samarra.
> Najaf is the burial place of 
Ali b. Abi Talib, cousin and son-    See also Holy Cities; Mashhad.
> in-law of the prophet Muhammad, and first in the line of
> Shi
ite imams, who died in 661 C.E. Karbala is where Husayn,       BIBLIOGRAPHY
> 
Ali’s son and the third imam, was martyred in a battle against    Cole, Juan R. I. “Indian Money and the Shii Shrine Cities of
> the Umayyads (r. 661–750 C.E.) in 680 C.E. It is a cornerstone       Iraq, 1186–1950.” Middle Eastern Studies 22 (1986): 461–480.
> of Shi
ite belief that Husayn, courageous and principled,
> Litvak, Meir. Shi
i Scholars of Nineteenth-Century Iraq, The
> went to battle against all odds, and his demise prefigures and         
Ulama of Najaf and Karbala. Cambridge, U.K.: Camembodies the fate of all those who take an active stand against       bridge University Press, 1986.
> oppression and injustice. The site of Husayn’s martyrdom
> had emerged as a Muslim holy site by the middle of the
> Neguin Yavari
> seventh century. Kazamayn entered the sacred landscape of
> Shi
ism in the ninth century, as the burial site of the seventh
> and ninth imams, Musa al-Kazim (d. 802 C.E.) and Mohammad al-Taqi (d. 834 C.E.). Kazamayn is also the burial site of
> ATATURK, MUSTAFA KEMAL
> many a medieval Shi
ite luminary. Samarra, which lies at a
> distance from the rest of the 
atabat, contains the tombs of the
> (1881–1938)
> tenth and eleventh imams, Ali al-Naqi (d. 868 C.E.) and Hasan
> al-
Askari (d. 873 C.E.). The twelfth imam entered occultation     Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk) was born in 1881 into a family of
> in Samarra in 941 C.E.                                             modest means in Salonica, then an Ottoman port city in what
> is today a city in Greece. He died in Istanbul on 10 November
> The 
atabat are also significant as centers of Shi
ite learn-    1938. His father, 
Ali Riza Bey, was a progressive person and
> ing. Najaf has housed, since the time of the Shaykh al-Taifa      worked at the customs house. His mother, Zubeyde Hanim,
> Abu Ja
far Muhammad Tusi in the eleventh century, several          was a devout Muslim who instilled Islamic values in young
> educational institutions whose scholarly and financial net-         Mustafa. Only seven years old at the death of his father, he
> works have played an important role in determining intellec-       was raised by his mother and completed his early education at
> tual and political trends in modern Shi
ism.                       local schools. In 1893 he began his studies at a military
> secondary school where his teacher gave him his second
> Under Ottoman and later under Iraqi control, the 
atabat        name, Kemal (perfection), owing to Mustafa’s outstanding
> have served in recent history as havens against government         performance in mathematics. Two years later he attended the
> 
> 88                                                                                              Islam and the Muslim World
> Ataturk, Mustafa Kemal
> 
> military academy in Manastir and later entered the War
> Academy. He graduated in 1905 with the rank of staff captain,
> and in 1906 was assigned to the Fifth Army in Damascus. In
> 1907 his duties took him to Macedonia where he established
> connections with the Young Turks. He participated in the
> defense of Tripolitania at Tobruk and Derna against the
> Italian invasion (1911–1912), was appointed as a military
> attaché to Sophia, and returned to Istanbul to distinguish
> himself at the Dardanelles in 1915. During World War I, he
> served on various fronts such as the Caucasus, Palestine,
> and Aleppo.
> 
> Rejecting the Mudros Armistice (30 October 1918), which
> the Allied powers had imposed on the Ottomans, Mustafa
> Kemal moved on to Anatolia in May 1919 to begin his
> nationalist struggle against the invasion and partition of the
> country. That same year, at the congresses of Erzurum (23
> July) and Sivas (4 September), he defined the nationalist
> demands and goals for independence. It was during this
> period that he molded various regional paramilitary defense
> associations into a nationalist army. On 23 April 1920, he
> established the Great National Assembly in Ankara, claiming
> exclusive legitimacy in representing the Turkish interests. He
> was unanimously elected the first president of the assembly.
> During the War of Independence, Mustafa Kemal served as
> the commander in chief of the armed forces.                       Mustafa Kemal, known as Ataturk (1880–1930), was elected as
> Turkey’s first president. He transformed Turkey from a traditional
> society into a modern one by secularizing previously Islamic
> The Armistice of Mudanya (11 October 1922) sealed the          institutions and laws. © HULTON-DEUTSCH COLLECTION/CORBIS
> victory of the Turkish forces. Within days, the assembly
> abolished the sultanate (1 November 1922), though leaving
> the caliphate in the Ottoman House. The Lausanne Confer-          Turks to look to the future. The passage, in 1934, of a law
> ence (November 1922–July 1923) recognized Turkey’s full           requiring Turks to use family names further underscored this
> independence and defined its borders. On 23 October 1923,          trend; indeed, Mustafa Kemal’s own surname of Ataturk
> the Second Grand National Assembly, controlled by Halk            (Father of Turks) was bestowed upon him by the National
> Firkasi (People’s Party, later Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi—           Assembly. In the same year, women were given the right to
> Republican People’s Party) proclaimed the republic and            vote. In foreign policy, Turkey followed Mustafa Kemal’s
> elected Mustafa Kemal its first president. Thus a six hundred-     dictum: “Peace at Home, Peace in the World.”
> year-old political tradition was brushed aside, and sovereignty placed directly in the hands of the people.                    Mustafa Kemal’s reforms were revolutionary. The policies of his Republican People’s Party were expressed in six
> The early years of the republic witnessed fundamental          principles: republicanism, nationalism, populism, etatism,
> political and social changes. Determined to modernize and         secularism, and revolutionism. Within these principles Tursecularize his country, and intent upon breaking away from        key was transformed from a traditional society into a modern
> the past, the assembly, under Mustafa Kemal’s guidance,           nation state. Secularism received particular attention. The
> passed a number of laws that brought revolutionary changes.       Kemalist regime relentlessly pursued secularist policies and
> In 1924, the same year that the caliphate was abolished, the      dismantled the Islamic institutions. In view of the founder of
> Ministry of Seriat (Islamic law) was dismantled and replaced      the new Turkish Republic, centuries-old Islamic institutions
> by the Ministry of Justice. In 1925, the Gregorian Calendar       and laws could not sufficiently serve the needs of a modern
> replaced the Islamic one, and the fez, which had come to          society. Mustafa Kemal believed that Islam would be best
> symbolize Islamic headgear, was banned. The wearing of the        served if it were confined to belief and worship rather than
> veil by women was strongly discouraged. The dervish (Sufi)         brought into the affairs of the state. In his address to the
> orders were dissolved. The adoption of Swiss Civil Code in        nation on the tenth anniversary of the Turkish Republic in
> 1926 completely negated the Islamic laws of marriage, di-         1933, he promised further progress and asked Turks to
> vorce, and inheritance that had been in practice for centuries.   “judge time not according to the lax mentality of past centu-
> The replacement of the Arabic script with the Latin script in     ries, but in terms of the concepts of speed and movement of
> 1928 closed the door to the Ottoman past, and compelled the       our century.”
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                      89
> Awami League
> 
> See also Nationalism: Turkish; Revolution: Modern;                    The desperate economic situation plaguing East Pakistan
> Secularism, Islamic; Young Turks.                                  fostered the belief among its inhabitants that their province
> was being treated as a colony instead of as an equal partner in
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                       the burgeoning nation. Although East Pakistan experienced
> significant economic growth, the province reaped little of the
> Mango, Andrew. Ataturk. Woodstock, N.Y.: Overlook, 2000.
> pecuniary benefits with most of the national expenditures
> Walker, Barbara, et al. To Set Them Free: The Early Years of       directed toward West Pakistan. Furthermore, few Bengalis
> Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. Grantham, N.H.: Tompson and               held important positions in the administration with even
> Rutter, 1981.
> fewer represented in the military. These escalating tensions
> precipitated the unprecedented move of a splinter group,
> A. Uner Turgay       consisting of East Pakistani politicians, to create a new
> political party to achieve the common goals of the Bengali
> population.
> 
> AWAMI LEAGUE                                                          In 1949 Husain Shaheed Suhrawardy, Ataur Rahman,
> Maulana Bashani, Shamsul Huq, and Shaykh Mujibur Rahman
> The Awami (People’s) League was founded by Husain Shaheed          co-founded the Awami Muslim league. It was the first party
> Suhrawardy in June 1949 in the East Bengal (renamed East           truly to provide alternate representation for the people of
> Pakistan in 1955) province of Pakistan. H. S. Suhrawardy           East Pakistan. In the late 1950s it changed its name to the
> gathered senior members of the Muslim League whose power           Awami League, welcoming non-Muslims into its fold, thus
> had diminished in their own party and young, ambitious             marking a significant shift toward secularism. By 1956 the
> politicians who were opposed to communalism in Pakistan.           Awami League was the most popular party in East Pakistan
> Both groups, however, were united in the belief that the           and became the Muslim League’s main contender for power.
> Muslim League, which spearheaded Pakistan’s independence
> From 1958 to 1971 Pakistan was reduced to an adminismovement, no longer represented the needs of the majority
> trative state with four years of martial law and a diminished
> of the populace.
> role for its fledgling political parties. In February of 1966
> Shaykh Mujibur Rahman, the dominant figure in the Awami
> In 1949, though barely two years old, Pakistan was already
> League, presented the “Six Point Demand” to the other
> plagued by economic, political, and social disparities between
> political parties desiring to work collectively to oust the West
> its two major regional wings. This strife was further com-
> Pakistani government of Muhammad Ayub Khan. The deplicated by the geographical complexity consisting of the
> mands called for separate but equal federation of powers
> four provinces in the west (Northwest Frontier Province,
> between East and West Pakistan, governed by a parliament
> Baluchistan, Punjab, and Sindh) with East Bengal in the east,
> elected on the basis of one person/one vote throughout both
> which was separated by approximately one thousand miles of
> parts of Pakistan. Gaining the support of the Awami League
> India. Some of the first signs of hostilities between East and
> was equivalent to gaining the support of East Pakistan, but
> West Pakistan arose as early as 1948 when Muhammad 
Ali
> Mujib was only willing to put the Awami League’s support
> Jinnah, the central architect of the creation of Pakistan,
> behind the coalition if the coalition from West Pakistan was
> visited the eastern province and proceeded to criticize Bengalis
> willing to support his “Six Point Demand” (see Mujibur,
> for not learning Urdu, the lingua franca of West Pakistan.
> Appendix 2, pp. 127–128).
> Tensions in the regions continued to escalate and in 1952
> student efforts to make Bengali a recognized national lan-            For the Bengalis the “Six Point Demand” clearly and
> guage led to violent clashes with the police resulting in the      concisely reflected goals that would balance powers between
> deaths of four Dhaka University students. This tragic event        the two regions and place Bengalis on an equal footing with
> further intensified the cultural divide that haunted this           their brethren in the western province. Consequently, this
> young nation.                                                      “Six Point Demand” consolidated Bengali support for the
> Awami League. However, it was simultaneously viewed by
> The people of West Pakistan generally associated the            those in West Pakistan as a document that would work
> Bengali language with a Hindu India and, therefore, believed       against the tenets laid out in the creation of a united Pakistan.
> that Bengalis should be obligated to learn Urdu, a language
> clearly associated with Islam. Furthermore, West Pakistani             In Pakistan’s first general election in December 1970 the
> officials deemed Bengali to be closely aligned with pro-Indian      Awami League won 167 of the 169 National Assembly seats
> sentiment, which was highly unpopular in West Pakistan.            allotted to East Pakistan. This landslide victory was due in
> This fear and suspicion of Bengali Muslims contributed to          part to other parties boycotting the elections. In West Paki-
> West Pakistan’s refusal to cede many of the demands of             stan, Zulfiqar Ali Khan Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party won
> Bengali Muslims. They therefore resisted efforts to recognize      83 of the 131 seats allotted to that province. With this Awami
> Bengali as a national language until 1954.                         League victory, the National Assembly should have been able
> 
> 90                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Awami League
> 
> forward economically or democratically. Less than a year
> after independence, Shaykh Mujib was accused of being
> ineffectual—a criticism which further contributed to his
> decision to limit the Bangladeshi multiparty system. Further
> leading to Mujib’s downfall was the famine of 1974. In
> January 1975 the constitution was amended to make Mujib
> president for five years, giving him full executive authority. A
> few months later he created the Bangladesh Krishak Sramik
> Awami League (BAKSAL, Bangladesh Farmers, Workers,
> and People’s League) while simultaneously outlawing all
> other political parties. He then created a paramilitary force
> called the Rakhi Bahini, which was known for its intimidation
> tactics.
> 
> Under Mujib’s rule, the Awami League faltered in meeting its goals and consequently lost its popularity with the
> people. However, after Mujib’s death, Bangladesh experienced a number of military coups and counter-coups, resulting in a resurgence of the Awami League’s popularity in the
> 1980s. Consequently, in June 1996 the League won an overall
> majority in the Parliament with Shaykh Hasina Wajid, daughter
> of Shaykh Mujib, sworn in as prime minister. During her
> tenure in office, Wajid had sought to prosecute her father’s
> killers and attempted to put forward a pro-democracy platform and pro-socialist economy that encouraged a private
> sector. Consequently, the League’s rivals often accused it of
> being too pro-India and secular.
> 
> In 1977 Ziaur Rahman, one of Bangladesh’s most-decorated
> major generals during the war for independence, became
> Chief Martial Law Administrator and president of Bangladesh
> from 1977 until his assassination in May 1981. He was also
> In Dhaka, Bangladesh, activists for the Awami League, one of the
> country’s two dominant political parties, shout anti-government       the founder of the Bangladesh National Party (BNP). In his
> slogans, protesting the removal of portraits of Shaykh Mujibar        first year in office Ziaur Rahman amended the constitution,
> Rahman, Bangladesh’s independence hero and a founder of the           created by the Awami League government in 1972, to make
> Awami League. In addition to the Awami’s rival party, the BNP,
> Islam, and not secularism, one of its guiding principles, a
> there are more than twenty smaller political parties in Bangladesh.
> AP/WIDE WORLD PHOTOS                                                  move that ushered in an era of warmer relations between
> Bangladesh and Pakistan. Today, there are currently more
> than twenty political parties in Bangladesh with varying
> to push through the “Six Point Demand” swiftly. Instead,              platforms emphasizing communism, secularism, and Islamic
> General Yahya Khan (who served as martial law administra-             interests. However, the Awami League, and its main rival, the
> tor from 25 March 1969 until 20 December 1971) postponed              BNP, continue to dominate national politics. The BNP, led
> the convening of the National Assembly. This led to an                by Khaleda Zia, widow of Ziaur Rahman, runs on a platform
> outbreak of violence, the arrest of Shaykh Mujib on charges           that favors democracy and is more oriented toward Islam. As
> of treason, and the eventual war for independence resulting in        this young nation strives to develop its political system, the
> Bangladesh’s declaration of independence on 16 Decem-                 question of whether the state should be secular or Islamic
> ber 1971.                                                             continues to dictate political discourse.
> 
> Shaykh Mujib, also known as Bangabandhu (“Friend of               See also Pakistan, Islamic Republic of; South Asia,
> Bengal”), ruled Bangladesh as its first prime minister until his       Islam in.
> assassination on 15 August 1975. He is remembered as a great
> charismatic leader successful in creating the ideological base        BIBLIOGRAPHY
> that united and defined a nation. The constitution of                  Ahamed, Emajuddin. Bangladesh Politics. Dhaka: Centre for
> Bangladesh was framed upon Shaykh Mujib’s four principles               Social Studies, 1980.
> of democracy, socialism, secularism, and nationalism. Yet             Baxter, Craig. Bangladesh. Boulder, Colo.: Westview
> after independence he was unable to move the country                    Press, 1980.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                        91
> Ayatollah
> 
> Baxter, Craig. Bangladesh: A New Nation in an Old Setting.          Muntazeri in Iran) have lost their status after serious disputes
> Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1984.                            with supposedly higher-ranking Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
> Khan, Mohmmad Mohabbat, and Thorp, John P., eds.
> Bangladesh: Society, Politics & Bureaucracy. Dacca,               See also Hojjat al-Islam; Khomeini, Ruhollah; Marja
> Bangladesh: Center for Administrative Studies, 1984.              al-Taqlid; Shia: Imami (Twelver).
> Maniruzzaman, Talukdar. “Bangladesh Politics: Secular and
> Islamic Trends.” In Islam in Bangladesh: Society, Culture         BIBLIOGRAPHY
> and Politics. Edited by Rafiuddin Ahmed. Dacca: Bangladesh         Mottahedeh, Roy. The Mantle of the Prophet: Religion and
> Itihas Samiti, 1983.                                                Politics in Iran. London: Chatto and Windus, 1986.
> Mascarenhas, Anthony. Bangladesh: A Legacy of Blood. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1986.                                                                                   Robert Gleave
> Mujibur Rahman, Sheikh. Bangladesh, My Bangladesh: Selected
> Speeches and Statements. Edited by Ramendu Majumdar.
> New Delhi: Orient Longman, 1972.
> Sisson, Richard, and Rose, Leo E. War and Secession: Pakistan,      AZHAR, AL-
> India and the Creation of Bangladesh. Berkeley: University
> of California Press, 1990.                                       Al-Azhar is a mosque and a university founded in Cairo by the
> Ziring, Lawrence. Bangladesh: From Mujib to Ershad. An              Fatimid Isma
ili imam and caliph al-Mu
izz li-Din Allah (d.
> Interpretive Study. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.     975). Today it is the most important religious university in
> the Muslim world, and it is one of the oldest universities ever
> Sufia Uddin       founded for both religious and secular studies. After the
> conquest of Egypt (969), Jawhar al-Siqilli founded al-Qahira
> (Cairo), where he built the mosque that was first known as
> jami
 al-Qahira (the mosque of Cairo). The mosque was
> AYATOLLAH (AR. AYATULLAH)                                           completed in nearly two years and first opened its doors in
> 972. It had one minaret and occupied half the area of the
> The term ayatollah (Ar. ayatullah), literally “Sign of God,”        present day al-Azhar mosque. Since then, it has become one
> refers to high-ranking scholars within the Twelver Shi
ite          of the most well known mosques in the Muslim world. Its
> tradition. The term emerged in the early modern period (late        name is an allusion to Zahra (The Radiant), a title given to
> 19th century) to describe the elite of the Shi
ite scholarly        Fatima, the daughter of prophet Muhammad. Al-Azhar becommunity. In modern works, many early Shi
ite scholars             gan to acquire its academic and scholastic nature in 975,
> were anachronistically given the rank of ayatollah. Ayatollahs      during the reign of al-Mu
izz when the Qadi Abu ’l-Hasan
> are nearly always experts in Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh), and       
Ali ibn al-Nu
man al-Qayrawani sat in the court of al-Azhar
> are normally required to have written extensively in this area.     and read the Kitab al-iqtisar (a work of Shi
ite jurisprudence,
> The requirements for qualification as an ayatollah are not           or fiqh), written by his father, Abu Hanifa al-Nu
man. Alentirely clear in traditional descriptions of the Shi
ite hierar-   Nu
man’s family formed the intellectual elite of the Fatimids
> chy, though the rank of ijtihad and associated qualifications of     and became the first teacher in al-Azhar.
> learning are often mentioned. Ijtihad is a condition, though
> not everyone who has attained it will be called “ayatollah.”            In 998, al-Azhar moved a step further toward becoming an
> The vagueness is due to absence of rigid ranks in the Shi
ite       Islamic university. The Fatimid caliph al-
Aziz Billah aphierarchy. Before and since the Islamic Revolution in Iran          proved a proposal by his trusted minister Ya
qub ibn Killis to
> (1979), the term “grand ayatollah” was used for the “sources        establish an educational system. He assigned a number of
> of imitation.” Since the revolution, there has been a tremen-       regular teachers to carry out an educative mission. The
> dous increase in the use of the term for the Iranian cleri-         teachers were trained by Ibn Killis and his system became the
> cal elite.                                                          core of the academic education at al-Azhar. Furthermore,
> these teachers followed an organized curriculum and they
> Ayatollahs are found at the apex of the scholarly structure,     received regular payments from the Fatimid government.
> having studied in traditional seminaries (madrasas) and hav-        The teaching was not limited to the religious sciences, but
> ing passed through a number of intermediate ranks (among            included discussions and free debates between scientists.
> which is Hojjat al-Islam). A scholar seems to be granted the        Thus al-Azhar acquired the characteristics of an academic
> rank of ayatollah through general agreement among the               university. The diversified courses were a part of the teaching
> scholars. A person might be referred to as ayatollah by one         curriculum (the jurisprudence of four different schools of law,
> writer and, when no one disputes the appellation, most              Arabic language, and literature). When the Ayyubid dynasty
> scholars subsequently refer to him as ayatollah. An ayatollah,      (1169–1252) took power, they wanted to erase every trace of
> theoretically, holds this rank until he dies, though in recent      the Fatimids. Al-Azhar’s reputation did not cease growing
> times, ayatollahs (such as ayatollahs Shari
atmadari and            and the Shi
ite view was eclipsed by the Sunni interpretation
> 
> 92                                                                                              Islam and the Muslim World
> Azhar, al-
> 
> of faith. Later, al-Azhar became the most important Sunni             sciences, al-Azhar opened technical and practical faculties to
> center of knowledge.                                                  teach medicine, engineering, agriculture, and other subjects.
> This widening of teaching was intended to make al-Azhar
> Under the reign of the Mamluks, between 1250 and 1517,
> radiate not only in religious sciences but also in scientific
> many scientists sought refuge in al-Azhar, and were received
> disciplines. However, the addition of a modern, non-traditional
> with open arms. The arrival of these scientists undoubtedly
> curriculum was controversial among more conservative Muscontributed to the enrichment of its teaching; al-Azhar had
> lim intellectuals.
> its golden age during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
> Sciences such as medicine, mathematics, astronomy, geogra-            See also Education; Madrasa; Zaytuna.
> phy, and history were studied there.
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> In 1822 the educational system was regulated and the
> Lapidus, Ira M. Muslim Cities in the Later Middle Ages.
> highest diploma then delivered by al-Azhar was called al-                Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967.
> 
alamiyya, which was equivalent to a doctorate. In 1950, al-
> Tritton, A. S. Materials on Muslim Education in the Middle
> Azhar’s educational system was divided into three faculties:
> Ages, London: Luzac, 1957.
> Islamic law (al-shari
a), principles of the religion (usul al-din),
> and Arabic language. In 1961, besides its teaching of Islamic                                                    Diana Steigerwald
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                        93
> B
> BABIYYA                                                                   After the formation of the first core of believers, who,
> along with the Bab, were referred to as the first Vahed
> The Babi movement began during a period of heightened                  (Unity), the group dispersed at his instruction to proclaim the
> chiliastic expectation for the return of the Twelfth Imam (or          advent of the Bab, whose new theophany was to be initiated
> Hidden Imam), who Shi
ite Muslims believe will fill the                 by his pilgrimage to Mecca, reaching a crescendo with his
> world with justice. As such, the movement attracted not only           arrival in the holy cities of Iraq. The Bab instructed Molla
> students of religion, but members from all strata of society           Hosayn to disseminate his teachings in Iran and deliver the
> Qayyum al-asma
 to the shah and his chief minister. Another
> who probably sought change in the existing order.
> disciple was sent to Azerbaijan, while others were instructed
> The initial converts to the Babi movement were mid- to             to return to their homes to spread the new message. The
> low-level clerics from the Shaykhi school of Twelver Shi
ite           majority of the Bab’s first disciples departed for Iraq, includ-
> Islam. The school, founded upon the teachings of Shaykh                ing Molla 
Ali Bastami, who was sent as a representative to the
> Ahmad al-Ahsai, was mainstream with regard to Shi
ite law,            holy cities. There, he preached the new message in public. As
> Akhbari in its veneration for the utterances ascribed to the           a result, both the messenger and the author of the message
> twelve imams, and theosophical in its approach to metaphysi-           were condemned as heretics in a joint fatwa by prominent
> cal matters. Shaykh Ahmad’s successor, Sayyed Kazem, de-               Sunni and Shi
ite ulema in Iraq.
> veloped the eschatological teachings of his predecessor and
> Following this episode, the Bab decided not to meet with
> taught that the advent of the “promised one” was imminent,
> his followers in Karbala as he had planned so as not to further
> although he did not specify if this figure was to be an
> raise the ire of an already enraged clerical establishment. This
> intermediary of the hidden imam or the imam himself.
> led to the disaffection of some of his more militant followers,
> who were expecting the commencement of a holy war. It also
> On 22 May 1844, 
Ali Mohammad, a young merchant who
> emboldened the Bab’s critics, particularly the rival claimants
> had briefly attended the classes of Sayyed Kazem in Karbala,
> for leadership of the Shaykhi community.
> told a fellow Shaykhi disciple, Mulla Hosayn Boshrui, that he
> was the “gate” (bab) of the Hidden Imam and wrote an                       Persecution of the Babis in Iran began in 1845 and the Bab
> extemporaneous commentary on the Quranic Sura of Joseph,              himself was confined to his home in June 1845. During this
> the Qayyum al-asma
, to substantiate his claim. So impressed           period he was forced to publicly deny certain claims that had
> was Molla Hosayn and other students of Sayyed Kazem with               been attributed to him, which he was willing to comply with
> the eloquence and learning of 
Ali Mohammad and his ability            since his actual claim was much more challenging, as witto produce verses (ayat) at great speed and with no apparent           nessed in his later epistles and public statements, particularly
> forethought that they publicly endorsed his claims to be the           from 1848 onward. By asserting that he was the recipient of
> gate of the Hidden Imam, while privately they believed that            revelation and divine authority, whether explicitly or implicitly
> his station was much higher. The exact nature of the Bab’s             by emulating the style of the Quran, the Bab challenged the
> claims remained a matter of controversy during the first four           right of the ulema to collect alms on behalf of the Hidden
> years of his seven-year prophetic career. Although he initially        Imam and interpret scripture in his absence. Further, his
> made no explicit claim to prophethood, he implicitly claimed           claim to be the Qaim (the one who rises at the end of time),
> to receive revelation by emulating the style of the Quran in          made explicit at his public trial in Tabriz, indirectly threatthe Qayyum al-asma
.                                                   ened the stability of the Qajar monarchy of Iran, which held
> 
> Bab, Sayyed 
Ali Muhammad
> 
> power as the Shadow of God on earth and depended upon the              otherwise inimical heterodox and social classes in opposition
> quiescent Shi
ite clergy for legitimacy.                               to the established order. Despite this shared desire for social
> change (which still remains to be proven), the Bab’s charis-
> Despite the hostility of much of the high-ranking clergy,
> matic personality and forceful writing also played a central
> the Bab continued to win converts from among the ulema,
> role in attracting converts and admirers, even in the West.
> including two very prominent personalities: Sayyed Yahya
> Rather than being an unwitting product of messianic expecta-
> Darabi and Molla Mohammad 
Ali Hojjat al-Islam Zanjani.
> tion, content to remain within the bounds of traditional
> In 1846, he managed to leave Shiraz and make his way to the
> Shi
ite notions of the function of the Hidden Imam as the
> home of the governor of Isfahan, Manuchehr Khan Mo
tamad
> Mahdi and reformer of Islam, the Bab enunciated a supraal-Dawla, a Georgian Christian convert to Islam who sympa-
> Islamic message that included new laws and social teachings
> thized with the Bab’s cause. There, he enjoyed increasing
> designed, by his own admission, to prepare the people for a
> popularity, which further roused the ulema, who incited the
> second theophany: the coming of “Him Whom God will
> shah against the Bab. Following the death of his patron, he
> make manifest” (man yuzhiruhu
llah).
> was placed under arrest. From this point on, the charismatic
> persona of the Bab was removed from the public arena, as he
> Although there were a number of claimants to this
> was transferred from prison to prison until his final execution
> theophany in the 1850s, most Babis followed the Bab’s
> at the hands of government troops on 9 July 1850.
> nominee, Bahaallah’s half-brother Mirza Yahya (also known
> Although the Bab continued to influence the movement                as Subh Azal). After Bahaallah claimed this station in 1863,
> from prison through the dissemination of thousands of pages            however, the majority of Babis recognized him as the fulfillof writing, leadership of the community devolved upon his              ment of the Bab’s prophecies concerning the second theophany
> chief lieutenants, notably Molla Hosayn, Molla Mohammad                and subsequently identified themselves as Bahais. The Bab’s
> 
Ali Barforushi (also known as the Qoddus, “the Most Holy”),           followers, who continued to owe their allegiance to Subh
> Qorrat al-
Ayn, the well-known poetess (also known as                  Azal, became known as Azalis and played an important role in
> Tahereh, “the Pure One”), Darabi, Zanjani, and Mirza Hosayn            Iran’s constitutional revolution in 1906.
> 
Ali Nuri (later known as Bahaallah). The latter, together
> with Qoddus and Tahereh, presided over a decisive meeting              See also Bab, Sayyed 
Ali Muhammad; Bahaallah; Bahai
> of Babis at Badasht, where a formal break with Islamic law was         Faith.
> initiated when Tahereh publicly removed her veil. She was
> later put to death in 1852 upon the orders of the government,          BIBLIOGRAPHY
> ratified by leading doctors of law. Qoddus would also die at
> Amanat, Abbas. Resurrection and Renewal: The Making of the
> the instigation of some members of the ulema following his               Babi Movement in Iran, 1844–1850. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell
> capture at the shrine of Shaykh Tabarsi, where he, Molla                 University Press, 1989.
> Hosayn, and an embattled group of Babis defended them-
> MacEoin, Denis. Rituals in Babism and Baha
ism. London:
> selves against government troops in the province of Khurasan.
> British Academic Press, 1994.
> Molla Hosayn and most of the fort’s defenders lost their lives
> there. Similarly, Darabi and Zanjani led large groups of Babis
> in armed resistance to government troops at Nayriz and                                                             William McCants
> Zanjan, but ultimately met the same fate as their fellow
> believers. In 1852, as a result of an assassination attempt on
> the life of Naser al-Din Shah by some Babis, several hundred
> to a few thousand of the Bab’s followers were brutally exe-            BAB, SAYYED 
ALI MUHAMMAD
> cuted or imprisoned. Among them was Mirza Husayn 
Ali                  (1819–1850)
> Nuri, the future Bahaallah, who suffered a four-month
> captivity in a darkened pit (siyah chal), followed by exile to Iraq.   Sayyed 
Ali Muhammad, later known as “the Bab,” was born
> on 20 October 1819 in Shiraz, the provincial capital of Fars. A
> Although the demographic makeup of the Babi movement
> descendent of the prophet Muhammad’s family, the Bab
> cannot be determined with precision, it is safe to say that it
> traced his lineage from the tribe of Quraysh to his father,
> was largely an urban movement with significant concentra-
> Sayyed Muhammad Reza, a merchant in the bazaar of Shiraz.
> tions of converts in rural areas. While it initially drew upon
> In his early childhood, the Bab’s father died and he came
> Shaykhi ulema, it later attracted followers from a range of
> under the care of his maternal uncles. During his adolescence
> social classes, particularly merchants and craftsmen. Finally,
> and young adulthood, the Bab’s uncle Hajji Mirza Sayyed 
Ali
> preaching and conversion were confined to predominantly
> Shi
ite areas in Iraq and Iran.                                        was his most stalwart supporter, overseeing his limited education, guiding his early business ventures as a merchant, and
> As has been stressed by modern scholars, the Babi move-              later becoming one of the earliest adherents of his nephew’s
> ment served as a vehicle of social protest, uniting a number of        new creed.
> 
> 96                                                                                                 Islam and the Muslim World
> Baghdad
> 
> The Bab’s demure demeanor as a child matured into
> quiet, religious contemplation, as noted by his contemporaries. His personal piety led him to undertake a pilgrimage to
> the Shi
ite holy shrines in Iraq between 1840 and 1841. While
> there, the Bab, an adherent of the Shaykhi school of Twelver
> Shi
ite Islam, attended a few classes given by the Shaykhi
> leader Sayyed Kazem Rashti. On 22 May 1844, three years
> after his return to Shiraz, the Bab advanced his claim to divine
> authority from God to one of Kazem’s students, Mulla
> Hosayn, and soon after gained a large following among
> seminarians who in turn made many converts among merchants and even upper-class landowners, including Mirza
> Husayn 
Ali Nuri, who later founded the Bahai religion.
> 
> Although the Bab couched his claims in abstruse language
> early in his career, the implications were not lost upon the
> Shi
ite ulema. In particular, they viewed his assertion to
> reveal verses in the same manner as Muhammad as a violation
> of a cardinal tenet of Shi
ite and Sunni Islam—that Muhammad was the last of God’s messengers. He was tried by
> religious judges and condemned to death for heresy. As a
> result of clerical agitation, he was soon arrested and suffered
> imprisonment until his execution on 9 July 1850, at the age
> of thirty.
> 
> During his prophetic career, the Bab composed numerous
> religious texts of varying genres. Some of the more notable
> titles include the Qayyum al-asma
 (his earliest, post-declaration
> doctrinal work), the Persian and Arabic Bayans (two separate
> books detailing the laws of his new religion), and Dala
il saba
> (an apologetic work).                                                A bust of Muslim caliph Abu Ja
far al-Mansur, in Baghdad, which
> he founded. AP/WIDE WORLD PHOTOS
> See also Babiyya; Bahaallah; Bahai Faith.
> 
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                         five centuries. The city was founded by the second Abbasid
> Amanat, Abbas. Resurrection and Renewal: The Making of the           caliph, Abu Ja
far al-Mansur, on the banks of the Tigris River
> Babi Movement in Iran, 1844–1850. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell            where it most closely approaches the Euphrates. While offi-
> University Press, 1989.                                            cially called Dar al-Salam, or the Abode of Peace, which
> MacEoin, Denis. The Sources for Early Babi Doctrine and              recalls Quranic descriptions of Paradise (6:127; 10:25), the
> History. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1992.                                name Baghdad itself is reminiscent of a pre-Islamic settlement in the vicinity. However, this metropolis is not to be
> William McCants        confused erroneously with the ancient towns of Babylon,
> Seleucia, and Ctesiphon.
> 
> Following the turbulence and social upheavals of the
> BAGHDAD                                                              Abbasid assumption of power from the Umayyads, al-Mansur
> sought to move his capital to a more secure location in the
> “Have you seen in all the length and breadth of the earth         East. The proclamation of Abu l-
Abbas as the first Abbasid
> caliph in 749 C.E. had irrevocably shifted the locus of imperial
> A city such as Baghdad? Indeed it is paradise on earth.”          power away from Damascus, the Umayyad capital, to a series
> of successive sites in Iraq. Al-Mansur himself was initially
> (al-Khatib al-Baghdadi, in Lassner, Topography, p. 47)
> based in al-Hashimiyyah, adjacent to Qasr Ibn Hubayra and
> close to Kufa. The Rawandiyya uprising of 758 C.E., however,
> Thus begins a poem attributed variously to 
Umara b. 
Aqil           soon exposed the location’s vulnerability, and al-Mansur
> al-Khatafi and Mansur al-Namari in praise of Baghdad, the             began a thorough investigation of sites from which he could
> illustrious capital of the Abbasid caliphate in Iraq for close to    consolidate his rule.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                        97
> Baghdad
> 
> In accordance with the information gathered from scouts,
> local inhabitants, and personal observation, the minor village       The inner city of Baghdad c. 800
> of Baghdad was selected as an ideal location for the future
> Abbasid capital. The area had much to recommend itself in                                                                                                                                                                           ■■■
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> struction of the imperial capital began in the year 762 C.E.,
> 
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> though work was halted temporarily that same year while al-
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> inner
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> Mansur suppressed further uprisings emanating from Medina                                                                                                                                                                          palace                                                                       wall
> 
> ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■
> 
> ■■■■■■■■■■■
> mosque
> and Basra. Over one hundred thousand architects, artisans,
> 
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> and laborers from across the empire were employed in the
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> creation of this city, at tremendous financial expense, over a
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> period of four years.
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> An alternative name for Baghdad, al-Madina al-
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> Mudawwara, or the Round City, reflects the circular layout of
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> Gate
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> 
> al-Mansur’s initial foundation. Baghdad was designed as a                                                                                                                                                                                                      W
> 
> series of concentric rings, with the caliphal palace, known as                                                                                                                                                                                            S          N
> 
> E
> Bab al-Dhahab, or the Golden Gate, and the attached grand
> SOURCE: Lunde, Paul. Islam: Faith, Culture, History. New York:
> congregational mosque located in the center, along with
> DK Publishing, Inc., 2002.
> separate structures for the commander of the guard and the
> chief of police. The caliph was thereby equidistant from all
> points within the city, as well as surrounded by its consider-     The inner city of Baghdad circa 800.
> able fortifications. Only the residences of his younger children, those of his servants and slaves, and various government
> offices shared access onto this inner circle. Four walkways         textiles, clothes, booksellers, goldsmiths, cobblers, reedweavers,
> radiated outward from the central courtyard in the directions      soapmakers, and moneychangers that served the populace
> of northeast, southeast, southwest, and northwest, passing         and government officials. Baghdad exported textiles and
> through the inner circle of surrounding structures; then an        items made of cotton and silk, glazed-ware, oils, swords,
> enclosure wall followed by an interval of space; then a resi-      leather, and paper, to mention only a few, through both local
> dential area followed by another interval; then a large wall of    and international trade. The muhtasib, a government-appointed
> outer defense, a third interval, a second smaller wall; and        regulator, ensured the fair practices of the marketplace as well
> finally a deep, wide moat surrounding the entire complex.           as supervised the public works of proliferating mosques and
> bathhouses. The opulence and luxury of court life in Baghdad
> The Round City initially retained an austere administra-       were legendary, and reflected the vast political and economic
> tive and military character. On the city’s outskirts, large land   power of the Abbasid Empire.
> grants at varying distances from the capital were given to
> The magnanimity of the Abbasid caliphs and the wellmembers of the Abbasid family, the army, and chiefs of the
> placed inhabitants of Baghdad also extended into encouraggovernment agencies. In addition to the initial settlers, com-     ing intellectual pursuits, thereby establishing the Abbasid
> prised of those loyal to the caliph and his new regime, large      capital as one of the world’s most sophisticated and prestinumbers of laborers, artisans, and merchants migrated to           gious centers of learning. Renowned Islamic scholars of
> Baghdad in pursuit of the largesse showered upon those             diverse geographical and ethnic origins held sessions in the
> necessary to sustain the new imperial capital. What quickly        mosques and colleges of cosmopolitan Baghdad, attracting
> grew to be a thriving market within the walls of the Round         innumerable seekers of legal, philological, and spiritual knowl-
> City was ultimately perceived to be a security threat and, in      edge. Bookshops and the private homes of individual scholars
> 773 C.E., was transferred southwest of Baghdad, to al-Karkh.       and high government officials, such as the wazir, also served
> There, the commercial activities of the Abbasid capital flour-      as venues for intellectual discussion and debate. Inns located
> ished, and Baghdad rapidly developed into an economically          near the mosques provided lodging to those who had devoted
> vibrant metropolis.                                                themselves to scholarly pursuits, and accommodations were
> later made available within the institutions of the madrasa
> The main markets of Baghdad were subdivided according          (legal college) and ribat (Sufi establishment), both of which
> to their various specialties which included food, fruit, flowers,   also offered stipends to affiliated students.
> 
> 98                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Bahaallah
> 
> Scientific research in the fields of astronomy, mathemat-        BIBLIOGRAPHY
> ics, medicine, optics, engineering, botany, and pharmacology       Jawad, Mustafa, and Susa, Ahmad. Baghdad. Baghdad: alalso prospered within the Abbasid capital. Alongside experi-          Majma
 al-
Ilmi al-
Iraqi, 1958.
> mentation and exploration, translation of Hellenic, Indic,         Lassner, Jacob. The Topography of Baghdad in the Early Middle
> and Persian texts received patronage from dignitaries, physi-         Ages: Text and Studies. Detroit: Wayne State University
> cians, and scientists in response to the professional and             Press, 1970.
> intellectual demands of an expanding Islamic society. Public       Lunde, Paul. Islam: Faith, Culture, History. New York: DK
> libraries, both attached to mosques and as separate institu-         Publishing, 2002.
> tions, contributed further to the dissemination of knowledge       Makdisi, George. Religion, Law and Learning in Classical Islam.
> among the populace, while the establishment of hospitals as          Brookfield, Vt.: Gower, 1991.
> charitable endowments throughout the city ensured the pro-         Makdisi, George. “The Reception of the Model of Islamic
> vision of free medical care to anyone who so required it.            Scholastic Culture in the Christian West.” In Science in
> Mobile clinics were even dispatched to remote villages on a          Islamic Civilisation: Proceedings of the International Symposia.
> regular basis, with the aims of offering comprehensive health        Edited by Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu. Istanbul: Research Centre
> coverage.                                                            for Islamic History and Culture, 2000.
> Sayyad, Nezar, al-. Cities and Caliphs: On the Genesis of Arab
> The political fragmentation of the sprawling Abbasid               Muslim Urbanism. New York: Greenwood Press, 1991.
> Empire ultimately contributed to a decline in the revenues         Tabari, Muhammad al-. Abbasid Authority Affirmed. Transand hence in the general fortunes of the capital in Baghdad.         lated by Jane Dammen McAuliffe. Albany: State Univer-
> Increasing civil disturbances in the face of weakened central        sity of New York Press, 1995.
> authority, as well as rife Sunni-Shi
ite conflicts, resulted in     Wheatley, Paul. The Places Where Men Pray Together: Cities in
> the deterioration and destruction of vast segments of the           Islamic Lands, Seventh through Tenth Centuries. Chicago:
> waning metropolis. Nevertheless, Baghdad retained its pres-         University of Chicago Press, 2001.
> tige as the center of the Islamic caliphate and a symbol of
> Muslim cultural, material, and scholarly achievement. It was                                                          Mona Hassan
> therefore with great consternation that news was received of
> the Mongols’s savage invasion and ravaging of the city in
> 1258 C.E. Hundreds of thousands of Baghdad’s inhabitants,
> including the caliph and his family, leading personalities, and    BAHAALLAH (1817–1892)
> scholars were mercilessly put to death, and the great scientific
> and literary treasures of Baghdad were burned or drowned in        “Bahaallah,” a title meaning “splendor of God,” was the
> the waters of the Tigris.                                          name given to Mirza Husayn 
Ali Nuri, prophet and founder
> of the Bahai faith.
> Thereafter, Baghdad was transformed into a provincial
> Born in Tehran into an elite bureaucratic family, he was
> center within the Mongol Empire, under the control of the
> converted in 1844 to the Babi religion, the messianic move-
> Ilkhanids until 1339 C.E. and then the Jalayrids until 1410 C.E.
> ment begun that year by the Iranian prophet Sayyed 
Ali
> The Karakoyunlu Turkomans and the Akkoyunlu Turkomans
> Muhammad, commonly known as the Bab (“Gate”). He
> ruled Baghdad successively, until the city was conquered by
> played a significant role in the early Babi community. Impris-
> Shah Ismail in 1508 C.E. and incorporated into the Safavid
> oned as a Babi in 1852, he was exiled to Iraq, where he became
> Empire. A subsequent Perso-Ottoman struggle for Baghdad
> the de facto leader of the Babis. He was summoned to
> and its symbolic sites resulted in Sultan Sulayman the Mag-
> Istanbul by the Ottoman government in April 1863 and then
> nificent’s conquest of the city in 1534 C.E., only to be lost
> arrested and exiled again to Edirne in European Turkey.
> again to the Safavids, and then regained by the Ottoman            There he made an open claim to prophethood that was
> Sultan Murad IV in 1638 C.E. Baghdad remained the capital of       eventually accepted by most Babis, though opposed by his
> the region’s Ottoman province for nearly three centuries, and      younger brother, Subh-e Azal. Alarmed by disputes among
> was occupied by the British in March 1917, during the course       the Babi exiles, the Turkish government imprisoned Bahaalof World War I. In 1921, it became the seat of Faysal b.           lah in Acre, Palestine, in 1868, where he lived under gradually
> Husayn’s kingdom under British Mandate and remained the            improving conditions until his death. His eldest son, 
Abd alcapital of Iraq throughout its successive developments into an     Baha, was recognized by most Bahais as his successor. His
> independent constitutional monarchy (1930), federated              tomb near Acre is now a Bahai shrine.
> Hashimite monarchy (1958), and then republic (1958).
> Bahaallah wrote extensively, mostly letters to the believ-
> See also Caliphate; Empires: Abbasid; Revolution: Classi-          ers. His works included commentary on scripture, Bahai law,
> cal Islam; Revolution: Islamic Revolution in Iran;                 comments on current affairs, prayers, and theological discus-
> Revolution: Modern.                                                sions of all sorts. Though his writings were grounded in the
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                       99
> Bahai Faith
> 
> esoteric Shi
ite thought of the Bab, he was politically sophis-    new community. He rejected the militancy and esoteric
> ticated, and his own religious thought is often best seen in the   Shi
ite mysticism characteristic of the Babis, instead stressing
> context of the Westernizing reformers of the nineteenth            political neutrality and progressive themes such as internacentury Middle East. The social liberalism of the modern           tional peace, education, and the emancipation of women and
> Bahai faith has its roots in Bahaallah’s writings.               slaves. By the time of the death of Bahaallah in 1892, the
> Iranian community had recovered from the disasters of the
> Bahaallah is considered a “manifestation of God” by
> Babi period, and small but growing communities, mainly
> Bahais and is thus a prophet of the rank of Moses, Jesus, and
> consisting of Iranian émigrés, had been established in many
> Muhammad.
> countries of the Middle East, the Russian Empire, and India.
> See also 
Abd al-Baha; Bab, Sayyed 
Ali Muhammad;
> Bahai Faith.                                                          After Bahaallah’s death most Bahais accepted the leadership of his eldest son, 
Abd al-Baha. In the 1890s small but
> influential communities of Bahai converts from Christianity
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> were established in Europe and North America. Despite the
> Bahaullah. Tablets of Baha
u
llah Revealed after the Kitab-iturmoil caused by World War I and by revolutions in Iran,
> Aqdas. Translated by Habib Taherzadeh. Wilmette, Ill.:
> Bahai Publishing Trust, 1988.                                   Turkey, and Russia, 
Abd al-Baha was able to establish an
> institutional structure for most of the major Bahai communi-
> Balyuzi, Hasan. Baha
u
llah: the King of Glory. Oxford, U.K.:
> ties, increasingly in the form of elected governing commit-
> George Ronald, 1980.
> tees known as spiritual assemblies. The most important event
> Cole, Juan R. I. Modernity and the Millenium: The Genesis of the
> of his ministry, however, was a series of journeys to Europe
> Baha
i Faith in the Nineteenth-Century Middle East. New
> York: Columbia University Press, 1998.                           and America from 1911 to 1913. These trips were the occasion for an increasing stress on the liberal social teachings of
> John Walbridge      the Bahai faith.
> 
> 
Abd al-Baha was succeeded in 1921 by his grandson,
> Shoghi Effendi Rabbani, whose English education and West-
> BAHAI FAITH                                                       ern orientation marked a final break with the religion’s
> Islamic roots. Shoghi Effendi was not a charismatic figure like
> The Bahai faith was founded by Bahaallah as an outgrowth         his grandfather and preferred to focus on institution-building
> of the Babi religion, the messianic movement begun in 1844         and consolidation. The most spectacular achievement of his
> by the Iranian prophet Sayyed 
Ali Muhammad, commonly              ministry was a series of “teaching plans,” in which Bahai
> known as the Bab (“Gate”).                                         missionaries settled in scores of new countries and territories,
> notably in Latin America, Africa, and the Pacific. By the
> History                                                            1950s some of these communities were growing rapidly.
> After the execution of the Bab in 1850 and the pogrom
> Shoghi Effendi wrote extensively and systematically in Perfollowing a Babi attempt to assassinate the shah, the Babi
> sian and English, standardizing Bahai theological selfmovement suffered a crisis of leadership. Its titular leader was
> understanding and practice. His translations of several vol-
> Mirza Yahya, known as Subh-e Azal, but from the mid-1860s
> umes of Bahaallah’s writings became the standard Bahai
> the effective leader was Azal’s elder brother, Bahaallah. Both
> scriptures for Western Bahais. He also wrote a history of the
> were exiles in Baghdad. Bahaallah later wrote that he had had
> Babi and Bahai Faiths and translated a history of the Babi
> mystical experiences while imprisoned in Tehran in 1852,
> religion. These works also became fundamental for the selfand by the early 1860s he had begun hinting that he was “he
> understanding of Western Bahais. Finally, through his conwhom God shall make manifest,” the Babi messiah. On 21
> struction of Bahai shrines and temples in Haifa, Acre, and
> April 1863 he announced this claim to several close associates,
> an event that Bahais now consider the beginning of their          several Western cities, he made the Bahai faith more visible
> religion. Bahaallah nonetheless continued to recognize the        and created a Bahai architectural idiom.
> nominal leadership of Azal. The final break came in 1867
> Shoghi Effendi died in 1957, leaving neither an heir nor a
> when he wrote to Azal formally claiming prophethood. The
> will. In 1963, after a six-year interregnum, the various Bahai
> Babis then split into three main groups. By the end of the
> national spiritual assemblies elected an international govern-
> 1870s those who had accepted the claim of Bahaallah were
> ing body, the Universal House of Justice, which has since
> the large majority and came to be known as Bahais. A smaller
> been elected every five years. The Universal House of Justice
> number, the Azalis, stayed loyal to Subh-e Azal and vociferously opposed Bahaallah. A few accepted neither claim.            continued Shoghi Effendi’s programs of teaching plans and
> construction. There are now several million Bahais in the
> Through his extensive correspondence and meetings with          world, most in the developing world, leaving only a small
> pilgrims during his exile in Acre, Bahaallah organized the        minority in Iran or Islamic countries.
> 
> 100                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Balkans, Islam in the
> 
> Thus, racism, nationalism, religious fanaticism, prejudice of
> any sort, and the degradation of women are condemned in
> Bahai teachings. Likewise, there is no Bahai clergy, and all
> believers are considered fundamentally equal. The theme of
> unity permeates Bahai thought and practice, giving the
> community a decidedly egalitarian character.
> 
> The Bahai faith is nominally a religion of law, but its
> religious law, though generally analogous to Islamic law and
> practice, is usually simpler and less demanding. There is a
> daily prayer, an annual nineteen-day fast, nine major holy
> days, and a “feast” every nineteen days on the first day of each
> month of the Bahai calendar. Regulations governing marriage, divorce, and funerals are simple. Bahais are monogamous, and marriage is conditioned on the consent both of the
> couple and of living parents. In practice, Bahai communal
> life often is less concerned with worship than with community administration and particularly the goal of expanding the
> community.
> 
> Bahai scripture consists of the authenticated writings of
> Bahaallah and 
Abd al-Baha. Shoghi Effendi’s works are
> authoritative as interpretation, and writings of the Universal
> House of Justice are authoritative in legislative and administrative matters. Writings of individuals are considered personal opinion and not binding on others. Because the
> authoritative writings are so voluminous, Bahai writers have
> tended to focus on collection and collation. Most Bahai
> This garden leads to the $250 million Bahai Shrine of the Bab in     theological writing has been polemical rather than specula-
> Haifa, Israel that was completed in 2001 after ten years of
> construction. Built by the great grandson of Bahaallah, founder of
> tive in character. There is no developed Bahai legal tradition.
> the Bahai faith, it is one of many Bahai shrines and temples        Since the 1970s there has been increasingly vigorous acathroughout the Muslim world and the West. Bahai is a religion        demic and theological study of the Bahai faith.
> that split from Islam. It emphasizes the unity among all religions,
> races, and nations. AP/WIDE WORLD PHOTOS                              See also 
Abd al-Baha; Babiyya; Bahaallah.
> 
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Bahai Theology, Beliefs, and Practices                               Smith, Peter. The Babi and Baha
i Religions: From Messianic
> The theological roots of the Bahai faith are in the Babi               Shi’ism to a World Religion. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge
> religion, which was essentially an esoteric Shi
ite movement.           University Press, 1987.
> The fundamental Bahai theological conception is that of the          Stockman, Robert. The Baha’i Faith in America. Wilmette,
> logos figure of the manifestation of God: the prophet as the              Ill.: Bahai Publishing Trust, 1985–1995.
> perfect mirror of God’s attributes. Human beings and all
> Walbridge, John. Sacred Acts, Sacred Space, Sacred Time.
> other creatures are lesser mirrors of God’s various attributes.         Baháí Studies 1. Oxford: George Ronald, 1996.
> The prophet is thus a model and a revealer of God’s knowledge and will. God’s full plan is revealed gradually by a series                                                     John Walbridge
> of prophets, who guide humanity’s emergence into a worldwide spiritual civilization. Bahaallah is of particular signifi-
> cance, since his ministry marks the beginning of human
> maturity and world unity. Thus, for Bahais all religions are         BALKANS, ISLAM IN THE
> fundamentally true, having been based on prophecy, though
> the Bahai faith is destined to supercede them. The differ-           Since the late fourteenth century there have been Muslim
> ences among religions are due either to the differing circum-         communities in southeast Europe. For most of their history
> stances of the time and place of their revelation or to gradual       they were an important and integral part of the Ottoman
> corruption of the original message.                                   Empire. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries when
> ethnic-based nation-states came to power in the Balkans,
> The characteristic feature of Bahaallah’s revelation is its      most of these Muslim communities lost prominence and
> stress on unity, a theme expressed in Bahai social teachings.        some disappeared. Recent attempts by certain nationalist
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                       101
> Balkans, Islam in the
> 
> forces to erase the history of Muslims in the Balkans have led
> to new interest in these Muslim peoples of Europe.                         HOLY ROMAN
> 
> D ni
> EMPIRE                                           POLAND
> 
> ep
> er
> R iv
> Expansion of Islam into Southeast Europe                                                                                            Podolia
> er
> 0       100        200 mi.
> Ottoman armies and Sufi missionaries brought Islam into
> 0 100 200 km
> southeast Europe in the late fourteenth and fifteenth centu-                                              Hungary          Transylvania         Yedisan
> Po R.
> ries. Beginning with the conquest of eastern Thrace in the                                                                          Moldavia
> mid-1300s, the Ottomans soon took Macedonia. They fought                                                         Danub
> e
> Crimea
> Bosnia                 Wallachia
> Serbian prince Lazar and his Balkan army at Kosovo in 1389,
> 
> Ad
> R iver
> 
> ri a
> and defeated Bulgaria soon after in 1393. Along with military                                                  Serbia       Bulgaria              Black Sea
> 
> ti c
> Se
> conquest, the Ottomans brought Muslim settlers from Anatolia                                         a
> Albania     Rumelia
> to occupy main march routes and river valleys. In 1456                                                         Macedonia
> Athens fell to the Ottomans, followed by Bosnian and Albanian lands, and finally Belgrade in 1521.                                                                      Thessaly
> 
> Sicily                                                                 Anatolia
> 
> There was significant conversion of local people to Islam,                                                   Morea
> 
> principally among Bosnians and Albanians, but also across the                 N
> 
> Balkans. This conversion was gradual, continuing through-                                 M
> e d                                      Rhodes
> Crete                             Cyprus
> out the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries, and                                              i t e
> r r a
> even later among some Albanians. Except for the devsirme,                                                                   n e a n
> S e a
> the forced recruitment of Christian boys for special military                Ottoman Empire in
> Southeast Europe
> and governmental service, this conversion to Islam was vol-
> Ottoman Empire in 1481

> untary. The Balkans had been a region of contention between                         Ottoman Empire in 1520

> western, or Latin, and eastern, or Byzantine, forms of Chris-                       Ottoman Empire in 1566

> Ottoman Empire in 1683

> tianity. In Bosnia and Albania neither form of Christianity                         

> had been well preached or well established. In contrast the                         

> Sufi missionaries brought a tolerant form of religion and the
> Ottoman state a system of order based broadly on religious           Expansion of the Ottoman Empire into southeast Europe. XNR
> PRODUCTIONS, INC./GALE
> affiliation. The advantages of being Muslim were economic
> and cultural and included exemption from the head tax,
> privileges in land owning, and opportunities in state administration and the military, as well as links with the vibrant          breakup of Ottoman power in the Balkans left many of them
> culture and society of Istanbul.                                     vulnerable.
> 
> History and Main Developments                                           The following period in the history of Muslims in the
> During the Ottoman period, lasting from the fourteenth               Balkans, the time of growth of nation-states, began variably in
> century to the early twentieth century, the history of Muslims       the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with southern Greece
> in the Balkans largely parallels the history of the empire itself.   becoming independent in 1821, followed by Serbia (whose
> When the Ottoman Empire was at its height in the sixteenth           northern part had been autonomous since 1815), Romania,
> century, the Balkan cities of Edirne, Sarajevo, and Salonika         and Bulgaria, all in 1878, and later by Albania in 1912. During
> (the latter with a significant Jewish population) were rich           these times there were forced migrations, massacres, and
> cosmopolitan centers of trade and learning, with impressive          expulsions of Muslims, especially from the eastern Balkans,
> mosques, madrasas (schools), and bridges. Three of Sultan            for the new nation-states were largely conceived as ethnic
> Suleyman the Magnificent’s grand wazirs—Ibrahim the Greek,            units tied to language and a form of Christianity. In contrast,
> Rustem the Bulgarian, and Mehmet Sokullu, a Slav from                many Balkan Muslims, who did not fit in the new nation-state
> Bosnia—were converted Muslims from the Balkans. At the               design, were seen as allied with the Ottomans who had been
> end of the seventeenth century, Albanian Muslims from the            increasingly ineffective and oppressive in the last century of
> Koprulu family (Mehmet, Ahmed, Mustafa, and Husein)                  their rule. Thousands of Muslims were forced to flee to
> served as grand wazirs and provided well-needed stability in a       Turkey. This would continue throughout the twentieth cencentury of decline. For, as western European countries gained        tury with Balkan Muslims from Greece, Macedonia, Kosovo,
> power in trade routes and military prowess, formerly the             and Bulgaria emigrating to the safety of Muslim Turkey. The
> purview of the Ottomans, the Ottoman Empire weakened                 exceptions to this were Muslims from the western Balkan
> economically and the Austro-Hungarian Empire took terri-             lands of Albania and Bosnia. Most stayed in the Balkans
> tories from the Ottomans, including Hungary, part of present-        throughout these times, although some Bosnian Muslims did
> day Croatia (1699), and later Bosnia (1878). The position of         emigrate in and after 1878. The large part of Bosnian Mus-
> Muslim communities gradually declined as well until the              lims, themselves Slavs, continued as landowners and free
> 
> 102                                                                                                                 Islam and the Muslim World
> Balkans, Islam in the
> 
> peasants under Austria-Hungary’s rule, and remained later as
> 0          50         100 mi.
> part of Yugoslavia. As for the Albanian Muslims, some led the
> 0     50    100 km
> Albanian nationalist movement for independence; overall,
> Muslims made up 70 percent of the new independent state of                 AUSTRIA                     HUNGARY
> Albania. There were also smaller communities of Slavic
> Muslims, Albanian Muslims, and Roma Muslims who stayed                     SLOVENIA
> ROMANIA
> where they were and thus became minorities in different
> CROATIA                       Vojvodina
> Balkan lands.
> 
> Nationalism also came to the Turks. It is interesting that
> an Albanian Muslim from Struga in present-day Macedonia,                                                 BOSNIA                         Serbia
> AND
> Ibrahim Temo, was one of the four founding members of                                                  HERZEGOVINA                   SERBIA
> what became known as the Young Turks. The founder of                                                            Sarajevo              AND
> modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal, later known as Ataturk, was                                                                          MONTENEGRO
> Adriatic
> a Balkan Muslim from Salonika.                                                 Sea
> ITALY                                                Montenegro
> Kosovo
> Later in the twentieth century, the Muslims in Bosnia
> came to be seen as an ethnic group as well. Before World War               Bosnia After the Dayton
> IA
> Peace Accords (1995)
> 
> N
> II they were considered a religious community. But after the
> 
> DO
> Dayton Agreement Line

> 
> CE
> war, with the secularization of the Communist Party and
> 
> AL
> 
Federation of Bosnia
               N
> 
> MA
> BA
> growing importance of “nationalities,” they officially became                            and Herzegovina
> 
> NIA
> Republika Srpska

> an ethnic group under the label “Muslim” in 1968. Just as
> 

> “Jew” in the United States can have both ethnic and religious
> meaning, so “Muslim” had both meanings in Yugoslavia.
> Composition of Bosnia-Herzegovina following the signing of the
> With the warfare in the 1990s, this ambiguity became a
> 1995 Dayton Peace Accords. XNR PRODUCTIONS, INC./GALE
> problem so that today the ethnic term for Bosnian Muslim is
> “Bosnjak.”
> 
> Characteristics and Cultural Achievements                            damaging of the Gazi Husrevbegova Mosque in Sarajevo, as
> The Muslims of the Balkans are largely Sunni of the Hannafi           well as the destruction of many more Islamic sites throughout
> school. There are also Sufi communities with more inclusive           Bosnia. The famous bridge at Mostar, and the Oriental
> theologies, including the Sunni Naqshibandi, as well as the          Institute in Sarajevo, where important historical documents
> Halveti, Mevlevi, Qadiri, Rifa
i, Sadi, Melami, and Bektashi        of the Ottoman period were housed, were both deliberately
> orders. Of these, the Bektashi rose to special prominence in         targeted and destroyed. The war in Kosovo (1999) led to the
> Albania in the twentieth century, only to become a target of         destruction of many Islamic monuments and documents
> Communist Enver Hoxha’s regime (1944–1991). Also in                  there as well. One of the purposes of these civil wars was to
> Bulgaria there are communities of Aliids. As in other parts of      erase the Islamic heritage of these regions of the Balkans.
> the Ottoman world, religious poetry known as merthiyes and           This is not new. There were once many mosques in Belgrade
> nefes stems from these orders, and mevluds and ghazels from          that were destroyed in the late nineteenth century. Such
> the larger Muslim communities.                                       destruction was in marked contrast to the usual Ottoman
> policy that had promoted tolerance for Christian and Jewish
> Better known to the broader world than religious poetry is        institutions.
> the remarkable architecture of Muslims in the Balkans. This
> includes the older sections of cities with their bazaars, mosques,       Nevertheless there remain Muslim communities in the
> fountains, hamams (baths), türbes (mausolea), madrasas (schools),    Balkans. The greatest number of Muslims are still in Bosnia,
> and old Ottoman homes. One of the masterpieces of Otto-              although many were killed in the war and many more became
> man architecture is the Selimiye Mosque in Edirne (1575) by          refugees. The next largest population of Muslims in the
> Sinan. Also well known were other remarkable mosques like            Balkans is in Albania, but many were secularized during the
> the Ferhat Pasha Mosque of Banja Luka (1579), the Aladza             long communist rule. Albanians in Kosovo are also mainly
> Mosque in Foca (1550), and the Gazi Husrevbegova Mosque              Muslim. But of all the Albanian Muslims in the Balkans, those
> of Sarajevo (1530), all in Bosnia, as well as the famous             in western Macedonia are among the most observant. They
> Ottoman bridge at Mostar in Herzegovina (1566).                      form at least one-third of the population, but have been kept
> out of most state jobs and universities. Bulgaria has three
> Contemporary Situation and Concerns                                  different Muslim populations: Turks, who are the largest
> The war in Bosnia (1992–1995) between Serbian and Croatian           group; Pomaks, who are Slavs living in the southern mounnationalists and Muslim Bosnians led to the destruction of the       tains; and Roma, who are largely Muslim. During communist
> famous mosques of Banja Luka and Foca and the severe                 rule in Bulgaria, there were at times direct policies to
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                                           103
> Bamba, Ahmad
> 
> “bulgarize” the Muslim peoples by forcing them to change           capital of his order in 1887. Shaykh Ahmad Bamba was highly
> their Muslim names to Slavic Bulgarian ones, and there were        respected for his learning and piety but he also attracted
> prohibitions against circumcision. In the 1980s over 300,000       followers who were struggling against the French occupation.
> Turks from Bulgaria went to Turkey rather than submit to
> these policies. Since then, some have returned and the poli-           The new brotherhood spread rapidly and was associated
> cies in post-communist Bulgaria are not as restrictive. Romania    with rumors of a possible uprising. In 1895, Ahmad Bamba
> has two small Muslim communities. In Greece, most Mus-             was exiled to Gabon and was not permitted to return to
> lims left or were part of the population transfers in the early    Senegal until 1902. His return attracted a wave of new
> 1920s. There remain, however, the Turkish Muslims of               followers and more rumors of rebellion. The French exiled
> western Thrace in northeast Greece.                                him again in 1903, this time to Mauritania. Ahmad returned
> to Senegal in 1907. Again large numbers of followers flocked
> An irony of the fighting in Bosnia at the end of the             to him and the French were concerned. After 1910, however,
> twentieth century is that the attempt of Serbian and Croatian      the French began to trust the Muslim leader somewhat more,
> nationalists to eradicate the Islamic history and the Muslim       even turning to him for help on occasion. Most notably, he
> people of the region has resulted in a reinvigoration of Islamic   recruited troops and raised money for French efforts in
> practices there. The Bosnians, who were once among the             World War I. For this he was made a Chevalier de la Légion
> most secularized of Muslims, now include those who are             d’Honneur in 1919. Ahmad Bamba, however, collaborated
> more observant. But the long tradition of tolerance and            reluctantly. He was a religious man and a mystic, given to
> mutual respect of Balkan Islam, for which places like Sarajevo     meditation and scholarship. His brotherhood was organized
> were justly famous, has been severely damaged.                     on a principle of total obedience, hard work, and self-denial
> and became the most powerful religious group in Senegal.
> See also Empires: Ottoman; Europe, Islam in.
> See also Africa, Islam in; Colonialism; Tariqa; Touba.
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Bringa, Tone. Being Muslim the Bosnian Way: Identity and           BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Community in a Central Bosnian Village. Princeton, N.J.:        Behrman, Lucy C. Muslim Brotherhoods and Politics in Senegal.
> Princeton University Press, 1995.                                 Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1970.
> Donia, Robert J., and Fine, John V. A. Bosnia and Hercegovina:     Coulon, Christian. Le Marabout et le Prince: Islam et Pouvoir au
> A Tradition Betrayed. New York: Columbia University                Sénégal. Paris: Pedone, 1981.
> Press, 1994.                                                     Creevey, Lucy. “Ahmad Bamba 1850–1927.” In Studies in
> Eminov, Ali. Turkish and Other Muslim Minorities in Bulgaria.        West African Islamic History, Vol. 1: The Cultivators of Islam.
> London: Hurst & Company, 1997.                                     Edited by John Ralph Willis. London: Frank Cass, 1979.
> Hasluck, Frederick William. Christianity and Islam under the       O’Brien, Donal Cruise. The Mourides of Senegal: The Political
> Sultans. Oxford, U.K.: The Clarendon Press, 1929.                  and Economic Organization of an Islamic Brotherhood. Oxford,
> U.K.: Clarendon Press, 1971.
> Pasic, Amir. Islamic Architecture in Bosnia and Hercegovina.
> Translated by Midhat Ridjanovic. Istanbul: Research Centre for Islamic History, Art, and Culture, 1994.                                                                  Lucy Creevey
> Popovic, Alexandre. L’Islam Balkanique: les musulmans du sudest europeen dans la periode post-ottomane. Berlin: Otto
> Harrassowitz, 1986.
> BANNA, HASAN AL- (1906–1949)
> Poulton, Hugh, and Taji-Farouki, Suha. Muslim Identity and
> the Balkan State. London: Hurst & Company, 1997.                 Hasan al-Banna was an Islamic reformer and the founder of
> Trix, Frances. “The Resurfacing of Islam in Albania.” The          Ikhwan al-Muslimin (Muslim Brotherhood). Banna was born
> East European Quarterly 28, no. 4 (1995): 533–549.              in Mahmudiyya, a town near Alexandria, Egypt. In addition
> to receiving the traditional education in Quran, hadith,
> Frances Trix     elementary principles of law, and Arabic language, Banna
> became a member of the Hasafiyya Sufi order during his teen
> years. Although members of the Brotherhood would later
> attack Sufism, Banna always acknowledged the strong influ-
> BAMBA, AHMAD (1853–1927)                                           ence of Sufism in his religious outlook and social activism.
> 
> Ahmad Bamba was the founder of the Muridiyya (Mouride)                 In 1923, Banna enrolled in Dar al-
Ulum in Cairo, the
> Brotherhood. Born in the Baol region in Senegal, Ahmad was         national teachers’ training college, whose eclectic curriculum
> initiated into the Qadiriyya Brotherhood (tariqa) by Shaykh        of traditional Islamic and modern Western subjects had been
> Sidia in Mauritania. He founded his own brotherhood in             shaped by Muhammad 
Abduh and Rashid Rida. In 1927, he
> 1886 and established the town of Touba (Senegal) as the            was sent to his first teaching assignment in a primary school
> 
> 104                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Baqillani, al-
> 
> in Isma
iliyya. Located in the Suez Canal zone, Isma
iliyya         BIBLIOGRAPHY
> was home to large numbers of European civilians as well as          Abu Rabi
, Ibrahim M. Intellectual Origins of Islamic Resurgence
> British military personnel. Banna was exposed daily to for-           in the Modern Arab World. Albany: State University of New
> eign imperialism in a direct manner that he had not experi-           York Press, 1996.
> enced in Cairo. He began to question the reasons for Egypt’s        Banna, Hasan al-. Five Tracts of Hasan al-Banna (1906–1949):
> political subservience and the means for its revival. Only            A Selection from the Majmuat Rasail al-Imam al-Shahid
> through a revival of Islamic consciousness among the masses,          Hasan al-Banna. Translated by Charles Wendell. Berke-
> Banna concluded, could imperialism be combated.                       ley: University of California Press, 1978.
> Commins, David. “Hasan al-Banna (1906–1949).” In Pioneers
> In March 1928, Banna and six other men founded an                 of Islamic Revival. Edited by Ali Rahnema. London: Zed
> organization attached to the Hasafiyya order to “command               Books, 1994.
> the right and forbid the wrong.” By the following year, the
> Mitchell, Richard P. The Society of the Muslim Brothers. New
> organization was already referred to as Ikhwan al-Muslimin.
> York: Oxford University Press, 1969.
> The organization began as an educational society, meant to
> instill or revive Islamic convictions among ordinary Egyp-
> Sohail H. Hashmi
> tians. Its primary goal was to create an Islamic society based
> on the model of the earliest Muslim generations. Banna
> traveled throughout the canal zone, lecturing, collecting
> donations, organizing chapters, and building offices and             BAQILLANI, AL- (?–1013)
> mosques. The Brotherhood’s organization reflected Banna’s
> Sufi background. Chapters consisted of groups of young men           Qadi Abu Bakr Muhammad b. al-Tayyib b. Muhammad, also
> organized hierarchically according to the level of commit-          known as Ibn al-Baqillani, was an Ash
arite theologian and
> ment and knowledge demonstrated. Tying the various chap-            Malikite jurisprudent. Al-Baqillani was regarded as the secters together was Banna, the murshid (guide) of the movement,       ond founder of Ash
arism for his contribution to the systemaand a majlis al-shura (advisory council) composed officially of      tization of the school.
> twelve members, though sometimes more.
> Born in Basra he lived mostly in Baghdad, and studied
> By 1932 Banna had moved the headquarters of the Broth-          theology under al-Ash
ari’s students Ibn Mujahid al-Tai and
> erhood to Cairo, reflecting his intention to play a much more        Abu ’l-Hasan al-Bahili, and fiqh (jurisprudence) under Abu
> active role in Egypt’s politics. The Brotherhood was also           
Abdallah al-Shirazi and Ibn Abu Zayd al-Qayrawani. He
> firmly entrenched in regional politics by the late 1940s             attended discussion meetings with representatives of other
> through branches in Palestine, Syria, Iraq, and Sudan. Banna’s      schools in Shiraz, was sent to Constantinople as a special
> ideological vision may be gleaned from his numerous writ-           envoy to Byzantine rulers, served as a judge (qadi) in Uqbera
> ings, the two most important being his memoirs (Mudhakkirat)        and Saghr towns, and taught in Baghdad until his death in 1013.
> and a published collection of his letters (Majmuat al-rasa
il).
> For him Islam was a holistic creed, providing Muslims guide-            Well known for his disputational skills and polemical
> lines for private piety, public morality, and social justice. The   writings, al-Baqillani’s books are mainly on theology. A large
> logical extension of this view was the establishment of an          work, Hidayat al-mustarshidin wa al-maqna fi usul al-din, is
> Islamic state. The leadership of such a state could only come       preserved at al-Azhar library (ms. no. 342) in Cairo. His
> from committed and informed Muslims, and the Brother-               works, which largely collected and classified Ash
arite views,
> hood was to prepare itself for this role.                           played a major role in the establishment and spread of the
> school. He emphasized the existence of atoms in order to
> Banna could not quell dissension within the Brotherhood          avoid the idea of pre-eternity of the universe and elaborated
> once it entered the turbulent Egyptian politics of the 1940s.       some concepts in Sunni kalam, such as empty space, the
> His control over the “secret apparatus,” the armed wing of          continuous creation of accidents due to their incapability of
> the organization that planned and carried out attacks on            lasting more than one unit of time, and the rational possibility
> government officials and institutions, was particularly tenu-        of miracles. However, he preserved the Salafi (Salafiyya)
> ous. More militant members refused to follow his agreement          tendency of not interpreting Quranic expressions attributed
> with the Egyptian government to merge the Brotherhood               to God suggesting anthropomorphism. Most of his books
> militia into the Egyptian army during the first Arab-Israeli         include lengthy polemics against other monotheistic religwar (1948–1949). Following a military decree banning the            ions. His skepticism toward the compatibility of ancient
> organization, Prime Minister Mahmud Fahmi al-Nuqrashi               metaphysics with Islamic doctrines led him to oppose the use
> was assassinated in December 1948 by a student associated           of formal logic in religious disciplines. In some issues of
> with the Brotherhood. In retaliation, the secret police assassi-    Islamic legal methodology, such as ijtihad and ijma, he
> nated Banna on 12 February 1949.                                    influenced later jurists.
> 
> See also Ikhwan al-Muslimin.                                        See also Ash
arites, Ash
aira; Kalam.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                     105
> Basri, Hasan al-
> 
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                        coups. In power, the party in both countries effectively
> Chaumont, E. “Baqillani, théologien ash‘arite et juriste            centralized control of the economy in government hands and
> malikite, contre les legistes à propos de l’ijtihad et de         instituted distributionist policies that originally benefited
> l’accord unanime de la communauté.” Studia Islamica 79            both the urban and rural middle and lower classes, though
> (1994): 79–102.                                                   over time at the cost of economic growth and efficiency. Both
> Grunebaum, Gustave E., von. A Tenth-Century Document of             the Syrian and Iraqi Ba
th came to rely on religious minorities
> Arabic Literary Theory and Criticism: The Sections on Poetry      to staff sensitive military and security positions—Alawis in
> of al-Baqillani’s Ijaz al-Qur
an. Chicago: Chicago Univer-       Syria and Sunnis in Iraq—as the popularity of the governsity Press, 1950.                                                 ments waned. A bitter split developed within the party in
> Haddad, Wadi Z. “A Tenth-Century Speculative Theolo-                1966, reflected in the extremely hostile relations between
> gian’s Refutation of the Basic Doctrines of Christianity:         Ba
thist Syria and Ba
thist Iraq. Like many ruling parties, the
> al-Baqillani.” In Christian-Muslim Encounters. Edited by Y.       Ba
th lost much of its ideological élan once in power, and
> Yazbeck Haddad and Wadi Zaydan Haddad. Gainsville:                became the vehicle for increasingly personalized rule in Syria
> University Press of Florida, 1995.                                and Iraq.
> 
> M. Sait Özervarli      See also Nationalism: Arab.
> 
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> BASRI, HASAN AL- (642–728)                                          Devlin, John F. The Bath Party: A History from Its Origins to
> 1966. Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution Press, 1976.
> Hasan al-Basri was one of the most famous early Sunni               Kienle, Eberhard. Bath v. Bath: The Conflict Between Syria
> theologians and ascetics. Born in Medina, he lived in Basra,           and Iraq, 1968–1989. London: I. B. Tauris & Co., 1990.
> where he was renowned for his piety, learning, and eloquence. He produced sermons, short commentaries on the                                                       F. Gregory Gause III
> Quran, aphorisms, and statements on ethics. In theology, he
> occupied a middle position on the subjects of free will and
> predestination. He believed that humans choose their actions, but that God determines the outlines of fate. He             BAZARGAN, MEHDI (1907–1995)
> criticized Umayyad caliphs and officials, but did not oppose
> them politically. His spiritual practice stressed self-reflective    The son of a merchant from Tabriz, Mehdi Bazargan was
> contemplation. He is considered a father of Sufism and               born in Tehran, Iran. Educated both in traditional Islamic
> appears as the source of many Sufi lineages.                         madrasa and modern schools, he completed his studies at Ecole
> Polytéchnique and Ecole Normale in France. Muhammad
> See also Kalam; Tasawwuf.                                           Mosaddeq (b. 1882) admired Bazargan’s engineering approach to social organization, such as Tehran’s fresh water
> Rkia E. Cornell     project (c. 1952), and commissioned him to fill the gap
> resulting from the departure of British experts after the
> nationalization of Iran’s oil industry. He became a founder of
> the Engineering Association of Iran in 1945 and of the
> BA
TH PARTY                                                         National Liberation Movement in 1961.
> 
> The Ba
th Party is the governing party in Iraq and Syria, and           Bazargan was one of a group of Islamic thinkers who
> is theoretically committed to the cause of Arab nationalism         convened to discuss current issues in the early 1960s, and was
> and unity. The Ba
th (Arabic for resurrection or renewal)           especially interested in adapting Shi
ite Islam to the techno-
> Party was founded by two French-educated Syrian school              logical world without importing its ideology. Most people in
> teachers, Michel 
Aflaq (Greek Orthodox Christian) and               this group became prominent leaders of the Iranian Revolu-
> Salah al-Din al-Bitar (Sunni Muslim), in 1943. “Regional            tion. Bazargan was imprisoned along with other nationalist
> commands” of the Ba
th were founded in many Arab coun-              leaders in 1963. After the revolution of 1979, he became the
> tries, all in principle subject to the “national command” of the    prime minister of the provisional government. Bazargan was
> founders. The party’s slogan, “unity, freedom and socialism,”       later ousted due to the occupation of the American embassy
> rallied students, intellectuals, and army officers to its cause in   and hostage taking by students and his meeting with Brzezinski
> many Arab states, and it played an important role in the            in Algiers.
> tumultuous politics of Syria, Iraq, and Jordan in the 1950s.
> However, the party never achieved a strong mass following           See also Iran, Islamic Republic of; Liberation Moveand had little electoral success anywhere. The Ba
th came to        ment of Iran; Reform: Iran; Revolution: Islamic Revopower in Syria in 1963 and in Iraq in 1968 through military         lution in Iran.
> 
> 106                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Bid
a
> 
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                         Lancaster, William. The Rwala Bedouin Today. Cambridge:
> Chehabi, H. E. Iranian Politics and Religious Modernism: The           Cambridge University Press, 1981.
> Liberation Movement of Iran Under the Shah and Khomeini.           Lewis, Norman. Nomads and Settlers in Syria and Jordan,
> Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1990.                        1800–1980. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
> Shryock, Andrew. Nationalism and the Genealogical Imagina-
> Mazyar Lotfalian          tion: Oral History and Textual Authority in Tribal Jordan.
> Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997.
> 
> Rochelle Davis
> BEDOUIN
> The Bedouin are nomadic peoples of Arabia known in Arabic
> as bedu, 
arab, and arab. They are especially known for
> BID
A
> keeping camels, whose domestication in the third millenium
> made trade and raiding—their main occupations—easier. In
> A bida (pl. bida) is an innovation in theology, ritual, or the
> addition, they keep flocks of sheep and goats, and more
> customs of daily life, that did not exist in early Islam but came
> recently, engage in seasonal agriculture and work in state
> into existence in the course of history.
> armed forces. Living in long, low-lying black tents made of
> camel and goat hair and wooden poles, the Bedouin migrate               The term itself does not appear in the Quran, be it that
> on a seasonal basis in search of pasture for their animals. The      the Holy Book includes other derivations of the root bd. In
> tent and its contents are individual property, but water,            the hadith literature bida is often used in contrast with the
> pasture, and land are the common property of the tribe.              term sunna. In this sense sunna denotes the exemplary standard for Muslim life, as this was established by the prophet
> Every tent represents a family, and an encampment of
> Muhammad and the pious Muslims of early Islam; for this
> tents—hayy— constitutes a clan, or qawm. A group of kindred
> reason, a bida, being a deviation from the normative sunna,
> clans forms a tribe, or qabila, and asabiyya is the unconditional
> was almost exclusively regarded as negative. This idea can be
> loyalty of a clansmember to his or her tribe. A weaker tribe
> found in the canonical collections of hadith literature and, for
> buys protection by paying the stronger tribe a price—khuwa.
> example, was put into words in the Prophetic saying: “The
> Bedouin have been characterized historically by urban             worst of all things are novelties (muhdathat); every novelty is
> Arab writers as vengeful and destructive, finding the agricul-        an innovation (bida), and every bida is an error (dalala), and
> ture and craft of sedentary life distasteful. In his al-Muqadimma,   every error “leads to hell.”
> Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406), the Tunisian philosopher-historian,
> hypothesized that civilizations have a predetermined life                Apart from this negative understanding of the concept of
> cycle; they fall prey to the nomads in the frontiers whose           bida, a positive interpretation also could be given to the term.
> bonds of solidarity (asabiyya) are strong. However, oth-            This was done by using another saying from the hadith
> ers have described Bedouins by their well-known values of            literature. These words are attributed to the second caliph
> generosity and hospitality and high standards of poetic              
Umar who, after he had seen an innovation in the rite of the
> compositions.                                                        ritual prayer (salat), is reported to have said: “Truly, this is a
> good bida.” On the basis of this saying the great jurisconsult
> As state power has infringed on Bedouin areas of control,         al-Shafi
i (767–820) made a distinction between good and
> moves to settle the Bedouin, to provide schools for children,        objectionable bidas. As a result of this, the possibility was
> and to employ adults in wage-labor have met with mixed               created to introduce new ideas and practices into Islam for
> success in Egypt, Jordan, Israel/Palestine, and the Arabian          which there were no precedents in early Islam, but which
> Gulf states. Bedouin strive to maintain their culture, social        could now be accepted as good innovations. Later scholars
> mores and traditions, while at the same time enjoying the            further manipulated the term bida by adding various other,
> benefits of technology, education, and health standards.              most often legal, adjectives to it. For example, the prolific
> Egyptian author Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti (1445–1505) mentions
> See also Arabia, Pre-Islam; 
Asabiyya; Ibn Khaldun.
> the application of the five legal classifications (al-ahkam alkhamsa) to the term, thus making a distinction between
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> “forbidden,” “reprehensible,” “indifferent,” “recommended,”
> Abu Lughod, Lila. Veiled Sentiments. Berkeley: University of         and “obligatory” bidas.
> California Press, 1986.
> Abu Lughod, Lila. Writing Women’s Worlds. Berkeley: Uni-                 Although this flexible interpretation of the concept of
> versity of California Press, 1993.                                 bida was thus known from an early period onward, various
> Baily, Clinton. Bedouin Poetry from Sinai and the Negev: Mirror      later scholars adhered to its negative interpretation excluof a Culture. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991.                      sively. A well-known representative of this stream is the
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                        107
> bin Ladin, Usama
> 
> theologian and jurisconsult Taqi al-Din Ibn Taymiyya                   Usama’s mother, one of four wives to Muhammad bin
> (1263–1328), who spent his entire life fighting bidas, which       Ladin, was from Damascus, Syria. Usama has remained close
> had been added to the original doctrine and practice of Islam,     to her throughout his life. He married one of his mother’s
> for example, the cult of saints. Under the influence of his         Syrian relatives, with whom he had a son. Usama attended
> teachings, Muhammad ibn 
Abd al-Wahhab (1703–1792)                 school in Saudi Arabia where he came under the influence of
> founded the rigid and intolerant reform movement known as          the thought of Muhammad Qutb, the brother of an influen-
> Wahhabiyya, which, for example, regarded the use of tobacco        tial Islamist ideologue named Sayyid Qutb and a Jordanian
> and coffee as bida. This Wahhabi ideology is also followed by     activist, 
Abdallah 
Azzam, who actively recruited Arab Musthe present-day Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, where conse-              lim fighters to mount a jihad against the Soviet military
> quently the concept of bida in its negative sense plays a         occupation of Afghanistan in the early 1980s. That Usama
> prominent part in religious and social discourse. An interest-     bin Ladin visited and lived for a while in Europe has been
> ing example of this is the official view on the celebration of      reported by some writers, but it is unclear when that might
> the birthday (mawlid) of the prophet Muhammad, an opinion          have been, where he actually lived in Europe, or what he did
> that was voiced often by the Grand Mufti of the Kingdom,           while he was there.
> 
Abd al-
Aziz ibn Baz (1910–1999). This festival is strictly
> forbidden, because it is regarded as a bida, “while every bida      After the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan in 1979, bin
> is an error.” Despite the enormous respect for the Prophet,        Ladin went to Pakistan. There he met several leaders of jihadi
> Wahhabis reject celebrating his mawlid because it is rightly       movements who were mounting resistance efforts against the
> understood as a later innovation.                                  Russians on behalf of the Afghani Muslims. He joined forces
> with 
Abdallah 
Azzam to recruit non-Afghani Muslims, mainly
> On the whole, however, in present-day Islam only a              Arabs, and to raise money and purchase weapons for an
> minority adhere to this limited, negative interpretation of the    armed resistance against the Soviet military. After al-Qa
ida’s
> concept of bida, while the majority of Muslims approves of a      growth and success, the two men had a falling out that led to
> flexible interpretation, which is more compatible with mod-         the assassination of 
Azzam. Usama’s considerable inherited
> ern beliefs and practices.                                         wealth (estimated at between $270 and $500 million) from his
> father formed an important material contribution to this
> See also Religious Institutions; Sunna.
> effort against the Soviets. According to several sources, another significant element in support of Arab militia resistance
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                       in Afghanistan (alleged and never denied) was money from
> Fierro, Maribel. “The Treatises Against Innovations (kutub         the United States, channeled through the Central Intellial-bida).” Der Islam 69 (1992): 204–246.                       gence Agency (C.I.A.)
> Goldziher, Ignaz, “Hadith and Sunna.” In Vol. 2, Muslim
> Studies (Muhammedanische Studien). Edited by S. M. Stern.            Usama bin Ladin will not be remembered as a religious
> Translated by C. R. Barber and S. M. Stern. London:              scholar or intellectual in the Muslim world. He nonetheless
> Allen & Unwin, 1971.                                             has attracted a considerable following, first of mujahidin
> Rispler, Vardit. “Toward a New Understanding of the Term           (guerilla) fighters against real and perceived enemies of Islam,
> bida.” Der Islam 68 (1991): 320–328.                           such as the Soviet military and the U.S. In addition he has
> gained passive approval and verbal support for his cause more
> Nico J. G. Kaptein     widely among Muslims around the world—many of whom
> openly disavow the terrorism and violence that is attributed
> to his leadership even while providing such support. Bin
> Ladin’s writings include poetry and coauthored treatises and
> BIN LADIN, USAMA (1957– )                                          statements that use code words and symbols (such as references to Crusaders and Jews) to express opposition to the
> Usama bin Ladin is a Saudi dissident and leader of the al-         State of Israel, European Christendom, and the United
> Qa
ida organization. He was born in 1957 in Saudi Arabia.          States, especially their respective control of and military
> His father, Muhammad bin Ladin, was a Yemeni commoner              encroachment on the Islamic holy sites in Jerusalem, Mecca,
> who became a successful building contractor. He moved his          and Medina.
> family to Saudi Arabia in the 1930s. Muhammad sired seventeen sons and established the Saudi Bin Ladin Group, a                Bin Ladin’s theological worldview follows the Salafi and
> construction firm that eventually won large contracts from          Wahhabi puritanical interpretation and expression of Islam,
> the Saudi royal family to renovate important icons of Saudi        as well as the trenchant articulation of this strain of Islam
> and Islamic religion and culture. These included several           provided by the Egyptian dissident intellectual, Sayyid Qutb.
> buildings in the cities of Mecca and Medina and many               Some observers have argued that although the fallen Soviet
> mosques, including the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.                Union, the United States, and the globalization of capitalism
> 
> 108                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Biography and Hagiography
> 
> were the spectacular targets of bin Ladin’s active career, in       reflections as contributing to character development. Rather,
> fact it is accommodationist Muslim regimes (like his native         biographical notices serve to establish origins and display a
> Saudi Arabia) that rely on U.S. and Western support that            person’s type or example through presenting his or her
> have been the real targets of his criticism and activism.           discrete actions and sayings. The tabaqat genre, which is most
> popular in Arabic, might focus on certain religious profes-
> See also Fundamentalism; Jihad; Qa
ida, al-; Qutb,                  sions such as the biographies of jurists, judges, Quran reciters
> Sayyid; Terrorism; Wahhabiyya.                                      and memorizers, or Sufis. Other tabaqat works chronicle
> individuals from a particular city or region, and some repre-
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                        sent “centennial” biographies that record all prominent Mus-
> Gunaratna, Rohan. Inside Al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror.        lims who died in a particular Islamic century.
> New York: Columbia University Press, 2002.
> Tadhkira (memorial) works are collections of the lives of
> persons engaged in scholarly or religious activities. They are
> Richard C. Martin       more common in later periods, especially in Iran, the Ottoman Empire, and South Asia.
> 
> Malfuzat are records of audiences of notable scholars or
> BIOGRAPHY AND HAGIOGRAPHY                                           Sufis. This genre is indigenous to South Asian Islam where
> the early Indian Sufis are known largely through records
> Islamic civilization from an early period gave importance to        preserved in this form. Malfuzat as a biographical genre often
> various biographical genres, for example, the life (sira) of the    provides a more spontaneous, authentic flavor of the person
> Prophet, works establishing priority in joining the Muslim          and his circle in contrast to the more idealized portrayals of
> community, and lives of saints, but rarely, until the modern        the tadhkirat. Individual biographies (tarjama, pl. tarajim) and
> period, autobiographies.                                            autobiographies were less common in earlier periods although a small number may be found. Notable is al-Ghazali’s
> Particularly important is the relationship between early        Deliverance from Error (d. 1111) a narrative of his spiritual
> biography and the hadith collections. The ilm al-rijal, or         search for truth. One should not neglect to mention the
> “science of the men,” was a branch of Islamic historiography        biographical significance of other related genres, for examverifying the reliability (tadil) of hadith transmitters accord-   ple, letters and travel accounts, such as those of the famous
> ing to criteria such as their direct acquaintance with the          Ibn Battuta (1304–1369).
> Prophet and their veracity and virtues. The qualities (fada
il)
> In the medieval period bio- or autobiographical notices
> and special merits (khasa
is) of important persons constitute a
> were sometimes prefaced or appended to a scholar’s works
> subsection of most hadith collections and reveal early Muslim
> and read like a curriculum vitae, that included the individual’s
> concepts of charisma, character, or religious authority. Anteachers, places visited, and works studied, transmitted, or
> other hadith topic that blossomed into a genre of biographicomposed. Medieval Muslim autobiography and biography
> cal literature is asceticism (zuhd). Compilations on this subject
> often featured accounts of dreams or visionary experiences
> provide insights into the early development of Sufism and
> indicating that the tradition considered such events as imporhow ascetic behaviors established rankings of merit and
> tant and meaningful.
> authority.
> More recently, Western literature has influenced bio-
> Muslim religious biography and hagiography were com-             graphical and autobiographical writing in many Islamic soposed in specific genres. One of the most important bio-             cieties. In South Asia innovations in the tradition of religious
> graphical forms is the tabaqat (ranks or classes). This name        biography were related to the development of Urdu as a
> refers to the system for the arrangement of biographical            modern prose language in the late nineteenth century and to
> notices according to notions of contiguity, rank, or virtue.        efforts to combine Islamic and “modern” learning embodied
> The earliest extant example is the Kitab al-tabaqat al-kabir of     in the Aligarh movement. Most significant among this trend
> Ibn Sa
d (d. 845), which contains some 4,250 biographical           are the writings of Shibli Nu
mani (1857–1914), who prenotices of men and women of the first Islamic generations.           pared a series of monographs on “Heroes of Islam” including
> The inclusion of ordinary persons in the classical biographi-       studies of the caliph 
Umar, the jurist Abu Hanifa, the poet
> cal dictionaries indicates how the history of the Islamic           Rumi, and the theologian al-Ghazali, as well as the Prophet.
> community was understood in this period as being consti-            This new style of biography was marked by critical evaluation
> tuted, to a large extent, by the contribution of individuals to     and a rationalist treatment of the subject.
> building up and transmitting its specific worldview and culture.
> As the forces of westernization have increasingly pene-
> The telling of lives in traditional Islamic biographical         trated many Muslim societies, the canons of modern literaforms does not present a series of events or cumulative             ture have tended to favor the novel, short story, and poetry
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                      109
> Biruni, al-
> 
> written in free verse over traditional biographical forms.        Roded, Ruth. Women in Islamic Biographical Collections: from
> With the decline in the popularity of Sufism, the audience for       Ibn Sa‘d to Who’s Who. Boulder, Colo.: L. Rienner Pubcollective memorials and devotional biographies has also            lishers, 1994.
> decreased. In most regions the traditional Islamic biographical forms have declined in importance as secular, literary life                                             Marcia Hermansen
> stories take precedence and may provide inspiration for
> serialization as televised historical dramas.
> 
> Traditional genres of religious biography still persist in    BIRUNI, AL- (C. 973–1050)
> religious contexts and in more traditional segments of Muslim societies. In the modern period, however, a number of
> Al-Biruni was a polymath of the Islamic eleventh century who
> new developments have occurred. Among the most striking
> wrote in multiple scientific fields. Included among his subare: an increased use of religious biography for personal
> jects were astronomy, mathematics, pharmacology, and minedification; its use in reinforcing symbols of national or
> eralogy, and he also contributed important works of history
> regional identity; and its functioning to inspire or legitimate
> and cultural studies.
> political action and Islamist identifications.
> Al-Biruni originated from the region of Khwarazm, and
> For example, in Iranian Shi
ism the lives of the imams
> his name refers to the fact that he was born in a suburb of the
> have been a source of inspired poetry and performances of
> capital. Although Persian, he preferred to write in Arabic.
> commemoration. A significant and instructive trend in their
> When Sultan Mahmud of Ghazna conquered Khwarazm in
> modern use is that during the prerevolutionary period in Iran,
> 1017, al-Biruni was taken as a prisoner to his capital. He
> the focus of Husayn’s biography shifted from his role as tragic
> became the court astrologer and then accompanied Mahmud
> martyr to portraying him as an activist challenging the unjust
> on his expeditions to northwestern India. This led al-Biruni
> social order.
> to study Sanskrit and Indian religions and customs, which he
> The role of females also receives increased attention.         recorded in Kitab tarikh al-Hind (Alberuni’s India). His writ-
> Traditional Muslim scholars now present early Muslim he-          ings include significant observations on the natural features,
> roic women in ways that honor their contributions to Islamic      social structure, and religious practices of the non-Muslim
> history while reinforcing traditional patterns of female be-      Indians. He was a prolific author of some 180 works of
> havior. In contrast, the Moroccan feminist historian Fatima       varying lengths, including many important treatises on mathe-
> Mernissi has presented a revisionist look at the lives of a       matical and astronomical topics.
> number of prominent early Muslim women that attempts to
> recover their independence of action and defiance of sup-          See also Astronomy; Historical Writing; Knowledge;
> posed cultural norms. Zaynab al-Ghazali, a contemporary           Science, Islam and.
> Egyptian activist in the Muslim Brotherhood, offered her
> prison memories in Hayati (My life) in the form of a heroic       BIBLIOGRAPHY
> narrative with hagiographic undertones. Islamist autobiogra-      Biruni, al-. Alberuni’s India. Translated by Eduard Sachau.
> phies and convert narratives of American and European                London: Keegan Paul, 1910.
> Muslims open up further possibilities for hybridization in
> biographical accounts.                                                                                      Marcia Hermansen
> See also Arabic Literature; Genealogy; Historical
> Writing.
> 
> BODY, SIGNIFICANCE OF
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Hermansen, Marcia. “Interdisciplinary Approaches to Islamic       The body is the locus of human existence and activity in
> Biographical Materials.” Religion 18, no. 4 (1988): 163–182.    Islam. Islamic law stipulates the regular purification of the
> Lawrence, Bruce B. Notes from a Distant Flute: The Extant         body, requires the use of a body in performing rituals, and
> Literature of Pre-Mughal Indian Sufism. Tehran: Imperial         views the body as the site of both social continuity and
> Iranian Academy of Philosophy, 1978.                            punishment in the case of violating social norms.
> Malti-Douglas, Fedwa. Medicines of the Soul: Female Bodies and
> Sacred Geographies in a Transnational Islam. Berkeley: Uni-        Purification and renunciation of the body are required for
> versity of California, 2001.                                    both men and women in Islamic law. Ritual purification
> Mojaddedi, Jawid. Sufi Biographies from Al-Sulami to Jami:         involves washing and wiping certain parts of the body, and is
> Reworking Time Past. Richmond, Va.: Curzon, 2000.               invalidated by natural bodily emissions (urine, feces, pus,
> 
> 110                                                                                           Islam and the Muslim World
> Bourghiba, Habib
> 
> Though these Muslim women wear their veils in slightly different styles, all of the women are sufficiently covered. © PETER TURNLEY/CORBIS
> 
> blood, vomit), sleep, unconsciousness, insanity, and sexual              although some authorities also include in this the female
> contact. Most jurists also agree that touching one’s genitals            voice. Crimes such as theft require the amputation of limbs
> (penis, vagina, anus) also invalidates purification. The ritual           (hands and feet), and other crimes such as fornication require
> fast during the month of Ramadan requires keeping sub-                   death by stoning under certain circumstances.
> stances from entering the body (food, drink, medicine) and
> abstinence from sex.                                                     See also Circumcision; Gender; 
Ibadat.
> 
> The body is also of symbolic importance for the rites of             BIBLIOGRAPHY
> the pilgrimage to Mecca. While in the sanctuary at Mecca
> Katz, Marion Holmes. Body of Text: The Emergence of the
> pilgrims are not allowed to eat the meat of wild animals or
> Sunni Law of Ritual Purity. Albany: State University of
> plants. Pilgrims are not allowed to have sex, and marriages                New York Press, 2002.
> performed during the pilgrimage are invalid. Nor are pil-
> Reinhart, Kevin A. “Impurity/No Danger.” History of Religgrims allowed to wear sewn clothing or apply perfume to
> ions 30 (1990–1991): 1–24.
> their bodies. The hair and fingernails of pilgrims cannot be
> cut during the pilgrimage but are cut upon exiting from the              Zannad, Traki. Les lieux du corps en Islam. Paris: Publisud, 1994.
> sanctuary at the end of the pilgrimage. Many classical sources
> report that the prophet Muhammad distributed his hair and                                                            Brannon M. Wheeler
> fingernails, cut at the end of his last pilgrimage, to his
> followers as relics.
> 
> Islamic law recognizes the body as the legal sphere of the            BOURGHIBA, HABIB (1901–2000)
> individual. The “private area” (urwah), the area which must
> be covered in public, is defined differently for men and                  Habib Bourghiba was the most prominent leader of Tunisia’s
> women. For men it is the area between the waist and the                  Neo-Destour movement, which led that country to indepenknees, for women it is the area from the neck to the ankles,             dence from France in 1956. Born into a middle-class family of
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                              111
> Bukhara, Khanate and Emirate of
> 
> limited resources at Monastir in 1901, Bourghiba was edu-         and Chaghatay rulers during the last decades of the fifteenth
> cated at the prestigious Sadiqi College and at the Lycée          century. The principal source of Muhammad Shibani’s au-
> Carnot in Tunis; subsequently he earned a law degree at the       thority was his claim of descent from Genghis Khan. He
> University of Paris. After returning to Tunisia in the mid-       derived additional authority from the fact that his grandfa-
> 1920s, he became increasingly involved in the Destour             ther, Abu ’l-Khayr, had ruled a large confederation of Turco-
> (constitutionalist) movement, which was seeking Tunisia’s         Mongol tribes in Western Siberia known as the Uzbeks. But
> autonomy from France. By the 1930s he broke with its              Muhammad Shibani also propagated Islamic legitimacy by
> leadership, which he considered too socially and religiously      adopting the title of caliph.
> conservative, and founded the Neo-Destour party, which
> tended toward secular and liberal nationalism.                        Sovereignty in the extended Shibanid-Abulkhayrid family
> was corporate, embodied in the sultans (agnatic princes who
> Once independence came, however, he transformed the           traced their descent from Abu l-Khayr through their father’s
> Neo-Destour party—later the Destourian Socialist Party—           lineage) under the overall khanship of Muhammad Shibani.
> into a ruling single party. This action allowed him to gain and   The khan distributed the conquered territories as appanages
> maintain a tight grip over the Tunisian political process for     (land grants) among the eligible Abulkhayrid princes. The
> three decades. He was elected three times without opposition      crisis following the unexpected death of Muhammad Shibani
> to the presidency, ultimately becoming president for life in      Khan in battle against Safavid Qizilbash troops (1510) led to a
> 1974. In the meantime, the economy stagnated or declined          major reorganization of rule. A short power struggle between
> and the gap between the ruling elites and the masses widened,     the leaders of the major Abulkhayrid clans was resolved in a
> not only materially, but also culturally. Various Islamist        general meeting (quriltai) convened in 1512 in Samarkand.
> groups arose in a protest movement appealing to traditional       Supreme sovereignty as khan was from then on nominally
> religious values. In November 1987, with Bourghiba’s physi-       assigned to the senior Abulkhayrid agnate.
> cal and mental health clearly deteriorating, he was deposed by
> the sitting Prime Minister Zine el Abidine Ben Ali. Habib            The appanages became hereditary dominions. The prin-
> Bourghiba died in his native city of Monastir.                    cipal appanages, each dominated by one of the Abulkhayrid
> cousin clans, were Bukhara, Samarkand, Tashkent, and
> See also Modernization, Political: Constitutionalism;             Miyankal (the region between Samarkand and Bukhara). In
> Secularism, Islamic.                                              1526 Balkh and the lands between the Hindu Kush and the
> River Amu were regained and allotted to the Jani-Beg clan.
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                      This appanage system remained relatively stable until the
> Murphy, Emma C. Economic and Political Change in Tuni-            mid-century, when unclear succession in Bukhara triggered
> sia: from Bourguiba to Ben Ali. New York: St. Martin’s          open interclan conflict. Abdallah II, a member of the Jani-
> Press, 1999.                                                    Beg clan, eventually established himself in Bukhara in 1557
> and gradually expanded his domination over the other
> John Ruedy     Abulkhayrid appanages. Abdallah took residence in Bukhara
> and initiated large-scale urban development projects.
> 
> The political process of electing a supreme khan on the
> BUKHARA, KHANATE AND                                              basis of seniority and distributing the territory as appanages
> EMIRATE OF                                                        to the eligible junior members of the royal clan was continued
> by the Toqay Timurids, another clan that claimed descent
> Conventional terms for the political entities in Central Asia     from Genghis Khan and took over in the secession crisis that
> were ruled by the khans of the Shibani-Abulkhayrid (1500 to       followed the death of Abdallah’s son in 1598. The number of
> 1598), the Toqay-Timurid (1598 to the late 18th century)          appanages was reduced to two: Bukhara, the residence of the
> families, and the emirs of the Uzbek Manghit tribe (1785 to       supreme khan and capital of the northern and central territo-
> 1920). The core territories of the khanate and emirate were       ries of the khanate, and Balkh, the center of the areas south
> the string of oases along the course of the river Zarafshan       of the Amu.
> with the cities Bukhara and Samarkand. During most of the
> sixteenth to mid-eighteenth centuries, Tashkent and Balkh             The military backbone of Abulkhayrid and Toqay-Timurid
> also belonged to the Bukharan dominions.                          rule were the Uzbek emirs, leaders of the Turco-Mongol
> nomadic tribal groups who had brought Muhammad Shibani
> In 1500, Muhammad Shibani drove the Timurids from              to power. They gradually merged with the old ruling class of
> Transoxania and conquered a territory reaching from Tashkent      Timurid Central Asia. The hierarchy of the emirs symbolito Khwarazm and Khurasan. Shibani, a descendant of Gen-           cally followed a pattern of military-tribal organization that is
> ghis Khan through his grandson Shiban, had served Timurid         thought to date back to the army of Genghis Khan. However,
> 
> 112                                                                                           Islam and the Muslim World
> Bukhara, Khanate and Emirate of
> 
> The emirs were compensated for their services by assignments of pastureland and the revenues from villages. Originally given to an individual and frequently redistributed,
> these grants tended to become hereditary, and as a result
> certain emirid clans and their tribal followings became closely
> linked to defined territories. The Manghit tribal group thus
> came to dominate the oasis of Bukhara and the pasturelands
> around Qarshi.
> 
> The growing imbalance between the authority of the khan
> and the tribal leaders resulted in a radical change in the crisis
> that followed the temporary surrender of the khan of Bukhara
> to Nadir Shah in 1740. The ataliq Muhammad Rahim, an
> emir of the Manghit clan, was able to assume power in
> Bukhara and even to adopt the title khan in 1756. His cousin
> Shah Murad (1785–1800) abolished the khanate and ruled
> with the caliphal title amir al-mu
minin (Commander of the
> Faithful), thus lending his nonregal status additional Islamic
> legitimacy.
> 
> The transition from the neo-Chinggisid khanate to the
> Manghit emirate can be characterized by two major developments: The legitimation of rule was now Islamic rather than
> based on descent from Genghis Khan, and the power of the
> non-Manghit Uzbek emirs was systematically reduced. The
> Manghit emirs of Bukhara created a small standing army and
> so were able to become largely independent of tribal military
> support. The connection of military resources and access to
> regional revenues that had always made the Uzbek emirs a
> potential threat to the rulers’s authority was gradually dis-
> The Kalyan Minaret, built circa 1127, in Bukhara, Uzbekistan. The     solved. In the second half of the nineteenth century, the
> emirate of Bukhara was abolished in 1920 when its last amir,
> emirate of Bukhara appears to have become a fairly central-
> 
Alim, went into exile during the occupation of the city by Russian
> revolutionary troops. © DIEGO LEZAMA OREZZOLI/CORBIS                  ized state. The emirate was governed through a complex
> military-civil bureaucracy headed by a chief minister called
> qoshbegi. The territory was divided into provinces (twentythis does not mean that the Uzbek emirs were a closed group,          seven in 1915) which in turn consisted of fiscal-administrative
> nor that they were restricted to military duty. The borderline        units. The oasis of Bukhara was under direct administration,
> between military and civil administration was to some extent          while the other provinces were governed by officials called beks.
> fluid. Service in the civil administration appears to have been
> an integral part of an emir’s career.                                     Already during the reign of the emir Nasrallah (1826–1860)
> the emirate felt the incipient impact of the conflicting imperi-
> On the other hand, high civil officials of nontribal back-          alistic interests of Russia and Britain. In 1868, the emir
> ground could enter the ranks of the emirs. Until the mid-             Muzaffar al-Din (1860–1885) had to accept the annexation of
> eighteenth century, the highest offices were the ataliq, the           the eastern part of his dominions, including Samarkand, by
> divanbegi, and the hakim. The ataliq (princely tutor) seems to        tsarist Russia. The so-called friendship treaty between the
> have served as military-administrative counselor and a liaison        governor general of Russian Turkestan and the emir of
> between the khan and the sultans. Hakims served as gover-             Bukhara in 1873 sealed the emirate’s loss of independence.
> nors of territorial subunits of the appanages. The divanbegi          Though nominally still a sovereign state, the emirate was
> was the head of the fiscal administration. However, to what            gradually integrated into the sphere of influence of the
> extent this title (and others of lower rank) matched well-            Russian Empire. In 1920, Russian revolutionary troops occudefined administrative duties or rather were nominal ranks is          pied Bukhara. The last emir, 
Alim (r. 1910–1920), went into
> difficult to determine. The high ranks of religious offices             exile and the emirate was abolished.
> were filled by members of a limited number of families of
> noble descent (sayyid, khwaja), the most noteworthy being the         A photo of the arched entryway to the Miri-Arab Madrasa
> Juybari khwajas.                                                        appears in the volume one color plates.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                        113
> Bukhari, al-
> 
> See also Central Asia, Islam in; Central Asian Culture             today was prepared by 
Ali b. Muhammad al-Yunini (d. 1302).
> and Islam.                                                         Numerous commentaries have been written on the Sahih; in
> recent times, partial and complete translations of this collec-
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                       tion have been made in a number of languages. Al-Bukhari
> Becker, Seymour. Russia’s Protectorates in Central Asia: Bukhara   died in his hometown of Bukhara at age sixty.
> and Khiva, 1865–1924. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1968.                                            See also Hadith.
> McChesney, Robert D. Central Asia: Foundations of Change.
> Princeton, N.J.: Darwin Press, 1996.                             BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Rauf, Muhammad Abdul. “Hadith Literature.” In Vol. 1,
> Florian Schwarz        Arabic Literature to the End of the Umayyad Period. Edited
> by A. F. L. Beeston, et al. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge
> University Press, 1983.
> Robson, James. “al-Bukhari.” In Vol. 1, Encyclopaedia of Islam.
> BUKHARI, AL- (810–870)                                               Edited by H. A. R. Gibb, et al. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1960.
> 
> Muhammad b. Isma
il al-Bukhari, who was born in Bukhara
> Asma Afsaruddin
> in central Asia, compiled the most important hadith collection in Sunni Islam, called al-Jami al-sahih (The sound
> collection). Al-Bukhari is said to have started to learn hadiths
> (“the sayings” of the prophet Muhammad) at about ten years         BURAQ
> of age, having been blessed with a remarkably retentive
> memory and a sharp intellect. At the age of sixteen, he made       In sura 17:1 of the Quran, the prophet Muhammad, led by
> the pilgrimage and traveled to Mecca and Medina to study           the angel Gabriel, journeys in one night (israq
) to “the Far
> with well-known hadith teachers there. He next went to             Distant Place of Worship,” interpreted as Jerusalem. In the
> Egypt, and spent the following sixteen years traveling through     hadith, Muhammad continues on to the heavens (miraj),
> much of Asia in the pious pursuit of hadiths. On his return to     describing his mount as a small white steed, called al-Buraq.
> Bukhara, he began to scrutinize the roughly 600,000 reports        Later literary and art-historical traditions give al-Buraq a
> he had collected. He is said to have applied the most stringent    human face, wings, and dappled coloration. This miraculous
> standards in determining the reliability of these reports,         steed is depicted in the fourteenth-century world history of
> which led him to record only about 7,397 of them. His              Rashiduddin, the fifteenth-century Timurid Mirajname, and
> painstaking efforts resulted in the Sahih, which by the tenth      sixteenth-century Safavid Khamsas of Nizami. Buraq’s imporcentury had achieved near universal recognition among Mus-         tance continues today, appearing in Sunni paintings comlims, who regarded al-Bukhari’s collection as including the        memorating a hajj to Mecca, or in Shi
ite popular art, which
> most reliable and sound hadiths attributed to the Prophet,         often shows al-Buraq alongside Husayn’s horse at Karbala.
> based particularly on analysis of their chains of transmission.
> The Sahih continues to enjoy an almost “canonical” status          See also Mi
raj; Tasawwuf.
> today, second only to the Quran in importance as the source
> for moral and legal prescriptions. The standard edition in use                                                    Carel Bertram
> 
> 114                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> C
> CAIRO                                                                       stretching along the axis of the Nile River. The atmosphere
> of growing provincial autonomy in the period that followed
> The foundations of present-day Cairo rest upon the ancient                  fueled the ambitions of Ahmad ibn Tulun, a man of Turkish
> capital of Memphis, one of the oldest urban settlements in the              extraction appointed as deputy for the governor of Egypt. He
> world, which flourished between 5000 and 2500 B.C.E. Mem-                    founded his own princely city slightly to the north of alphis was finally surpassed by the seaport of Alexandria when                 
Askar in 870 C.E., which was called al-Qatai
 (the Wards),
> Egypt became a Mediterranean colony of the Greeks, but its                  reflecting its feudal base. The awesome mosque of Ibn Tulun,
> strategic position ensured continuous settlement. As a result,              built between 876 and 878, is one of the most prominent
> the city was still thriving at the time of the Roman conquest               legacies inherited from that era and still stands, surrounded
> around 24 B.C.E. Although the region was contested by the                   by the crowded metropolis of today.
> Romans and Persians at the opening of the seventh century
> C.E., it was finally the Arabs who prevailed, thereby setting
> The most significant event in the genesis of Cairo is
> into motion the genesis of Cairo or al-Qahira, The Victori-                 undoubtedly the rise of the Shi
ite Fatimid dynasty in Tunisia
> ous City, as it is still referred to in Arabic. Cairo would in time         at the beginning of the tenth century. The Fatimid caliphate
> grow into one of the most important religious, cultural, and                reached its full expression on Egyptian soil and it was its
> political centers of the Muslim world.                                      fourth caliph, Mu
izz al-Din, who gained sovereignty over
> the area in 969. His brilliant general Jawhar led the campaign
> The urban centers that sprouted under Islamic civilization               and almost immediately began staking out the walls of a new
> surfaced from either army camps, that eventually developed                  palace city after his arrival. The city was initially called alinto permanent cities, or princely towns established to com-                Mansuriyya but was renamed al-Qahira al-Mu
izziyya four
> memorate new dynasties and to affirm their authority. Cairo                  years later, to commemorate and celebrate the arrival of the
> was conceived out of an amalgamation of such regions, in                    caliph. With the coming of Mu
izz al-Din, Cairo or alwhich an army camp settlement fused with the princely                       Qahirah was formally inducted into world history.
> centers established at its periphery. As such, the successive
> stages of Cairo’s genesis also capture the histories of her past                Al-Qahirah was developed into a city of lavish beauty and
> masters.                                                                    intellectual vitality under the Fatimids. But the city remained
> largely inaccessible to common people from areas like Fustat,
> In 640 C.E. the forces of the illustrious Arab general 
Amr              who could only enter the royal enclosure by special permit.
> ibn al-
As reached what is present-day Cairo. He set up camp                Ironically, the al-Azhar University, which is today recognized
> there and established the first mosque in Africa, which still                as one of the most important intellectual centers of Sunni
> stands and is one of the most important religious icons of                  Islam, was established by the Fatimids to promote their
> Cairo today. The settlement itself came to be known as                      Shi
ite doctrine.
> Fustat, which simply means “entrenchment,” and eventually
> developed into a burgeoning city. The first major dynastic                      The closing of the eleventh century marked the beginning
> shift in the Muslim empire left its mark upon the Egyptian                  of the first Crusade and also the decline of the Fatimid
> landscape as well and the Abbasid victory over the Ummayads                 dynasty. In the period between 1164 and 1169 Cairo became
> in 750 C.E. gave rise to the princely town of al-
Askar (the                a pawn in the power struggle between the Seljuks of Syria and
> Cantonment). In the century that followed the communities                   the Christian forces in Jerusalem. Although still nominally
> of Fustat and al-
Askar fused to form a combined settlement                 ruled by the Fatimids, true control of the city eventually fell
> 
> Caliphate
> 
> the city. For example, Sultan Qalawun erected his famous
> hospital in the heart of the city during this era. Although the
> Cairo of the fifteenth century still surpassed any European
> city in terms of urban development and population, this
> period also marks the beginning of its decline. Cairo’s economic prosperity was reduced considerably due to Vasco da
> Gama’s successful circumnavigation of Africa and his arrival
> in India in 1498. The East-West Oriental spice trade with
> Europe, which passed through Egypt, was thereby severed,
> stranding Cairo in a backwater of the rapidly changing global
> map. Not even the Ottomans, who finally ousted the Mamluks
> in 1517, were able to hamper the city’s downward spiral.
> 
> The modernizing reforms instituted by Isma
il Pasha in
> the late nineteenth century ultimately breathed life back into
> Cairo. These reforms ironically were inspired by the urban
> developments of modern-day Europe. Cairo is today the
> largest metropolis in the Middle East and is now being stifled
> by overurbanization resulting from overcentralization. This
> is but the latest challenge facing the City Victorious. Having
> always been at the forefront of Arab and Islamic trends, it is a
> challenge to which Cairo will surely rise.
> 
> See also Sultanates: Ayyubids; Sultanates: Ghaznavid;
> Sultanates: Mamluk; Sultanates: Seljuk.
> 
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Abu-Lughod, Janet. Cairo: 1001 Years of the City Victorious.
> Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1971.
> A 1996 aerial view of Cairo and the Nile River. Cairo evolved at
> Ibrahim, Saad Eddin; Sobhi, Hoda M; and El-Ahwal, Abdel
> the site of the ancient city of Memphis, one of the first urban
> settlements, dating from 5000 B.C.E. In the tenth century C.E., the        K. “Problems of Over-Urbanization: The Case of Cairo.”
> Shi
ite Fatimid dynasty built a palace city called al-Qahira al-           In The Middle East City: Ancient Traditions Confront a
> Mu
izziyya. Al-Qahira, or Cairo, was at that time a walled, beauti-        Modern World. Edited by Abdulaziz Y. Saqqaf. New York:
> ful city inaccessible to non-royals from outlying areas. Entry to the      Paragon House Publisher, 1987.
> royal area was granted with special permission. © THOMAS HARTWELL/
> CORBIS SABA
> Mitchell, Timothy. Colonising Egypt. New York: Cambridge
> University Press, 1988.
> Raymond, Andre. “Cairo.” In The Modern Middle East. Edited
> by Albert Hourani; Philip S. Khoury; and Mary C. Wilson.
> into the hands of the young Sunni governor Saladin (Salah al-             London: I. B. Tauris & Co Ltd, 1993.
> Din) al-Ayyubi, sent to defend Cairo against the Crusader
> Rodenbeck, Max. Cairo: The City Victorious. London: Picacampaigns. Saladin in time established the Ayyubid dynasty
> dor, 1998.
> and even reconquered Jerusalem. His mercurial rise contrib-
> Rogers, J. M. “Al-Kahira.” In The Encyclopaedia of Islam.
> uted once again to the further transformation of Cairo.
> Edited by E. Van Donzel; B. Lewis; and Ch. Pellat.
> Under him, the mosque of 
Amr was restored and al-Azhar
> Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1978.
> University was purged of its Shi
ite bias. A madrasa (school)
> was founded at the tomb of Imam al-Shafi
i soon after the
> Aslam Farouk-Alli
> Ayyubid conquest of Egypt and a mausoleum commemorating the great imam is still in existence today. But Saladin’s
> most important and long-lived addition to the city was the
> Citadel, built for him in 1176 as a place of refuge and                 CALIPHATE
> continuously expanded upon by later generations.
> In classical and medieval Islamic history and juristic theory,
> By the fourteenth century Cairo was recognized as a world           the Arabic term khilafa, of which “caliphate” is the anglicized
> capital, reaching its zenith under the Mamluks. Cairo’s great-          form, denotes the political headship of the Muslim commuest growth and development took place in this period. In spite          nity. The term khalifa—which is used in the Quran with
> of constant forays against the Crusaders and Mongols, the               reference to Adam (2:30) and David (38:26), besides seven
> Mamluk rulers still devoted energies to the development of              other occurrences in the plural—is understood in Sunni
> 
> 116                                                                                                 Islam and the Muslim World
> Caliphate
> 
> juristic theory as the successor of the prophet Muhammad.            several of them now refused to continue their tributary status,
> The position of the caliph is the most central of all political      and some renounced allegiance to the new faith as well. Abu
> institutions in the history of classical Islam, and issues per-      Bakr’s first challenge was to subdue these rebellious tribes to
> taining to the legitimacy of those occupying this office, the         secure the future of the nascent caliphate. The armies he sent
> scope of its powers, and the theoretical and practical accom-        against them did not stop at reasserting Medina’s authority,
> modations forced upon it during the course of its long career        however, but embarked on an extraordinarily daring path of
> are central to the political and religious history of Islam.         conquests outside the Arabian Peninsula. Muhammad had
> already led campaigns in the Syrian desert, and Muslim
> History of the Institution                                           armies now began operations simultaneously in the Byzan-
> Sunni Muslims believe that Muhammad did not appoint                  tine territories of Syria and Palestine and in the Sassanian
> anyone to succeed him on his death. According to this view,          territories. The degree to which the conquest of the Byzanwhich has also been generally adopted by modern scholars of          tine and Sassanian territories was the result of careful planearly Islamic history, a number of the companions of Muham-          ning or coordination from Medina is uncertain; yet by the
> mad congregated in Medina immediately after his death to             time Abu Bakr died (634), two years after the death of
> deliberate on the question of his succession. At this meeting,       Muhammad, the early Islamic state was already on its way to
> Abu Bakr, a member of Muhammad’s tribe of Quraysh and                becoming a major world empire.
> one of the most influential of his companions, was elected as
> the first caliph. The succession was soon recognized by the               The beginnings of the administrative organization of the
> other companions, including 
Ali, the initially recalcitrant         caliphate are credited to Abu Bakr’s immediate successor,
> cousin and son-in-law of Muhammad, who was later to                  
Umar ibn al-Khattab (r. 634–644). He created a military
> become the focus of the legitimist claims of the Shi
a. The          register (diwan) for the payment of the troops and for the
> latter’s view of Muhammad’s succession is squarely at odds           disbursement of pensions to other members of the Muslim
> with that of the Sunnis. To them, Muhammad had, in fact,             community. It was in his reign that the first garrison towns
> designated a successor in the person of 
Ali, and most of the        were established in the conquered lands, a system of taxation
> companions of the Prophet were culpable for subverting this          was put in place, and efforts were made to minimize the social
> explicit testament, as indeed were the successors of the first-       and economic disruptions inherent in this rapid conquest. Yet
> generation Muslims for their continued denial of the claims          it was not just the conquered people but also the new
> of 
Ali’s descendants, the imams, to the political and religious     conquerors who had to cope with the changes set in motion
> headship of Islam.                                                   by the expansion of the Medinan state. Entire tribes came to
> settle in the newly acquired territories, and, quite apart from
> As the rival Shi
ite and Sunni perspectives on early Islam—      such rivalries as they may have brought with them from their
> and especially on the locus of legitimate authority after            earlier environs, new grievances and conflicts were provoked
> Muhammad—suggest, there are competing, often irreconcil-             by the competing claims of those who had converted to Islam
> able, narratives that comprise the history and historiography        early or late (which determined the share of one’s stipends),
> of the early caliphate. In the form that these and other             by the unfamiliar demands of the nascent state on its subjects,
> narratives have come down to the present day, they are also          and by the conduct and policies of the caliph or his agents.
> relatively late (with the earliest extant sources on the caliphate
> dating from the 9th century), and their content and structure            Such resentments came to the surface in the reign of
> often reveal considerable instability in how they were trans-        
Uthman ibn 
Affan (r. 644–656), the third successor of
> mitted or variously rearranged by different hands before,            Muhammad, who was eventually murdered in Medina by
> and even after, being committed to writing. Early Islamic            disaffected Arab tribesmen from the garrisons of Kufa, Basra,
> historiography may provide rich clues to the controversies on        and Egypt. The murder of 
Uthman inaugurated the series of
> questions of religious and political authority during the first       bitter conflicts within the Muslim community that are colleccenturies of Islam, but it does not serve well as a reliable guide   tively known as the fitna—a highly evocative term suggesting
> to the history of the caliphate. Yet, if sources do not lend         a time of temptation and trial, dissension, and chaos. This
> themselves to a detailed reconstruction of the careers of            civil war, Islam’s first, was to continue throughout the reign
> individual caliphs during Islam’s first two centuries or more,        of 
Uthman’s successor, 
Ali ibn Abi Talib (r. 656–661), and
> modern scholars generally agree that even the tendentiousness        it ended only with the latter’s assassination and the rise of the
> of the extant accounts does allow an overview of the caliphate’s     Umayyad dynasty (r. 661–750). The events of these years
> history along something like the following lines.                    were debated by Muslims for centuries: It is to these events
> that later Muslims looked in explaining and arguing over
> The caliphate of Abu Bakr (632–634), which signified the           their sectarian divisions, some of which were to prove permacontinuation of the polity that Muhammad had founded in              nent. Even in later centuries, it was never easy to explain how
> Medina, was challenged by a number of tribes in the Arabian          the first community of believers, formed by the Prophet’s
> Peninsula. They had acknowledged Muhammad’s authority                own guidance, had fallen into such turmoil so soon after
> by embracing Islam and sending tribute to Medina, but                his death.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                       117
> Caliphate
> 
> The Umayyads. Like their predecessors, the Umayyads too            rulers that medieval Arab chroniclers and many modern
> were members of the Quraysh tribe. Unlike their predeces-          scholars have often represented them to be. As Crone and
> sors, all four of whom came, after much controversy, to be set     Hinds have shown, their coins, their official pronounceapart from subsequent rulers and to be revered by Sunni            ments, and their panegyrists often characterized them as the
> Muslims as the Rashidun, the “rightly guided” caliphs, the         “deputies of God,” a formulation frowned on by the religious
> rise of the Umayyads marked the establishment of a caliphal        scholars but one that suggests something of the scope and
> dynasty. Mu
awiya (r. 661–680), the founder of this dynasty,       seriousness of Umayyad religious claims. The caliphs are
> based his rule on careful cultivation and manipulation of ties     known to have given decisions on matters involving Islamic
> with tribal notables (ashraf), and it was through such ties that   law and ritual, and some of them are featured as authorities in
> he was able not just to govern but also to have his son, Yazid I   early collections of hadith. Above all, the existence of a
> (r. 680–683), recognized as his heir. This system of rule          powerful centralized political authority provided the crucial
> through tribal intermediaries was short-lived, however. On         context in which the early development of Islam and of
> Mu
awiya’s death, several disparate revolts—often character-       Muslim communal and cultural identity took place.
> ized as the second civil war—erupted in different parts of the
> Yet the growing community of Muslims also posed serious
> empire. Among these was the revolt of Husayn, the son of 
Ali
> challenges to the Umayyads. Since the conquest of the
> and the grandson of the Prophet, who was killed in Iraq in 680
> Middle East, the economic well-being of the state was based
> along with a small band of his followers. Though hardly
> on the principle that the non-Muslims paid the bulk of the
> momentous at the time it occurred, this event was to acquire
> taxes on the land, while the Muslims were responsible for
> profound importance in the history of Shi
ite Islam as the
> only the religiously obligated taxes on their wealth. In theory,
> symbolic focus of Shi
ite piety and religious identity. At the
> anyone who joined the ranks of the Muslims was entitled to
> time, however, far more serious threats to the Umayyads
> the same concessions; in practice, a large influx of previously
> were represented by the revolt of 
Abdallah ibn al-Zubayr in
> taxed non-Arabs threatened the revenues of the empire, with
> the Hijaz, in Arabia, and by factional warfare between Arab
> the result that the new Muslims (the mawali or “clients”)
> tribes in Syria and Mesopotamia. In 684, with the civil war
> often continued to be taxed as if they had not converted to
> still in progress, Marwan ibn al-Hakam (r. 684–685) was
> Islam. The Umayyads never satisfactorily resolved the probelected caliph in Syria, marking the transfer of ruling authorlem of how to integrate the new non-Arab Muslims into the
> ity from Mu
awiya’s descendants, the Sufyanid clan (of which
> Muslim community, and they thereby created considerable
> 
Uthman had been a member), to another clan of the Umayyad
> resentment against their dynasty. This was compounded by
> family. This clan, the Marwanids, was to rule as caliphs until
> the grievances of those Arabs who had given up their military
> the overthrow of the Umayyad dynasty in 750.
> careers and settled down in the conquered lands, but felt
> discriminated against or unfairly treated by the military
> The Marwanids governed their empire through powerful
> generals and their (sometimes non-Muslim) tax-collecting
> generals appointed from the capital, Damascus, and through
> agents. There was, moreover, increasingly destructive tribal
> increasingly elaborate administrative departments (diwans).
> factionalism within the Umayyad army that severely weak-
> Late antique administrative structures and traditions continened the caliphate both through faction-based military reued under the Umayyads even as they underwent sometimes
> volts and the systematic persecution of members of a faction
> rapid changes that expressed the evolving Arab and Islamic
> each time a rival came to power.
> identity of the new empire. Around the turn of the eighth
> century, the language of the administration was itself changed        Shi
ite groups led a number of revolts against the Umayyads,
> from ancient Persian and Greek to Arabic and a new system          as did the Kharijites, erstwhile followers of 
Ali who had
> of coinage, clearly asserting the Islamic identity of the new      separated from him when he agreed to negotiate with what
> rulers, was instituted. This identity was expressed even more      the Kharijites regarded as Mu
awiya’s iniquitous party. The
> strikingly in monumental architecture, of which the two most       revolt that brought the Umayyad dynasty to an end in 750
> famous extant examples are the Dome of the Rock in Jerusa-         also began as a Shi
ite movement that called, as had many
> lem, built during the reign of the caliph 
Abd al-Malik (r.        others before it, for returning the rule back to the rightful
> 685–705), and the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, built                descendants of the Prophet and for rule according to the
> under his successor al-Walid I (r. 705–715).                       “book of God and the sunna of His Prophet.” It was not,
> however, the descendants of 
Ali but those of al-
Abbas, an
> Though the Umayyads are often portrayed as worldly             uncle of the Prophet, that came to power with what is often
> “kings” in Arabic historiography (an unfavorable image that        characterized by modern scholars as the “Abbasid revolution.”
> owes much to the fact that early Islamic historiography is
> largely the work of those who were unfavorably disposed            The Abbasids. The new center of the empire was Iraq rather
> toward this dynasty), it was under their rule that Islamic         than Syria, and bureaucrats of Iranian origin were prominent
> religious, cultural, and political institutions began to take      in the Abbasid caliphate (750–1258) from its inception. The
> their distinctive shape. The caliphs, though far removed from      new empire was, like its predecessor, also an “Arab kingdom,”
> the austere lifestyle of the Rashidun, were hardly the ungodly     and indeed there were important continuities between the
> 
> 118                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Caliphate
> 
> Umayyad Caliphs
> 
> Umayyah
> 
> Harb                                                                                         Abu l-
As
> 
> Abu-Sufyan (c. 565–653; Meccan chief)                                               
Affan                              al-Hakam
> 
> Yazid                        2. Mu
awiya I r. 661–680                Umm-Habibah⫽Muhammad
> (Gov. of Syria, 639)                (Gov. of Syria, 639–661)                            the Prophet
> (d. 632)
> 
> 3. Yazid I r. 680–683
> 
> 4. Mu
awiya II r. 683                           Umm-Kulthum and Ruqayyah⫽1. 
Uthman r. 644–656                         5. Marwan I
> (figurehead)                                                                                                  r. 683–685 (chief aide
> to 
Uthman, 644–656;
> never generally recognized
> as caliph
> 
> Muhammad                                                                                              6. 
Abd-al-Malik r. 685–705                     
Abd-al-
Aziz
> (generally recognized from 692)                  (Gov. of Egypt)
> 
> 7. al-Walid I r. 705–715           8. Sulayman r. 715–717            10. Yazid II r. 720–724          11. Hisham r. 724–743
> 
> 15. Marwan II                                                                                                                                              9. 
Umar II
> r. 744–750                                                                                                                                                r. 717–720
> 
> 13. Yazid III r. 744                14. Ibrahim r. 744               12. al-Walid II r. 743–744
> Mu
awiyah
> 
> 
Abd-al-Rahman I
> (emir at Córdova;
> ancestor of the
> Spanish caliphs)
> 
> Claimants to the caliphate or caliphs are set in bold type, and are sequentially numbered.
> 
> SOURCE: Hodgson, Marshall G. S. The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a World Civilization. Vol. 1. Chicago: University of Chicago
> Press, 1974.
> 
> Geneology of the early caliphs.
> 
> Umayyad and the early Abbasid caliphates. Yet, the latter was                            the justification for their claims to the caliphate. This was to
> much more inclusive in terms of the ethnic origins of its                                remain a major basis of their legitimist claims, though it was
> soldiers and bureaucrats and much more successful in assimi-                             scarcely the only one. The early Abbasid caliphs also tried to
> lating its non-Arab subjects into the Islamic empire. Its                                invoke, especially in their regnal titles, the messianic expectaideological emphases were also different from its predeces-                              tions rife at the time; they sought, as had the Umayyads in
> sor’s. Unlike the Umayyads but like the 
Alids, the Abbasids                             their own ways, to bolster their authority with appeals to preemphasized from the outset their kinship with the Prophet as                             Islamic royal traditions and symbolism, and they presided
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                                                                119
> Caliphate
> 
> over elaborate circles of patronage that involved a broad          victims of the mihna. But al-Mamun died shortly after the
> spectrum of the cultural and religious elite of the time.          inquisition began, and though it continued in effect under
> Baghdad, founded by al-Mansur (r. 754–775) as his new              two of his immediate successors, it did more, in the long run,
> capital, had evocative imperial symbolism inscribed in its very    to define the “uncreatedness” of the Quran as a Sunni creed
> design, but it soon also became the center of culture and          and to solidify the ranks of the early Sunni scholars than it did
> learning, and of interaction not only between various Muslim       to enhance the caliph’s religious authority. Later caliphs were
> groups and emerging schools and sects but also between             usually happier to align themselves with the Sunni religious
> Muslims and non-Muslims.                                           scholars in asserting their own roles in the community’s
> religious life than they were in confronting or challeng-
> The first century of Abbasid rule was a time of extraordi-       ing them.
> nary cultural and religious efflorescence, not just in Baghdad
> but also in the major provincial towns. It was during this time        Toward the end of the first century of Abbasid rule, the
> that the eponymous founders of the major schools of Sunni          caliph was still in control of large parts of his realm, but his
> and Shi
ite law flourished. The systematic collection of the        empire was not as extensive as it had been at the beginning of
> traditions of the Prophet, the hadith, began to take place         the dynasty, and it was rapidly shrinking. Some of the provduring this time; some of the first extant works of hadith date     inces were already becoming independent in all but name,
> to this period, as does the earliest major biography of the        and at the heart of the empire, the caliph had to cope with the
> Prophet, the Sira of Ibn Ishaq (d. 767). Under royal patron-       increasing power of a new military force, Turkish “slave
> age, systematic efforts were made to translate ancient philo-      soldiers” drawn from the lands of the Central Asian steppe, a
> sophical and scientific works into Arabic, and this was the age     force that in later decades contributed substantially to the
> that saw formative developments in Islamic theology, notably       political and economic weakness of the Abbasid state. This
> the rise of the rationalist Mu
tazila, as well as the beginnings   pattern of a shrinking state and the caliph’s increasing deof what later emerged as Sunni and Shi
ite Islam.                  pendence on military generals was to continue for much of
> subsequent Abbasid history. From the middle of the tenth
> But this formative age was also a time of considerable
> century, the caliphs came under the sway of ruling families
> political turmoil. A number of Shi
ite revolts, of which the
> that controlled the Abbasid realm, and often the person of the
> most serious took place in Medina and Basra in 762, threatcaliph himself, in all but name. The Buyids, a family of Shi
ite
> ened Abbasid rule. The existence of the descendants of 
Ali,
> military adventurers from Iran, ruled what was left of the
> the Shi
ite imams, and their followers in the midst of the
> Abbasid caliphate from the middle of the tenth to the middle
> community continued to challenge Abbasid legitimacy.
> of the eleventh century. They were supplanted by the staunchly
> Khurasan, where the Abbasid revolt had originated, saw
> many uprisings against the caliphal state in the early decades     Sunni Turkish Seljuks, who then oversaw the Abbasid caliphs
> after the revolution. The empire was also shaken by a destruc-     until toward the end of the twelfth century. Even as the
> tive civil war between two sons of Harun al-Rashid (r.             caliphate declined in effective political power, and for all the
> 786–809), eventuating in the murder of the incumbent caliph,       humiliations that individual caliphs were meted out at the
> al-Amin (r. 809–813), and the succession of his brother and        hands of the warlords, the symbolic significance of the caliphal
> the governor of Khurasan, al-Mamun (r. 813–833). This             institution grew during these centuries. The Shi
ite Buyids
> murder, and the widespread uncertainty and disorder that           not only maintained the caliphate but sought also to legitiaccompanied and followed the civil war, considerably weak-         mize their own rule by seeking formal recognition from the
> ened the Abbasid state, necessitating extensive effort on the      caliphs. The Seljuk sultans and their wazirs were often far
> part of the caliph to reassert his authority. This effort took     more powerful than the caliph or his officials, but they too
> some unusual forms.                                                continued to be formally subservient to the caliph.
> 
> Unlike his Abbasid predecessors, al-Mamun made strong             Not all caliphs during this period were equally helpless,
> claims to religious authority, namely to an ability to lay down    however. At times of political transition, when the warlords
> at least some of what his subjects must believe. Toward the        were weak, and depending on the personal abilities and
> end of his reign, he instituted the mihna, an inquisition to       initiative of individual caliphs, the latter could exercise a
> enforce conformity to the theological doctrine that the Quran     prominent role in the political and religious life of the realm.
> ought to be regarded as the “created” word of God. Irrespec-       Notable among such caliphs were al-Qadir (r. 991–1031) and
> tive of the provenance of this idea or its theological merit, it   al-Qaim (r. 1031–1075) in the Buyid period, and al-Nasir (r.
> allowed the caliph to assert his own authority as the arbiter of   1180–1225), who reigned at a time when the Seljuk power
> the community’s religious life. The inquisition was appar-         had waned and who utilized his ties with Sufi and chivalric
> ently intended not only to extend the scope of caliphal            (futuwwa) groups, which he reorganized with himself at their
> authority but also to humble many of those scholars of hadith      head, to reassert his authority during a remarkably ambitious
> and law whose growing influence in society the caliph re-           reign. But such revivals were sporadic and they did not do
> sented and who consequently were among the principle               very much to seriously stem the effects of the long decline the
> 
> 120                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Caliphate
> 
> caliphate had already undergone. In the middle of the thir-        such the Abbasids, too, could and did claim to be the ahl alteenth century, the caliphate of Baghdad was terminated            bayt, and indeed their revolutionary propaganda had dealtogether at the hands of the Mongols, whose ravages in-          manded the installation as caliph of the “acceptable one (alcluded the destruction of large parts of the eastern Islamic       rida) from the family of Muhammad.” The descendants of
> world. The caliphate was revived—and the Mongol tide               
Ali, however, denied that any but their own number was
> finally stemmed—by the Mamluks of Syria and Egypt, but              properly entitled to the caliphate, though there were sharp
> the Abbasid caliphs of the Mamluk era never had the prestige       disagreements among them on the precise qualifications of
> or the symbolic capital possessed by many of their predeces-       the person who was to be the political-religious head of the
> sors in Baghdad. The Mamluk era and, with it, the shadow           community—the imam. Since the time of their sixth imam,
> Abbasid caliphate ended with the Ottoman conquest of               Ja
far al-Sadiq (d. 765), the Imami Shi
a had found it prudent
> Egypt in 1517.                                                     to hold largely quietist political views: The imam did not have
> to show his entitlement to this position by actually taking up
> Ideological Challenges to the Caliphate                            arms against the iniquitous order, as certain other Shi
ias
> From the time of its inception, the caliphate faced challenges     thought he must. This meant that, despite tensions, the
> of varying degrees of gravity to its existence. Many of these      Imamis could continue to live in peace under the caliphs. But
> challenges were political. Civil wars resulted in some of the      the Isma
ili Shi
a, differing with the Imamis on the identity of
> major shifts in the caliphal office: the end of the Rashidun era    those of Ja
far’s descendants who were to be recognized as
> and the emergence of the Umayyads; the transfer of the             imams, thought and acted differently. A state established by
> caliphate from the Sufyanids to the Marwanids; the Abbasid         the Qarmati Isma
ilis in northeastern Arabia gave much grief
> revolution; and the war between al-Amin and al-Mamun.             to the Abbasids during the tenth century. In the early tenth
> There was secession of territories that had once been part of      century, a stronger and more ambitious Isma
ili state, the
> the caliphate, internal rebellions and warfare with external       caliphate of the Fatimids, was established in Ifriqiyya (modernfoes, and, eventually, the loss of effective caliphal control of   day Tunisia) from where it moved, in 969, to Egypt.
> the heartland of the empire itself and, indeed, even of the
> The Fatimids saw themselves as Isma
ili imams as well as
> caliphs’s own freedom of action. Some of the challenges to
> caliphs, demanding absolute authority over their followers
> the caliphate were also ideological, in that they denied the
> and challenging, with considerable might and a splendor to
> legitimacy of those who occupied this office or contested the
> match, the legitimist claims of all other rival states and rulers.
> basic assumptions on which the Sunni institution of the
> The pressure of these claims was felt widely, and not just by
> caliphate was predicated. The Kharijites, for all the antagothe Abbasids. Thus it was in response to them, and not
> nism within their ranks, denied the legitimacy not only of
> primarily as an affront to the Abbasids, that the Umayyads
> 
Uthman’s later years but also that of most of his successors.
> who had been ruling Spain ever since the fall of the Umayyad
> Their position that a ruler who was guilty of a grave sin ought
> caliphate in Damascus, began to also style themselves as
> to be deposed brought them into frequent and bloody conflict
> caliphs in the tenth century. The Abbasids, however, outlived
> with the government. Indeed all but the most moderate of the
> both of these claimants to the caliphate. And while the
> Kharijites were eventually eliminated, but not before they
> Fatimid caliphate was in existence, the Shi
ite Buyids of Iraq
> had forcefully raised the question of what constituted a
> were happier to pay nominal allegiance to the Sunni Abbasids
> legitimate ruler, under what circumstances must an unjust          than they were to the Fatimids, and even the Qarmati Isma
ilis
> and sinful ruler be deposed, and what were the terms of            remained opposed to the latter. As for the population of
> membership in the community of Muslims. As Crone has               Egypt, most people preferred to remain Sunnis, and it was to
> shown, some of the Kharijites as well as certain Mu
tazili         the Sunni Abbasid caliphate that the celebrated Saladin
> theologians were not convinced that the position of a caliph       looked when he terminated Fatimid rule in 1171.
> was necessary at all, though this view did not attract much
> support from the Muslim community.                                 The Caliphate in Constitutional Theory
> Detailed formulations of Sunni public law are the product of
> If the history of the caliphate is viewed from the perspec-    times when the caliphate had largely ceased to be an effective
> tive of the majoritarian Sunnis rather than from that of the       political institution. The most influential of these, the Ahkam
> Shi
a, then the latter must be seen as representing a more         al-sultaniyya of the Shafi
i jurist al-Mawardi (d. 1058), was
> durable challenge to the legitimacy of the caliphate than had      written in the later Buyid period, when the caliphs had for
> even the Kharijites. Divided into many different sects, the        decades lived in often humiliating circumstances under the
> Shi
a agreed that the headship of the Muslim community             tutelage of their military overlords. Even so, the caliph
> belonged properly to a member of the “people of the house”         occupies the center of al-Mawardi’s exposition, with all pow-
> (ahl al-bayt). What this phrase connoted was a matter of some      ers of appointment and dismissal concentrated in his person,
> uncertainty in early Islam, though the term came to be             to be “delegated” to others as needed. The principal funcgenerally understood to refer to the family of the Prophet. As     tions of the caliph, as al-Mawardi saw them, were: the
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                      121
> Caliphate
> 
> preservation of religion according to its agreed-upon princi-       have had much practical efficacy, though it did serve as a
> ples; implementation of the law, preservation of order, and         pointed reminder of the jurists’ view that a ruler was legitithe security of the realm against internal and external threats;    mate only insofar as he did not flagrantly contravene the basic
> undertaking jihad; the collection of the taxes as required by       norms of justice and of the shari
a— that is, as long as he
> the sacred law, the shari
a, and the proper disbursement and        allowed the continuance of a world in which the scholars
> use of the revenues; and the appointment of the appropriate         could do their work of providing practical religious guidance
> officials for discharging the various functions of the state; and    to the community. For the most part, however, Sunni politiclose personal supervision of public affairs. Al-Mawardi’s          cal thought had made its peace with the political realities long
> formulations were plainly idealistic; indeed, some of them          before the extinction of the Abbasid caliphate of Baghdad.
> would have been so even when the Abbasids presided over a           The resurrected Abbasid caliphate of Cairo did not receive
> large and powerful empire. Yet, in a milieu of political            much attention from later scholars. Rather, jurists like Ibn
> decline, they served important functions. They were simulta-        Taymiyya (d. 1328) ignored the institution altogether, focusneously a way of protesting against the existing circum-            ing instead on the implementation of the shari
a by the
> stances, through a rearticulation of caliphal privileges and his    ruler—whoever he might be—in collaboration with the religcentrality to the life of the community, and a means of             ious scholars.
> bringing juristic theory into some accord with changing
> circumstances. As for the former, it is noteworthy that the         Historic and Symbolic Significance of the Caliphate
> caliph al-Qadir, under whom al-Mawardi wrote his treatise,          The fundamental importance of the caliphate, irrespective of
> had himself made efforts to reassert some of his authority          the actual conduct of individual caliphs or the political foragainst the later Buyids and, as Gibb has suggested (“Al-           tunes of the institution, lies in what it symbolizes of the
> Mawardi’s Theory”), this treatise may have been part of the         classical history of Islam and of the Muslim community. The
> same effort. But, the jurist also made important concessions        early caliphate was not only the force behind the military
> to changing times: The person elevated to the caliphate             expansion of the Arab Muslims immediately after the death of
> ought to be the “best” of all those available, yet one who was      Muhammad, it was also the institution that kept the Muslims
> not such could validly occupy the position; the caliph could        together as a religious and political entity. For all the adhold his position even with his powers severely limited by a        verse views that abound about the Umayyads in Arabic
> military usurper, provided the latter continued to abide by         historiography, it was through their caliphate that the politithe shari
a; and independent rulers of outlying provinces           cal survival of the Muslim community was assured. And it was
> could be recognized as legitimate and indeed integrated into        in the framework of the caliphal state, under the Umayyads
> the caliphal system if they formally submitted to the caliph        and then under the Abbasids, that the religious and cultural
> and did not contravene the shari
a.                                 institutions of Islam evolved. The formation of Islam, its
> intellectual life, and culture in the first centuries, is, in short,
> Jurists like al-Mawardi sought to tread a difficult path         not merely intertwined with but inconceivable without the
> between trying to formalize and legitimize the status quo, to       caliphate.
> adapt the shari
a itself to the changing circumstances, and to
> encourage the existing authorities to conform in some man-              Even as it declined, the caliphate continued to represent
> ner to the shari
a. Later jurists went much beyond al-Mawardi       the historical continuity of the Muslim community. It also
> in their concessions to realpolitik. For instance, al-Ghazali (d.   represented the ideal of the shari
a’s supremacy in the collec-
> 1111) argued that the interests of the community dictated           tive life of the community. The symbolic weight of the
> that any military usurper be deemed legitimate, for the effort      caliphal institution continued to be felt, as long as the caliphate
> to remove him would inevitably result in political chaos and        lasted, in the investitures sought by many of the rulers who
> bloodshed; indeed, whoever was recognized as caliph by the          were independent of the caliphate in all but name. This
> military ruler was to be accepted as a legitimate caliph. Such      symbolic power could be revived even long after the institujuristic formulations meant the recognition of a reality the        tion associated with it had become extinct. For much of their
> jurists (or the caliphs, for that matter) were powerless to         history, the Ottoman sultans had not claimed to be “caliphs,”
> change. They also signified efforts to safeguard the historical      yet even they began to do so from the late eighteenth century.
> continuity of the Muslim community. To concede that the             This was largely meant to assert Ottoman authority over
> constituted political authority was (and for centuries past had     those who lived in territories now lost to the sultan, and
> been) illegitimate would have meant that the overall political      thereby also to bolster his weakening standing vis-à-vis the
> framework in which the community lived was fundamentally            European powers of the time. Such claims on the part of the
> illegitimate, and, unlike the Shi
a, the Sunni scholars were not    sultans had resonance in several Muslim societies, especially
> willing to go so far. Yet, as Khaled Abou El Fadl has shown, if     as the latter came under colonial rule and began more
> they acknowledged the legitimacy of the existing order and          anxiously to look for a visible symbol of the worldwide
> had a stake in its preservation, many Sunni jurists did not         Muslim community. This sentiment found its most powerful
> necessarily close all doors to the possibility of rebellion         expression in India, where what was in fact the Indian subconagainst unjust rule. Leaving such a possibility open may not        tinent’s very first mass-movement of the colonial period was
> 
> 122                                                                                              Islam and the Muslim World
> Calligraphy
> 
> launched in defense of the Ottoman caliphate at the end of          Sanders, Paula. Ritual, Politics, and the City in Fatimid Cairo.
> the First World War—a movement that came to an end only                Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994.
> with the formal termination of the Ottoman caliphate by             Tabari, Al-. The History of Al-Tabari. Albany: State University
> Republican Turkey in 1924. That was not the end of the                of New York Press, 1985–1999.
> symbolic significance of the caliphate, however. For it was in       Tyan, Emile. Institutions du droit public musulman, Vol. 1: Le
> the debates surrounding the dissolution of the Ottoman                califat. Paris: R. Sirey, 1954.
> caliphate that some of the first modern discussions on the           Zaman, Muhammad Qasim. Religion and Politics under the
> “Islamic state” were to find their point of departure in the           Early 
Abbasids. Leiden: Brill, 1997.
> twentieth century.
> Muhammad Qasim Zaman
> See also Empires: Abbasid; Empires: Ottoman; Empires:
> Umayyad; Kharijites, Khawarij; Monarchy.
> 
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                        CALLIGRAPHY
> Abou El Fadl, Khaled. Rebellion and Violence in Islamic Law.
> Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2001.                Muslims have always deemed calligraphy, the art of beautiful
> writing, the noblest of the arts. The first chapters of the
> Azmeh, Aziz al-. Muslim Kingship: Power and the Sacred in
> Quran revealed to the prophet Muhammad in the early
> Muslim, Christian, and Pagan Polities. London: I. B.
> seventh century (suras 96 and 68) mention the pen and
> Tauris, 1997.
> writing. Writing in Arabic script soon became a hallmark of
> Crone, Patricia. “Ninth-century Muslim Anarchists.” Past
> Islamic civilization, found on everything from buildings and
> and Present 167 (2000): 3–28.
> coins to textiles and ceramics, and scribes and calligraphers
> Crone, Patricia. Slaves on Horses. Cambridge, U.K.: Cam-            became the most honored type of artist. We know the names,
> bridge University Press, 1980.
> and even the biographies, of more calligraphers than any
> Crone, Patricia, and Hinds, Martin. God’s Caliph: Religious         other type of artist. Probably because of the intrinsic link
> Authority in the First Centuries of Islam. Cambridge, U.K.:       between writing and the revelation, Islamic calligraphy is
> Cambridge University Press, 1986.                                 meant to convey an aura of effortlessness and immutability,
> Gibb, H. A. R. “Al-Mawardi’s Theory of the Caliphate.” In           and the individual hand and personality are sublimated to
> his Studies on the Civilization of Islam. London: Routledge       the overall impression of stateliness and grandeur. In this
> and Kegan Paul, 1962.                                             way Islamic calligraphy differs markedly from other great
> Gibb, H. A. R. “Some Considerations on the Sunni Theory             calligraphic traditions, notably the Chinese, in which the
> of the Caliphate.” In his Studies on the Civilization of Islam.   written text is meant to impart the personality of the calligra-
> London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1962.                           pher and recall the moment of its creation. Islamic calligra-
> Hawting, G. R. The First Dynasty of Islam. 2d ed. London:           phy, by contrast, is timeless.
> Routledge, 2000.
> Hibri, Tayeb El-. Reinterpreting Islamic Historiography: Harun          The reed pen (qalam) was the writing implement par
> al-Rashid and the Narrative of the 
Abbasid Caliphate. Cam-       excellence in Islamic civilization. The brush, used for calligbridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1999.                   raphy in China and Japan, was reserved for painting in the
> Islamic lands. In earliest times Muslim calligraphers penned
> Hodgson, Marshall G. S. The Venture of Islam: Conscience and
> History in a World Civilization. Chicago: University of           their works on parchment, generally made from the skins of
> Chicago Press, 1974.                                              sheep and goats, but from the eighth century parchment was
> gradually replaced by the cheaper and more flexible support
> Kennedy, Hugh. The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates.
> London: Longman, 1986.                                            of paper. From the fourteenth century virtually all calligraphy in the Muslim lands was written on paper. Papermakers
> Lambton, A. K. S. State and Government in Medieval Islam.
> developed elaborately decorated papers to complement the
> Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 1981.
> fine calligraphy, and the colored, marbled, and gold-sprinkled
> Madelung, Wilferd. The Succession to Muhammad: A Study of           papers used by calligraphers in later periods are some of the
> the Early Caliphate. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge Univer-
> finest ever made.
> sity Press, 1997.
> Mawardi, Al-. The Ordinances of Government. Translated by              Almost all Islamic calligraphy is written in Arabic script.
> W. H. Wahba. Reading, U.K.: Garnet Publishing, 1996.              The Quran was revealed in that language, and the sanctity of
> Qadi, Wadad al-. “The Term ‘Khalifa’ in Early Exegetical            the revelation meant that the script was adopted for many
> Literature.” Die Welt des Islams 28 (1988): 392–411.              other languages, such as new Persian, Ottoman Turkish, and
> Safran, Janina M. The Second Umayyad Caliphate: The Articu-         Urdu. Unlike many other scripts that have at least two
> lation of Caliphal Legitimacy in al-Andalus. Cambridge,          distinct forms of writing—a monumental or printed form in
> Mass.: Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard Uni-           which the letters are written separately and a cursive or
> versity, 2000.                                                   handwritten form in which they are connected—Arabic has
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                     123
> Calligraphy
> 
> The Arabic alphabet. Arabic calligraphy is done with a qalam, a type of reed pen, rather than with a brush as in East
> Asia. Islam’s reverence for the written word contributes to calligraphy’s status as the religion’s most honorable art
> form. © HISTORICAL PICTURE ARCHIVE/CORBIS
> 
> 124                                                                                                 Islam and the Muslim World
> Calligraphy
> 
> only the cursive form, in which some, but not all, letters are        Calligraphers in early Islamic times regularly used the
> connected and assume different forms depending on their           rectilinear styles to transcribe manuscripts of the Quran.
> position in the word (initial, medial, final, and independent).    Indeed, the rectilinear styles might be deemed Quranic
> hands, for we know only one other manuscript—an unidenti-
> The cursive nature of Arabic script allowed calligraphers
> fied genealogical text in Berlin (Staatsbibliotheque no. 379)—
> to develop many different styles of writing, which are usually
> written in a rectilinear script. None of these early manugrouped under two main headings: rectilinear and rounded.
> scripts of the Quran is signed or dated, and most survive only
> Since the eighteenth century, scholars have often called the
> in fragmentary form, and so scholars are still refining other
> rectilinear styles “Kufic,” after the city of Kufa in southern
> methods, both paleographic and codicological, to group and
> Iraq, which was an intellectual center in early Islamic times.
> localize the scripts used in these early parchment manuscripts
> This name is something of a misnomer, for as yet we have no
> of the Quran.
> idea which particular rectilinear style this name denoted.
> Scholars have proposed various other names to replace kufic,
> The major change in later Islamic times was the gradual
> including Old or Early Abbasid style, but these names are not
> adoption and adaptation of round hands for calligraphy.
> universally accepted, in part because they carry implicit
> From the ninth century calligraphers transformed the round
> political meanings, and many scholars continue to use the
> hands into artistic scripts suitable for transcribing the Quran
> term kufic.
> and other prestigious texts. The earliest surviving copy of the
> Similarly, scholars often called the rounded styles naskh,    Quran written in a rounded hand is a small manuscript, now
> from the verb nasakha (to copy). The naskh script is indeed the   dispersed but with the largest section preserved in the Chesmost common hand used for transcription and the one upon          ter Beatty Library in Dublin (ms. 1417). It bears a note in
> which modern styles of typography are based, but the name is      Persian saying that the manuscript was corrected by a certain
> also something of a misnomer, for it refers to only one of a      Ahmad ibn 
Ali ibn Abu ’l-Qasm al-Khayqani in June 905,
> group of six rounded hands that became prominent in later         and it is tacitly accepted that the rounded hand was developed
> Islamic times. As with kufic, scholars have proposed several       in Iran or nearby Iraq, heartland of the Abbasid caliphate. In
> other names to replace naskh, such as new style (often abbre-     the ensuing centuries calligraphers continued to develop and
> viated N.S.), or new Abbasid style, but these names, too, are     elaborate the rounded style, and from the fourteenth century
> not universally accepted.                                         virtually all manuscripts of the Quran were written in one of
> the six round scripts known as the Six Pens (Arabic, al-aqlam
> Medieval sources mention the names of many other
> al-sitta; Persian, shish qalam). These comprise three pairs of
> calligraphic hands, but so far it has been difficult, even
> majuscule-miniscule hands, thuluth-naskh, muhaqqaq-rayhan,
> impossible, to match many of these names with distinct styles
> and tawqi
-riqa
, and calligraphers delighted in juxtaposing
> of script. Very few sources describe the characteristics of a
> the different scripts, particularly the larger and smaller variparticular style or give illustrations of particular scripts.
> ants of the same pair.
> Furthermore, the same names may have been applied to
> different styles in different places and at different times.
> Various explanations have been proposed for this trans-
> Hence it may never be possible to link the names of specific
> formation of rounded book hands into proportioned scripts
> scripts given in the sources with the many, often fragmentary,
> suitable for calligraphing fine manuscripts. These explanamanuscripts at hand, especially from the early period.
> tions range from the political (e.g., the spread of orthodox
> Both the rectilinear and the rounded styles were used for     Sunni Islam) to the sociohistorical (e.g., the new role of the
> writing from early Islamic times, but in the early period the     chancery scribe as copyist and calligrapher), but perhaps the
> rounded style seems to have been a book hand used for             most convincing are the practical. The change from rectilinordinary correspondence, while the rectilinear style was re-      ear to rounded script coincided with the change from parchserved for calligraphy. Although no examples of early callig-     ment to paper, and the new style of writing might well be
> raphy on parchment can be definitively dated before the late       connected with a new type of reed pen, a new method of
> ninth century, the importance of the rectilinear style in early   sharpening the nib, or a new way that the pen was held, placed
> Islamic times is clear from other media with inscriptions, such   on the page, or moved across it. In the same way, the adoption
> as coins, architecture, and monumental epigraphy. The Fihrist     of paper engendered the adoption of a new type of black soot
> by Ibn al-Nadim (d. 995) records the names of calligraphers       ink (midad) that replaced the dark brown, tannin-based ink
> who worked in the Umayyad and Abbasid periods, and both           (hibr) used on parchment.
> coins and the inscriptions on the first example of Islamic
> architecture, the Dome of the Rock erected in Jerusalem by            From the fourteenth century calligraphers, especially those
> the Umayyad caliph 
Abd al-Malik in 692, show that from           in the eastern Islamic lands, developed more stylized forms of
> earliest times Umayyad calligraphers applied such aesthetic       rounded script. The most distinctive is the hanging script
> principles as balance, symmetry, elongation, and stylization      known as nasta
liq, which was particularly suitable for tranto transform ordinary writing into calligraphy.                   scribing Persian, in which many words end in letters with
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                   125
> Capitalism
> 
> large bowls, such as ya or ta. Persian calligraphers com-        system conducive to free exchange. Where this system allegmonly used nasta
liq to pen poetic texts, in which the rounded     edly differs from capitalism, which also promotes economic
> bowls at the end of each hemistich form a visual chain down        freedoms, is that it avoids sharp inequalities, chronic corrupthe right side of the columns on a page. They also used            tion, and mass exploitation. If Muslims restructure their
> nasta
liq to pen poetic specimens (qit
a). These elaborately       economic relations according to Islamic stipulations, say the
> planned calligraphic compositions typically contain a Persian      proponents of Islamic economics, they can obtain all the
> quatrain written in colored and gold-dusted inks on fine,           benefits of capitalism without incurring its costs. Specifically,
> brightly colored and highly polished paper and set in elabo-       they can achieve prosperity, steady innovation, and material
> rately decorated borders. The swooping strokes of the letters      security—all traits associated with today’s advanced market
> and bowls provide internal rhythm and give structure to the        economies—within a framework based on honesty and brothcomposition. In contrast to the anonymous works of the early       erly cooperation.
> period, these calligraphic specimens are frequently signed
> and dated, and connoisseurs vied to assemble fine collections,          If this logic resonates with many Muslims, the reason is
> which were often mounted in splendid albums.                       that the current economic performance of the Islamic world
> is generally disappointing. The predominantly Muslim coun-
> Calligraphy continues to be an important art form in           tries included in the annual “Corruption Index” of Transparmodern times, despite the adoption of the Latin alphabet in        ency International all rank as substantially “more corrupt”
> some countries such as Turkey. Some calligraphers are trying       than the typical advanced economy. Except for the small oilto revive the traditional styles, notably the Six Pens, and
> exporting countries of the Arabian peninsula, not a single
> investigate and rediscover traditional techniques and materi-
> Muslim-governed state is among the world’s wealthiest counals. Societies teaching calligraphy flourish. The Anjuman-e
> tries, and many Muslim countries are impoverished. The
> Khushnvisan-e Iran (Society of Iranian Calligraphers), for
> Islamic world’s participation in world trade is low in relation
> example, has branches in all the main cities of the country,
> to its share of global population. Although the basic ecowith thousands of students. Other artists are extending the
> nomic institutions of the Islamic world are formally similar to
> calligraphic tradition to new media, adopting calligraphy in
> those of the successful market economies, there is a consensus
> new forms, ranging from three-dimensional sculpture to oil
> that they do not perform as well.
> painting on canvas. More than any other civilization, Islam
> values the written word.                                               Like many secular critics of capitalism, Islamists attribute
> this situation to Western imperialism. Starting in the eight-
> See also Arabic Language; Arabic Literature; Art.
> eenth century, they argue, European traders and financiers,
> along with the states that supported them, destroyed local
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> crafts, monopolized natural resources, secularized the judi-
> Bloom, Jonathan M. Paper Before Print: The History and Impact      cial system, and gradually took over key aspects of economic
> of Paper in the Islamic World. New Haven, Conn., and            governance. They also lowered the Islamic world’s standards
> London: Yale University Press, 2001.
> of honesty and weakened its ethic of brotherly cooperation.
> Khatibi, Abdelkebir, and Sijelmassi, Mohammed. The Splendour
> of Islamic Calligraphy. London: Thames and Hudson, 1994.         Institutional Sources of Underdevelopment
> Lings, Martin. The Quranic Art of Calligraphy and Illumina-       In fact, European imperialism was a result, rather than the
> tion. London: World of Islam Festival Trust, 1976.              leading cause, of the Islamic world’s economic shortcomings.
> Safadi, Y. H. Islamic        Calligraphy.    Boulder,    Colo.:    Prior to embarking on the global colonization drive whose
> Shambala, 1979.                                                 results included the economic subjugation of the world’s
> Schimmel, Annemarie. Islamic Calligraphy. Leiden: E. J.            Muslim peoples, the West underwent a sustained institu-
> Brill, 1970.                                                    tional transformation that gave rise to modern capitalism.
> Schimmel, Annemarie. Calligraphy and Islamic Culture. New          During this transformation, which began around the elev-
> York: New York University Press, 1984.                          enth century, the institutions of the Islamic world also experienced changes, but these were relatively minor. As late as the
> Sheila S. Blair   nineteenth century, the contractual forms recognized by the
> Jonathan M. Bloom      Islamic court system were essentially those developed a millennium earlier. The concept of a juridical person had no
> place in Islamic law. Nor did Islamic law recognize jointstock companies or corporations. Although money lending
> CAPITALISM                                                         remained a flourishing profession among both Muslims and
> non-Muslims, there were no banks. For these reasons, among
> Among the claims of the contemporary literature known as           others, the Islamic world’s economic system was now ineffi-
> “Islamic economics” is that Islamic law provides an economic       cient in relation to the emerging capitalist system of the
> 
> 126                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Capitalism
> 
> West. It is this handicap that subjected the Middle East and      designed to facilitate exchange and production. Nor can the
> the rest of the Islamic world to Western economic domination.     lag be attributed to policies aimed at retarding growth. The
> Islamic world’s structural transformation was delayed be-
> As this domination was taking shape, the Islamic world         cause certain institutions well suited to the economic condiexperienced no general economic decline in the absolute           tions of classical Islam produced unintended consequences.
> sense. But it started showing clear signs of underdevelopment,
> as measured by the living standards, productivity levels, and     Unintended Consequences
> institutional dynamism prevailing in the West.                    One of these institutions was the Islamic inheritance system.
> Outlined in the Quran, the Islamic inheritance system re-
> In early stages of the West’s economic ascent, the Islamic
> quires two-thirds of a person’s estate to be apportioned
> world’s market institutions were at least as efficient as their
> among members of his or her extended family according to
> Western counterparts, and in some respects more so. Its
> criteria dependent on the composition of the possibly numerpartnership laws, which were codified by jurists generally
> ous heirs and their relationships to the deceased. Prior to the
> familiar with the needs of merchants and investors, gave
> modern era, this system raised the cost of keeping productive
> traders a remarkable array of contractual options. Although
> enterprises intact across generations. Equally important, beinterest was formally banned, financiers easily circumvented
> cause the death of even one partner resulted in termination of
> the prohibition, which, in any case, was often interpreted
> the enterprise, and in the dissolution of its assets, the prevailloosely, as disallowing only exploitative interest charges.
> ing inheritance rules created incentives for keeping partner-
> Disputes between partners, and between buyers and sellers,
> ships small and ephemeral. Consequently, the growing
> were settled informally through arbitration or formally through
> complexity that characterized the productive, financial, and
> the Islamic courts, whose jurisdiction covered all economic
> commercial enterprises of Europeans was not observed in
> transactions. A wide range of social service organizations,
> territories under Islamic law. By contrast, the relative flexibilincluding schools, charities, commercial centers, and rest
> ity of European inheritance regimes allowed practices destops for caravans, were established in a decentralized manner
> signed to keep estates intact, such as primogeniture. These
> through waqfs, or Islamic trusts. The typical waqf also served
> practices facilitated the establishment of larger and longeras a wealth shelter, for its assets were relatively safe from
> lasting enterprises, which then stimulated the development of
> confiscation and its founder could shower himself, his relaincreasingly sophisticated accounting systems, specialized
> tives, and even his descendants with material benefits. To a
> markets, and contractual forms in order to minimize operatdegree, the privileges enjoyed by waqf founders compensated
> ing costs.
> for the chronic weakness of private property rights. For
> several centuries—estimates of the end point range from the
> Until the Western-inspired economic reforms of the
> fourteenth century to the eighteenth century—this system
> nineteenth century, Islamic civilization offered no corporate
> afforded the Islamic world a standard of living that was equal,
> structures capable of serving as prototypes for durable finanif not superior, to that of Europe.
> cial or mercantile organizations. The one major Islamic
> The Rise of Modern Capitalism                                     institution that some consider an exception is the waqf.
> Meanwhile, the West underwent the momentous structural            Established to provide a service in perpetuity, a waqf, like a
> transformation that resulted in capitalism. This transforma-      corporation, was meant to outlive its founder and employees.
> tion included the strengthening of individual property rights,    Nevertheless, it lacked most of the freedoms associated with
> the recognition of juridical persons in a growing number of       corporate status. Most significant, it was supposed to refrain
> sectors, and a sustained broadening of the menu of contrac-       from remaking its internal rules and modifying its objectives.
> tual forms available to investors, traders, workers, and con-     Still another unintended effect of the waqf system was that, by
> sumers. By the eighteenth century, and unmistakably by the        enhancing material security, it dampened incentives for seeknineteenth, the relative sophistication of Europe’s economic      ing stronger property rights. Economic historians generally
> institutions allowed its financiers and merchants to dominate      believe that in the West the strengthening of individual
> economies all across the globe. The main reason why the           property rights played a critical role in the rise of modern
> Islamic world fell into a state of underdevelopment is that       capitalism.
> changes taking place outside the Islamic world had the effect
> of reducing the efficiency of pre-capitalist economic institu-         By the nineteenth century, it was clear that the traditional
> tions based on Islamic law.                                       economic institutions of the Islamic world had become a
> liability. The institutional borrowings that followed included
> Why Islamic law itself failed to generate the basic institu-   new forms of organization, including complex partnerships,
> tions of capitalism has long been a matter of controversy. One    joint-stock companies, and corporations. Another historical
> thing is certain. The explanation is not, as nineteenth- and      break that occurred at this time was the establishment of
> early-twentieth-century thinkers were inclined to believe,        various secular courts to adjudicate commercial and financial
> that Islam is inherently hostile to commerce or prosperity.       disputes involving contractual forms alien to traditional Is-
> The classical sources of Islam are replete with provisions        lamic law.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                     127
> Cartography and Geography
> 
> modern capitalism. In fact, the infrastructure of capitalism
> was inadequate, and Middle Easterners, being latecomers to
> operating under modern economic institutions, lacked basic
> experiences and resources. Significantly, it was during the
> twilight of the traditional Islamic economic order and the
> transition to modern capitalism—the eighteenth century to
> the early twentieth century—that the Christians and Jews of
> the region by and large gained economic ground against its
> Muslims. Entitled since the early days of Islam to choice of
> law, which they had sometimes exercised in favor of indigenous non-Muslim contractual forms, the Christian and Jewish religious minorities began using modern contractual
> forms about a century before Muslims were able to do so.
> Equally important, many operated under the protection of
> European-operated courts, as opposed to local Islamic courts.
> 
> See also Communism; Economy and Economic Institutions; Globalization.
> 
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Çizakça, Murat. A Comparative Evolution of Business Partnerships: The Islamic World and Europe, with Special Reference to
> the Ottoman Archives. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1996.
> Ibrahim, Mahmood. Merchant Capital and Islam. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990.
> Issawi, Charles. “The Entrepreneurial Class.” In The Arab
> In January, 1998, this Indonesian money changer was busy
> World’s Legacy. By Charles Issawi. Princeton, N.J.: Darwin
> working the phones after a day of panic buying at supermarkets
> that left the Indonesian rupiah volatile and led the United States        Press, 1981.
> and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to send top officials to     Kuran, Timur. “Islam and Underdevelopment: An Old Puzthe country in an attempt to salvage a bailout effort. With the         zle Revisited.” Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Econoexception of a few oil-rich countries in the Middle East, no Muslim
> country is among the world’s wealthiest. The lingering effects of       mics 153 (1997): 41–71.
> the transition from an older, Islamic economic order to Western       Kuran, Timur. “The Provision of Public Goods under Islamic
> capitalism has left many Muslim countries in poverty and has led        Law: Origins, Impact, and Limitations of the Waqf Syssome Islamists to blame the West for their countries’ suffering and
> social turmoil. AP/WIDE WORLD PHOTOS
> tem.” Law and Society Review 35 (2001): 841–897.
> Rodinson, Maxime. Islam and Capitalism. Translated by Brian
> Pearce (1966). Reprint, New York: Pantheon, 1973.
> 
> Weberian Thesis
> The foregoing institutional explanation for the under-                                                                  Timur Kuran
> development of the Middle East calls into question its most
> celebrated alternative: the Weberian thesis, which traces the
> origins of capitalism to the ideological creativity of the
> Protestant Reformation. Weber’s argument was challenged
> CARTOGRAPHY AND GEOGRAPHY
> by R. H. Tawney, who showed that capitalist institutions
> preceded, even created, what Weber called the capitalist              There exist hundreds—if not thousands—of cartographic
> spirit. Tawney’s observation suggests that where capitalist           images of the world and various regions scattered throughout
> institutions failed to evolve through locally driven processes,       the medieval and early modern Arabic, Persian, and Turkish
> as in the Islamic Middle East, vigorous and successful                manuscript collections, worldwide. Yet most of these maps
> entrepreneurship would be limited.                                    have lain virtually untouched and have often been deliberately ignored on the grounds that they were not accurate
> At the time that Weber wrote, bilateral trade between the         representations of the world. What many failed to see is that
> Islamic world and western Europe was almost entirely under            these schematic, geometric, and often perfectly symmetrical
> the control of Europeans, who provided much of the requisite          images of the world are iconographic representations of the
> financing, know-how, and transportation. It thus seemed that           way in which the medieval Muslims perceived it. Granted,
> the Middle East lacked the entrepreneurship essential to              these were stylized visions restricted to the literati—the
> 
> 128                                                                                               Islam and the Muslim World
> Cartography and Geography
> 
> readers, collectors, commissioners, writers, and copyists of          The “Wondrous” Tradition
> the geographic texts within which these maps are found.               In actuality, maps occur in a wide variety of Islamic texts and
> However, the plethora of extant copies produced all over the          contexts. A popular location for classical Islamic world and
> Islamic world, including India, testifies to the enduring and          cosmographic maps is in the so-called 
Ajaib (“wondrous”)
> widespread popularity of these medieval Islamic cartographic          literary tradition, which includes descriptions of flora, fauna,
> visions. For nothing less than six centuries (eight, if nineteenth-   architecture, and other wonders of the world. Best known of
> century South Asian examples are included), these carto-              this genre is the work of the thirteenth century Iranian writer,
> graphic visions were perpetuated primarily in one fossilized          Zakariyya ibn Muhammad al-Qazwini (d. 1283), whose work
> cartogeographic series: the Kitab al-masalik wa al-mamalik            
Ajaib al-makhluqat wa gharaib al-mawjudat (The wonders of
> (Book of roads and kingdoms).                                         creatures and the marvels of creation) focuses on the wonders
> of the world—real and fabulous. Copies from the late thir-
> What all these extant maps say is that—at least from the           teenth century onward (during the lifetime of the author)
> thirteenth century onward, whence copies of these mapbegan to incorporate illustrations of flora and fauna as well as
> manuscripts begin to proliferate—the world was a very deworld maps.
> picted place. It loomed large in the medieval Muslim imagination. It was pondered, discussed, and copied with minor                Copies of Siraj al-Din Abu Hafs 
Umar Ibn al-Wardi’s (d.
> and major variations again and again.                                 1457) Kharidat al-
ajaib wa faridat al-gharaib (The unbored
> pearl of wonders and the precious gem of marvels) offer a
> Al-Idrisi and Piri Re
is
> variation of the 
Ajaib tradition that incorporates at least one
> The better-known examples of this Islamic mapping tradiworld map along with other cartographics, such as a Qibla
> tion, in contemporary Eastern as well as Western scholarmap (a way-finding diagram for locating Mecca), and inset
> ship, is the work of the twelfth century North African
> maps of Qazwin and other cities. Judging by the plethora of
> geographical scholar al-Sharif al-Idrisi (d. 1165). The Norpocket book–size copies that still abound in every Oriental
> man king, Roger II (1097–1154), commissioned al-Idrisi to
> manuscript collection, the Kharidat al-
Ajaib must have been
> produce an illustrated geography of the world. This yielded
> a bestseller in the late medieval and early modern Islamic
> al-Idrisi’s Nuzhat al-mushtaq fi ikhtiraq al-afaq (The book of
> world. Moreover, it is significant that this Arabic bestseller
> pleasant journeys into faraway lands), also known as the Book
> always incorporated, within the first four or five folios, a
> of Roger. Al-Idrisi divided the world according to the Ptoleclassical Islamic world map.
> maic system of seven climes, with each clime broken down
> into ten sections. The most complete manuscript (1469)
> Eventually the classical Islamic world maps also crept into
> contains one world map and seventy detailed sectional maps.
> general geographical encyclopedias, such as Shihab al-Din
> The sixteenth-century Ottoman naval captain, Muhyiddin            Abu 
Abdallah Yaqut’s (d. 1229) thirteenth century Kitab
> Piri Reis (d. 1554), was another Muslim cartographer who             Mu
jam al-Buldan (Dictionary of countries). The earliest
> has become famous worldwide. Renowned for the earliest                prototype of this type of map is found in a copy of Abu lextant map of the New World, Piri Reis and his accurate              Rayhan Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Biruni’s (d. after 1250)
> early-sixteenth-century map of South America and Antarc-              Kitab al-tafhim (Book of instruction). World maps are also
> tica have been the subject of many a controversial study. Piri        used to open some of the classic histories. Copies of such
> Reis also produced detailed sectional maps but—like the              well-known works as Ibn Khaldun’s (d. 1406) Muqaddimah
> Italian isolarii—he restricted himself to the coastal areas of        (The prologue) often begin with an al-Idrisi map, while
> the Mediterranean. The second version of his Kitab-i Bahriyye         copies of the historian Abu Ja
far Muhammad ibn Jarir al-
> (Book of maritime matters) contains 210 unique topo-                  Tabari’s (d. 923) Tarikh al-rusul wa-al-muluk (History of
> cartographic maps of important Mediterranean cities and               prophets and kings) sometimes included a Ptolemaic “climeislands.                                                              type” map of the world as a frontispiece. Similarly, classical
> Islamic maps of the world found their way into sixteenth-
> The striking mimesis (geographical accuracy) of these two          century Ottoman histories, such as the scroll containing
> Muslim cartographic traditions has caused the work of al-             Seyyid Lokman’s Zubdetut-tevarih (Cream of histories) pro-
> Idrisi and Piri Reis to be elevated above the rest of the            duced in the reign of Suleyman I (1520–1566).
> Middle Eastern mapping corpus in contemporary scholarship. Aside from the problems of attribution that abound with         New Maps for New Purposes
> these two cartographers (none of the extant al-Idrisi maps, for       From the fifteenth century until the late nineteenth century,
> instance, date back to his time, while Piri Reis’s map is            hajj (pilgrimage) manuals containing map-like pictures of the
> thought to be a copy of one by Christopher Columbus),                 holy sites proliferated. An excellent example of this prototype
> scholarly focus on this more mimetic end of the Islamic               is the Futuh al-Haramayn (The conquests of the holy sites)
> mapping tradition has occluded an enormous body of maps               manuscript series. Around the same time, a tradition began in
> that were much more popular in the medieval and early                 mosques of including a glazed tile containing a schematic
> modern Islamic world than the work of al-Idrisi or Piri Re
is.        representation of the Ka
ba adjacent to the mihrab (prayer
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                        129
> Cartography and Geography
> 
> niche). If the definition of precisely what constitutes a map       The Start of the Mapping Phenomenon
> can be stretched, then even the map-like images found in           In order to understand the mapping traditions that flowered
> Islamic miniature paintings can be incorporated into the           in the Islamic world in the later middle ages and early modern
> Islamic cartographic repertoire.                                   period, one has to go back to the tradition that sired them all.
> It can be argued that the fons origo of the Islamic mapping
> Some scholars believe that the source of this rich and         tradition is none other than the so-called “Islamic Atlas.”
> widespread medieval Islamic propensity to make maps lies in
> This carto-geographical tradition is best known by the title of
> the earliest Arabic textual references to maps. For instance,
> its most prolifically copied version: al-Istakhri’s Kitab althe silver globe (al-Sura al-Mamuniya) that the Abbasid
> masalik wa al-mamalik (Book of roads and kingdoms). For
> caliph al-Mamun (r. 813–833) is said to have commissioned
> convenience, this may be referred to as the KMMS mapping
> from the scientists working in his Bayt al-Hikma (House of
> tradition. The “S” at the end of this acronym is used to specify
> knowledge). The problem with the al-Ma
munid silver globe
> those versions of this manuscript series that contain cartois that it is probably mythical. Other than an extremely vague
> graphic images (standing for Sura, pl. Suwar).
> passage cited in Abu ’l-Hasan 
Ali ibn al-Husayn al-Mas
udi’s
> (d. 956) Kitab al-tanbih wa-al-ishraf (Book of instruction and        Most of the KMMS maps occur in the context of georevision), there are no descriptions of it. Al-Mas
udi’s de-       graphical treatises devoted to an explication of the world, in
> scription is very confused. It suggests an impossibly compli-      general, and the lands of the Muslim world, in particular.
> cated celestial map superimposed upon a globe, an extremely        These “map-manuscripts” generally carry the title of Kitab alsophisticated armillary sphere of which there are no extant        masalik wa al-mamalik, although they are sometimes named
> example until the fourteenth century. At least one scholar,        Surat al-ard (Picture of the earth) or Suwar al-aqalim (Pic-
> David King, has interpreted this description to suggest an         tures of the climes/climates). These manuscripts emanated
> astrolabe with world-map markings superimposed on it.              from an early tradition of creating lists of pilgrim and post
> stages that were compiled for administrative purposes. They
> There also are a few references to maps from the end of
> read like armchair travelogs of the Muslim world, with one
> the first century of Islam (c. 702). Apparently, al-Hallaj ibn
> author copying prolifically from another.
> Yusuf, the Umayyad governor of the eastern part of the
> Muslim empire, commissioned maps, for military purposes,               Beginning with a brief description of the world and
> of the region of Daylam (south of the Caspian Sea), as well as     theories about it—such as the inhabited versus the uninhabited
> a plan of the city of Bukhara. Requests for maps for military
> parts, the reasons why people are darker in the south than in
> purposes are highly unusual in Islamic history. Not until the
> the north, and the like—these geographies methodically
> time of the Ottoman sultan Mehmet II (r. 1444–1446;
> discuss details about the Muslim world, its cities, its people,
> 1451–1481) are there similar requests for maps for military
> its roads, its topography, and other such features. Sometimes
> purposes. Unfortunately, none of the al-Hallaj requests are
> the descriptions are interspersed with anecdotal matter, inextant, and there are no detailed descriptions of these maps
> cluding tales of personal adventures, discussions with local
> themselves.
> inhabitants, or debates with sailors as to the exact shape of the
> In Kitab al-buldan (Book of countries) Ahmad ibn Abi            earth and the number of seas. They have a rigid format that
> Ya
qub al-Ya
qubi (d. c. late ninth century) reports that a plan   rarely varies: first the whole world, then the Arabian Peninof the round city of Baghdad was drawn up in 758 for the           sula, then the Persian Gulf, then the Maghreb (North Africa
> Abbasid caliph, al-Mansur (r. 754–775). The Egyptian chroni-       and Andalusia), Egypt, Syria, the Mediterranean, upper and
> cler al-Maqrizi mentions that a “magnificent” map on “fine           lower Iraq, as well as twelve maps devoted to the Iranian
> blue” silk with “gold lettering” upon which was pictured           provinces, beginning with Khuzistan and ending in Khurasan,
> “parts of the earth with all the cities and mountains, seas and    including maps of Sind and Transoxiana. The maps, which
> rivers” was prepared for the Fatimid caliph al-Mu
izz (r.          usually number precisely twenty-one, follow exactly the same
> 953–975) and even entombed with him in his mausoleum               format as the text and are thus an integral part of the work.
> in Cairo.
> The al-Balkhi Tradition and Controversy
> The only extant source containing maps prior to the Kitab      Not all these geographical manuscripts contain maps, howal-masalik wa al-mamalik series is a ninth-century copy of Abu     ever. Rather, maps are found only in those referred to
> Ja
far Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarazmi’s (d. 847 C.E.)              generally as part of the al-Balkhi/al-Istakhri tradition—the
> Kitab surat al-ard (Picture of the Earth). Composed primarily      “Classical School” of geographers. This particular geographical
> of a series of zij tables (tables containing longitudinal and      genre is also referred to as the “Atlas of Islam.” A great deal of
> latitudinal coordinates), it also includes four maps. Two are      mystery surrounds the origins and the architects of this
> unidentifiable, one is a map of the Sea of Azov, and one is of      manuscript-bound cartographic tradition. This is primarily
> the Nile. Of all the maps in this manuscript, only the map of      because not a single manuscript survives in the hand of its
> the Nile appears to be directly related to maps of the Nile that   original author. Furthermore, it is not clear who initiated the
> one finds in later carto-geographical works.                        tradition of accompanying geographical texts with maps.
> 
> 130                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Cartography and Geography
> 
> Scholars of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries hold       the Middle East to its peripheries, they provide us with
> that Abu Zayd Ahmad ibn Sahl al-Balkhi (d. 934), who—as his        insights from a broad range of time and space. The earliest
> nisba (patronym) suggests—came from Balkh in Central Asia,         extant set of Islamic maps comes from an Ibn Hawqal manuinitiated the series, and that his work and maps were later        script housed at the Topkapi Saray Museum Library firmly
> elaborated upon by Abu Ishaq ibn Muhammad al-Farisi al-            dated to the year 1086 by a clear colophon. Counterintuitively,
> Istakhri (fl. early tenth century) from Istakhr in the province     this manuscript also contains the most mimetic maps of all
> of Fars. Al-Istakhri’s work was, in turn, elaborated upon by       the existing KMMS copies. This version of the KMMS even
> Abu al-Qasim Muhammad ibn Hawqal (fl. second half of                has an extraordinary triple folio fold-out map of the Meditertenth century), who came from upper Iraq (the region known         ranean. Indeed, it is the world-map version of this manuscript
> as the Jazira). Abu 
Abdallah Muhammad al-Muqaddasi (d. c.         that proliferates in a more embellished form via the Ibn al-
> 1000), from Jerusalem (Quds), is considered the last innova-       Wardi manuscript copies from the fifteenth century. The
> tor in this series.                                                striking mimesis of these maps stands in stark contrast to the
> maps of the later KMMS copies, which over the centuries
> The problem is that virtually no biographical information
> abandon any pretense of mimesis entirely.
> exists on the authors other than al-Balkhi. One is forced to
> rely on scraps of information in the geographical texts them-          After the KMMS set, a series of more and more stylized
> selves for information about their authors. The difficulty is       maps emerges that move further into the realm of objects d’art
> compounded by the fact that, in all the forty-three titles that    and away from direct empirical inquiry. By the nineteenth
> Ibn al-Nadim credits to al-Balkhi, not one even vaguely            century the KMMS maps become so stylized that, were it not
> resembles the title of a geographical treatise. According to the   for the earlier examples, it would be hard to recognize them as
> biographers, al-Balkhi was famous as a philosopher and for         the maps at all. Between these two extremes there are a series
> his tafsir (commentaries on the Quran)—in particular one          of KMMS world maps that range from somber in form and
> known as Na
m al-quran—which was praised by many judges.          color (some even contain grids) to outright gaudy and lacking
> He is not, however, known in the biographical record for his       in fine detail. In the crevices of these maps the real and the
> geographical treatises. Yet stories of how al-Balkhi sired the     imaginary, the terrestrial and the cosmographical, and the
> Islamic mapping tradition endure. It is for this reason that the   empirical and the fictional dance confusingly in front of
> genre is generally referred to as the “Balkhi school of map-       people of today.
> ping.” The attribution of a whole school of mapping to a
> shadowy, mythical father who was anything but a specialist on      An ancient map appears in the volume one color insert.
> geography or cartography is unfounded.
> See also Biruni, al-; Ibn Battuta; Ibn Khaldun; Persian
> The confusion is further compounded by the fact that            Language and Literature.
> many of the surviving copies contain either incomplete
> colophons (inscriptions containing attribution of authorship)
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> or no colophons at all. Additionally, the texts are sometimes
> so mixed up in the surviving manuscripts that it is often          Cosgrove, Denis, ed. Mappings. London: Reaktion Books, 1999.
> difficult to disentangle them. The numerous incomplete and          Goodrich, Thomas. The Ottoman Turks and the New World: A
> anonymous manuscripts, sometimes abridged, along with the            Study of “Tarih-i Hind-i Garbi” and Sixteenth-Century Ottoversions translated into Persian, only cloud the matter further.     man Americana. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1990.
> Hapgood, Charles H. Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings: Evidence
> Images of Other Worlds                                               of Advanced Civilization in the Ice Age. New York: E. P.
> Since none of the KMMS manuscripts date back to their                Dutton, 1979.
> original authors, the issue of authorship of the first carto-
> Harley, J. B., and Woodward, David, eds. The History of
> geographical manuscript and precisely what it looked like is         Cartography: Cartography in the Traditional Islamic and
> immaterial. What is relevant is that these geographical manu-        South Asian Societies. Chicago: University of Chicago
> scripts include some of the earliest pictographic images of the      Press, 1992.
> world in an Islamic context. Since all images are socially
> King, David. World-Maps for Finding the Direction and Disconstructed, these iconic carto-ideographs contain valuable           tance to Mecca: Innovation and Tradition in Islamic Science.
> messages of the milieux in which they were produced. They             Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1999.
> are a rich source of new information that can be used as
> Kramers, Johannes Hendrik. Analecta Orientalia: Posthumous
> alternate gateways into the Islamic past. They can tell about
> Writings and Selected Minor Works. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1954.
> the time period in which they were copied, and provide hints
> about the period in which they were originally conceived.          McIntosh, Greg. The Piri Reis Map of 1513. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2000
> Since the extant examples stretch in time from the elev-        Sezgin, Fuat. Geschichte Des Arabischen Schrifttums:
> enth century to the nineteenth, and range from the heart of           Mathematische Geographie und Kartographie im Islam und
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                   131
> Central Asia, Islam in
> 
> Ihr Fortleben im Abendland. Historische Darstellung. Frank-     cities, and measures were undertaken to induce conversion
> furt: Institut für Geschichte der Arabisch-Islamischen          to Islam.
> Wissenschaften an der Johann Wolfgang Goethe-
> Universität Frankfurt am Main, 2000.                                These patterns of Arab rule established under Qutayba
> Soucek, Svat. Piri Reis and Turkish Mapmaking after Columbus.      proved more enduring than his conquests. Following his
> London: The Nour Foundation, 1996.                               murder by mutinous troops in the Farghana valley in 715,
> Arab control in Transoxania was soon rolled back, and nearly
> Karen C. Pinto     a quarter-century passed before the Muslim armies were able
> to take the initiative again. Local rulers such as the Sogdian
> king Ghurak regained their independence and successfully
> fought the Arabs, but a new force from the steppe—the
> CENTRAL ASIA, ISLAM IN                                             Turgesh confederation—posed a more serious threat to Arab
> control. The Turgesh were able to raid deep into Transoxania
> Central Asia is a modern geographical designation covering         and eventually into Khurasan as well. The death of the
> an area of considerable political, ethnic, and linguistic diver-   Turgesh ruler in 737, however, led to the collapse of his
> sity, but marked by a distinctive cultural synthesis rooted in     confederation; Ghurak died the same year, and soon afterthe meeting of the civilization of Inner Asia with that of the     ward a new Umayyad governor of Khurasan, Nasr b. Sayyar,
> Middle East and the Islamic world. In terms of contemporary        was able, during the 740s, to reconquer central Transoxania,
> political boundaries, it comprises the newly independent           the Farghana valley, and parts of eastern Khurasan that had
> post-Soviet states of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan,          reverted to local rulers, and to lead successful campaigns as
> Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan, as well as adjacent parts of the     far as Tashkent.
> Chinese province of Xinjiang, of northern Afghanistan, of
> northeastern Iran, and of the Russian Federation.                      Soon, however, the Abbasid revolution, a movement that
> took shape militarily in Khurasan, swept the Umayyads from
> The chief historical regions comprising Central Asia in-        power; Abbasid agitation there began even before the arrival
> clude Mawarannahr, often called Transoxiana or Transoxania,        of the famous Abu Muslim in 747, and both the Arab colonists
> the traditional heartland; the Farghana valley; the Tarim          in Khurasan and Transoxania and local converts to Islam
> basin, often called Chinese or East Turkistan and now form-        played significant roles in the success of the Abbasid cause.
> ing the major part of the province of Xinjiang in the People’s     Disaffection with Umayyad rule was particularly strong among
> Republic of China; the Syr Darya valley, with its commercial       the local converts, resentful of policies that relegated them to
> oasis towns; the steppe regions to the north known since the       a subordinate status vis-à-vis the Arabs. Nevertheless, the
> eleventh century as the Dasht-e Qipchaq; the region of the         series of religiously tinged revolts that broke out in Transoxania
> Amu Darya delta to the south of the Aral Sea, known                and Khurasan beginning in the late Umayyad era continued
> historically as Khwarazm; and Khurasan, typically regarded         through the first decades of Abbasid rule. Abbasid control in
> as the northeasternmost province of Iran, but more often           Central Asia in fact remained tenuous until the revolt of Rafi

> closely linked with Transoxiana in political, ethnic, and          b. Layth beginning in 806. This revolt posed such a serious
> economic terms.                                                    threat that the caliph himself, Harun al-Rashid, was compelled to set out to deal with it. Following his death in 809, his
> From the Arab Conquest to the Mongol Invasion                      son al-Mamun, installed as governor in Marv, succeeded in
> The Arab conquest of Iran brought Muslim armies to                 suppressing it, and after his elevation as caliph in 813, al-
> Khurasan, and raids were conducted as far as Balkh and into        Mamun—still based in Marv—conducted a series of decisive
> Transoxania already during the 650s, as Arab governors             campaigns against independent local rulers that may be
> based first in Basra in Iraq and later (from 667) in Marv began     regarded as the culmination of the Arab conquest of Centhe dual policy of establishing garrison towns in some areas,      tral Asia.
> with Arab families transplanted from Iraq, and elsewhere
> leaving local dynasts in power as tributary rulers. A new stage        Almost as soon as it was solidified, Abbasid control in
> in the conquest of Central Asia began with the appointment,        Central Asia devolved upon local governors loyal to the
> in 705, of Qutayba b. Muslim as the governor of Khurasan.          caliph and at least nominally dependent upon him. One of the
> Qutayba’s ten-year career brought the military conquest of         participants in al-Mamun’s suppression of the revolt of Rafi

> Bukhara and Samarkand as well as of Khwarazm, and the              b. Layth was one Tahir b. Husayn, whom the caliph apinitiation of campaigns into Farghana and as far beyond the        pointed governor of Khurasan in 821. The Tahirid dynasty
> Syr Darya as Isfijab; it also saw important institutional devel-    ruled Khurasan and Transoxania until its destruction in 873
> opments, as Arab garrisons were established in Bukhara and         by the Saffarids of Sistan. Members of the Samanid family
> Samarkand, troops were levied from the local population to         also took part in al-Mamun’s campaigns, and served the
> serve with the Muslim armies, mosques were built in these          Tahirids as governors in Samarkand, Farghana, and Tashkent.
> 
> 132                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Central Asia, Islam in
> 
> Samanid dynasts expanded their power through campaigns             patronage yielded the Turkic Qutadghu bilig, a “mirror for
> deep into the steppe, and with the collapse of the Tahirids        princes” completed around 1070 by Yusuf of Balasaghun for a
> received caliphal recognition as the rightful governors of         Qarakhanid ruler of Kashghar. The Qarakhanids are also
> Transoxania. The real foundations of the dynasty’s power           important, however, simply as the holders of power in much
> were laid by Isma
il Samani, who destroyed the Saffarids in        of Central Asia, at the regional and local level, for over two
> 900 and established Bukhara as the center of his realm. The        centuries. Even as supreme power in Central Asia shifted to
> dramatic decline in the political importance of the Abbasid        the Seljuks or the Qarakhitays or the Khwarazmshahs, local
> caliphs that preceded the Samanid era (900–999) left the           dynasties linked to the Qarakhanid tradition continued to
> Samanids the rulers of an essentially independent state based      rule in Samarkand, in parts of the Farghana valley, and in
> in Central Asia; their patronage of religious and cultural         towns of the Syr Darya basin. The last known Qarakhanid
> institutions made tenth-century Central Asia one of the most       dynast was removed by the Khwarazmshah Muhammad (tarvibrant and influential parts of the Muslim world.                  get of the Mongol invasion) only in 1209.
> 
> Well into the first half of the tenth century, the Samanids         Of even greater significance for the Islamic world at large
> retained their ability to project their power into the steppe to   was the third Muslim Turkic dynasty to appear in Central
> the north and northeast of Transoxania, but the Samanid era        Asia during the Samanid era, that of the Seljuks. The Seljuk
> also brought crucial developments in the political and cul-        royal house emerged, in the latter tenth century, as tribal
> tural history of the Turks of Central Asia. The tenth century      leaders among the Oghuz Turks who nomadized near the
> marks the beginning of the large-scale involvement of Turkic       lower course of the Syr Darya, northeast of the Aral Sea. The
> peoples in Islamic civilization. Before this time, Turks from      narrative of Seljuk origins links their adoption of Islam to a
> Central Asia had already played an important role in Muslim        power struggle, again with conversion signaling a break with
> history as military slaves active at the caliphal court in         their former overlord as well as an alliance against him with
> Baghdad as well as other, more westerly parts of the Muslim        the Muslim people of the Syr Darya town of Jand. By the early
> world. The institution of Turkic military slaves would remain      eleventh century the Seljuks were involved in the military
> an important avenue for the assimilation of Turkic (and            and political turmoil that accompanied the division of the
> other) peoples into Islamic civilization, and, beginning with      Samanid realm between the Ghaznavids, in Khurasan, and
> the Ghaznavids, would yield a substantial number of ruling         the Qarakhanids, in Transoxania, and quickly dominated
> dynasties from India to Egypt. Ultimately more important           both regions, leaving the Qarakhanid dynasts as vassals but
> for Central Asian history, however, was the large-scale con-       effectively crushing the Ghaznavid presence in Khurasan
> version to Islam by Turkic peoples; this was happening along       with their defeat of Mahmud’s son and successor, Mas
ud, in
> the frontiers of Samanid Central Asia, but the tenth century       1040 at Dandanqan, near Marv. Thereafter the Seljuks began
> also saw the establishment of Islam in remoter regions of          their phenomenal sweep through Iran and the Middle East,
> Turkic Inner Asia, far beyond the limits reached by Muslim         seizing Baghdad by 1055 and defeating the Byzantines in
> armies. During the middle of the tenth century, a member of        Anatolia in 1071.
> a Turkic dynasty based in East Turkistan, in the city of
> Kashghar, adopted Islam, evidently in the course of a power           Seljuk success in Central Asia itself was less overwhelming
> struggle with a rival member of the same dynasty. The              than further west. By the first half of the twelfth century,
> narrative of his conversion, which was elaborated and cele-        Seljuk dynasts were plagued by the devastating raids, deep
> brated from at least the eleventh century to the twentieth,        into Khurasan, of other groups of Oghuz (“Ghuzz”) nomads
> identified him as Satuq Bughra Khan. The convert was                who did not accept their rule, and the final blow to Seljuk
> successful, and the dynasty, which has come to be known as         power in the east came in 1141, when the sultan, Sanjar, was
> that of the Qarakhanids, soon expanded its territories to the      defeated in the Qatvan steppe, northeast of Samarkand, by
> west, moving against the Samanid frontiers in the Syr Darya        the Qarakhitays. The latter, remnants of the Qitan people
> basin and, with the conquest of Bukhara in 999, effectively        who had dominated northern China (as the Liao dynasty)
> putting an end to the Samanid state. In this case, however,        since the early tenth century, had fled westward after their
> religious frontiers had shifted substantially; the Turks from      ouster from China in the 1120s and dominated the steppe
> the steppe who conquered sedentary Central Asia were al-           regions of Central Asia down to the Mongol conquest. The
> ready Muslims, and the ulema of Bukhara are famously               non-Muslim Qarakhitays were for the most part absentee
> reported to have counseled the city’s population that they         overlords with regard to Transoxania, and most regions
> were under no obligation to defend their Samanid rulers,           remained in the hands of local elites, whether Qarakhanid
> insofar as the Qarakhanids were good Muslims.                      dynasts or, as in the case of Bukhara, a prominent family of
> Hanafi jurists known as the Al-e Burhan.
> The Qarakhanids are of tremendous importance as the
> initial custodians of the Turkic/Islamic cultural synthesis and       The Qarakhitay defeat of the Seljuks provided an opporsponsors of the first Islamic Turkic literature. Qarakhanid         tunity for expansion by a dynasty of local rulers based in
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                  133
> Central Asia, Islam in
> 
> Khwarazm, whose ancestors had assumed control there in the         Genghis Khan’s grandson, Hulegu, who had led the camservice of the Seljuks. These Khwarazmshahs, under nominal         paign of 1256–1258. The heartland of Transoxania, as well as
> Qarakhitay suzerainty, extended their power into Khurasan          the Tarim basin, parts of Khurasan, and the eastern parts of
> and into the lower Syr Darya valley, and by the beginning of       the Dasht-i Qipchaq, were nominally part of the ulus of
> the thirteenth century had become the most powerful rul-           Genghis’s son Chaghatay, though in fact, through much of
> ers in the eastern Islamic world. The ambitions of the             the second half of the thirteenth century, this region was
> Khwarazmshah Muhammad (r. 1200–1218) led him to clash              dominated by Qaydu, a descendant of Genghis’s son and first
> with the Ghurid dynasty based south of the Hindu Kush, with        successor Ogodey. Not until the early fourteenth century did
> the Abbasid caliph al-Nasir (who was intent on restoring           the Chaghatayid lineage reassert itself, under the khans Esen
> the caliphate’s political power), with his Qarakhitay over-        Buqa and Kebek. In each of these western successor states of
> lords, and finally with the new Inner Asian power, the              the Mongol empire, the process of Islamization was under-
> Mongols under Genghis Khan. Muhammad’s disastrous re-              way already in the thirteenth century, and by the second
> buff of the khan’s diplomatic and commercial overtures led to      quarter of the fourteenth century khans from each of the
> the Mongol invasion that, from 1216 to 1223, devastated            Chinggisid dynasties ruling there—as well as members of the
> much of Transoxania and Khurasan and destroyed the                 tribal aristocracy and ordinary nomads—had become Muslims.
> Khwarazmian state.
> By the 1330s, however, the Ilkhanid state was disintegrat-
> The Mongol and Timurid Periods, 1220–1500                          ing, and real power in most of the Chaghatayid ulus had
> Mongol rule was established in Central Asia well before the        reverted to the tribal chieftains, who made and unmade khans
> subsequent Mongol campaign of 1256–1258, which destroyed           to suit their own ends. It was in the western part of the
> the Abbasid caliphate and brought all of Iran and much of the      Chaghatayid realm that Timur, an emir of the Barlas tribe
> Middle East under Mongol control. The impact of the                based in southern Transoxania, rose to power during the
> Mongol conquest likewise endured much longer in Central            1360s; within a decade he had succeeded in consolidating his
> Asia than elsewhere in the Muslim world, above all through         power over Transoxania and Khurasan and had begun the
> the political principles established in the thirteenth cen-        career of conquest that would make him master not only of
> tury and maintained, in one form or another, down to the           Central Asia, but of Iran and much of the Middle East as well,
> eighteenth. These principles made sovereignty a preroga-           culminating with campaigns as far east as Delhi and as far
> tive reserved solely for blood descendants of Genghis              west as Ankara. Following Timur’s death in 1405, his descendants were able to maintain control only over his Central
> (Chinggis) Khan. They inaugurated a political tension—
> Asian domains, in Transoxania, Iran, and Khurasan (where
> between Chinggisids with the theoretical right to rule, and
> Herat soon emerged as a cosmopolitan center of cultural
> powerful tribal chieftains with direct control over the nomadic
> patronage). The Timurid state in Central Asia fractured soon
> military forces crucial to the Chinggisids’s power—that would
> after the death of Timur’s son and successor Shahrukh in
> shape Central Asian political history down to the Russian
> 1447, with separate branches of the Timurid lineage holding
> conquest. The descendants of Genghis Khan alone could
> power in Khurasan and Transoxania.
> bear the sovereign title khan, and were known by the Turkic
> term oghlan (the “sons,” par excellence). In the parts of the      The Uzbek Era, 1500–1865
> Mongol-ruled world that were Islamized, the princes of the         Timur, though not a Chinggisid, clearly sought to evoke the
> blood who did not rise to supreme power (but always re-            legacy of Genghis Khan’s conquests during his lifetime, and
> mained potential candidates for that role) were more often         his successors likewise cultivated their Inner Asian heritage
> known by the Muslim term signaling sovereign authority,            alongside their patronage of Islamic institutions. Neversultan. The tribal chieftains, by contrast, were known by the      theless, the Timurids were regarded as usurpers by real
> Turkic term bek or what came to be its Arabic equivalent, emir     Chinggisids, and the principal challenges to his rule in Cen-
> (with scions of the tribal elite referred to by the Arabo-         tral Asia, and to that of his descendants, came from the
> Persian hybrid emir-zada, that is, “born of an emir,” typically    nomads of the Dasht-e Qipchaq, ruled by Chinggisids from
> shortened to mirza).                                               the lineage of Jochi. By the time of Timur, the Turkic
> nomads of the eastern half of the Dasht-e Qipchaq, who
> As the Mongol empire split along regional lines in the          belonged to what remained of the Jochid ulus (i.e., the
> middle of the thirteenth century, different parts of Central       “Golden Horde”), had come to be known by the designation
> Asia fell to different ruling lineages stemming from the four      Uzbek (ozbek); the origin of this appellation is obscure, but is
> sons of Genghis Khan. Khwarazm, parts of the lower Syr             ascribed by indigenous tradition to the impact of the adop-
> Darya basin, and much of the Dasht-e Qipchaq came to be            tion of Islam by Ozbek Khan of the Golden Horde (r.
> regarded as part of the realm (ulus) of the descendants of Jochi   1313–1341).
> (the “Golden Horde”), centered in the lower Volga valley,
> while much of Iran was in the hands of the Ilkhanid realm             Timur himself faced invasions into his domains by nomadic
> centered in Azerbaijan, that was ruled by descendants of           armies from the northern steppe led by various Jochid rulers
> 
> 134                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Central Asia, Islam in
> 
> and tribal chieftains.Timur’s efforts to secure stability and     Chinggisids and the Uzbek khans of Transoxania, with towns
> peace on his northern frontier were continued by his succes-      such as Tashkent, Sayram, and Turkistan held by the Qazaqs
> sors; Shahrukh succeeded in securing Khwarazm by 1413, but        through much of the seventeenth century.
> his son Ulugh Beg’s meddling in Jöchid affairs led to his
> serious defeat by one would-be khan near Sighnaq in 1427.         The Arabshahids. In Khwarazm, meanwhile, a separate
> Shortly after this event, a young prince from the lineage of      Chinggisid dynasty supported by Uzbek nomads from the
> Shiban (the fifth son of Jochi), named Abu ’l-Khayr Khan,          Dasht-e Qipchaq took power following the ouster of the
> succeeded, with the aid of the powerful chieftains of the         Safavid forces that occupied the region after the defeat
> Manghit tribe, in establishing his power over most of the         of Muhammad Shibani Khan. This dynasty, often referred
> to as the 
Arabshahids, extended its control to the south,
> Uzbek tribes of the Dasht-e Qipchaq, and established a
> into Khurasan, during the middle of the sixteenth century,
> confederation strong enough to challenge the Timurids and
> and maintained power in Khwarazm to the early eightinfluence internal Timurid politics.
> eenth century. One of its members, Abu ’l-Ghazi Khan (r.
> The Qalmaqs. This first Uzbek confederation was shaken by          1643–1663), is known for his harsh measures against the
> attacks from the Qalmaqs (i.e., the Kalmyks or Oyrats,            Turkmen nomads inhabiting the frontiers of the Khwarazmian
> western Mongols) in the mid-fifteenth century, and collapsed       oasis, for his reorganization of the Uzbek tribes of Khwarazm,
> after Abu ’l-Khayr Khan’s death (c. 1469), but the founder’s      and for the two historical works he wrote in Chaghatay Turkic.
> grandson, known as Muhammad Shibani Khan, succeeded in
> The polity in Transoxania and, later, in parts of Khurasan
> reformulating a substantial part of the coalition by the end of
> that was reformulated by the kinsmen of Muhammad Shibani
> the fifteenth century. As internal dissension weakened the
> Khan following the defeat at Marv, was not a centralized
> Timurid state in Transoxania, Shibani Khan succeeded in
> state, much less an empire, but rather a collection of loosely
> conquering Samarkand and Bukhara in 1500, consolidated
> linked appanages assigned to Chinggisid princes who took
> his hold on Transoxania and seized Khwarazm by 1505. He
> part in the conquest. There were thus separate and essentially
> moved across the Amu Darya to attack the Timurids in
> co-equal Chinggisid sultans based in Samarkand, Bukhara,
> Khurasan soon after the death of the last powerful Timurid,
> Tashkent, Balkh, and other appanages, with the senior mem-
> Sultan Husayn Bayqara, seizing the Timurid capital, Herat,
> ber of the extended ruling clan recognized as khan. The
> in 1507. His ambitions were cut short late in 1510 when he
> equilibrium that maintained this decentralized system broke
> was defeated and killed in battle with the Safavid ruler Shah     down in the 1550s, and gave way to bitter struggles among the
> Isma
il near Marv. The Safavid victory led to a virtually total   princes that culminated in the gradual, and bloody, consoliwithdrawal of Uzbek forces from Transoxania. Within two           dation of power by 
Abdallah Khan. The latter’s success in
> years, however, the Uzbeks, led by Muhammad Shibani               eliminating rivals meant that when his son was murdered
> Khan’s nephew 
Ubaydullah and other descendants of Abu ’l-        shortly after 
Abdallah’s own death in 1598, the tribal chief-
> Khayr Khan, had expelled the Safavid forces and their Timurid     tains and urban elites of Transoxania were compelled to seek
> supporters (including Babur, who would found the Mogul            a Chinggisid khan from an altogether different Jochid lineempire of India) from Transoxania. Khurasan became a              age, one that had recently been dislodged from its hereditary
> battleground between the Safavids and the Uzbeks, with            realm along the lower Volga by the Russian conquest of the
> Herat changing hands several times during the sixteenth           commercial emporium of Astrakhan. This dynasty, known
> century.                                                          variously as that of the Janids, the Ashtarkhanids, or the
> Toqay Timurids ruled Transoxania and Balkh until 1747.
> The Qazaqs. The Qazaqs with whom Muhammad Shibani
> Khan fought were of precisely the same ethnic stock as his            Despite the stability seemingly implied by the long reigns
> Uzbek followers; the name qazaq (“freebooter”) had been           of Ashtarkhanid rulers such as Imam Quli Khan (r. 1611–1642),
> applied pejoratively to the components of Abu ’l-Khayr            
Abd al-
Aziz Khan (r. 1645–1681), Subhan Quli Khan (r.
> Khan’s Uzbek confederation who broke with Abu ’l-Khayr            1681–1702), and Abu ’l-Fayz Khan (r. 1711–1747), this era
> and followed other Chinggisids out of his coalition. The          saw the steady erosion of the khans’s authority in favor of
> essentially political, rather than ethnic, distinction between    powerful tribal chieftains, and the steady diminution of the
> Qazaq and Uzbek remained somewhat fluid through the                state itself. By the beginning of the eighteenth century, the
> sixteenth century. After their Uzbek kinsmen moved with the       power of the Chinggisid khans had been seriously weakened
> Shibanids or other Chinggisids into Transoxania, Khwarazm,        both in Khwarazm and in Transoxania, to the benefit of the
> and Khurasan, the Qazaqs occupied the Dasht-e Qipchaq,            tribal aristocracy, and political instability was exacerbated by
> and continued their large-scale, seasonal pastoral nomadic        economic dislocation and external military threats. In parmigrations. The Qazaqs too were ruled by Chinggisid sul-          ticular, the renewed success of the Mongol Junghars (Oyrats)
> tans, and came to be divided into three loosely affiliated units   in the Dasht-e Qipchaq sent waves of Qazaq refugees into
> (zhüz) known in the West as “hordes.” The middle Syr Darya        Transoxania in the 1720s, devastating the region’s agriculvalley became the focus of frequent wars between the Qazaq        tural base and prompting in turn the flight of much of the
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                   135
> Central Asia, Islam in
> 
> sedentary population there into the Farghana valley and               The khans of Qoqand were also closely involved in affairs
> other areas. The Junghar threat also induced some Qazaq           of East Turkistan, where political structures had developed
> Chinggisids to seek protection from the Russian empire, and       quite differently from those of western Central Asia in the
> the formal submission of these khans later served as a pretext    Uzbek era. There, dynasts of the lineage of Chaghatay had
> for the extension of Russian control over the Qazaq steppes.      withstood challenges from both the Timurids and the Uzbek
> Chinggisids to the west, and from the Mongol Junghars to
> The Afghan Turkmen. The political and military weakness           the north, down to the late seventeenth century. Shifting
> of Central Asia was further underscored by the invasion of        political alignments involving rival branches of a family of
> Nader Shah, the warlord of the Afshar tribe of Turkmens           Naqshbandi khwajas (descendants and Sufi successors of a
> who seized power in Iran in 1728, driving out the Afghans         sixteenth-century shaykh of Transoxania known as Makhdum-e
> who had put an end to the Safavid dynasty six years earlier.      A
zam), which had been established in the region from the
> His conquest of Bukhara and Khwarazm in 1740 helped               late sixteenth century, contributed to the conquest of the
> launch the final stage in the transition to the new dynasties of   region by the Junghars in 1681, putting an end to the
> Uzbek tribal origin that would rule much of Central Asia into     Chaghatayid dynasty. The Junghars installed Afaq Khwaja (d.
> the second half of the nineteenth century. In Bukhara, a          1694), leader of the Aqtaghliq (“White Mountain”) khwaja
> chieftain of the Manghit tribe who had formerly served the        faction, as their governor in Kashghar. Struggles between the
> weak Ashtarkhanid ruler Abu l-Fayz Khan had the latter           khwaja factions continued after his death, leading the Junghars
> ruler deposed and killed soon after Nader Shah’s assassina-       first to deport the leaders of both factions, and later to switch
> tion in 1747. In Khwarazm, Nader Shah’s conquest led to an        their support to the rival Qarataghliq (“Black Mountain”)
> extended period of profound disorder, culminating in the          faction.
> occupation of the capital, Khiva, by the Yomut tribe of
> Turkmens in 1768. In this case it was a chieftain of the          The Manchus. By the middle of the eighteenth century,
> Qonghrat tribe, who likewise had filled important state posi-      however, khwaja contenders were seeking support against the
> tions under the Chinggisid khans there, who succeeded in          Junghars through the growing power of the Manchu empire
> driving out the Yomuts and restoring order. The Manghit           (the Qing dynasty of China). The climactic struggle between
> and Qonghrat dynasties thus established ruled Bukhara and         the Manchus and the Junghars for domination of the Inner
> Khiva, respectively, even after the Russian conquest, surviv-     Asian heartland culminated in the total destruction of the
> ing as protectorates of the Russian state until 1920.             Junghar state in 1758. The khwaja state too was destroyed, as
> the Manchus incorporated both the Tarim basin and the
> Nader Shah’s career also set the stage for the emergence      Junghar homeland into their empire (it would become known
> of Ahmad Shah Durrani (r. 1747–1773), the Afghan warlord          as the “New Province,” Xinjiang, of China), but the khwaja
> who was able to seize the regions of Balkh and Herat to add to    lineages continued to stir up rebellions among the Muslims of
> his base in Qandahar and Kabul, and thereby forged the basis      the region, with the active support, beginning in the 1820s, of
> for modern Afghanistan; the Manghits of Bukhara continued         the khans of Qoqand based in the Farghana valley. A major
> to contest the loss of Balkh, however, and permanent Afghan       uprising of Chinese Muslims from 1862 to 1876 kept the
> control of the region that became known as “Afghan Turkistan”     Qing dynasty occupied as the Qoqandian adventurer Ya
qub
> was not secured until the middle of the nineteenth century.       Bek carved out his own state, with the support of an Aqtaghliq
> khwaja based in Kashghar. The suppression of the revolt led
> The Khanate of Qoqand. In the Farghana valley, finally,            to the Qing reconquest of the Tarim basin by 1878. The
> another Uzbek tribal dynasty took shape in the first half of the   Turkic Muslim population of East Turkistan was able to
> eighteenth century, as chieftains of the Ming tribe made the      reassert its independence sporadically following the collapse
> town of Qoqand (or Khuqand) their base and extended their         of the Manchu dynasty in 1911, with several attempts to
> control throughout the valley; this region proved to be the       create an East Turkistan Republic during the 1930s and
> most economically dynamic area of Central Asia during the         1940s. The Chinese communist victory in 1949 led to the
> eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and the Ming dynasty         region’s incorporation into the People’s Republic of China as
> was able to exploit the valley’s agricultural and commercial      the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. The PRC’s colowealth to build a state that became the most powerful in          nization policy brought a massive influx of Han Chinese that
> Central Asia during the first half of the nineteenth century.      has reduced the Muslim component to approximately 60
> Under 
Alim Khan (r. 1798–1809) and his brother 
Umar             percent of the region’s population.
> Khan (r. 1809–1822), the khanate of Qoqand expanded to the
> north, seizing Tashkent and the towns of the middle Syr           The Russian Conquest and the Soviet Era, 1865–1991
> Darya; further Qoqandian expansion into the Dasht-i Qipchaq       During the late eighteenth century and the first half of the
> brought both Qazaq and Qirghiz nomads under the khanate’s         nineteenth, the rulers of the Uzbek tribal dynasties in the
> control, and led inevitably to a confrontation with the Rus-      three khanates of western Central Asia—Bukhara, Khiva, and
> sian empire, which was expanding into the same regions from       Qoqand—were succeeding where the Chinggisid khans had
> the north.                                                        long failed: They crushed the power of the tribal chieftains,
> 
> 136                                                                                           Islam and the Muslim World
> Central Asia, Islam in
> 
> instituted military reforms that lessened their dependence on      identities and mores that would create the modern Soviet
> the tribal forces, created a more centralized bureaucratic         nations of Central Asia. The Bolshevik victory in the Civil
> apparatus for state administration, and concentrated far more      War was followed, in Central Asia, by an administrative
> power in their own hands than any Chinggisid khan had held         reorganization that reflected both practical concerns and
> for centuries. Despite this period of relative revitalization,     Lenin’s rhetoric about national self-determination. This “nahowever, the three Central Asian khanates were hopelessly          tional delimitation” drew borders for the new people’s repuboutmatched militarily by the expanding Russian empire.             lics, in part on the basis of older administrative units, but in
> part on the basis of ethnographic and linguistic surveys
> Russian commercial ties with Central Asia had developed        conducted by scholars and officials using a somewhat arbiextensively from the latter sixteenth century, as the conquest     trarily chosen set of ethnic and national designations. The
> of the last successor states of the Golden Horde opened            basic work was done by 1924; changes in the hierarchical
> Siberia to Russian conquest. By the latter eighteenth century,     status of the units thus created, within the system of union
> Russian encroachment from the Volga-Ural valley and Sibe-          republics, autonomous republics, and autonomous regions
> ria had reduced the Qazaqs to vassal status. The suppression       that comprised the ethnically defined structures of the USSR,
> of Qazaq revolts in the 1830s and 1840s brought Russian            continued until 1936, leaving five union republics—the Kazakh,
> forces into the Syr Darya valley, where they attacked              Uzbek, Kirgiz, Tadzhik, and Turkmen republics (using the
> Qoqandian outposts already in the 1850s.                           Russianized names that were official through the Soviet
> period)—in western Central Asia.
> The outright military conquest of southern Central Asia
> followed the freeing of Russian military resources by the end          Soviet policy demanded the strict subordination of naof the Crimean War, and by the suppression of Muslim
> tional identities to the construction of socialist society. Howresistance in the North Caucasus. Russian troops moved
> ever, from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s local elites were
> against the towns of the middle Syr Darya valley in 1864, and
> able to develop considerable autonomy in republican affairs,
> seized Tashkent in 1865. Operations southwest of Tashkent
> and, within limits, to give expression to Sovietized national
> brought confrontations with Bukharan troops, culminating
> cultures. In the 1980s Soviet reformers sought to rein in the
> in the Russian capture of Samarkand in 1868 and the estabentrenched national bureaucracies, citing corruption and
> lishment of a Russian protectorate over the khanate of Bukhara.
> abuses of power in the republics. Increasingly vocal national-
> A Russian force marched on Khiva in 1873 and forced a
> ist movements demanded the assertion of cultural and politisimilar arrangement on the Qonghrat khan. Further defeats
> cal rights, culminating in declarations of sovereignty by all of
> of Qoqandian forces brought the submission of that khanate
> the Central Asian republics. With the failed coup attempt of
> as well, but repeated revolts and social unrest in the Farghana
> August 1991 and the dissolution of the USSR later that year,
> valley led Russian officials to dissolve the khanate of Qoqand
> each of the republics declared independence. By that time,
> in 1876 and bring its territories under direct Russian rule.
> however, the local communist elites had co-opted the nation-
> The Turkmen nomads to the south of Khwarazm put up a
> alist movements and ensured their hold on power, now as
> stiffer resistance, surrendering to Russian control only after a
> nationalists rather than communists. The 1990s saw, in all the
> massacre of Turkmen men, women, and children at Gok
> Central Asian republics, a rollback of political rights asserted
> Tepe, near modern-day Ashgabat, in 1881. By 1895, negotiaduring the last years of the Soviet regime, the often brutal
> tions between the Russian and British empires had defined
> stifling of political dissent, and the total monopolization of
> the southern border of the Russian holdings in Central Asia,
> power by the former republican communist parties, now
> corresponding to the present-day borders of the Central
> appropriately renamed. At the same time, the republican
> Asian republics with Iran and Afghanistan.
> elites appeared to be committed to the enterprise of nation-
> Russian rule at first brought few changes to the daily lives    building, understanding their power to be rooted in existing
> of Central Asian Muslims, but growing contacts between             political structures rather than in any revolutionary transfor-
> Russians and Central Asians, as well as economic changes           mation of the prevailing conceptions of communal identity,
> brought on by increased trade with Russia, led to the emer-        which those structures served to reify.
> gence of small native circles intent upon revitalizing local
> society through educational and cultural changes. Following
> See also Central Asian Culture and Islam; Commuthe 1905 revolution in Russia, these groups—known as jadidists,
> nism; Reform: Muslim Communities of the Russian
> a term applied to reformist Muslims throughout the Russian
> Empire.
> empire—became increasingly concerned with political issues, and it was from among them that the Russian Bolsheviks       BIBLIOGRAPHY
> would find their first allies among the native population            Bacon, Elizabeth. Central Asians under Russian Rule: A Study
> following the revolutions of 1917. These reformist circles            in Culture Change. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University
> were important for launching the reevaluation of communal             Press, 1966.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                    137
> Central Asian Culture and Islam
> 
> Barthold, V. V. Four Studies on the History of Central Asia.       McChesney, Robert D. Waqf in Central Asia: Four Hundred
> Translated by V. Minorsky and T. Minorsky. Leiden: E. J.          Years in the History of a Muslim Shrine, 1480–1889. Prince-
> Brill, 1962.                                                      ton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1991.
> Barthold, V. V. Turkestan Down to the Mongol Invasion, 4th ed.     McChesney, Robert D. Central Asia: Foundations of Change.
> Translated by V. Minorsky and T. Minorsky. Edited by              Princeton, N.J.: Darwin Press, 1996.
> C. E. Bosworth. London: Luzac & Co., 1977.                      Pierce, Richard A. Russian Central Asia, 1867–1917: A Study
> Becker, Seymour. Russia’s Protectorates in Central Asia: Bukhara      in Colonial Rule. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of
> and Khiva, 1865–1924. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Uni-               California Press, 1960.
> versity Press, 1968.                                            Saray, Mehmet. “The Russian Conquest of Central Asia.”
> Beckwith, Christopher I. The Tibetan Empire in Central Asia:          Central Asian Survey 1 (1982): 1–30.
> A History of the Struggle for Great Power among Tibetans,
> Turks, Arabs, and Chinese during the Early Middle Ages.                                                         Devin DeWeese
> Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1987.
> Biran, Michal. Qaidu and the Rise of the Independent Mongol
> State in Central Asia. Richmond, Surrey, U.K.: Curzon
> Press, 1997.                                                    CENTRAL ASIAN CULTURE AND ISLAM
> Bosworth, C. E. The Ghaznavids: Their Empire in Afghanistan
> and Eastern Iran 994–1040. Edinburgh: Edinburgh Uni-             Central Asia played a pivotal role in the early debates about
> versity Press, 1963.                                             what it meant to be a Muslim, as the early practical experience
> of negotiating relations with the local population on the
> Bregel, Yuri. “Tribal Tradition and Dynastic History: The
> Central Asian frontiers left its mark in the developing con-
> Early Rulers of the Qongrats according to Munis.” Asian
> sensus about the conditions for membership in the Muslim
> and African Studies 16 (1982): 357–398.
> community, and for enjoyment of the privileges it entailed.
> Bregel, Yuri. An Historical Atlas of Central Asia. Leiden:
> Brill, 2003.                                                    Islamization in Central Asia
> Burton, Audrey. The Bukharans: A Dynastic, Diplomatic and          Already in the eighth century there were signs of the domi-
> Commercial History, 1550–1702. New York: St. Martin’s            nance of the inclusive approach toward membership in the
> Press, 1997.                                                     Islamic community that would prevail throughout the history
> Daniel, Elton L. The Political and Social History of Khurasan      of Islamic Central Asia. Local resentment grew over the
> under Abbasid Rule 747–820. Minneapolis and Chicago:             unequal treatment often accorded new converts by Umayyad
> Bibliotheca Islamica, 1979.                                      governors who, in response to declining revenues, toughened
> Fletcher, Joseph. “The Naqshbandiyya in Northwest China.”          requirements for conversion and even rescinded the remis-
> In Studies on Chinese and Islamic Inner Asia. Edited by         sion of the jizya, the poll tax on non-Muslims, promised to
> Beatrice Forbes Manz. Aldershot, Hampshire, U.K.: Vario-        prospective converts. This helped turn the region into the
> rum, 1995.                                                      staging ground for the Abbasid revolution. In doctrinal terms
> Forbes, Andrew D. W. Warlords and Muslims in Chinese               it lent support to the view that formal affirmation of faith and
> Central Asia: A Political History of Republican Sinkiang         of affiliation with the Muslim community was sufficient to be
> 1911–1949. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University                 regarded as a member of the umma in good standing, even if
> Press, 1986.                                                     the people thus brought into the fold were not proficient in
> practice or clear on details of doctrine. This principle, articu-
> Frye, Richard N. Bukhara: The Medieval Achievement (1965).
> Costa Mesa, Calif.: Mazda Publishers, 1997.                     lated in the movement of the Murji
a that gained wide
> support in Khurasan and Transoxania (Mawarannahr), was
> Golden, Peter B. “The Karakhanids and Early Islam.” In
> later enshrined in Hanafi juridical thought, which dominated
> The Cambridge History of Early Inner Asia. Edited by
> Central Asian life from the ninth century to the twentieth
> Denis Sinor. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University
> century. It thereby shaped the process of Islamization in
> Press, 1990.
> Central Asia, not only among the sedentary rural and urban
> Golden, Peter B. An Introduction to the History of the Turkic      population, but along the steppe frontiers as well, where the
> Peoples: Ethnogenesis and State-Formation in Medieval and
> process of conversion appears to have begun in many cases
> Early Modern Eurasia and the Middle East. Wiesbaden:
> with the establishment of social bonds between Muslim
> Otto Harrassowitz, 1992.
> townspeople and nearby Turkic nomadic communities. This
> Holdsworth, M. Turkestan in the Nineteenth Century: A Brief        gave the latter a formal affiliation with the umma, with details
> History of the Khanates of Bukhara, Kokand and Khiva.            of practice and belief to be worked out later.
> London: Central Asian Research Centre, 1959.
> Manz, Beatrice Forbes. The Rise and Rule of Tamerlane. Cam-           There was considerable religious diversity in Central Asia
> bridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1989.                  at the time of the Arab conquest, and it persisted in later
> 
> 138                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Central Asian Culture and Islam
> 
> times. Manichean communities were active in Samarkand             limited, but important, Shafi
i presence in some areas. The
> until the tenth century, Christian groups can be traced into      region of Tashkent became a bastion of the Shafi
i school
> the fourteenth century, and Buddhism was not supplanted           (and produced the noted tenth-century jurist Abu Bakr Qaffal
> from the northeastern part of the Tarim basin until the           al-Shashi), as did the town of Taraz, while parts of Khwarazm
> fifteenth century. Despite the frequent setbacks to Islamization   were predominantly Shafi
i until well after the Mongol conin Central Asia, the region became quite early on a major         quest. Already before the Samanid era, however, the supremcenter of Islamic learning, literature, and art.                  acy of the Hanafi school in Bukhara, and in the rest of
> Transoxania, was credited to the imam Abu Hafs al-Bukhari
> Cultural Patronage and Religious Scholarship                      (d. 877), and from the tenth century to the fourteenth,
> The full flowering of Islamic science and literature, in Persian   Transoxania was by far the most productive region of the
> and Arabic, came in the tenth century under Samanid patron-       Muslim world in terms of the scholars and books that would
> age. The Samanid court at Bukhara sponsored the Persian           define the Hanafi tradition.
> poets Rudaki and Daqiqi, and the compilation of the Shahname
> (Book of kings) by Firdawsi (who later enjoyed Ghaznavid              The Samanid era saw the formulation of the theological
> patronage as well); Arabic poetry was also cultivated, as were    school associated with the name of Abu Mansur Muhamtranslations from Arabic and other languages into Persian.        mad al-Maturidi (d. c. 944) of Samarkand. His theological
> The Samanids also patronized scientific endeavors, building        elaborations, on a Hanafi foundation, defined the lines of
> on traditions that had produced pivotal works instrumental in     religious thought that dominated the eastern Islamic world
> the development of astronomy and mathematics in the Islamic       for centuries and, with the active support of Seljuk patronage,
> world at large, and later in western Europe as well. Whereas      became firmly established in the Middle East beginning in
> in the ninth century scholars of Central Asian origin, such as    the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. It was the era of Seljuk
> Muhammad b. Musa al-Khwarazmi, Abu Ma
shar al-Balkhi,             patronage, indeed, that produced many of the great classics of
> and Abu 
Abbas Ahmad al-Farghani, were drawn west to              Hanafi jurisprudence in Transoxania. The central works
> Baghdad, Samanid patronage kept these figures’ successors at       include the Usul of Fakhr al-Islam 
Ali b. Muhammad alhome, so to speak, and made tenth-century Bukhara the scene       Pazdawi (d. 1089), the Mabsut and Usul al-fiqh of Muhammad
> of a remarkable intellectual synthesis marked especially by       b. Ahmad al-Sarakhsi (d. c. 1096), known as “Shams alscholars of encyclopedic breadth. The compendium of all           Aimma,” and the Hidaya of Burhan al-Din 
Ali al-Marghinani
> branches of scholarship known as the Mafatih al-
ulum was         (d. 1197). The activities of Hanafi jurists extended to juridical
> produced for the Bukharan court by Abu 
Abdallah Muham-           and civil administration as well, and hereditary transmission
> mad al-Khwarazmi, and an important tradition of geographi-        of the estates and power they were able to amass was comcal study was sponsored by Samanid officials. The encyclopedic     mon. The most famous case is the family known as the Al-e
> tradition shaped the work of the remarkable Khwarazmian al-       Burhan in Bukhara, whose members were recognized as the
> Biruni (d. 1048), who distinguished himself in the natural        chief civil authorities in the city even by the non-Muslim
> sciences as well as in history and geography, and who later       Qarakhitays.
> served the Ghaznavid sultans Mahmud and Mas
ud as well.
> The illustrious polymath Ibn Sina (d. 1037), especially re-           The Mongol conquest naturally meant a setback for the
> nowned in medicine and philosophy, spent his formative            institutional foundations of Islamic religious culture, and for
> years in Samanid Bukhara.                                         state involvement in the application and interpretation of the
> shari
a, but its impact on religious life was not as far-reaching
> Perhaps the most important contribution of pre-Mongol         as is often supposed. If the transmission of juridical traditions
> Central Asia to the religious culture of the larger Islamic       in Central Asia is considered there is little evidence of any
> world, however, lies in scholarship on hadith and in the          substantial discontinuity coinciding with the establishment of
> juridical sciences and theology. Already in the ninth century,    Mongol rule. With the conversion of the Mongol elites to
> under the Tahirids, Central Asia produced several of the          Islam, patronage of Islamic scholarship, literature, art, and
> compilers of the major collections of hadiths regarded as         architecture expanded. During the fourteenth century a numauthoritative throughout the Muslim world, above all the two      ber of important Turkic religious works were produced and
> pivotal traditionists, Muhammad b. Isma
il al-Bukhari (d.         dedicated to khans and tribal chieftains of the Jochid and
> 870), who lived much of his life near Samarkand, and Muslim       Chaghatayid realms. Timur patronized religious scholars as
> b. Hajjaj of Nishapur (Ar. Nisabur) (d. 875). The growth and      well as artisans and poets, often bringing prominent figures
> development of the Hanafi school of jurisprudence, which           from the regions he conquered back to his capital in Samarkand,
> came to dominate interpretation and application of the shari
a    and scholars such as Sa
d al-Din Taftazani (d. 1390) and 
Ali
> in much of the Ottoman-ruled world and in the Indian              Jurjani (d. 1413) thus worked for a time in Transoxania; on
> subcontinent, was largely the work of Central Asian scholars.     the other hand, some jurists found the cultivation of the
> Central Asia has been predominantly Hanafi in its juridical        Mongol heritage under Timur and his successors abhorrent
> orientation throughout the Islamic period. There was a            and quit the Timurid realm for the Ottoman state or other
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                    139
> Central Asian Culture and Islam
> 
> parts of the Muslim world. By the Timurid era, in any case,       of that competition, many groups appear to have experithe Hanafi school’s dominance in Central Asia had become a         mented with different ways of legitimizing the authority and
> virtual monopoly. Hanafi juridical scholarship continued in        efficacy of their specific ritual and devotional practices and
> Transoxania into the twentieth century, until the closure of      their claims of spiritual preeminence, appealing to visionary
> all madrasas by the Soviets in the late 1920s. Early in the       sanctions of various sorts, hereditary transmission, demon-
> Uzbek period, patronage of the religious sciences took on a       strated spiritual results, and other signs in addition to the
> new political importance in light of the emergence of the         silsila, which would become the normative mode of legitimation
> Shi
ite state of Safavid Iran. The ulema of Transoxania           by the latter fifteenth century. Some of these Sufi communisupported the Uzbek rulers by declaring the Qizilbash to be       ties, moreover, were actively engaged in Islamization, not in
> the equivalent of infidels, thereby justifying the constant        the sense of changing the beliefs of the Turkic nomads who
> raiding and open warfare in Khurasan through the sixteenth        became based in southern Central Asia through the Mongol
> and seventeenth centuries. The religious frontier thus estab-     invasion (though this may have happened as well), but in the
> lished was rarely an insurmountable obstacle to commerce or       sense of forging social and economic bonds with nomadic
> intellectual exchange, but nevertheless set the further devel-    communities that were undergoing the profound dislocations
> opment of religious culture in Central Asia apart from its        of the Mongol era (i.e., tribal reorganization and adaptation
> traditional connections to Iran.                                  to the enclosed nomadism of Transoxania and Khurasan).
> 
> Sufism in Central Asia                                                By the late fifteenth century, the Naqshbandiyya was
> The most important religious development of the post-             emerging as the dominant Sufi tradition of Central Asia,
> Mongol era was the rise of Sufi communities organized              largely through the efforts of Khwaja 
Ubaydullah Ahrar, a
> according to the principle of the silsila or chain of spiritual   native of Tashkent who spent much of his life in Timurid
> transmission, and their emergence as important factors in         Samarkand, and who exemplified the political engagement
> political and economic history. The history of Sufism              and the cultivation of economic power that became the
> (tasawwuf) in Central Asia down to the Mongol conquest            hallmark of the Naqshbandi order. At the same time, the
> remains poorly studied, but it appears that by the tenth          Naqshbandiyya was beginning its expansion beyond Central
> century a number of originally independent mystical cur-          Asia, into the Ottoman Empire and the Indian subcontirents, some with local roots and some imported from outside       nent. The decentralized polity of the early Uzbek era fa-
> Central Asia, had coalesced under the designation of tasawwuf.    vored intensified competition among representatives of the
> In the eleventh and twelfth centuries major new patterns of       Naqshbandi, Yasavi, and Kubravi orders, but Naqshbandi
> dominance was assured by the second half of the sixteenth
> Sufi activity and organization appear with the career of Abu
> century. From then until the early eighteenth century, the
> Sa
id b. Abil-Khayr (d. 1049) of Mayhana, in present-day
> Naqshbandiyya was a truly pervasive influence in all aspects
> Turkmenistan, who cultivated a high public profile in
> of Central Asian political, economic, and cultural life.
> Ghaznavid Nishapur, and with the hereditary Sufi tradition
> of Ahmad-e Jam (d. 1141), whose natural descendants re-               The eighteenth century saw important changes in religmained prominent well into the Uzbek era.                         ious life, beginning with the introduction of the Mujaddidi
> (renewal) current of the Naqshbandi order, which had taken
> The Mongol and Timurid periods saw the crystallization
> shape in seventeenth-century India, into Central Asia. The
> of Sufi traditions that would dominate religious life in Cen-
> Mujaddidiyya offered an alternative source of legitimation
> tral Asia down to the nineteenth century, in the form of
> for rulers seeking to counter the limitations on their power
> organized orders that emerged around silsilas traced back to
> imposed by entrenched urban and tribal elites, and several
> the prophet Muhammad through prominent saints of the
> Mujaddidi shaykhs were closely allied with khans of the
> thirteenth century. One was the Kubravi tradition, whose
> Manghit and Ming dynasties in promoting religious “reeponym, Najm al-Din Kubra, died in 1221 during the Mongol
> form” in a way that undermined traditional Sufi groups and
> attack on his native Khwarazm. Another was the Yasavi
> the popular practices associated with them. The late eighttradition, named for Khwaja Ahmad Yasavi, whose center of
> eenth and nineteenth centuries saw several reform efforts of
> activity was the middle Syr Darya valley. The Khwajagani
> this type, which entailed the condemnation of many longtradition emerged in the thirteenth century as well, among        established religious practices that had diffused from Sufi
> the disciples of Khwaja 
Abd al-Khaliq Ghijduvani, from a         circles into the larger society as un-Islamic innovations. Local
> town near Bukhara. This tradition produced a lineage that         Sufi traditions survived, however, as did the local customs
> became known as the Naqshbandiyya, after Baha al-Din             fought by the reformers, and the real blow to Central Asia’s
> Naqshband of Bukhara (d. 1389). Representatives of these          legacy of Sufism came only with the Soviet era.
> and other traditions were engaged in vigorous competition
> with one another, for court patronage and for popular sup-        Pilgrimage and Shrine Culture
> port, in the context of the political and social turmoil of       One of the most characteristic features of Islamic religious
> Transoxania and Khurasan in the fourteenth century. As part       practice in Central Asia, and one that linked the lower classes
> 
> 140                                                                                           Islam and the Muslim World
> Childhood
> 
> with the religious and social elites, was the widespread phe-      Afghanistan; the expansion of Muslim education and literacy
> nomenon of pilgrimage (ziyarat) to saints’s shrines (mazars).      into the nomadic regions, especially among the Qazaqs; the
> This phenomenon was closely linked, but never entirely             incorporation of shrines and sacred lineages into the religious
> coterminous, with the spread of Sufism. Shrine-centered             practice, social structure, and epic traditions of the nomads;
> religious practice is evidenced already in the tenth century,      the prominence of hereditary religious and social prestige in
> and by the twelfth century there is extensive information on       families linked to eminent local jurists and, especially, Sufi
> the large numbers of shrines in Khurasan in the hagiographies      saints of the past; the permeation of kinship structures and
> focused on the life of Abu Sa
id b. Abu l-Khayr. From the         communal life by elements of Sufi practice and thought; and
> same century dates the incident of the discovery of the            the expansion of religiously defined and regulated occupareputed grave of 
Ali near Balkh, under the Seljuks, suggest-      tional organizations in urban and rural environments, inteing already the political ramifications of cultivating shrine       grating the basic elements of craft production into a spiritual
> traditions, as well as the compilation of the earliest guide to    worldview that infused labor and its fruits with sacrality and
> holy places in Central Asia, entitled Lataif al-azkar, by a       religious meaning.
> member of the Al-e Burhan of Bukhara. By the Mongol era,
> shrine culture was well entrenched, and appears to have            See also Central Asia, Islam in; Maturidi, al-; Pilgrimplayed some role in the acculturation of the Mongol elites and     age: Ziyara; Tasawwuf.
> ordinary nomads to the Muslim environment. Ibn Battuta
> reported that even pagan Mongols brought offerings to the          BIBLIOGRAPHY
> shrine of Qutham b. 
Abbas, the famous martyered Shah-e
> Basilov, V. N. “Honour Groups in Traditional Turkmenian
> zinda in Samarkand, and there is some evidence of shrines             Society.” In Islam in Tribal Societies: From the Atlas to the
> serving as portals, in effect, for passage from the world of          Indus. Edited by Akbar S. Ahmed and David M. Hart.
> Mongol administrative service to the devotional and contem-           London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1984.
> plative life of Sufism. In the fifteenth century, a shrine guide     Bulliet, Richard W. The Patricians of Nishapur: A Study in
> for Bukhara included a defense of the practice of ziyarat, but        Medieval Islamic Social History. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
> the legitimacy and efficacy of pilgrimage to saints’s shrines          University Press, 1972.
> were taken for granted through most of Central Asian his-
> Gross, J-Ann, and Urunbaev, Asom. The Letters of Khwaja
> tory. The reform efforts of the early nineteenth century             
Ubayd Allāh Ahrār and His Associates. Leiden: Brill, 2002.
> targeted some practices associated with shrines, and the
> Madelung, Wilferd. “The Spread of Maturidism and the
> Soviets directed intense, and destructive, antireligious meas-
> Turks.” In Actas do IV Congresso des Estudos Arabes et
> ures against them, but in neither case were there permanent
> Islâmicos, Coimbra-Lisboa. Leiden: Brill, 1971.
> inroads into the public consciousness of shrines and their
> many roles. The collapse of Soviet antireligious efforts in the    Malamud, Margaret. “Sufi Organizations and Structures of
> Authority in Medieval Nishapur.” International Journal of
> late 1980s led to a remarkable revival of ziyarat, including the
> Middle East Studies 26 (1994): 427–442.
> reconstruction of numerous shrines as well as the “rediscovery,” by quite traditional methods (not unlike those that          Sviri, Sara. “Hakim Tirmidhi and the Malmati Movement in
> Early Sufism.” In Classical Persian Sufism: From its Origins
> revealed 
Ali’s burial place in the twelfth century), of longto Rumi. Edited by Leonard Lewisohn. London and New
> forgotten sites.
> York: Khaniqahi Nimatullahi Publications, 1993.
> The centrality of shrine-centered religious practice in the
> daily lives, and in connection with the most pressing human                                                        Devin DeWeese
> needs, of the majority of Central Asian Muslims is a major,
> and visible, part of the complex of normative religious customs that characterized traditional life in Islamic Central
> Asia. Other elements of this complex are more difficult to          CHILDHOOD
> trace in literary sources from earlier centuries, but it seems
> clear that, during the Uzbek period at least, religious trends     Childhood in Islam, like childhood in any great religious
> that were evident already in the Mongol and Timurid eras           tradition, is seen generally as a period of education and
> were solidified and became the standard features of tradi-          training, a time of socialization for the future adult. The child
> tional Islamic life down to the social and religious upheavals     is seen as the crucial generational link in both the religious
> launched by the Soviet regime in Central Asia during the late      community and the family unit, the key to its continuation,
> 1920s. Some of these elements include the continuation of          the living person that ties the present to the past. The idea of
> madrasa-based juridical education in such cities as Bukhara,       childhood, the place of the child, the duties of the child are
> which continued to attract students from among Muslim              basic issues and have been since the beginning of Islam.
> communities in the Russian empire as well as from India and        Childhood ends in a formal sense at the age of puberty, when
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                     141
> China
> 
> performance of the religious duties (Five Pillars) marks the        from a very early age, children are given responsibilities.
> ritual passage into the early stages of adulthood.                  Girls are expected to help in the home and care for siblings;
> boys may be asked to help in family business or on their
> Socialization of the child takes place primarily within the      father’s farm. This traditional picture, in practice, is changfamily unit, the home, and the father and mother are ulti-          ing, as people in the Muslim world become more mobile, and
> mately responsible for their offspring. However, grandpar-          as the family group becomes more attenuated. The father is
> ents, aunts, uncles, and cousins are also expected to participate   still seen as head of household, but the mother frequently
> in a child’s rearing and usually did so in the past. Religious      shares economic responsibilities by working outside the home,
> socialization also takes place in the home (for boys and girls)     and this places stress on family expectations for both sons and
> and in the mosque (for boys) but also in the Quranic school        daughters. Free public education has supplemented, but not
> or kuttab (for boys and girls). A knowledge of the Quran is        replaced, Quranic education for all children.
> deemed necessary for a child’s religious development, and
> most parents, even the poorest, try to send their sons and              Still, the basic approach to childhood as a time of learning
> daughters to the kuttab.                                            rather than as a carefree time for play remains. To become a
> full member of the Islamic community, a child is expected to
> Socialization for values of the society begins even earlier,    learn the Quran, respect parents, and gradually assume
> as soon as a child is conscious of others. These values vary        responsibilities within the family and the religious commusomewhat according to geographical, historic, and economic          nity, so that the untutored child becomes the disciplined
> differences within Muslim communities but in general they           Muslim adult.
> are designed to develop 
aql or reason in the child and to make
> the child muaddab, one who is polite and disciplined. In the       See also Circumcision; Education; Gender; Marriage.
> Arab world, a child is taught respect for food, for religion, for
> the kin group, hospitality to guests, and, above all, respect for
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> and obedience to the authority of the father.
> Ghazzali, Muhammad ibn Muhammad Abi Hamid al-. Ayyuha
> Most Muslim societies might be classified as patrilineal           al-Walad. Cairo: Dar al-Itisam, 1983.
> (the exception being parts of Southeast Asia, in which a            Warnock Fernea, Elizabeth, ed. Children in the Muslim Middle
> matrilineal descent is observed). In the reckoning of one’s           East. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995.
> descent in patrilineal societies, one’s kin-group membership
> passes through the male line on the father’s side. This means                                          Elizabeth Warnock Fernea
> that all children retain their father’s name throughout their
> lives, but a daughter, unlike a son, cannot pass membership
> on to her children. Male and female descendants inherit from
> the father, according to the specifics of Islamic legal codes.       CHINA See East Asia, Islam in
> This hierarchical organization means that the oldest male,
> father or son, holds authority over his descendants, but is also
> the primary economic provider for the group, and thus
> controller of the group’s economic resources. In exchange,
> the male head of household is expected not only to provide
> for but to protect the group, including sons and daughters,
> CHRISTIANITY AND ISLAM
> throughout their lives.
> The history of Christian-Muslim or alternatively Muslim-
> The period of childhood socialization is marked by ritual       Christian relations began at the inception of Islam in the first
> events, both religious and secular: ceremonies surrounding          half of the sixth century of the Common Era. As Islam began
> birth and naming; circumcision, for all boys and some girls;        to spread beyond the Arabian Peninsula soon after the death
> graduation from Quranic school, particularly for boys; and         of the prophet Muhammad in 632 C.E., the encounter be-
> finally marriage. Marriage is the crucial step in tying individ-     tween Muslims and Christians entered a new phase of miliual members to the group, and the birth of children confers         tary, political, and social interactions. A century later, while
> on the newly united pair full membership in the family unit         these kinds of interaction continued along the already farand in Islam. “When a man has children he has fulfilled half         flung borders of the new Islamic empire spreading from
> his religion, so let him fear God for the remaining half,” states   Spain to the Indus river, new patterns emerged within both
> one of the hadiths of the prophet Muhammad.                         majority Christian and majority Muslim polities. They re-
> flected the weight of different theological and political con-
> Further, throughout childhood, there is strong socializa-        texts on daily social life, leading to a variety of mostly
> tion for future roles in the family and the Muslim community;       polemical and apologetic stances that Christians and Muslims
> 
> 142                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Christianity and Islam
> 
> developed regarding each other. This religious and political          which his prophetic message was being accepted or rejected
> mix came to a head during the period of the major Crusades            at each moment of his reception of Quranic revelations, a
> (twelfth to thirteenth centuries C.E.), creating the subsequent       process that lasted about twenty-three years. In terms of
> dominant paradigm in Christian-Muslim relations, the re-              Christianity in particular, there is at best a conditional acpercussions of which are still felt to this day, and especially       ceptance of Christians, and at worst a judgment associating
> since the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. But not all        them to both shirk (polytheism/idolatry) and kufr (unbelief).
> historical periods or geographical locations were the same;           The various Christian voices referred to in the Quran are, for
> pockets of mutually beneficial encounters existed here and             the most part, not reflective of the major Christian theologies
> there on both sides of the transient political borders. More-         that Muslims would come to encounter soon after the death
> over, the history of Christian-Muslim relations has not un-           of the prophet Muhammad, in 632 C.E. These misperceptions
> folded in isolation from other religious and, more recently,          of mainstream, seventh-century Christian theologies, by benonreligious worldviews.                                              ing preserved in the Quran, negatively predisposed subsequent generations of Muslim interpreters of Christianity. A
> The Period of the Prophet Muhammad’s Life: Circa
> contextual sociopolitical reading of these various passages,
> 570–632 C.E.
> harking back in part to the old Islamic hermeneutical princi-
> The history of the prophet Muhammad’s life is difficult to
> ple of abrogation (in which later Quranic revelations must
> ascertain with precision. Through a careful examination of
> take precedence over prior ones), is one way to make sense of
> pre-Islamic poems, the Quran, early hadith, and biogratheir variety and, at times, contradictory nature. This is
> phies, all of which have entailed in the past century serious
> especially important when the passages are juxtaposed
> debates as to their validity as historical sources, it is nevertheahistorically, either within the period of the Prophet’s life or
> less possible to suggest a likely course of events in this first
> for contemporary ideological purposes.
> period of Muslim-Christian encounters. Prior to 610 C.E., the
> year when the prophet Muhammad received the first Quranic
> The First Islamic Conquests: 632–750 C.E.
> revelation, his encounters with Christians probably took
> During the Islamic empire’s first phase of rapid expansion,
> place during his caravan trips into greater Syria, as the
> between 632 and 750 C.E., two numerically important religtradition of his meeting with the Christian monk Bahira
> ious systems become incorporated under Muslim politiwould indicate. There may also have been occasional encouncal control: Eastern Christianity, both Chalcedonian (i.e.,
> ters with Christians of unknown theological leanings passing
> Byzantinian) and non-Chalcedonian (especially Monophysite
> through Mecca. The biography of the prophet Muhammad
> and Nestorian), and Zoroastrianism. By then, Jews constimentions other kinds of encounters, not all of which are
> tuted only a small minority of the population scattered across
> historically verifiable. For instance, soon after 610 C.E., the
> the newly conquered areas, and did not represent any political
> Prophet met with Waraqa ibn Nawfal, who was a cousin of
> threat. The first to try to make sense of Islam as the religion of
> the Prophet’s wife Khadija. Waraqa ibn Nawfal was a Christheir new Muslim rulers were Eastern Christians, since Westtian scholar who confirmed the Prophet’s mission. Another
> ern (that is, Roman) Christians were not affected directly by
> encounter is said to have occurred in 615 C.E., when early
> the Muslim conquests until the later part of this period, and
> converts to Islam migrated for a short while to the Christian
> mostly in the Iberian Peninsula lying at the Western fringe of
> kingdom of Axum (Abyssinia). In 628 C.E., a delegation of
> the new Islamic empire. In all cases, however, Christians
> Christians from the town of Najran in South Arabia came to
> perceived Islam within their own respective theological
> visit the Prophet in Medina, and sometime before the Prophet
> worldviews. As early as around 660 C.E., the arrival of Arab
> died, in 632 C.E., he would have sent letters to existing rulers
> Muslims is interpreted by the Monophysite Armenian bishop
> such as the Byzantine emperor Heraclius and the Negus of
> Sebeos as a judgment of God in light of Genesis 21:12–13,
> Axum, as well as the Sassanian emperor Chosroes. These five
> instances demonstrate a variety of possible or imagined en-           according to which Muslims are identified as Arab descencounters, all of which have been used for various goals in            dants of Hagar and her son Ishmael, who were promised by
> Muslim-Christian relations, both at the time of their produc-         God to become a great nation. This theological interpretion and in subsequent interpretations.                               tation was linked to a political situation wherein most
> Monophysite and Nestorian Christians welcomed the arrival
> The varieties of Quranic passages addressing Christians          of Arab Muslims, for it put an end to their political subordinadirectly or indirectly (as people of the book, together with          tion to the Byzantine Christians. As the new rulers took
> Jews, for example) reflect the transforming nature of the              control over the course of the eighth century, new interpretaprophet Muhammad’s encounters with them as his own                    tions developed. For both Monophysites and Nestorians,
> status changed over time. The same applies to the other two           Islam came to represent a judgment on the part of God
> religious systems he interacted with in Arabia: Judaism and           against those who accepted the Christological definitions of
> Meccan polytheism. In all three cases, the variation in tone,         the Council of Chalcedon (451 C.E.). As for those Eastern
> from tolerance to polemics, seems to reflect the extent to             Christians under Muslim control who continued to support
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                        143
> Christianity and Islam
> 
> The Tomb of St. John the Baptist in the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, which was built on an earlier church, is said to house the skull of John
> the Baptist, valued by both Muslims and Christians. Over the centuries, despite much polemical opposition and violence, Christianity and Islam
> maintain many important similarities and have shared many positive encounters. ART ARCHIVE/DAGLI ORTI
> 
> the Byzantine or Chalcedonian theology, such as the Melkite              covenant (ahl al-dhimma), erroneously understood by some
> John of Damascus, they came to describe Islam as a Chris-                today as second-class citizenship. This concept was based on
> tian heresy.                                                             two Quranic references (9:8, 10) initially referring to idolaters in general. This covenantal concept helped regulate
> The early Muslim conquerors followed the momentum                    Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrians as political minorities who
> built toward the end of the Prophet’s life: The first phase of            received protection from ruling Muslims in exchange for poll
> interaction with Christians (and Jews) was confrontational,              taxes. Yet, the situation and opportunities for advancement
> and all Jews and Christians were expelled from the Arabian               varied tremendously from one individual Christian to an-
> Peninsula. It was not until the later seventh and eighth                 other, and from one geographical area or historical period to
> centuries, when Muslim political conquests began to take                 another. For example, many educated Christians reached
> root in majority Christian and Zoroastrian areas, that more              high positions of power during the Umayyad and subsequent
> lenient attitudes and practices developed, legitimized by a              Abbasid dynasties, especially in the fields of medicine, phiretrieval of the earlier and more tolerant Quranic passages             losophy, and administration.
> toward Christians in particular. These interpretations and
> legal elaborations were needed to formalize the relationship             The Stabilizing of Relations: 750–1085 C.E.
> of Muslims to the Christians and Zoroastrians who formed a               In the three centuries that followed the takeover of the
> majority of the population in their respective western and               central Islamic lands by the Abbasid dynasty in 750 C.E.,
> eastern halves of the new (Islamic) Umayyad Empire (661–750              the Islamic world rose to its apex of cultural, religious,
> C.E.). This new political context also explains why, to the              and political efflorescence. This pax islamica resulted in much
> theological concept of the people of the book (ahl al-kitab),            tolerance toward its internal religious minorities in genused by the prophet Muhammad to link the Jewish, Chris-                  eral, albeit within an Islamic dhimmi paradigm of power.
> tian, and Islamic notions of divine revelation, was added a              The translation of mostly Greek and Syriac philosophiparallel and pragmatic concept of the people of the protective           cal and scientific works into Arabic during the middle of
> 
> 144                                                                                                     Islam and the Muslim World
> Christianity and Islam
> 
> the ninth century culminated in the establishment of Caliph          first Crusades in Clermont, France, in 1095. By the fall of
> Al-Mamun’s (786–833 C.E.) bayt al-hikma (house of wis-              1096, a people’s expedition was galvanized by Peter the
> dom). It was later directed by the Nestorian Christian trans-        Hermit. Numbering about twenty thousand, it ended up
> lator Hunayn ibn Ishaq (809–873 C.E.). As a positive                 disintegrating before leaving Europe. In its wake, however, it
> example of Christian-Muslim relations at the center of the           left a trail of suffering. Many lives were lost, and whole Jewish
> Abbasid Empire, the bayt al-hikma internally promoted intel-         communities were exterminated.
> lectual pursuits of truth and resulted in a striking degree of
> interreligious tolerance and mutual influence, especially among           At the same time, an amalgamation of five armies from
> the educated elite. Externally, as the empire’s borders contin-      different parts of Western Europe responded to the call: they
> ued to be disputed, a pronounced antagonism arose among              numbered between fifty and sixty thousand. They crossed
> both Western European and Byzantine Christians, who feared           over into Asia Minor in 1097, captured Antioch in 1098, and
> the power of the then-greatest empire on earth. Among                conquered Jerusalem on 15 July 1099. The Christian popula-
> Western Christians, the most obvious development was linked          tion of Jerusalem had been expelled from that city in fear of
> to the slow Reconquista efforts in Spain that culminated in the      treachery just prior to the Crusader conquest. The Muslim
> Christian takeover of Toledo in 1085. This movement was              governor, together with some of his military garrison, was
> fueled by very negative anti-Islamic rhetoric. As for Byzan-         allowed safe-conduct at the moment of the conquest, but the
> tine Christians, the continuing warfare also helped sustain          remaining Muslim and small Jewish civilian populations were
> more polemical views of Islam, building on the earlier notion        massacred: More than forty thousand lives were taken. In
> that Islam was a heresy with the difference that authors now         contrast, when Saladin re-conquered Jerusalem in 1187, no
> had access to original Quranic and other Arabic writings (or        blood was spilled upon entering the city. By 1302, the
> translations of them) to sustain their polemical arguments.          Crusaders had gradually lost control of all their small princi-
> Yet, some Byzantine writers were more moderate, acknowl-             palities on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean.
> edging some similarities between Christianity and Islam,
> such as the common basis in monotheism.                                  In contrast to this military approach to Muslim-Christian
> relations, smaller but significant rapprochements were taking
> During the same period, an equally diverse spectrum of           place from the eleventh century onwards. They allowed for
> views on Christianity emerged among Muslims. While there
> the transmission of knowledge from the Islamic world into
> was better access to mainline Christian theologies, greater
> Christian Europe, with the translation of Arabic works into
> knowledge did not always result in greater tolerance and
> Latin. This began primarily in Spain and Sicily with the
> understanding. Many factors explain the rise in Muslim
> rediscovery of the ancient Greek heritage, now greatly enpolemical attitudes toward Christianity: changing demoriched by centuries of Muslim commentaries. This movegraphic realities, wherein Christians were still the majority in
> ment took place in both older monasteries and newer
> many central areas of Islamdom, but the balance of numerical
> educational establishments such as language schools, colpower was gradually shifting in favor of Islam; changing
> leges, and universities, first in Bologna, Salerno, Montpellier,
> theological realities within the Muslim community, includ-
> Paris, and Oxford prior to 1200 With this rapid increase in
> ing the search for Islamic legitimization in Biblical roots;
> efforts to understand the Muslim world, with key figures such
> social competition, especially in times of economic difficulas the Italian Francis of Assisi (1182–1226 C.E.) and the
> ties; and the need to defend Islam against other major
> Spaniard Raymond Lull (c. 1232–1316 C.E.), important seeds
> worldviews. But not all Muslim perceptions of Christianity
> were polemical, and not all Muslim authors lived in situations       of the later fifteenth- and sixteenth-century European Renwhere the above factors were equally present. As different           aissance were sown in the very midst of an internal Christian
> Christian theologies produced different perceptions of Islam,        resistance to the Crusades.
> so did different Islamic theologies (Mu
tazili, Ash
ari, Maturidi,
> The New Balance of Power: 1300–1500 C.E.
> traditionalist, Sufi, and so on) produce different perceptions
> The defeat of the first Crusades did not end the desires of
> of Christianity.
> European Christians for expansion, nor did it stop certain
> The Period of the Crusades: 1085–1300 C.E.                           Muslims from continuing their own. The Reconquista gradu-
> After the fall of Toledo in 1085, Western Christians became          ally expanded to include the whole of the Iberian Peninsula,
> embolded by the successes of what they have called the               ending with the fall of the last Muslim kingdom in Grenada in
> Reconquista. Their success was in sharp contrast to the Eastern      1492. At the other end of the Mediterranean, Ottoman
> Byzantine Christians, who had suffered great territorial losses      expansion crossed over into southeastern Europe in 1354,
> at the hands of the Muslim Seljuk Turks in the aftermath of          eventually ending the Byzantine Empire with the capture of
> the battle of Manzikert in 1071. A decade later, Byzantine           Constantinople in 1453. They won the battle of Kosovo in
> emperor Alexius (r. 1081–1118) took power and later re-              1389 and Nicopolis in 1396, making them rulers of the
> quested help from Western Christians to fight back the                Balkans. The expansion stopped at the gates of Vienna in
> Muslims. Pope Urban II responded with the preaching of the           1529. A similar siege took place again in 1683, demonstrating
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                       145
> Christianity and Islam
> 
> the strong Ottoman pressures on Central and Eastern Europe        gradually make them colonial masters not only over majority
> for over a century and a half.                                    Muslim countries, but over almost the entire planet. While
> this surge in European colonialism was particularly successful
> At the same time, by the end of the fifteenth century, the
> among the British, French, Dutch, and Russians, who divided
> southwestern Europeans, especially the Spaniards and Portuup among themselves most of the Islamic world, it still
> guese, gained new strategic power through three combined
> remained strong among the older imperial powers of Spain
> discoveries: Christopher Columbus’s “discovery” of the Ameriand Portugal, while the newer national polities of Italy,
> cas in 1492; Vasco de Gama’s navigation around Africa via the
> Germany, and Belgium also vied for their share of the world.
> Cape of Good Hope in 1497, which opened up a new spice
> A few Muslim areas retained a degree of political indepentrading route to Southeast Asia that avoided central Muslim
> dence, such as what later became Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and
> lands; and Magellan and Pigafetta’s westward circumnavigation
> (to a lesser degree) Iran, which had to balance pressures from
> of the earth by 1522 C.E. These discoveries suddenly enlarged
> the British in the south and the Russians in the north, a
> the predominantly Mediterranean geographical scope of the
> prelude to the later pressures of the Cold War by their
> first eight centuries of Christian-Muslim interactions into
> respective successors the United States and the Soviet Union.
> the beginnings of a global one, adding new Christian mis-
> Thanks in part to large oil revenues, both Saudi Arabia and
> sionary pressures, especially in West Africa as well as South
> and Southeast Asia, where Muslim rule had been gradually          Iran would later become the launching pads for two disexpanding for centuries.                                          tinct, transnational, and anti-Western Islamic political ideologies confronting Western imperialism: Khomeinism and
> The New European Christian Rise in Power:                         Wahhabism. The first began with the Iranian Revolution of
> 1500–1800 C.E.                                                    1979 and the latter produced as one of its offshoots the
> In the sixteenth century, the rapid takeover of ocean routes      extremist al-Qa
ida, with the resulting terrorist attacks on key
> worldwide ushered in a new age of European Christian              symbols of American global hegemony on 11 September 2001.
> power. It resulted in a gradual encroachment on increasingly
> vast areas of inhabited lands through a forceful combination          Intertwined with the growing European colonialism of
> of military, political, economic, and missionary activities.      the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Christian
> While these new, long-term processes were unfolding on the        missionary movement continued unabated, although it was
> peripheries, the Ottoman Empire continued to be a threat to       now linked to a civilizational project of modernity underthe central and eastern European Christian powers and the         stood as democracy and the rule of law within new nation-
> Mughal Empire slowed down European incursions into                state structures. This European colonial project legitimized
> South Asia.                                                       in the eyes of most Europeans their own increased militarization at home and the interconnected colonial control of
> In between the Ottoman and Mughal empires, the Safavid
> peoples worldwide. European colonialism eventually frag-
> Empire (based primarily in Iran) vied for control of central
> mented the world, including the Islamic parts of it, into
> Islamic lands. Dynamic internal Muslim transformations
> unavoidable yet often unmanageable semblances of nationcontinued to flower along traditional lines, both within those
> states. This project had to do as much with older competing
> three centralized empires and on many peripheries of Islamic
> Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox Christian identities as
> expansion, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, and in southeastwith newer, non-Christian philosophies (deism, atheism,
> ern and northwestern Asia. However, few understood the
> utilitarianism, materialism, human rights, and the like), a
> significance of the new technologies that led to the magnipoint often misunderstood by many generations of Muslims
> tude of the European encroachment along many peripheries
> who have reduced the modern West to Christianity. In turn,
> of the Islamic world and their disruption of traditional intermany Westerners, whether religious or not, have themselves
> nal sources of economic revenues, such as the spice and silk
> simplistically essentialized the complexities of the Islamic
> roads, due to new ocean trade routes. These technological
> threats were also ideational and symbolic, as with the new        world, wanting to believe that it is quintessentially unmissionary efforts to spread worldwide the already embattled      modernizable. They have forgotten how many centuries it
> forms of European Christianity, even when conducted with          took Western Catholic and Protestant Christianities to come
> greater sensitivity to local customs, as exemplified in the        to terms with modernity, and fail to consider the ongoing
> efforts of the first Jesuits in the later half of the sixteenth    struggles of parts of the Orthodox Christian world, not to
> century in India, China, and Japan. These combined proc-          mention vast numbers of Christians in economically disadesses would subsequently increase in speed and depth, leading     vantaged areas around the world.
> to tension and confrontation between Muslims and Chris-
> Orientalism is a long-standing, scientific tradition of intians worldwide on a much wider scale.
> terpretation of the Other developed in Western universities
> The Period of European Colonialism and Western                    especially in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to ex-
> Imperialism: 1800 onward                                          plain “Eastern” realities from Morocco to Japan. This tradi-
> With Napoleon’s brief conquest of Egypt in 1898, Europeans        tion reinforced the stereotype of Islam as unmodernizable.
> embarked on a political and military trajectory that would        Orientalists only too often contributed to the rationale for
> 
> 146                                                                                           Islam and the Muslim World
> Christianity and Islam
> 
> colonial domination of the world, especially in Muslim areas.        But by the end of the Cold War in 1989, Westerners and
> This explains why, since the late nineteenth century, many           Muslims had lost a common enemy in communism; they
> Muslims have become suspicious of efforts on the part of             could now turn more directly onto each other, in what is still
> non-Muslim Westerners to interpret Islam. However, with              often reduced to a simplistic West versus Islam dichotomy.
> increased migrations of Muslims from majority Muslim countries to the West and the increase in conversions to Islam               In contrast, mostly among educated and cosmopolitan
> among both European and U.S. citizens, especially among              elites, the late twentieth century witnessed the emergence of
> African Americans, together with the increased Westernization        a genuine Christian-Muslim or Muslim-Christian dialogue.
> of important segments of majority Muslim countries, new              This new movement stressed the importance of listening to
> Islamized Western and secularized Islamic identities have            one another and learning from each other’s tradition. This
> emerged in the last half century challenging the existence of a      process, carefully attuned to ensuring a better power dynamic
> West/Islam dichotomy as was promulgated by orientalist               between its participants, has often led to common statements
> thinking.                                                            by Muslims and Christians on a variety of issues. Sponsored
> at times by international religious organizations, govern-
> In addition to colonialist and orientalist discourses, the        ments, or non-governmental organizations, these dialogues
> already complex internal Western dynamic spawned new                 have opened up new avenues of understanding that aim to
> competing economic and political ideologies, such as liberal-        respect the differences and have built on the similarities that
> ism, socialism, and communism, eventually spreading the              exist among Christians and Muslims. While participating in
> Cold War (1950–1989) unto the rest of the non-Western                dialogue does not require a liberal theological point of view, it
> world, into newly formed nations that were already strug-            tends to attract religious people with such a perspective, often
> gling to define themselves in the new, postcolonial era. This         limiting the potential impact this approach could have on
> resulted in various hybrid forms of political ideology, such as      transforming the history of Christian-Muslims relations topan-Arabism, Indonesian pancasila ideology, and the crea-            ward one of greater understanding and cooperation given the
> tion of Pakistan along ethnic rather than religious lines (even      wealth of information now available on their shared history.
> though Pakistani identity was initially the effort to transform
> a South Asian Muslim identity into a national/ethnic one).           Conclusion
> For every national case, the Islamic heritage in majority            The history of Muslim-Christian relations includes a wide
> Muslim countries was problematized differently, resulting in         spectrum of interactions encompassing all aspects of human
> a variety of Muslim and Islamic nationalisms that rivals the         life. Two extreme interpretations need to be avoided because
> variety of secular and Christo-secular Western nationalisms.         they are wrong historically. The first is reductionism. It is
> dangerous to reduce this complex history to one of endless
> The greatest force underlying the modernization (often           confrontations between essentialized conceptualizations of
> reduced to Westernization) process ensuing from Western              Islam and Christianity, treating them as mutually exclusive
> colonialism and post-colonial economic imperialism, most             realities that turn every Christian and Muslim into unavoidrecently known under the concept of globalization, has come          able enemies. The examples of constructive interactions
> in the name of science and has been linked to a philosophy of        between Muslims and Christians in both times of peace and
> positivism. These combined claims to truth have reinforced           war are too numerous to justify oversimplifying this history
> the various new technologies with which they are associated.         into one of military confrontations. The second danger is to
> While most Muslims have adopted Western scientific educa-             deny the complex power dynamics that have always existed
> tion as part of various nationalist educational projects, this       among Christians, Muslims, and others within Christian and
> ever-rapid increase in scientific knowledge has continued to          post-Christian as well as Muslim and other societies. These
> provide a secularizing West its military and political superi-       dynamics reveal both destructive and constructive behaviors
> ority, undermining traditional faith-claims both at the center       and patterns, as well as a spectrum of beliefs that range from
> of power in the West and on the Muslim and other peripheries.        inclusive to exclusive and are held by both sides in what have
> become the two numerically largest religious identities today.
> A resistance to positivist science and liberal Christianity      Knowing this history requires a sensitive understanding at
> first developed in the United States in the second decade of          the dawn of a yet insecure future for the human race.
> the twentieth century, taking the form of Christian Protestant fundamentalism. Fundamentalism later spread around              See also Balkans, Islam in the; Crusades; European
> the world under different names and varying forms, resulting         Culture and Islam; Islam and Other Religions; Judain the ideologization of anticolonial and, later, anti-imperialist   ism and Islam; Religious Beliefs.
> religious discourses. Eventually it fueled a few religious
> revolutions and coup d’etats, the most memorable being that          BIBLIOGRAPHY
> of Iran in 1979. During the late 1980s and 1990s, another            Bamyeh, Mohammed A. The Social Origins of Islam: Mind,
> form of accommodation has led to the creation of a network             Economy, Discourse. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
> of scholars engaged in the Islamization of Knowledge project.          Press, 1999.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                       147
> Circumcision
> 
> Ridgeon, Lloyd, ed. Islamic Interpretations of Christianity. New
> York: St Martin’s Press, 2001.
> Runciman, S. A History of the Crusades. Cambridge, U.K.:
> Cambridge University Press, 1951.
> Waardenburg, Jacques, ed. Muslim-Christian Perceptions of
> Dialogue Today: Experiences and Expectations. Leuven:
> Peeters, 2000.
> Zebiri, Kate. Muslims and Christians Face to Face. Oxford,
> U.K.: Oneworld, 1997.
> 
> Patrice C. Brodeur
> 
> CIRCUMCISION
> The role of circumcision (khitan) in Islamic society has
> shifted dramatically due to issues of gender, custom, and law.
> Nowhere mentioned in the Quran, circumcision was a common practice in Arabia that was incorporated into the Islamic
> legal system to varying degrees and for a variety of reasons.
> Both Josephus and Philo of Alexandria note its presence in
> Egypt, Ethiopia, and Arabia prior to the coming of Islam.
> Philo observes that Egyptian males and females were circumcised after the fourteenth year before marriage, while Josephus
> claims the Arabs performed it just after the thirteenth year, at
> the time Ishmael was circumcised.
> The minaret of a mosque and the belltowers of Christian churches
> cohabitate in Bethlehem on the West Bank. LEFTERIS PITARAKIS/AP/      Legally, Islamic scholars debate whether the practice is
> WIDE WORLD PHOTOS                                                  obligatory or sunna (customary), or whether its obligations be
> extended solely to males, or to males and females. Al-Shafi
a
> considers the practice an equal duty for both sexes, while
> Borrmans, Maurice. Guidelines for Dialogue between Christians      Malik and others consider it sunna for males. The disagreeand Muslims. Translated by R. Marston Speight. Mahwah,           ment over gender requirements continues in current cultural
> N.J.: Paulist Press, 1990.
> practice. Female circumcision is embraced in southern Egypt,
> Brown, Stuart E., ed. Meeting in Faith: Twenty Years of            Ethiopia, Somalia, the Sudan, and West Africa, and a minor
> Christian-Muslim Conversations Sponsored by the World Council   form is practiced by Southeast Asian Shafi
is in Indonesia and
> of Churches. Geneva: W.C.C. Publications, 1989.                 Malaysia. It is condemned by many Muslims and non-Muslims
> Daniel, Norman. Islam and the West: The Making of an Image.        who reside outside of these areas, mostly for humanitarian
> Oxford, U.K.: Oneworld, 1993.                                    and health reasons. Many legal schools also deliberate the
> Goddard, Hugh. A History of Christian-Muslim Relations.            time a circumcision should be performed. Some recommend
> Chicago: New Amsterdam Books, 2000.                              the seventh day following the birth of a male child, while
> Goddard, Hugh. Christians and Muslims: From Double Stan-           others propose its performance after a child reaches his tenth
> dards to Mutual Understanding. Richmond, U.K.:                   birthday. Again, such legal variation is mirrored in contem-
> Curzon, 1995.                                                    porary practice. In the Middle East, circumcision occurs
> between the ages of two and seven, while in Europe and
> Haddad, Juliette Nasri, ed. Declarations Communes Islamo-
> Chretiennes: 1954–1995. Beyrouth: Dar el-Machreq, 1997.          North Africa male Muslims are circumcised in hospitals
> immediately after birth. Suffice it to say that today there is no
> Haddad, Yvonne Yazbeck, and Haddad, Wadi Saidan, eds.
> standard orthodox practice when it comes to circumcision.
> Christian-Muslim Encounters. Gainesville: University Press
> Not all Muslims practice circumcision (specifically, those in
> of Florida, 1995.
> China), and many who do adhere to vastly different cul-
> Hillenbrand, C. The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives. Edinburgh:     tural norms.
> Edinburgh University Press, 1999.
> Laiou, Angeliki E., and Mottahedeh, Roy Parviz, eds. The               The justifications for circumcision also vary dramatically
> Crusades from the Perspective of Byzantium and the Muslim       in Islamic sources and practice. Many hadith link circumci-
> World. Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research                sion with purification (tahara). It often appears in lists that
> Library and Collection, 2001.                                   include other acts of general hygiene, including the clipping
> 
> 148                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Clothing
> 
> of nails, the use of the tooth-stick, the trimming of mus-         common in the region since Roman times (qamis or thawb).
> taches, and the depilation of both the armpits and the pubic       The earlier form of Arab dress, unseamed wrapped garments
> region. Some hadith also link the practice back to Ibrahim,        (izar and rida), have survived as the consecrated garments
> who circumcised himself at the age of eighty with a pickax.        (ihram) worn by pilgrims to Mecca. The thawb is well suited
> Unlike Judaism, Islam does not view circumcision as the sole       to desert heat, providing both protection from the sun and
> signifier of the covenant between God and his people. Cir-          ventilation. A wide unfitted mantle (jallaba or aba; hooded
> cumcision stands as just one of many tests Ibrahim performed       burnus) may also be worn. Typical materials are cotton or fine
> to demonstrate his adherence to the true faith. Many Mus-          wool, with dense silk embroidery applied to necklines and
> lims bypass these exegetical intricacies and simply take the       borders. To this might be added sashes and shawls. Men’s
> view that Muhammad mandated the practice. The legal and            head coverings might be a turban, or a simple shawl bound at
> customary support for circumcising just prior to the onset of      the forehead, arranged on the head according to status,
> puberty also suggests the practice was performed as a rite of      affiliation, local usage, or practical need. Turbans are the
> passage, one that would ready an individual for marriage. As a     most well known of Muslim headgear, however. Hats or caps
> rite of passage, male circumcision ceremonies in places like       may also be worn either separately or under turbans. Women’s
> Java and Morocco are accompanied with purificatory rites,           clothing is based on the same basic garment forms but differs
> sacrifices, and feasts. When conducted today, female circum-        in color, embellishment, materials, and accessories. In public,
> cision is a much less celebratory act, rarely accompanied by       women’s garments were traditionally hidden by veils that
> such festivities. To interpret circumcision in Islam from a        covered all parts of the body to the ground or only head,
> religious studies standpoint, the manipulation of the genitalia    shoulders, and face.
> exemplifies ultimate divine control over one’s human, procreative instincts. Thus one cut symbolizes a total submis-            Turkic dress was widely influential throughout the Islamic
> sion to God.                                                       world. The Seljuk Turks emerged from Central Asia, establishing dynasties in Iran and Asia Minor by the eleventh
> See also 
Ada; Body, Significance of; Gender; Law.                  century. By the mid-sixteenth century the Ottoman Empire
> encompassed most of the lands surrounding the eastern
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                       Mediterranean.
> Bloch, Maurice. From Blessing to Violence: History and Ideology
> in the Circumcision Ritual of the Merina of Madagascar.             The traditional Turkish ensemble for either men or women
> Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1986.              consisted of loose-fitting trousers (salvar, don) and a shirt
> Kister, M.J. Concepts and Ideas at the Dawn of Islam. Aldershot,   (gomlek), topped by a variety of jackets (cebken), vests (yelek),
> Great Britain; Brookfield, Vt.: Ashgate/Varioram, 1997.          and long coats (entari, kaftan, uc etek). The use of coats and
> trousers derived from their nomadic origins in Central Asia.
> Robinson, Francis. Atlas of the Islamic World Since 1500. New
> York: Facts On File, 1982.                                       Trousers protect a rider’s legs from chafing, and coats or
> jackets can be more readily donned or doffed than tunics
> while on horseback, as required in a variable climate. Layer-
> Kathryn Kueny
> ing of garments was an important aesthetic element. Garments were arranged to display the patterns and quality of
> fabrics on all layers and add bulk to the body image. The more
> CLOTHING                                                           formal the occasion or the higher the status of the wearer, the
> more layers worn, with richer materials further indicating
> Islamic dress has for centuries been used to symbolize purity,     wealth. Colorful sashes that added mass to the body image
> mark status or formal roles, distinguish believer from             also served as a repository for weapons and personal articles.
> nonbeliever, and identify gender. Traditionally Muslims were       Ottoman Turkish headgear typically consisted of a brimless
> admonished to dress modestly in garments that did not reveal       hat or cap in a variety of sizes and forms indicating official
> the body silhouette and extremities. Head coverings were           status, gender, and regional identity. Scarves were usually
> also expected. However, dress forms vary in different periods      wrapped into a turban over the hat. The form of the turban
> and regions, as does interpretation of and adherence to            indicated status, occupation, religious affiliation, or regional
> Muslim dress codes. The most prominent forms of Near               origin. Women’s scarves were wrapped and tied around the
> Eastern dress can be classified as Arab or Turkic/Iranian in        head, frequently in layers, with a larger veil worn over all
> form, with degrees of blending between the two modes               in public.
> occurring where interaction between these cultures has been
> greatest.                                                             Specific forms of dress were worn by Ottoman officials
> throughout the Ottoman Empire. The nearly five-hundred-
> Arab dress can be seen from northern Syria to North             year presence of Ottoman rule throughout much of the Arab
> Africa. The basic dress of both men and women is based on          world led to some blending of garment forms, particularly in
> the simple tunic, an unfitted garment pulled on over the head,      northern Arab regions adjacent to Anatolia, and also in urban
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                     149
> Clothing
> 
> Modesty in dress was enjoined in Islam for both men and
> women, although the particulars of pious modesty are not
> precisely defined in the Quran. The body of Islamic law and
> scholarship, however, has provided more specific directives
> that have nonetheless been applied differently in different
> times and places. Generally some sort of headcovering or
> veiling (hijab) is mandated for both men and women. In some
> countries such as Iran and Saudi Arabia all women are
> required to veil, although the forms of veiling vary. In some
> other societies veils may be a matter of choice.
> 
> Throughout the Islamic world, dress has been used to
> manage distinctions of rank, gender, and religion. Under
> Ottoman law, for example, dress of the various religious
> communities within the empire was regulated, with specific
> colors and forms of headgear, shoes, and garments defined.
> Garments, particularly coats, were an important aspect of
> court ceremonial throughout the Muslim world. The court
> reception of emissaries, celebration of religious holidays,
> installation of officials, or honoring of heroes always called
> for the presentation of ceremonial robes and other textile
> gifts, with the richness of the fabrics or fur linings a mark of
> the degree of honor conferred upon the recipient. The
> wearing of luxurious materials such as silk and gold thread
> was often restricted, however, although such restrictions
> were often ignored. The wearing of silk, particularly next to
> the skin, was widely held to be an impious luxury for good
> Muslims. A colorful satin cloth that had a cotton weft and silk
> warp, and therefore a cotton inner surface and a silk outer
> face, allowed the wearer to conform to this religious admonition while enjoying the luxurious outer appearance of a silk
> Traditional male Arab dress is depicted in this 1936 postcard from     garment. This textile was widely used in the Islamic world,
> the region. CORNELL COSTUME AND TEXTILE COLLECTION
> known as kutnu in the Near East, and mashru in northern
> India and Pakistan. However, the most pious avoided luxurious materials and colors, and wore clothing of simple wool,
> Arab centers of the eastern Mediterranean and North Africa.            cotton, or linen.
> The adoption of buttoned vests or jackets of silk or wool
> decorated with embroidery, and the loose-fitting trousers                  Beginning in the nineteenth century, westernization of
> called salvar in Turkish or sirwal in Arabic are evidence of           dress occurred together with modernization of political,
> such borrowings in Arab dress. The dress of Muslim sub-                military, and educational institutions, since initially mod-
> Saharan Africa is derived from that of the Arabs who brought           ernization was officially perceived as consonant with
> Islam there in the eleventh century.                                   westernization. Also the emergence of a modern textile industry in many regions led to the disappearance of the more
> Traditional dress in Iran shares with that of Turkey forms         costly handmade textiles once used in traditional dress. Since
> indicative of nomadic origins, with layered coats and salvar as        dress had long been closely regulated under Muslim law,
> typical features of dress. These forms were also introduced            departures from traditional dress became highly charged
> into Muslim northern India from Central Asia by the Turkic             political and social issues. The banning of the turban and the
> Gaznevids in the eleventh and twelfth century, and by the              introduction of the fez by the Ottoman sultan Mahmut II in
> Moguls in the sixteenth century. Such forms are reflected in            1829 (as well as a westernized military uniform) caused great
> Mogul court dress, where for men trousers (paijama) were               controversy as did similar decrees in Iran in 1873. These
> typically combined with front-opening coats or jackets of              reforms were intended to symbolize modernization of milivarying length and cut (angarkha or jama). For women, the              tary and administrative institutions, yet a century later the fez
> characteristic ensemble might include a bodice or tunic (kurta         had become a symbol of Ottoman traditionalism. Following
> or choli) and skirt (gaghra), and/or trousers (salwar), as well as a   the founding of the Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk)
> veil. The exquisitely fine and complex silks and cottons of             met resistance when he banned the fez in 1925, and even
> India are a distinctive characteristic of dress from this region.      more so when he urged abandonment of the veil for women.
> 
> 150                                                                                                Islam and the Muslim World
> Coinage
> 
> Since mandated ideas of proper dress had for centuries been        conquered lands to the treasury, first located in Medina, then
> the means of distinguishing Muslim from non-Muslim, these          in Damascus during the Umayyad period. The monetization
> issues continue to have great emotional force throughout the       of the economy that resulted from this expansion required
> Muslim world. In the 1980s and 1990s dress reemerged as a          not only large amounts of cash (coins) but also a standard
> symbolic flashpoint between religious conservative and secu-        monetary unit for transactions and account keeping. In relarist elements in Islamic societies.                              sponse, the silver dirham, modeled on the Sassanid drachma,
> was adopted, with the coins being provided by the former
> Examples of traditional clothing appear in the volume one          Sassanid mints.
> color insert.
> Economic expansion continued with the establishment of
> See also Art; Body, Significance of; Khirqa; Veiling.               the Umayyad caliphate, but the silver dirham remained the
> unit of currency. As mints did not generally issue gold coins,
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                       the market had to rely largely on the Byzantine solidi to meet
> Jirousek, Charlotte. “The Transition to Mass Fashion Sys-          its gold currency needs. The solidi themselves suffered wear
> tem Dress in the Later Ottoman Empire.” In Consumption         and tear, which led at times to a less than uniform weight.
> Studies and the History of the Ottoman Empire, 1550–1922:      Similarly, the silver dirhams in circulation, or those minted
> An Introduction. Edited by Donald Quataert. Albany: State      by the Muslims, showed discrepancies. Strong pressure there-
> University of New York Press, 2000.
> fore existed for a standard currency, including a unit based on
> Koçu, Resat Ekrem. Türk Giyim Kusam ve Süsleme Sözlügü             gold, the production of which could be controlled by the
> (Dictionary of Turkish: (Dress, Accessories, and Embel-          Muslims.
> lishment.) Ankara: Sümerbank, 1969.
> Lindisfarne-Tapper, Nancy, and Ingham, Bruce, eds. Lan-                Following minor attempts at currency reform by caliphs
> guages of Dress in the Middle East. Richmond, Surrey, U.K.:     such as 
Umar I, 
Ali b. Abi Talib and Mu
awiyah, which went
> Curzon Press, 1997.                                             only as far as adding an Islamic inscription or date to existing
> Mayer, L. A. Mamluk Costume: A Survey. Geneva: Albert              Byzantine or Sassanid coins, 
Abd al-Malik b. Marwan (r.
> Kundig, 1952.                                                    685–705), the Umayyad caliph, took the initiative. Between
> Scarce, Jennifer. Women’s Costume of the Near and Middle East.     696 and 698, he changed the form as well as the weight of the
> London: Unwin Hyman, 1987.                                      dinar and dirham and regulated minting. The coins empha-
> Stillman, Yedida Kalfon. Arab Dress from the Dawn of Islam to      sized the emerging power of Muslims and of Islam as a
> Modern Times: A Short History. Edited by Norman Stillman.      religion, with Islamic inscriptions such as “There is no God
> Leiden, Boston, and Köln: Brill, 2000.                         but Allah and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.” Unlike
> Byzantine and Sassanid coins, the reformed coins did not bear
> Charlotte Jirousek     the Caliph’s image.
> 
> The pre-reform dinar had weighed approximately 4.55
> grams, but 
Abd al-Malik reduced it to 4.25 grams. The
> COINAGE                                                            fineness of the dinar was set at a minimum 96 percent gold
> alloy. The weight of the pre-reform dirham had been ap-
> When Islam emerged in 610 C.E., Mecca did not have its own         proximately 3.98 grams, but 
Abd al-Malik standardized it to
> coinage. Instead, it relied entirely on the coins of neighboring   2.97 grams. This weight remained largely unchanged until
> regions, particularly the Byzantine and Sassanid empires.          the mid-ninth century C.E. The fineness of the silver dirham
> Being both a trading town and a pilgrimage center, Mecca           was also maintained at near 96 percent. Though the capital,
> attracted a wide range of the coins in circulation at the time.    Damascus, minted some coins, particularly gold dinars, 
Abd
> Neither the prophet Muhammad nor his immediate political           al-Malik did not centralize minting in that city. This function
> successors sought to change this. When the Muslims con-            was given to provincial mints, and here the caliph relied
> quered much of the Byzantine and Sassanid empires after the        heavily on his governor in Iraq, al-Hajjaj b. Yusuf, to impose
> death of the Prophet in 632 C.E., they left the administrative     coinage reform on the eastern regions of the caliphate. Later,
> structures of these regions, including their mints and coinages,   caliph Hisham b. Abd al-Malik (r. 724–743) also tightened
> largely intact.                                                    control over the quality of both dinar and dirham.
> 
> As a result of the Muslim conquests of the seventh century        
Abd al-Malik’s reformed coinage set a standard that
> . ., rapid economic expansion and currency circulation oc-
> C E                                                                continued in some respects well into the following Abbasid
> curred in the Near East, along with Muslim migration from          period. In order to standardize further the coinage of the
> Arabia to the newly conquered regions. Regular cash stipends       powerful Abbasid caliphate, the caliph al-Mamun (r. 813–833)
> began to flow out to Muslims from the Central Treasury (bayt        introduced new coinage in 821 and 822. He abolished inclual-mal) in Medina during the caliphate of 
Umar I (r. 634–644),    sion of the caliph’s or the provincial governor’s name on
> and there was substantial inflow of taxes and tributes from the     coins, ordered that both gold and silver coins should follow
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                    151
> Colonialism
> 
> refers to the theoretical dinar and dirham of the Muslim
> jurists (fuqaha).
> 
> Despite the variation in the quality of the coinage under
> different dynasties, certain features introduced by reformers
> remained common. These included inscriptions symbolizing
> the religious basis of the coinage, an indication of the mint
> year, the mint name, and often the name of the caliph or ruler
> under whom the coin was issued. Coins from Islamic dynasties have therefore an important historical significance. Apart
> from their commercial role, they can tell us much about the
> political and economic condition and the artistic and aesthetic tendencies of the time.
> 
> In the modern period, each Muslim state has its own
> coinage and, like other countries, has abandoned the gold
> standard, even though Muslim jurists have not relinquished
> the concept of the gold dinar or the silver dirham in their legal
> texts. In many juristic discussions, money proper is still the
> dinar and the dirham of early Islam. However, as part of a
> wider Islamic revival, the idea of a specifically Islamic standard unit of currency, a dinar, has been revived, though not
> necessarily based on the earlier gold dinar. The most visible
> aspect of this was the adoption in 1975 of the Islamic Dinar as
> its unit of accounting by the Islamic Development Bank, an
> An 1877 banknote for fifty Kurush from the Ottoman Empire. At
> the beginning of the Muslim empire after Muhammad’s death,          international Islamic financial institution whose shareholders
> Muslim conquerers did not impose their own currency system on       are member states of the Organization of the Islamic Confertheir subjects, because Mecca did not have its own coinage.         ence (OIC). The value of the Islamic Dinar is equivalent to
> Instead, it used the currency of nearby areas. Today, each Muslim   one SDR—Special Drawing Right—of the International
> nation has its own currency. THE ART ARCHIVE/DAGLI ORTI (A)
> Monetary Fund.
> 
> See also Economy and Economic Institutions; Law;
> specific design guidelines and inscriptions, and appears to          Networks, Muslim.
> have centralized the production of coin dies. His successor,
> al-Mu
tasim, however, reintroduced the addition of the ca-          BIBLIOGRAPHY
> liph’s name. In the post-Mu
tasim period, some Abbasid              Ehrenkruetz, Andrew S. Monetary Change and Economic Hiscaliphs even added the name of the heir-apparent or would-            tory in the Medieval Muslim World. Edited by Jere L.
> be successor. From the early ninth century to the middle of           Bacharach. Hampshire, U.K.: Ashgate Publishing, 1992.
> the tenth century C.E., the vast Abbasid caliphate thus ac-         El-Hibri, Tayeb. “Coinage Reform Under the Abbasid Caliph
> quired a significantly uniform coinage, which vastly aided              al-Mamun.” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the
> internal and external, and Muslim and non-Muslim, com-                 Orient 36 (1993): 58–83.
> merce and trade. These dinars and dirhams were imitated in          Grierson, Philip. “The Monetary Reform of 
Abd al-Malik.”
> Europe and elsewhere.                                                 Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 3
> (1960): 241–264.
> With the decline in Abbasid power, the disintegration of
> Miles, G. C. “Dinar.” In The Encyclopaedia of Islam. Leiden:
> the caliphate, and the emergence of independent provinces
> E. J. Brill, 1960.
> and dynasties, central control of the coinage as well as its
> Miles, G. C. “Dirham.” In The Encyclopaedia of Islam. Leiden:
> uniformity were lost. Independent provinces began minting
> E. J. Brill, 1960.
> their own dinars and dirhams and determining the fineness of
> their coins. Although the fineness of gold dinars was at times
> Abdullah Saeed
> maintained and even excelled, for instance under the Fatimid
> caliph al-
Amir (r. 1101–1130) and the Ayyubid sultan al-
> Kamil (r. 1218–1238), large variations did occur. For this
> reason, there is disagreement among scholars on the use of          COLONIALISM
> the terms “Islamic dinar” and “Islamic dirham” as a standard
> unit of currency in the Muslim world, particularly in respect       Modern colonialism goes back to the era of European discovof the post-tenth-century C.E. period, except insofar as it         ery in the fifteenth century, connecting exploitation of raw
> 
> 152                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Colonialism
> 
> materials with missionary ideas. Since then colonialism has       own leaders and systems. Often corporate bodies of mertaken several and different forms, and various colonial powers    chants initiated a system of indirect rule, such as the various
> (such as the Portuguese and French in Africa, French and          East Indian Companies. In this way vast colonies could be
> British in the Middle East and South Asia, the Dutch in           ruled remotely through the “resident,” the agent of indi-
> Southeast Asia, the Spanish in South America) tried to sup-       rect rule.
> port their own hegemonies in Europe as well as competing
> and contesting materially and politically in order to control         The colonial restructuring was accompanied by profound
> the new world economy.                                            changes in the socio-psychological sphere of Muslim societies as well. Traditional systems of society, values, and rela-
> The independence of the United States ushered in an-           tions were gradually replaced by abstract, anonymous state
> other phenomenon: White colonial regions became indepen-          agents—whether through direct or indirect rule. This procdent as they became semi-sovereign vis-à-vis their colonial       ess ushered in new societal formations, especially in the
> motherlands. At the same time European industrial countries       political sphere, since with the increasing expansion of the
> contested for the safeguarding of raw materials, markets, and     colonial sector, traditional forces came to break down or
> possibilities of emigration in what they considered to be         looked for alternative structures. But not all sectors and areas
> unexploited and virgin regions.                                   were seized by the politically dominant colonial sector, as
> their integration was not always profitable, such as in parts of
> Colonial Expanison                                                traditional and tribal areas. They were consequently ignored,
> Modern colonial expansion and colonization (when few Euro-        and they still are socioeconomically neglected areas.
> pean settlers appeared in the Muslim world) started in the
> wake of the breakdown of Muslim empires, from within the              The colonialization of the Islamic world in the nineteenth
> boundaries of the territorial European states established in      century occurred over several decades. The process can be
> divided into three phases: from 1820, when colonial power
> the eighteenth century into the borders of national markets.
> was already firmly established, to 1856, when Muslim coun-
> Hence, colonialism did not expand beyond traditional and
> tries struggled for recognition in the changing geopolitical
> primitive societies but into closed political entities, such as
> reality; and, from 1856 to 1880 nearly all Muslim countries
> the territorial princely states or successor states, which had
> lost their economic and financial independence and became
> replaced the great empires. By the eighteenth century the
> dependent on the Europeans. During the period from 1880
> world economy was already reorganized, and European exto 1910 most of these countries—apart from those Muslim
> pansion had gradually changed the terms of trade for Muslim
> countries controlled by the Ottoman caliphate—were subject
> countries. A tremendous societal upheaval occurred as parts
> to direct colonial military and political control: economic
> of the traditional society were increasingly integrated into
> colonialism had become political colonialism. In this situaworld market relations. This complex process came about
> tion of political subservience, the traditional urban divines,
> primarily through technical innovation (e.g., perennial irriparticularly theologians, were responsible for the traditional
> gation systems), investment of capital, and privatization of
> legitimization of the ruler. At the same time, in the colonial
> landed property (e.g., the 1793 permanent settlement in
> urban sector, Islamic repertory was gradually used as an
> India). Next to the traditional urban and agrarian sectors,
> ideology and a mobilizing force by those societal formations
> colonial urban and agrarian sectors were established, using a
> that had become partly integrated into this colonial sector. In
> colonial infrastructure. The previously important nomadic
> contrast to this, in the traditional agrarian sector Islam
> sector was noticeably marginalized. A colonial administrative
> prevailed in the form of egalitarian peasant culture, as can be
> and military force was set up, visualized in new settlements,
> seen from a number of Sufi and Mahdi movements.
> such as civil lines and cantonments. The education system
> was replaced or paralleled by a new European one suiting              The idea of universal caliphate, which had been used by
> colonial interests.                                               the Ottomans since the middle of the eighteenth century,
> particularly for reasons of foreign policy, became a vehicle for
> In doing so two broad patterns were followed: direct rule,    pan-Islamic propaganda, notably by Sultan 
Abd al-Hamid II.
> virtually excluding indigenous political structures, as favored   Though this propaganda was politically unsuccessful and led
> by the Spanish and Portuguese in the Americas, and by the         to the demise of the caliphate in 1924, the propaganda
> French in Africa (especially after the French Revolution); and    triggered a hefty discussion of the idea of a universal caliphate
> indirect rule, which by contrast, incorporated traditional        outside of Turkey: On the one hand the validity of the idea
> indigenous political structures and was favored by the British    was questioned (
Abd al-Raziq); on the other, Indian Muslims
> in South Asia, the Dutch in Southeast Asia, and by the            staged a khilafat movement. A colonial crackdown, however,
> Germans and Belgians in Africa. The reasons for these             put this movement down.
> differences were pragmatic—the cost-effectiveness through
> the involvement of few Europeans—as well as ethnocentric,            The Second World War accelerated the process of
> wherein non-whites and whites were considered fundamen-           decolonialization but left the former colonies with basic
> tally different, and therefore were controllable only by their    structural problems that were a result of colonialism, such as
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                    153
> Colonialism
> 
> insufficient societal integration, artificial boundaries, and        colonial traders, and rulers. Therefore, contemporary denarrowly based economies.                                          bates became the starting point for the colonial reception of
> Oriental society. Naturally, the oscillating processes between
> Beside these socio-historical and political developments,       Europeans and non-Europeans openly and latently shaped
> one needs to consider the normative aspect underlying the          both societies. If projection is considered to be a cultural
> colonial process: A colonial collective image of Islam was         technique for self-affirmation and demarcation, then assigncreated, going as far back as the Crusades and revived at a        ing a collective (negative) identity to the (colonialized) “other”
> time when Europeans had started to project their own imagi-        implied the colonialists’ generating their own identity in a
> nations onto Muslim societies—a phenomenon that historian          specific colonial context. Indeed, some European enlighten-
> Edward Said has called “Orientalism.” In this view, the            ment figures even had gone as far as to use the “Orient” as a
> heterogeneous Islamic world was reduced to a monolithic,           didactic background to criticize their own urban societies,
> antimodern, and anti-intellectual world excluded from world        thereby setting out the frame of reference for their own
> history.                                                           identities.
> 
> Nineteenth-century colonial politics was legitimized as            The intrinsic impact of reciprocity and mutuality of the
> evolutionary and modern, while the “Orient” was constructed        colonial process may have found one political manifestation
> as a cultural space, diametrically opposed to the values and       in indirect rule, which was, however, not implemented in its
> norms of the West, which were considered to be inherently          totality, because the British administration got involved in
> universal. This unidimensional social evolutionism proclaimed      internal affairs of these societies very quickly, at times resem-
> Europe as embodying hegemonic power. In doing so, various          bling the French system of direct colonial administration. In
> discourses about the Orient promulgated the societal decline,      India one manifestation of British indirect rule was the
> dogmatism, despotism, and irrationality of the region. Even-       establishment of an honors system and the issuing of titles.
> tually this hegemonic claim produced new “Orientalist”             The residency system provided for the cultural success of
> sciences.                                                          imperialism, a success that found its climax in the “invention
> of tradition” as it represented colonial authority in Victorian
> Against the backdrop of a postulated universal evolution-      India through different devices, such as highly ritualistic
> ary history, the Orientalist sciences analyzed the object “Ori-    events to mark Queen Victoria’s accession in 1876 to the title
> ent” in its historical development, making use of the Hegelian     “Kaisar-e Hind” (Empress of India, combining the imperial
> categories of alienation and reconciliation. In this way, colo-    titles of Roman “Caesar,” German “Kaiser,” and Russian
> nial administrations were provided with a “scientifically           “Czar.”)
> proven” image about the stage of development attained by
> the Orient, which was seen to be alienated from its classical          The nineteenth-century Orientalist image and action not
> high culture. Cultural theories provided the colonial admin-       only cemented the dominant image of the Orient in the
> istration with this Orientalist image, which ran counter to the    West but also affected the self-statement of the Orient.
> historical one of classical high culture. On the basis of this     Consequently this image changed non-Western practices
> construction, colonial measures to “reconcile” the Orient          concretely—from blind imitation of modernization to a total
> with its alienated tradition were to be implemented as an          rejection of Western society, thereby forming a “strange
> export of progress. Thus terms like “modern” and “tradi-           alliance” between western Orientalism and Muslim fundational” or “primitive” became scientific categories, establish-     mentalism, whence one side satisfied the essentializing fantaing an epistemological supremacy of Europe that was firmly          sies of the other.
> established politically.
> Colonialism and the Emergence of
> In this way authority was created on the object “Orient”       Islamic Movements
> not only for the Europeans but also gradually, through             The deep traces of colonialism that changed the whole
> reciprocal perceptions, for the “Orientals” themselves. Sub-       landscape of the Muslim world brought about new social
> sequently, authority was derived from the instrumentalization      formations, and new Islamic movements:
> of the Weberian demand for “value-free” social sciences, that
> became “objective” insofar as they were considered to be not          • Reform Islam was prominent among pastoral and
> ideologically biased, but unquestionably “true.”                        tribal societies, based on Wahhabiyyan and
> other ideas.
> While the power relations cannot be ignored, it is impor-          • Reform Sufism started off in urban, pastoral, and
> tant to note the cultural hybridization of the colonial process,        tribal areas, first against feudal rule and later opposfor example, the reciprocity of colonializer and colonialized.          ing European intrusion. In doing so, the figure of
> Indeed, the colonialized peoples had a function in the colo-            prophet Muhammad became even more pivotal,
> nial process, for the establishment of European dominance               hence the establishment of “Muhammadan Paths”
> was essentially based on the cooperation of local informants,           (turuq Muhammadiyya) in the colonialized regions.
> 
> 154                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Communism
> 
> This kind of mystical approach found its climax in            giving them an Islamic garb. This normative replacement
> the movement of the Mahdi of Sudan.                              enabled these Islamic classicists to transcend traditional
> • A third trend was Islamic modernism, represented               boundaries and legitimize modern developments within the
> primarily by intellectuals, bureaucrats, and the mili-         Islamic semiotics. In this process of reinvention of tradition,
> tary, and manifested in creations of the colonial              code- or identity-switching is most important, providing this
> system, like the Aligarh Movement in India, the                political Islam with its particular dynamics.
> Young Ottomans, and the so-called pan-Islamic
> movement.                                                         The latest development in the wake of colonialism is the
> emigration of large Muslim communities to Europe and
> These movements adjusted to the new conditions and              North America. The migration pattern follows colonial and
> opted for the integration of the colonial system with Islamic       historical traditions, that is, Maghrebian Muslims in France,
> theology. Jamal al-Din al-Afghani and Sayyid Ahmad Khan             Southeast Asian Muslims in the Netherlands, South Asian
> were two exponents of the modernizing trend, however                Muslims in Britain, and Turkish Muslims in Germany.
> different their motivations may have been. Precondition for
> the ideologization of Islam was a renewed call for the              See also Fundamentalism; Orientalism.
> reintroduction of independent reasoning (ijtihad) at the cost
> of adherence to one’s school of law (taqlid). Timeless catego-
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> ries developed in the course of Western civilization were now
> regarded as immanently Islamic. The use of media in exile—          Al-Azmeh, Aziz. Islam and Modernities. London: Verso, 1993.
> mostly in the metropolises of their colonial motherlands—           Malik, Jamal, ed. Perspectives of Mutual Encounters in South
> was part of that strategy.                                            Asian History: 1760–1860. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2000.
> Said, Edward. Orientalism: Western Conceptions of the Orient.
> As a result of colonialism a three-layered structure emerged:
> London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979.
> secularized urban (post-colonial) state regimes, traditional
> urban nonpolitical Muslim religious associations, and urban         Schulze, Reinhard. Geschichte der islamischen Welt im 20.
> middle-class opposition movements that stood for some kind             Jahrhundert. Munich: Beck, 1994.
> of a reconstruction of a Muslim state.
> Jamal Malik
> Subsequently, after political independence following the
> Second World War, the new Muslim states were mostly
> centralized and secularized, based on military or bureaucratic
> elites with state capitalism or socialism favoring the ruling
> elites. Islamic modernism was replaced by secular national-
> COMMUNISM
> ism, co-opting Muslim leaders who would legitimize this
> centralism. To be sure, the identity-giving Islamic symbolism       Both communism and Islam pose solutions to social, moral,
> was used for the mobilization of wider strata of society.           economic and political order. Their differences, however, are
> numerous and fundamental. Communist movements have
> The nonpolitical Muslim religious associations mostly           developed throughout the Islamic world but they have been
> stayed quietistic, while new movements among parts of the           limited to a narrow social base, and have most often been
> ulema played on their Islamicity. Some of them referred to          composed of non-Muslims. Communist groups became deeply
> concepts tuned to colonial society, basically so as not to fall     involved with debating the Marxist-Leninist theoretical reabehind completely in terms of political influence. The oppo-         sons for this failure to obtain mass support. These debates
> sition movements stood for the reconstruction of a Muslim           further fragmented most communist movements in the Islamic
> state and reorganized Islam in different ways, for example,         world. Communism in the Middle East was never a serious
> the theory of the caliphate providing an extended interpreta-       contender for power, and the collapse of the Soviet Union
> tion to legitimize power, rendering Islam into a comprehen-         further marginalized communism worldwide.
> sive system that was to counter Western ideologies.
> Islamic scholars critiqued communism in several areas.
> One branch of this Muslim cultural manifestation is of
> Foremost, communism denies the existence of God. In doing
> quite some importance. For example, religious fundamentalso, it is directly opposed to Islam and Islamic tenets of faith.
> ism, which has to be seen as a reaction to colonial encroach-
> Further, Islam views history in a different way than does
> ment as well as a demarcation against folk-religious traditions,
> communism. Rather than the communist dialectic, and the
> reevaluating Islam in terms of political ideology, was elaborated upon only during the 1930s.                                   movement of history from capitalism to communism, Islam
> views history as a search for faith and truth. Historical
> Its carriers were integrated into the post-colonial system,      development of society ends when Islam is accepted, not
> due to which they adopted and adapted its major terms,              when capitalism is swept away by communism. Finally, in
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                     155
> Communism
> 
> seeking social justice, Islam does not seek to make all persons   Islamic Revolution of 1979. These groups were eliminated or
> equal; it accepts that some will have more than others. Islam     driven out of Iran as the clerics consolidated their power.
> achieves social justice through acceptance of the obligation of
> those with more to provide for those with less, through              The Iraqi Communist Party (ICP, founded in 1934) has
> processes such as zakat (alms giving).                            played a role out of proportion to its size in Iraqi politics,
> beginning with its participation in the independence move-
> Before the Second World War, communist movements in           ment against the British. The overthrow of the Hashemite
> the Middle East consisted of small groups of intellectuals,       kingdom in 1958 brought the party to national importance.
> drawn to its anticolonial stance. The post-war environment,       The ICP mobilized a quarter-million demonstrators against
> with Soviet expansionism and the collapse of the colonial         a conservative coup attempt in 1959, and had its own armed
> powers, was initially considered by most communists as an         militia. Its rival, the Ba
th Party, a secular, socialist movement
> opportunity to reach the masses. Soviet support to these          espousing Arab unity and anticolonialism, immediately was
> groups was not automatic. The Cold War saw the Soviet             plunged into conflict with the ICP after seizing power in
> Union faced with often-contradictory policies of supporting       1963, and quickly outstripped it in influence. In 1974, all
> communist revolutionary movements and supporting gov-             opposition parties, including the ICP, were consolidated into
> ernments aligned with Soviet interests. For instance, support     the Progressive National Front (PNF), which allowed the
> to the Egyptian government under Jamal 
Abd al-Nasser was         Ba
ath to firmly control the opposition movements. From
> valuable to Soviet interests, but conflicted with addressing       1978 to 1979, the government arrested and executed many
> the needs of the Egyptian Communist Party. In other cases,        ICP leaders, while others fled the country.
> such as Iran, the Soviets provided clandestine support to the
> communists. Meanwhile, under the Eisenhower Doctrine,                Only one Middle Eastern state, the People’s Republic of
> the United States formalized its opposition to communist          Yemen, has had a Marxist government. While a British
> movements in the Middle East. Under this doctrine, the            colony, a violent independence movement developed with
> United States intervened militarily in Lebanon in 1958, and       Soviet support. Following independence in 1967, the Sovietformed the Baghdad Pact against Soviet expansionism. Nei-         funded National Liberation Front, a Marxist group, took and
> ther the United States nor the Soviet Union fully understood      held power. The Front was convulsed by factionalism, and
> the driving forces of the area, as was demonstrated to each in    quickly became more ideological and repressive. To divert
> Iran and Afghanistan in the late 1970s.                           popular dissent, the Front fought skirmishes with neighboring Oman, Saudi Arabia, and North Yemen. When the Soviet
> In Egypt, Palestine, and Lebanon in the 1920s, well-to-do     Union collapsed, South Yemen no longer received Soviet aid,
> intellectuals founded communist or socialist political groups.    and the long-standing attempt to merge North and South
> After the Second World War, the Syrian Communist Party,           Yemen under a single, noncommunist government, officially
> which had attracted support from Kurds and other minori-          succeeded in 1990, although outbreaks of unrest still occur.
> ties, grew to some importance in the 1950s, but never became
> a serious contender for power. The Lebanese Communist                 The late 1960s saw a resurgence of splinter communist
> Party, outlawed until 1970, never gained more than a few          movements among students and intellectuals, as Maoism and
> thousand members. The Egyptian Communist Party shared             Guevarism became popular. These movements had no sigthe anticolonial views of Nasser, but he banned the party and     nificant mass appeal, but because of the violent tendencies of
> imprisoned its leaders following his 1952 coup. Since then,       the groups, they had some political impact as governments
> communism in Egypt has been represented by a number of            attempted to control them. Some Palestinian groups abperipheral splinter groups.                                       sorbed these ideologies and their emphasis on violence and
> revolution. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestin-
> In Iran, after the First World War, a major communist         ian (PFLP), the Democratic Front for the Liberation of
> movement developed in Iran, where contact with Russian            Palestine (DFLP), and the Popular Front for the Liberation
> communists in Azerbaijan resulted in the formation of the         of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC) all combined
> Adalat Party, in 1917. In 1920 this became the Ferqeh-ye          Marxist-Leninism with Palestinian nationalism. In most coun-
> Komunist-e Iran. Outlawed in 1929, it was reestablished as        tries, there were no more than a few hundred adherents of
> the Tudeh Party in 1941. This was outlawed in 1949, but           these revolutionary communist ideologies, and these were
> continued to develop underground. Party membership con-           often splintered into several groups with narrow ideological
> sisted mainly of intellectuals, military officers, and other       differences.
> elites, and its leadership was heavily factionalized. Following
> the overthrow of Mohammad Mosaddeq (1953), the Iranian               The model of communist revolt, involving mobilizing the
> government took firm action against the Tudeh, and deci-           proletariat, failed in the Middle East. Attempts by some
> mated the Party. Splinter communist elements continued to         communists to adapt their principles to local conditions failed
> be active in Iran through the late 1970s, playing a role in the   due to the ideological rigidity of communist leadership.
> 
> 156                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Conflict and Violence
> 
> Other factors included the suppression of communist move-           was only thirteen years into his prophetic mission that Muhamments by almost all regional governments, ideological in-           mad and the early Muslims were permitted to engage in
> fighting and factionalism among the communists, and the              armed resistance, but only under certain stringent condiavailability of alternative social and economic structures that     tions, as specified in the Quran.
> satisfied most of the populations. The collapse of the Soviet
> Union left most communists further isolated from public
> opinion.                                                               Permission [to fight] is given to those against whom
> war is being wrongfully waged. God has indeed the
> See also 
Abd al-Nasser, Jamal; Ba
th Party; Political                 power to succor them: those who have been driven
> Organization; Political Thought; Socialism.                            from their homelands against all right for no other
> reason than their saying, “Our Lord and Sustainer is
> God! For, if God had not enabled people to defend
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                           themselves against one another, monasteries and
> Batatu, Hana. The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary             churches and synagogues and mosques—in which God’s
> Movements in Iraq: A Study of Iraq’s Old Landed and Com-            name is abundantly extolled—would surely have been
> mercial Classes and of its Communists, Ba
thists and Free           destroyed.” (22:39–40)
> Officers. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1978.
> Cottam, Richard W. Nationalism in Iran. Pittsburgh, Pa.:
> It is interesting to note that the above verses give prece-
> University of Pittsburgh Press, 1979.
> dence to the protection of monasteries, churches, and syna-
> Ismael, Tareq Y., and El-Sa
id, Rifa
at. The Communist Move-        gogues over that of mosques in order to underline their
> ment in Egypt, 1920–1988. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse Uniinviolability and the duty of the Muslim to safeguard them
> versity Press, 1990.
> against any desecration or abuse, and protect freedom of
> belief. The aim of fighting according to this critical verse is
> Richard C. Campany, Jr.       the defense of not only Islam, but also of religious freedom in
> general.
> 
> In the succeeding decade (622–632 C.E.) Muhammad and
> CONFLICT AND VIOLENCE                                               his growing band of followers engaged in a series of battles to
> defend Islam against the military aggression of their adversar-
> In the contemporary period, Islam is frequently depicted as         ies, including the critical battles of Badr, Uhud, and Khandaq.
> predisposed to conflict and violence. The intractable Middle         Warfare was a desperate affair in seventh-century Arabia. A
> East conflict and recent events in which Muslim extremists           chieftain was not expected to display weakness to his enemies
> have been implicated in acts of terror have only served to          in a battle, and some of the Quranic injunctions seem to
> reinforce this widespread perception. To discern the veracity       share this spirit (4:90). Because the Quran was revealed in the
> of the assertion that in some special way Islam is related to       context of deadly conflict, several passages deal with the
> deadly conflict, it is important to situate the discussion within    ethics of warfare. (5:49; 8:61; 11:118–119; 49:9; 49:13). The
> a concrete sociohistorical context. Islam, conflict, and vio-        most contentious of these is the so-called sword verse (ayat
> lence do not occur in a social vacuum. Moreover, in order to        al-sayf).
> correctly understand the ethical norms of Islam represented
> in the Muslim sacred scripture, the Quran, and in the
> exemplary conduct of the prophet Muhammad, it is necessary             Once the sacred months have passed, you may kill the
> idolaters when you encounter them, and take them
> to analyze the historical milieu within which such norms were
> [captive], and besiege them, and prepare for them each
> negotiated.
> ambush. But if they repent and establish worship and
> pay the poor-due, then leave their way free. Lo! God is
> When the prophet Muhammad (570–632 C.E.) brought
> Forgiving, Merciful. (9:5)
> the Quran to the Arabs in the early seventh century, pre-
> Islamic Arabia was steeped in oppressive social relations and
> caught up in a vicious cycle of violence. Muhammad’s egali-            Some classical Muslim commentators have construed this
> tarian message quickly began to threaten the Meccan elite.          verse to imply that Muslims are obligated to fight non-
> They opposed his teachings with great vehemence. He was             Muslims until they embrace Islam in the case of polytheists,
> forced to send some of his early followers to seek refuge in        or pay a special tax known as jizya, in the case of Jews and
> Abyssinia and later, in 622 C.E., he himself fled to the nearby      Christians who are referred to as the “people of the book.”
> city of Medina. Throughout the Meccan period, the early
> Muslims responded to the mental anguishes, physical abuse,             Yet other verses include exhortations to peace: “Thus, if
> and persistent threats to their lives with passive resistance. It   they let you be, and do not make war on you, and offer you
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                     157
> Conflict and Violence
> 
> peace, God does not allow you to harm them” (4:90). The              and injustice (2:193; 4:75; 8:39). The Islamic concept of jihad
> Quran quotes the Torah, the Jewish scriptures, which per-           should not be confused with the medieval concept of holy war
> mits people to retaliate eye for eye, tooth for tooth, but like      since the actual word al-harb al-muqaddasa is never used in the
> the Gospels, the Quran suggests that it is meritorious to           Quran. In Islam, a war is never holy; it is either justified or
> forgo revenge in a spirit of charity (5:45). Hostilities must be     not. Moreover, jihad is not directed at other faiths. In a
> brought to an end as quickly as possible and must cease the          statement in which the Arabic is extremely emphatic, the
> minute the enemy sues for peace (2:192–193). The Quran,             Quran insists, “There must be no coercion in matters of
> moreover, makes it emphatically clear that conflict can only          faith!” (2:256). More than this, the protection of freedom of
> be successfully ameliorated through the establishment of             belief and worship for followers of other religions has been
> justice, which transcends sectarian self-interests. (4:135; 7:29)    made a sacred duty of Muslims. This duty was fixed at the
> same time when the permission for armed struggle (jihad alqital) was ordained (22:39–40).
> O Believers! Stand firmly for justice, as witnesses for
> God, even it is means testifying against yourselves, or               In mystical (Sufi) traditions of Islam the greatest form of
> your parents, or your kin, and whether it is against the          jihad, personal jihad, is to purify the soul and refine the
> rich or the poor, for God prevails upon all. Follow not           disposition. This is regarded as the far more urgent and
> the lusts of your hearts, lest you swerve, and if you             momentous struggle and it is based on a prophetic tradition
> distort justice or decline to do justice, verily God              (hadith). Muhammad is reported to have advised his companknows what you do. (4:135)                                        ions as they return after a battle, “We are returning from the
> lesser jihad [physical fighting] to the greater jihad [jihad alnafs].” Sufis have traditionally understood this greater form of
> The just war is always evil, but sometimes one has to fight       jihad to be the spiritual struggle to discipline the lower
> in order to avoid the kind of persecution that Mecca inflicted        impulses and base instincts in human nature. The renowned
> on the Muslims (2:191; 2:217), or to preserve decent values          thirteenth-century Sufi scholar, Jalal al-Din Rumi, articu-
> (4:75; 22:40). During his stay in Medina, Muhammad at-               lated such an understanding of jihad when he wrote: “The
> tempted to resolve the conflict with the Meccan leaders and           prophets and saints do not avoid spiritual struggle. The first
> their allies by entering into a peace treaty at a place called al-   spiritual struggle they undertake is the killing of the ego and
> Hudaybiya. The treaty came to be known as sulh al-Hudaybiya.         the abandonment of personal wishes and sensual desires. This
> Sulh is an important term in Islamic law (shari
a). The              is the greater jihad” (Chittick, trans., p. 151).
> purpose of sulh is to end conflict and hostility among adversaries so that they may conduct their relationships in peace             After the demise of the Prophet and the completion of the
> and amity (49:9). The word itself has been used to refer both        textual guidance of the Quran, Muslims were faced with the
> to the process of restorative justice and peacemaking and to         challenge of interpreting and applying the Islamic normative
> the actual outcome of that process. Even though sulh al-             principles on conflict and violence to their own peculiar
> Hudaybiya never actually achieved its aims because the Meccan        sociohistorical contexts. Subsequent generations of Muslims
> tribesmen violated its conditions, it remains as an instructive      have interpreted these normative values in such a way as to
> conflict-intervention strategy.                                       give Islam a paradoxical role in human history. In the first
> three centuries of Islam the classical doctrine of jihad was
> In 630 C.E., the Muslims gained their most significant            forged by Muslim jurists primarily in response to the imperial
> victory when they captured the city of Mecca, remarkably             politics of the Abbasid caliphate on the one hand and the
> without bloodshed. This provided Muhammad with a second              Byzantine Empire on the other. Abrogating the Meccan
> opportunity to institute a genuine sulh process. In a spirit of      experience and predicating itself on selected verses of the
> magnanimity, he forgave his enemies and enacted a process of         Quran, one finds the following: “And fight them on until
> reconciliation. A general amnesty was proclaimed in which all        there is no more oppression and tumult (fitnah) and religion
> tribal claims to vengeance were abolished. Three years later         should be for God” (2:193). Classical scholars developed a
> Muhammad died in Medina at the age of sixty-three.                   doctrine of jihad in which the world is simply divided into a
> dichotomy of abodes: the territory of Islam (dar al-islam) and
> The Quranic term most often conflated with that of               the territory of war (dar al-harb). In accordance with this
> violence is jihad. The Arabic verb jahada from which the             belligerent paradigm, a permanent state of war (jihad) characverbal noun jihad is derived literally means “to strive hard, to     terized relations between the two abodes. The only way a
> exert strenuous effort and to struggle.” As a multivalent            non-Muslim territory could avert a jihad was either to con-
> Islamic concept, it denotes any effort in pursuit of a com-          vert to Islam or to pay an annual tribute or poll tax (jizyah).
> mendable aim. Jihad is a comprehensive concept embracing             The classical belief erroneously perceived of jihad as the
> peaceful persuasion (16:125) and passive resistance (13:22;          instrument of the Islamic caliphate to expand Muslim
> 23:96; 41:34), as well as armed struggle against oppression          territories.
> 
> 158                                                                                              Islam and the Muslim World
> Conflict and Violence
> 
> Though most Muslim artists refrain from creating representations of the prophet Muhammad and his family, this 1368 Turkish book
> painting depicts the Prophet, with his face covered by a white cloth, leading his disciples on horseback to Badr to confront the pagan
> Meccan army. THE ART ARCHIVE/TOPKAPI MUSEUM ISTANBUL/HARPER COLLINS PUBLISHERS
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                                  159
> Conversion
> 
> This controversial interpretation of jihad failed to capture    A candid photograph appears in the color insert.
> the full range of the term’s rich meaning. The reductionist
> interpretation of jihad, though not unanimous, came to              See also Fitna; 
Ibadat; Jihad; Political Islam.
> dominate subsequent Muslim juristic thinking. One of the
> earliest scholars who represented an alternative perspective        BIBLIOGRAPHY
> was Sufyan al-Thawri (b. 715). Al-Thawri believed that jihad        Abou El Fadl, Khaled. Rebellion and Violence in Islamic Law.
> was only justified in defense. The classical doctrine of jihad         New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
> has and continues to be challenged by Muslim jurists. A             Armstrong, Karen. Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet.
> number of modern Muslim reform movements have em-                     San Francisco, Calif.: Harper San Francisco, 1992.
> ployed the classical doctrine of jihad to legitimate their
> Chittick, William, trans. The Sufi Path of Love: The Spiritual
> struggles against colonial or postcolonial secular state rule.        Teachings of Rumi. Albany: State University of New York
> Other contemporary Muslim scholars, such as Muhammad                  Press, 1983.
> Abu Zahra, Mahmud Shaltut, Muhammad al Ghunaimi,
> Khadduri, Majid. War and Peace in Islam. New York: AMS
> Louay M. Safi, and Ridwan al-Sayyid, have criticized the
> Press, 1979.
> classical doctrine of jihad as being seriously flawed since it
> Lings, Martin. Muhammad: His Life According to the Earliest
> violates some of the essential Islamic principles on the ethics
> Sources. New York: Inner Traditions International, 1983.
> of war. Safi has written objecting to the classical doctrine:
> “Evidently, the classical doctrine of war and peace has not         Peters, Rudolph. Jihad in Classical and Modern Islam: A Reader.
> been predicated on a comprehensive theory. The doctrine                Princeton, N.J.: Markus Wiener Publishers, 1996.
> describes the factual conditions that historically prevailed        Safi, Louay M. Peace and the Limits of War—Transcending
> between the Islamic state, during the 
Abassid and Byzantium           Classical Conception of Jihad. Herndon, Va.: International
> era, and thus, renders rules which respond to specific histori-         Institute of Islamic Thought, 2001.
> cal needs” (Safi, p. 44).                                            Said, Abdul Aziz; Funk, Nathan C.; and Kadayifci, Ayse S.,
> eds. Peace and Conflict Resolution in Islam. New York:
> Safi and Al-Sayyid as well as a number of other contempo-           University Press of America, 2001.
> rary scholars hold that the classical doctrine of hegemonic
> jihad is contingent on a historical context and thus has a                                                        A. Rashied Omar
> limited application. They have argued for a recovery of the
> alternative interpretation of classical scholars, such as Malik
> ibn Anas, the founder of the Maliki school of Islamic jurisprudence, who identified a third option, the territory of peaceful      CONVERSION
> covenant or coexistence or (dar-al-sulh or 
ahd). He had in
> mind the long-standing cordial relationship that had existed        In Islam conversion consists of the recitation of the shahada or
> between the early Muslims and the Abyssinian Christian              profession of faith which is composed of two affirmations
> state. He recalled that the prophet Muhammad himself had            from the Quran that have been integrated to form a single
> sent the earliest group of his followers from Mecca to seek         declaration of faith in the uniqueness and oneness of God and
> refuge from persecution in Abyssinia. They lived there peace-       the finality of His revelation to the prophet Muhammad. It
> fully for many years, and some of them did not return, even         reads “There is no god but God [Allah, the Arabic proper
> after Muslims were in power in Mecca. Moreover, the Prophet         name for God used by both Arabic-speaking Muslims and
> had advised peaceful coexistence with the Abyssinians, re-          Christians], and Muhammad is the Messenger of God.” The
> portedly saying: “Leave the Abyssinians in peace as long as         Quran uses the terms “The Messenger of God” and “The
> they leave you in peace.” Safi contends that the fact that the       Prophet” synonymously to refer to Muhammad, who is
> early Muslims did not make any attempts to turn Abyssinia           implicitly declared to be the last of God’s genuine prophets.
> into an Islamic state is sufficient evidence that a third way,
> the “Abyssinian paradigm,” was an Islamically sanctioned                Some Muslim scholars, among them the renowned Peralternative.                                                        sian mystic, philosopher, and theologian al-Ghazali (1058–1111
> C.E.), are of the opinion that a declaration of intent (niya),
> The alternative paradigm represented by the Abyssinian          made prior to the recitation of the shahada, is necessary for its
> model was marginalized and ignored by the partisan interpre-        validity and for the validity of such ritual acts as prayer,
> tations of the classical Muslim jurists. Contemporary Mus-          fasting, and almsgiving. On the other hand many Muslim
> lims are currently reclaiming this third paradigm of peaceful       lawyers are persuaded that niya is only necessary for the
> coexistence. Others called on contemporary Muslims to               validity of prayer (salat).
> reclaim the rich Sufi tradition on conflict transformation by
> relinking the lesser jihad to that of the greater jihad (p. 108).      In early Islam conversion was not a condition for member-
> Both have profound implications for expanding Muslim re-            ship of the umma or Muslim community. Prior to the surrensources for conflict transformation and peace-building efforts.      der of Mecca in 629 C.E. the Jews of Medina had the same
> 
> 160                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Conversion
> 
> rights and obligations as other members of the umma. After           Maghrib. After the prophet Muhammad’s death in 632 C.E.
> the fall of Mecca to Muhammad the zakat (alms tax) was               the military conquest of the Fertile Crescent and Egypt was
> levied on converts to Islam, benevolence being one of the            swift but did not account for the conversion of most of the
> chief virtues of the true believer, and the jizya (a personal        population of these regions. This was to come about through
> poll-tax to be paid, where possible, in money) was imposed on        a process of acculturation as the local people moved from the
> all non-Muslims (with the exception of certain categories of         rural areas to the garrison towns (amsar) such as Qayrawan
> persons including women, the poor, the enslaved, and impov-          (Maghrib), Kufa (Iraq), and Basra (Iraq), as traders, craftserished monks) who wanted to join the umma.                          men, laborers, and domestics who over time adopted the
> Arabic language and Islam.
> Jihad and Conversion
> While the spread of Islam is a religious duty, the Quran also       Trade, Commerce, Sufism/Mysticism, and Conversion
> instructs believers that there should be no compulsion in            The image non-Muslims in many parts of the world have had
> matters of religion (2:256), thus seemingly ruling out coer-         and continue to have of Islam is that of a progressive, modern
> cion as a means of conversion. There are many scholars of            religion offering literacy, a widely spoken language, numeracy,
> Islam, Muslim and non-Muslim, who are persuaded, largely             and the opportunity to participate in a wider commercial,
> on the basis of this text, that the obligation to perform jihad of   political, and trading network. Islam often spread very slowly
> the sword (al-jihad bi-il-sayf)—sometimes described as the           and even laboriously, its own progress greatly affected by the
> lesser form of jihad, in contrast to jihad bi-il-nafs or moral and   changing local economic, political, and religious situation in
> spiritual jihad, as the greater form—is only legitimate where        which it found itself. Islam’s development in the Malaythe free practice of Islam is impeded.                               Indonesian archipelago is a case in point. Archaeology tells us
> that by the late eleventh century there was a Muslim presence
> Where jihad of the sword is contemplated there is the            in Indonesia, and it would not be surprising given the comobligation of the summons, da
wa, which is based on Quran           mercial attraction of the archipelago and its role as a natural
> 17:15 and 16:25. The summons is meant to inform those to be          staging post between the Middle East and India on one side
> attacked that Islam does not intend to pursue war for material       and China, where there has been a Muslim presence in the
> gain such as property but for the purpose of defending or            South from the ninth century, if Islam did not in fact arrive
> strengthening Islam. There are differences of opinion be-            even earlier. According to Marco Polo who visited North
> tween the four principal Sunni schools of law (madhahib) on          Sumatra in 1292 the kingdom of Ferlak (Perlak) in presentthe necessity of da
wa for people who have previously been           day Aceh was already Muslim. If the process of expansion was
> summoned to Islam. The Malikites believe it to be obligatory         slow it was also peaceful. Only in the fourteenth century did
> in this case also, the Hanafites recommend it, and the Shafites        Islam spread to Northeast Malaya and Brunei, to the court of
> and Hanbalites say it is a matter of indifference.                   east Java, and to the southern Philippines. And it was to take
> another two hundred years before it found its way in to other
> Islam has rarely spread, in the sense of converting large        parts of the archipelago when Sufism or mysticism (tasawwuf),
> numbers of non-Muslims of a territory, through jihad of the          in institutionalized and noninstitutionalized forms, came to
> sword. The fundamentalist eighteenth-century reform move-            play a pivotal role in the widespread dissemination of Islam
> ment in Arabia, the Wahhabiyya, as it is called by its oppo-         among the people of Java and elsewhere. According to tradinents and by Europeans—the members referred to themselves            tion Islam was brought to Java by nine saints or walis, and
> as the Muwahiddun or Unitarians—was essentially a reform             over a long period of four hundred years more gradually
> movement, not a drive to convert non-Muslims. Where and              penetrated the society at all levels, never, however, displacing
> when jihad of the sword has been used its effect has usually         entirely other religious traditions.
> been to establish a Muslim as the ruler of a territory, an
> outcome that was by no means always followed by large-scale             The importance of Sufism in the conversion of large
> attempts to convert the local population. A partial explana-         numbers to Islam elsewhere can hardly be exaggerated. The
> tion for this can be found in Islamic political theory according     conversion of Bengal, like that of Java, is also attributed to
> to which the imposition of Muslim rule over a territory is           Sufis. Institutionalized forms of Sufism and principally the
> sufficient to make that territory part of dar al-islam (the           Sufi tariqas or brotherhoods, among them the Qadiriyya,
> abode of Islam). The principal carriers of Islam have been           Tijaniyya, and Sanusiyya orders, were crucial to the expanholy men, jurists, traders, and, in the case of the spread of        sion of Islam in North Africa and Africa south of the Sahara,
> Islam to the Western world in modern times, economic                 as were the Mevlevi and Bektashi Sufi brotherhoods in
> migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers                               Anatolia.
> 
> In the time of the prophet Muhammad, conversion by                   The indispensable role performed by traders, scholars,
> conquest and political submission was basically limited to two       and holy men in laying the foundations of Islam is evident
> societies, the Bedouins of Arabia and the Berbers of the             almost everywhere from the medieval empires of Takrur,
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                      161
> Conversion
> 
> Ghana, Mali, Kanem Bornu, and Songhay, to the Nile Valley,           or by peaceful means, did not necessarily constitute a chalthe Horn, and the East African coast, and across much of the         lenge to the existing political order nor was it necessarily the
> Asian sub-continent, Central Asia, and as far as China. In all       prelude to a campaign by the new government to convert all
> of these regions Islam first arrived with traders who were            of the inhabitants of that territory to Islam. Where jihad of
> often clerics or were accompanied by clerics and/or holy men.        the sword has been employed it needs to be remembered that
> We know from a variety of sources including the travel               the primary objective has not always been expansion but the
> writings of the fourteenth-century Moroccan Ibn Battuta              reform of the Muslim community, as in the case of the
> (1304–1368/77 C.E.) that the first Muslims in ancient Ghana,          Wahhabiyya movement and as was most likely the case with
> Mali, China, Indonesia, Somalia, and elsewhere lived sepa-           the Sokoto jihad in northern Nigeria in the late eighteenth
> rately and followed their own way of life, making little or no       and early nineteenth century.
> attempt to convert others. In places this period of seclusion
> was followed by one of engagement with the wider society                 Examples abound where Muslim rule led to little or no
> that usually resulted in mixing or syncretism, a development         immediate change for the majority of the population under it.
> that gave rise to conservative reaction, sometimes in the form       In Egypt, Coptic Christians were given governmental posts
> of jihad of the sword.                                               until the fourteenth century when pressure from the ulema
> (scholars) forced a change. While the Muslim conquest of
> Exile, Slavery, Economic Migration, and Conversion                   India eliminated the dominant Hindu political-military class,
> Political exiles, convicts, and slaves have also been important      the Chhatri, it confirmed the privileged status of the Brahmins
> vehicles for the dissemination of Islam as in the case of South      who remained the guardians of a cultural vision that was non-
> Africa, where such people began to arrive from Southeast             Muslim. Even at the height of its power the Muslim commu-
> Asia in the mid-seventeenth century and formed the Cape              nity consisted of only a quarter of the population of Delhi and
> Malay Muslim community. From the mid-nineteenth cen-                 Agra. And the Muslim conquest of Iran and the surrounding
> tury Muslims arrived from India to form another distinct             regions initially favored the spread of other faiths, among
> Islamic community, some coming as British-indentured la-             them Nestorianism and Manichaeism, rather than Islam. In
> bor to work on the sugar plantations, others as merchants and        Java the introduction of Islam offered a new dimension to
> traders, and others as hawkers.                                      existing traditional, Buddhist, and Hindu religious beliefs and
> practices, bringing few significant changes to the political life
> Economic migration has been the main vehicle for the
> of society.
> spread of Islam to the Western world in modern times. No
> more than an exotic appendage to western European religion
> Where Muslims conquer non-Muslim territory Muslim
> in the mid-twentieth century, largely through migration, the
> canon law (shari
a) guarantees to protect the life, liberty, and,
> Muslim faith has become increasingly familiar across the
> in a modified way, the property of that section of the local
> European Union, and comprises an estimated fifteen million
> population that has not been captured in arms. These people
> members, including relatively large numbers of converts
> are known as ahl-al-dhimma (people of the covenant) or
> from Christianity and other faiths. While there are no relisimply as dhimmis. All free adults who enjoy dhimmi status
> able statistics, the number of Muslims in North America
> must pay the above-mentioned jizya or poll-tax and pay a tax
> would appear to be over four million and the number of
> (kharaj) on their real estate, over which they no longer enjoy
> mosques to serve them about two thousand.
> the right of disposal. Strictly speaking, the status of dhimmis is
> The Political, Cultural, and Religious Consequences                  open only to “people of scripture” (alh-al-kitab), that is, Jews,
> of Conversion                                                        Christians, and Sabaeans, a category that is interpreted to
> Thus, in the spread and development of Islam, military               cover Zoroastrians. In practice most Muslim countries will
> conquest has never been as important or effective as the             tolerate all peoples regardless of whether they are “people of
> creation of an Islamic environment, educational system, trad-        scripture” or not.
> ing networks, and generally the building up of Muslim
> Where dhimmi status was granted it carried with it the
> institutions. It was these initiatives that facilitated the development of Islam in Iran over several centuries from a small          obligation to contribute toward the maintenance of Muslim
> community of mainly Arab Muslims to one that included the            armies, to dress differently from Muslims, and to renounce
> majority of the population by the early years of the eleventh        such rights as the right to bear arms and to ride on horseback.
> century. Sometimes conversion was an individual affair, some-        Legal restrictions were also imposed in relation to testimony
> times it was collective in the sense that if the leader of a         in law courts, protection under criminal law, and marriage.
> community or ethnic group converted the rest of the people           Apart from such restrictions, what in practice happens is that
> would follow.                                                        a non-Muslim community in a Muslim state virtually governs
> itself under its own responsible leader who acts as its link with
> This notwithstanding, it is worth noting that the estab-         the Muslim government. And where conversion to or from
> lishment of Muslim rule in a territory, whether by conquest          Islam is concerned it is expected that the leadership of the
> 
> 162                                                                                               Islam and the Muslim World
> Crusades
> 
> community that has made the conversion will inform its
> counterpart of the event.                                             CRUSADES
> Conclusions                                                           Both the word “crusades” and its Arabic equivalent, al-hurub
> This account of the dynamics of conversion to Islam confines           al-salibiyyah, are modern terms. What these words refer to,
> itself for the most part to the Muslim world. It is not               however, can be quite different depending on who is using
> exhaustive nor could it be given the great complexity and             them. The dominant trend in secular academic research on
> cultural diversity of that world. Appearance to the contrary          the Crusades since the 1970s has been one of expansion of the
> notwithstanding, it is not intentionally reductionist. If greater     topic in terms of activities and military campaigns included,
> consideration has been given to what might be termed the              of time span, and of geographic expanse. Despite this
> human, material, observable aspects of the phenomenon of              revisionism, there is little doubt that in the popular parlance
> conversion, and little has been said of its intellectual, spiri-      of nonspecialists, the Crusades refers to the almost twotual, and theological dimensions, this should not be taken to         century-long presence (1097–1291 C.E.) of Latin Christians
> mean that these dimensions are not more important elements            from central and western Europe in the Holy Land of the
> of the process of becoming a Muslim or being Muslim.                  eastern Mediterranean coastal strip. Thus, while events after
> 1291—such as the Christian reconquest of Spain, campaigns
> Conversion in Islam is a radical call to reject all that          against heretics in or on the borders of Latin Christendom, or
> associates the human with the divine, and on this foundation          the European conflicts with the Ottoman Empire—are now
> engages the convert in the task of personal and social transwithin the domain of current scholarship on the Crusades
> formation. It is a dynamic and multifaceted process of trans-
> (particularly in Europe), they do not figure large in the
> formation that in some cases is gradual and in others abrupt;
> discourse of the Crusades ongoing in the contemporary
> in some cases total, in others partial.
> population of the Holy Land.
> The path to Islam is more varied than outlined above. As
> Overview of the Crusades
> students of conversion to Islam are aware individuals and
> At the Council of Clermont in 1095, Pope Urban II delivered
> whole communities have come to Islam having been first
> a sermon that set in motion the Crusades. Precisely what he
> influenced by the personal example of a practicing Muslim, or
> said is unknown, nor is there agreement as to his motivations
> through a process of intellectual conversion in which scholand goals, but in the aftermath of Clermont, clergy, nobles,
> arly literature has played an important part, or through
> and commoners mobilized for campaigns to reconquer Jeruguidance given in a dream or a vision in which a wali or holy
> salem, which had been in Muslim hands since 638 C.E. While
> person, and even the prophet Muhammad himself, have
> what comes next follows the common shorthand of referring
> appeared as counselors and guides, through mystical experito major Crusade campaigns by numbers, it should be emences, as a result of a search for healing, protection, and
> phasized that this practice does not take into account the
> security, and for order and discipline in one’s life. Either all or
> a combination of these triggers, and others, have activated the       steady stream of armed pilgrims flowing into and out of the
> interest of individuals and communities in Islam and led to           Holy Land nor the numerous smaller military campaigns that
> conversion.                                                           they undertook.
> 
> See also Da
wa; Expansion; Minorities: Dhimmis;                          The First Crusade (1097–1101) resulted in the establish-
> Tasawwuf.                                                             ment of four Crusader states in lands of the eastern Mediterranean littoral: the County of Edessa, the Principality of
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                          Antioch, the County of Tripoli (although the city itself was
> not captured until 1109), and the Kingdom of Jerusalem. In
> Clarke, Peter B, ed. New Trends and Developments in The
> light of the obstacles these first crusaders faced in their long
> World of Islam. London: Luzac Oriental, 1998.
> journey east—shortages of supplies, uneasy relations with the
> Haddad, Yvonne Yazbeck, ed. The Muslims of America. New
> Byzantine Empire, travel across rough and unfamiliar terrain
> York and Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 1991.
> inhabited by hostile populations, lack of organization, and
> Horton, Robin. “African Conversion.” Africa 41 (1971):                internal rivalries, to name but a few—this initial success was
> 85–108.
> remarkable. Indeed, the First Crusade almost ended at Antioch
> Katz, E. Ulrich. “Islam in Indonesia.” In Islam. Edited by            between 1097 and 1098, where the Crusaders first laid siege
> Peter B. Clarke. London: Routledge, 1990.                           to the Muslims for several trying months, and upon victory
> Shaban, M. “Conversion to Early Islam.” In Conversion to              were subsequently besieged themselves by numerically supe-
> Islam. Edited by Nehemia Levtzion. New York: Holmes                 rior forces.
> and Maier, 1979.
> This Crusader victory is usually linked to the disunited
> Peter B. Clarke      opposition they faced. In the late eleventh century C.E., there
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                      163
> Crusades
> 
> was no single powerful Muslim state to oppose the invasion of      the battle of the Horns of Hattin near Tiberius on 4 July
> the ifranj (Franks), as the Muslims called the invaders. In        1187. Jerusalem fell to him by October of that year, and
> many cities of the Seljuk confederation, military authorities      the Crusader holdings were reduced to a few castles and
> known as atabegs were busy establishing their autonomy, and        coastal cities.
> were often preoccupied by rivalries with other local Muslim
> rulers. The Sunni Abbasid caliphate in Baghdad was unable             These victories made Saladin a hero. A contemporary
> to directly influence military affairs. The Shi
ite Fatimid         poet wrote of him,
> caliphate in Cairo, itself engaged in a struggle against the
> Seljuks for control of Jerusalem, did comparatively little to
> You took possession of Paradises palace by palace,
> counter the Crusader incursion. In the words of the Muslim
> chronicler Ibn al-Athir: “When the Franks—may God curse               When you conquered Syria fortress by fortress.
> them—extended their control over what they had conquered
> of the lands of Islam, and it turned out well for them that the       Indeed, the religion of Islam has spread its blessings
> troops and the kings of Islam were preoccupied with fight-             over created beings,
> ing each other, at that time opinions were divided among
> the Muslims, desires differed and wealth was squandered”              But it is you who have glorified it. (Hillenbrand
> (Hillenbrand, 31). Over the next four decades the Crusaders           1999, p. 179)
> entrenched themselves in the landscape of Outremer (literally, “across-the-sea”), skirmished with the Muslims, and
> The defeat of the Latin forces also sparked the Third
> began the construction of numerous castles, made necessary
> Crusade (1189–1192), in which three European monarchs
> by their constant shortage of manpower.
> were personally involved: the German emperor Frederick I,
> The first major success of the Muslim counter-Crusade            King Philip II of France, and King Richard I (the Lionheart)
> was achieved by the Turkish military leader Zangi, the atabeg      of England. Frederick drowned in Anatolia on his way to
> of Mosul and Aleppo. After consolidating his control over          Outremer, and Philip and Richard quarreled from the monorthern Syria and the Jazira (northwestern Iraq), he launched a   ment of their arrival in the Latin East. Nevertheless, their
> series of campaigns against the Crusaders, culminating in his      combined forces helped recapture Acre, henceforth the capicapture of Edessa in 1144. Zangi’s elimination of this Cru-        tal of the truncated Kingdom of Jerusalem. After Philip’s
> sader state gave added impetus to calls in Europe for another      return to France, Richard led a series of campaigns against
> major Crusade. Forces of the Second Crusade subsequently           Saladin and, by his departure in 1192, had aided in the
> arrived in Syria in 1147, and after heated discussion between      reestablishment of Latin control over most of the coastal
> the resident Crusaders and the new arrivals, decided to attack     cities and their immediate hinterlands.
> Damascus, ironically one of the Muslim cities whose ruler up
> to that point had coexisted with the Franks. This campaign            Saladin’s death in 1193 provided a temporary respite to
> ended in defeat for the Crusaders on the outskirts of Damas-       the Crusaders, as his successors (collectively known as the
> cus in July 1148.                                                  Ayyubids, from the name of Saladin’s father) engaged in
> struggles over preeminence in the lands that had been united
> Zangi’s career as a counter-Crusader was cut short by his      by Saladin. In these struggles, some Ayyubid princes were not
> assassination in 1146, but was continued by his son Nur al-        adverse to making temporary alliances with the Franks against
> Din. Nur al-Din expanded the area under his control, occu-         their Ayyubid rivals. The diversion of the Fourth Crusade
> pying Damascus in 1154, and, utilizing the vocabulary of           (1204) to Constantinople, which was sacked and subsequently
> jihad, he launched attacks against the Franks. In response to      occupied, did little to change this situation in Outremer.
> numerous Crusader sorties against Egypt in the 1160s, Nur          These divisions among the Ayyubids contributed to the
> al-Din sent a contingent of his forces to aid the Fatimid state.   complex narrative of the Fifth Crusade (1217–1229). Recog-
> This force was led by the Kurdish general Shirkuh, who had         nizing the strategic importance of Egypt, this crusade began
> in his service his nephew Salah al-Din Yusuf b. Ayyub,             with the Franks besieging and eventually occupying the
> subsequently known as Saladin to the Crusaders. Upon his           Egyptian port city of Damietta. In the face of intra-Ayyubid
> uncle’s death, Saladin took command of this force, and by          rivalries, the Ayyubid ruler of Egypt, al-Malik al-Kamil,
> March 1169, took control of Egypt, subsequently bringing           offered to give Jerusalem to the Franks if they would leave
> the Fatimid Caliphate to an end. Following the death of Nur        Egypt, but the Crusaders refused. By 1221, the Crusaders
> al-Din in 1174, Saladin moved against his former overlord’s        were forced out of Egypt. The Fifth Crusade came to an end
> heirs and brought Damascus and eventually most of Syria            in the bizarre events of 1228–1229, in which the emperor
> (Aleppo submitted in 1183) and the Jazira (Mosul submitted         Frederick II, excommunicated for his delays in fulfilling his
> in 1186) under his control. He then mounted a major cam-           crusading vows, successfully negotiated a treaty with al-Malik
> paign against the Franks, defeating the bulk of their forces at    al-Kamil allowing the Christians to take control of certain
> 
> 164                                                                                           Islam and the Muslim World
> Crusades
> 
> Sivas
> 
> Malazkirt
> 
> Kayseri

> (Caesarea)
> Lake Van
> A   n    a   t      o    l   i   a                                                     Malatia
> 
> Maras
> 
> Samsat                                      Mardin
> Adalia
> Tarsus
> Adana                     COUNTY                   Urfa (Edessa)                       Nisbin
> OF EDESSA
> Harra\n                 Ra&s al ^Ayn
> Alexandretta
> Membij
> H≥alab
                                                                                 Mosul
> Antioch       (Aleppo)
> PRINCIPALITY            Battle of the Field
> OF ANTIOCH             of Blood (1119)
> Ma^arrat  al Nu^ma\n
> 
> Eu
> Lataqiya
> J   a   z    i   r   a
> 
> ph
> Jabalah                         S   y   r   i   a
> 
> Tig
> r
> te
> 
> a
> Cyprus                           Tartus
                                                                  s
> 
> ris
> (Tortosa)
> 
> Ri
> 
> Ri
> ve
> Krak des Chevaliers
> 
> ver
> r
> Tripoli            H≥ims
> COUNTY
> OF TRIPOLI                       Baalbek
> Beirut
> Mediterranean Sea                                     Sidon                   Dimashq
                                                                                               Baghdad
> (Damascus)
> Tyre
> 
> ^Akka (Acre)
> Haifa             Tiberias
> Caesarea            Hattin (1187)
> Arsur (1191)               Belvoir
> Jaffa
> Al Quds

> ^Asqalan
         (Jerusalem)                                                                                                          N
> (Ascalon)
> Damietta
> Gaza Bethlehem            Krak des

> Dead Sea         Moabites
> 
> Mansura
> KINGDOM OF Kerak
> (1250)                                      JERUSALEM
> Montre;al
> 
> Petra
> Cairo
> 
> 0           50            100 mi.
> Crusader States,
> iv er
> 
> Aila

> 0      50       100 km
> 1096–1229
> le R
> 
> (Aqabah)                                                                                                             Boundaries of the
> Ni
> 
> G u lf
> 
> Crusader states, 1144
> Gulf of                                                                                                                Crusader states, 1229
> of S
> 
> Aqaba
> Crusader castle
> ue
> 
> E        g    y   p    t
> z
> 
> Battle site
> City
> Red Sea
> 
> Crusades 1096–1229. XNR PRODUCTIONS, INC./GALE
> 
> sites in Jerusalem, yet was bombarded with offal by the                                                         ruler of Egypt, al-Malik al-Salih. Upon surrender and payresidents of Acre as he left to return to Europe. The last                                                      ment of a large ransom, Louis went to Acre, where he spent
> Crusader presence in Jerusalem was eliminated in 1244, when                                                     four years strengthening fortifications before returning
> the city was sacked by Kharazmian warriors, themselves                                                          to France.
> displaced from their homelands by the Mongol invasions
> from Central Asia.                                                                                                 To understand the end of the Crusader presence in
> Outremer, one must return to events of 1249–1250. During
> The final major crusade to the Latin East was that of King                                                    the course of Louis’s Crusade in late 1249, the Ayyubid al-
> Louis IX of France (1248–1254). Louis and his forces suc-                                                       Malik al-Salih died. When his son Turanshah arrived from
> ceeded in capturing Damietta in 1249, but were subsequently                                                     Syria in early 1250 to succeed his father, he took steps to limit
> defeated at Mansura in 1250 by the forces of the late Ayyubid                                                   the influence of key groups among his father’s supporters.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                                                                                                       165
> Crusades
> 
> reign of the Sultan Qalawun, who conquered Tripoli shortly
> before his death in 1289. Upon the capture of Acre in 1291 by
> the forces of Qalawun’s son, al-Ashraf Khalil, the few Crusaders left on the coastal strip abandoned their holdings and
> fled, thus bringing Frankish presence in Outremer to an end,
> although no one at the time realized it. In order to discourage
> Crusader attempts to reoccupy the Muslim coastal cities, the
> Mamluks razed their fortifications.
> 
> The Crusades in the Muslim World Today
> A survey of scholarly literature and public discourse in the
> modern Muslim world reveals that the Crusades have great
> relevance and resonance today. They are commonly seen as
> the forerunner of the European colonial efforts of the first
> half of the twentieth century, placed in the context of perceived centuries of Western antagonism to the Islamic world,
> and often explicitly linked to the establishment of the modern
> state of Israel. (Crusade references appeared, for example, in a
> series of post–1956 Suez crisis Egyptian postage stamps
> celebrating Egypt as “Tomb of the Invader.” One stamp
> celebrates Saladin’s victory at Hattin; a second shows Louis
> IX in chains after his defeat at Mansura.) It is not uncommon
> to find references to Saladin and his victory at Hattin in
> political speeches or celebrated in books. In 1992, a largerthan-life statue of Saladin was unveiled in Damascus. The
> Crusades also figure in some modern Islamist writing, in
> Saladin, an early Muslim hero, conquered Egypt, most of Syria,     which the failures of current leaders to resist Western
> and finally even Jerusalem by 1187. His victories banished the      incursions are compared to the successes of the heroes of the
> Crusaders from most territories; they began another Crusade,
> however, by 1189. © CORBIS-BETTMANN                                counter-Crusades. And while Hillenbrand (and others) have
> pointed out the pitfalls of the anachronistic use of nationalistic labels in the study of medieval history, the symbols and
> The main target of Turanshah’s punitive actions was the            perceived lessons of the Crusades have been incorporated
> corps of his father’s mamluks, or military slaves. In his          into the rhetoric of Arab nationalist movements in particular.
> struggles against his Ayyubid rivals, al-Malik al-Salih had        Thus in the words of one Arab intellectual, the Crusades
> built up a sizable regiment of these military slaves, who while    when viewed through Arab eyes are seen as an act of rape
> still youths had been purchased as slaves from regions outside     (Maalouf, 266).
> the Islamic world and subsequently converted to Islam and
> trained in military techniques. His regiment was known as the      See also Christianity and Islam; Saladin.
> Bahri mamluks, since their barracks were located on an island
> in the river (bahr) Nile. Faced with loss of influence and
> possibly life, these mamluks of al-Malik al-Salih turned against   BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Turanshah, and murdered him shortly after the victory of
> Hillenbrand, Carole. The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives. Chi-
> Mansura.
> cago and London: Fitzroy Dearborn, 1999.
> After this regicide, the history of the subsequent decade of   Maalouf, Amin. The Crusades Through Arab Eyes. London: Al
> the history of Muslim Egypt and Syria is dominated by a              Saqi Books, 1984.
> complex struggle for power, further complicated by the
> Mayer, Hans Eberhard. The Crusades. 2d ed. Translated
> Mongol invasions. The decade ended with the definitive                by John Gillingham. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University
> establishment of the Mamluk Sultanate in 1260 by Baybars,            Press, 1986.
> one of those Bahri mamluks. After consolidating Mamluk
> control, Sultan Baybars launched his forces against the Cru-       Riley-Smith, Jonathan. The Crusades: A Short History. New
> saders, capturing Antioch (in 1268) and several major Cru-            Haven, Conn., and London: Yale University Press, 1987.
> sader castles. After Baybars’ death in 1277 there was a brief      Riley-Smith, Jonathan. The Atlas of the Crusades. London and
> lull, but attacks against the Crusaders resumed later in the          New York: Facts on File, 1991.
> 
> 166                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Custom
> 
> Runciman, Steven. A History of the Crusades. 3 vols. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1951–1954.
> 
> Warren C. Schultz
> 
> CUSTOM See 
Ada
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                     167
> D
> DAR AL-HARB                                                                  followers drew differing conclusions from his ruling, some
> believing that cooperation with the British, particularly in the
> The term dar al-harb, which literally means “the house or                    field of education, was a necessary prelude to a renewal of
> abode of war,” came to signify in classical jurisprudence a                  Islam and its cultural influence. Others were more inclined
> geopolitical reality; hence, it may also be rendered the “terri-             toward direct action with the goal of British withdrawal.
> tory” of war.
> See also Dar al-Islam.
> In the most basic sense the term indicates territory not
> governed by Islam, in contrast to territory under Islamic rule,              BIBLIOGRAPHY
> dar al-islam. More precisely, these territories are geopolitical             Kelsay, John. Islam and War: A Study in Comparative Ethics.
> units within which Islam is not the established religion, where                Louisville, Ky.: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993.
> the ruler is not a Muslim, and where there exists no mecha-                  Shaybani, Muhammad ibn Hasan al-. The Islamic Law of
> nism by which political or military leaders may seek the                       Nations. Translated by Majid Khadduri. Baltimore, Md.:
> counsel of Islamic religious specialists. Use of the phrase dar                Johns Hopkins University Press, 1966.
> al-harb further indicates the threat of war from the Muslim
> community. Muslim jurists differed on the mechanisms by                                                                           John Kelsay
> which this threat of war could become a reality. For the
> majority, the leader of the Muslims must fulfill the obligation
> of “calling” the people of a non-Islamic territory to Islam.                 DAR AL-ISLAM
> Once a people, through its rulers, refused the opportunity
> (1) to establish Islam as the state religion, or (2) to enter into a         The term dar al-islam, which literally means “the house or
> tributary arrangement with the leader of the Muslims, it was                 abode of Islam,” came to signify Islamic territory in juridical
> understood that war could follow. In accord with normative                   discussions. For the majority, it is thus suggestive of a geopotraditions, this war should be understood as an aspect of jihad,             litical unit, in which Islam is established as the religion of the
> or the struggle to “make God’s cause succeed,” specifically by                state, in contrast to dar al-harb, territory not governed by
> spreading Islamic government throughout the earth. It is                     Islam. The signs of legitimacy by which one could speak of a
> important to note that the purpose of the war to expand the                  geopolitical unit as dar al-islam would include a ruler or ruling
> territory of Islam was not to make converts, but rather to                   class whose self-identity is Islamic, some institutional mechaestablish Islamic government.                                                nisms by which consultation between the political and religious elite is possible, and a commitment to engage in political
> In modern times, the notion of dar al-harb has been
> and military struggle to extend the borders of the dar al-islam.
> employed by some Muslims to speak about territories lost to
> the forces of colonialism or, more generally, secularism. In                     For others, the relationship between dar al-islam and
> this connection, the ruling of the Shah 
Abd al-
Aziz (d. 1824)              existing political arrangements was not so easily negotiated.
> regarding the status of British India is of great interest. As he            Thus, in one tradition the proto-Shi
a leader Ja
far al-Sadiq
> had it, given British dominance in the subcontinent, India                   (d. 765) is presented as suggesting that the territory of Islam
> should no longer be considered Islamic territory. It was                     exists wherever people are free to practice Islam and to
> rather part of dar al-harb. Mirroring subsequent discussions                 engage in calling others to faith—even if the leadership in
> in Islamic political and juridical thought, 
Abd al-
Aziz’s                  such a place does not acknowledge or establish Islam as the
> 
> Da
wa
> 
> state religion. Correlatively, a territory in which the ruler or      This entry introduces the range of conceptions of da
wa,
> ruling class identifies with Islam, but where the (true) inter-     paying attention to scriptural occurrence, historical developpretation of Islamic sources is suppressed, is not dar al-islam,   ment, and, finally, modern understandings and organizations.
> but something else.
> Scriptural Occurrence
> In the modern period, one of the most vexing questions         The word da
wa is derived from an Arabic consonant-root, dfor jurists, and indeed for Muslims generally, has to do with      
-w, with several meanings, such as call, invite, persuade, pray,
> the ongoing power of the symbol of dar al-islam. The experi-       invoke, bless, demand, and achieve. Consequently, the noun
> ence of colonialism, the demise of the historic caliphate, and     da
wa has a number of connotations too. In the Quran and
> the formation of modern states present serious challenges to       the sunna, da
wa partly has a mundane meaning and refers to,
> those who would follow classical precedent and utilize this        for instance, the invitation to a wedding. Sometimes the
> symbol. One line of thought, expressed most succinctly by          mundane and spiritual meanings are interconnected. In one
> Shah 
Abd al-
Aziz (d. 1824), held that the influx of British       account of the sunna (Bukhari), the invitation to Islam is
> power meant that India was no longer dar al-islam. As such,        allegorically referred to as an invitation to a banquet. Spelled
> the Muslim community was under an obligation to struggle           with a long final vowel, the word means lawsuit.
> and bring about the restoration of Islamic influence. Others,
> by contrast, understood the classical use of the term as               Theologically, da
wa refers to the call of God to Islam,
> connected with an outmoded and even non-Islamic emphasis           conveyed by the prophets: “God summons to the Abode of
> on empire. For these, in ways analogous to the thinking of         Peace” (10:25). Like the previous prophets, Muhammad is
> Ja
far al-Sadiq, Islam “abides” wherever Muslims practice          referred to as “God’s caller” or “God’s invitor,” da
i Allah
> their religion and call others to faith.                           (46:31). God’s call has to be distinguished from the false
> da
wa of Satan (14:22). Conversely, da
wa refers to the human
> See also Dar al-Harb.
> call directed to God in (mental) prayer or invocation. The
> One God answers the da
wa directed to Him, whereas the
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> prayers of the unbelievers are futile. The human da
wa is the
> Kelsay, John. Islam and War: A Study in Comparative Ethics.
> affirmative response to the da
wa of God. It is not to be
> Louisville, Ky.: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993.
> confused with salat, ritual prayer. When referring to human
> Shaybani, Muhammad ibn Hasan al-. The Islamic Law of               prayer or invocation, the Quran makes no distinction be-
> Nations. Translated by Majid Khadduri. Baltimore, Md.:
> tween da
wa and du
a, a related form of the same consonant-
> Johns Hopkins University Press, 1966.
> root. During the course of theological history, however, the
> term du
a evolved into a particular, technical concept, de-
> John Kelsay
> scribed and regulated in philosophical and devotional works,
> not least in handbooks of prayer.
> 
> DA
WA                                                                  Apart from affirming God’s call in prayer, however, humankind is invited to live in accordance with the will of God:
> Since the late nineteenth century, conceptions of da
wa have       “Let there be one nation (umma) of you, calling to the good,
> re-emerged as central in the formulation of Islam. Da
wa is        enjoining what is right, forbidding what is wrong” (3:104).
> increasingly associated with socially vital activities, such as    Thus da
wa is intimately interconnected with shari
a, the
> edification, education, conversion, and charity. However, the       sacred law. As illustrated by verse 3:104, cited above, da
wa
> term also alludes to the Quran and the normative Islamic          also has a social dimension in the Quran. The community of
> history. Due to this combination, da
wa has become a func-         believers, the umma, who have received the invitation, shall
> tional tool in face of the challenges of modernity. Da
wa is       convey the message to others. A commonly cited verse reads:
> sometimes equated with Christian ideas of mission and              “Call men to the way of the Lord with goodness and fair
> evangelization. Muslims themselves are, as a rule, wary of that    exhortation and have arguments with them in the best mancomparison; and indeed, such translations tend to overlook         ner” (16:125). This verse, in turn, is commonly connected to
> the variations and socio-political specificity of da
wa. This       the equally familiar verse: “Let there be no compulsion in
> term has been conceptualized, institutionalized, and applied       religion” (2:256). Finally, there is an eschatological dimenfor divergent purposes throughout the course of history.           sion of da
wa. At the end of time, the archangel Jibril (Ga-
> Furthermore, Muslim endeavors to convert non-Muslims to            briel) will call humans from their graves: “Then when He
> Islam have often been understood in terms other than da
wa.        calls you by a single call from the earth, behold you come
> This is true, for instance, of the significant Sufi ventures of      forth at once” (30:25).
> recruitment, which historically largely appear to have been
> disinterested in da
wa terminology. Thus, da
wa should be             All in all, the Quranic conceptualizations of da
wa conjoin
> regarded as but one type of Islamic discourse of mobilization,     a number of fundamental principles of Islamic theology. First
> sometimes in conflict with others.                                  of all, da
wa animates Islamic doctrine into an effective
> 
> 170                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Da
wa
> 
> vocation, by interconnecting and urging humans to recog-            turned against the Abbasid Sunnites, challenging their caliphal
> nize the two core principles of the creed, as rendered in the       authority.
> shahada: “There is no god but God, and Muhammad is the
> messenger of God.” Acknowledging and responding to God’s               The Fatimids amplified the concept of da
wa in accordda
wa further means recognizing the sacredness of the umma          ance with Shi
ite doctrines of permanent revelation through
> the imams. The da
wa of the imam was held to complete the
> and implementing shari
a. Last but not least, da
wa refers to
> da
wa of the prophet Muhammad. The Fatimid da
wa difthe invitation of humankind to afterlife. It is, thus, hardly
> fered from the Abbasid da
wa in that it did not cease after the
> surprising that da
wa sometimes is presented as interchangeestablishment of the dynasty. Rather, it became increasingly
> able with the concept of Islam itself.
> organized and extensive. Da
wa was thus institutionalized,
> Historical Development                                              integrating political claims with theological elaboration, cen-
> After the death of Muhammad (632 C.E.), the leadership of the       tered around several educational institutions, most notably
> Muslim community became a controversial issue. A group              the al-Azhar University of Cairo. In areas controlled by the
> called Shi
at 
Ali, later to be known as Shi
a, argued that 
Ali,   Fatimids, their da
wa propaganda was overt, while the mes-
> Muhammad’s cousin and son-in-law, and his descendants               sage was transmitted more secretly in other regions.
> were the rightful caliphs, that is, vicegerents of the Prophet.
> In a functional perspective, the core of the Fatimid use of
> 
Ali was eventually appointed caliph, and he is included as the
> da
wa was similar to that of the Sunnite Abbasids. The
> fourth among the first four caliphs who Sunnites generally
> amplification of da
wa among these competing groups incelebrated as righteous. In 661 he was killed, however, and
> volved an understanding of political propaganda and aspirathe Umayyad dynasty, based in Damascus, established a               tions based on theological criticism against other rulers. In
> hereditary rule. During the eighth century, the legitimacy of       both cases, thus, the core concern was the leadership issue.
> the Umayyads was increasingly put into question. Based in           The Quranic term da
wa was rendered relevant primarily in
> Baghdad, the Abbasids were accusing them for claiming               the context of claims to political power. The Fatimid idea that
> kingship, mulk, thus vesting human leadership with an attrib-       propagation and acceptance of Islam should not be regarded
> ute and power that only God possesses. The lavish customs of        as a singular event, but as a continuous process, forebears
> the Damascus court underscored the anti-Umayyad da
wa.              central themes in modern uses of da
wa.
> 
> In this sense, da
wa came to inherit a religio-political            From the time of the Fatimids to early modern times, that
> dimension, being the call to accept the rightful leadership of a    is the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, there are
> certain individual or family. Da
wa in the religio-political        surprisingly few references to the concept of da
wa. Paradoxisense aimed at establishing or restoring the ideal theocratic       cally, da
wa discourses seem to have entered a phase of
> state, based on monotheism. Here da
wa can be understood as         recession despite the significant expansion of Islam that
> political propaganda inflated by Quranic terminology. In            occurred in both Asia and Africa. Two of the reasons for this
> spite of variations in the use of the term throughout history,      recession may be the legal formalism and the development of
> this has been a recurring tendency.                                 Sufism. While the Abbasid and Fatimid regimes relied on an
> Islamic ambience in which da
wa held a politically central and
> Da
wa thus became mainly an internal Muslim matter.             strategic importance, Sufis were able to spread their message
> However, the external aspect of da
wa, “calling mankind,”           without such an ambience. Authority was vested in their
> acquired increasing juridical importance in connection with         leaders or shaykhs, who were often victims of state-centered
> the military expansion of Islam. According to the classical         persecution. Such a model of authority facilitated the transtheory of jihad of the early Muslim conquests, warfare against      plantation of Islam to new regions, where mass conversions
> non-Muslims could not be undertaken, nor could the protec-          could take place. It is true that, with the exception of the
> tive tax of non-Muslims, jizya, be levied, had not a summons        earliest period, when Sufis were largely individualistic and
> to Islam, da
wa, been issued. During the late eighth century        ascetic, Sufism has frequently been politically important.
> four madhahib (madhhab), schools of Sunni law (fiqh), devel-         However, the logic of Sufi expansion has usually been essenoped. Here da
wa was formalized into a set of judicial princi-      tially different from state-centered or establishment Islam
> ples and rules included in martial law.                             and, as a consequence, not in need of conceptions of da
wa in
> the religio-political sense.
> An important example of the application of da
wa in
> history is the case of the Shi
ite Fatimids. Between 969 and            Since da
wa as early as in the eighth century was a formal
> 1171 they ruled a vast empire, with Cairo as the capital. For       concept included in martial law, it became part of the Islamic
> the Fatimids, who belong to the Isma
ili branch of Shi
a,           jurisprudence, fiqh. From the tenth century onward, Sunnite
> da
wa meant the appeal to give allegiance to the seventh            leaders held the apparatus of fiqh as finalized. Thus, the gates
> imam, Muhammad b. Isma
il. Initially, their propaganda was          of ijtihad, (new interpretations based on the main sources of
> directed against followers of the main branch of Shi
a, the         Islamic law), the Quran, and the sunna, were regarded by
> Imamis or Twelvers. As their power grew, the Fatimid da
wa          many jurists as closed. Legal matters were henceforth to be
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                     171
> Da
wa
> 
> guided by taqlid, imitation of previous rulings. With the rise    attempted to launch his small organization, Jami
yat alof taqlid-oriented fiqh, the learned scholars, ulema and fuqaha,   Da
wah wal-Irshad, as a cornerstone of pan-Islamism, indiwere installed as its lawful, if largely impotent, administra-    cating the constancy of the political dimension of da
wa
> tors. When the quest for authority through personal inter-        conceptions. Of more lasting impact, however, were the
> pretation (ijtihad) and opinion (fatwa) was rendered impossible   Salafiyya efforts to strengthen Islamic awareness and solidaror at least heavily curtailed, there was little or no need for    ity in face of modernity. Thus, da
wa increasingly was underda
wa discourse. In this sense, the authority of institutional    stood in terms of edification and, most prominently, education,
> law appears to have contributed to circumventing the central-     tarbiya.
> ity of the concept of da
wa, which was primarily understood in
> terms of the connection between religious legitimacy and              The disruptive period of Islamic reformism around the
> political power.                                                  turn of the nineteenth century also saw the birth of the
> Ahmadiyya, founded in 1889 in India by Mirza Ghulam
> It should be noted, finally, that at least one example of       Ahmad (d. 1908). Due to its deviant doctrines (such as the
> da
wa activity since Fatimid times has been recorded by           claims of Ahmad to have received new revelations from God
> scholars, namely a correspondence between the rulers of the       and to be, among other things, an incarnation of Krishna),
> Ottoman and the Safavid Empires during the early sixteenth        most Muslims do not accept Ahmadiyya as a part of Islam.
> century. This controversy over religio-political authority        Nonetheless, the movement has persisted as a very active
> carries many similarities with the struggle between Abbasids      da
wa organization, concentrating particularly on publication.
> and Fatimids. There may well have been others too. Thus,
> one cannot rule out scholarly omission or lack of interest as         During the twentieth century, the Salafiyya ideal of tarbiya
> partly responsible for the silence of da
wa after the early       made a lasting impact on the understandings of da
wa. As of
> centuries of Islam.                                               the 1930s, however, the political as well as the educational
> and devotional aspects of da
wa were understood and used in
> Modern Times                                                      partly novel ways. A preceding event of paradigmatic impor-
> European colonialism and Christian mission brought Mus-           tance was the abolition of the caliphate in 1924. Da
wa
> lims into intense encounters with non-Muslim ideas and            increasingly became an endeavor to reform the individual,
> practices. The processes of modernity (secularization, in-        rather than the public, institutions of society. Thus, society
> dividualism, social reorganization, etc.) increasingly trans-     was to be Islamized “from below.” This vision can be ascribed
> formed Muslim societies. Technological, educational, and          mainly to Hassan al-Banna (d. 1949) and Abu l-A
la Maududi
> infrastructural changes made a lasting impact, and deeply         (d. 1979), who were both of towering importance for the
> rooted Islamic ideas and ways of life were put into question.     conception of da
wa among later generations of Islamists.
> Facing such challenges, many Muslims felt a need to reconsider or defend Islam, as well as to inform non-Muslims about         Founder in 1928 of the Muslim Brotherhood (al-Ikhwan
> Islamic principles and creeds. In this context, partly novel      al-Muslimin), al-Banna spoke of da
wa as the call to “true
> conceptualizations of da
wa claimed a core position in the        Islam.” With an allegoric reference to hijra, Muhammad’s
> Islamic debates and practices.                                    emigration from Mecca to Medina, al-Banna urged Muslims
> to abandon the materialism and superficial pleasures of soci-
> A precursor for the modern use of da
wa was the Ottoman        ety. By living in accordance with Islamic rules, Muslims will
> sultan 
Abd al-Hamid II, who ruled between 1876 and 1909.         restore an “Islamic Order” and, eventually, establish an
> Claiming the title of caliph, he took on the responsibility for   Islamic state.
> the umma. He included the concept of da
wa in his “imperial
> ideology” and intended to lead Muslims like the Pope leads            Maududi was more favorable to direct political action and
> the Catholics. Hence, this is an example of a modern use of       mobilization. His organizational base, Jama
at-e Islami, was
> da
wa discourse for the sake of religio-political authority.      set up as a regular political party, although it has gained
> significance primarily as an informal network. Maududi agreed
> Of more lasting impact with regard to the rethinking of       with al-Banna’s da
wa strategy of internal reform from below.
> da
wa was the Salafiyya movement, the leading figures of            However, instead of envisioning an Islamic order, he launched
> which were Jamal al-Din al-Afghani (d. 1897), Muhammad            the popular concept of the “Islamic movement,” al-Haraka
> 
Abduh (d. 1905), and Rashid Rida (d. 1935). Inspired par-        al-Islamiyya. Here da
wa is aimed at creating an Islamic state
> ticularly by Ibn Taymiyya’s (d. 1329) early critique of taqlid    of mind and a matrix of life rather than an institutional order.
> and legal formalism, they called for the reform of Islamic law
> by reopening the gates of ijtihad. The movement also took a          A different methodology of da
wa was suggested by Tablighi
> decisively critical stance to the influence of secular and         Jama
at, founded by Mawlana Muhammad Ilyas in 1927. This
> Christian ideas. Both al-Afghani and, later, Rida were con-       movement of Sufi background turns its back on political
> nected to the pan-Islamic movement that aimed at uniting          activity and concentrates on the devotional life. Yet, it em-
> Muslim peoples under the Ottoman caliphate. Rida even             phasizes the centrality of da
wa in terms of a missionary duty.
> 
> 172                                                                                           Islam and the Muslim World
> Da
wa
> 
> The Sufi background is highlighted by the centrality of the           charities, distribution of Islamic literature, international conform of prayer called dhikr (remembrance). By repeating              ferences, and festivals, not least in Europe. Notably, this
> prayers many times each day, an Islamization of daily life is        support predominantly favored Islamist-oriented movements,
> envisioned. Ilyas himself distinctly deviated from the charac-       such as the Deobandi-inspired communities of Britain.
> ter of al-Banna and Maududi and did not stand out as a
> religious scholar, either as a speaker or writer. This he                Previously, Muslims had been largely opposed to reliefcompensated by missionary zeal and novel strategies of or-           work and social-welfare concerns as part of da
wa endeavors,
> ganization and education. In fact, the theological simplicity        criticizing Christian missions for using such efforts in order
> of the Tablighi’s da
wa appears as a key to popular success.         to make proselytes. Increasingly, however, charity directed
> primarily to Muslims has become an integral part of much
> The prerequisites for acting as a Tablighi da
i are based on
> da
wa work. It may even be argued that the provision of social
> familiarity with basic Islamic doctrines and traditions, the
> amenities is one of the main aspects of Islamism.
> practice of salat and dhikr, respect of other Muslims, and
> sincerity in actions. Da
wa is to be performed as voluntary             As a reaction to the Saudi influence on organizations like
> preaching of the message in small groups. Instead of, for            the Muslim World League, new da
wa instruments were
> instance, publishing books or arranging publicly visible events      formed in other countries. In Libya, for instance, Mu
ammar
> and campaigns at university campuses, da
wa is performed             al-Qadhdhafi established the Islamic Call Society, Jam
iyat
> from door to door. The Tablighi communities, not least               al-Da
wah al-Islamiyya, in 1972, concentrating on da
wa
> among Muslim minorities around the world, are built on               efforts in sub-Saharan Africa. A decisive blow on Saudi
> close, personal relations and social support.                        Arabian hegemony was the Iranian revolution of 1979. The
> da
wa efforts of the Iranian Islamic Information Organization
> Some years after the Second World War, when the largeonce again highlighted the question of political legitimacy.
> scale process of decolonization started, modern da
wa activi-
> During the war against Iraq in the 1980s, Iran increasingly
> ties increased in an even more rapid speed. Gradually, da
wa
> emphasized its Shi
ite foundation, thus loosening the slack on
> developed into a key concept for cultural identity and politi-
> Saudi Arabia. The tensions between Saudi Arabia and the
> cal change. Jamal 
Abd al-Nasser, who ruled Egypt between
> increasingly independent da
wa organizations have increased
> 1952 and 1970, built up a da
wa network in the Middle East
> since the Persian Gulf War in the early 1990s, when Saudi
> and Africa. He championed the cause of Islamic socialism and
> Arabia supported the military coalition led by the United
> pan-Arabism, which influenced nationalist leaders in many             States. Saudi Arabia was heavily criticized by Muslim organipredominantly Muslim countries, such as Algeria, Syria,              zations all over the world, and some lost the Saudi support of
> and Iraq.                                                            petrodollars.
> Other Muslim leaders challenged the socialist, nationalist,          In the late twentieth century, new da
wa organizations
> and secularist aspects of postcolonial development and took          cropped up all over the Muslim world, including in Europe
> recourse to a more classic understanding of da
wa. Most              and North America. Moreover, many governments set up
> notably, Saudi Arabia’s King Faysal challenged, and eventu-          da
wa departments for education and propaganda, particually took over, Nasser’s leading role, by stressing the ideal of a   larly in the universities. In Pakistan, for example, the Univertransnational, Muslim solidarity based on Islam, not Arabism.        sity of Islamabad in 1985 created a Da
wah Academy for
> In 1962, Saudi Arabia founded the Muslim World League,               training da
wa workers, producing and distributing literature
> Rabitat al-
alam al-Islami, for promoting international da
wa        in several languages as well as organizing conferences, special
> efforts. This was one year after the establishment of an             courses, and other events. The academy has an extensive
> Islamic university in Medina for the training of da
wa work-         international network of cooperating da
wa organizations,
> ers. The activities of the Muslim World League increased in          including the Muslim World League. Another important
> the 1970s when several councils, such as the World Council           da
wa organization, whose primary objective is to propagate
> of Mosques, were formed. The idea of promoting interna-              Islam through missionary activities, is the Islamic Propagational Islamic cooperation through the Council of Mosques            tion Centre International (IPCI), which was started in 1982
> was partly inspired by the previous establishment of the             by Ahmed Deedat in Durban. It was preceded by the Islamic
> World Council of Churches. The Muslim World League                   Propagation Centre, founded in 1957. Particularly signifi-
> cooperated with the governments of certain countries, such           cant in Europe and North America, the IPCI has concenas Egypt, after Nasser had been followed by Anwar Sadat. As          trated on polemics against Christianity. The increasing interest
> a result, the World Assembly of Muslim Youth was founded             in social welfare as a part of da
wa work was reflected, for
> in 1972. Due to the the oil boom of the 1970s, enormous oil          instance, in the formation in 1988 by the Muslim World
> revenues allowed countries like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to           League of the World Muslim Committee for Da
wah and
> lend most substantial support to the Islamic movement that           Relief. Education and health care is on the program of many
> worked for the (re)establishment of “true” Islam. Funds were         da
wa organizations, like the Indonesian Diwan Dawat alused for, among other things, Islamic research projects,             Islam and the West African Ansar al-Islam.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                       173
> Dawla
> 
> Among Muslim intellectuals, not least in Europe and           Rahnema, Ali, ed. Pioneers of Islamic Revival. London: Zed
> North America, da
wa to a significant degree has been associ-        Books, 1994.
> ated with interfaith dialogue. Thus, Quranic injunctions         Schimmel, Annemarie. Sufismus: Eine Einführung in die
> such as “Invite all to the Way of thy Lord” (16: 125) have been      islamische Mystik. Munich: Beck, 2000.
> reinterpreted in an ecumenical sense. Proponents of inter-        Sharon, Moshe. Black Banners from the East. Jerusalem:
> faith dialogue such as Mahmoud Ayoub, Hasan 
Askari,                Magners, 1983
> Khurshid Ahmad, Mohammad Talbi, Isma
il al-Faruqi, and            Siddiqui, Ataullah. Christian-Muslim Dialogue in the Twentieth
> Seyyed Hossein Nasr agree on the need for ijtihad and the            Century. London: Macmillan, 1997.
> contextualization of shari
a, and they have excluded proselytism from the conceptions of da
wa.                                                                              Christer Hedin
> Torsten Janson
> However, the visions of al-Banna and Maududi are con-                                                      David Westerlund
> tinuously present, especially in European and North American organizations. Two examples are the International Institute
> of Islamic Thought (IIIT) in the United States, founded by
> al-Faruqi, and the Islamic Foundation in United Kingdom,          DAWLA
> an offshoot of the Jama
at-e Islami, headed for many years by
> Maududi’s disciple, Khurram Murad. The conception of              The Arabic word dawla is derived from the root D-W-L,
> da
wa among such organizations combines ecumenical efforts        meaning “to turn, alternate, or come around in a cyclical
> with insistence on edification and mobilization among Mus-         fashion.” The Quran (59:7), for example, speaks of the
> lims, predominantly by book publishing and, increasingly, by      Prophet’s distribution of the spoils of war to those in need,
> engagement in the political and educational systems of the        “so that it may not [merely] make the circuit (dulatan) among
> Western societies.                                                the wealthy of you.” Another Quranic reference (3:140)
> speaks of the cyclical nature of human vicissitudes, so that
> See also Conversion; Expansion; Jama
at-e Islami;                 triumph one day is replaced by defeat another day. This sense
> Shari
a.                                                          of alternating periods of fortune and misfortune led Arab
> writers to use the word dawla when speaking of dynastic
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                      succession, particularly in the period after the rise of Abbasid
> Arnold, Thomas W. The Preaching of Islam: A History of the        power. The Abbasid “turn” in power had come, just as earlier
> Propagation of the Muslim Faith, 3d ed. London: Luzac, 1935.    the Umayyads had had their turn before being overthrown.
> Baldick, Julian. Mystical Islam: An Introduction to Sufism.           As the Abbasid house became entrenched in power, how-
> London: Tauris, 2000.                                          ever, the dynastic sense of dawla became conflated with
> Canard, Marius. “Da
wa.” In Vol. 2, Encyclopedia of Islam.        notions of the empire or state that this family ruled. Pre-
> Leiden: Brill, 1965.                                            modern Muslim writers, like their Western contemporaries,
> Eickelman, Dale, and Piscatori, James. Muslim Politics. Prince-   did not generally speak in the abstract of the state apart from
> ton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1996.                   those who actually wielded power at any given time. For
> Faruqi, Ismail R al-. “On the Nature of Islamic Da’wah.” In       example, Ibn Khaldun’s use of dawla signifies, as Franz
> Islam and Other Faiths. Leicester: The Islamic Founda-         Rosenthal notes, that “a state exists only insofar as it is held
> tion, 1998.                                                    together and ruled by individuals and the group which they
> Halm, Heinz. Shi’ism. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University             constitute, that is, the dynasty. When the dynasty disappears,
> Press, 1991.                                                    the state, being identical with it, also comes to an end.” (Ibn
> Janson, Torsten. “Da
wa: Islamic Missiology in Discourse          Khaldun, Muqaddimah).
> and History.” Swedish Missiological Themes 89, no. 3
> With the advent of Turkish and Kurdish governors under
> (2001): 355–415.
> the nominal authority of the later Abbasid caliphs, titles
> Köse, Ali. Conversion to Islam: A Study of Native British Con-    composed of the word al-dawla combined with an honorific
> verts. Padstow: Kegan Paul International, 1996.
> adjective became commonplace. Such titles as nasir al-dawla
> Otayek, René, ed. Le radicalisme islamique au sud du Sahara:      or sayf al-dawla could be rendered equally as “helper” and
> Da’wa, arabisation et critiques de l’Occident. Paris:           “sword,” respectively, of the state, the body politic, the
> Karthala, 1993.
> government, or the dynasty, all of which were identified
> Popovic, Alexandre, and Veinstein, Gilles, eds. Les voies         (albeit theoretically) as a common entity.
> d’Allah: Les ordres mystiques dans l’islam des origines à
> aujourd’hui. Paris: Fayard, 1996.                                  In the nineteenth century, as Western distinctions be-
> Poston, Larry. Islamic Da’wah in the West: Muslim Missionary      tween the state and the government began to filter into
> Activity and the Dynamics of Conversion to Islam. Oxford:       Muslim countries, dawla became increasingly disentangled
> Oxford University Press, 1992.                                  from its more personalistic connotations and began to be
> 
> 174                                                                                           Islam and the Muslim World
> Death
> 
> used almost exclusively in the sense of “state.” Thus, the            view is that death is the fate prescribed by God for all living
> 1861 Tunisian constitution, the first promulgated in a Mus-            things, and that the event itself marks a transition or journey
> lim country, was known as qanun al-dawla. Framed under                of the soul from worldly existence in the body to bodily
> European pressure, the constitution consciously sought to             resurrection and immortal life in either paradise (janna) or
> differentiate the traditional powers of the bey, the ruler of         hell (nar and jahannam). In Islamic eschatology, as in rabbinic
> Tunisia, from the new constitutional regime of the state              Judaism, God delegated the power of death to an angel of
> under which even the bey was theoretically subordinate. To            awesome appearance who separates the soul from the body.
> differentiate it from the state, which was relatively unchanging, the idea of the government and its personnel, which came             Death (maut) is a dominant theme in the Quran, where it
> and went, was connoted now by the term hukuma.                        is closely linked with the understanding of life (haya) and
> belief in God. Thus, “God has possession of the heavens and
> Dawla in contemporary Arabic (devlet in Turkish) is used           the earth, he gives life and death” (9:116). Death is an
> in the sense of the nation-state, and encompasses the full            eventuality that all living souls shall “taste” (3:185, 21:35),
> range of meanings associated with that term in English,               and precipitates their inevitable return to God (10:56). The
> including a community of citizens residing within a given set         Quran even speaks of human existence as being defined by
> of territorial boundaries as well as the political authority          two deaths and two births: nonexistence and entry into
> under which they live. The League of Arab States is thus              worldly life, then death and resurrection in the hereafter
> rendered as Jami
at al-Duwal al-
Arabiyya (duwal being the            (2:28, 22:66). The return to God leads to the final reckoning
> plural of dawla) and anything “international” is rendered as          and immortality for the blessed in paradise and for the
> dawli or duwali.                                                      damned in hell. Moreover, a special reward is promised those
> killed on God’s “path,” who are also said to be alive with God,
> One also finds in contemporary Islamist writings the
> not dead (3:157, 3:169, 22:58). In Quranic narratives of
> neologism dawla Islamiyya, or “Islamic state.” This concept is
> sacred history, death is depicted as affliction suffered by
> invariably not well defined, but it reflects the holistic approphets at the hands of unbelievers (2:61, 3:21), and as a
> proach to religion and state that is at the core of the fundapunishment meted out by God to unbelievers (25:35–40).
> mentalist project. The Islamic state, unlike secular national
> Ethical and juridical passages place a high value on human life
> states, is one in which shari
a, or divine law, is fully applied as
> (4:29, 5:32, 6:151, 17:31), but call for death as a punishment
> the only legal code in the state. Beyond this general aspirafor those who war against God and Muhammad (5:33). The
> tion, the specifics of what constitutes shari
a, how shari
a
> schools of Muslim jurisprudence later delineated with more
> principles are to be discerned or interpreted, and how nonprecision the kinds of offenses that required capital punish-
> Muslims are to be accommodated within the Islamic state are
> ment, as well as mitigating factors (hudud).
> all highly contested issues.
> Burial and mourning are rites of passage that are codified
> See also Hukuma al-islamiyya, al- (Islamic Governin fiqh literature. They involve declaration of the shahada by
> ment); Ibn Khaldun; Political Organization; Shari
a.
> or on behalf of the dying person, and a cleansing of the body
> (ghusl), followed by enshrouding. Within a few hours of the
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                          death, a party of men transport the body to the cemetery,
> Ayalon, Ami. Language and Change in the Arab Middle East:             where it is buried facing toward Mecca. Funerary prayers may
> The Evolution of Modern Arabic Political Discourse. New             be performed at the grave site itself, or at a mosque on the way
> York: Oxford University Press, 1987.                                to the cemetery. Jurists prohibit women from participating in
> Enayat, Hamid. Modern Islamic Political Thought. Austin:              funerals, even if the deceased is female. Burial at sea is
> University of Texas Press, 1982.                                    permitted if landfall is not possible. If the body of the
> Ibn Khaldun. Muqaddimah. Translated by Franz Rosenthal.               deceased is not recoverable, funerary prayers are still re-
> Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1967.                 quired. Martyrs’ bodies remain unwashed and are interred in
> Lewis, Bernard. The Political Language of Islam. Chicago:             their bloodstained garments without prescribed prayers, re-
> University of Chicago Press, 1988.                                  flecting conditions of combat and a belief that they will
> immediately gain paradise. In all cases, the bereaved are
> Sohail H. Hashmi       urged to mourn in dignity for up to three days only, for
> excessive grieving is an affront to God, the giver of life and
> death. Grieving may also enhance the suffering of the soul of
> the deceased. Nonetheless, participation in funerals and vis-
> DEATH                                                                 iting cemeteries are endorsed as occasions for cultivating
> piety and remembering the fate awaiting all creatures.
> The end of human life is a central concern of Muslim thought
> and occasions a variety of ritual practices connected to the             Ulema and indigenous cultural traditions in the Middle
> dying process, burial, and mourning. The most widely held             East, Asia, Africa, and recently Europe and the Americas have
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                       175
> Deoband
> 
> shaped Muslim beliefs and practices pertaining to death and          O’Shaughnessy, Thomas. Muhammad’s Thoughts on Death.
> immortality. A rich and diverse body of eschatological litera-         Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1969.
> ture developed in medieval Islam that included narratives            Smith, Jane Idleman, and Haddad, Yvonne Yazbeck. The
> about the exemplary deaths of prophets and saints, visionary           Islamic Understanding of Death and Resurrection. Albany:
> accounts of the torments of the grave, the death angels, and           State University of New York Press, 1981.
> the intermediate condition of the soul between death and
> resurrection (barzakh), as well as detailed descriptions of the                                               Juan Eduardo Campo
> pleasures of paradise and punishments of hell. The major
> kalam schools defended Islamic doctrines about resurrection
> and final judgment against the influence of various Christian,
> Jewish, sectarian, mystical, and philosophical teachings. The        DEOBAND
> deaths of the imams, particularly Husayn, came to hold a
> Deoband, a country town ninety miles northeast of Delhi, has
> dominant place in Twelver Shi
ite doctrine and ritual pracgiven its name to ulema associated with the Indo-Pakistani
> tice. Sufis taught that death obliges seekers to engage in
> reformist movement centered in the seminary founded there
> greater self-scrutiny, as the qualities of life after death reflect
> in 1867. A striking dimension of Islamic religious life in
> those of their worldly existence. Other mystics understood
> colonial India was the emergence of several apolitical, inwardpain and death both as the experience of separation from God
> looking movements, among them not only the Deobandis but
> the Beloved and as metaphors for ecstatic annihilation (fana)
> the so-called “Barelwis,” the much smaller Ahl-e Hadis/Ahl-i
> of the self in him, as exemplified by al-Hallaj (d. 922). To
> Hadith, and the controversial Ahmadiyya. The Deobandi,
> achieve “death before dying,” was to attain spiritual union
> Barelwi, and Ahl-e Hadis ulema not only responded to Hindu
> with the divine. A few mystics and philosophers, contrary to
> and Christian proselytizing, but engaged in public debate,
> orthodox belief, advocated belief in metempsychosis (tanasukh)
> polemical writings, and exchanges of fatawa among themand denied the reality of personal death, resurrection, judgselves. Each fostered devotion to the prophet Muhammad as
> ment, and heaven and hell.
> well as fidelity to his practice; each thought itself the correct
> In many Muslim communities, death has been seen as a             interpreter of hadith, the guide to that practice. All depended
> contagious threat to domestic prosperity caused by the evil          on means of communication, above all print, as well as on
> eye and malevolent spirits rather than a direct result of God’s      institutional changes that came with British colonial rule.
> will. Mourning practices vary widely, but they routinely
> The Dar al-
Ulum at Deoband utilized the organizational
> entail expressions of profound grief, especially by women,
> model of British colonial schools. Its goal was to hold Musand include prayer gatherings and meals for up to a year after
> lims to a standard of correct individual practice in a time of
> the loss of a loved one. Moreover, most Muslims recount
> considerable social change, and, to that end, to create a class
> visions of the dead in their dreams and believe that the saintly
> of formally trained and popularly supported ulema to serve as
> dead, especially the prophet Muhammad and his descenimams, guardians, and trustees of mosques and tombs, preachdants, have the power to intercede on their behalf both in this
> ers, muftis, spiritual guides, writers, and publishers of religworld and in the hereafter. Saints’ tombs, found in most
> ious works. At the end of its first centenary in 1967, Deoband
> Muslim communities, have consequently evolved into imcounted almost ten thousand graduates, including several
> portant pilgrimage and cultural centers. Since the nineteenth
> hundred from foreign countries. Hundreds of Deobandi
> century, some Muslim writers have adapted European
> schools, moreover, have been founded across the Indian
> spiritualism to traditional Islamic understandings of death
> subcontinent and now in the West as well.
> and the afterlife, while Islamists have revived discourses
> about the tortures of the grave, the corporal punishments of             The Deobandis followed Shah Wali Allah Dihlawi
> hell, and the bodily pleasures of paradise to advance their          (1702–1763) in their shift from emphasis on the “rational
> radical political and moral agendas.                                 sciences” to an emphasis on the “revealed sciences” of the
> Quran and, above all, hadith. Unlike him, however, they
> See also 
Ibadat; Jahannam; Janna; Pilgrimage: Ziyara.               have been staunch Hanafis in jurisprudence. They have also
> been Sufi guides, bound together by shared spiritual net-
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                         works, especially Chishti Sabiri. Among the most influential
> Campo, Juan Eduardo. The Other Sides of Paradise: Explora-           writers was Maulana Ashraf 
Ali Thanawi (1864–1943), who
> tions into the Religious Meanings of Domestic Space in Islam.      published scholarly works on Quran, hadith, and Sufism. He
> Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1991.                also wrote an encyclopedic guide for Muslim women, Bihishti
> Ghazali, Abu Hamid al-. The Remembrance of Death and the             Zewar, disseminating correct practice, reform of custom, and
> Afterlife (Kitab dhikr al-mawt wa-ma ba
dahu): Book XL of          practical knowledge.
> the Revival of the Religious Sciences (Ihya 
ulum al-din).
> Translated by T. J. Winter. Cambridge: Islamic Texts                  After about 1910, individual Deobandis began to be in-
> Society, 1995.                                                     volved in politics in opposition to British rule in India and
> 
> 176                                                                                              Islam and the Muslim World
> Devotional Life
> 
> also to British intervention in the Ottoman lands. Many             need for the “sacramental” aspect: to touch or be near and
> Deobandis supported the Khilafat movement after World               close to the object of veneration, believed to have healing or
> War I in support of the Ottoman ruler as khalifa of all             intercessional powers.
> Muslims, and were also strong supporters of the Jam
iyat
> 
Ulama-e Hind who was allied with the Indian National                   The term devotion can therefore only be used for the
> Congress and opposed to the creation of Pakistan. The               widest variety of forms of engaged, affectionate worship:
> apolitical strand within the school’s teaching has taken shape      from the 
ibadat to the veneration of the prophet Muhammad
> for many in the widespread, now transnational, pietist move-        (for example, in the celebration of his birthday, Ar. mawlid),
> ment known since the 1920s as Tablighi Jama
at. The popu-           saints (awliya), or intermediary beings such as the jinn and
> lar writings of Maulana Muhammad Zakariyya Kandhalavi               zar spirits, taking place within a wide variety of institutional
> (1897–1982), associated with the second major Deobandi              settings, and under the guidance of a particular leadership.
> school in India, the Mazahir-e 
Ulum in Saharanpur, are             Hence, devotional life refers here in the first place to a broad
> utilized extensively in the movement. In Pakistan, the Jam
iyat     range of personal, popular behaviors and beliefs that stand in
> 
Ulama-e Islam party represents Deobandi ulema. In striking         a dialectical relationship with scriptural orthodoxies of varicontrast, the Taliban movement, which emerged in Afghani-           ous kinds and varieties. The reasons for this tension may vary:
> stan in the 1990s, had its origins among refugees in Deobandi       Many practices are without precedent in the time of the
> schools in Pakistan and also identifies itself as Deobandi.          Prophet (bida
s), and there may be forms of reprehensible
> moral behavior such as joint gatherings of men and women,
> See also Education; Jam
iyat 
Ulama-e Islam; Law; South             and particular forms of trance. However, it is the alleged
> Asia, Islam in; Tablighi Jama
at.                                   veneration of mortal and created human beings instead of
> God, the Creator, which is condemned as shirk.
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Devotional life in Islam has yet to be mapped and its
> Metcalf, Barbara Daly. Islamic Revival in British India: Deoband    history is still to be written. So far, most studies have focused
> l860–l900. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
> on written sources (such as Padwick, Muslim Devotions; Ayoub,
> Press, 1982.
> Redemptive Suffering): small books and booklets, pamphlets,
> Thanawi, Maulana Ashraf 
Ali. Perfecting Women: Maulana             and manuscripts (amulets) that can be purchased in small
> Ashraf 
Ali Thanawi’s Bihishti Zewar. Berkeley: University        bookshops, in the streets, and at religious institutions. Among
> of California Press, 1990.
> them are many prayer manuals and devotional texts, often
> originating in the ritual practices of one of the mystical
> Barbara D. Metcalf       traditions, the subject of Padwick’s classic study. The pamphlets may be written by classical authors, most often mystics,
> such as the famous 
Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani (d. 1166), but there
> are also many modern authors.
> DEVOTIONAL LIFE
> Devotion to the Prophet is a dominant element in many
> The meaning and analytical value of the phrase “devotional          Sufi movements. A very popular text is the Dalail al-khayrat
> life” needs clarification in the case of Islam. “Devotional” is      (Guide to happiness) by the Moroccan mystic al-Jazuli (d.
> derived from the Latin term devotio, which was originally the       1465). In it, the 201 names of the Prophet occupy an imporname of a ritual in Roman religion, and became predomi-             tant place, as well as the tasliya, or prayer on the Prophet,
> nantly a Christian term, which in the Middle Ages and in            which reads in translation: “O God, send your blessing [salli ]
> modern speech means the obedient submission to God. The             on our Lord Muhammad and on the family of our Lord
> theologian John Renard defines devotion as “the elements of          Muhammad and greet them with peace!” The family of the
> personal investment”—energy, feeling, time, substance—              Prophet is sometimes taken very broadly and may include all
> that characterize a Muslim communal and individual re-              people of belief. In Shi
ite books it also includes all the 
Alids.
> sponse to the experience of God’s ways of dealing with them.
> The Islamic-Arabic term closest to devotio may be ikhlas (cf. S.        In popular pamphlets older texts such as the Qasidat al-
> 4:146, speaking about those who “akhlasu dinahum lillah,”           burda by al-Busiri may be found together with modern texts,
> that is, are sincere in their obedience to God), but this term is   forming handbooks of devotion for individual and communal
> not used in religious studies in the same way as it is used in      life. Padwick lists different types of ritual forms in addition to
> Constance Padwick’s classic Muslim Devotions. Even though           the term salat, which may indicate the obligatory salat, the
> the devotional practices as described below include the “ca-        voluntary (nafila) salats, and salats for special occasions, as
> nonical” rituals (
ibadat) as well, one assumes that in quantita-   well as the prayer on the Prophet. These include 
ibada, which
> tive terms a great part of devotional life takes place outside      refers to the outward aspects, and wazifa or ratib, the daily
> the prescribed rituals even though it remains closely con-          individual devotional office. In addition to forms Padwick
> nected and intertwined with them. As in other religious             mentions different types of texts: munajat, or conversations
> traditions, many aspects of devotional life seem to fulfill a        between God and Prophets or other saintly persons; du
a, a
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                        177
> Devotional Life
> 
> grave). Devotional life should also be approached through
> music and literary works of prose and poetry. For example, in
> his autobiographical work Ein Leben mit dem Islam (A Life
> with Islam; 1999), Nasr Abu Zaid reminds us that recitation
> of the Quran had spiritual as well as aesthetic and physical
> aspects. Another interesting autobiography, and an important source for devotional life of a woman in the Islamist
> movement, is that of Zaynab al-Ghazali.
> 
> Studies into devotional life based on field work exist, but
> do not abound and is only rarely the subject of a monograph.
> One may think of the accounts by Edward Lane (Manners and
> Customs of the Modern Egyptians; 1846), Snouck Hurgronje of
> life in Mecca, Edward Westermarck’s Ritual and Religion in
> Morocco, Usha Sanyal on Barelwi devotions (although it focuses on fatwas rather than on field work), Abdul Hamid El
> Zein’s study of saint veneration in Lamu, John Bowen’s
> Muslims Through Discourse (a study in the Gayo highland), or
> Ian Netton’s book on Sufi ritual in the United Kingdom.
> 
> Images, pictures, and paintings form an important source
> This muezzin in Istanbul calls faithful Muslims to pray in an            for the study of devotional life. In this respect, a promising
> important Islamic daily ritual. Written instruction on Islamic devo-     new contribution can also be expected of visual anthropology
> tion is available in prayer manuals and devotional texts in bookstores   (e.g., films such as those by Fadwa El Guindi, El Sebou, on
> and on the street in the Muslim world. © DAVID RUBINGER/CORBIS
> life-cycle rituals in Egypt). Finally, the Internet, in particular
> the World Wide Web, has emerged as a medium for the
> spread of devotional life. Quite a few Sufi orders are active in
> very important term indicating invocations and prayers that
> cyberspace, and noteworthy developments take place there
> can also be said during the salat, particularly the sujud; or
> with regard to publications as well. A great lacuna remains,
> prosternation. In this regard, it is important to observe that
> however, the lack of empirical analysis on a micro level in
> whereas it is obligatory to recite the Quran (undoubtedly the
> which textual (and musicological and iconographical) study is
> most important devotional text) during the salat in Arabic,
> combined with (participant) observation.
> du
as can also be said in the vernacular. There is a connection
> between prayers in the vernacular and the emergence of                   See also Adhan; Dhikhj; Du
a; 
Ibadat; Tasawwuf.
> popular literature in such Islamic vernaculars as Persian,
> Turkish, and other languages. Dhikr literally means “remem-
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> brance,” namely of God and the ninety-nine beautiful names
> (memorization of which, tradition holds, almost assures a                Ayoub, Mahmoud. Redemptive Suffering in Islam. A Study of
> the Devotional Aspects in Twelver Shiism. The Hague: Mouperson entrance into Paradise), and may refer both to a type
> ton, 1978.
> of text (especially in the plural, adhkar) and the ritual of
> reciting them. A wird is a litany often accompanied by a name            Biegman, N. H., and Hunt, S. V. Egypt. Moulids, Saints and
> Sufis. The Hague: Gary Schwartz/SDU, 1990.
> and associated with the devotional life of a particular Sufi
> order. Other texts are referred to as hizb, litany, a term which         Bowen, John R. Muslims through Discourse. Religion and Ritual
> also refers to an allotted part, namely of the Quran, or of a             in Gayo Society. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
> text such as the Dalail (divided into eight ahzab). Al-Shadili            Press, 1993.
> (d. 1258) composed the famous Hizb al-bahr aboard a vessel               Kriss, Rudolf von, and Kris-Heinrich, Hubert. Volksglaube im
> on his way to Mecca. Ahzab have a strong connotation of                     Bereich des Islam. Wiesbaden: O. Harrassowitz, 1960–62.
> offering protection against hostile natural or human forces.             Netton, Ian Richard. Sûfï ritual. The Parallel Universe. Rich-
> The same holds true for the Hirz, which literally means                    mond, U.K.: Curzon Press, 2000.
> “stronghold.” All such types of texts are recited at different           Padwick, Constance. Muslim Devotions. A Study of Prayerritual occasions. In addition, many popular pamphlets deal                 Manuals in Common Use (1961). Reprint. Oxford, U.K.:
> with other devotional subjects such as magic (Ar. sihr), evil              Oneworld, 1996.
> powers, for example, those of the jinn and the evil eye (al-             Parker, A., and Neal, A. Hajj Painting. Folk Art of the Great
> hasad, al-
ayn) and how to avert or control them, and with the              Pilgrimage. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution
> afterlife and eschatological subjects (for example, “life” in the           Press, 1995.
> 
> 178                                                                                                   Islam and the Muslim World
> Dhikr
> 
> In Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei, a young boy watches the men in their noon prayer at the 
Omar 
Ali Saifuddin Mosque. © MICHAEL S.
> YAMASHITA/CORBIS
> 
> Renard, John. Seven Doors to Islam: Spirituality and the Relig-    God, then extended in the hadith to reflect the multiplicity of
> ious Life of Muslims. Berkeley: University of California         ideas associated with the Prophet’s own pious practices, and
> Press, 1996.                                                     ultimately adapted by the ascetic and mystic traditions as an
> Sanyal, Usha. Devotional Islam and Politics in British India:      institutional meditational ritual.
> Ahmad Riza Khan Barelwi and his Movement, 1870–1920.
> Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999.                               The word dhikr and its cognates form a dense structure in
> the Quran, which insists that the prophets were all linked
> Schimmel, Annemarie. And Muhammad Is His Messenger: The
> Veneration of the Prophet in Islamic Piety. Chapel Hill:        together by virtue of the message they collectively brought:
> University of North Carolina Press, 1985.                       They were all members of one brotherhood (23:51–52) and
> all brought the same din (religion). The Quran identifies
> Schnubel, Vernon James. Religious Performances in Contempothem all as mudhakkirat, a word derived from the root “to
> rary Islam. Shii Devotional Rituals in South Asia. Columbia:
> University of South Carolina Press, 1993.                       remember” or “to recollect”; thus, they are all rememberers.
> Their message is tadhkira, reminder. Humans, however, are
> Westermarck, Edward. Ritual and Belief in Morocco (1926).
> in a state of forgetfulness, and they need to be reminded by
> Reprint. London: Macmillan, 1960.
> believers; it is the believer’s chore to constantly witness
> Zein, Abdul Hamid el-. The Sacred Meadows. A Structural            (dhakir), both because of the human propensity to forgetful-
> Analysis of Religious Symbolism in an East African Town.
> ness, but also because God has allowed Satan to entice
> Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University, 1974.
> humans away (17:62–64).
> 
> Gerard Wiegers          The remembrance of Allah as a rite has a special place in
> Islam. The Quran says, “Those who believe, and whose
> hearts find satisfaction in the remembrance of Allah; for
> without doubt, in the remembrance of Allah do hearts find
> DHIKR                                                              satisfaction” (13:28). The remembrance of Allah is understood to embrace both acts of service and kindliness, and
> Dhikr is a complex word variously translated as “remem-            failure to do so curbs spiritual growth (83:9). At the same
> brance” or “recollection.” The word dhikr was developed            time, the Quran envisions dhikr of wider significance than
> initially in the Quran to reflect a special kind of piety toward   the formal requirement of prayer, including devotions such as
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                  179
> Dietary Laws
> 
> silent meditation and personal contemplation (24:37). Remem-      Hodgson, Marshall G. S. The Venture of Islam. Chicago:
> brance is also linked directly to accepting Allah’s guidance, a     University of Chicago Press, 1974.
> key initiative of God in human salvation, and failure to          Hoffman, Valerie. Sufism, Saints, and Mysticism in Modern
> remember leads to the withdrawal of God’s grace (72:17). In         Egypt. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1995.
> short, “Remembrance of Allah is the greatest thing in life,       Schimmel, Annemarie. Mystical Dimensions of Islam. Chapel
> without doubt” (29:45).                                              Hill: University of North Carolina, 1975.
> Schubel, Vernon. “The Muharram Majlis: The Role of a
> Dhikr in Mystical Islam or Sufism
> Ritual in the Preservation of Shi
a Identity.” In Muslim
> Sufis adhere to the Quran’s words to “remember God” and              Families in North America. Edited by Earle H. Waugh,
> they do so in rituals both rich and variegated. Some Sufis            Sharon M. Abu-Laban, and Regula B. Qureshi. Edmonton,
> regard dhikr as the mystical equivalent of canonical prayer,         Alberta, Canada: University of Alberta Press, 1991.
> and wherever dhikr as liturgical remembrance has been prac-       Waugh, Earle H. The Munshidin of Egypt: Their World and
> ticed, it has generally been held to encompass the same pious       Their Song. Columbia: University of South Carolina
> goals as prayer and to reflect the same ritual effectiveness.        Press, 1989.
> The dhikr tradition, then, is a means of meditation on past
> verities and on the transcendent being of God, a base upon                                                         Earle Waugh
> which Sufism built a structure for probing higher consciousness, engaging with spiritual forces, and ultimately coming
> into a personal encounter with God.
> DIETARY LAWS
> Dhikr developed into a pious ritual very early in the
> growth of ascetic practices, and, with the establishment of the   Islam’s dietary laws are based on scripture, juridical opinions,
> orders, became specifically designed for brotherhood medi-         and local custom; the latter, in turn, reflects the religious
> tations. It became the means to develop internal cohesion         milieu of pre-Islamic Arabia. Foods are designated as lawful
> within the order, and for the head of the order to maintain       (halal), unlawful (haram), and reprehensible (makruh). Gencontrol over the adepts. Dhikr thus evolved into part of the      erally, all things, including foods, remain lawful unless proven
> discipline imposed by Sufism’s institutional structure. While      otherwise. The Quran rules that the flesh of swine is unlawits practice was open to those “on the Way,” each order           ful, as is carrion, blood, animals that have been strangulated,
> required dhikr to be approved and carried out in the presence     beaten to death, killed by a fall, gored to death, or savaged by
> of the shaykh or the order’s other officials.                      other animals. Apostolic traditions render unlawful carnivorous animals, birds of prey, and most reptiles. The schools of
> Such teachings embraced the following notions: Dhikr          law differ with regard to some foods: For the Hanafites,
> could be either silent or spoken, reflecting the domains of        crustaceans such as lobster, shrimp, crab, and the like are
> practice, that is, remembrance of the heart (dhikr khafi, or       reprehensible, for the Malikites even reptiles are lawful, and
> dhikr al-qalbi) or remembrance of the tongue. Spoken dhikr is     for the Shafiites meat products not consumed by the early
> ultimately overcome by silent dhikr, since words fail before      Arab community are unlawful.
> the grandeur of God, or they inevitably maintain the self
> separate from the source of all life. By the sixteenth century,       The name of God must be invoked on all animals before
> dhikr would encompass seven different levels of meaning,          slaughter, although some jurists waive this rule where the
> according to some practitioners.                                  slaughterer is Muslim. The trachea, and at least one carotid
> artery, must be severed with a sharp instrument to minimize
> Finally, dhikr, spoken by saintly people or their repre-       pain and suffering. Game hunters need not follow these rules
> sentatives, is widely regarded as having spiritual potency, and   if the name of God was invoked when their properly trained
> the vehicle of memory suggests that dhikr ’s inspiration can be   hunting animals were set loose. Also lawful is an animal killed
> carried beyond the atmosphere of the order into Muslim            by weapons such as arrows, lances, and so on that when
> society itself, where it can effect change in unpredictable but   launched—in the name of God—tear through flesh and cause
> significant ways.                                                  bleeding. Because no bleeding occurs when live ammunition
> is used, some jurists render the consumption of such animals
> See also Devotional Life; 
Ibadat; Tasawwuf.
> as unlawful.
> 
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                         Animals slaughtered by people of the book, that is, Jews
> Burke, Michael. Among the Dervishes. London: Octagon              and Christians, are lawful, although some jurists insist that
> Press, 1973.                                                    they too invoke only the name of God, and not that of Jesus,
> Hisham, Ibn. The Life of Muhammad: A Translation of Ibn           or any other deity. More recently, and as a consequence of
> Ishaq’s Kitab Sirat Rasul Allah. Translated by A. Guillaume.   migrations to the West, a further distinction, particularly
> Karachi, Pakistan, and New York: Oxford University             evident among Muslims in the United States, is made be-
> Press, 2001.                                                   tween animals slaughtered by people of the book, termed
> 
> 180                                                                                           Islam and the Muslim World
> Disputation
> 
> halal, and those slaughtered by Muslims themselves, termed          inspire their friends to dispute with you” (6:121) and “dispute
> dhabiha.                                                            not with the People of the Book” (29:46). Quran 16:125
> associates disputing with proselytism or inviting unbelievers
> Intoxicants are unlawful, even in small quantities, and so      to become Muslim: “Invite (humankind) to the way of your
> too are profits, salaries, or rentals obtained through commer-       Lord with wisdom and kind words and dispute with them
> cial ventures involving intoxicants. Fresh grape and date juice     (jadilhum) in (a manner) which is less offensive.”
> cannot be consumed if left overnight in summer and after
> three days in winter. By analogy, chemical substances that              By the ninth century, in Baghdad, Basra, and other centers
> impair the senses are also unlawful.                                of learning, disputation was recognized as a skill and an art
> that enhanced one’s scholarly status. The biographical dic-
> Meals must be consumed with the right hand, preferably
> tionaries mention accomplishment in the “science of disputawhile sitting, and God’s name must be invoked before and
> tion” (
ilm al-jadal) or the rules of conduct in debate (adab alafter meals. Using utensils of gold and silver is reprehensible,
> jadal), alongside knowledge of law, theology, the Quran,
> as is eating garlic or onion before prayer, and filling the belly
> hadith, and the grammar and lexicon of the Arabic language.
> more than two-thirds with food and drink. Some large fast-
> Although the earliest manuals of instruction in the art of
> food chains now cater to Islamic dietary requirements, and
> disputation no longer exist, the existence of such works as
> use a crescent in some places to indicate that halal meals
> early as the ninth century is attested by references that appear
> are served.
> in the tenth-century catalogue of Arabic works by Ibn al-
> See also Fatwa; Ijtihad; Madhhab; Mufti; Shari
a.                   Nadim (Kitab al-fihrist).
> 
> Arabic theological texts from the ninth to eleventh centu-
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> ries give evidence of the oral environment of debate and
> Cook, Michael. Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in             argument in which claims were made, scripture was inter-
> Islamic Thought. Cambridge, U.K., and New York: Campreted, rulings were established, and ideas were advanced and
> bridge University Press, 2000.
> criticized. Typical of these texts is the following pattern. An
> Qaradawi, Yusuf. The Lawful and the Unlawful in Islam.              incipit formulation of a problem is stated, for example, the
> Indianapolis: American Trust Publications, 1994.
> Mu
tazilite theological school’s claim that the Quran, like all
> material things in the world, is created and not eternal—a
> Muneer Goolam Fareed         view that orthodox Muslims rejected. Next, the claim or
> doctrine is broken down into constituent subsections of the
> argument. Often the contending positions of other schools of
> DISPUTATION                                                         thought are stated. The text then proceeds to advance the
> details of counterargument, followed by the teacher’s reply to
> Disputation is the ritual practice of dialectical argument          that argument. A typical text reads: “If the interlocutor (alamong schools of thought. In early and medieval Islamic             qail) should ask such and such, then the following should be
> societies, disputation is especially important in regard to the     said to him. . . .” The textual forms of these disputes are in
> elaboration of competing religious doctrines. Two Arabic            reality school texts that were dictated by a shaykh or teacher
> terms, jadal (and its more intensive form mujadala) and             in his home, at a madrasa, or in the corner or outer halls of a
> munazara designate dialectics or disputation with an oppo-          mosque, often to quite large gatherings of students. That the
> nent. A culture of disputation was well established in the          same problems were disputed over and over by succeeding
> Middle East prior to the rise of Islam, between and within the      generations of students and teachers, as was, for example, the
> Jewish and Christian communities and among philosophical            claim that the Quran was created, or that the Quran was a
> schools, such as the Peripatetics (Aristotelians), Stoics,          miracle that proved Muhammad’s prophethood, indicates a
> Neoplatonists, Skeptics, Materialists, and others. Emblem-          dynamic conception of religious truth that always had to be
> atic of this dialectical form of scholarship in the Middle          tested and defended with strengthened arguments.
> Eastern environment of nascent Islam are the writings of the
> Church Father, John of Damascus (d. 749). In a tractate                 This very method of teaching invited disputes in the
> “Against the Saracens,” written under Umayyad Islamic rule,         lecture halls, and both teachers and pupils often became
> John instructs Christians in the methods and the limits of          practitioners. At the simplest level, students would often be
> disputing with Muslims on matters of belief.                        given a problem to dispute in practice session. Medieval
> annalistic historians like Abu Mansur ibn Tahrir al-Baghdadi
> Engaging the opponent through argument is also well              (d. 1037) describe how on many occasions the more advanced
> attested in the Quran. Humans are referred to “as the most         students of a shaykh would go or be sent to the sessions of a
> disputatious (jadal) of things” (18:54). The verbal noun mujadala   rival teacher to challenge the latter with counterarguments.
> and its active verb form, meaning disputing with an enemy,          Other medieval observers of this form of teaching through
> occur twenty-seven times, in such phrases as “the Satans            public debate commented upon how loud and contentious
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                      181
> Dissimulation
> 
> they would often become, even late at night, disturbing            the cultural practice of agreeing to disagree in disputation
> neighbors who were trying to sleep. The theologians Abu            among contending religious communities that made civil
> 
Uthman 
Amr ibn al-Jahiz (d. 869) and Abu Hamid al-               society possible in the Islamic Middle Ages.
> Ghazali (d. 1111) argued that common people who were not
> trained in the rules and discipline of disputation should not be   See also Christianity and Islam; Kalam.
> allowed to debate religion and theology in public, because
> their lack of knowledge and skill often led to public disorder     BIBLIOGRAPHY
> and raucousness.                                                   Mahdi, Muhsin. “Language and Logic in Classical Islam.” In
> Logic in Classical Islamic Culture, edited by G. E. Grunebaum.
> The advanced cultural context for highly developed               Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1970.
> disputational skills were the evenings sponsored by local          Miller, Lawrence. “The Development of Islamic Dialecrulers and other patrons, in many cases bringing together            tics.” American Research Center in Egypt Newsletter 34
> Sunni and Shi
ite religious spokesmen as well as representa-         (1986): 24–27.
> tives of the Orthodox, Nestorian, and Monoiphysite Chris-          Moreen, V. B. “Shi
i–Jewish ‘Debate’ (munazara) in the
> tian communities, Rabbanite Jews, philosophers, poets, and           Eighteenth Century.” Journal of the American Oriental
> other intellectuals to debate whatever important issue of the        Society 119, no. 4 (1999): 570–89.
> day interested the patron. In many cases, religious truth was
> framed as the problem and debated across confessional lines.                                                   Richard C. Martin
> In many cases, too, disputation over religious truth was
> conducted across disciplines. In one celebrated debate in the
> year 932 in Baghdad, for instance, the grammarian Abu Sa
id
> al-Sirafi debated the logician Abu Bishr Matta. The logician        DISSIMULATION See Taqiyya
> held that truth is determined in formal logic, not in natural
> language (which is the medium of the Quran). Al-Sirafi
> successfully argued that meaning is embedded in the language of the text itself, thus preserving the importance of the
> DIVORCE
> text of scripture, which in Islamic religious thought is more
> than propositional truth.                                          In Islamic law, the husband has the exclusive right to talaq,
> termination of marriage. Talaq is defined as a unilateral act,
> Not every scholar appreciated or participated in public
> which takes legal effect by the husband’s declaration. Neither
> disputations, especially across confessional lines. The literary
> grounds for divorce nor the wife’s presence or consent are
> historian Abu 
Abdallah al-Humaydi (d. 1095) tells of a
> necessary, but the husband must pay his wife’s mahr—translated
> certain Hanbali religious scholar who reported having atin English as “dower,” this is the gift the bridegroom offers
> tended one such public disputation in eleventh-century
> the bride upon marriage—if he has not done so at the time of
> Baghdad. He complained that nonbelievers (kuffar) were
> marriage, and maintenance (nafaqa) during the 
idda period
> allowed to stand up and say that Muslims would not be
> (three menses after the declaration).
> allowed to argue using their Book (the Quran), but rather
> that all disputants would be restricted to rational argument.          The wife, however, cannot be released from marriage
> When all present, including the other Muslims, agreed to the       without her husband’s consent, although she can buy her
> terms of the dispute, the Hanbali reported that he left and        release by offering him compensation. This is referred to as
> never went back.                                                   “divorce by mutual consent” and can take two forms: In khul
,
> the wife claims separation because of her extreme dislike
> In modern literary and anthropological terms it is possible    (ikrah) of her husband, and there is no ceiling on the amount
> to see the phenomenon of jadal and munazara as a form of           of compensation that she pays; in mubarat the dislike is
> poetics and social ritual. Taking the form of verbal conflict,      mutual and the amount of compensation should not exceed
> such practices occurred in the highly charged atmosphere of        the value of the mahr itself.
> competing religious communities living under Islamic rule in
> the central Islamic lands of the Middle East, especially during       If the wife fails to secure her husband’s consent, her only
> the Abbasid Age (750–1258). Potentially dangerous and vola-        recourse is the intervention of a judge who has the power
> tile conflicts were defined and framed, then regulated and           either to compel the husband to pronounce talaq or to
> controlled by rules of conduct. A measure of how effective         pronounce it on his behalf. Known as faskh (recission), tafriq
> these cultural forms were is the fact that often those who         (separation), or tatliq (compulsory issue of divorce), this
> refused to dispute according to the rules took their concerns      outlet has become the common juristic basis on which a
> to the streets of Baghdad in more physical and even violent        woman can obtain a court divorce in contemporary Muslim
> forms of conflict. Violence, however, was often outweighed          world. The facility with which a woman can obtain such a
> by the more civil forms of conflict. In no small measure it was     divorce and the grounds on which she can do so vary in the
> 
> 182                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Dome of the Rock
> 
> different schools of Islamic law and in different countries.
> The Maliki school is the most liberal and grants the widest            Dome of the Rock
> grounds upon which a woman can initiate divorce proceedings. Among Muslim states where Islamic law is the basis of
> family law, women in Tunisia enjoy easiest access to divorce.
> 
> See also Gender; Law; Marriage.
> 
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Carroll, Lucy, and Kapoor, Harsh, eds. Talaq-i-Tafwid: The
> Muslim Woman’s Contractual Access to Divorce. Grabels,
> WLUML (Women Living Under Muslim Laws), 1996.
> Esposito, John L., and Delong-Bas, Natana J. Women in
> Muslim Family Law. 2d ed. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse
> University Press, 2001.
> 
> Ziba Mir-Hosseini
> 
> DOME OF THE ROCK
> The Dome of the Rock (Ar. Qubbat al-Sakhra), a large
> octagonal building in Jerusalem commissioned by the Umayyad
> caliph 
Abd al-Malik in 692 C.E., is the earliest major monu-          SOURCE: Creswell, K. A. C. A Short Account of Early Muslim
> Architecture. Beirut: Librarie du Liban, 1958.
> ment of Islamic architecture to survive. Muslims today consider it the third holiest shrine in Islam, after the Kaaba in
> Mecca and the Mosque of the Prophet in Medina. Its age and          Cross-section Dome of the Rock diagram.
> its sanctity, along with its visibility and extraordinary decoration, make it a major monument of world architecture and
> one of the most important sites in Islam.                           writing down of the Quran. It ended with the name of the
> patron, the Umayyad caliph 
Abd al-Malik (replaced in the
> The Dome of the Rock is set over a rocky outcrop near the        ninth century by that of the Abbasid caliph al-Mamun), and
> center of the large esplanade known in Arabic as al-Haram al-       the date of construction.
> Sharif (the Noble Sanctuary), which was once the site of the
> Jewish Temple, the traditional religious center of Jerusalem.           In form, materials, and decoration, the Dome of the Rock
> The building is a large low octagon divided internally by an        belongs to the tradition of late Antique and Byzantine archiarcade into two octagonal ambulatories encircling a tall            tecture that flourished in the region before the coming of
> cylindrical space measuring approximately 20 meters (65             Islam. The domed, centrally planned building was a typical
> feet) in diameter. A high wooden dome, whose metal roof is          form for a martyrium, and the Dome of the Rock is similar in
> plated with gold, spans the central space and covers the rock.      plan and size of dome to the nearby Holy Sepulcher, the
> building (also raised over a rock) that the emperor Constan-
> The glory of the building is its decoration. Above a high       tine had erected in the fourth century to mark the site of
> dado of quartered marble, the exterior and interior walls were      Christ’s burial on Golgotha. Other Christian buildings erected
> once entirely covered in a mosaic of small cubes of colored         in the area in the eighth century, notably the Church of the
> and gold glass and semiprecious stones. In the sixteenth            Nativity in Bethelem, show a similar use of marble and
> century the mosaics on the exterior were replaced with glazed       mosaics, perhaps executed by the same team of mosaicists.
> tiles, themselves replaced in the twentieth century, but the
> mosaics on the interior stand much as they did when they                Despite its antecedents and even its workmen, the Dome
> were put up in the late seventh century. They depict a vast         of the Rock is clearly a Muslim building, commissioned by a
> program of fantastic trees, plants, fruits, jewels, chalices,       Muslim patron for Muslim purposes. Its mosaic decoration,
> vases, and crowns. A long (about 250 meters, or 820 feet)           notably its inscriptions in Arabic and its lack of figural
> band of Arabic writing in gold on a blue ground runs along          representation, immediately distinguishes it from contempothe top of both sides of the inner octagon. The text is largely     rary Christian buildings in the area. It was not intended as a
> Quranic phrases and contains the earliest evidence for the         place for communal prayer; that function was fulfilled by the
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                          183
> Dome of the Rock
> 
> Women praying in front of the Dome of the Rock, the third holiest shrine in Islam. The Dome of the Rock was built on the site where the Jewish
> Temple, Jerusalem’s traditional Jewish center, stood before it was destroyed. Although it was built for Muslims, the decoration and architecture
> of the Dome of the Rock reflect Antique and Byzantine traditions that predate the arrival of Islam. AP/WIDE WORLD PHOTOS
> 
> nearby Aqsa Mosque. Rather its domed octagonal form                       as the site of Solomon’s Temple, the inscriptions suggest that
> suggests a commemorative function, though its exact purpose               the Dome of the Rock was meant to symbolize Islam as the
> is unclear.                                                               worthy successor to both Judaism and Christianity.
> 
> Already in the ninth century several alternative explana-                The Dome of the Rock continued to play an important
> tions for its construction were proposed. One author sug-                 role long after it was built. The Abbasids, who succeeded the
> gested that 
Abd al-Malik had commissioned the Dome of the                Umayyads, restored it several times, and the Fatimids re-
> Rock to replace the Ka
ba, which had fallen into enemy                    stored it in the eleventh century after the dome collapsed in
> hands. This explanation, however, is simplistic and under-                the earthquake of 1016. The Crusaders considered it Solomines one of the five central tenets of Islam, though the                  mon’s Temple itself and rechristened the building Templum
> building could have functioned (and does today) as a second-              Domini. Saladin, the Ayyubid prince who recaptured Jerusaary site of pilgrimage. Another explanation, also current from            lem for the Muslims in 1187, had the building rededicated as
> the ninth century, associates the building with the site of               part of his campaign to enhance the city’s sanctity and
> Muhammad’s mi
raj, his miraculous night-journey from Mecca                political importance. The Mamluks, rulers of Egypt and Syria
> to Jerusalem and back. However, the Quranic inscriptions                 from 1250 to 1517, had the wooden ceilings of the ambulaaround the interior of the Dome of the Rock, the only                     tory and the central dome restored. The Ottoman sultan
> contemporary source for explaining the building’s purpose,                Suleyman (r. 1520–1566), whose name is the Turkish form of
> mention neither of these subjects. Rather, they deal with the             Solomon, ordered the building redecorated as part of his
> nature of Islam and refute the tenets of Christianity. The                program of embellishing the holy cities of Islam. It was
> inscriptions suggest that the building was intended to adver-             restored six more times in the twentieth century and has
> tise the presence of Islam. Together with the traditional                 become a popular icon of Islam, decorating watches and tea
> identification of the rock as the place of Adam’s burial and               towels and replicated in miniature models made of mother-
> Abraham’s intended sacrifice of his son and of the esplanade               of-pearl and plastic. The first great monument of Islamic
> 
> 184                                                                                                      Islam and the Muslim World
> Du
a
> 
> architecture, it has taken on a new life as the symbol of           the philosopher Ibn Sina (d. 1037). Prominent later dream
> Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation.                       manuals include works written by al-Salimi (d. 1397), Ibn
> Shahin (d. 1468), and al-Nabulsi (d. 1730). Many Muslim
> See also Architecture; Holy Cities.                                 dream manuals made heavy use of the Greco-Roman tradition of dream interpretation, to which access was had through
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                        the dream manual of Artemidorus, a Greek work composed
> Creswell, K. A. C. A Short Account of Early Muslim Architec-        in Asia Minor in the second century C.E. and translated into
> ture. Beirut: Librarie du Liban, 1958.                            Arabic by the Christian physician Hunayn b. Ishaq (d. 877). It
> Creswell, K. A. C. Early Muslim Architecture. 2d. ed. Oxford,       would be hard to overemphasize the importance of dream
> U.K.: Clarendon Press, 1969.                                      interpretation to medieval Muslims. Hundreds of dream
> Grabar, Oleg. The Shape of the Holy: Early Islamic Jerusalem.       manuals have been preserved, some in Arabic, others in
> Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1996.                Persian and Turkish.
> Johns, Jeremy, ed. Bayt al-Maqdis. Part II: Jerusalem and Early
> Islam. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 2000.                  Modern Muslims have been, not surprisingly, divided in
> their reception of dream interpretation. Some have cast it
> Nuseibeh, Said, and Grabar, Oleg. The Dome of the Rock. New
> York: Rizzoli, 1997.                                              aside as superstitious nonsense, while others have sought to
> appropriate it through reinterpretation, suggesting that it
> Sheila S. Blair     foreshadows the discoveries of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung.
> Jonathan M. Bloom        Yet others, especially Sufis and traditionalists, have shown
> little hesitation in proclaiming the continuing validity of this
> ancient tradition.
> 
> DREAMS                                                              BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Fahd, Toufic. La Divination arabe. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1966.
> Muslims throughout history have attached great importance
> to dreams. Portions of the Quran were believed to have been        Katz, Jonathan G. Dreams, Sufism and Sainthood. Leiden, E. J.
> revealed to Muhammad in dreams. Muhammad was also                     Brill, 1996.
> thought to have received numerous prophetic dreams. Moreo-          Lamoreaux, John C. The Early Muslim Tradition of Dream
> ver, dreams were considered the primary means by which                Interpretation. Albany: State University of New York
> God would communicate with Muslims following the death                Press, 2002.
> of Muhammad and the cessation of Quranic revelation.               Schimmel, Annemarie. Die Träume des Kalifen. Munich: C. H.
> Indeed, according to tradition, on the day before his death            Beck, 1998.
> Muhammad declared, “When I am gone, there shall remain
> naught of the glad-tidings of prophecy, except for true                                                         John C. Lamoreaux
> dreams.”
> 
> Medieval Muslims cultivated numerous forms of literature on dreams. Accounts of dreams were collected to estab-         DU
A
> lish the sanctity of those who saw the dreams, a practice
> especially common among Sufis. Accounts of dreams were               In contrast to the prescribed rituals of Islam, such as the daily
> also collected to resolve points of controversy, to determine       prayers, the du
a is generally a spontaneous, unstructured,
> the proper reading and interpretation of the Quran, for            conversation with God. There are, however, prescribed
> instance, or to resolve legal or theological debates. Espe-         supplications or du
a mathur that are considered particularly
> cially important, in this regard, were dreams in which the          propitious because of their scriptural origins.
> prophet Muhammad appeared, because, according to tradition, Muhammad himself had declared, “Whoever sees me in                Whereas form is essential for the performance of the
> a dream has seen me in truth, for Satan cannot imitate me in a      prescribed rituals, consciousness is central to du
a. And whereas
> dream.” Also of great importance was the dream manual, a            every du
a is a form of prayer, only a prayer performed
> work that taught its readers how to interpret their dreams.         conscientiously becomes a du
a. The du
a is the very essence
> Many Muslim dream manuals were associated with Ibn Sirin            of worship because it venerates God, celebrates His sublime
> (d. 728), the eponymous founder of the genre. While there is        attributes, and puts trust in Him. Specific requests, however,
> little reason to think that Ibn Sirin was in fact the author of a   are frowned upon: A du
a is considered most auspicious when
> dream manual, it is certain that he was responsible for putting     framed broadly to seek protection from evil, solicit the good
> into oral circulation much dream lore.                              of this world, and salvation in the afterlife.
> 
> Famous early dream manuals were written by the litterateur          For the believer, supplications are always answered, but
> Ibn Qutaybah (d. 889), the historian al-Tabari (d. 923), and        not in the form of a wish list. Human beings, it is said, lack the
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                       185
> Du
a
> 
> capacity to distinguish good from evil, and often solicit, and   BIBLIOGRAPHY
> are denied, that which is essentially harmful to them.           Ghazali, Muhammad al-. Remembrance and Prayer: The Way of
> the Prophet Muhammad. Translated by Y. T. DeLorenzo.
> Beltsville, Md.: Amana Publications, 1996.
> A du
a also serves as an incantation to ward off evil, or
> secure grace. A traveler, for instance, is encouraged to read:   Nakamura, Kojiro. Invocations and Supplications: Book IX of the
> Revival of the Religious Sciences. Cambridge, U.K.: Islamic
> “In God’s name let its run be, and let its stopping be!”
> Texts Society, 1990.
> 
> See also Devotional Life; 
Ibadat.                                                                     Muneer Goolam Fareed
> 
> 186                                                                                          Islam and the Muslim World
> E
> EAST ASIA, ISLAM IN                                                        to establish communities that have survived with many of
> their cultural and religious traditions intact down to this day.
> Islam has spread to all parts of East Asia, a region that features
> During the early part of the Ming period (1368–1644), the
> some of the world’s major centers of Islamic influence.
> emperor Yongle ordered Zheng He, a Muslim eunuch from
> China                                                                      Yunnan in southwest China, to lead a series of massive naval
> With a Muslim population conservatively estimated at twenty                expeditions to explore the known world. In all, between 1405
> million, China today has a larger Muslim population than                   and 1432, seven major expeditions were launched involving
> most of the Arab countries of the Middle East, and yet few                 hundred of Chinese vessels and thousands of tons of goods
> scholars have concentrated on this unique community lo-                    and valuables to be traded throughout the southeast Asian
> cated at the far reaches of the Muslim world. Of China’s fifty-             archipelago, the Indian Ocean, and as far as the east coast of
> five officially recognized minority peoples (China’s majority                Africa. The success of these trading expeditions was no doubt
> ethnic group is known as Han Chinese), ten are primarily                   in part due to Zheng He’s religion and his ability to interact
> Muslim: the Hui, Uighur, Kazak, Dongxiang, Kirghiz, Salar,                 with many of the Muslim rulers and merchants encountered
> Tajik, Uzbek, Bonan, and Tatar. The largest group, the Hui,                along the way. However, shortly after the death of the Yongle
> are spread throughout the entire country, while the other                  emperor, China’s cosmopolitan and international initiatives
> nine live primarily in the northwest.                                      gave way to a period of conservatism and the redirection of
> imperial resources toward domestic issues and projects. Dur-
> As a result of the extensive sea trade networks between                ing this period numerous laws were passed requiring “for-
> China and Southwest Asia dating back to Roman times, there                 eigners” to dress like Chinese, adopt Chinese surnames,
> have been Muslims in China since shortly after the advent of               speak Chinese, and essentially in appearance become Chinese.
> Islam. Small communities of Muslim traders and merchants
> survived for centuries in cities along China’s southeast coast,                Despite these restrictions and requirements, the Muslims
> the most famous settlements being Canton and Quanzhou                      of China continued to actively practice their faith and pass it
> (Zaitun in the Arabic sources). During the first several centu-             on to their descendants. By the end of the Ming dynasty there
> ries there was limited intermixing between the Muslim trad-                were enough Chinese Muslim intellectuals thoroughly eduers and the local Chinese population. It was not until the                 cated in the classical Confucian tradition that several scholars
> thirteenth century with the establishment of the Mongolian                 developed a new Islamic literary genre: religious works on
> Yuan dynasty (1278–1368) that thousands of Muslims from                    Islam written in Chinese that incorporated the vocabulary of
> Central and Western Asia were both forcibly moved to China                 Confucian, Buddhist, and Daoist thought. These texts, known
> by the Mongols as well as recruited by them to assist in their             as the Han Kitab, were not apologist treatises written to
> governance of their newly acquired territories. Although                   explain Islam to a non-Muslim Chinese audience, but were
> some of the higher-ranking Muslim officials may have been                   rather a reflection of the degree to which the Muslims of
> able to arrange marriages with women from their places of                  China had become completely conversant in intellectual
> origin, it is generally assumed that most of the soldiers,                 traditions of the society in which they lived. Moreover, as
> officials, craftsmen, and farmers who settled in China during               more and more Chinese Muslims lost their fluency in Arabic
> this early period married local women. Despite centuries of                and Persian, it became clear that in order to insure that future
> intermarriage, the Muslims who arrived at this time were able              generations of Muslims were able to have a sophisticated
> 
> East Asia, Islam in
> 
> return they started a movement to revitalize Islamic studies
> by translating the most important Islamic texts into Chinese
> and thus making them more accessible.
> 
> Despite the opportunities for travel and study that arose
> during this period, the Qing dynasty also represented a
> period of unparalleled violence against the Muslims of China.
> As reform movements led by Muslims who had studied
> overseas spread, conflicts arose between different communities. In several instances the government intervened, supporting one group against another, leading to an exacerbation
> of the conflict, outbreaks of mass violence and the eventual
> slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Muslims, and several
> rebellions.
> 
> In southwest China, it was the growing number of Han
> Chinese migrants moving into areas where Muslims had lived
> for centuries that led to violent conflicts. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, China experienced a massive
> population explosion resulting in millions of Han Chinese
> moving into the frontier regions. As more immigrants moved
> into Yunnan province along the southwest frontier, there
> were increasing clashes with the Hui who had settled there in
> the thirteenth century and whose population is estimated to
> have been one million. In a series of disputes between newly
> arrived Han migrants and Hui who had lived there for
> centuries, local Han Chinese officials (who themselves were
> not local residents), repeatedly decided to support their
> Small groups of merchant and artisan Muslims were present in         fellow Han Chinese against the local residents. Fighting
> China just after the rise of Islam. This mosque in Linxia, Gansu     escalated and eventually a Chinese Muslim leader led a
> Province, is topped with a pagoda-shaped minaret, an elegant
> example of how Chinese Muslims have combined two cultures. ©
> rebellion and in 1856 established an independent Islamic
> BOHEMIAN NOMAD PICTUREMAKERS/CORBIS                                  state centered in Dali, in northwest Yunnan. The state
> survived for almost sixteen years, and the Muslims worked
> closely together with other indigenous peoples. Eventually,
> however, the Chinese emperor ordered his troops to concenunderstanding of their faith, religious texts had to be written
> trate their efforts on destroying it. The massacres that ensued
> in Chinese.
> wiped out the majority of Muslims in Yunnan. Some fled to
> The linguistic challenges of transliterating Arabic and          nearby Thailand, and their descendants still live there, while
> Persian religious terms and proper names into Chinese also           others fled to Burma or neighboring provinces. Estimates of
> facilitated the blending of Chinese and Islamic principles as        those killed range from 60 to 85 percent, and more than a
> century later, their population has still not recovered its
> Chinese Muslim authors sought to create new Chinese terms
> original number. Another consequence of the rebellion was a
> to replace Arabic and Persian ones. Several of these terms are
> series of government regulations severely restricting the lives
> striking in their ability to use traditional Chinese characters
> of Muslims.
> to reflect fundamental Islamic concepts: God is translated as
> zhen zhu, or “the true lord”; Islam is qingzhen jiao, or “the pure       In the aftermath of the rebellions, the first priority of the
> and true religion”; the five pillars of Islam become the five          survivors was to pool their resources, rebuild their mosques,
> constants, wu chang; and the prophet Muhammad is known as            and open Islamic schools. Having lost most of their material
> zhi sheng, or “utmost sage.”                                         possessions, they were clearly determined not to lose their
> religious legacy. This period saw renewed contact with other
> In 1644, the Qing dynasty was established, marking the
> centers of learning in the Muslim world and the establishbeginning of a period of unparalleled growth and expansion,
> ment of schools that concentrated equally on secular and
> both in terms of territory and population. Travel restrictions       religious education.
> were lifted, and the Muslims of China were once again
> allowed to make the pilgrimage to Mecca and study in the                The collapse of the Qing dynasty in 1911 was followed by
> major centers of learning in the Islamic world. During this          a period of unrest and warlordism. After the rise of the
> period several Hui scholars studied abroad and upon their            Guomindang and the Chinese Communist Party, a civil war
> 
> 188                                                                                              Islam and the Muslim World
> East Asia, Islam in
> 
> ensued, in which both parties sought the support of the           China, which had much more extensive sea and land trading
> nation’s largest minority groups with promises of religious       routes with the rest of Asia.
> freedom and limited self-government. Many of the Muslims
> chose to support the Communists, and in the initial period of         During the Mongol Yuan dynasty (1278–1368), Korea
> the People’s Republic of China, the Muslim minority peoples       also fell under the control of the Mongol empire. As they had
> enjoyed a period of religious freedom. However, during            a policy of recruiting tens of thousands of men from Central
> subsequent political campaigns, culminating with the Cul-         and Western Asia to help them in administering their newly
> tural Revolution (1966–1976), the Muslims of China found          acquired territory, it is probable that some of these Muslims
> their religion outlawed; their religious leaders persecuted,      ended up serving in Korea, and that many of them settled
> imprisoned, and even killed; and their mosques defiled, if not     there. However, it appears that over the centuries those who
> settled completely assimilated to Korean society and culture.
> destroyed. During this period all worship and religious edu-
> It was not until the modern period that Muslims returned to
> cation were forbidden, and even simple common utterances
> Korea. Beginning in the 1920s, thousands of Muslims escapsuch as insha
allah (God willing), or al-hamdulillah (thanks be
> ing the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia fled overland through
> to God) could cause Muslims to be punished. Despite the
> Korea, and many settled there before being forced to leave in
> danger, Muslims in many parts of China continued their
> the 1940s. The next group of Muslims who arrived were
> religious studies in secret.
> Turkish soldiers sent under United Nations auspices during
> In the years immediately following the Cultural Revolu-       the Korean War. Several soldiers settled in Korea, establishtion, the Muslims of China lost no time in rebuilding their       ing the first mosques in Seoul, Pusan, and Taegu. Today the
> devastated communities. Throughout China, Muslims began           fledging community of Muslims living in Korea is made up of
> slowly to restore their religious institutions and revive their   some converts, but primarily recent Muslim immigrants from
> religious activities. Their first priority was to rebuild their    South Asia.
> damaged mosques thereby allowing communities to create a
> Japan
> space in which they could once again pray together, but also
> Although Muslim traders had sailed the seas off the coast of
> so that the mosques could reassert their role as centers of
> Japan for centuries, there is no known evidence of any
> Islamic learning. Over the next two decades mosques through-
> Muslim communities settling in Japan until the early part of
> out most of the country organized classes for not only
> the twentieth century, when of the thousands of Muslims who
> children and young adults, but also for older people who had
> fled Russia in the aftermath of the Bolshevik Revolution,
> not had the opportunity to study their religion. Beginning in
> several hundred were granted asylum in Japan. Many were
> the late 1980s and continuing to the 1990s Islamic colleges
> settled in Kobe and Tokyo, which became the sites of Japan’s
> have also been established throughout most of China.
> first two mosques, built in 1935 and 1938. In the years leading
> up to the Second World War, the Japanese military govern-
> Within China, when asked how to explain the recent
> ment became increasingly interested in encouraging scholarresurgence in Islamic education, community members cite
> ship on Islam as part of its policy to portray itself as a
> two main reasons: a desire to rebuild that which was taken
> protector of Islam to the Muslim communities of China and
> from them, and the hope that a strong religious faith would
> southeast Asia. As Japan invaded neighboring countries unhelp protect Muslim communities from the myriad of social
> der its “Greater East Asia Coprosperity Sphere” campaign, it
> problems presently besetting China in this day and age of
> justified its actions in part as a plan to safeguard all of Asia
> rapid economic development. Chinese Muslims studying
> from Western imperialism, but also to protect Islam.
> overseas reiterate the need to equip themselves and their
> communities for their future in a state that seems to be              At present there are an estimated 100,000 Muslims living
> ideologically adrift.                                             in Japan, the overwhelming majority of which are immigrants from South Asia and Iran; only a few thousand are
> Korea                                                             Japanese who have converted. Scholarly research on the
> In some respects, the history of Islam in Korea mirrors that of   Middle East and Islam has developed tremendously since the
> China, but more as a faint reflection than as a comparable         early 1980s, with several research centers at major universihistorical phenomenon. Little archaeological evidence has         ties around the country.
> survived but it is commonly believed that some of the Muslim
> sea traders who regularly traveled to the southeast coast of      See also East Asian Culture and Islam; South Asia,
> China also made it as far as Korea. Arabic geographers note       Islam in; Southeast Asia, Islam in.
> the existence of al-Sila, a country beyond China, and it is
> believed that this name is derived from the Korean dynasty        BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Silla (668–935). Although there is some archaeological evi-       Armijo, Jaqueline. “Narratives Engendering Survival: How
> dence of goods from Western and Central Asia being found            the Muslims of Southwest China Remember the Massain ancient tombs in Korea, it is not known if they were             cres of 1873.” Traces: An International Journal of Comparabrought there directly or acquired by Korean traders in             tive Cultural Theory 1, no. 2 (2001): 293–329.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                  189
> East Asian Culture and Islam
> 
> During the Muslim holy month, Ramadan, a Chinese Muslim prays at Nijue Mosque in Beijing, which was built in 996. ANAT GIVON/AP/WIDE
> WORLD PHOTOS
> 
> Fletcher, Joseph. Studies on Chinese and Islamic Inner Asia.
> Aldershot, U.K.: Variorum, 1995.                                 EAST ASIAN CULTURE AND ISLAM
> Gladney, Dru. Muslim Chinese: Ethnic Nationalism in the
> Within the field of Islam in East Asia, the major develop-
> People’s Republic of China. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
> University Press, 1991.                                          ments and most lasting influences between Islam and the
> indigenous peoples have taken place in China, where Mus-
> Jaschok, Maria, and Jingjun, Shui. A History of Women’s
> lims traders first settled in the early decades of the hijra. This
> Mosques in Chinese Islam: A Mosque of their Own. Richearly interest in China as a destiny for Muslim travelers is
> mond, Surrey, U.K.: Curzon Press, 2000.
> reflected in the famous hadith, “seek knowledge, even unto
> Leslie, Donald Daniel. Islam in Traditional China: A Short
> China.” Despite centuries of relative isolation from the rest of
> History to 1800. Canberra, Australia: Canberra College of
> the Islamic world, the Muslims in most regions of China have
> Advanced Education, 1986.
> managed to sustain a continuous knowledge of the Islamic
> Lipman, Jonathan. Familiar Strangers: A History of the Mus-         sciences, Arabic, and Persian. Given extended periods of
> lims in Northwest China. Seattle: University of Washington
> persecution combined with periods of intense government
> Press, 1997.
> efforts to legislate adoption of Chinese cultural practices and
> Miyazi Kazuo. “Middle East Studies in Japan.” Middle East           norms, that Islam should have survived, let alone flourished,
> Studies Association Bulletin 34, no. 1 (summer 2000): 23–37.
> is an extraordinary historical phenomenon. Although some
> Murata, Sachiko. Chinese Gleams of Sufi Light: Wang Tai-yü’s         scholars have attributed the survival of Muslim communities
> Great Learning of the Pure and Real and Liu Chih’s Display-       in China to their ability to adopt Chinese cultural traditions,
> ing the Concealment of the Real Realm. Albany: State Univer-      when asked themselves, Chinese Muslims usually attribute
> sity of New York Press, 2000.
> their survival to their strong faith and God’s protection.
> Wang, Jianping. Concord and Conflict: The Hui Communities of
> Yunnan Society. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell Interna-               In the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976),
> tional, 1996.                                                     a period of extreme political violence and chaos when Muslims together with other minority groups were persecuted,
> Jacqueline M. Armijo        Muslim communities throughout China actively sought to
> 
> 190                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> East Asian Culture and Islam
> 
> reclaim their religious identity and revive Islamic education.     others in China, Arabic calligraphy is interspersed with carv-
> In addition to repairing and rebuilding mosques returned to        ings and paintings of traditional Chinese images of flowers,
> them after the revolution, Muslim communities have also            fruit, mythical animals, and Chinese calligraphy. The roofpooled their resources to build new mosques and Islamic            tops are protected by small animal figures along the ridges of
> schools. These schools are filled with students of all ages,        roof tiles, and the minarets take the form of pagodas. In
> including the elderly, who after decades of government con-        addition, the Arabic calligraphy is a highly stylized form that
> trol are anxious to study Islam and Arabic. More recently a        differs from region to region and reflects local calligraphic
> growing number of Chinese Muslims are pursing advanced             traditions that have evolved in relative isolation over centuries.
> Islamic studies at international Islamic centers of learning.
> However, in recent years, in part as a result from pressure
> Although there are now Muslims present in virtually every      from outside funding sources and the growing number of
> region of China, there have undoubtedly been many commu-           Chinese Muslims going overseas for the hajj and to study,
> nities that were either completely destroyed during govern-        many communities have torn down these traditional mosques
> ment military campaigns, or that simply assimilated to the         and replaced them with ones believed to be more “authentic.”
> point of dissolution. One interesting example of a community       Over the past twenty years untold numbers of mosques dating
> that came to the brink of complete assimilation, only to be        back centuries have been destroyed. Nevertheless, in some
> revived for political reasons, was documented by an anthro-        parts of China in recent years, there has been a growing
> pologist in the early 1980s. In Quanzhou (known as Zaytun in       movement among Chinese Muslims to protect their unique
> the Arabic sources), a city located along China’s southeast        architectural traditions.
> coast, a large clan existed whose members had so assimilated
> to local customs as to be completely indistinguishable from        Local Celebrations
> the local Han Chinese. They took part in the full range of         As there are Muslims communities in every part of China
> traditional religious practices, many of which had to do with      with their own histories and local traditions it would be
> honoring one’s ancestors. They knew nothing of Islam, ate          difficult to generalize about the ways in which Islamic pracpork, and drank alcohol. There was one slight difference           tices have been influenced by other local Chinese traditions.
> though: During the annual sacrifices made to one’s ancestors,       However, by looking at local celebrations of Id al-Fitr and
> when preparing food to offer ceremoniously to their ances-         the Maulid (birthday of the prophet Muhammad) one can
> tors, they would not include pork or alcohol. This tenuous         gain some sense of the variety of ways in which these interacconnection to their ancestors (Muslim traders and officials         tions have developed. For example, in Yunnan province in
> who had first settled in this region in the early years of the      southwest China, Muslim communities spread throughout
> hijra) was called upon in 1981 when this extended family           the region. Many are direct descendants of Sayyid 
Ajall
> sought government recognition as one of the officially recog-
> Shams al-Din, a Muslim from Bukhara, who served as an
> nized minority groups. As they had the genealogical records
> official under the Mongol Yuan dynasty and settled in Yunnan
> to prove their descent from Muslims, they were able to
> at the end of the thirteenth century. Seven centuries later,
> change their status from Han Chinese to Hui (Chinese
> during the annual celebrations of 
Id al-Fitr, after communal
> Muslim).
> prayers at the mosque, Muslims from different areas travel to
> Mosques and Calligraphy                                            the site of Sayyid 
Ajall’s grave where special prayers are held.
> Mosques and the calligraphy within them have also served as        First there are readings from the Quran, then the tomb is
> an interesting barometer of the waxing and waning of tradi-        swept and cleaned (reminiscent of the traditional Chinese
> tional Chinese influences on the development of indigenous          Qingming festival held once a year when Chinese go to the
> Chinese Islamic traditions.                                        graves of their ancestors, sweep and clean the area and then
> make food offerings), and then the accomplishments of Sayyid
> Although no mosques dating back to the pre-Mongol               
Ajall are retold. In conclusion, a special service is held to
> period have survived, it is assumed that mosques during this       honor the hundreds of thousands of Muslims killed during
> period reflected the architecture of the immigrant Muslims          the Qing dynasty, and the hundreds killed more recently in
> who built them, as they were required to live in special           this area during the Cultural Revolution.
> districts separate from the general population. By the Ming
> period in the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries, how-           In another region of Yunnan, a group of Muslim villages
> ever, there was significant pressure for Muslims to outwardly       spread out over a vast plain have developed there a way of
> conform to Chinese traditions. The Huajue mosque in Xian,          celebrating the birthday of the Prophet, which allows them to
> which dates back to the Ming period and has survived down          reassert their ties to one another. Every year the Mawlid is
> to the present, is an exquisite example of how Chinese             celebrated in the fall over a period of two months beginning
> Muslims were able to incorporate traditional Chinese motifs,       with the end of the major harvests. Each village is assigned a
> decorative arts, and temple architectural styles into the struc-   weekend when it will host all the other villages in a Mawlid
> ture and decoration of mosques. In this mosque, as in most         celebration. Although the dates clearly are not connected
> 
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> East Asian Culture and Islam
> 
> In southwest China, Muslim women generally take part in communal prayer in mosques. The women’s section is to one side, and demarcated
> by a half-length curtain. In central China there is a centuries-old tradition of women having their own separate mosques; while in northwest
> China, women do not usually take part in communal prayers in the mosques. JACQUELINE M. ARMIJO
> 
> with the Islamic calendar, their tradition allows them to share         pray in the mosques with the men. According to Muslims in
> their bounty with their neighboring Muslim communities                  other parts of China, these attitudes in the northwest toward
> and strengthen their networks.                                          women are the result of the Muslims adopting local Chinese
> views, which are considered quite chauvinistic. In southwest
> Meanwhile, in northwest China, the decision of when to              China, however, women play an active role within Muslim
> celebrate the Prophet’s birthday is influenced not by seasonal           communities and are also widely credited with insuring the
> harvests, but rather by the desire to offer younger Muslims an          survival of the Muslim population in the aftermath of a brutal
> alternative activity during the widely and elaborately cele-            massacre that took place in the 1870s. In most mosques men
> brated Chinese New Year. In recent years local Muslim                   and women pray side by side with a half curtain dividing the
> religious leaders in Xian have considered scheduling celebra-           prayer hall. Although over the centuries many Chinese Mustions of the Prophet’s birthday to coincide with the festivities        lim women adopted the custom of footbinding, historically
> surrounding the Chinese New Year.                                       and down to the present, the Muslim community has not
> adopted the widespread practice of female infanticide.
> The Role of Women
> Another example of how local histories and traditions within                In conclusion, although maintaining their religious beliefs
> the diverse communities of Muslims in China have evolved                and practices over the centuries has been a continual chalover the centuries can be seen in the roles of women in                 lenge, Muslims in China have always been confident of their
> different communities. In central China there is a long                 identities as both Muslims and Chinese. Although some
> tradition of active involvement by women in both Islamic                Western scholars have presumed that these identities were
> education and religious leadership. Not only is there a long            somehow inherently antagonistic if not mutually exclusive,
> history of women imams in this region, there is also a                  the survival of Islam in China belies these assumptions.
> tradition of separate women’s mosques. In northwest China,              Islamic and Chinese values have both proven to be suffi-
> however, women have tended not to play an active leadership             ciently complementary and dynamic to allow for the flourishrole within Muslim communities, and usually they do not                 ing of Islam in China.
> 
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> Economy and Economic Institutions
> 
> In southwest China the tradition of education for Muslim girls dates back to the mid-nineteenth century. These girls are taking part in after
> school Arabic and Islamic studies classes in a village in central Yannan province. JACQUELINE M. ARMIJO
> 
> See also East Asia, Islam in.                                            Murata, Sachiko. Chinese Gleams of Sufi Light: Wang Tai-yü’s
> Great Learning of the Pure and Real and Liu Chih’s Displaying the Concealment of the Real Realm. Albany: State Univer-
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> sity of New York Press, 2000.
> 
> Armijo, Jacqueline. “Narratives Engendering Survival: How                                                           Jacqueline M. Armijo
> the Muslims of Southwest China Remember the Massacres of 1873.” Traces: An International Journal of Comparative Cultural Theory 1, no. 2 (2001): 293–329.
> Fletcher, Joseph. Studies on Chinese and Islamic Inner Asia.             ECONOMY AND
> Aldershot, U.K.: Variorum, 1995.                                      ECONOMIC INSTITUTIONS
> Gladney, Dru. Muslim Chinese: Ethnic Nationalism in the
> People’s Republic of China. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard                 The Islamic world and its development have often been
> University Press, 1991.                                               examined through its economic development and its relation-
> Jaschok, Maria, and Jingjun, Shui. A History of Women’s                  ship with Christian Europe. This has been particularly true of
> Mosques in Chinese Islam: A Mosque of their Own. Rich-                analyses that dealt with the earlier period of Islamic history.
> mond, U.K.: Curzon Press, 2000.                                       The Belgian medievalist, Henri Pirenne, proffered a pro-
> Leslie, Donald Daniel. Islam in Traditional China: A Short               vocative theory about the end of the Rome Empire in the
> History to 1800. Belconnen, Australia: Canberra College of            West and the beginning of the Middle Ages. He asserted that
> Advanced Education, 1986.                                             the Middle Ages did not begin in 325, as his contemporaries
> 
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> Economy and Economic Institutions
> 
> would have it, but rather that they began after the Arab
> conquest broke through the perimeter of the Mediterranean,
> in the seventh and eighth centuries. The Arab incursion
> destroyed the unity of the Roman Empire, fracturing its
> political, economic, and cultural cohesiveness. Pirenne hypothesized that this situation, along with the isolationism of
> much of Europe, eventually led to feudalism in Europe and
> the rise of Islamic civilization.
> 
> Agriculture in the Early Islamic World
> Whether or not one agrees with Pirenne’s views of the effect
> of Arab conquest on European society, it is undisputed that
> the expansion of the Islamic world had a profound impact on
> Muslim society. Most notable is its effect on agriculture,
> where new crops and techniques to enhance production were
> rapidly introduced from places as far east as Southeast Asia
> and Malaysia. Some of the new crops introduced during the
> early Islamic period included rice, sorghum, hard wheat,
> sugar cane, cotton, watermelons, eggplants, spinach, artichokes, sour oranges, lemons, limes, bananas, plantains, mangoes, and coconut palms. These crops, as well as changes in
> agricultural techniques, were not only significant in their
> impact on food production, but also in the role they played in
> fostering the development of industry, cities, and monetary        This etching depicts medieval European merchants doing busiauthorities within the Muslim world.                               ness with Arabs. © BETTMAN/CORBIS
> 
> It is believed that after the rise and spread of Islam, many
> of the new crops were obtained from the fallen Sassanian           known as qanat were used. These canals connected catchments
> Empire and the Indian subcontinent, where the new province         of ground water to surface canals, but they were inadequate to
> of the Sind, conquered in 711, gave early Muslims a foothold       meet the needs of the new crops. A new and more sophistiin a part of India. The crops from India first came to Iraq and     cated system of irrigation was introduced during the early
> Persia, then diffused into the westerly parts of the Islamic       Islamic period that relied on ground water from wells, aquiworld. By the tenth and eleventh century, the western part of      fers, and springs, augmenting older irrigation systems. Dams
> the Islamic world had taken on major crop changes that had         and cisterns were also used to store water for later use. Taken
> been introduced from territories to the east.                      together, these systems allowed for the irrigation of land that
> had never before been used agriculturally, or extended the
> In time, the new crops were also introduced into Europe         time that other lands could be kept under cultivation each year.
> by way of Spain, Sicily, and Cyprus. Unlike the Islamic world,
> where these new crops were quickly adapted to local culture            These changes in agriculture gave rise to other changes in
> and tastes, they were not rapidly developed in Europe. In a        the Islamic world. The increase in food production led to
> 1981 article on the “Medieval Green Revolution,” Andrew            increases in population growth, fostering urbanization and
> M. Watson cites spinach as an example of this differential         industrialization. These developments fed on each other, for
> development. He states that spinach was one of the earliest        as the population grew new importance was put on agriculcrops to be received into Europe, but although it was quickly      tural improvements in productivity. As towns increased in
> adopted throughout the Islamic world, it spread much more          size there was continued pressure to expand the cultivation of
> slowly in Europe, along with sorghum, sour oranges, and            new lands. As villages grew, they often gave rise to new cities.
> lemons. One reason given for this slowness to adopt new
> crops was the European peasantry’s lack of skill and technical     Industrialization, Trade, and Coinage
> knowledge about agriculture.                                       Industrialization, too, was an outgrowth of agricultural surplus in many parts of the Islamic world. The cities became the
> In contrast, the Islamic world saw extensive changes in        place where much of the processing of the new crops ocagricultural techniques. One area of great importance was          curred. This refining of agricultural goods involved drying,
> irrigation. Since many of the new crops came from regions of       cooking, pickling, and milling of many crops. Watson states
> heavy rainfall, it is significant that they could be grown          that this refining often led to further processing, as in the case
> successfully in the much drier environment of the Middle           of sugar, which gave rise to the confectionery industry, and
> East. In Persia and the Nile Valley, long underground canals       cotton, from which the textiles industry evolved. The cities
> 
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> 
> also became the marketplace, where people from the rural            Even the marketplace was organized along ethnic and religareas would come to trade crops for processed goods. It has         ious lines, as various kinds of goods and services were associthus even been argued that agricultural change was at the           ated with particular groups and were made available in
> heart of local and, eventually, long distance trade. As the         separate parts of the bazaar.
> Islamic world spread, the demand for its raw materials as well
> In addition, most residents of cities were organized into
> as finished goods increased. Consequently, trade between the
> corporations, termed asnaf, naqabat, or tawa
if in Arabic.
> Islamic world and many parts of Europe grew. As ports and
> These corporations were mainly professional guilds, but
> waterways became more important for transporting goods,
> while their social functions were on the whole broader than
> the cities that lay along waterways grew. There was also the
> those of the European guilds, their economic power and their
> birth of a new class of urban intermediaries—merchants,
> control over their professions were less absolute than in their
> transporters, financiers, and warehouse owners.
> Western counterparts, nor did the Muslim guilds encompass
> all urban craftsmen or merchants. The case of the Damascus
> This expansion in trade and commerce also led to a more
> guilds offers insights into how these institutions worked. The
> sophisticated monetary system. At the onset of the rise of
> Damascus guilds were rigidly organized and exclusive. They
> Islam, the use of various coins in different parts of the Islamic
> had a hierarchy of officers, the head of which was the shaykh,
> world was not uncommon. In fact, the Muslims inherited the
> who either inherited his position or was elected. In other
> circulation of metallic money from the Byzantines and
> Middle Eastern countries, however, the autonomy of the
> Sassanids who preceded them. The Byzantine state had used
> shaykh was not the case. For example, in Egypt guilds were an
> gold coinage, which constituted an imperial monopoly, whereas
> important mechanism for the government to collect taxes,
> the Sassanid empire used silver coinage. As the Islamic world
> and the shaykhs became accountable to the government for
> continued to expand, the need to secure an adequate supply of
> the actions of guild members as well as for their members’
> coinage grew more pressing. Initially, the Byzantine and            payment of taxes. In Turkey, guilds were very restrictive and
> Sassanid coins were used, but eventually a new, Islamic,            mandated that the number of people participating in a given
> coinage was introduced. There were two new coins: silver            trade be kept at a certain number.
> (dirham) and gold (dinar). The introduction of these coins is
> referred to as the monetary reform of 
Abd al-Malik.                   There has been much debate by scholars as to the signifi-
> cance of guilds as well as their links to Islamic syndicates and
> Professor of Islamic history Andrew S. Ehrenkreutz has          trade unions; however, there is little evidence that the craftsstated that the monetary reforms of the early Muslim world          men’s guilds had any influence on these later organizations.
> go beyond these new coins. The caliphate assumed responsi-          Furthermore, there has been much speculation as to why the
> bility for the supply of currency, taking upon itself the           guilds dissolved. Some writers assert that the decline of the
> problems of finding precious metals for minting and the              guilds had to do with the rigid structure of the organizations.
> distribution of coinage. Muslim coins have been found as far        However, evidence seems to indicate that the dissolution of
> away as Scandinavia and Russia, suggesting that at least some       the guilds is more likely tied to the introduction of European
> parts of the West had a favorable balance of trade with the         finished goods into the Muslim markets, which disrupted the
> Muslims. A number of scholars believe that the Varangians           local handicrafts industry as a whole.
> (Vikings) were the middlemen, moving goods from the Mus-
> Agriculture and Trade in the Modern Era
> lim world to Scandinavia and Russia. This theory is supported
> Like the earlier period of Islamic history, the modern ecoby evidence that, beginning sometime between the late sevnomic history of the Middle East has been shaped by its
> enth or early eighth century C.E., the Varangians migrated
> relationship and interaction with Europe and Western civilifrom Scandinavia south to the Black Sea, establishing many
> zation. Most economic historians of the region trace the
> trading towns and stations along the way.
> origin of this new relationship to the early 1800s and the
> expansion by many European countries into other regions of
> Growth of Cities and Guilds
> the world in search of natural resources and markets for their
> As this system of commerce expanded, the Islamic city grew
> finished goods. In spite of its earlier economic advances, the
> in importance as well. These cities were multiethnic, and
> Middle East eventually lagged behind Western society in
> their citizens practiced a variety of religions. Different ethnic
> terms of modernization.
> or religious groups resided in separate, usually exclusive,
> quarters of the cities, and these residential divisions were           As the Europeans expanded their control into other parts
> associated with occupational specialization as well. Z.Y.           of the world, the Middle East itself was galvanized into the
> Hershlag points out that ethnic Turks were officials and             formation of a broad network of international trade and
> soldiers, the Greeks as well as the Jews were engaged in trade      finance. The region had witnessed much social upheaval
> and finance, and the Armenians were artisans. There were             throughout the Middle Ages, much of it attributable to an
> certain cities where the main activities of the town were           unstable food supply that had been devastated by famine,
> associated with their dominant ethnic or religious groups.          plagues, and wars. To safeguard their local populations from
> 
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> 
> disruptions in the food supply, governments of the region, in       Land Ownership and Reform
> particular the Ottoman Empire, turned to the importation of         In addition to the problems of attempting to cultivate mar-
> European consumer goods. This approach to trade fit well             ginal land for agricultural use, many scholars have cited land
> with the mercantilist mentality of the Europeans, who were          tenure as a major deterrent to productive agricultural devellooking for export markets but did not care to reciprocate the      opment in the Middle East. Land is normally classified into
> trade with equal imports. In fact, this lack of trade reciprocity   three types in the Middle East: raqaba, which means ownergave rise to the belief, in many parts of the Middle East and       ship by the state or ruler; milk, which refers to private
> North Africa, that exports impoverished a country and that          ownership; or waqf, which is land whose revenues are insales to foreigners should be discouraged. Nonetheless, the         tended for religious or charitable purposes. Of course, there
> Middle East became one of the lowest-duty (import tariff)           was a complex system of land-holding arrangements in the
> areas in the world, ultimately providing a large market for         region, but in general, during the period prior to the nine-
> European goods. It should be mentioned, however, that               teenth century, much of the land was held by the state. The
> during both the First and Second World Wars, the Middle             land was often worked by peasants who were heavily taxed.
> East became a net exporter to Europe, as supply chains were         Later, as agricultural production became more profitable,
> disrupted and Europe needed to provision its troops in              much of the land was transferred to private ownership, held in
> the region.                                                         large estates and, again, worked by peasant farmers.
> 
> The exception to this trade arrangement was found in                It wasn’t until after the Second World War that major
> Egypt. Under Muhammad 
Ali (r. 1805–1849), Egypt used               land reforms took place that favored small farmers. The
> foreign trade to raise revenue, while taking steps to allocate      Egyptian Land Reform Law of 1952 served as a model for the
> local resources and protect its domestic industries. In fact,       region. The act redistributed land held by absentee landlords,
> Egypt in the early 1800s was careful not only to minimize           transferring ownership to those who actually worked it. The
> imports but also to maximize exports, thus protecting domes-        large estates were broken up into small plots and parceled out
> tic industries from being supplanted by foreign-made prod-          to farmers who belonged to cooperatives. Although in most
> ucts. Muhammad 
Ali’s most successful venture was the               cases land reform was hailed as a needed change, it has proven
> development of the cotton trade. Egypt was able to produce a        over time to have been less than successful, for it established a
> much higher quality cotton crop than Europeans. Conse-              system of small and inefficient farms that has hampered
> quently, beginning in 1821, Egyptian cotton exports rose            productivity and hindered the use of mechanization in the
> from 100,000 to 50 million pounds by 1850. Cotton exports           modern period.
> continued to surge into the 1860s, as the American Civil War
> significantly halted production in the United States.                Industrialization
> Industrialization also experienced a number of ups and downs
> The focus on cotton in Egypt should not be surprising, as       in the region. Before the late nineteenth century, the Middle
> agricultural production has played an important role through-       East boasted of a thriving handicraft industry. However, the
> out the Middle East. Yet, most of the land in the region is less    production of local handicrafts declined with the introducthan well suited to agricultural development. There is a lack       tion of European and Indian goods on the Middle Eastern
> of rain throughout the region and the few existing waterways        market. There was also a perception, particularly among the
> are heavily drawn upon, a scarcity that continues to be a           middle and upper classes, that local goods were inferior to
> source of great tension throughout the area. Consequently,          European goods, and this attitude helped seal the fate of
> the crops that have dominated agricultural production have          handicrafts in the region. Meanwhile, the development of
> been those that are less irrigation intensive, such as cereals,     industrialization in the region was slowed by unfavorable
> with the limited introduction of silk production in the late        commercial treaties, which did not support export markets.
> nineteenth century in Lebanon, coffee production in Yemen,          There was also a lack of capital for industrial development, as
> and cash crops such as dates, nuts, and fruits in the better-       well as governments that lacked the foresight to foster local
> watered parts of Arabia and North Africa.                           entrepreneurs.
> 
> Turkey under the Ottoman Empire began producing                     Yet, again, the First World War was important for setting
> tobacco in the seventeenth century. As with cotton, the             the stage for industrialization. The rise of nationalism, cou-
> American Civil War was a factor in the growth of the Turkish        pled with the realization that European instability could
> tobacco industry, as the plantations of the American South          interfere with its ability to provide necessary imports for
> ceased production and demand for the commodity from                 export to the Middle East, led to widespread industrialization
> other sources increased significantly. Turkey’s tobacco pro-         projects. With the abolition of trade agreements that favored
> duction rose from an estimated 10,000–13,000 tons in the            Europe, a further incentive for industrialization was created.
> 1870s to 31,000 tons in 1900, and 64,000 tons in 1911.              Industrialization continued to be important through the
> Tobacco remains an important export for Turkey today.               Second World War, for now the countries of the Middle East
> 
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> Economy and Economic Institutions
> 
> not only had to provide for themselves, but some of them also      loans, governments within the region began experimenting
> had taken on commitments to supply the Allies.                     with many alternative economic paradigms.
> 
> Because of Egypt’s ambitious development initiatives in           The cold war policies of the West concentrated on modthe 1800s, foreign investment came to play a significant role.      ernizing the Third World through economic development.
> The first half of the nineteenth century saw the dissolution of     In Europe, the Marshall Plan provided the capital it needed to
> the old trading companies and the emergence of private             rapidly rebuild and develop; consequently, it was believed
> traders, and the second half saw the emergence of private and      that an equally big push, in the form of capital infusion, would
> incorporated banks. Along with these banks came large accu-        be similarly effective if applied to the Third World. Foreign
> mulation of debt by many governments in the region. More-          aid with an emphasis on industrialization began to pour into
> over, much of the money that was borrowed was poorly               the region. Egypt under Jamal 
Abd al-Nasser (1918–1970,
> invested, and thus did not create much economic growth. In         president from 1954 to 1970) was very successful at playing
> the cases of Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, and Turkey, this debt        the United States and its allies off against the Soviet Union,
> eventually led to foreign occupation. By 1914, the countries       winning capital and investment from both sources.
> of the Middle East had a total debt of about $2 billion, or
> nearly one-twentieth of the total world debt, of which a little        In 1952, Jamal 
Abd al-Nasser had led a military coup,
> over half was public and the rest private. North Africa had a      seizing power of Egypt. Under his leadership, monopolistic
> public debt of about $250 million and a much larger amount         capitalism came to the forefront as the institutional structure
> of foreign investment in the private sector. Although foreign      of the economy. He nationalized a number of industries,
> occupation ultimately led to much political turmoil in the         including the Suez Canal Company, and carried out radical
> region, it has been attributed initially to better debt manage-    land reforms. Much of the logic for restructuring the econment and investment strategies.                                    omy was not only to create an equitable distribution of
> resources within Egypt, but also to offset the damage done by
> The First World War through the Cold War                           decades of colonial policies, which left Egypt with little to no
> The two world wars were important events in terms of their         indigenous business community. Moreover, Nasser saw the
> impact on the Middle East. The First World War destroyed           need to generate resources to fuel his hopes of economic
> the old colonial trading system and allowed the region to          expansion. Such resources were unavailable in the private
> regain both political and economic independence. This took         sector, but the government was receiving much foreign aid
> the form of new trade treaties that were aimed at creating         during the 1950s and 1960s. Nasser adopted a foreign policy
> fairer and more appropriate commercial arrangements. The           of nonalignment, courting both the United States and Soviet
> special agreements that had given foreigners extraterritorial      Union without offering full allegiance to either.
> rights and sheltered them from local laws and taxation were
> abolished. Subsequently, the period between the two world              The dilemma for many of the countries in the Middle
> wars found the Europeans preoccupied with domestic prob-           East, however, was that they were essentially rural, agrarian
> lems and postwar reconstruction, minimizing their influence         societies, ill equipped in terms of human capital to absorb the
> and interference in the region. The Second World War was           foreign aid that was being given to them. This situation led to
> even more significant, for it enabled the creation of a new         economic policies that favored the development of urban
> agenda for the Middle East as political and economic power         centers at the expense of the countryside. This phenomenon,
> continued to move from the hands of foreigners to the hands        known in development literature as “urban bias,” led to much
> of the endogenous class.                                           migration of laborers from rural areas to the urban centers,
> and this influx of prospective workers often outpaced indus-
> As foreign nationals lost economic and political control in    trialization. Consequently, many countries in the region saw
> many of the countries of the Middle East, a massive exodus of      the rapid growth of urban poverty, as the cities attracted vast
> Europeans took place. This exodus created a vacuum in the          numbers of underemployed or unemployed citizens for whom
> upper tiers of the labor market as many of the foreigners had      no jobs could be found.
> positioned themselves not only in roles as traders and financiers, but as entrepreneurs and managers as well. This vac-        Oil and Labor
> uum caused the endogenous governments of these states to           Although the region boasted some of the world’s largest
> take on increasingly active roles within their own economies.      known oil reserves even during the middle of the twentieth
> In spite of the fact that many of these states began espousing     century, it wasn’t until the 1970s that the governments of the
> socialism, the period of the 1950s was really marked as the        Middle Eastern states came to appreciate the power of this
> period of state capitalism, in which the various governments       resource. In fact, oil was relatively insignificant to the foreign
> began to take on the economic roles that are normally              aid and development policies of the region throughout the
> associated with the private sector. While the Soviet Union         1950s and 1960s. When the 1973 Arab-Israeli War broke out,
> and the West, led by the United States, attempted to win           however, Arab petroleum-producing countries took measallies in the region through the distribution of foreign aid and   ures to pressure Western powers in favor of the Arab cause.
> 
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> Economy and Economic Institutions
> 
> First they introduced restrictions on the sale of oil to certain   the peak year of 1993, only 0.3 percent trickled to Arab
> states that supported Israel. Second, they cut back on oil         markets. Yet, this region continues to be rich in both human
> production. By the end of December 1973, they had reduced          and natural resources. It is the home of 6 percent of the
> the production of oil by 25 percent of its earlier levels. The     world’s population, with a wealth of highly-skilled workers
> price of oil increased as a result. On 16 October 1973, the        and a GDP of over $600 billion.
> ministerial committee representing the six Gulf countries,
> which are members of the Organization of Petroleum Ex-                 The late 1980s, however, was a sobering period for the
> porting Countries (OPEC), decided to further increase the          Middle East. An increase in the world supply of oil caused
> price of oil by 70 percent. Coupled with the oil embargo, the      prices to plummet at the same time as financial aid from the
> price was later pushed up to $11.56 per barrel. These events,      Gulf and abroad came to a halt. Since 1986, real per-capita
> although politically motivated, substantially fueled the econo-    incomes have fallen by 2 percent per year. The oil producers
> mies of the states in the Gulf region.                             were hit even harder with the per-capita fall in oil output of 4
> percent per year between 1980 and 1991. These events
> The initiation and implementation of development plans         caused the Arab world to rethink its stance on two major
> in the Gulf States required large numbers of migrant workers       fronts: the structure of their economies and the state of war
> of many nationalities. Much of Saudi Arabia’s initial needs        with Israel. These have not been mutually exclusive acts. It
> were in construction, where high levels of unskilled and           can be argued that much of the government control and lack
> semiskilled workers were needed. Many of its neighbor states       of liberalization in the region was in response to the continuhad large numbers of unskilled or semiskilled workers in need      ous uncertainty caused by the state of war.
> of jobs. They constituted a large available labor force with
> easy access to the Saudi Arabian labor markets, and they           Arab–Israel Conflict
> flooded into the country.                                           The end of violence between Arabs and Israelis has been seen
> as paramount to the economic stability and liberalization of
> This situation, coupled with higher wage rates in Saudi        the region, beginning in the 1990s. This confrontation had
> Arabia relative to labor–rich states, led to a massive labor       first erupted with the proclamation of the State of Israel on 14
> migration from Egypt, Yemen, and Jordan (mainly Palestini-         May 1948 on land that had hitherto been occupied by
> ans) to Saudi Arabia and other, similarly well-off Gulf States.    Palestinians. The ensuing hostilities between Arab states and
> This migration would climax and then halt abruptly with the        Israel have cost the region much in terms of human and
> Gulf War of 1990. It has been estimated that, in 1975, the         capital resources. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, however,
> Gulf region had a labor requirement of 9,728,000. Saudi            there appeared to be a consensus in the Arab world that Israel
> Arabia alone had a labor requirement of 1,968,000 in 1975,         was there to stay and that stagnating economies and poverty
> but its national work force numbered only 1,300,000. Although      in the region were more pressing concerns. For the Israelis,
> it is difficult to know how reliable these figures are, they do      the need for security was tempered with the realization that
> illustrate the great need for laborers in the Gulf region.         the threat of hostilities could only be diminished by compromising with its neighbors. The Arabs, on the other hand,
> Middle Eastern oil reserves and the revenues they gener-       sought justice from an unjust colonial legacy, which is how
> ate have divided the region into two groups of countries: oil      they perceived the creation of a state for the Jews on land
> rich/labor scarce and oil poor/labor abundant. Although            already occupied by Palestinians. What these aspirations
> these countries have not integrated into one system, they          initially translated into was a land-for-peace settlement.
> have benefited greatly from their proximity to each other.
> The oil-rich countries have relied heavily since the early            In March of 1979, Israel and Egypt signed a peace agree-
> 1970s on the labor from the labor abundant states. The labor-      ment that included the return of the Sinai to Egypt. On 13
> abundant states have used capital inflows from migrant              September 1993, Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organiremittances, along with financial aid from the Gulf and the         zation signed a Declaration of Principles. It set the ground
> world’s superpowers, to build growth economies through             rules for the transfer of authority of the Gaza Strip and West
> state-owned enterprises. From 1960 to 1985, the Middle East        Bank Palestinian areas to a Palestinian authority. On 26
> outperformed all other regions of the world except East Asia       October 1994, Jordan and Israel also signed a peace accord.
> in income growth.
> During the mid 1990s there was much discussion of what
> The Middle East witnessed much change in the 1980s and          was to be the peace dividend: the reallocation of resources
> 1990s. Political instability, coupled with too much govern-        away from military expenditures and toward other sectors of
> ment control and regulation, caused much of the interna-           the region’s economies. Peace was also associated with an
> tional financial and business community to shun this region         opening of political and economic systems that had been
> and to invest their capital in the emerging superstars of          overcontrolled by governments, a situation that initially had
> Southeast Asia. Fund managers estimated that out of a total of     been due to the lack of an endogenous entrepreneurial class
> $65 billion of capital that floated into emerging markets in        and then later continued in response to the region’s chronic
> 
> 198                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Economy and Economic Institutions
> 
> Oil reserves and production in the Muslim World, early 1990s
> 
> The percentage of world oil reserves                                                              Oil production in 1,000's of barrels per day in 1993
> 
> Algeria            0.92%                                                                          Algeria                                         750
> Azerbaijan         0.13%                                                                          Azerbaijan                                      240
> Brunei             0.14%                                                                          Brunei                                          165
> Egypt              0.62%                                                                          Egypt                                           880
> Indonesia          0.58%                                                                          Indonesia                                     1,323
> Iran                                    9.30%                                                     Iran                                          3,540
> Iraq                                   10.01%                                                     Iraq                                            436
> Kazakhstan                              8.56%                                                     Kazakhstan                                      540
> Kuwait                                  9.66%                                                     Kuwait                                        1,873
> Libya                    2.28%                                                                    Libya                                         1,367
> Malaysia                 0.37%                                                                    Malaysia                                        649
> Nigeria                  1.79%                                                                    Nigeria                                       1,896
> Oman                     0.45%                                                                    Oman                                            775
> Qatar                    0.37%                                                                    Qatar                                           428
> Saudi Arabia                                                                    26.06%            Saudi Arabia                                  8,161
> Syria           0.17%                                                                             Syria                                           531
> UAE                                    9.82%                                                      UAE                                           2,189
> Yemen            0.40%                                                                            Yemen                                           450
> 
> 82%
> 
> Small oil producers                         Members of OPEC
> 
> Albania         Tajikistan                  Algeria          Libya
> Bahrain         Tunisia                     Indonesia        Nigeria
> Kyrghyzstan     Turkey                      Iran             Qatar
> 18%                       Pakistan        Turkmenistan                Iraq             Saudi Arabia
> Sudan           Uzbekistan                  Kuwait
> 
> Percentage of world        The rest of the world
> crude oil reserves
> under Muslim states
> 
> SOURCE: Robinson, Francis, ed. The Cambridge Illustrated History of the Islamic World. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
> 
> Oil reserves and production in the early 1990s.
> 
> state of war. There was also a realization that small states such         financial and economic policies to suit the needs of the
> as Jordan, Lebanon, Israel, and the Palestinian territories had           international market. The opening of stock exchanges in the
> much to gain from regional coordination.                                  region, coupled with the rapid pace in which legislation for
> privatization and liberalization were being passed in the
> Emerging Markets                                                          Middle East, augured well for this first factor of emergence.
> As the mid-1990s ushered in an era of tremendous economic
> growth in the West, many investors were looking to the                       Israel, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Bahrain, and Jordan
> Middle East as an emerging financial market for investments.               were developing active stock exchanges. Lebanon’s stock
> The first important variable for identifying an emerging                   exchange reopened in September 1995 after having been
> high-growth market is a government that is willing to change              closed during its civil war. However, even during the war
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                                           199
> Economy and Economic Institutions
> 
> years, the lack of a stock exchange had not kept Lebanon from        government of Egypt. The IMF provided $342 million.
> issuing foreign currency debt as a means of tapping interna-         Egypt was then able to reschedule its debt payments with the
> tional markets. Moreover, the drive to encourage foreign             Paris Club (a group of creditor countries that treat in a
> investment had led many Middle East nations to seek inde-            coordinated way the debt due to them by developing counpendent credit ratings by recognized agencies. Moody’s Invest-       tries). This IMF agreement, however, was never fully impleors Service set up an office in Cyprus in March of 1995 to            mented, due to concerns about the slow pace with which the
> keep an eye on this region, and the European rating agency           Egyptians were conducting reforms.
> IBCA was involved in a joint venture to set up a rating agency
> in the Arab world.                                                   Reducing deficits. Many of these countries were also taking
> steps to reduce their budget deficits. Egypt, Jordan, Morocco,
> Privatization in the form of government assets being sold        and Tunisia were all seen as initial success stories in reducing
> to other actors, such as individuals or corporations, was also       their deficits. Most of the reduction was achieved by eliminattaking place throughout the region. Economic policies were           ing food subsidies, raising energy prices to market rates,
> liberalized in order to expand the economic freedom of the           instituting sales taxes, financing the deficit through Treasury
> private sector as well as encourage foreign investment. For          bill auctions, and reducing the ranks of government workers.
> most of these countries, and particularly Egypt and Jordan,          One of the biggest problems Egypt and its neighbors faced
> the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank                 was undoing the excessive level of bureaucratic control over
> were active in assisting them to meet their goals.                   the economy that had been put in place during past regimes.
> Although they had begun to liberalize many of the invest-
> The second factor for determining whether a regional or
> ment laws, change was slow. They were also slow selling off
> national economy is about to take off is the local willingness
> government enterprises. The public sector represented 70
> to remove the maladaptive conditions that had caused that
> percent of industrial production in the early 1990s in Egypt.
> country or region to be uncompetitive in the past. The
> In 1993, the 314 public sector enterprises were organized into
> political instability caused by the state of war with Israel since
> seventeen holding companies, which are permitted to sell,
> the 1950s has been the principal inhibiting factor for ecolease, or liquidate company assets and sell governmentnomic development for this region. The confrontational
> owned shares.
> relationship that the Arab world has had with Israel since the
> latter’s creation not only cost much human capital, but also
> Jordan. Jordan has been one of the most promising emerging
> much time and resources that could have been used to build
> markets in the Middle East. It vigorously implemented a
> their economies. Consequently, peace with Israel was seen as
> structural adjustment plan in the late 1980s, even in spite of a
> a step in allowing a very well endowed region to start
> geographical location that has made it very vulnerable to
> operating more efficiently.
> regional political instability. Jordan is estimated to have a
> Privitazation and liberalization policies. Most of the North         population of 4.2 million, of which an estimated 60 percent is
> African and Levantine countries now embarked on ambitious            Palestinian. The Palestinians first came to Jordan in 1948,
> economic reforms. Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak (b.               when the creation of Israel triggered their subsequent exodus
> 1928) delivered a May Day 1990 speech calling for economic           from Palestine. Each time the Israelis and Arabs had a
> privatization and liberalization. He also signed a standby           military confrontation, Jordan experienced an echo effect
> credit agreement with the International Monetary Fund in             from Palestine, the most notable of which occurred in 1967.
> 1991. These events were intended to signal to Egyptians as           Jordan also served as the gateway for hundreds of thousands
> well as the international business community that Egypt was          of refugees fleeing Iraq and Kuwait during the Gulf crisis of
> serious about reforming and restructuring its economy. There         1990. In fact, it is estimated that as many as 300,000 returnees
> are many groups that have vested interests in the reform             from Kuwait emerged on the Jordanian labor market in 1990.
> process in Egypt, including local labor unions, business             All these events have taken their toll on the Jordanian economy.
> groups, nongovernmental organizations, international do-
> Unlike Egypt, Jordan has always been viewed as being a
> nors, and government officials.
> free market economy. Yet, it has a substantial public sector,
> The countries of North Africa, particularly Morocco and          with the government actively controlling 62 percent of the
> Tunisia, also embarked on ambitious privatization and                economy and being the largest employer. This is mainly
> liberalization schemes. Much of the reform in Egypt as well as       because Jordan has long been a rentier economy, one that
> in other countries in the region centered around trimming            collects rents rather than generating its income from domesthe public sector by cutting price subsidies on energy, food,        tic production. The rents that Jordan has survived on have
> and transportation, along with ending government control of          been in the form of foreign aid and remittances from
> certain sectors of the economy as a means of encouraging             Jordanians/Palestinians working abroad. Much of this reveprivate investment. The IMF had been the primary force in            nue was generated in the oil-producing countries of the
> calling for reforms in most of these countries. In May 1987, a       Middle East. In fact, Jordan has been termed an oil economy
> standby agreement was reached between the IMF and the                without oil. This situation was acceptable during the 1970s
> 
> 200                                                                                              Islam and the Muslim World
> Economy and Economic Institutions
> 
> and early 1980s, when the oil industry was booming. How-           fell on comparatively hard times. Several of the countries,
> ever, as oil prices plummeted so did the Jordanian economy.        notably Saudi Arabia, had ratcheted up government spending
> This situation has led to a restructuring of the Jordanian         and import purchases so that, when oil revenues fell sharply,
> economy and a peace settlement with Israel.                        the country began running chronic balance-of-payments
> deficits. Government budgets also began to run into the red.
> Syria. Syrian economic policies since the late 1980s represent     These events have caused many of these states to attempt to
> an attempt to liberalize and privatize the economy while still
> diversify their economies, with Bahrain endeavoring to bemaintaining government control. In 1988, Syria began decome the financial capital of the Middle East. However, these
> regulating its economy and coming to terms with the fact that
> states remain driven by oil markets, and there is little eviits diversified economy was faltering as a result of excessive
> dence that their attempts to diversify have been successful.
> government control. A currency that had been ridiculously
> overvalued was devalued by 70 percent. Land that had been              By the late 1990s and early part of the twenty-first cenheld by the ministry of agriculture was now freed up for           tury, the Middle East again entered into a new era. The
> private sector use. A group of twelve Syrian entrepreneurs         economic pragmatism of the 1990s has given way to politics.
> formed an agricultural investment company to work 5,000            The lack of real changes in the underlying factors affecting
> hectares of farmland in the Euphrates valley. There were also      economic development has bred despair. Many of the counchanges in the law to promote private sector growth; how-          tries that were liberalizing and privatizing their economies
> ever, the state has continued to play a significant role in         have fallen victim to a world financial bubble that rose and
> overseeing and conducting much of what are supposed to be          then burst. Financial markets around the world suffered;
> private sector initiatives.
> however, those in less stable regions such as the Middle East,
> Syria’s economy has improved since 1990. From 1990 to          are hardest pressed. The peace dividend with Israel, too, did
> 1993, its GDP grew at 8 percent annually. Much of this has         not materialize. Meanwhile, foreign aid in the post–cold war
> been due to the quadrupling of oil production, record har-         era has not been forthcoming.
> vests for the agricultural sector, and significant foreign aid
> Although oil prices have risen, the Gulf countries are
> from the Gulf as a reward for Syrian support and participamore cynical about sharing with their neighbors in the post–
> tion in the Gulf war coalition. This aid has been used largely
> Gulf War era. As many of these countries reach out to the
> to rebuild and repair Syria’s infrastructure. The private sector
> World Bank and the IMF for financing, the economic austeris also expanding in an environment of liberal investment
> ity measures demanded by these institutions seem unbearlaws, particularly in the area of agriculture and industry. Yet,
> able, given the rise of poverty throughout the region. The
> there has been a general reluctance by many foreign investors
> lack of stability, coupled with a post–11 September 2001
> to get involved in Syria, for the government is still in control
> of many of the major sectors such as oil, electricity, and         realization by the West of the impact that radical Islamic
> banking. Consequently, most business opportunities in Syria        groups can have has left the citizens and economies of these
> presently are for exporting to the private sector in areas such    regions feeling abandoned. Consequently, the economies of
> as agricultural equipment and inputs as well as capital goods      this region remain heavily guided by the state, with a private
> for industrial projects, food processing, and textiles.            sector attempting to operate in a state of uncertainty.
> 
> Privatization and liberalization have been slow in Syria for    See also Capitalism; Coinage; Riba; Waqf.
> a number of reasons. First, this is a regime that has long had a
> socialist orientation and favors central control. Second, the      BIBLIOGRAPHY
> labor movement is very powerful in Syria and opposes               Abed, George T. The Palestinian Economy. London:
> privatization. Although the regime realizes that it must re-         Routledge, 1988.
> structure its economy if it wants to survive in an era of          Berberoglu, Berch, ed. Power and Stability in the Middle East.
> globalization, there is a general reluctance to disturb the           Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Zed Books, 1989.
> present balance of power.
> Colton, Nora. “The Maghribi Economies as Emerging Mar-
> Oil Dependency                                                       kets?” In North Africa in Transition: Socio-Economic and
> Despite the wealth accumulated by the Gulf States, the oil           Political Change in the Post-Cold War Era. Edited by Yahia
> H. Zoubir. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1999.
> dependency of the region’s economies and exports had become alarming by the late 1980s, when the fluctuation of oil        Cook, M. A. Studies in the Economic History of the Middle East.
> prices made for a very unpredictable revenue base. Of course,        Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 1978.
> the 1970s and 1980s saw some improvements, as all the Gulf         Cuno, Kenneth M. The Pasha’s Peasants. Cambridge, U.K.:
> States built modern infrastructures, increased their standards       Cambridge University Press, 1992.
> of living, and enhanced their regional and world power             Ehrenkreutz, Andrew S. Monetary Change and Economic Hisduring these decades. With the collapse of oil prices in the         tory in the Medieval Muslim World. Edited by Jere L.
> 1980s, however, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states            Bacharach. Brookfield, Vt.: Ashgate Publishing, 1992.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                   201
> Education
> 
> Fischer, Stanley; Rodrik, Dani; and Tuma, Elias. The Econo-        companions), commentaries on the Quran and hadith, and
> mics of Middle East Peace. Boston: MIT Press, 1993.             books from a variety of different fields of intellectual en-
> Gerner, Deborah J., ed. Understanding the Contemporary Mid-        deavor. The Islamic tradition is thus very much a textual one.
> dle East. Boulder, Colo.: Rienner, 2000.                         That fact has helped to make learning and education a central
> Halliday, Fred. Arabia Without Sultans. Middlesex, N.Y.:           pillar of the religion, in virtually all times and places.
> Penguin Books, 1974.
> Islamic Education in the Premodern Period
> Hershlag, Z.Y. Introduction to the Modern Economic History of
> Like most things in the Islamic tradition, the centrality of
> the Middle East. Leiden: Brill, 1980.
> learning finds expression in sayings (ahadith, sing. hadith)
> Issawi, Charles. The Economic History of the Middle East           attributed to Muhammad, such as one that quotes him as
> 1800–1914. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966.
> instructing his followers: “Seek knowledge, even in China.”
> Issawi, Charles. An Economic History of the Middle East and        That injunction applies with special force, of course, to
> North Africa. New York: Columbia University Press, 1982.       scholars, but it is directed in a more general way at all
> Mehmet, Ozay. Westernizing the Third World. London:                Muslims, who need at least rudimentary instruction in those
> Routledge, 1995.                                                 demands which the sharia, Islamic law, placed upon their
> Pirenne, Henri. Economic and Social History of Medieval Europe.    lives. Moreover, Muslims typically viewed the process of
> New York: Harcourt, 1937.                                       transmitting knowledge and texts—or at least knowledge and
> Pridham, B. R. The Arab Gulf and the Arab World. Exeter,           texts of a religious nature—as itself a form of worship. And so,
> U.K.: University of Exeter, 1988.                               for example, one was not supposed to commence reading the
> Oweiss, Ibrahim. The Political Economy of Contemporary Egypt.      Quran, or participating in a class on a religious topic, without
> Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University, Center for              performing ritual ablutions similar to those which are to
> Contemporary Arab Studies, 1990.                                 precede prayer.
> Owen, E. R. J. The Middle East in the World Economy,
> It is hardly surprising, therefore, that an important
> 1800–1914. London: Methuen, 1981.
> thirteenth-century treatise on instruction and study by Burhan
> Richards, Alan, and Waterbury, John. A Political Economy of        al-Din al-Zarnuji would stress the importance of education to
> the Middle East. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1990.
> a pious Muslim life, and conclude that “learning is prescribed
> Saqqaf, Abdulaziz. The Middle East City. New York: Para-           for us all.” It is of course impossible to estimate with any
> gon, 1987.                                                      degree of certainty the number of individuals in premodern
> Serageldin, I., et al. Manpower and International Labor Migra-     Islamic societies who were educated or literate, and it may
> tion in the Middle East and North Africa. London: Oxford        even be difficult to be precise about what it meant to be
> University Press, 1983.                                         “educated” or “literate.” Nonetheless, it is almost certain that
> Shami, Seteney. Population Displacement and Resettlement, Devel-   premodern Islamic societies achieved (at least in comparison
> opment and Conflict in the Middle East. New York: Center         to premodern European societies) relatively high levels of
> for Migration Studies, 1994.                                    literacy and of familiarity with the texts in which knowledge
> Udovitch, A. L., ed. The Islamic Middle East, 700–1900:            was embedded. Inevitably education was largely a concern of
> Studies in Economic and Social History. Princeton, N.J.: The     men, but the biographical sources available for the recon-
> Darwin Press, 1981.                                              struction of the social history of many premodern Islamic
> Watson, Andrew M. “A Medieval Green Revolution: New                societies demonstrate that girls often received some level of
> Crops and Farming Techniques in the Early Islamic                education and religious training, and that many became
> World.” In The Islamic Middle East 700–1900: Studies in          recognized scholars in their own right.
> Economic and Social History, Edited by A. L. Udovitch.
> Princeton, N.J.: The Darwin Press, 1981.                             The “knowledge” that Muslims are to seek is known in
> Arabic as 
ilm (pl. 
ulum). The word can mean knowledge of
> Nora Ann Colton       almost any sort. In more traditional contexts, however, it
> refers specifically to knowledge acquired through some course
> of study, and especially in fields of intellectual endeavor that
> we would now label “religious.” In this narrower sense, it
> EDUCATION                                                          constitutes the foundation of the authority of the group
> known by the etymologically related term ulema (sing. 
alim),
> Islam, like Christianity and Judaism, is a “religion of the        literally “those who know.” The ulema are those scholars who
> book”—a religion, that is, which derives its authority from a      are involved in the transmission of the religious sciences. In
> revealed scripture. The Quran does not stand alone, how-          premodern Islamic societies, they included men who funcever; it is supplemented by a wide array of other texts of a       tioned in those positions for which training in the religious
> religious nature, such as collections of hadith (stories about     sciences was required—the judge (qadi) who ruled according
> the words and deeds of the prophet Muhammad and his                to Islamic law, the professor (mudarris) who transmitted
> 
> 202                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Education
> 
> religious learning to a rising generation of scholars, the         maktab or kuttab, often attached to a mosque. The emphasis at
> preacher (khatib) who delivered sermons in mosques, and so on.     this level was on the rote memorization of the Quran, the
> foundation without which more advanced education was
> The ulema were not, however, a clergy (a group of people       impossible. Kuttabs developed within the first century or so of
> set aside by an act of consecration). Consequently, their social
> Islamic history, and have in many places continued to funcorigins and status varied widely. Virtually anyone could be
> tion down into modern times, sometimes in competition with
> considered one of the ulema if he or she had acquired
> schools offering a more modern curriculum.
> sufficient learning and the social respect that came with it.
> Collectively, however, they constituted perhaps the most               Once the Quran was memorized, some students would
> important indigenous group in most traditional Islamic so-         proceed to more advanced training in various subjects. Those
> cieties, and so were sometimes identified as the “heirs of the      subjects included the study of hadith, tafsir (Quranic exegeprophets”—that is, as the inheritors (in the absence of the        sis), and especially fiqh (jurisprudence), although the bounda-
> Prophet) of religious authority, the arbiters of the religious     ries between them were not always sharp. In many ways,
> tradition. Virtually all premodern Islamic societies have left a
> jurisprudence was the most important of the religious scirecord of the respect in which the ulema were held. So, for
> ences, because of the centrality of Islamic law in guiding not
> example, a jurist named Ibn al-Hajj who lived in fourteenthonly the worship but the social and political behavior of
> century Cairo commented that, when a true scholar died, the
> Muslims. Here, too, memorization was important, and the
> whole of creation would mourn his passing, even the birds of
> medieval sources are full of accounts of scholars who had
> the air and the fish of the sea.
> committed to memory thousands of hadiths and other texts.
> In many respects the distinction between that which is         But education in the advanced forms of the religious sciences
> “secular” and that which is “sacred” is meaningless in the         involved much more. Two things in particular stand out.
> Islamic tradition. Nonetheless, Muslims came to distinguish        First, higher education trained the student to participate, as
> broadly between those subjects and disciplines that they           reader and as writer, in an interlocking nexus of texts and
> inherited from pre-Islamic civilizations, such as philosophy,      commentaries on those texts—in essence, it trained the stuastronomy, medicine, and the like, and those which were            dent to engage in a “conversation” or “discourse” that constimore immediately connected with the Quranic revelation            tuted the essence of intellectual life for the ulema. This
> and the religious tradition that stemmed from it. The former       “conversation” was quite vigorous, and the ulema of the early
> were referred to as the “sciences of the ancients” (al-ulum al-   and medieval periods of Islamic history have left a significant
> awa
il ) or the “rational sciences” (al-ulum al-aqliyya). For    textual record of it. Second, higher education involved a
> many centuries, these sciences flourished in the Islamic world:     process of socialization, in which the student gradually acnames such as that of the great physician and philosopher Ibn      quired status in the eyes of other scholars. In the absence of
> Sina (d. 1037), known to the West as Avicenna, and the             any consecrated priesthood or formal degree system, this
> Spanish philosopher, theologian, and natural scientist Ibn         element of the educational process was especially important.
> Rushd (d. 1198), known as Averroes, are sufficient to demon-        So a student might attach himself to one or more teachers,
> strate that. Clearly the processes by which the knowledge          developing close personal as well as intellectual relations
> they had mastered was transmitted to subsequent generations        with them.
> formed a part of the educational world of classical and
> medieval Islam. In some cases, education in these sciences             For the first several centuries of Islamic history, the
> was supported by institutions, the most famous of which was        transmission of the religious sciences at an advanced level
> the Bayt al-Hikma, or “House of Wisdom,” established by            took place in an entirely informal fashion. Scholars would
> the caliph al-Mamun in Baghdad in the ninth century, and          offer classes in mosques, or in private homes. Such informal
> devoted to the translation and transmission of Greek scien-        settings never ceased to be important to the transmission of
> tific and philosophical works, and a similar institution estab-     
ilm. Beginning in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, howlished by the Fatimid caliph al-Hakim in Cairo over a century      ever, rulers and other leading figures in the Muslim societies
> later. More often, they were transmitted informally, directly      of the Near East began to establish institutions known as
> from teacher to pupil.                                             madrasas that were devoted specifically to advanced instruction in the religious sciences, and especially jurisprudence. As
> It was subjects and disciplines more closely related to the
> an institutional type, madrasas may have originated in
> religious experience, however, that formed the core of what
> Khurasan, in eastern Iran. They soon spread throughout the
> Muslims recognized as 
ilm. The circumstances under which
> Near East, and became common in the cities and towns of
> they were transmitted were somewhat different than for the
> Egypt, Syria, Iran, and later the Anatolian and Balkan provrational sciences.
> inces of the Ottoman Empire. Particularly important cities,
> Education would begin at a young age, with instruction in       such as Cairo, might boast dozens of madrasas of varying
> Arabic and the Quran. This instruction might take place in        sizes. Each madrasa would typically consist of a building
> the home, or alternatively in a primary school known as a          providing space for lessons as well as accommodations for one
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                    203
> Education
> 
> or more teachers and a certain number of pupils. The institu-     by fees and alms provided by local Muslims as well as
> tion and its activities would be supported by an endowment        endowments, and often were established by particular schol-
> (waqf ) provided by the individual who had founded the            ars themselves (and might not survive their founder’s death).
> madrasa in the first place. As a result, madrasas might vary
> considerably in terms of their size and the value of the              Third, the spread of madrasas in the Middle Ages had
> endowments supporting them: Some might employ several             important social consequences, in particular a tendency to
> professors and provide stipends for hundreds of students,         bind an increasingly diverse society together in a united
> while others might support only a few.                            cultural project. This tendency can be seen on a number of
> different levels. The texts and methods of instruction of
> Several aspects of the madrasa and of the educational         Islamic legal and religious education were remarkably unisystem it supported deserve comment. In the first place, the       form across the Sunni Muslim world, and a student or scholar
> spread of these institutions was closely linked to political      from Iran who found himself in, say, Damascus or Cairo
> structures in the medieval Islamic world. In general, political   would often be able to find a position in a madrasa there.
> power in the medieval Near East was fairly localized. Much of     Since these institutions provided stipends for students as well
> the central Islamic lands were ruled by military elites of an     as salaries for teachers, they may have helped to broaden the
> alien, often Turkish or Mongol, and sometimes only recently       social base of those able to devote themselves to the long
> and superficially Islamized nature. The rulers’ decisions to       process of becoming a recognized scholar. They also helped
> establish and endow institutions for the transmission of the      to spread Islamic teachings beyond the urban centers in
> Islamic sciences constituted one strategy for securing the        which most of the ulema concentrated, as young men from
> support, or at least the acquiescence, of the ulema who           the countryside might study for a time in a madrasa in the
> commanded considerable respect among the local Muslim             city, and then return home to supervise and instruct the
> population. So, for example, especially in the cities of Egypt    religious lives of peasants and others in the villages.
> and Syria, madrasas would often be associated with elaborate
> tombs constructed for the benefit of the schools’ patrons, a       Islamic Education in the Modern Period
> linkage that had both spiritual and political advantages.         In the modern period, the field of education, along with that
> of the family and of the social and political status of women,
> Second, for all the importance of madrasas, the system of     has been one of the principal targets of reformers, and thus
> transmitting religious knowledge and of training the next         also one of the major battlegrounds over the character and
> generation of ulema remained persistently informal, at least      direction of Islamic societies. Given the traditional status and
> through the end of the Middle Ages. The medieval sources          social role of the ulema, this is hardly surprising. Developtell us at great length with whom an individual studied, and      ments in the field of education can be grouped into three
> with which professors a student developed close relation-         distinct areas: the establishment by Muslim governments of
> ships, but very little about where those studies took place.      modern schools that have competed with traditional Islamic
> There was no system of institutional degrees; rather, certifi-     schools; the establishment in some places of schools sponcation of the character and quality of an individual’s educa-     sored by foreign groups, many of them by missionaries; and
> tion was found in the ijaza. The ijaza could take different       the reform of traditional schools themselves.
> forms: It could be a formal attestation of a scholar that some
> individual had, in some fashion, studied a particular text with      The establishment of a new network of schools has been
> him, or it could be his statement that the student had            one of the principal tasks of various groups of political and
> mastered an entire field of learning. In any case, it was a        social reformers in the modern Muslim world. At the end of
> personal document, which confirmed the relationship of the         the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries, for
> student to his teacher, and through him to his teacher’s own      example, the Ottoman government established a series of
> instructors. Through it, the student took his place in a          schools designed to train students in mathematics, medicine,
> genealogy of authorities that constituted the only recognized     and various other subjects. Those efforts picked up speed
> hierarchy of the educational system. Under the Ottoman            during the period of aggressive reforms known as the Tanzimat,
> Empire, this loose and personalized system gave way to a          from 1839 to 1876. The Ottoman viceroys of Egypt, Muhammore carefully defined and delineated structure. At least in       mad 
Ali and his successors, undertook a similar program over
> the capital of Istanbul, madrasas were graded according to a      the course of the nineteenth century. In both these cases,
> hierarchy that was in turn tied closely to the career paths of    educational reform was connected with a campaign to reform
> the students who passed through them. In other parts of the       and improve the effectiveness of the military: The students,
> Muslim world, however, Islamic education continued to             that is, were originally drawn from the ranks of army officers.
> follow informal patterns. In Indonesia, for example, educa-       In both cases, also, the social effects were profound. Very
> tion in the Islamic sciences (including Quranic exegesis,        often the instructors in these schools were European, and the
> jurisprudence, etc.) took place in institutions known as          textbooks written in European languages. Accordingly, inpesantren. On the whole the pesantren were less formal institu-   struction in those languages, especially French, formed a core
> tions than Near Eastern madrasas: They might be supported         component of the new schools’ curricula, and so they became
> 
> 204                                                                                           Islam and the Muslim World
> Education
> 
> a channel for the importation into the Muslim world, not             these schools represented religious communities or organizasimply of scientific knowledge in fields such as chemistry or          tions. Some, such as the institutions established by the Alliengineering, but also of new political ideas values and new          ance Israelite Universelle, saw their mission as the education,
> ways of thinking about social organization. There was some           and often the Westernization, of students from particular
> opposition to these new educational institutions from the            communities of religious minorities. Others, however, tried
> ulema, many of whom looked askance at innovations, particu-          to attract a more ecumenical student body, although the
> larly those adopted in an explicitly Westernizing form, and          success of those efforts varied from place to place. Among the
> who resented the challenge that the new schools posed to             more notable such institutions were Robert College in Istantheir former monopoly on education. In the long run, how-            bul and the Syrian Protestant College (later the American
> ever, the principal consequence of the new schools was the           University in Beirut), both founded by American Protestant
> development of a new social elite, trained in a more-or-less         missionaries. The latter in particular has had a distinguished
> European fashion and attuned to the political and social             place in the modern history of the region, as it was associated
> values of modern Europe, a new elite that did not replace the        with a rebirth of Arabic literature and culture in the nineolder elite represented by the ulema, but deprived it of much        teenth and twentieth centuries and so contributed to the
> of its social recognition and authority.                             development of a modern Arab national movement. The fate
> of these institutions in the post-colonial world has been
> Over the twentieth century, a full system of governmentmixed: Robert College, for example, has been effectively
> sponsored schools developed in most parts of the Muslim
> integrated into the larger Turkish educational system, whereas
> world. In many places, this task of educational reform has
> A.U.B. and the American University in Cairo have remained
> been linked in one fashion or another to Westernizing elites
> independent, and have continued to offer a distinctive and
> and to a conscious program of modernization. In Egypt, for
> distinctively Western education.
> example, after the military coup of 1952, the government
> expanded the network of primary and secondary schools as
> Finally, there is the question of what became of the
> well as universities, in the process broadening considerably
> traditional network of schools, kuttabs, madrasas, and so on in
> the social base of those with access to a modern education. A
> the wake of the emergence of the state-supported educational
> similar process took place in Turkey, where the first universystem. In most parts of the Muslim world, where kuttabs and
> sity was founded in the late Ottoman period, with others
> traditional systems of education have survived, they have
> established after the emergence of the republic following the
> done so at the expense of coming to constitute a separate,
> First World War. In Turkey, however, the process went
> “religious” educational sphere. From the perspective of the
> further than in many places, because of the pronounced
> classical and medieval Islamic periods, this in itself is an odd
> laicism of Mustafa Kemal “Ataturk” and his republican redevelopment. Moreover, the conditions that made the ulema
> gime. In the aftermath of the Kemalist victory, many of the
> so important in previous historical eras have disappeared or
> madrasas were closed, along with other religious institutions.
> been eroded. The religious scholars can no longer rely on the
> (After Ataturk’s death, restrictions on religious education
> patronage of rulers or an extensive network of waqfs (religious
> were loosened: A faculty of theology was established at
> Ankara university in 1949, for example, and instruction in           endowments) to provide financial support. Since they have
> religious matters was returned to the curriculum of the              had to compete with more modern, state-supported schools,
> elementary schools.) In Iran, too, the regime of Reza Shah           those who trained and taught in them, the ulema, have often
> and his son, Muhammad Reza Shah, undertook a vigorous                found their social status and power significantly reduced.
> program to secularize and modernize the educational system;          With a variety of educational and professional options now
> there, however, the traditional network of madrasas training         available, traditional schools and religious subjects have held
> Shi
ite religious scholars remained more or less intact, though it   less appeal for bright and ambitious students. In contemposhrank in size and lost its appeal to middle-class students. The     rary Egypt, for example, where subjects such as medicine and
> result was considerable tension between a secularizing gov-          engineering attract the most successful pupils, those studying
> ernment and the traditional ulema, a factor of enormous              the religious sciences typically rank at the bottom of the
> significance in the Islamic revolution of 1978 and 1979. Saudi        academic ladder.
> Arabia, by contrast, has followed a different model, in which
> the traditional madrasa system has been largely replaced by             There have been efforts to reform the traditional schools
> state-supported schools and universities, but traditional re-        themselves. In Egypt, for example, the organization of the
> ligious subjects have remained an important part of the              ancient mosque of al-Azhar and its educational program have
> curriculum of the government institutions.                           evolved considerably in the last century. It has expanded its
> mission and become a full-fledged university, adding new
> In many parts of the Muslim world, such as Egypt, Syria,         faculties (in medicine, engineering, etc.), instruction in a
> and India, educational institutions established by Europeans         number of disciplines (English, the social sciences, etc.)
> (or Americans) have also played an important role during the         which previously had no place in traditional religious educalast two centuries. Many of those responsible for establishing       tion, as well as a separate college for women. At the same
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                      205
> Education
> 
> At the Mohabat Khan mosque in Peshawar, Pakistan, a student receives instruction in the Qur
an. In ancient traditions of Islamic education,
> students were required to memorize the Qur
an before pursuing additional learning, and this early emphasis on rote memorization remains
> today in many religious schools. GETTY IMAGES, GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA
> 
> time, al-Azhar has come much more decisively under govern-              BIBLIOGRAPHY
> ment supervision, with the result that its officials are some-           Berkey, Jonathan P. The Transmission of Knowledge in Medieval
> times perceived as lacking that independence which lent                    Cairo: A Social History of Islamic Education. Princeton, N.J.:
> authority to the medieval ulema. The Muslim community in                   Princeton University Press, 1992.
> India under British rule also produced several distinct move-           Eickelman, Dale. Knowledge and Power in Morocco: The Educaments of educational reform. Chief among them was that                     tion of a Twentieth-Century Notable. Princeton, N.J.: Princeassociated with the Dar al-
Ulum (“House of Sciences”) at                  ton University Press, 1985.
> 
> Deoband, a school founded in the nineteenth century to                  Makdisi, George. The Rise of Colleges: Institutions of Learning in
> provide a traditional religious education with methods and in             Islam and the West. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University
> Press, 1981.
> an institutional environment of a more modern nature, and
> which has inspired the establishment of similar institutions            Rosenthal, A. L. Knowledge Triumphant: The Concept of Knowledge in Medieval Islam. Leiden: Brill, 1970.
> throughout the subcontinent. More recently, newly established institutions known as madrasas have flourished in                 Starrett, Gregory. Putting Islam to Work: Education, Politics,
> and Religious Transformation in Egypt. Berkeley: University
> Pakistan and elsewhere in connection with the rise of politiof California Press, 1998.
> cal Islam.
> Tibawi, A. L. Islamic Education: Its Traditions and Modernization into the Arab National Systems. London: Luzac, 1972.
> See also Azhar, al-; Deoband; Knowledge; Madrasa;
> Modernization, Political: Administrative, Military, and
> Judicial Reform; Science, Islam and.                                                                                    Jonathan Berkey
> 
> 206                                                                                                  Islam and the Muslim World
> Empires
> 
> deliberately vague. In an attempt to appeal to 
Alid sympa-
> EMPIRES                                                            thies, the slogans of the movement spoke only of restoring “a
> chosen one” (from the Prophet’s family) rather than a mem-
> ABBASID                                                         ber of the Abbasid house specifically. The Abbasids only
> Matthew Gordon
> showed their hand at a very late point; assuming control of
> BYZANTINE                                                       the caliphate, the dynasty alienated the 
Alids and their Shi
ite
> Nadia Maria El Cheikh                                          backers. The second question relates to the composition of
> MONGOL AND IL-KHANID                                            the movement itself. One view is that the movement, how-
> Charles Melville                                               ever broad-based it later became, only succeeded because of
> MOGUL                                                           the participation of Arab tribesmen that had settled in Khurasan
> Iqtidar Alam Khan                                              during the early Islamic conquest period. In response to the
> “Arabist,” and hence largely ethnic, argument, other scholars
> OTTOMAN
> Donald Quataert                                                have sought an explanation based variously in the socioeconomic conditions of eighth-century Khurasan and the
> SAFAVID AND QAJAR
> religiopolitical appeal of Shi
ite ideals for Arab and non-Arab
> Rudi Matthee
> Muslims alike.
> SASSANIAN
> Henning L. Bauer                                                   The reigns of the first two Abbasid caliphs, Abu ’l-Abbas
> TIMURID                                                         al-Saffah (r. 750–754) and al-Mansur (r. 754–775), began
> Paul D. Buell                                                 with a period of consolidation that led to the elimination of
> UMAYYAD                                                         Abu Muslim among other leaders of the revolutionary move-
> Alfons H. Teipen                                               ment. A period of sustained prosperity, if continued political
> unrest, ensued. Al-Mansur established Baghdad in the 760s
> and is properly viewed as the real founder of the dynasty. At
> ABBASID                                                            its height, under al-Mansur’s immediate successors, al-Mahdi
> The early Islamic empire fell to Abbasid control with the
> (r. 775–785), al-Hadi (r. 785–786) and, most significantly,
> overthrow and decimation of the Umayyad house in 750 C.E.
> Harun al-Rashid (r. 786–809), the Abbasid empire stretched
> The “Abbasid revolution” followed an extended period of
> from the central Maghrib across the Middle East and southclandestine organization centered in the eastern province of
> ern Anatolia into Transoxiana. Sustained civil war, initially a
> Khurasan. Modern scholarship has devoted considerable atconflict between the sons of al-Rashid, Muhammad al-Amin
> tention to the formation and execution of the anti-Umayyad
> (r. 809–813) and 
Abdallah al-Mamun (r. 813–833), followed
> movement. Opposition to Umayyad rule appears easier to
> by the effort at consolidation by al-Mamun over Baghdad
> explain, however, than the movement itself. Factors contriband its hinterland, initiated the gradual dissolution of the
> uting to the collapse of the Umayyads included the deleteriempire. Despite the skilled leadership of later caliphs, by the
> ous effects of several rounds of civil war; divisions within the
> end of the ninth century, local dynasties and semiautonomous
> Syrian-based armed forces; persistent problems of legitimacy
> governing families had come to the fore in Egypt, Khurasan,
> fueled by charges of fiscal corruption and impious conduct on
> Spain, and the Maghrib.
> the part of the caliphs and their kin; serious military setbacks
> along the frontiers of North Africa, Armenia, and Central             Fragmentation of the imperial domain and a dissolution of
> Asia; and a fierce ideological challenge posed by leading           dynastic legitimacy set in by the first quarter of the tenth
> 
Alids and their Shi
ite partisans that gave rise to repeated      century with an eclipse of Abbasid authority at the hands of
> uprisings, particularly late in the Umayyad period.                bureaucratic families and condottiere. By the 940s, Syria,
> Iraq, Fars, and western Iran were divided into principalities
> Abbasid success against the Umayyads was due in part to
> under Hamdanid or Buyid (Buwayhid) control; members of
> support emanating from Shi
ite quarters as well as, it appears,
> both families had served in the Abbasid military before
> the broader populace of mawali (non-Arab Muslim “clients”).
> asserting control over regions of the empire. Egypt, by the
> The leadership of Abbasid partisans, key among them Abu
> 970s, fell to the control of the Fatimids, an Isma
ili Shi
ite
> Muslim (d. 775), and the strength of the Khurasan-based
> forces under his command, tipped the balance in favor of the       dynasty created in the central Maghrib earlier in the tenth
> Abbasid movement. As Elton Daniel has made clear, along-           century; the dynasty controlled Egypt, and, for extended
> side other historians, modern scholarship remains divided on       periods, Syria and the Hijaz, into the second half of the
> at least two questions.                                            twelfth century. Buyid rule gave way in the mid-eleventh
> century to a Sunni Turkish dynasty, the Seljuks, whose reign
> The first question concerns the point at which the Abbasid       was largely defined by rivalry with the Fatimids, conflict
> family assumed leadership of the anti-Umayyad movement.            against the Crusader states, and the onset of an extended
> Evidence indicates that the movement remained clandestine          period of Turkish domination of Near Eastern political life.
> until a very late point and that its propaganda was kept           From the Buyid period on, the Abbasids themselves usually
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                     207
> Empires
> 
> wielded little more than the trappings of authority; in Iraq,      control over both sources of income. To assure a reliable flow
> Abbasid history came to an end with the Mongol invasion in         of money and goods, the early Abbasids continued late
> 1258. A branch of the family retained a wholly symbolic role       Umayyad efforts to systematize tax collection. These efforts,
> under the Mamluks in Egypt until the Ottoman invasion of           initially successful, ultimately came up short as the health of
> 1517 that brought an end to Abbasid claims upon the caliphate.     the Abbasid economy fell victim to the civil war that followed
> the death of al-Rashid in the early ninth century and, some
> Politics and Administration                                        decades later, the turmoil sparked by the assassination of al-
> Taking their lead from the Umayyads, the early Abbasids            Mutawakkil (r. 847–861). By the early tenth century, the Iraqi
> worked quickly to fashion a highly centralized state. Like         agrarian system was in sharp decline. Commercial activity
> their predecessors, the Abbasids drew inspiration from             flourished in the early to mid-Abbasid periods, fueled by
> Sassanian, Byzantine, and more deeply rooted patterns of           rapid urbanization in the Near East and the related rise in
> Near Eastern imperial statecraft. For example, the caliphs         investment opportunities, urban surplus wealth, and the
> relied upon elaborate systems of monarchical ritual and            spread of new products, chief among them paper, cotton, and
> symbolism, such as the use of screens used to shield them          sugar. Merchant networks would play a key part in the
> during open sessions of the court. More dramatic still was the     dissemination of Islam into Central Asia, the Pacific Basin,
> plan of Baghdad: The city, known as the Round City, was            and Saharan Africa from the ninth century on.
> originally built around a massive circular core containing the
> caliphal residence, mosque, treasuries, and barracks. Histori-         To administer their empire, the Abbasids relied on skilled
> ans understand the plan in terms of the assertion, through         bureaucrats, many of Persian or Christian origins. These
> symbolic means, of the coming of a new imperial age. No less       officials (kuttab) oversaw a growth in the Abbasid bureaucracy
> than earlier dynasties, the first Abbasids thus devoted them-       to a size and complexity unknown under the Umayyads. The
> selves to massive building programs. In Baghdad, Samarra,          offices (diwans) of the Abbasid administration included the
> and elsewhere, extensive palace complexes emerged along-           chancery, treasury, police, and intelligence-gathering servside congregational mosques, extensive markets, and an im-         ices, and a special court of appeals (mazalim) presided over by
> pressive infrastructure of roads, canals, way-stations, and        the caliph. Control of the treasury and access to the imperial
> the like.                                                          family allowed key families to build extensive networks of
> influence as exemplified by the eastern Iranian (and originally
> It appears as well that the early Abbasids sought to imbue     Buddhist) Barmakid family under al-Rashid. In 803, al-Rashid,
> their office with religious as well as political meaning. Com-      having long tolerated Barmakid authority, finally turned
> mitment to holy war (jihad), a presiding role in the hajj,         against the family. By the first half of the tenth century,
> patronage of religious scholars: All were efforts to perpetuate    however, his successors, such as al-Muqtadir (r. 908–932),
> the caliph’s moral leadership. The claim found little sustained    proved incapable of resisting pressures exerted by their top
> support within the religious community. For the ulema, the         bureaucrats. High-level bureaucrats retained no less crucial a
> traditions of theocratic monarchy contradicted the model of        role under the Buyids and Seljuks; prominent civilian officials
> leadership crafted by the prophet Muhammad and the first            played a similar part in Egypt, particularly late in the
> generation of caliphs. The problem of delineating lines of         Fatimid period.
> authority was gradually resolved by the middle Abbasid
> period as the scholars asserted a near-monopoly over legal            To defend its borders and assure political calm, the
> and social authority. No less significant a source of challenge     Abbasids, like the Umayyads, relied upon a semiprofessional
> to Abbasid legitimation were the sectarian movements of the        army largely supplied and paid by the state. The mainstay of
> Kharijites and the various Shi
ite tendencies, all of whom         the earliest Abbasid armies were the Khurasani troops that
> viewed Abbasid authority as illegitimate. Early Kharijite          had fought to bring the dynasty to power. A number of these
> rebellions under the first Abbasid caliphs were suppressed at a     regiments were settled in Baghdad by al-Mansur and his
> moderate expense to the state. Far more costly, in ideological     successors, and naturally viewed themselves as integral to the
> and political terms, was the challenge of their Shi
ite detrac-    fortunes of the new state. The civil war that brought altors. If the emergent Twelver Shi
ite tendency in Iraq and         Mamun to power in the early ninth century witnessed the
> elsewhere remained relatively quiescent, by the early tenth        defeat of these regiments at the hands of a new generation of
> century, a prominent Isma
ili movement had won support             eastern troops recruited by the new caliph bolstered by a
> from local forces in the central Maghrib (modern-day Tuni-         new-style regiment of Turkish slave troops led by his brother,
> sia) and laid the foundation for the Fatimid state.                and successor, Abu Ishaq al-Mu
tasim (r. 833–842). In good
> part to house these new forces, al-Mu
tasim founded a garri-
> The considerable wealth of the early Abbasid empire drew        son center in Samarra, north of Baghdad; his successors
> predictably on agricultural production and commerce. Al-           would administer the empire from Samarra for the next half-
> Mansur’s decision to build a new capital beside the two major      century. The practice of using slave regiments, many of
> Iraqi rivers and in the midst of the extensively farmed areas of   which were drawn from Turkic peoples of Central Asia,
> central and southern Iraq, had much to do with assuring            would be emulated by later Near Eastern dynasties. The
> 
> 208                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Empires
> 
> The Al-Kazimayn mosque in Baghdad. Early in its reign, the Abbasid empire possessed substantial wealth from agriculture and commerce,
> enabling ambitious building projects that included palaces, mosques, and markets. THE ART ARCHIVE/DAGLI ORTI
> 
> heads of the Samarran Turkish regiments, however, would              (Samarra, the imperial administrative seat for much of the
> rely on their troops, and close ties to the caliphate, to            ninth century, never replaced Baghdad in this sense.) Much of
> interfere in caliphal decision-making; the result was a period       this activity was directly tied to the patronage of the imperial
> of violence and instability in Samarra that sapped the re-           state and networks of elite urban families. Historians are
> sources of the caliphate and set the stage for the humiliations      divided, however, over the question of whether to credit the
> of the tenth century.                                                support of the caliphs and elite urban society with the complex translation movement that rendered, in Arabic, nearly
> Culture and Society
> the entire corpus of Greek scientific and philosophical work
> A revival of Near Eastern urban culture, rooted in Umayyad
> over a period of roughly two hundred years beginning under
> history, was a hallmark of the Abbasid period. The early Arab
> garrison centers, among them Basra, Kufa, Fustat, and                al-Mansur in the later eighth century. Equally significant was
> Qayrawan, were now functioning towns while, under Umayyad            urban literary production. The list of writers, poets, musiand then Abbasid rule, Damascus and other pre-Islamic                cians, and cognoscenti that flourished in the Iraqi urban
> centers witnessed rapid population growth and cultural de-           milieu included such luminaries as the grammarian Sibawayh
> velopment. Constructed expressly as an imperial center, and          (d. 793); the poet Abu Nuwas (d. 810); the essayist, linguist,
> occupied probably by the late 760s, Baghdad quickly emerged,         and theologian al-Jahiz (d. 868); and the tenth-century
> however, as the nexus of early Islamic culture and scholarship.      polymath Abu Hayyan al-Tawhidi (d. 1023).
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                      209
> Empires
> 
> Urban patronage and the demands created by steady                  Empire was, nevertheless, to remain a main political and
> conversion to Islam throughout the empire explain the for-            ideological rival to the Islamic empire. In Arabic-Islamic
> mation of a community of sophisticated and increasingly self-         writings, the Byzantine Empire became the only real “House
> confident religious scholars (ulema). Their efforts yielded            of War” and the war against it the very model and prototype
> seminal contributions to Quranic exegesis, hadith scholar-           of jihad.
> ship, and Islamic law. In the Sunni regions, four major
> schools of legal interpretation emerged: the Hanafi, Maliki,               The first period marked the greatest Byzantine influence
> Shafi
i, and Hanbali. The work of the great exegete and                on the developing Islamic civilization. The Arabs borrowed
> historian Abu Ja
far al-Tabari (d. 923) exemplifies both the           abundantly from Byzantine institutions. Byzantine influence
> remarkable scholarly achievements of the ulema and their              was reflected in the retention of the Byzantine civil service;
> ambivalent stance vis-à-vis the caliphal state. Ulema served          the use of Byzantine administrative, legal, and numismatic
> the empire in their capacity as judges, market inspectors, and        traditions; and language. Another striking legacy of the imperial heritage is furnished by the Umayyad policy of erecting
> the like; their role in imperial administration was crucial. As
> imperial religious monuments. Indeed, it was the presence of
> noted earlier, however, they were loath to provide yet further
> imposing Christian monuments in Greater Syria that enbacking to the caliphate. The trajectory to socioreligious
> couraged them to construct the Dome of the Rock in Jerusaprominence of the scholars occurred as the fortunes of the
> lem and the Umayyad mosque in Damascus. Umayyad caliphs
> Abbasid state sharply declined.
> are said to have requested Byzantine help in the decoration of
> See also Empires: Byzantine; Empires: Umayyad; Mahdi,                 the mosques in Medina and Damascus.
> Sadiq al-; Rashid, Harun al-.
> The ambition of the first-century caliphs seems to have
> been directed toward the establishment of their power in
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                          Constantinople. The repeated failed attempts to conquer
> Ashtiany, Julia, et al., eds. Abbasid Belles-Lettres. Cambridge,     Constantinople, together with the transfer of the capital to
> U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1990.                            Iraq after 750, distanced the center of the Islamic empire
> Crone, Patricia. Slaves on Horses: the Evolution of the Islamic       from the Byzantine frontiers and made the idea of the
> Polity. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1980.          conquest of Constantinople a distant dream rather than a goal
> Daniel, Elton. “The 
Ahl al-Taqadum and the Problem of               toward which forces and efforts were directed in a continuous
> the Constituency of the Abbasid Revolution in the Merv              and organized fashion. Predictions of a future conquest
> Oasis.” Journal of Islamic Studies 7, no.2 (1996): 150–179.         waned and were replaced by apocalyptic expectation.
> Gutas, Dimitri. Greek Thought, Arabic Culture. The Graeco-
> Arab-Byzantine warfare settled now into episodic warfare
> Arabic Translation Movement in Baghdad and Early Abbasid
> Society (2nd–4th/8th–10th centuries). New York: Rout-               and raiding. In the course of the eighth century, Islam
> ledge, 1998.                                                        reached its limits and gradually recognized a pause in the
> expansion of the Muslim state and faith. The practice of
> Kennedy, Hugh. The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates: The
> making two or three expeditions a year against Byzantine
> Islamic Near East from the Sixth to the Eleventh Century.
> New York: Longman Group Limited, 1986.                              territory became so established in the ninth century that
> officials soon laid down a schedule for these operations.
> Kennedy, Hugh. The Armies of the Caliphs: Military and Society
> Under the late Umayyads and the early Abbasids, the frontier
> in the Early Islamic State. London: Routledge, 2001.
> line between Arabs and Byzantines was formed by the great
> Lassner, Jacob. The Shaping of Abbasid Rule. Princeton, N.J.:        ranges of the Taurus and Anti-Taurus (the northeast exten-
> Princeton University Press, 1980.                                  sion of the range across the Seyhan River). Here, a line of
> Young, M. J. L., et al., eds. Religion, Learning and Science in the   fortresses, called al-thugur, marked and guarded the frontier.
> Abbasid Period. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University              Behind this line was a second-line district containing the
> Press, 1990.                                                        strongholds known as al-awasim, fortresses where the warriors would seek refuge. Economically, these invasions resulted
> Matthew Gordon        in a diminution in agricultural, commercial, and industrial
> activity for the Byzantine Empire. Demographic changes
> BYZANTINE                                                             took place as a result of the massive displacement of popula-
> The Byzantine Empire, which spans the period from 330 to              tion. The chronicles paint a picture of devastation and aban-
> 1453, grew gradually from the old Roman Empire. The first              donment of the more exposed settlements in favor of the less
> reference to the Byzantines in the Islamic sources occurs in          accessible sites. Life in these areas, which were regularly
> the Quran (surat al-Rum) in conjunction with the Byzantine-          plundered, meant yearly raids, constant insecurity, and fre-
> Persian wars that exhausted the Byzantine Empire and al-              quent flights. A certain symbiosis, nevertheless, took place
> lowed for the conquest of its richest and most prosperous             along the frontier region. The result of the interpenetration
> areas by the nascent Islamic community. The Byzantine                 between the two populations was not only the diffusion of
> 
> 210                                                                                              Islam and the Muslim World
> Empires
> 
> military techniques, material goods, and methods of eco-            1453 the Ottoman sultan, Mehmed II, conquered Constantinomic production but also the diffusion of political ideas and      nople, thus spelling the end of the Byzantine Empire.
> general cultural aspects. This period, thus, witnessed the
> transmittal of classical and Hellenistic scholarship, via the       See also Christianity and Islam; Expansion.
> Byzantines, to the Arab Muslim world.
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Indeed, the relationship between the Muslim and Byzan-           Bosworth, C. E. “Byzantium and the Arabs: War and Peace
> tine empires was interspersed with diplomatic, cultural, and          between Two World Civilizations.” Journal of Oriental
> commercial relations. While no permanent diplomatic posts             and African Studies 3–4 (1991–1992): 1–23.
> were maintained in either capital, embassies were frequent on       El Cheikh, Nadia Maria. “Surat al-Rum: A Study of the
> both sides, either to congratulate a new ruler, or to conclude a       Exegetical Literature.” Journal of the American Oriental
> treaty, or to negotiate an exchange of prisoners. Commercial           Society 118 (1998): 356–364.
> relations and cultural exchanges are attested in an almost          Gibb, H. A. R. “Arab Byzantine Relations under the Umayyad
> continuous fashion throughout the history of the Byzan-                Caliphate.” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 12 (1958): 219–233.
> tine Empire.                                                        Kennedy, Hugh. “Byzantine-Arab Diplomacy in the Near
> East from the Islamic Conquests to the Mid-Eleventh
> Whereas in the eighth and ninth centuries the Byzantines
> Century.” In Byzantine Diplomacy. Edited by Jonathan
> had been on the defensive, the tenth century witnessed a              Shepard and Simon Franklin. Aldershot, Hampshire, U.K.:
> Byzantine military revival. Increasing Byzantine consolida-           Variorum, 1992.
> tion was paralleled with Muslim weakness and division. The
> Vryonis, Speros. The Decline of Medieval Hellenism in Asia
> Byzantine Empire’s successes in the tenth century have to be          Minor and the Process of Islamization from the Eleventh
> seen against this background of Muslim disunity and collapse.         Century Through the Fifteenth. Los Angeles: University of
> The rivalries between the Abbasid state, the Umayyad state of         California Press, 1971.
> al-Andalus, and the newly founded Fatimid state in North
> Africa colored to a considerable extent the bilateral relations                                           Nadia Maria El Cheikh
> these competing states had with Byzantium.
> MONGOL AND IL-KHANID
> The whole period of the Macedonian dynasty between
> The Mongol empire, which at its peak stretched from Java to
> 867 and 1025 was a brilliant time in the political existence of
> Lithuania, was the creation of Genghis Khan (c. 1167–1227)
> the Byzantine Empire. It was now the turn of the Muslim
> and his descendants. They exercised direct rule for over a
> lands to suffer repeated incursions accompanied by looting
> century in Iran and Transoxania, southern Russia, and China,
> and devastation. The Hamdanid principality of Aleppo rose
> and in the less accessible heartland of these regions, particuto the occasion but the victories of its prince Sayf al-Dawlah
> larly in parts of Central Asia, where Mongol khans were
> were short-lived and soon the emirate of Aleppo and other
> recognized as the legitimate rulers until well into the sevenparts of the Islamic caliphate were to feel the weight of
> teenth century.
> Byzantine invasions. The main events of these wars found an
> echo in the poems of one of the greatest poets of the Arabic           The father of Temujin, the future Genghis Khan, was
> language, al-Mutanabbi.                                             murdered by a rival tribe of Tatars when Temujin was still a
> small boy. Abandoned by most of his father’s followers, he
> The late eleventh century contrasted with the early part of      spent a hard childhood, first simply surviving and then
> the century when Byzantium had been powerful and wealthy.           working for revenge. By 1206 he had succeeded in unifying
> Internal difficulties in addition to the appearance of the           most of the tribes in Mongolia and eliminating the Tatars and
> Turks in the Near East accelerated the decline of the Byzan-        other powerful groups, incorporating the survivors into his
> tine state, leading to the crushing Byzantine defeat at Manzikert   own forces. He was enthroned as ruler of the Mongols and
> in 1071. This marked the collapse of Byzantium as a great           adopted the title Genghis Khan.
> political power and the beginning of the Turkification of Asia
> Minor. The appearance of the Crusaders and the establishment           There followed a sustained attack, first on the neighborof Crusader states in the Near East revolutionized relations        ing powers such as the Tanguts (Hsi Hsia) and then on north
> between the Byzantines and their Muslim neighbors. Follow-          China, ruled by the Jurchen (Chin) dynasty (1115–1234).
> ing the conquest of Constantinople by the Latins in 1204,           Peking fell in 1215, but it took many more campaigns for the
> relations between the Byzantines and the Mamluk sultans of          Chin to be crushed. The scale and determination of their
> Egypt steadily improved in the late thirteenth century. The         resistance was one of the factors that helped to transform the
> existence of threats common to both states, including the           Mongol assaults from raids on the traditional nomadic model
> Mongol threat, led to the establishment of privileged rela-         into more permanent wars of conquest and occupation, for
> tions between them. In the fourteenth century, the Byzantine        there is little to suggest that the annexation of north China
> empire systematically lost ground to the Ottoman Turks. In          was part of Genghis Khan’s original intentions.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                    211
> Empires
> 
> As the Mongol war machine gathered momentum, its                 prey on their subjects from a distance, while the largely
> belligerence necessarily attracted further acts of defiance and      Turkicized subjects were more like the Mongols themselves:
> inevitable punishment. Their attention drawn ever westward          not Russians, Persians, or Chinese, with their alien traditions
> by the flight of their vanquished foes, the Mongols came up          and norms. These regions were initially part of the inheritagainst the Khwarazmian empire, based on the cities of the          ance of Ögedei and his elder brother Chaghatay, but the
> Jaxartes and Oxus rivers. The massacre of a Mongol-sponsored        descendants of Ögedei were almost eliminated when they lost
> merchant caravan in Otrar in 1218 provided the pretext for          the succession to the Great Khanate in 1251 as the result of a
> the invasions of the Transoxania and eastern Iran, where the        coup by the Toluids (descendants of Genghis Khan’s young-
> Khwaramshah’s tenuous control was quickly destroyed in a            est son, Tolui). While the Western Chaghatay leaders began
> devastating series of sieges. Pursuing the Khwaramshah across       to embrace Islam in the early fourteenth century, pagan ways
> northern Iran, the Mongol generals Subetei and Jebe then            prevailed in the east up to the sixteenth century.
> turned north across the Caucasus and defeated a Russian
> force at the Kalka river in 1223, before returning to Mongolia.         Controlling a vast area of Asia, the four contiguous Mongol
> empires opened up territories to new movements of people,
> By Genghis Khan’s death in 1227, these widespread and           fueling a process of cultural exchange, artistic patronage, and
> crushing victories opened up huge new territories to the            commercial relations, which did much to counteract the
> Mongols. It was the work of his descendants to consoli-             initial savagery of their conquests. Despite their first assault
> date them into an empire. His son and successor, Ögedei             on Islam, ultimately the Mongols were responsible for spread-
> (1229–1241), continued the conquest of North China and              ing Islam among the Turkic peoples and tribes who were
> further expansion west, where the Mongols won great victo-          brought into Central Asia as a result of the Mongol conquests.
> ries in Poland and Hungary before consolidating their rule
> An illustrated manuscript of Genghis Khan and his sons appears
> over southern Russia based on the steppes north of the
> in the volume one color insert.
> Caspian Sea. These territories, of the so-called Golden Horde,
> were held by the descendants of Genghis Khan’s oldest son,          See also Political Organization.
> Jochi. They maintained their dominance over the disunited
> Russian princes until the early sixteenth century, by keeping
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> separate from them and retaining the essence of their nomadic
> lifestyle. Nevertheless, their capital at Sarai on the Volga        Allsen, Thomas T. Culture as Conquest in Mongol Eurasia.
> Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
> became a great cosmopolitan trading center. As early as the
> 1260s, but definitively by the 1330s, the khans of the Golden        Morgan, David. The Mongols. Oxford, U.K.: B. Blackwell, 1986.
> Horde had converted to Islam.                                       Spuler, Bertold. A History of the Muslim World. Princeton,
> N.J.: M. Wiener Publishers, 1994.
> By contrast, in Iran, an ancient sedentary civilization (like
> China), a transformation in outlook was required if the                                                           Charles Melville
> nomadic Mongols were to rule effectively. The original
> conquests were consolidated by Genghis Khan’s grandson,             MOGUL
> Hulegu, who captured Baghdad in 1258 and took the title Il-         The Mogul empire of India was established by Zahir al-Din
> Khan or subject Khan (to the Great Khan in Mongolia, and            Muhammad Babur (d.1530), a descendant of Emir Timur
> later in China). Hulegu’s dynasty, the Il-khanids (1258–1335),      (d.1405). On his mother’s side, Babur was related to the
> relied heavily on the Persian bureaucratic families to operate      Chaghtai khans of Kashghar. Expelled from his ancestral
> their oppressive financial administration, but there remained        principality of Farghana (modern Kokand) because of intera fundamental reluctance to abandon Mongol precedents.              necine feuds of the Timurid princes and the rise of Uzbek
> The unwritten Mongol code of law, the Yasa, continued to be         power under Shaibani Khan, Babur eventually established
> honored, even after the accelerated Islamization that fol-          himself at Kabul in 1505, and in 1526, defeating Sultan
> lowed the conversion of Ghazan Khan in 1294. Ultimately,            Ibrahim Lodi in the Battle of Panipat, founded the Mogul
> the Il-khanate ran out of heirs, the dynasty suffering from an      dynasty in India. The name “Mogul” was given to it by
> endemic instability in the succession to the throne that had        popular usage in India; the later Central Asian designation for
> first caused the fragmentation of the empire into four main          it, equally loose, was Chaghatai. The family continued (with
> regional states and then the weakening of the states themselves.    the exception of the Sur interlude, 1540–1555) to exercise
> imperial hegemony over much of the Indian subcontinent
> In the last of these states, the Chaghatay Khanate, which       until 1739 when defeat at the hands of Nadir Shah of Iran
> embraced Transoxania, Turkestan, and Sinkiang, the Mongols          signaled the empire’s rapid disintegration.
> retained rule longer than elsewhere, owing partly to the
> terrain and the preponderance of desert and steppe over the            Babur brought with him a tradition in which respect for
> isolated oases along the celebrated “silk route.” Even more         Mongol customs was quite strong, though modified by the
> than in the case of the Golden Horde, the Mongols could             conventional attachment to Sunni orthodoxy. The further
> 
> 212                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Empires
> 
> fact that the Timurids were highly urbanized and cultured          Muslim as well as customary law and even imperial reguladrew them irresistibly to Iranian culture, despite the fact that   tions. The criminal (faujdari) cases were generally decided by
> in the sixteenth century it assumed a radical Shi
ite color. All   local military commanders (shiqdars, faujdars, and the like) in
> these factors demonstrated an eclectic attitude that made the      accordance with regulations (zawabit) laid down from time to
> Moguls particularly suited to govern a country of varied           time by the emperor.
> cultural traditions like India.
> The bulk of the Mogul army was represented by mounted
> Babur is credited with recruiting a large number of Afghans     archers and spearmen employed by the mansabdars out of the
> and Indian Muslims into his nobility. The recruitment of           income of their revenue assignments. An imperial functionmany Persians by Humayun (1540–1556) was a further im-             ary (bakhshi) maintained a descriptive roll of these troopers
> portant development. But the decisive transformation in this       who were brought to muster. To check fraud, branding (dagh)
> respect came under Humayun’s son Akbar (1556–1605).                of horses was practiced. A special corps of cavalry (ahadis), a
> Having recruited a large number of Rajput chiefs, Akbar            park of artillery (top-khana), and a large number of musketrendered the Mogul nobility a truly composite group, a             eers employed by the emperor supplemented the armed
> characteristic that persisted until 1739.                          might of the empire significantly. The matchlock muskets
> introduced in India by Babur seem to have contributed
> Akbar, however, was not simply motivated by eclecticism.       significantly to the centralizing process in the Mogul empire.
> He came to have strong views on reason and religion. He
> evoked Ibn al-
Arabi’s philosophy to justify a policy of univer-      Under Akbar’s successors Jahangir (1605–1627), Shahjahan
> sal tolerance under the principle of Sulh-e Kul (Absolute          (1628–1658), and Aurangzeb (1659–1707), the empire con-
> Peace) and became a sturdy defender of reason and critic of        tinued to expand, though Kandahar was finally lost to Iran
> old social customs. He, and his major spokesman, Abul Fazl,       (1648). Practically the entire peninsula (excluding Kerala)
> sought to give to sovereignty a nonsectarian character; the        came under Mogul control, especially with the annexations of
> sovereign was held to be a direct representative of God and        the kingdoms of Bijapur (1686) and Golkunda (1687).
> claimed almost limitless authority, as necessary for carrying
> out the sovereign’s abundant responsibilities.                         Broadly, the administrative institutions of the empire as
> established by Akbar were maintained by his three successors,
> It is arguable that Akbar’s claims to absolute sovereign       with certain changes of a relatively minor character. The
> powers derived from his own practical success in achieving         religious policy of Jahangir followed mainly that of Akbar,
> not only a series of conquests that brought most of India          while under Shahjahan and Aurangzeb, it tended to incline
> under his control but also from achieving an immense degree        toward Muslim orthodoxy. In 1679 Aurangzeb imposed the
> of administrative systematization and centralization. The          jizya or poll-tax on non-Muslims, which Akbar had abollatter was reflected in the introduction of mansab or number-       ished in 1564.
> rank (1574) for rigorously setting the pay and size of military
> contingents of the nobles, and the division of the empire into        The Mogul emperors were great patrons of art and archiprovinces (subas) (1580) where the administration of one           tecture. In both it was Akbar again under whom the great
> province was like that of any other. The practice of linking       achievements began. He gave to Mogul painting its particular
> mansab obligation to expected income (jama) from revenue          humanistic touch and realism; and immense innovativeness
> assignment (jagir) gave new impetus to financial unification.        to architecture as in Fatehpur Sikri and Sikandra. Under
> Jahangir, painting reached its highest technical perfection,
> The political authority and control on resources in the        and under Shahjahan, the Taj Mahal stands as testimony to
> Mogul empire tended to be concentrated in the hands of high        the greatness reached by Mogul architecture.
> nobles. They, along with hereditary chiefs allied closely with
> the empire, formed the ruling class, whose unity and cohe-             Under the Mogul emperors several Sanskrit works were
> sion, according to Irfan Habib in The Agrarian System of           translated into Persian. Akbar had had the Mahabharata
> Mughal India, “found its practical expression in the absolute      translated; and Dara Shukoh (d.1659), the Mogul prince,
> powers of the emperor” (p. 366). Detailed regulations gov-         translated the Upanisads. There was also the growth of a
> erned the extraction of agrarian surplus by the revenue            lively literature in Persian, leading in the eighteenth century
> collection machine of the empire, which tended to the method       to the development of the literary Urdu language, a real
> of assessment by measurement and collection of revenue in          legacy of Indo-Mogul culture.
> money rather than in kind.
> The Maratha uprising under Shivaji (d.1680) greatly weak-
> The urban-based educated Muslims (ashraf ) claiming             ened the Mogul empire, and the decline of the empire began
> noble descents along with favored non-Muslim scholar priests       with the repeated struggles for succession during 1707–1719.
> were marked out for state patronage. Some of the ashraf            After a little recovery of stability in the early years of Muhammanned the offices in the Department of Ecclesiastical Affairs      mad Shah (1719–1748), the Mogul empire began to cede
> (Sadarat) including those of judges (qazis) who enforced           territory after territory to the Marathas. The coup de grace
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                     213
> Empires
> 
> Richards, John F. “The Mughal Empire.” In Vol. 1.5, The
> New Cambridge History of India (1922). Reprint. Edited by
> Gordon Jonson. New Delhi: Foundation Books, 1993.
> 
> Iqtidar Alam Khan
> 
> OTTOMAN
> Ottoman state builders (c. 1300–1922) erected and maintained one of the more durable and successful examples of
> empire-building in world history. Born during medieval
> times in the northwest corner of then Byzantine-Asia Minor,
> the Ottoman state achieved world-empire status in 1453,
> with its conquest of Constantinople. For a century before and
> two centuries after that epochal event, the Ottoman Empire
> was among the most powerful political entities in the
> Mediterranean-European world. Indeed, but for the Ming
> state in China, the Ottoman Empire in about 1500 was likely
> the most formidable political system on the planet.
> 
> The rapid expansion of the Ottoman state from border
> principality to world empire was due partly to geography and
> the proximity of weak enemies; but it owed more to Ottoman
> policies and achievements. After the migrations of Turkish
> peoples from Central Asia broke the border defenses of the
> Byzantine Empire back in the eleventh century, many small
> states and principalities vied for supremacy. The Ottoman
> dynasty emerged on the Byzantine borderlands not far from
> Constantinople, and its supporters employed pragmatic
> statecraft and methods of conquest and rewarded the human
> material at hand—whether Greek, Bulgarian, Serb, Turkish,
> Christian, or Muslim—for good service. These pragmatic
> policies, coupled with an exceptional openness to innovation,
> including military technology, go far in explaining why this
> particular minor state ultimately attained world-power status.
> This c. 1590 Mogul painting depicts nobles entertained in a
> Due to developments elsewhere in the world, notably the
> garden by musicians and dancers. THE ART ARCHIVE/DAGLI ORTI
> rise of capitalism and industrialism in Europe and then
> elsewhere, and the New World wealth that poured into
> Europe, the Ottoman Empire lost its preeminent position,
> was delivered by Nadir Shah in 1739–1740, with the Persian       and by about 1800 it had declined to the status of a secondconqueror’s great victory at the Battle of Karnal, near Delhi.   class economic, military, and political power. Internally, after
> The Mogul empire rapidly lost control over provinces. Delhi      its initial rapid expansion, innovation diminished as enitself passed under the control of Marathas (1772–1803) and      trenched bureaucrats and statesmen acted to preserve posi-
> finally the English in 1803. Henceforth, the emperor’s writ       tions for their children and closed entry to newcomers with
> was confined to the Red Fort in Delhi. The Rebels in 1857         fresh ideas. Internationally, the state encountered increasattempted to restore the last emperor, Bahadur Shah II Zafar     ingly powerful European states on its western and northern
> (1775–1862), to power, but the English deposed him on            fronts, and some of these new states had been enriched by
> recapturing Delhi and so terminated the dynasty.                 New World wealth. Warfare became more expensive and
> more difficult, and expansion finally ground to a halt in the
> See also Political Organization.
> late seventeenth century.
> 
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                        The empire’s grand defeat before the gates of Vienna in
> Habib, Irfan. The Agrarian System of Mughal India, 1556–1707.    1683 was followed by some victories, but mainly it experi-
> Rev. ed. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999.             enced defeats during the subsequent one hundred years.
> Khan, Iqtidar Alam. “State in Mughal India: Re-examining         During the nineteenth century, a successful series of prothe Myths of a Counter-vision.” Social Scientist 29, Nos.1–2   grams measurably strengthened both the state and its mili-
> (January–February 2001): 16–45.                                tary. The state grew vastly in size and in the scope of its
> 
> 214                                                                                          Islam and the Muslim World
> Empires
> 
> Ottoman family was hardly ever challenged through the long
> centuries of the empire’s existence. While this rule was a
> constant, change otherwise was the norm in domestic politics.
> 
> Political power almost always rested in the imperial center
> and, depending on the particular period, extended into the
> provinces either through direct military and political instruments or, indirectly, through fiscal means. The state exerted
> its military, fiscal, and political authority through a number of
> mechanisms that evolved continuously. One cannot speak of
> a single, invariant Ottoman system or method of rule, except
> to say that it was based on policies of flexibility and adaptiveness.
> Military, fiscal, and political instruments changed constantly,
> hardly a surprising situation in an empire that existed from
> the medieval to the modern age. Moreover, much of what
> historians thought they knew about Ottoman institutions has
> been challenged and rewritten. Take, for example, the cliché
> that the janissaries’ prowess as soldiers declined when they
> ceased living together in bachelor barracks and served as
> married men. It turns out that already in the fifteenth century, when the janissaries were the most feared military unit
> in the Mediterranean world, at least some were married with
> families.
> 
> The Ottoman state at first depended on the so-called
> A sixteenth-century Venetian portrait of Ottoman sultan Suleyman I.   timar system to compensate much of its military, which was
> Between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Ottoman
> Empire was among the most powerful in the world. © ALI                dominated by cavalrymen fighting with bows and arrows.
> MEYER/CORBIS                                                          Under this system, the cavalryman was granted revenues
> from a piece of land sufficient to maintain himself and his
> horse. He did not actually control the land, but only the taxes
> activities. Whereas the early modern state primarily collected        deriving from it. Peasants worked the land and the taxes they
> taxes and maintained order, the more modern state took                paid supported the timar cavalryman while he was on camresponsibility for the health, education, and welfare of its
> paign as well as when he was not fighting. In reality, the timar
> subjects. Despite an impressive record of reform, however,
> was at the center of Ottoman affairs for the earlier era of
> the empire was defeated in the First World War, and was
> Ottoman history, perhaps only during the fourteenth, fifpartitioned by the Great Powers, notably Great Britain and
> teenth, and part of the sixteenth centuries. Hardly had the
> France. Ottoman successor states today include Albania,
> state developed the timar system when the regime began to
> Bosnia, Bulgaria, Egypt, Greece, Iraq, Israel, Lebanon,
> discard it, and the cavalry it was meant to support. Increas-
> Montenegro, Rumania, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Syria, Turkey,
> ingly, the empire turned to infantrymen bearing firearms. As
> and other states in the Balkans, the Arab world, North Africa,
> it did, the janissaries ceased to be a small, praetorian elite and
> and along the north shore of the Black Sea.
> evolved into a firearmed infantry of massive size. To support
> Military, Fiscal, and Political Organization                          these full-time soldiers required vast amounts of cash, and so
> In its domestic politics, the Ottoman state underwent con-            tax-farming replaced the timar system as the central fiscal
> tinuous change. The Ottoman ruler, the sultan, began as one           instrument. (Timar holders owed service in exchange for the
> among equals in the early days of the state. Between about            timar revenues, whereas tax farmers paid a sum at the tax farm
> 1453 and the later sixteenth century, however, sultans ruled          auction for the right to collect the taxes, and they incurred no
> as true autocrats. Subsequently, others in the imperial family        service obligation.) By 1700, lifetime tax-farms—seen as
> and other members of the palace elites—often in collabora-            better cash cows—began to become commonplace. Varying
> tion with provincial elites—maintained real control of the            combinations of cavalry and firearmed infantry, along with
> state until the early nineteenth century. Thereafter, bureau-         massive uses of artillery worked quite well for a time, but lost
> crats and sultans vied for domination. In sum, the sultan             out in the arms race to central and eastern European foes by
> nominally presided over the imperial system for all of Otto-          the end of the seventeenth century. The Ottoman military
> man history but actually, personally, ruled only for portions         continued to evolve and, in the eighteenth century, firearmed
> of the fifteenth, sixteenth, and nineteenth centuries. It seems        troops of provincial notables and the forces of the Crimean
> important to stress that the principle of sultanic rule by the        Khanate largely replaced both the janissary infantry and the
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                           215
> Empires
> 
> always paying lip-service to its adherence to Islamic principles. In the nineteenth century, when a flood of ordinances
> and regulations marked the presence of an expanding bureaucratic state, even this lip-service frequently fell away, replaced
> by claims to scientific management.
> 
> Economic Organization
> Throughout most of its history, the Ottoman economy
> remained agrarian, although again the specifics underwent
> considerable changes over time. During the various periods
> of the empire’s existence, most Ottoman subjects raised a
> wide variety of different crops for subsistence and for sale.
> The particular mix of crops changed over time, but cereals
> remained dominant throughout, supplemented by a changing array of other crops. During the seventeenth century, for
> example, tobacco imports from the New World ceased as
> tobacco became commonly cultivated in the Balkan, Anatolian,
> and Arab provinces of the empire. In the nineteenth century
> tobacco became a major export commodity.
> 
> In theory, the vast majority of land was owned by the
> sultan and merely used by others to grow crops and raise
> animals. In practice, however, these land users generally
> enjoyed security of tenure. Sharecropping was widespread
> and was the major vehicle by which goods were brought to
> market. Most cultivators were small landholders; large estates
> A nineteenth-century watercolor depiction of Ottoman sultan           were comparatively unusual. Slave labor was common for
> Mehmet IV (1642–1692). Early in the Ottoman Empire, the role of
> domestic work but very rare in agriculture. Commercializathe sultan was less autocratic than it became in the later fifteenth
> and sixteenth centuries. THE ART ARCHIVE/TURKISH AND ISLAMIC ART      tion of agriculture enjoyed considerable development in the
> MUSEUM ISTANBUL/DAGLI ORTI                                            eighteenth and nineteenth century in order to meet mounting foreign demand and, in the latter period, the increasing
> number of Ottoman urban residents. The increasing amount
> produced for sale derived from committing increasing acretimar cavalry. During the nineteenth century, universal male
> age to cultivation, not from more intensive exploitation.
> conscription controlled by the central state slowly developed,
> and this was perhaps the most radical transformation of all.             Ottoman manufacturing, for its part, was and remained
> Lifetime tax-farms were abandoned but tax-farming contin-             largely the domain of small-scale hand producers, although
> ued, often in the hands of local notables in partnerships with        there was some mechanization in the late period. During the
> the Istanbul regime.                                                  seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, foreign markets for
> Ottoman manufactures fell away, but producers continued to
> Judicial Organization
> enjoy a vast domestic market for their wares. During the
> Both religious and secular law regulated the lives of Ottoman
> nineteenth century, moreover, several new export industries
> subjects. The Ottoman state determined who administered
> emerged, notably rug making and silk spinning, staffed largely
> the laws, members drawn from the Muslim, Christian, or
> with female labor working outside the home. In transporta-
> Jewish communities, or other officials of the imperial state.
> tion and communication there were important technological
> That is, the sultan or his agents determined the judges in the
> breakthroughs during the second half of the nineteenth
> respective communities, either directly or by appointing
> century. Steam replaced sail on the sea, while a relatively thin
> officials who, in turn, named the judges. In principle, the            network of railroads emerged; telegraph lines, for their part,
> religious laws of the respective communities prevailed, be            were built to connect most towns and cities.
> that community Muslim, Jewish, or Christian. In practice,
> however, the Muslim courts were commonly used by subjects             Religious and National Identity
> of all religions. This was due in part to the quality of the          There is considerable debate about the nature and quality of
> justice which the judge (kadi) administered, and in part              Ottoman intercommunal relations, and there are many popubecause it was understood that rulings from such courts               lar stereotypes around the “terrible Turk” who slaughtered
> might well have greater weight than those from Christian or           Ottoman Christians. For nearly all of Ottoman history, this
> Jewish sources. In addition to this religious law, the state          stereotype is not true. From the fourteenth century until the
> routinely passed its own, secular ordinances (kanun), while           1870s, the majority of Ottoman subjects professed one or
> 
> 216                                                                                                Islam and the Muslim World
> Empires
> 
> another version of Christianity as their religion. Yet, through-   under single political control. Under them a political system
> out this period, the state’s official religion was Islam. The key   emerged in which political and religious boundaries overto Ottoman success and a major reason for its longevity lay in     lapped. The Safavid concept of kingship, combining territothe tolerant governmental treatment of those who did not           rial control with religious legitimacy, would endure, with
> share its professed religion. The Ottoman state, for nearly all    modifications, until the late twentieth century. Many adminof its history, was a multinational, multireligious entity that    istrative institutions established by them survived well into
> did not seek to impose Islam on its subjects. This fact has        the Qajar era. The Safavid era, finally, saw the beginning of
> often been forgotten in the confusion surrounding the emer-        frequent and sustained diplomatic and commercial relations
> gence of the Ottoman successor states, but it remains none-        with Europe.
> theless true that much of the credit for the durability of the
> empire lay in the flexibility of Ottoman rule and the lightness        The Safavids, who were of Kurdish ancestry, began in
> of the Ottoman hand on the subject masses.                         about 1300 as a mystical order centered in the northwestern
> Iranian town of Ardabil, the burial place of the order’s
> The Ottoman system recognized difference and protected          founder, Shaykh Safi al-Din. The nature of their original
> those differences so long as its subjects paid their taxes and     beliefs remains unclear but in time they turned to a extremist
> rendered obedience. Until the eighteenth century, the era of       form of Shi
ism that included the veneration of a leader seen
> the Enlightenment, minorities in the Ottoman world likely          as an incarnation of god. Though the Safavid leaders were
> were treated better than in Europe. During some years of the       spiritual leaders rather than tribal chiefs, they built their state
> final Ottoman era, however, there admittedly were atrocities.       with the military assistance of tribal groups. Known as
> These should be understood in the context of the generally         Qizilbash, redheads, in reference to their red headgear, these
> admirable record of intercommunal relations over the 600-          Turkmen migrants from Syria and Anatolia were to become
> year lifespan of the Ottoman Empire.                               the mainstay of the Safavid army.
> 
> See also Balkans, Islam in the; Christianity and Islam;                Under Shah Isma
il (r. 1501–1524) the Safavids evolved
> Europe, Islam in; Expansion; Judaism and Islam; Kemal,             from a messianic movement to a political dynasty. Upon
> Namek; Nur Movement; Nursi, Said; Young Ottomans.                  seizing power, Isma
il proclaimed Tabriz his capital and
> Shi
ism the faith of his realm, thus endowing his new state
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                       with a strong ideological basis. In time, Isma
il extended his
> Brown, Leon Carl, ed. Imperial Legacy: The Ottoman Imprint         territory as far as Iraq and the Persian Gulf. His expansionism
> on the Balkans and the Middle East. New York: Columbia          brought him into conflict with the Uzbeks in the east and the
> University Press, 1996.                                         Ottomans in the west, both Sunni powers that felt threatened
> Goffman, Daniel. The Ottoman Empire and Early Modern               by the formation of a militant Shi
ite state on their borders.
> Europe. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University                    Equipped with firearms, the Ottomans in 1514 routed the
> Press, 2002.                                                     Safavid army in the battle of Chaldiran and briefly occu-
> Imber, Colin. The Ottoman Empire, 1300–1650. The Struc-            pied Tabriz.
> ture of Power. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002.
> Aside from waging war, Isma
il concentrated on state
> Inalcik, Halil. An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman
> building. In 1508 he took a series of measures that increased
> Empire, 1300–1914. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1994.                                            the power of Iranian administrators at the expense of that of
> the Qizilbash. Henceforth a functional division emerged
> Kafadar, Cemal. Between Two Worlds: The Construction of
> between ethnic Iranians, who in majority staffed the bureauthe Ottoman State. Berkeley: University of California
> Press, 1995.                                                     cracy, and ethnic Turks, who dominated the army. Under
> Isma
il the first example of the influence of court women is
> Lowry, Heath. The Nature of the Early Ottoman State. Albany:
> also seen, a legacy of the Central Asian element in Safavid
> State University of New York Press, 2003.
> statecraft. Tajlu Khanum, one of his wives and the mother of
> Quataert, Donald. The Ottoman Empire, 1700–1922. Cam-              the future Shah Tahmasp, was as powerful as the shah himself
> bridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
> in Isma
il’s later reign.
> Todorova, Maria. Imagining the Balkans. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford
> University Press, 1997.                                             Shah Isma
il was succeeded by his ten-year-old son,
> Tahmasp (r. 1524–1576). The first decade of his long reign
> Donald Quataert      was marked by a civil war among the Qizilbash that nearly
> overwhelmed the shah. Once he emerged from this conflict,
> SAFAVID AND QAJAR                                                  Tahmasp adopted a policy designed to curtail the unruly
> The Safavid period (1501–1722) continued many Mongol               Qizilbash. He continued to appoint Tajik officials to key
> and Timurid practices, but may also be seen as the beginning       positions traditionally reserved for Turks, and began the
> of modern Iranian history. The Safavids unified much of Iran        trend of giving administrative posts to Georgians and
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                       217
> Empires
> 
> Armenians, so-called ghulams, who were captured during                  Shah 
Abbas is especially famous for encouraging trade.
> expeditions into the Caucasus. (The women became em-                 He reestablished road security and had numerous caravanseries
> ployed in the royal harem.) Until 1555, when he concluded a          constructed throughout his realm. Under him, Isfahan, enpeace accord with them, Shah Tahmasp also fought three               dowed with a newly built administrative and commercial
> wars against the Ottomans, and in the process moved his              center, became a thriving city of some 500,000 inhabitants.
> capital from Tabriz to Qazvin, a city located further in the         His special focus on the Persian Gulf trade and his efforts to
> interior.                                                            stimulate the export of silk combined a need for revenue and a
> desire to open up an alternative outlet to the land-based
> Shah Tahmasp presided over a court that fostered culture.         routes via Ottoman territory. He allowed Western mer-
> The quality of the illuminated manuscripts produced during           chants to settle in the newly founded port of Bandar 
Abbas,
> his reign would never be surpassed. His religious policy             offering them commercial privileges in return for royal profit
> focused on the further implantation of Shi
ism and saw               and the promise of naval assistance. His overtures to the
> attempts to standardize religious practice around a scriptural,      West, expressed in countless embassies to European courts,
> urban-based version of the faith as opposed to the folk beliefs      were mostly aimed at finding allies in his anti-Ottoman
> of the Turkmen. To disseminate the creed, the shah also              struggle.
> invited Shi
ite scholars from Arab lands, most notably from
> Lebanon, to migrate to Iran.                                             Under Shah 
Abbas’s direct successors, Safi (r. 1629–1642)
> and 
Abbas II (1642–1666), Iran offered the outward appear-
> These trends continued and culminated under Shah 
Abbas          ance of stability. Baghdad was lost to the Ottomans, but Shah
> (r. 1587–1629), the strongest and most visionary of the              
Abbas II managed to recapture Qandahar from the Mughals.
> Safavid rulers, who came to power in 1576, following the             Though competent rulers, both lacked the vision and deterinterregnum of the cruel Shah Isma
il II and the nearly blind        mination of their predecessor. Under them, economic prob-
> Mohammad Khodabandeh. Shah 
Abbas was above all a                    lems became apparent and state control weakened. Some of
> brilliant strategist, keen to regain the territories that had been   these problems were perhaps inevitable given Iran’s inherent
> lost to internal sedition and outside enemies during the             weaknesses—much arid, unproductive land, an unevenly spread
> turmoil preceding his reign. Well aware that he could not            and heavily nomadic population, a dependence on the outside
> fight on two fronts at once, he made a humiliating peace with         world for precious metal. Others stemmed from the very
> the Ottomans so as to be able to take on the Uzbeks and              same measures taken by 
Abbas I. Good examples of those are
> attend to domestic matters. This done, he resumed war with           the conversion to crown land and his practice of isolating the
> the Ottomans and reconquered large parts of Azerbaijan,              heir to be in the royal harem for fear that he might present a
> Armenia, and Georgia. In later years, 
Abbas recaptured              premature challenge to royal power. The first led to extortion
> Qandahar (lost again in 1638), established control over the          of the peasants by supervisors who only leased the land for a
> Persian Gulf littoral by ousting the Portuguese from Hormuz,         limited time and thus saw no reason for long-term investand seized part of Mesopotamia, including Baghdad (lost              ment. The second produced inept rulers and empowered
> again in 1639).                                                      those who inhabited the royal quarters, eunuchs and women.
> The army, already weakened by the continuing antagonism
> In his domestic agenda Shah 
Abbas pursued centralized,          between the Qizilbash and the ghulams, became largely
> personalized power and the maximization of cash revenue.             neglected following the conclusion of a definitive peace
> He liquidated a number of powerful Qizilbash leaders, in-            accord with the Ottomans in 1639.
> cluding the ones who had helped him come to power, and
> suppressed any religious group that challenged his authority.            It was under the last two Safavid shahs, Solayman (r.
> He also resettled tribes to far-off regions with the aim of          1666–1694) and Sultan Hosayn (r. 1694–1722), that order
> strengthening frontiers and breaking up loyalties. In the            and stability began to unravel. Whereas their predecessors
> 1590s the shah transferred his capital from Qazvin to Isfahan,       had been roving warriors, forever vigilant in patrolling their
> a move that gave Iran an administrative center closer to its         realm to pacify unruly tribes and repel border raids, they
> geographical center, aside from completing the shift from a          reigned as stationary monarchs who, aside from occasional
> Turkish to a Persian cultural focus. Most importantly, Shah          hunting parties, preferred to live immured in the palace,
> 
Abbas set out to break the power of the Qizilbash. He               hidden from the public eye. Disconnected and hardly interremoved a great deal of the state land that they controlled as       ested in administrative affairs, they relied on their grand
> fiefs by turning it into crown domain administered directly by        wazirs for the daily running of the state. Though able admina wazir appointed by the shah, so that revenue would flow             istrators who successfully tapped new sources of revenue to
> into the royal treasury. Ghulams were appointed as governors         fill the royal coffers, these chief ministers were unable to
> of these newly formed crown provinces. Shah 
Abbas’s re-             combat the increasingly abusive practices of provincial goverforms mark an important phase in the evolution of Safavid            nors and to reverse the crippling corruption and factionalism
> Iran from a steppe formation to a bureaucratic state.                in court circles. The results were seen in a deteriorating
> 
> 218                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Empires
> 
> currency, a fall in agricultural output, and growing numbers          Fifteen years after Nihavand, most of the erstwhile Sassanian
> of bankruptcies among merchants. Equally serious was the           lands had come under Muslim control. Nevertheless, many of
> pressure that began to be put on non-Muslims, a function of        the fallen Iranian cities revolted and had to be reconquered
> the growing influence of the Shi
ite clergy, especially under       several times. Even after the murder of the last Sassanian
> the pious and impressionable Shah Sultan Hosayn, who ruled         monarch, Yazdgard III, ended his flight from province to
> under the spell of his maternal grandmother, Miryam Begum;         province from 651 to 652 C.E., parts of the population in
> the court eunuchs; and Muhammad Baqir Majlisi, a conserva-         various provinces continued to break their treaties of surrentive cleric who advocated a literal interpretation of the faith.   der to the Arabs and returned to their old religious practices
> The Armenians of New Julfa near Isfahan, a group with a            and traditions. Particularly, changes of local governorship
> disproportionately large role in the economy, lost their tax       and the deaths of caliphs presented occasions for revolt, as
> advantages and by the late seventeenth century many wealthy        was the case after the murders of 
Umar, 
Uthman, and 
Ali.
> merchants began to migrate to Europe, India, and Russia.
> In spite of this ongoing resistance and the polemics that
> As of 1710 disintegration set in. While the shah built         were directed against the Arab conquerors—who were at
> pleasure gardens, the cost of which was extorted from peas-        times portrayed as devils and associates of Ahriman (the evil
> ants and merchants, the country faced internal rebellion and       spirit in Zoroastrian belief)—a new landholding class eventuoutside attack. The final blow came from the east, with             ally emerged, whose strength gradually increased through
> Baluchi and Afghan tribesmen occupying Kerman and Mashad.          intermarriage with the indigenous residents.
> In 1722 a small contingent of Afghan Ghilzai warriors penetrated the interior, defeated a hastily assembled Safavid army,        The arrival of the new Arab overlords in Iran also brought
> and proceeded to besiege Isfahan. The city fell six months         with it a new religion. But the conversion of Iran to Islam was
> later, brought to its knees by starvation, and Sultan Hosayn       neither swift nor of a piece. Certain groups converted to
> was forced to confer the title of shah on Mahmud, the Afghan       Islam on a collective basis, but this was the exception rather
> leader. Meanwhile, Russia and the Ottoman Empire took              than the rule. Some sections of the population opted for the
> jizya (tax levied on non-Muslims) and the kharaj (land tax),
> advantage of the turmoil by occupying Iran’s northwestern
> accepting the dhimmi status (a second-class-citizen status
> regions.
> granting non-Muslims protection and limited religious free-
> Artwork original to the period appears in the volume one           dom under Muslim rule) in order to hold on to their old ways.
> color insert.                                                   The privileges that came with conversion were, however, a
> decisive argument for many, especially those who had been
> See also 
Abbas I, Shah; Isma
il I, Shah; Majlisi, Muham-          disadvantaged by Zoroastrian religious organization and its
> mad Baqir; Political Organization; Tahmasp I, Shah.                rules. Artisans and craftsmen had been specifically affected in
> this way, as the Zoroastrian taboos regarding the pollution of
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                       the elements of fire, water, and earth clashed with many
> Matthee, Rudolph P. The Politics of Trade in Safavid Iran: Silk    aspects of their professions, branding them unclean by
> for Silver 1600–1730. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge Uni-            association.
> versity Press, 1999.
> Ultimately, greater parts of the populace recognized some
> Savory, Roger. Iran under the Safavids. Cambridge, U.K.:
> of the fundamental similarities between Islamic and Zoroastrian
> Cambridge University Press, 1980.
> faith, which share the belief in one good god, one evil spirit or
> devil, a final judgment, and the notions of Paradise and Hell.
> Rudi Matthee      Acceptance of the Islamic faith became more and more
> widespread. But even for those that held to the Zoroastrian
> SASSANIAN                                                          faith, the restrictions imposed by the dhimmi status were less
> With the Arab victory over the Iranian forces at Nihavand in       severe, and the privileges greater, than had been the case for
> 641–642 C.E., referred to by the Arabs as the “Victory of          Christians and Jews under Zoroastrian rule. During the
> Victories,” the fall of the Sassanian Empire was final. The         Umayyad period, however, there was a marked increase in
> Sassanians had been a formidable power that had endured for        contempt and intolerance of Muslims toward Zoroastrian
> four centuries, but in the end the corruption and greed of the     subjects, prompting a group of them to eventually emigrate
> ruling and priestly classes had left the imperial coffers de-      to Gujarat, where their descendants, known as Parsees, pracpleted and, perhaps more importantly, eroded support among         tice their belief to this day.
> the empire’s numerous heterodox subjects. Such internal
> problems hampered efforts to efficiently muster and deploy             It is noteworthy that adherents of non-Zoroastrian religthe impressive Iranian defenses. The ponderous Sassanian           ions, or of groups that had been considered heretics by the
> cavalry ultimately succumbed to the speedy attack and retreat      Zoroastrian establishment in Sassanian times, enjoyed a distactics of the lightly armed Arab troops.                          tinctly greater amount of religious freedom under Muslim
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                     219
> Empires
> 
> This relief depicts the Sassanid king Shapur on horseback. After a four-century rule, the Sassanian Empire fell to Arab control in 641–642 C.E. THE
> ART ARCHIVE/DAGLI ORTI
> 
> rule. The Sassanians had suppressed the heterodox groups                    Zoroastrianism had declined at the close of the tenth century,
> existing in their empire, and to them the Islamic practice of               attacks on Muslims on their way to worship were apparently
> giving dhimmi status to the “people of the Book” was tanta-                 still quite frequent in some provinces, and religious riots
> mount to liberation.                                                        occurred constantly. The Muslims—Arabs as well as Iranian
> converts—usually emerged victorious from such confronta-
> The decline of Zoroastrianism in the face of the advent of              tions due to their increasing numbers, bolstered both by
> Islam was by no means a rapid nor an altogether peace-                      conversion of Iranians as well as immigration of Arabs into Iran.
> ful process. Interfaith strife and competition over local authority and resources persisted into Buyid times, and as                       The rivalry between Zoroastrians and Muslims found
> late as the end of the tenth century an unsuccessful upris-                 expression not solely in riots and skirmishes. The two seging of Zoroastrians took place in Shiraz. Although urban                    ments of the population also competed over economic assets,
> 
> 220                                                                                                        Islam and the Muslim World
> Empires
> 
> specifically the trade between China and Iran via Central             TIMURID
> Asia. On the other hand, some Arab immigrants joined                 The Timurid Empire was a powerful, conquest-driven emexisting trade networks, a cooperation that resulted in an           pire that devolved into disunited dynasties more noted for
> increase of overland trade.                                          artistic than political endeavors. Tamerlane (Timur Lang)
> (1336–1405) was not a Mongol but emerged out of the chaos
> The degree of either cooperation or enmity between the            of post-Mongol Turkistan. He was born on 8 April 1336 at
> two communities depended to a large extent on the way the            Khwarju Ilghar, just south of Samarkand near Shahr-e Sabz.
> conquest of each particular area or province had unfolded.           Although his people (Turks), the various lineages of the
> The provinces in Iraq, Khuzistan, Azerbaijan, and Sistan, for        Barlas, lived a pastoral life and became nomads, they existed
> example, had surrendered to the Arab invaders after com-             in close proximity to sedentary people and sedentary culture,
> paratively few battles. In the absence of memories of pro-           even while antagonistic to it. Thus, like Genghis Khan (r.
> longed and bloody conflict, amicable relations were more              1206–1227), Tamerlane was the product of a mixed environreadily forged. In these areas, where Arabs and Iranians even        ment and was not a man of the deep steppe. The political
> stood together against outside aggressors like Turks and             system that he later employed to rule his empire was also
> Mongols, the Muslim colonizers encountered a more fertile            mixed. It continued the Chaghatay ulus tradition of a strict
> climate for their efforts toward religious conversion, which         separation between sedentary and nomadic sectors, with the
> subsequently took place in a comparatively peaceful manner.          sedentary world (the tax base) protected from destructive
> nomadic incursions to the greatest degree possible and ruled,
> Urban strongholds central to Zoroastrian power, in which         not by tribal chieftains, who were simultaneously commandhad to be conquered in protracted battles under immense              ers of tribally based military forces, but by local administrabloodshed, were far less welcoming to the invaders, who in           tors, bureaucrats appointed for set periods of time.
> turn employed draconian measures to ensure their dominance. The resulting atmosphere in such locales was conse-               Their methods were primarily rooted in Iranian techquently characterized by mutual resentment, distrust, and            niques, including largely Iranian and not Mongolian methods
> general tension, a state of affairs that was ameliorated only        of taxation. By the fourteenth century, to be sure, the two
> with great hesitation. Finally, there were areas where hostility     sides of the former Chaghatay domains had begun to interand active conflict persisted long after Arab settlements had         penetrate, Tamerlane was himself a reflection of the type of
> been established. In the Transoxanian and Caspian regions,           changes going on, and much of the formerly nomadic aristocconstant military confrontations between Iranian lords and           racy had moved into the cities that they ruled, even if
> Arab generals precluded coexistence, cooperation, and peaceful       indirectly. Nonetheless, they remained culturally and physiconversion longer than anywhere else in Iran. But ultimately,        cally quite distinctive and a class apart from their subjects,
> all efforts to oust the Arabs failed. The late Sassanian Empire      even the assimilated Turkic ones. One major way in which
> had not fostered a society that stood united behind its ruling       the nomadic side of Timurid domains differed from the
> and priestly classes. After its fall, Zoroastrian leaders attempt-   sedentary was in the nomadic tradition that treated land as a
> ing to rally military opposition against the Arab conquest           collective possession, belonging to an entire tribe, and not to
> could summon neither the trust nor the support of the masses         individuals, institutions, or the state, as was the case in
> required for such undertakings.                                      sedentary areas. This made groups, and not territory, the key
> organizational element for the nomadic sector, as had been
> See also Islam and Other Religions; Minorities:                      the case under the Mongols.
> Dhimmis.
> Tamerlane’s early life and career is obscure and sur-
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                         rounded by legend, but it is clear that he showed military
> talents at an early stage of his life and the kind of charisma
> Boyce, Mary. Zoroastrians: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices.
> necessary to acquire a following. He gained power first within
> London and Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979.
> his own Barlas people and then, in a manner typical of the
> Choksy, Jamsheed K. Conflict and Cooperation: Zoroastrian             steppe-based societies of the era, carefully began to make
> Subalterns and Muslim Elites in Medieval Iranian Society.
> allies outside it. The most important of these allies was Amir
> New York: Columbia University Press, 1997.
> Husayn of the Qaraunas, descendants of a nomadic garrison,
> Frye, Richard Nelson, ed. The Cambridge History of Iran, Vol.        or tanma, placed by the Mongols in Afghanistan during the
> 4: The Period from the Arab Invasion to the Saljuqs. Cam-         early thirteenth century. Unlike Tamerlane, or Amir Temür,
> bridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1975.
> as he was then known, Amir Husayn was an important part of
> Tabari, Abu Jafar Muhammad b. Jarir al-. The History of al-         the Chaghatay political establishment of the area, offering a
> Tabari (Ta
rikh al-rusul wa
l-muluk), Vol. 14: The Conquest        legitimacy much sought by Tamerlane.
> of Iran. Translated by G. Rex Smith. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994.                                      Ultimately, Tamerlane and Amir Husayn, after back and
> forth relationships, had a falling out. Husayn was killed by
> Henning L. Bauer       Tamerlane, who now became the effective ruler of Chaghatay
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                     221
> Empires
> 
> domains, although not its actual ruler since Tamerlane main-        was once comprised of a mosque, a caravansary, and a khanaqa
> tained the fiction of a ruling khan (qan) of the line of Genghis     (Sufi convent), in addition to the madrasa of Ulugh Beg ibn
> Khan to the end. As Tamerlane was only associated with it by        Shahrukh (1394–1449), grandson of Tamerlane, who was
> marriage, as a guregen, or imperial son-in-law, he did not          responsible for the other buildings, too. With Tamerlane’s
> qualify for this office. Tamerlane received a formal corona-         mausoleum, Gur-e Amir, the complex celebrates not only the
> tion at Balkh on 9 April 1360.                                      power and glory of the Timurid ruler, but also the artistic
> fusion achieved under Chaghatay and other Mongol rulers.
> Tamerlane spent the remainder of his life warring against       The colored tiles that are characteristic of the architecture of
> his enemies, conquering and reconquering territories, all the       the time are directly derived from Chinese blue-and-white
> while building up and beautifying his capital of Samarkand.         porcelain that itself represented a response to the tastes of the
> The major campaigns were into Khwarazm in 1371, into the            Mongol world conquerors.
> Semiryechye and beyond from 1375–1377, into Iran and
> Afghanistan from 1381–1384, and into the Caucasus and Iran              The late Timurid period was also the time of the great
> from 1386–1388. He undertook two campaigns into the                 wazir, ‘Ali-Sher Nawai (1441–1501), who single-handedly
> Golden Horde, first from 1391–1392, again from 1392–1396.            turned Chaghatay Turkic into a literary language. A minor
> Next, he brought war against Delhi between 1398 and 1399,           Timurid prince, Babur (r. 1483–1530), conquered India, and
> and into Anatolia and Syria between 1399 and 1404. At the           his descendants, the moguls of India, carried on the Timurid
> time of his death, Tamerlane was preparing to attack China.         tradition, including the Caghatay language, which persisted
> His military strategy was based on the use of steppe archers to     in India until the 1920s, and Central Asian cuisine, which still
> the maximum extent, except that by this time these were no          survives.
> longer the lightly armed force of the Mongolian empire, and
> See also Political Organization; Sultanates: Delhi;
> siege trains and other special forces were a regular part of his
> armies which, nonetheless, remained highly mobile.
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Like Genghis Khan and other Mongol rulers, Tamerlane             Buell, Paul D. An Historical Dictionary of the Mongol World
> used terror as a weapon, systematically massacring his ene-           Empire. Lanham, Md., and London: The Scarecrow
> mies in hideous ways, and in terms of numbers of victims he           Press, 2003.
> outdid the Mongols. His most enduring military accomplish-          Carswell, John. Blue & White, Chinese Porcelain Around the
> ments were his utter defeat of Golden Horde forces under              World. Chicago: Art Media Resources, 2002.
> Toqtamysh (r. 1377–1395) on the Terek River on 14 April             Jackson, Peter, and Lockhart, Laurence. The Cambridge His-
> 1395, from which the Golden Horde never recovered, and his             tory of Iran, Vol. 6, The Timurid and Safavid Periods.
> defeat of the powerful Ottoman sultan Bayezid I (r. 1389–1402)         Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
> in the Battle of Ankara on 28 July 1402, an event which             Lentz, Thomas W., and Lowry, Glenn D., eds. Timur and the
> considerably slowed development of the Ottoman empire. It             Princely Vision: Persian Art and Culture in the Fifteenth
> was not during these campaigns but during his youthful fights          Century. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of
> for survival that Tamerlane sustained the wound that pro-             Art, Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, 1989.
> vided him the Persian nickname, Temur-e lang, “lame Temur,”         Manz, Beatrice Forbes. The Rise and Rule of Tamerlane. Camfrom which our own name for him originated.                           bridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1989.
> 
> After his death, Tamerlane’s empire fell apart quickly and                                                        Paul D. Buell
> his primary successors, Shahrukh (r. 1404–1447) and Khalil-
> Sultan (r. 1404–1409), controlled no more than a small              UMAYYAD
> portion of its original territory. Later this shrinking realm       The Umayyad dynasty ruled the early Muslim community
> was subdivided even further. Nonetheless, despite the grow-         from 661 to 750 C.E. The Umayyad Empire had its capital in
> ing political impotence of the Timurids, whose rule was             Damascus and was supported through the military strength
> finally extinguished in the early sixteenth century, Herat and       of Syrian troops. It was characterized by a continuous effort at
> other centers of Timurid power in Transoxiana witnessed an          territorial expansion of the Islamic empire, reaching its apounparalleled cultural development. This was the era of some         gee in the early eighth century. The territorial growth of
> of the finest books ever produced in the Islamic world, and          the empire set into motion processes of Arabization and
> during this time the already substantial architectural achieve-     Islamization that would shape the culture of the region.
> ments of Tamerlane’s own reign (his mausoleum in Samarkand          Umayyad overexertion of military forces in the continuation
> and the classic shrine of Ahmad Yasavi in Turkistan City)           of expansionist efforts, together with an unequal treatment of
> were further enhanced with such marvels as the Registan in          Arab and non-Arab Muslims, and problems of religious and
> Samarkand. This is a planned complex, one of the earliest of        political legitimacy contributed to the weakening of the
> its kind in the Islamic world. It focuses on a central square and   Umayyad dynasty and its eventual downfall.
> 
> 222                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Empires
> 
> Muslim historiographical sources generally portray the
> Umayyads in a negative light, accusing not only the Umayyad           Umayyad Caliphs
> caliphs, but also their ancestors and relatives, of all kinds of
> moral failings and un-Islamic behaviors. Much of this criti-          SUFYANIDS
> cism needs to be sifted carefully for anti-Umayyad biases, as         Mu‘awiya b. Abu Sufyan                              661–680 C.E.
> Yazid b. Mu‘awiyah                                  680–683 C.E.
> most of the available Muslim sources have been penned in                                                                  683 C.E.
> Mu’awiyah b. Yazid
> late Umayyad and early Abbasid times, when anti-Umayyad
> sentiments were extensive, particularly among the emerging
> MARWANIDS
> religious class that left its imprint on many of the literary
> Marwan b. al-Hakam                                  684-685 C.E.
> sources at our disposal.                                              ‘Abd al-Malik b. Marwan                             685–705 C.E.
> al-Walid b. ‘Abd al-Malik                           705–715 C.E.
> Mu
awiya b. Abu Sufyan, whose caliphate marks the                 Sulayman b. ‘Abd al-Malik                           715–717 C.E.
> ‘Umar b. ‘Abd al’Aziz                               717–720 C.E.
> beginning of the Umayyad dynasty, was appointed the gover-            Yazid b. ‘Abd al-Malik                              720–724 C.E.
> nor of Syria under caliph 
Umar b. al-Khattab (r. 634–644             Hisham b. ‘Abd al-Malik                             724–743 C.E.
> al-Walid b. Yazid                                   743–744 C.E.
> C.E.). During the first Civil War (656–661 C.E.) the third
> Yazid b. al-Walid                                   744 C.E.
> caliph, 
Uthman b. al-
Affan (r. 644–656) had been assassi-           Ibrahim b. al-Walid                                 744 C.E.
> nated by discontented elements in the growing Muslim                  Marwan b. Muhammad                                  744–750 C.E
> 
> empire. Mu
awiya, his relative, challenged the authority of
> 
Uthman’s successor, 
Ali b. Abi Talib (r. 656–661) purport-       An illustration of the two caliphate families of the Umayyad dynasty.
> edly because the latter did not prosecute the murders of
> 
Uthman. While Mu
awiya’s direct challenge to 
Ali at the
> battle of Siffin (657) ended in a stalemate, 
Ali’s assassination   power. 
Abd al-Malik also began the process of making Arabic
> by a Kharijite (separatist) in 661 effectively put Mu
awiya in     the lingua franca of the empire, and he built the Dome of the
> power. During Mu
awiya’s long reign, from 661 to 680, a            Rock in Jerusalem.
> relative calm returned to the Muslim empire, as Mu
awiya
> After the Second Civil War between the Umayyad forces
> successfully kept discontented elements in check. The relaand the nascent Shi
a, a new phase of imperial extension was
> tive stability of the empire allowed Mu
awiya to reinvigorate
> inaugurated. Of particular importance were annual raids
> the expansionist warfare of the earlier caliphs. Yet the issues
> against the Byzantine Empire, including further attempts to
> that had led to the First Civil War, namely a different            conquer its capital, Constantinople (716–717). Additionally,
> understanding of legitimate leadership of the Muslim com-          successes in North Africa led to a defeat of the last remaining
> munity, continued to plague the Muslim community. Upon             Byzantine outposts. With the conversion of Berber tribes of
> Mu
awiya’s death in 680 C.E., his son Yazid, designated heir       North Africa, the conquest forces were reinvigorated, leading
> apparent, faced revolts by Husayn b. 
Ali b. Abi Talib,            to the crossing of the straits of Gibraltar in 711 and a
> grandson of the prophet Muhammad, and 
Abdallah b. al-             vanquishing of the Visigothic kingdom of the Iberian penin-
> Zubayr, son of a prominent companion of Muhammad.                  sula. After the overthrow of the Umayyad dynasty in the
> Disorganization and woefully inadequate military support for       Muslim heartlands by the Abbasids in 750, a descendant of
> Husayn brought about his quick defeat and death at the Battle      the Umayyads would find refuge in Muslim Spain where an
> of Karbala in 680 C.E. Yet while Yazid’s military success          Umayyad kingdom and later caliphate was founded, lasting
> against Husayn was swift, the ideological repercussions of the     until 1031. The eastward expansion of the empire in the early
> Battle of Karbala would come to haunt Umayyad ambitions            eighth century included successful conquests into Transoxania
> for political legitimacy for centuries. Husayn’s martyrdom at      and Sind.
> Karbala became a powerful symbol for Shi
ite aspirations.
> Yet the increase of military failures on the frontiers in the
> With the death of Mu
awiya b. Yazid in 683 C.E., Umayyad       second quarter of the eighth century, coupled with growing
> control of the empire suffered a nearly total collapse during      tensions among different tribal factions in the Syrian army
> the Second Civil War (683–692), until Marwan b. al-Hakam           (which had provided the main support for Umayyad power),
> assumed the caliphate, inaugurating the Marwanid lineage.          and growing unrest among different groups of “piety-minded”
> Marwan, and later his son 
Abd al-Malik, gradually restored        opponents led to a weakening of Umayyad strength and its
> Umayyad control of the empire, defeating a number of               final demise. A carefully organized underground movement,
> opponents in different parts of the empire. 
Abd al-Malik          coordinated by the Abbasid agitator Abu Muslim in the
> reestablished full Umayyad control in 692 C.E., when he            eastern province of Khurasan garnered support among varidefeated counter-caliph 
Abdallah b. al-Zubayr after a siege       ous groups in opposition to the Umayyads. The Abbasids’s
> on Mecca that had led to a fire, destroying part of the Ka
ba.      initial claim to rally troops against the Umayyads in favor of
> The siege itself and the damage done to the Ka
ba reinforced       the family of Muhammad particularly appealed to Shi
a. Only
> criticism against the Umayyads as irreligious usurpers of          after the Umayyads had been decisively defeated did the
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                         223
> Erbakan, Necmeddin
> 
> Abbasids reveal their claim to the caliphate, centering its
> claims to legitimacy on descent from Muhammad’s paternal
> ERBAKAN, NECMEDDIN (1926–)
> uncle al-
Abbas.
> Necmeddin Erbakan served as Turkey’s prime minister
> The geographical spread of the Islamic empire did not         (1996–1997) and was the founder of the Welfare Party (Refah
> directly correlate with the spread of Islam as a religion among   Partisi). A mechanical engineer, university professor, diesel
> the inhabitants of conquered territories. Indeed, during much     factory founder, and Union of Chambers of Commerce and
> of the Umayyad caliphate Islam as a religious tradition was in    Industry president, he was elected to Parliament in 1969 as a
> a state of flux and only gradually assumed more identifiable        spokesman for small business.
> contours. Forced conversion of local populations was rare;
> conquered peoples usually continued to practice their relig-          Erbakan started the National Order Party (Milli Nizam
> ious traditions, and Islamization of these territories spanned    Partisi) in 1970, which was banned after the 1971 military
> several centuries. In addition to a gradual spread of Islam       coup. As founder of the National Salvation Party (Milli
> among the conquered peoples, Muslim traders and pious             Selâmet Partisi, 1972) he became deputy premier. After the
> preachers spread Islam as a religion beyond the borders of the    1980 coup this party also was banned and Erbakan ousted
> conquered territories. Likewise, Arabization in the newly         from politics. Erbakan’s third party, the Welfare Party (formed
> conquered territories was a slow process; Arabic as the official   in 1983), which opposed corruption and demanded a prolanguage of Umayyad administration seems not to have been         Islamic, anti-Western foreign policy, received 21 percent of
> prevalent before 700, and specifically Muslim coinage does         the vote in 1996. Erbakan headed a coalition government
> not seem to have been in use before the end of the seventh        with Tansu Çiller of the True Path Party.
> century.
> As prime minister Erbakan became more moderate, im-
> The major contribution of the Umayyads to Islamdom            proving Turkey’s Mideast relations while maintaining its
> consists not only in their military successes, its Islamization   Western alliances. Domestically, he raised civil service salaand Arabization, but also in its support for the development      ries and cleaned up the cities. He could not halt corruption,
> of Islam as a religious tradition. In spite of the negative       however; coalition partners as well as opponents were involved.
> attitude in which later sources portray the Umayyads, the first
> Pressure from the military, alarmed by Islamism, forced
> collections of sayings of Muhammad and of early Muslim
> historiography were undertaken with some support of the           Erbakan’s resignation (1997) and the party’s closure (1998).
> Umayyads; likewise, Umayyad patronage in religious build-         He was imprisoned for a year for “inciting hatred,” though
> ings produced a first, identifiable Islamic architecture in         supporters considered him a fighter for religious freedom.
> buildings like the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem and the          After his ouster, Erbakan unofficially backed a successor
> Umayyad mosque of Damascus.                                       party, Virtue (Fazilet), which disavowed radical Islamism.
> 
> See also Arabic Language; Arabic Literature; Dome                 See also Modernization, Political: Participation, Politiof the Rock; Empires: Abbasid; Empires: Byzantine;                cal Movements, and Parties; Political Islam.
> Husayn; Islam and Islamic; Karbala; Kharijites,
> Khawarij; Marwan; Mu
awiya; 
Umar.                                BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Howe, Marvine. Turkey Today: A Nation Divided over Islam’s
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                        Revival. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 2000.
> Blankinship, Khalid Yahya. The End of the Jihad State. The        Zurcher, Erik J. Turkey: A Modern History. London and New
> Reign of Hisham Ibn Abd al-Malik and the Collapse of            York: I. B. Tauris, 1993.
> the Umayyads. Albany: State University of New York
> Press, 1994.                                                                                               Linda T. Darling
> Hawting, G. R. The First Dynasty of Islam. The Umayyad
> Caliphate AD 661–750. London and New York:
> Routledge, 2000.
> Hodgson, Marshall G. S. The Venture of Islam, Vol. 1: The         ETHICS AND SOCIAL ISSUES
> Classical Age. Chicago: The University of Chicago
> Press, 1977.                                                    It is important to distinguish how the term ethics was used in
> Wellhausen, Julius. The Arab Kingdom and Its Fall. 1927.          premodern Islam compared to its usage in the modern pe-
> Translated by Margaret Graham Weir. Edited by A. H.             riod. In the premodern period, ethics was chiefly concerned
> Harley. Reprint, London: Curzon Press, 1973.                    about the formation and disciplining of the self through the
> cultivation of practices that were deemed “good conduct.”
> Alfons H. Teipen     Such conduct was naturalized through education, ritual, and
> 
> 224                                                                                           Islam and the Muslim World
> Ethics and Social Issues
> 
> disciplinary practices that were intended to help the devout           Innumerable reports attributed to the Prophet place spe-
> Muslim internalize the values that underlay an ethical life.       cial value and emphasis on the need to cultivate good character, husn al-khulq. The phrase also has an aesthetic quality of
> In the modern Muslim context, by contrast, matters such         beauty (husn) to it. In other words, character is related to an
> as education, ritual, and disciplinary practices have them-        inner magnificence. In fact, numerous hadith stress that the
> selves undergone a significant, if not radical, change from         perfection of character is equal to the perfection of faith. In
> previous eras. The modern period is governed by the logic of       some hadith, good character is described as half of faith.
> systems, bureaucratic processes, and the logic of abstraction.     Similarly, good character was viewed as the most effective
> Education in particular, but ritual, and other social practices    antidote to the human predisposition to commit sins. In early
> too, have felt the influences of bureaucratic modernity. Now        Islam, as today, moral education is the primary responsibility
> ethics is conceived of as a set of abstract values, derived from   of parents and teachers, who should not only transmit moral
> sources that do not always completely resonate with the
> knowledge, but also supervise its application through prachistorical self, given the massive global transformations of
> tice, discipline, and training.
> cultures and values. Although the earlier understandings of
> and approaches to ethics are only partly adhered to, Muslim        The Pietists and the Philosophers
> communities are forging new ethical identities in the mael-        The early Muslim ethicists differentiated between the etistrom of paradigmatic transitions in knowledge, culture, and       quette of the self (adab al-nafs) and the etiquette of pedagogy
> history.                                                           (adab al-dars). 
Abd al-Nabi al-Ahmadnagri (d. 1769), the
> Indian encyclopedist, describes the etiquette of the self as
> Terms and Historical Developments
> being designed to protect the limbs as well as religious
> Ethics in premodern Muslim thought finds its expression
> symbols from harm: Implicitly this invokes the obligation
> around concepts such as character (khuluq) and in the literary
> not to inflict harm intentionally (the ethical principle of
> genre of civility or etiquette (adab). Historically, Muslim
> nonmaleficence). Ideally, through regular practice, this etiethics draws from several cultural sources: the pre-Islamic
> quette should become internalized by the practitioner, beethical traditions of Arabia and the Arab-Islamic tradition
> coming a part of his or her very disposition, or personality.
> followed by cross-pollination with the practices of neighbor-
> The ethics of learning, on the other hand, relate to the
> ing cultures, such as Persianate, Greek, and Indian philoproduction of knowledge, especially to questions of language
> sophical and ethical traditions, in addition to mystical (sufi)
> and epistemology. Here the concern is to figure how knowlsources all of which no doubt left their marks on the face of
> edge is constituted and the manner in which its authority is
> Muslim ethics.
> implemented. Knowledge is deemed to be highly beneficial
> Within the first three centuries of several Islamicate          and almost intrinsically to contribute to the welfare of the self
> cultures of the Near East, several ethical traditions arose. The   and others, and invokes the active ethical principle of benefi-
> two principal genres of early ethical writing were pietist (or     cence. Almost all the early Muslim sources discuss prescripmystical) and philosophical. The earliest texts are primarily      tive norms that relate in some way to aspects of nonmaleficence
> concerned with the ethics of the self, especially with the         and the promotion of beneficence, among other principles.
> disciplining of the body and soul. The literary genre of ilm
> al-akhlaq, literally meaning “the science of innate disposi-          A more formal discipline of the “science of ethics” took
> tions” and the emergence of the discourses of civility, urban-     shape under the influence of philosophical writers like
> ity, or humanitas, called adab are among the most prominent        Miskawayh (d. 1030), Abu Hayyan al-Tawhidi (d. 1023), and
> contexts in which ethical debates were set forth. In fact,         Abu ’l-Hassan al-Amiri (d. 992), among others. These writers
> materials in the form of prophetic reports (hadith) make up        expanded the sphere of ethics, developing new meanings
> the bulk of what we consider to be the “science of innate          within a primarily Persianate environment but in conversadispositions.”                                                     tion with other regional intellectual traditions. Many of these
> teachings were intended as moral pedagogy for the young, for
> Normative discourses about morality can be found in both       bureaucrats, and also for the ruler’s entourage and his aides de
> the hadith literature and in the Quran. There is a famous         camp. In time, more specialized forms of political ethics were
> report in which 
Aisha describes her husband, the prophet         developed as part of the nasiha or advice-genre, offered in the
> Muhammad, as the embodiment of Islamic values, saying that         form of “mirrors for princes.” The philosophical writers also
> his character mirrors the Quran. In this pithy statement, the     contributed to a marked growth in moral pedagogy, in the
> linkage between the Quran and ethical values cannot be            form of the adab genre.
> ignored. In short, the expression suggests that the prophet
> Muhammad had internalized the virtues proposed in the                 Even among the early Muslim pietists the cultivation of
> Scripture. In fact, the Quran, addressing the prophet Mu-         character and the disciplining of the self is a preeminent
> hammad, says: “Indeed you [Muhammad] have been en-                 concern. Through pious acts and obedience to the norms
> dowed with a noble character.” (68:4) Here the word khuluq         were said to be derived from revelation (sharia) the individual
> (character) assumes extraordinary emphasis.                        was thought to be able to develop an inner disposition that
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                     225
> Ethics and Social Issues
> 
> compares favorably to a notion of conscience. Figures like              Later on, the martyred jurist-mystic, Ayn al-Qudat al-
> Harith al-Muhasibi (d. 857), Raghib al-Isfahani (d. ca. 1108),      Hamadhani (d. 1131) considered the necessity of relying on
> and Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (d. 1111) produced extensive and           the dictates of the heart, fatwa al-qalb. For him there was no
> detailed treatises and manuals dealing with topics that address     doubt that the heart was the seat of conscience, basing his
> intentionality, the cultivation of virtuous habits, good charac-    position on a report attributed to the Prophet, which says:
> ter, and how to perfect practices that lead to salvation. Each      “Solicit a response (fatwa) from your heart, even though the
> of these texts specified how a novice in the path of piety could     jurisconsult (mufti) had issued a response (fatwa).” This cauattain sanctity for ethical ends by giving attention to prac-       tion places the ultimate ethical responsibility on the individtices. Readers were taught how to undertake a moral self-           ual, and detracts from the expert knowledge of the legal
> evaluation in order to identify character flaws, and were also       specialist. In short, for al-Hamadhani, fiqh was the medieval
> taught how to remedy such ills.                                     homology for what today is called applied ethics.
> 
> Often the remedial path advocated a conscientious ap-            The Changing Concept of Fiqh
> proach to rituals and practices prescribed by legal discourses,     In seeking to identify broad historical trends in Muslim
> both those of the sharia and those embodied in the legal           thought on the subject of ethics, Ibn Khaldun provides a
> regulations called fiqh. The fulcrum of Muslim ethics is             valuable starting point. He argued that fiqh, as practiced
> ideally expressed in the practical applications of the law at the   within its original Arabic linguistic habitat, was an embodied
> most public level.                                                  disposition and aptitude (jibilla wa malaka). The idea of
> malaka can be understood as something akin to a socio-
> Nonetheless, the ethics practiced by both the mystics and       biological disposition or aptitude, rather than a purely biophilosophers is highly specialized, with its own rarified vo-        logical or psychological one. In this sense it has a strong
> cabulary that was aimed at serving a certain elite and educated     resemblance to what Marcell Mauss calls a habitus. Ibn Khaldun
> strata of Muslim societies. No less an authority than the           argued that the concept of malaka was subject to cultural
> intellectual historian 
Abd al-Rahman Ibn Khaldun (d. 1406)         erosion as Islam expanded into other cultural and linguistic
> noted the difference in the perspectives on the sharia held by     traditions. In these new contexts, the need arose to theorize
> jurists (fuqaha) and jurisconsults (ahl-futya) on the one hand,     about and develop rules and principles of the Arabic lanand the mystics and ascetics on the other. While the former         guage, law and legal theory, and other disciplines. With this
> advocated the general rules for devotional practices, social        development, concepts such as malaka underwent alteration.
> transactions, and customs, the latter provided the etiquette of     This altered state of cultural and ethical subjectivities led to
> practice, relying on intuitive cognition or aesthetic sensibility   the development of what Ghazali would denounce as the
> (dhawq) informed by ascetic practices (mujahada) and self-          soulless formalism of fiqh, deprived of its ethical and moral
> examination (muhasaba).                                             purposes.
> 
> The Influence of al-Ghazali                                              Despite the efforts of people like al-Ghazali, the bulk of
> In the twelfth century, Abu Hamid al-Ghazali combined the           Muslim jurisprudence developed along very formalistic lines,
> methods of both the jurists and the mystics. He grew dissatis-      and the ethical stress within law (fiqh) in the end gave way to
> fied with the popular understanding of law, fiqh, and with            legalism. By the twelfth century, the line was clearly drawn
> what he believed to be the ultimate perversion of the law:          between those who held that fiqh was part of the development
> reductionism, hairsplitting, specialization, and arcane de-         of the self and those who saw it as part of a a formal legal
> bates. Al-Ghazali admonished that legal debates about mar-          edifice. If formal jurisprudence during this period retained
> riage, divorce, the manumission of slaves, or the execution of      certain ethical concerns, these are most likely traces of previsales and contracts do not result in reverential fear and awe of    ous understandings of ethics, rather than the product of a
> the divine; in fact they result in the opposite. He argued for      lively contemporaneous ethics in conversation with the imthe need to retrieve the meaning of fiqh from its earliest           mediate society in which the law is practiced.
> usage, when it meant “the path of salvation in the afterlife.”
> To be fair, some jurists, other than the mystics, did
> In order to restore fiqh to its former meaning, Al-Ghazali       attempt to engage fiqh in a dialog with moral and ethical
> believed that a deep knowledge of the tribulations of the soul      objectives. In order to highlight the ethical strains implicit in
> and what constitutes morally detrimental acts was required,         the law, some jurists began to emphasize the role of public
> rather than a familiarity with the minutiae of the law. He          interest (maslaha) by elaborating its ethical purposes (maqasid),
> called for fiqh al-nafs (discernment of the soul), a form of         such as in the protection and advancement of religion, life,
> inner enlightenment. He believed that a proper understand-          reason, wealth, and paternity or family. This method, popuing of fiqh should inspire awe of the divine within the heart        larized by the work of scholars like al-Ghazali, Najm al-Din
> and soul of the practitioner. Ghazali explicitly stated that fiqh    al-Tufi (d. 1316), 
Izz al-Din Ibn 
Abd al-Salam al-Sulami (d.
> primarily signifies the requisites of faith, and least of all was    1262), Abu Ishaq al-Shatibi (d.1388), and Ibn Qayyim alconcerned with the dictates of jurisprudence (fatwa, pl. fatawa).   Jawziyya (d. 1350), enjoyed only limited success. It is no
> 
> 226                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Ethics and Social Issues
> 
> coincidence that several of these jurists also adhered to           complexity of fetal life. This point of view is informed by the
> certain mystical traditions.                                        theological doctrine that the spirit (ruh) enters the fetus
> around 120 days (four months) after conception. Those who
> In fact, in order to reinvigorate the law with an ethical       take a strict position argue that, once the sperm enters the
> component, many modern-day Muslim jurists have also taken           womb, it is destined to produce life, and thus abortion is
> recourse to the doctrines of public interest and the objectives     proscribed. Given the 120-day rule, however, many jurists
> of the law. In fact, much of contemporary jurisprudence and         find it less morally onerous to sanction a justifiable abortion
> ethics is indebted to this method, but it has met with mixed        within this period.
> outcomes. A brief recapitulation of some of these efforts as
> applied to major issues of the day may shed light on the                The classic precedent for permitting abortion within the
> developments in modern Muslim ethics and the way they               first 120 days is the case where a nursing mother falls
> relate to the inherited tradition.                                  pregnant. The new pregnancy would stop her from lactating,
> and the husband may be unable to afford to pay a wet-nurse to
> The Ethos of Killing
> breastfeed the infant. When facing two competing harms, it is
> The unlawful killing of a human being is categorically forbidproposed that one choose the lesser nonmaleficence. In a
> den in Islamic law and ethics, and deemed as a major sin. Both
> similar vein, there is almost universal unanimity that if a
> the Quran and hadith sources, as interpreted by the jurists,
> pregnant woman faces a life-threatening risk, it is permissible
> view life as sacrosanct. The preservation of life is one of the
> to terminate the pregnancy, irrespective of the stage. Preservmoral objectives of the law and intrinsic to human dignity.
> ing the life of the mother takes precedence over the rights of
> Life can only be taken as part of a just recompense for the
> the unborn child.
> crime of murder and for defensive purposes such as war and
> restoring order during chaos. The noted hadith scholar,                 Muslim ethicists disagree as to what reasons justify termi-
> Muhammad b. Ahmad al-Dhahabi (d. 1348), however, made               nation and, more importantly, how such a determination is to
> an interesting point about the legitimate amount of force that      be made. For most jurists, a medical diagnosis that detects a
> is allowed to be used in self-defense. In self-defense against      fetus to be severely deformed or defective, carrying a lifeseditious rebels, he argued, the goal is not to kill them, unless
> threatening hereditary or untreatable disease, or afflicted
> of course one’s life is endangered. To kill without need is to
> with a serious handicap is not sufficient grounds for terminarevert to a state of spiritual infidelity, according to a hadith
> tion. Only the official Egyptian fatwa-body sanctions termiattributed to the Prophet. Whoever kills without a just cause
> nations prior to 120 days in the above-mentioned instances.
> carries the burden of killing all of humanity; and whoever
> However, if pregnancy has advanced beyond this period, then
> saves a life, it is as if the whole of humanity had been rescued,
> termination of such fetuses is not permitted even there. A
> according to the Quran (5:32).
> fetal abnormality that would result in blindness or deafness,
> Some classical jurists, motivated by an exclusivist and         for example, is not to be terminated, because the handicap is
> triumphalist ethos, have interpreted these and other Quranic       viewed as tolerable. The Deoband seminary in India only
> teachings to forbid the compensatory execution of a Muslim          sanctions termination if there is an actual threat to the life of
> for killing a non-Muslim or a slave. More egalitarian counter-      the mother, not on the grounds of a presumed or calculated
> vailing viewpoints have discredited this view. Nonetheless,         risk; and fetal defect is not a valid reason to terminate at any
> the abolition of the death penalty is not widely advocated in       stage of pregnancy. Many Muslim jurists are increasingly
> contemporary Muslim societies. Even though the modern               retreating from the 120-day rule as advances in medical
> state now implements secular criminal codes, in classical           technology provide more visible and definitive evidence of
> Islamic law the right to seek redress in cases of murder            early fetal life.
> belongs to the family of the deceased. The family of the
> Abortion for the purpose of family planning or to termideceased has the right to choose from several options: they
> nate pregnancies caused by rape or conceived outside wedmight seek material compensation for their loss, they may call
> for the execution of the offender, or they may even pardon          lock is a controversial topic. Some contemporary jurists
> the offender. In other words, the death penalty is not a            permit abortion for family planning purposes within the 120-
> mandatory requirement in terms of Islamic law. However,             day period. Ayatullah Fadl Allah of Lebanon is one of the few
> some theologians of the classical period viewed the mere            authorities who permits termination within 120 days, on the
> desire to be an abolitionist as a doctrinal offense.                grounds that the pregnancy and its consequences will cause
> an intolerable social hardship for the mother and her family.
> The Question of Abortion                                            On the other hand, the mere deformity of a fetus does not
> Abortion remains a vexing issue in Muslim societies. Most           constitute grounds for termination, even within the 120-day
> classical Muslim jurists consider a fetus in the first 120 days      period. Other scholars counter by arguing that the birth of
> after conception to be nonviable. However, there is no denial       offspring is predestined and cannot be limited on the grounds
> that as the fetus incrementally develops, so too does the           of material considerations.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                      227
> Ethics and Social Issues
> 
> Muslim women in the waiting room of a birth control clinic in Cairo. Abortion is a contentious topic in the Muslim world. © PETER TURNLEY/CORBIS
> 
> Mufti Nizam al-Din Azami of the Deoband seminary does                 mittee of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC).
> not consider pregnancy outside wedlock or one caused by                   Artificial insemination from a husband is deemed permissirape to be a valid reason for termination. For him, the sanctity          ble, while that from any other donor is impermissible. Islamic
> of the new life takes precedence over the autonomy of the                 law insists on legitimate paternity being an essential requirepregnant woman and the negative social consequences aris-                 ment for reproduction, thus outlawing donor insemination,
> ing from her added responsibilities. A minority of Egyptian               since the donor and donee are not married. Ayatollah Fadl
> jurists at al-Azhar University also shares this view. However,            Allah expresses some concern that a woman seeking artificial
> the highly respected Indian jurist, 
Abd al-Hayy al-Laknawi               insemination, even legitimately, might be guilty of indecent
> (d. 1886), argued that it is permissible to terminate a preg-             exposure of her body to a male physician during the course of
> nancy conceived outside wedlock, even if there are visible
> the medical procedure. Such an indecent exposure is legally
> signs of fetal formation, in other words even if the pregnancy
> prohibited, unless an emergency necessitates it. However, it
> has advanced beyond 120 days. He gives greater considerais acceptable for a female physician to look at the body of
> tion to the mother’s autonomy and the need to liberate a
> another female. Mufti Nizam al-Din of India outrightly
> single woman from social stigma and the accompanying
> prohibits artificial insemination, declaring these procedures
> reduced life-chances she would encounter if she carried such
> are contrary to religion and natural law and increase the
> a pregnancy to term in very unfavorable cultural conditions.
> A minority of jurists in contemporary India draw on the                   prospect of dehumanization.
> rationale of al-Laknawi to permit termination for pregnancies caused by rape and sex outside of wedlock.
> With regard to sperm banks, Ayatollah Fadl Allah dis-
> Other Reproductive Issues                                                 courages the use of a husband’s stored sperm after his death,
> Ayatollah Fadl Allah has issued several rulings related to mod-           since the marital tie ends with death. However, he states that
> ern reproductive technologies, as has the Islamic Fiqh Com-               any child posthumously conceived legitimately belongs to the
> 
> 228                                                                                                      Islam and the Muslim World
> Ethics and Social Issues
> 
> wife and is to be attributed to the deceased husband, cau-           does not raise concerns about how they may affect the
> tiously avoiding the implication that the child may be illegiti-     relations among siblings who share a wet-nurse.
> mate. However, such a child would not be able to inherit from
> the father’s estate, since the fetus was produced after his          Contraception
> death. In Egypt the permissibility of such a practice has also       Birth control is deemed permissible, provided that the means
> been a subject of serious contention.                                of contraception are temporary and not irreversible. The
> most popular premodern means of contraception was by way
> Ayatollah Fadl Allah permits a female to store her eggs in       of coitus interruptus and other forms of prophylactics. Alorder to be fertilized later. Fertilized embryos can be used for     Ghazali held that it was permissible for a wife to practice
> experimental purposes, he argues, reasoning that such organ-         coitus interruptus if she wished to protect her body aesthetiisms cannot be equated to be a living person, which only             cally and avoid the changes to her body that accompany
> occurs at ensoulment around 120 days after conception. He            pregnancy and child birth. Birth control can also be pursued
> also permits the sale of unfertilized female gametes for             in order to avoid the burden of material difficulties of providexperimental purposes, provided that the financial compen-            ing for a large family. There is almost unanimity that vasectomy
> sation involved covers only the use rights of the gametes;           and hysterectomy, unless recommended for sound medical
> there can not be a monetary value placed on these or any             reasons, are not permissible, because they result in irreversother body parts, per se. He also permits surrogacy, under           ible change to the body.
> limited circumstances. Surrogacy is only permissible if the
> surrogate mother at least temporarily becomes a wife to the              Birth control as part of a national family planning proman whose sperm fertilized the egg she is carrying to term.          grams whereby governments place an upper limit on the
> Technically, however, the child is attributed to the female          permissible size of a family, has often been controversial and
> whose egg was fertilized, and not to the female who delivers         bitter in the Muslim world. Some suspect that the Westernthe child. The Ayatollah finds several objections to an argu-         controlled transnational institutions wish to use family planment that allows a mother to act as a surrogate if her daughter      ning to limit Muslim populations. Another concern is that
> is incapable of carrying a pregnancy to term.                        that birth control measures such as the pill and condoms may
> increase promiscuity. The controversy remains unresolved.
> Adoption and Fosterage                                               In Egypt, for instance, former al-Azhar shaykh opposed the
> A limited form of adoption is permissible in Muslim ethics.          use of the pill, while another senior official, the state mufti,
> This form prevents the adopted child from taking on the              encouraged its use. With the spread of the HIV/AIDS virus,
> fictional identity and paternity of his or her adoptive parents.      the opposition to birth control measures has lessened.
> Forging a fictional identity between persons not related
> biologically is prohibited according to Muslim ethics. As long       Organ Transplantation and Cloning
> as the adopted child knows that he or she has biological             Indian and Pakistani authorities have been opposed to organ
> parents other than the ones in whose household he or she is          transplantation from its very inception. Several fatwas, inbeing reared, then there can be no ethical reservation to deny       cluding one issued by Mufti Nizam al-Din, allow organ
> such children from enjoying all the care and security of family      transplantation only under conditions of emergency. Blood
> life within the adoptive family. For Muslim ethicists the            transfusion, too, is only permissible under extreme condiconcern is that creating identity based on nonbiological             tions of necessity. For many traditionalist Muslim ethicists
> grounds increases the risk of biologically related offspring         from the Indo-Pak subcontinent, transplantation surgery is
> unknowingly marrying each other and violating the in-                an affront to human dignity and to the sanctity of life.
> cest taboo.                                                          However, in recent years there have been attempts to reverse
> the almost four-decade-old consensus on organ transplanta-
> In Islamic law, fosterage is when an infant is nursed by         tion on the Indian subcontinent. Some scholars in this region
> someone other than his or her mother (a wet-nurse). This             have been cautious and have agreed to permit cornea
> practice creates the same ethical boundaries between child           transplantations only.
> and nurse that exist between children, their biological parents, and their siblings, particularly as they apply to the incest       In the Middle East the ethical committees of several
> taboo. If an adopted infant is nursed by an adoptive mother,         institutions permit both organ transplantation and organ
> these same bonds and boundaries are also created. The effect         donation. The OIC’s Islamic Fiqh Academy recognizes irreis to prevent biological and adopted siblings from unwittingly       versible brain-stem damage as legal death, and permits docmarrying each other, since they either share the same person         tors to harvest organs from victims of such injury for purposes
> as wet-nurse or biological mother. The permissibility of             of transplantation. Scholars supporting transplantation befosterage has also led to the permissibility of milk-banks,          lieve that this form of medical care advances human dignity,
> where infants get milk from anonymous donor wet-nurses.              and argue that such measures are taken precisely to promote
> Mufti Nizam al-Din also supports the idea of milk-banks, and         the sanctity of life.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                      229
> Ethics and Social Issues
> 
> There is perhaps greater uniformity among the diverse          punishment can serve as an effective purgative for this act,
> ethics committees in their approach to the subject of repro-       and therefore that its immorality precludes an earthly penductive and therapeutic cloning; all express great caution and     alty. Some jurists are so morally offended by homosexuality
> apprehension. Fears stem from the idea that biogenetic tech-       that even to raise the question of its permissibility is enough
> nology can radically transform human identity, undermining         to lead to calls for excommunication and anathematizing.
> if not perverting current moral and ethical practices. For this    However, Muslim ethicists have yet to reach consensus as to
> reason the Islamic Fiqh Academy prohibits all cloning prac-        whether homosexuality is a socially constructed practice or
> tices that allow a third party to be associated in genetic         part of a biological, genetic predisposition. Such an inquiry
> reproduction between two married persons, whether it is by         may prompt a deeper ethical investigation into whether or
> means of another womb, the provision of third-party gametes,       not persons can be held accountable for responding to their
> or through the manipulation of animal or human cells. For          natural proclivities, even if those proclivities may be deemed
> now all forms of human cloning are banned, but the future          unnatural by heterosexual standards.
> may bring exceptions on a case-by-case basis, as knowledge
> and experience in genetics advance. Although the Academy           Ethical Trends for the Future
> permits research in animal and plant cloning, it encourages        Over the centuries, Muslim ethics have undergone tremengovernments to adopt legislative measures to close all the         dous change, even though little attention has been paid. In
> avenues for direct and indirect experimentation in human           the modern period, new scientific discoveries and technolocloning until substantive knowledge makes it safe. Similarly       gies have severely challenged the ethical heritage of early
> the Academy has declared a moratorium on genetic engineer-         Islam. Yet, Muslim ethics remain deeply embedded in the
> ing and the human genome project until greater clarity is          premodern legacy, and little of modern scientific thinking has
> achieved and its ethics committee is in a better position to       seeped into ethical discourses in any meaningful way. The
> offer meaningful and practical guidelines.                         cultural, political, and economic encounter with the West
> continues to elicit great caution from Muslims, especially
> Euthanasia
> those within the traditional religious sector, who view the
> Indian Muslim scholars rule out both active and passive forms
> premodern Muslim ethical legacy as a bulwark against exterof euthanasia. Active forms of euthanasia are a major moral
> nal ethical and moral encroachment. Clearly there is very
> sin and an unthinkable act within Muslim ethics. Mufti
> little consensus between various and diverse Muslim religious
> Nizam al-Din argues that for terminally ill individuals, sufgroups that adhere to diametrically opposed views on ethics.
> fering has a redemptive quality that should be borne with
> However, the above survey of current ethical issues demonpatience by both the patient and his or her caregivers.
> strates that there are pragmatic approaches to Muslim ethics
> Seeking to hasten the death of the terminally ill is tantamount
> that seek accommodation with the ethics of modernity. At the
> to the abdication of a caregiver’s responsibility, and would be
> same time, there are approaches to ethics that seek to predeemed both a criminal offense and a major sin. Passive
> serve distinctive Muslim subjectivities and identities, finding
> euthanasia on the part of a caregiver would amount to gross
> their best models for such preservation in the historical legacy
> negligence, and such deplorable ethical conduct is deserving
> of ethics in Islam.
> of disciplinary consequences. For this school of thought there
> remains an irreconcilable gap between ethical and medical
> See also Fatwa; Futuwwa; Ghazali, al-; Homosexuality;
> standards of assessing life and death. The Indian ethicists do
> Ibn Khaldun; Law; Shari
a.
> not accept any standard of death to be conclusive, save for the
> cardiopulmonary standard (cessation of all heart and lung
> activity). For medical practitioners, other measurements of        BIBLIOGRAPHY
> ascertaining death, such as brain-stem death, are acceptable.      Brockopp, Jonathan E., ed. Islamic Ethics of Life: Abortion,
> War, and Euthanasia. Columbia: University of South Caro-
> Some of the scholars of the Islamic Fiqh Academy concur            lina Press, 2002.
> with this cautious view, and oppose such acts of passive           Hourani, George F. Reason and Tradition in Islamic Ethics.
> euthanasia as taking a patient off life-support or withholding       Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1985.
> treatment. However, the official resolution of the Islamic
> Musallam, B. Sex and Society in Islam. Cambridge, U.K.:
> Fiqh Academy permits withholding treatment and the re-               Cambridge University Press, 1983.
> moval of life-support machines from patients whose doctors
> Rispler-Chaim, Vardit. Islamic Medical Ethics in the Twentieth
> affirm that they have suffered irreversible brain-stem damage.
> Century. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1993.
> Ethics and Sexuality                                               Skovgaard-Petersen, Jakob. Defining Islam for the Egyptian
> Homosexuality is strictly forbidden in Muslim ethics, on the          State. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1997.
> grounds that it is an unnatural act. Some jurists suggest severe   Tahanawi, Muhammad 
Ali. Mawsu
a-t Kashshaf Istilahat alpenalties for homosexuality, ranging from death to flogging,          Funun. Edited by Rafiq al-
Ajam, et al. Beirut, Lebanon:
> whereas others disagree. The latter group holds that no              Makataba Lubnan, 1996.
> 
> 230                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Ethiopia
> 
> Yacoub, Ahmed Abdel Aziz. The Fiqh of Medicine. London:           core. Peoples like the Oromo, Afar, Sidama, Somali, the
> Taha Publishers, 2001.                                         various tribal groups of today’s Eritrea, and various other
> groups adopted elements of Islamic culture partly due to the
> Ebrahim Moosa       long processes of their confrontations with Ethiopia. In
> medieval times fourteen Islamic emirates, notably Ifat and
> Adal, centered on the town of Harar, emerged in what is
> today southern Ethiopia. Their Islamic history culminated in
> ETHIOPIA                                                          1529 when, under the leadership of the imam Ahmad ibn
> Ibrahim (nicknamed Gran), they united and conquered Chris-
> Ethiopia was the third political entity to embrace Christianity
> tian Ethiopia for a short period lasting to 1543.
> after the Roman Empire and the Kingdom of Armenia, in 334
> C.E. It remained a Christian state, never separating the church
> Ahmad Gran’s short-lived Islamic unification was inspired
> from the crown, up to the 1974 revolution. Her long,              by the rise of the Ottomans in the Red Sea area and by
> multifaceted relations with Islam and Muslims can generally       simultaneous Islamic scholarly revival in the Arab peninsula.
> be analyzed along two themes. One is the concept of Chris-        Ulema from Arabia helped the process of Islamic unification
> tian Ethiopia as it has been conceived throughout the ages by     by spreading Arabic and the teaching of Islamic law. How-
> Muslim scholars and politicians of the “land of Islam.” The       ever, after the demise of Gran the various Islamic groups of
> other is the role played by Islamic minorities in Ethiopian       the whole region failed to reunite. They remain to this day
> history. The two aspects, naturally, have developed with
> divided along linguistic, ethnic, and regional criteria. Centers
> dialectical mutuality.
> of Islamic learning remained in Harar and in some other
> In a way, Ethiopia was the state most affected by Islamic     towns, but most communities followed popular versions of
> foreign relations. Muhammad’s sending of the sahaba (Com-         Sufism and adopted just the basic elements of religious
> panions) in 615 and 616 to seek asylum with the Christian         education and law. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuking of Ethiopia, al-Najashi Ashama, was also known as the        ries Islam flourished again when the Oromo clans began
> first hijra. The sahaba were saved from Meccan persecutors by      abandoning their sociopolitical system to develop a chain of
> the Ethiopian king, and this gesture gave birth to a legacy of    emirates, and when Egypt captured the Sudan and the Red
> eternal gratitude. This history was reflected in the hadith        Sea coast and sent learned men to spread Islam from Harar to
> whose essential message was “leave the Ethiopians alone as        its surrounding Oromo-inhabited areas and from the Sudan
> long as they leave you alone.” Most orthodox Muslim jurists,      to western Eritrea. However, during the last quarter of the
> scholars, and moderate politicians interpreted this admoni-       nineteenth century the Christian Ethiopian empire expanded
> tion as a declaration that Christian Ethiopia would be a land     and conquered nearly all Ethiopian territories and the people
> of neutrality, dar al-hiyyad. On the other hand, the same         who lived there.The process of assimilation into the Ethiosahaba-najashi episode was said to have ended with the najashi    pian state and society in modern times has been multidimen-
> (king), in 628 C.E., embracing Islam. This assumption of          sional. Coercive measures and forced Christianization were
> Ethiopian neutrality in religious matters was interpreted         applied, for example, by Emperor Yohannes IV (1872–1889).
> differently by more radical Muslims—pointing to Christian         In general, however, Muslims, who numbered about one half
> Ethiopia’s illegitimacy. This principal argument among Mus-       of the population during this period, remained free to pursue
> lims over the legitimacy of historical Ethiopia resurfaced        their ways as long as they accepted Christian political hegemwhenever Ethiopia became a subject of the radical Muslim          ony. Where Islam was politicized, or when Muslims adopted
> agenda, and it remains an active issue today.                     Arab identity—like in Eritrea of the 1960s—the Ethiopian
> leadership, recalling the history of Ahmad Gran, mobilized to
> Islamic thought concerning Ethiopia was shaped by dy-         stem it. Under Emperor Haile Selasse (1930–1974) only a few
> namic cultural, economic, and strategic relations between the     Muslims could be counted among the country’s political elite.
> Middle East and the Horn of Africa. It has been also influ-        Yet most Muslims, especially the elite, were integrated into
> enced by the presence of Islamic communities within Ethiopia.     Ethiopian life and culture, used the Amharic Ethiopian lan-
> Muslims lived in Ethiopia from the very beginning of Islam,       guage, and went on dominating trade in both the periphery
> and tradition has it that members of the sahaba established the   and the center.
> first community there, which was tolerated by the Christians.
> In time Muslims speaking the Semitic Ethiopian languages              In the last quarter of the twentieth century Islam seemed
> (Amharic, Tigrinya, etc.) and living in the core regions were     to be experiencing a resurgence in Ethiopia. First, the 1974
> called Jabarties. As Ethiopian Christians looked down upon        revolution and Mangistu Haile-Mariam’s communist-inspired
> traders and Muslims were often deprived of landowning,            regime separated the church from the state. By eroding
> there developed a functional economic coexistence, mixed          Christianity, and by recognizing major Islamic holidays as
> with some cultural segregation, in the country’s central areas.   national ones, the new regime helped to grant the two
> Most Muslims during Ethiopia’s history were members of            religions more equal national recognition. Then the 1991
> various ethnic-linguistic groups surrounding the Ethiopian        revolution reshaped Ethiopia along a decentralized cultural
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                   231
> Ethnicity
> 
> and administrative line, meanwhile fostering a free market        to be a Kurd, a Muslim, or an Iranian depending on the
> economy. The end result was a visible strengthening of Islam      particular social or political context. In the Middle East, the
> in practically all aspects. As more Muslims make their way to     primary significance of ethnic identity is its role in the social
> the core of Ethiopian life, the new phenomenon underlines         and political structure of the society. Until the mid-1950s, for
> an old question—is their advent a contribution to cultural        example, particular ethnic groups tended to be associated
> pluralization and economic progress, and is it therefore a        with specific occupational niches: the Jews of the Iranian city
> major aspect of Ethiopia’s modernization? Or, is Islamic          of Isfahan specialized in fine metal work and trading in gold
> revival turning political, gradually reviving those old radical   and silver, Assyrian Christians of Iraq dominated the hotel
> ideas about the need to Islamize Ethiopia?                        and restaurant business, Azeri Turks in Iran were car mechanics and long-distance truck drivers, and most of the
> See also Africa, Islam in; Ahmad Ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi;            cooks in Egypt were Nubians. Today this pattern is changing;
> Empires: Ottoman.                                                 mass education, social mobility, and the emergence of new
> occupations have all but eroded the traditional ethnic divi-
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                      sions of labor in the region.
> Ahmed, Hussein. “The Historiography of Islam in Ethiopia.”
> What are the basic sources of ethnic differentiation in the
> Journal of Islamic Studies 3, no. 1 (1992): 15–46.
> Middle East? The single most important source of individual
> Erlich, Haggai. Ethiopia and the Middle East. Boulder, Colo.:     and group identity and, by extension, social cleavages, is
> Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1994.
> religious affiliation. Coreligionists perceive themselves as
> Spencer, J. Trimingham. Islam in Ethiopia. Oxford: Oxford         having rights and obligations to each other and interfaith
> University Press, 1952.                                        marriage is generally discouraged if not strictly prohibited by
> all the communities. On a larger scale sectarian divisions have
> Haggai Erlich     important implications for political action. Secular nationalistic movements within any one country or those like pan-
> Arabism that seek to transcend national frontiers are usually
> undermined by sectarianism. Likewise, pan-Islamist move-
> ETHNICITY                                                         ments that presume to encompass all Muslims tend to fracture along Muslim sectarian divisions of Sunnis, Shi
a, and
> The Middle East is distinguished by its ethnic and cultural       Alawis, among others. And while non-Muslim communities
> diversity. This diversity, often referred to as a “human mo-      like the Jews (until the mid-fifties) and the various Christian
> saic,” is the product of long historical processes of which the   sects have, on the whole, accommodated themselves to the
> people themselves are acutely aware. Almost every country in      dominant Muslim rule throughout the Middle East, questhe region has local communities and groups that are distinct     tions of what constitutes nationality and full citizenship have
> from the larger society as a whole and are recognized as such     yet to be resolved in most of the states in the area. This
> both by themselves and by others. In fact, the recognition and    includes the modern Jewish state of Israel as well as that of the
> acceptance of communal or ethnic differences has been a           Muslim Wahhabi kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
> basic component of social and political organization in the
> Middle East. This is best exemplified by the Ottoman millet           Ethnicity in the Middle East is also structured along
> system whereby the ruling Sunni Muslim Ottomans formally          linguistic differences which, in general, set the largest culrecognized the authority of the religious and communal            tural boundaries between groups. There are three major
> leaders of the different sectarian communities in their em-       language families in the region: Semitic, Indo-European, and
> pire. By the nineteenth century, the Ottoman list consisted of    Altaic or Turkic. Arabic and Hebrew are Semitic languages.
> about seventeen millets, which included Jews, Druze, Alavis,      Hebrew is spoken exclusively in Israel while Arabic, with its
> Armenians, and a number of Christian sects. Ethnicity basi-       many dialects, is the national language of the countries of
> cally refers to a social or group identity that individuals       North Africa, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi
> ascribe to themselves and that is accepted by others; ethnic      Arabia, Yemen, and the Gulf states. Modern Persian and
> identities are most commonly based on shared religious            Kurdish are Indo-European languages; Turkish and Azeri
> affiliation, language or dialect, tribal membership, and re-       belong to the Altaic family of languages. The Berbers of
> gional or local customs.                                          North Africa who, like the Arabs, are Muslims, speak different dialects of Berber, an Afro-Asiatic language and generally
> Ethnic identity, which tends to be perceived as immutable      refer to themselves as Imazighin (or Imazighen). In countries
> and ascribed at birth, is most commonly a cultural construc-      where large linguistically differentiated populations exist,
> tion that, in practice, is both malleable and contextual. Indi-   such as the Kurds of Turkey, Iraq, and Iran and the Berbers of
> viduals may choose to stress their ethnic identity in one         Morocco and Algeria, language assumes a political dimencontext and mute it in another; thus an individual may claim      sion. National governments tend to strongly promote one
> 
> 232                                                                                           Islam and the Muslim World
> Eunuchs
> 
> national language and may even at times seek to suppress          empires, which were the early Islamic state’s chief models for
> minority languages, as happened in Turkey with Kurdish. To        court culture. Eunuchs were regarded as the most loyal slaves
> educate their children and to participate fully in the national   because they were not only separated from their families and
> economy and culture, members of minority ethnic groups            territories of origin but robbed of reproductive capability.
> must adopt the national language and, to a certain extent,        Hence, their sole loyalty was ostensibly to the ruler who
> dissociate themselves from their mother tongue.                   enslaved them, and they had an enormous stake in the
> continuation of the system in which they were employed.
> Of all the elements that may be used to define groups or
> social categories, phenotypic race or biological variation is        The earliest mention of eunuchs in Islamic empires dates
> the least important in the Middle East, where the vast            to the Abbasid era (750–1258 C.E.). In his ninth-century
> majority of the people from the west in Morocco to the east in    description of Baghdad, al-Ya
qubi notes quarters for African
> Afghanistan tend to fall within the same racial category often    eunuchs in the central square of the original round city. No
> referred to as “Mediterranean.” Where a markedly differen-        doubt the most famous eunuch of the Abbasid era is Kefir, the
> tiated population exists such as the abid or blacks in Saudi     African eunuch who became de facto ruler of Egypt following
> Arabia and the Gulf region, the Nubians in Egypt, or the          the death of the last autonomous Ikshidid governor, just
> Turkmen of Iran (with their pronounced Mongolian fea-             before the Fatimid invasion of Egypt in 969. The Fatimids
> tures); such phenotypic differences are locally recognized but    employed eunuchs not only in their palaces but in their armed
> are not necessarily associated with an ethnic identity as such.   forces as well. In one confrontation between the Fatimid and
> Islam has no racial ideology based on color and, while slavery    Byzantine fleets, the admirals on both sides were eunuchs.
> was practiced throughout the Islamic world, it was not exclusively associated with Africans or any other particular popula-      Eunuchs played a number of important roles under the
> tion. The Ottomans recruited slaves from both eastern Europe      Mamluk sultanate, which ruled Egypt, Syria, and the western
> and the Caucasus and their descendants today do not form          Arabian peninsula from 1250 to 1517. The Mamluks imeither racially or ethnically distinct groups. Outside of a few   ported large numbers of eunuchs from the Caucasus and from
> towns in southern Arabia, slavery in the Middle East was not a    India, as well as from Africa. They evidently pioneered the
> primary means of organizing menial labor; as a consequence,       practice of employing eunuchs to guard sultans’ tombs in
> the association of class and race or ethnicity and race is not    Cairo and, ultimately, to guard the prophet Muhammad’s
> well developed and has no significant implication or social        tomb in Medina.
> and political organization in the region.
> The greatest fund of information about eunuchs under
> Islamic regimes comes from the Ottoman Empire (1299–1923),
> See also Pluralism: Legal and Ethno-Religious; Tribe.
> which employed eunuchs from the Caucasus and eastern
> Africa. Because Islamic law forbids enslaving and castrating
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> subjects of a Muslim ruler, castration was typically performed
> Banuazizi, Ali, and Weiner, Myron, eds. The State, Religion,      by Christian physicians: Armenians in the Caucasus, Copts in
> and Ethnic Politics: Afghanistan, Iran, and Pakistan. Syra-     Upper Egypt. Yet evidence exists of castration being percuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1986.
> formed in the Ottoman palace itself, so the prohibition must
> Bates, Daniel G., and Rassam, Amal. Peoples and Cultures of the   at times have been ignored. During the sixteenth and seven-
> Middle East. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice-Hall,          teenth centuries, a number of Caucasian eunuchs rose to be
> Inc., 2001.                                                    grand wazirs or provincial governors. At the same time, both
> Gross, Jo-Ann, ed. Muslims in Central Asia: Expressions of        black and white eunuchs served at Topkapi Palace. By 1592,
> Identity And Change. Durham, N.C.: Duke University              the corps of African eunuchs had acquired a monopoly over
> Press, 1992.                                                    the post of chief eunuch of the imperial harem (Darussaade
> Weekes, Richard V., ed. Muslim Peoples: A World of Ethnographic   Agasi or Kizlar Agasi), who guarded the residence of the
> Survey. 2d edition. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood                  palace women. White eunuchs guarded the “Gate of Felicity”
> Press, 1984.                                                    (Babussaade) separating the outer court from the sultan’s
> throne room. The chief black eunuch also supervised the
> Amal Rassam       pious foundations (waqf, Turk. vakaf ) endowed to provide
> services to the poor and to pilgrims to the Holy Cities.
> Beginning in 1644, the chief black eunuch, on his deposition,
> was routinely exiled to Egypt, where he cultivated ties of
> EUNUCHS                                                           patronage with the provincial grandees.
> 
> In the Near East, the use of eunuchs to guard rulers’ and their       The last surviving eunuchs under Islamic rule were guards
> families’ private quarters dates at least to Achaemenid times.    of the Prophet’s tomb in Medina, who were pensioned off by
> They were certainly employed by the Byzantine and Sassanian       the Saudi government in the 1920s.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                 233
> European Culture and Islam
> 
> See also Gender; Harem.                                                that the earliest universities in Europe, such as Bologna,
> Paris, and Oxford, were founded on Islamic models. Simi-
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                           larly, many of the financial instruments and techniques of
> Ayalon, David. Eunuchs, Caliphs, and Sultans: A Study of Power         long-distance trade, which became so important in the early
> Relationships. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, Hebrew Univer-               development of European capitalism, were borrowed from
> sity, 1999.                                                          Middle Eastern models. The Crusades, by contrast, appear to
> Marmon, Shaun E. Eunuchs and Sacred Boundaries in Islamic              have brought into Europe primarily certain military techniques.
> Society. New York and Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University
> Press, 1995.                                                             Over the following centuries, cultural exchange both ways
> Penzer, Norman M. The Harem: An Account of the Institution as          was diminished. The Ottomans very quickly adopted some of
> It Existed in the Palace of the Turkish Sultans, with a History of   the new military technologies of Europe, especially artillery,
> the Grand Seraglio from Its Foundations to the Present Time          while Europe during the eighteenth century developed a
> (1936). Reprint. New York: AMS Press, 1974.                          fascination with things “oriental” in the arts and crafts. The
> globalization of European trade combined with the industrial
> Jane Hathaway        revolution firmly moved the initiative into European hands.
> At the same time the encounter between Europe and Islam
> spread beyond the Mediterranean into South and South-East
> Asia and into sub-Saharan Africa. The imperial expansion was
> EUROPEAN CULTURE AND ISLAM                                             the context for the adoption of “curious” elements of Islamic
> culture into European culture, but Islamic cultures came
> Since the rise of Islam in the seventh century there has been
> under an all-pervading European impact. Initially, this imcontinuous interaction between Europe and the Islamic world,
> pact was mainly economic. As the industrial revolution gathoften with profound implications on either side. Deepest and
> ered pace, so European industrial exports began to replace
> with greatest effect has been the interaction between Europe
> the products of local craftsmen, and the colonized economies
> and Islam in the Middle East and North Africa, that is, Arab
> became suppliers of raw materials. Egypt was a good example
> Islam. The new Arab-Islamic state, established in the 640s
> of this process as it switched its agriculture from producing
> and 650s, included major areas that had been conquered from
> food to producing raw cotton during the first few decades of
> the East Roman (Byzantine) empire. Many aspects of Byzanthe nineteenth century. When Egypt took control of Syria in
> tine culture and custom were absorbed into the nascent
> the 1830s and cut import duties, the finished cotton goods
> Islamic culture, including administrative and legal practices.
> produced in the mills of England from Egyptian cotton
> Over a longer term, the Hellenistic philosophical heritage
> played a major role in the development of Islamic philosophy,          replaced the locally produced crafts of the Syrian cities.
> and its gnostic tradition in Islamic mysticism. Through both
> But European ideas also started attracting the urban
> official and unofficial translation projects, major Greek works
> intellectual and professional classes of the Islamic world.
> of philosophy and science became available in Arabic, laying
> Initially the attraction was limited to individuals, but as states
> the foundation of a flourishing of the sciences, including
> began to restructure on European patterns, either because
> mathematics, astronomy, and medicine, in Arabic.
> they came under European rule, as in India, Indonesia, or
> Arab-Islamic civilization in turn made a major contribu-           Algeria, or because they sought to meet the European politition to the development of European Christian civilization a           cal challenge, as in the Ottoman empire, Egypt, and Persia,
> few centuries later. The main routes for this transfer were            they also built up new education systems to produce the kind
> Sicily and Spain. The influence of Islamic art and architecture         of manpower they needed. By the end of the nineteenth
> on the early Renaissance is often quite explicit, as in many of        century there were a number of European-style universities
> the well-known churches and palaces of Florence and other              and many more secondary schools. The early attractions of
> Italian cities. Likewise, the impact of the Spanish Islamic            the social and political ideas of the French revolution were
> philosophers, above all Ibn Rushd (Averroes), on Thomas                supplemented by the end of the nineteenth century by many
> Aquinas, is widely acknowledged. It is also the case that much         of the nationalist philosophical ideas that had been developed
> of the Greek philosophical tradition, in particular that of            in Germany. These ideas were being circulated ever more
> Aristotle, was for a long time known primarily through the             widely among a growing urban middle-class and literate
> Arabic versions of the texts. It has been suggested that the           population through newspapers, a new literature of poetry,
> influence goes much deeper. Especially via the Norman                   histories, essays, and political pamphlets.
> connections, from Sicily to northern France and England,
> and through Italian networks, the patterns and structures of              The early precursors of national movements can be found
> learning, of the organization of institutions, and of profes-          throughout the Islamic world by the beginning of the twentisional development were transmitted from the Mediterra-                eth century. Their ideas often combined elements of Euronean Islamic world into western Christendom. So it is suggested        pean ideas with Islamic ones, and many times used Islamic
> 
> 234                                                                                                 Islam and the Muslim World
> Europe, Islam in
> 
> against modernity or withdrawing from participation in it,
> providing some of the Islamist political movements much of
> their support. On the other hand, many younger people have
> started using their newly gained educational resources to
> challenge the traditions of the older generation. They seek to
> separate local custom from the core of Islamic expectations
> and principles, placing themselves on a collision course with
> many of their parents’ generation. A number of Islamic
> intellectuals have recognized this and have become prominent participants in a rethinking of Islamic law and theology
> that has a large audience both in Europe and the Islamic world.
> 
> A Seljuk manuscript of Aristotle and students appears in the
> volume one color insert.
> 
> See also Andalus, al-; Balkans, Islam in the; Europe,
> Islam in.
> 
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Daniel, Norman. Islam and the West: The Making of an Image.
> Oxford, U.K.: One World, 1993.
> Haddad, Yvonne Y., ed. Muslims in the West: From Sojourners
> to Citizens. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
> Makdisi, George. The Rise of Humanism in Classical Islam and
> the Christian West. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University
> Press, 1990.
> The Selimiye Camii Mosque sits on a hill in the center of Edirne,   Waardenburg, Jacques, ed. Muslim Perceptions of Other Relig-
> Turkey, and dominates the city’s skyline. It was completed in         ions: A Historical Survey. New York: Oxford University
> 1575 after six years of construction. © ARCHIVO ICONOGRAFICO,         Press, 1999.
> S.A./CORBIS
> 
> Jorgen S. Nielsen
> terms to express European ideas. During the 1930s, a growing sense of disillusion with European models could be
> discerned. The European ideas of liberty and democracy
> were not being extended to the colonies, so many intellectuals      EUROPE, ISLAM IN
> began to look for their ideas in Islamic traditions, the most
> radical formulating explicit and complete rejections of any-        The main concentrations of Muslim population in Europe
> thing European. This trend was strengthened in response to          today are to be found in Russia (25–30 million), France (4–5
> the establishment of Israel in 1948, perceived as an imposed        million), Germany (2.5–3 million), Britain (c. 2 million),
> foreign body, and even more so after the Israeli victory            former Yugoslavia (2–3 million), Albania (3 million), and
> in 1967, after which the Islamic trends gradually moved             Bulgaria (c. 1 million). Many of the smaller countries of
> center-stage.                                                       western Europe are home to several hundred thousand Muslims each.
> However, throughout the twentieth century the continuing impact of a globalizing economy appeared irresistible.          History
> Declining agriculture and the growth of industry and services       Almost from the beginning of the history of Islam, there has
> led to a massive movement of populations from the country-          been a Muslim presence in Europe, first in the form of envoys
> side to the large cities. A small proportion of that movement       and traders to the Byzantine empire and soon, as Arab Islam
> took the form of migration to European cities. The impact on        spread across North Africa, into the main trading centers of
> Islam of this urbanization—and with it the growth of educa-         Mediterranean Europe. The first major arrival of Islam in
> tion and literacy—is difficult to underestimate, and the im-         Europe was a result of the conquest of the Iberian peninsula,
> pact is similar whether in Islamic cities or in European cities.    which started in 711 C.E. Through settlement and conversion,
> The traditional synthesis of Islamic practices and local cus-       large Muslim communities became part of the indigenous
> toms finds it very difficult to function in the modern urban          population of the peninsula. Spanish Muslim intellectuals
> environment. Many have responded to this by rebelling               became significant participants in Arabic and Islamic culture,
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                    235
> Europe, Islam in
> 
> including most famously Ibn Rushd (Averroes) and Ibn                Muslim expansion but from European expansion. Today’s
> Khaldun. As the Christian kingdoms, led by Castille and             Muslim communities in western Europe are a consequence
> Aragon, gradually pushed the borders of Islam southward, so         primarily of empire. This is most evident in Britain and
> the Muslim population also was pushed south. When the               France. The first major growth came about as a result of the
> Muslim kingdom of Granada finally fell in 1492, substantial          opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, when British shipping
> Muslim populations left for North Africa. But many, under           from India began taking on Yemeni and Somali labor in
> the general term Moriscos, remained throughout the region           Aden. Over the following decades many of these people
> for several generations. For a shorter period Sicily had also       settled in and around Cardiff, Liverpool, Newcastle, and
> fallen under Muslim rule. The conquest was slow, lasting            London. The first mosques in the country were established in
> from 827–878, and Muslim control lasted until the Normans           Liverpool and the London suburb of Woking already around
> conquered the island later in the eleventh century.                 1890. Between the two world wars, the London-based elite
> sought to lay the foundations for a London central mosque. It
> While Muslim populations thus disappeared from the
> was only when a plot of land was granted by the king during
> European side of the western Mediterranean, the establishthe Second World War that the project began to move
> ment of a continuous Muslim presence in the east had started.
> forward, leading to the opening in 1977 of the Islamic
> In the early thirteenth century the Mongols had spread their
> mosque and center in Regent’s Park.
> power far into Russia. While Genghis Khan’s empire did not
> last long, it left behind a number of Mongol-Tatar successor           In France, there was an elite immigration during the
> states that had adopted Islam. The Tatar state of Kazan             nineteenth century, including exiles such as Muhammad
> survived until the 1550s when it was conquered by Russia,           
Abduh and Jamal al-Din al-Afghani. But labor migration also
> while the Crimean Tatars had fallen under Ottoman rule              started then, recruiting mainly into the olive oil industry of
> already in 1475. The Muslim populations of these regions            the south and mining and heavy industry in the northeast.
> stayed and later spread around the Russian empire as soldiers,      During the First World War large numbers of North Africraftsmen, and traders settling at various times in regions         cans were requisitioned into industry and infrastructure works.
> ranging from the Ukraine and Poland to Finland. Here they           Recognizing their contribution during the First World War
> remained more or less undisturbed until the great forced            the government sponsored the establishment of a mosque in
> migration of the Stalinist period of the 1930s and 1940s,           Paris, opened in 1926. Numbers of migrant workers fell
> when a large proportion, in particular the Crimean Tatars,          during the recession of the 1930s and reached a low at the end
> were transported to Soviet Central Asia.
> of the Second World War. But migration soon rose again
> Founded at the beginning of the fourteenth century in           and, despite their active involvement in the Algerian war of
> western Anatolia, the Ottoman empire gained its first foot-          independence, the number of Algerians working in France
> hold in the Balkans in 1354 and within ten years had re-            continued to rise.
> stricted the Byzantine empire to the region around
> The other main country of Muslim immigration in Europe
> Constantinople (which finally fell to the Ottomans in 1453).
> during the twentieth century was the Federal Republic of
> The Ottoman armies then proceeded to spread Ottoman rule
> Germany. Its historical proximity to the Ottoman empire
> westward and northward, reaching the gates of Vienna in a
> meant that there had been for a long time a cosmopolitan
> failed siege in 1529. Substantial permanent Muslim commu-
> Muslim population in the main trading cities and, after the
> nities established themselves in the Balkans as a result. In
> rise of Prussian power, in Berlin. The numbers grew espesome cases such communities were Turkish immigrants from
> cially after the two empires started drawing closer to each
> the east, some arriving voluntarily, others as part of a deliberother toward the end of the nineteenth century. The ecoate Ottoman policy of settlement. Significant numbers of
> nomic ties between them were such that by the outbreak of
> indigenous people of Slavic culture also converted to Islam.
> the First World War they might be termed at least pseudo-
> The majority of Albanians became Muslim at this time. As the
> colonial. The defeat of both empires in 1918 left only a small
> Ottoman empire was gradually pushed out of the Balkans
> Muslim community in Berlin but it did manage to establish a
> during the nineteenth century, many Muslims also left. The
> mosque. During the Third Reich, the German armed forces
> Ottoman defeat in the First World War led to major population exchanges between Greece and Turkey. But the major             established several units of Muslim troops that had defected
> communities in Bosnia, the Albanians and the Bulgarian              from the Soviet army. While some were handed back at the
> Muslims, often called Pomaks, remained as did large num-            end of the war, many remained in Germany permanently. It
> bers of Turks in Bulgaria, smaller numbers in Greek Thrace,         also must not be forgotten that in German-speaking Europe,
> and parts of the former Yugoslavia.                                 Vienna had for long been the capital of an empire that
> included significant Muslim populations. In 1878 the Austro-
> Immigration                                                         Hungarian empire had occupied the Ottoman regions of
> On this background the most recent arrival of Muslim com-           Bosnia-Herzegovina. Vienna soon had a resident mufti. In
> munities in Europe is a new departure, since it arises not from     1909 the state extended official recognition to Islam. During
> 
> 236                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Europe, Islam in
> 
> N                                                              Finland                               0           250         500 mi.
> Islam’s Expansion                                                                                                                              0    250     500 km
> into North Africa
> and Europe                                                                                                                                     Kazan
> Muslim lands by 634                                    North                                                                         VOLGA
> Muslim lands by 656                                     Sea                                                                         BULGARIA
> Muslim lands by 756
> Route of advance                                                                       Poland
> (711)   Date of conquest
> New city founded
> by Muslims
> City                                             Poitiers                                                    Ukraine
> Vienna
> (732)
> 
> Ca
> Toulouse
> Narbonne
> s
> (721)                                                                            Crimea
> 
> pi
> (720)                       Bosnia
> 
> an
> Castille
> IBERIAN Saragossa (714)                                                          O                          Black Sea
> 
> Se
> PENINSULA               Aragon                                                          T
> Albania T
> 
> a
> Constantinople
> O Thrace               ANATOLIA
> Lisbon       Cordoba       Toledo (712)                                                    M
> (711)      (711)                                                                              AN
> Granada                                                        Greece               E M P
> I R E
> ATLANTIC OCEAN                                                                         Sicily
> Tunis
> Rabat
> Kairouan              Mediterranean
> Algeria    Tunisia     Mahdia
> Sea
> Morocco                                                   Tripoli      Barka
> (647)         (643)
> Alexandria
> (642)
> Cairo
> 
> Islam’s Expansion into North Africa and Europe. XNR PRODUCTIONS, INC./GALE
> 
> much of this period the Austrian courts were administering                                 Tunisia, while Belgium started finding labor in Turkey and
> Islamic family law for those Muslim populations.                                           Morocco. Labor immigration into the Scandinavian countries during this period was smaller but was also more varied
> These historical precedents have tended to be forgotten                                in its sources, including Turkey, North Africa, and Pakistan.
> under the overwhelming impact of immigration post-1945.
> Initially, once the reviving West European economies had                                       Just as immigration from Muslim sources into mainland
> absorbed their returning armies, the search for additional                                 Europe was taking off, so Britain reached a turning point.
> labor had extended first into the domestic countryside and                                  After almost two years of debate, the doors of labor immigrathen into the countries of southern Europe, which resumed                                  tion were closed by the 1962 Commonwealth Immigration
> their traditional patterns of sending labor abroad. It was                                 Act. However, family reunion remained possible. The length
> Britain and France that first looked outside Europe. In the                                 of the debate was a major reason for the sudden influx of men
> latter case, the recruitment from Algeria grew and was sup-                                from Pakistan, arriving to beat the expected ban. More
> plemented from the 1960s by immigrants from Tunisia and                                    significantly in the long run, the establishment of family life
> Morocco, then from sub-Saharan West Africa, especially                                     brought with it a much greater awareness of Muslim self-
> Senegal, and finally, from the 1970s, by Turks as a result of a                             identity. The closing of the gates of labor immigration and
> treaty signed between the two countries. Britain first found                                the consequent immigration of women and children led
> its additional labor needs satisfied from the Caribbean, with                               directly to a marked increase in organized Muslim activity
> immigration starting already in the late 1940s. During the                                 and the establishment of mosques and other places of worship.
> 1950s, migration from India came on stream, and in the early
> 1960s immigration from Pakistan (East and West) took off.                                  Organization
> By this time other industrial countries of northern Europe                                 A decade after Britain closed its doors, the rest of continental
> also began to need additional labor. Having for some time                                  Europe followed in response to the economic downturn
> recruited from Yugoslavia, Italy, and Greece, the Federal                                  sparked by the rise in oil prices during 1972 through 1974.
> Republic of Germany signed a labor agreement with Turkey                                   The effects were similar: a marked rise in the opening of
> in 1962. The smaller countries followed the lead of their                                  Muslim places of worship and in Muslim organizational
> larger neighbors. During the 1960s the Netherlands signed                                  activity. The process of organization followed a similar patagreements with Turkey, then Morocco, Yugoslavia, and                                      tern across the various countries. Often the initiative came
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                                                                      237
> Europe, Islam in
> 
> from a small group of local leaders who were concerned
> simply with finding a place where the required prayers could         Muslims in western Europe
> be conducted, and where children could be taught the rudiments of Islamic knowledge, how to conduct the core rituals                                  Number of Muslims            Muslim % of
> Country                      (x 1,000)              total population
> and how to recite the Quran. Soon, however, the initiative
> Austria                             200                   2.6
> passed to specific movements. These had usually existed in           Belgium                             370                   3.8
> the country of origin and were now following the émigrés to         Denmark                             150                   2.8
> Finland                              20                   0.4
> the country of settlement. They had the resources and the           France                     4,000–4,500                    7
> organizational experience to meet community needs and,              Germany                               3.040               3
> Greece                              370                   3.7
> often, to provide support to local initiatives. In West Ger-
> Ireland                               7                   0.2
> many a leading organization of this kind during the 1970s was       Italy                               600                   1
> the Verband islamischer Kulturzentren acting as the German          Luxembourg                            5                   0.8
> Netherlands                         696                   4.6
> branch of the Suleimançi movement. Since the 1980s the              Norway                               23                   0.5
> Milli Gorus, closely associated with the National Salvation         Portugal                         30–38                    0.3
> Spain                               300                   0.7
> Party of Necmeddin Erbakan, has gained prominence. Simi-            Sweden                              300                   1.2
> lar roles have been played in Britain by extensions of the          United Kingdom                    1,400                   2.5
> Deobandi and Brelwi networks, and by a network of organi-
> SOURCE: Felice, Dassetto; Maréchal, Brigitte; and Nielsen, Jorgen,
> zations related to the Jam
iyat-e Islami, and in France during      eds. Convergences musulmanes: Aspects contemporains de l'islam
> the 1980s by Foi et pratique, a movement arising out of the         dans l'Europe élargie. Paris: Academia Bruylant, 2001.
> Tablighi Jam
iyat, which subsequently forged links with the
> Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) in Algeria. Many of these           Muslim population in western Europe.
> movements had found themselves at odds with the regimes in
> the countries of origin; some of them, indeed, had experienced repression. To counter their influence, governments
> was that each European country had its own practices regardsought to establish their own organizations to meet the needs     ing establishment and registration of voluntary organizaof their émigrés. The Amicales of Moroccan workers was thus       tions, as well as often very different traditions of relations
> a means for the monarchy to maintain close ties to the            between religion and state. At one extreme, France had
> émigrés, and after the Turkish coup of September 1980, the        inherited an almost complete separation of church and state,
> new government aggressively promoted the role of the offi-         which for a long time excluded Muslim groups from any
> cial Diyanet among Turks in Germany.                              participation in public life. At the same time it was not until a
> change in the law took place in 1982 that it was possible for
> Legal Status
> foreign citizens to set up their own organizations. At the
> A complicating element has been the very different legal
> other extreme were states in which there was a status of
> statuses available to immigrants across the continent. For a
> officially recognized religions. Under this heading Islam
> long time some of the West German states adopted a policy
> gained official recognition in Belgium in 1974, in Austria in
> of rotation, whereby no residence extension was given after a     1979, and in Spain in 1992. One of the main issues of public
> certain period, so “guest workers” were regularly replaced. In    contention in Germany has been the continued refusal by the
> other German states, longer-term residence was the norm.          state to admit the Muslim community to the recognized
> Germany generally made it very difficult for foreigners to         status enjoyed by the main churches and the Jewish community.
> acquire citizenship, as did several other countries, most
> notably Switzerland. Both Britain and France had compara-         Public Participation
> tively easy access to permanent residence and citizenship, and    Over the 1990s Muslim participation in public life has bechildren born in those two countries had virtually automatic      come marked. In many countries Muslim immigrants have
> right to citizenship. The Scandinavian and Benelux countries      become citizens and have started taking part in political life
> allowed comparatively easy access to citizenship and soon         through political parties. In most countries there are now
> also gave local voting rights to foreigners. These very differ-   Muslims elected onto local councils, national parliaments,
> ent stances were reflected in work permit policies. Since the      and the elected bodies of European institutions. This is an
> late 1980s immigration for work has been a minor dimension        indication also of the change of generation. The 1989 proof Muslim immigration, replaced by a growing number of            tests against Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses in Britain,
> entrants as refugees and asylum seekers, an issue that came to    and against the banning of girls’ head scarves in certain
> dominate public debate at the end of the twentieth century.       French schools served to mobilize a new generation into
> political life, as their immigrant parents began to retire from
> As a result, the situation in each locality in Europe often   organizational leadership. Responses to the events of 11
> differed significantly depending on the various patterns of        September 2001 have further highlighted some of the tenorganized presence. A further dimension of such differences       sions which have been arising since a younger, more active
> 
> 238                                                                                              Islam and the Muslim World
> Expansion
> 
> generation of Muslims has reached adulthood. In various            second phenomenon is the spread of Islam as a religion or
> European countries, demands for faith-based schools have           faith—that is, the actual process (often called “conversion”)
> grown and have met mixed reactions. In Denmark, where              by which individuals and groups came to identify themselves
> there has been a strong tradition of community-led “free           as Muslims, both inwardly and publicly.
> schools,” the political swing to the right has been accompanied by challenges to Muslim schools, while in Britain the             These two processes are not unrelated but are far from
> government has been actively encouraging the expansion of          identical and must be carefully distinguished from one anthis sector. Everywhere, the media have been attacked by           other. On the one hand, Islam historically first came to some
> Muslims for “Islamophobia,” often with a degree of justifica-       (but not all) regions of the world through the expansion into
> tion. In some countries, such as Sweden, Spain, the Nether-        those regions of states whose leading cadres were Muslims
> lands, and Britain, both the media and government have             and which espoused a self-consciously Islamic view of the
> sought to balance their reporting and presentation, although       world. State expansion was justified by the doctrine of jihad,
> it remains difficult to separate domestic and international         “striving” or “exerting oneself” (i.e., in God’s service). Jihad
> priorities in news evaluation.                                     embraced a variety of practices, including the moral struggle
> against sin (even within oneself), peaceful proselytization of
> See also European Culture and Islam.                               others, the use of violence by believers in defense of their way
> of life when attacked, or aggressive warfare against nonbelievers
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                       (nonmonotheists) to force them to recognize God’s oneness
> Dassetto, Felice. La construction de l’islam européen. Paris:      and to submit to Islam. All these interpretations of the sense
> L’Harmattan, 1996.                                               of jihad are rooted in Quranic verses (for example, 25:48–52
> Felice, Dassetto; Maréchal, Brigitte; and Nielsen, Jorgen,         on proselytization; 22:39–41 on self-defense; 9:29 on aggreseds. Convergences musulmanes: Aspects contemporains de l’is-    sive warfare). It was the last understanding of the meaning of
> lam dans l’Europe élargie. Paris: Academia Bruylant, 2001.      jihad that was most germane to the process of Islamic stateexpansion.
> Ferrari, Silvio, and Bradney, Anthony, eds. Islam and European Legal Systems. Aldershot, U.K.: Ashgate, 2000.
> The most important instance of this process was the
> Foblets, Marie-Claire, ed. Familles–Islam–Europe. Le droit         spread of the first Islamic state in the early years of the Islamic
> confronté au changement. Paris: Karthala, 1996.
> era (seventh to ninth centuries C.E.), but it also is visible in
> Martin Muñoz Gema, ed. Islam, Modernism and the West.              numerous later historical episodes, such as the expansion of
> London: I. B.Tauris, 1996.                                       the Ottoman Empire into the Christian Balkans in the four-
> Metcalf, Barbara, ed. Making Muslim Space in North America         teenth through eighteenth centuries, the Ghaznavid and
> and Europe. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996.      Ghurid conquest of Sind and adjacent parts of South Asia in
> Nielsen, Jorgen. Muslims in Western Europe, 2d ed. Edin-           the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the conquests of the Delhi
> burgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1995.                         sultans in India during the thirteenth and fourteenth centu-
> Nonneman, Gerd, Niblock, Tim, and Szajkowski, Bogdan,              ries, the expansion of jihad states in the western Sudan in the
> eds. Muslim Communities in the New Europe. Reading,              eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and so on. In almost all
> U.K.: Ithaca Press, 1996.                                        such cases, the objective of these Muslim rulers or states was
> Poulton, Hugh, and Taji-Farouki, Suha, eds. Muslim Identity        not immediate conversion of the local population to Islam,
> and the Balkan State. London: L Hurst, 1997.                     but rather the more mundane concerns of seizing booty or
> Shadid, Wasit A. R., and van Koningsveld, P. Sjoerd, eds.          securing the tax revenues of the conquered lands, or gaining
> Religious Freedom and the Position of Islam in Western Europe.   control of strategically important areas. In many instances,
> Kampen, Netherlands: Kok Pharos, 1995.                           however, the conquerors were responding not only to these
> Vertovec, Steven, and Peach, Ceri, eds. Islam in Europe: The       mundane incentives, but also (or, sometimes, exclusively) to a
> Politics of Religion and Community. Basingstoke, U.K.: Mac-      general desire to establish in the newly conquered territories
> millan, 1997.                                                    an Islamic public order—that is, a social order in accord with
> Islamic law (sharia). This they wished to do both in order to
> Jorgen S. Nielsen     extend the glory of the faith they espoused, and in order to
> ensure that Muslims living in such areas could meet their
> religious obligations to God under Islamic law: open confession of their faith, regular public prayer, fasting during
> EXPANSION                                                          Ramadan, giving of alms, and performance of the pilgrimage
> to Mecca if that was within their means. In most cases,
> The expansion of Islam historically embraces two phenom-           however, the establishment of an Islamic order in new areas
> ena. The first is the expansion of Islamic states—that is, states   was not accompanied by forced conversions to Islam or
> whose ruling elite consisted of Muslims and which con-             by official pressure on non-Muslims to convert; the image
> sciously aimed to extend Islamic rule to new regions. The          of Muslim warriors coming to an area and offering the
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                      239
> Expansion
> 
> conquered the stark choice between “Islam or the sword”            The relative simplicity and transparency of its basic doctrines
> is mostly a myth propounded by Western anti-Islamic                (monotheism, prophecy, last judgment, etc.) makes them
> polemicists.                                                       easy to grasp and to defend in philosophical or theological
> discourse against religious systems with more convoluted
> The establishment of an Islamic public order in a hitherto     doctrines (e.g., the Christian doctrine of the Trinity). The
> non-Muslim area, however, particularly if sustained over the
> fact that Muslims developed over the first two centuries of
> span of several generations, generally created the conditions
> their existence a strong tool for legitimizing some of these
> under which many non-Muslims gradually embraced Islam.
> doctrines in the form of an elaborate origins narrative helped
> This is why it is said that the processes of state-expansion and
> bolster the intellectual cogency of Islam’s doctrines. Islam’s
> of individual and group conversion, while distinct, are intiemphasis on justice (frequently stressed in the Quran) and on
> mately related. Still, even under the aegis of an Islamic state,
> the brotherhood of all believers—the latter made especially
> the converts’ actual decisions to join the Islamic community
> manifest in the daily communal prayers and in major ritual
> openly (to “convert”) seem to have been shaped primarily by
> observances such as collective fasting during Ramadan—
> individual factors that were also operative outside the realm
> were also capable of exercising a strong intellectual attraction
> of control of any Islamic state. These included social, ecoon many individuals (aside from their obvious possible social
> nomic, and other practical incentives, as well as the intrinsic
> attractiveness).
> appeal of Islam as a faith-system in its own right.
> 
> These historical processes can only be sketched here in            As noted above, the establishment of states with Muslim
> the broadest outlines; their reconstruction by the historian is    rulers and an Islamic public order usually created the condimoreover bound to be somewhat uneven because of the                tions under which many people came to embrace Islam.
> nature of the sources, which are for many parts of this story      Many converted in response to the working of economic or
> seriously deficient or even nonexistent. In general, however,       social or other factors that the existence of an Islamic public
> one can say that the process of state expansion is much better     order made possible. Some, however, embraced Islam for
> documented than is the process of Islam’s adoption by new          explicitly political reasons. Besides those who wished to enter
> “converts,” whether within or outside of Islamic states, for       government service (or who were already in it, and believed
> whose individual decisions, and the factors contributing to        that openly confessing Islam would enhance their career
> them, there is often no trace whatsoever.                          chances), many others were doubtless attracted to the faith
> that was now “official,” publicly proclaimed, and so increas-
> The remainder of this article will examine first the general     ingly prominent, and associated with success and victory. On
> factors that have contributed historically to people’s decision    the other hand, the use of political pressure or force by
> to embrace Islam, followed by a brief overview of the spread       Muslim authorities to coerce people to embrace Islam, while
> of Islam in various regions of the world, during which the         not unknown in Islamic history, was very seldom practiced,
> relative importance of state-expansion and other factors will      even when politically dominant Muslims absorbed populabe noted.                                                          tions of nonmonotheists or “pagans.”
> Causes and Agents of Islamization                                      At various times individuals or communities may have
> As with most complex social processes, the Islamization of a       responded to economic incentives to embrace Islam. The
> population that hitherto did not identify itself as Muslim
> structure of taxation under an Islamic regime—according to
> normally involved a multitude of causes or factors. These
> which non-Muslims paid a special tax, the jizya or poll-tax, to
> factors impinged in differing degrees on various individuals
> the Muslim authorities—sometimes seems to have encourin the population depending on their cultural, social, ecoaged individuals to embrace Islam. Generally, however, the
> nomic, and political situations and their personal temperatax inequities seem to have been minimal (Muslims, after all,
> ment. It is therefore impossible to generalize from one
> were liable according to the sharia to some taxes not levied on
> person’s conversion narrative what the relative importance of
> non-Muslims, such as the zakat or alms-tax) and not sufficient
> various factors in conversion was for his society as a whole,
> to generate waves of conversions to Islam. After all, the nonjust as it is impossible to work back from the aggregate factors
> Muslim communities of the Near East embraced Islam only
> operative in a certain historical situation to deduce just which
> very slowly—a process taking hundreds of years. Far more
> ones would have been most influential on a particular individimportant, probably, was the force of general economic (and
> ual who chose to embrace Islam; the selection of factors that
> social) dislocation caused by the policies of various Muslim
> were most important to a given person can only be known if
> that person leaves some written record of his own reasons for      states, which caused great flux in all communities under their
> embracing the new faith—something that happens only in a           rule—Muslim as well as non-Muslim—resulting in a shattertiny minority of cases.                                            ing of the communal solidarity of some non-Muslim communities, in the aftermath of which the uprooted individuals may
> First and foremost, we must acknowledge that Islam, as a       well have embraced Islam in order to find a secure place for
> faith system, has significant intrinsic appeal to the intellect.    themselves in some community. The agrarian distress of the
> 
> 240                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Expansion
> 
> middle Umayyad period in Egypt, for example, which led to           other than Arabic; this helped to make the faith more accessiwidespread abandonment of lands by their peasant cultiva-           ble and familiar to speakers of those languages, once Islam
> tors, many of whom fled to the (predominantly Muslim)                had begun to spread beyond the Arabic-speaking lands of its
> towns, weakened or destroyed rural non-Muslim communi-              beginnings. Usually, the language in which an Islamic disties and doubtless led many such refugees to embrace Islam          course was newly developing adopted the Arabic script as an
> more or less out of desperation, as their only economic             outward marker of its Islamic character, to distinguish such
> foothold became one dominated by Muslims among whom                 writings from earlier, non-Islamic writings in the same base
> they now lived and worked.                                          language. The first appearance of Islamic writings in Persian
> but using a modified form of the Arabic script, for example,
> Many social factors also contributed to the acceptance of       which began in the tenth century C.E., contributed signifi-
> Islam by individuals or groups. Non-Muslims from highly             cantly to the consolidation of Islam in the Iranian cultural
> stratified societies who lived in contact with Muslims could         zone over the next several centuries, against its local rivals,
> not fail to observe the relative egalitarianism of Islam (re-       especially Zoroastrianism, which continued to write in a form
> flected, for example, in the fact that all believers, from the       of Persian using the older Pahlavi script. Similar processes
> wealthy merchant to the poorest laborer, prayed side-by-side        accompanied the rise of Islamic literary traditions in various
> in the mosque); this may have had an impact in societies with       dialects of Turkish, among Indic languages for which Urdu
> caste-like social restrictions, such as were found in Hindu         became the vehicle of Islamic literary culture and identity,
> society in South Asia or among Iran’s Zoroastrians. More            and in Indonesian-Malay; the rise of each of these contribgenerally, the highly visible collective rituals of Islam, par-     uted significantly to the consolidation of Islam in areas where
> ticularly communal prayer and fasting during Ramadan,               these languages were spoken.
> created an obvious sense of solidarity among believers that
> could exercise a strong attraction on those non-Muslims who             It is important to note that the spread of Islam often has
> yearned for the security of a strong social matrix. These           followed a pattern of initial superficial Islamization followed
> rituals also provided apparent popular affirmation for the           after a generation or more by a “reform” movement. The
> cogency of Islam’s doctrines. For some men, particularly of         initial Islamization may be little more than nominal and
> the wealthier classes, the relative ease of divorce and the         marked by much syncretism and the survival of older, nontoleration of polygamy may have been attractive features of         Islamic beliefs and practices; the “reform” along the lines of a
> Islam’s social system. Perhaps most important of all, how-          more rigorous variant of Islam is sometimes carried out by
> ever, was the simple desire among some non-Muslims to               indigenous Muslims (not infrequently led by returning pilattain fuller social integration (including intermarriage) with     grims), sometimes by revivalist preachers from outside the
> Muslims among whom they lived and worked, and with                  area. Examples of this can be seen in historical contexts as
> whom they had other business or social ties. (Since apostasy        disparate as the Maghrib in the eleventh through thirteenth
> from Islam was punishable by death, according to Islamic law,       centuries (Almoravid and Almohad movements), Anatolia
> Muslims rarely converted to other religions, even when they         during the twelfth through fifteenth centuries, the puritanical
> lived outside an Islamic state.) The fact that Muslim men           Wahhabi movement in the Arabian peninsula beginning in
> could, according to Islamic law, marry non-Muslim women             the sixteenth century, the revitalization of Islamic practice in
> meant that a non-Muslim who converted to Islam did not              nineteenth-century Indonesia at the hands of returning pileven necessarily cut himself off from the possibility of marry-     grims, and the transformation of the Black Muslim moveing a woman of his former religious community.                      ment in the United States into a form of orthodox Sunni
> Islam during the second half of the twentieth century. Islamic
> Cultural factors at times also played an important role in      reformers naturally decry the laxity and heterodox character
> the spread of Islam among new populations. During the first          of the superficially Islamized communities they strive to
> several centuries of the Islamic era (roughly eighth through        reform, but it must be recognized that these communities’
> twelfth centuries C.E.), the urban-based Arabic-Islamic civili-     loose initial affiliations with Islam, however unorthodox in
> zation that developed in the Middle East was by far the most        practice and belief, nonetheless represent a decisive turn on
> sophisticated cultural tradition of western Eurasia. As such it     the part of these people toward identification with the broader
> exercised a powerful attraction on many people, who both            Islamic community. This early identification with Islam may
> embraced Islam and adopted the Arabic language. (The                be an easier step for individuals to take precisely because it is
> adoption of Arabic and Arabo-Islamic cultural patterns by           still tentative, tolerant of some cherished pre-Islamic pracnumerous people in Andalusia who remained Christian, on             tices of the local community, or associated with political or
> the other hand, reveals that the processes of Arabization and       other programs that are not those of Islam in general (for
> Islamization were not always congruent.)                            example, black separatism in the case of the Black Muslim
> movement); yet it results in a fundamental reorientation of
> Another cultural development of importance to the spread        the individual’s identity toward Islam, and so offers the base
> of Islam was the rise of Islamic literary traditions in languages   on which later reformers can subsequently build.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                      241
> Expansion
> 
> The agents of Islamization are of course almost infinite in      seized most of the Iberian peninsula, followed in subsequent
> variety, as in principle people of any kind can, under appro-      decades by raids deep into Gaul and occupation of significant
> priate conditions, proselytize others or serve as positive         areas of what is now southern France. All these areas have
> models that attract nonbelievers to the faith. Historically,       ever since remained part of the Islamic world, with the
> however, three groups of people in Islamic society have been       exception of southern France and Iberia, from which Musespecially important to the spread of the faith: merchants,        lims were expelled in 1492 by a resurgent Spanish monarchy,
> popular preachers, and mendicant Sufis (mystics). Muslim            and some islands in the Mediterranean, notably Sicily, where
> merchants, who often established themselves as self-contained      Muslims established themselves during the ninth and tenth
> colonies in non-Muslim areas, historically were the first to        centuries C.E. In the east, Muslim forces defeated the last
> bring awareness of Islam to many new areas. Because of the         armies of the Sassanian Great Kings in western Iran already in
> nature of their work, they usually established close per-          the middle of the sixth century, and within several more
> sonal ties with the non-Muslims among whom they lived,             decades Muslim forces had seized areas far to the east,
> which gave them many opportunities to engage in patient            particularly Khurasan, although some areas of Iran (Sistan,
> proselytization among their associates. Moreover, their pros-      Gilan) resisted Muslim encroachment stubbornly for many
> perity, general reputation for honest dealing and upright          more years. From Khurasan, the caliphs dispatched armies
> behavior, and powerful sense of collective identity as Muslims     into other parts of eastern Iran, Afghanistan, and areas
> made them strong positive examples of the Islamic way of life      beyond the Oxus River in Central Asia.
> that quietly drew many converts.
> The caliphs not only organized and maintained the con-
> In some situations, popular preachers also were important      quering armies that carried out this remarkable expansion of
> to the spread of Islam. Motivated solely by personal piety,        the first Islamic state, they also benefited from the conquests
> these individuals were especially effective in situations where    in the form of a share of booty and captives and subsequently
> Islam was already known but not yet embraced by many               in the form of regular taxes imposed on the conquered areas.
> people. The impact of mendicant Sufis was not dissimilar to         But it is important to note that for at least two centuries,
> that of preachers, although the form of Islam they popular-        Muslims constituted a minority (at first, indeed, a very small
> ized was in some cases less rigorous than that espoused by the     minority) of the population of the vast area controlled by the
> preachers; as such it appealed to people who were unwilling        early Islamic empire between Spain and Afghanistan; it is
> to give up all aspects of their former belief-system, and          estimated that the population of the caliphal domains only
> initiated that kind of superficial Islamization that, as has been   became 50 percent Muslim around the middle or end of the
> seen, was often an important first step down the road to full       ninth century. The conversion of the population of the
> immersion in the faith.                                            Middle East, then, even in lands like Syria, Egypt, and Iran,
> was clearly something that happened very gradually.
> The Expansion of Islam in Various World Regions
> Islam began in western Arabia with the preaching of the                It was also during the early Islamic centuries that certain
> prophet Muhammad (ca. 570–632 C.E.). Under the caliphs, or         peoples living adjacent to the caliphal empire, but outside its
> successors to Muhammad as temporal leaders of the Muslims,         borders, embraced Islam. The Bulgars, who lived along the
> the community he had founded in Medina and Mecca ex-               Volga, had embraced Islam by the ninth century, probably
> panded quickly to control all of the Arabian peninsula, Iraq,      under the influence of Muslim merchants coming from the
> Syria-Palestine, Iran, and Egypt; most of these areas were         south. The pastoral nomadic Turkish peoples of the Central
> seized through military action from the two great powers of        Asian steppes were also increasingly converted to Islam durthe day, the Byzantine and Sassanian Persian empires. While        ing the ninth and tenth centuries; some may have embraced
> the early Islamic conquests remain difficult to explain in full     Islam on the advice of itinerant preachers or Muslim meras a historical phenomenon, they are probably best seen as an      chants to avoid being preyed upon by slave-raiders coming
> example of state-formation followed by rapid state expansion.      from the fringes of the caliphal empire in Khurasan. Their
> Once firmly established, the Islamic state, led by the Umayyad      conversion was to prove of great importance, for in the
> caliphs (660–750 C.E.), established major garrison towns in        eleventh century the Turks began their epic migration westnewly conquered areas (Kufa and Basra in Iraq; Hims in             ward through northern Iran and into Azerbaijan, the Cauca-
> Syria; Fustat in Egypt; Qayrawan in Tunisia; Qom, Marv,            sus region, and Anatolia; this folk migration, which their
> and others in Iran). These became important urban centers          political leaders the Seljuks partly orchestrated and partly
> where Islamic literary culture developed, particularly under       followed, brought both the Turkish language and Islam for
> the Abbasid caliphs (750–1258 C.E.). From these garrison           the first time to many parts of Anatolia. Under the aegis of
> towns the caliphs launched further campaigns of conquest           various rival Turkish-Islamic states, much of the formerly
> that brought ever-wider areas under their sway. North Africa       Christian population of what we today call Turkey gradually
> was conquered in a series of campaigns sent from Egypt in the      embraced Islam between the eleventh and the fifteenth cenmiddle and later decades of the seventh century, and Muslim        turies C.E.—in this case, a process in which both merchants
> armies crossed the Straits of Gibraltar in 711 C.E. and quickly    and syncretistic Sufi fraternities played a significant part.
> 
> 242                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Expansion
> 
> Caspian
> ATLANTIC                                                                          Sea            Aral
> OCEAN                                                                                           Sea
> 
> Constantinople                       Tashkent
> Samarqand
> Granada                                          Aleppo
> Mediterranean                   Baghdad              Harat          Kabul
> Sea      Damascus                            Isfahan
> Jerusalem          Basra
> Cairo
> Delhi
> 
> Medina
> 
> Re
> d
> Mecca
> 
> Se
> Timbuktu                                                                                                                  N
> 
> a
> Arabian Sea
> 
> Malacca
> ATLANTIC OCEAN
> INDIAN OCEAN
> Islamic World Expansion                                                                                                              Demak
> to 1550
> Islamic at the end of the       Lost to Christians
> Umayyad dynasty (by 750)        by 1250                                                         0       500   1,000 mi.
> Islamic by 1250                 Lost to Christians
> by 1500                                                         0    500 1,000 km
> Islamic by 1550                 Never under
> Muslim control
> 
> Islamic World Expansion to 1500. XNR PRODUCTIONS, INC./GALE
> 
> Eventually, this Turkish-Islamic matrix gave rise to the                                  constant campaigning to spread its control against local
> Ottoman state, which in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seven-                               Hindu and rival Muslim princes. By the fourteenth century,
> teenth centuries conquered vast new territories for Islam in                              the Delhi sultans had brought an intermittent patchwork of
> the Balkans and created the conditions under which the faith                              areas under their control, extending all the way to south India
> spread there, particularly in Albania and Bosnia.                                         and to Orissa in the southeast, and continued battling other
> Muslim and Hindu principalities. The degree of Islamization
> The first Muslim presence in South Asia was established                                resulting from this political control varied, however, from
> already in the early eighth century C.E. in the Indus river                               region to region in South Asia; in general, Islamization was
> valley (Sind and Punjab) by the conquest of key towns in the                              (and remains) much more extensive in the regions of Sind,
> region, but although this community survived for many                                     Punjab, Bengal, and, by the fourteenth century, Kashmir in
> centuries little is known about it. The real beginning of the                             the north and Deccan in the south, than it was in other areas
> extensive spread of Islam in South Asia came in the late tenth                            of India, including the Ganges plain.
> and the eleventh centuries C.E., when the Ghaznavid dynasty
> began to launch raids from its main base in Afghanistan into                                  Although military expansion was important to the spread
> the Indus valley and beyond, in order to secure the rich                                  of Islam in India, however, it was far from the only factor.
> plunder the area offered. Eventually, some of these raids                                 Perhaps equally important was the establishment, no later
> resulted in the establishment of permanent Ghaznavid out-                                 than the twelfth century, of numerous trading colonies of
> posts in Sind, especially as the Ghaznavids’s control of their                            Muslim merchants, usually of Arab or Persian origin, particuoriginal base in Afghanistan was challenged and then taken                                larly along the west coast of India. These merchant colonies
> away by others; their Indian possessions thus became a refuge                             brought to the rulers (usually Hindu) in whose territories
> for the Ghaznavids. The Ghaznavids were succeeded by the                                  they established themselves not only important economic
> Ghurids, who in the later twelfth century held not only Sind                              benefits, but also an exposure to some aspects of Islamic high
> and Punjab but also came to control most of northern India as                             culture, and a reputation for honesty and fair dealing. The
> far east as western Bengal. With the fall of the Ghurids in                               Muslim merchant colonies were therefore important cata-
> Afghanistan in the thirteenth century under pressure of the                               lysts for the conversion to Islam of many people in India, even
> Khwarizmshahs and Mongols, some Ghurid commanders in                                      before a Muslim prince or the Delhi sultans brought their
> India established the first Delhi Sultanate, which engaged in                              area under the domination of an officially Muslim state. Also
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                                            243
> Expansion
> 
> important to the spread of Islam in South Asia were members          and warfare launched against their neighbors by local Muslim
> of various orders of Sufis (mystics), such as the Chishtiyya.         princes. In Java, Islam became influential at the court of
> Some Sufi saints were closely associated with a Muslim ruler,         Majapahit around the mid-fifteenth century, and subsequently
> while others avoided such ties and operated independently;           spread widely through the island. Similar patterns can be
> whatever the case, their egalitarianism, emphasis on the             traced in Borneo, Sulawesi, the Moluccas, and Luzon during
> spiritual life, and eagerness to welcome new adepts made             the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Rivalry between Musthem powerful magnets for the faith.                                 lim preachers and Christian missionaries (Portuguese and
> later Dutch) in the fifteenth through seventeenth centuries
> In China, Muslims have always been a minority. Already            sharpened the effort of Muslim proselytizers, who presented
> by the ninth century C.E. there was a large colony of Muslim         their cause increasingly as one of jihad against Christian
> (presumably Arab and Persian) merchants in Canton; it was            aggression. In the nineteenth century, Muslim pilgrims relargely massacred or expelled by the Chinese in 878, though          turning to Indonesia from extended stays in Arabia were
> some Muslims remained. The largest communities of Mus-               instrumental in fueling a revivalist or purification movement
> lims in China were established in Xinjiang in the west during        that did much to deepen the local commitment to Islam.
> the thirteenth and following centuries, during the period of
> Mongol rule of China (the Yuan dynasty), when the Mongols,               Islam came to North Africa, as we have seen, as part of the
> who cared little about religion, allowed Muslim merchants            rapid expansion of the first caliphal state in the seventh
> free access to the country. The Mongol Golden Horde                  century C.E. South of the Sahara, Islam spread more slowly,
> conquered parts of central Asia and southern Russia, destroy-        arriving by several different routes: up the Nile, across the
> ing the Muslim Bulghar kingdom, but by 1290 the khans of             Sahara to the Niger region of West Africa, and by sea to the
> the Horde had themselves embraced Islam.                             East African coast. From Egypt, caliphal control, and with it
> Islam, spread already in the seventh and eighth centuries
> The first Muslims in Southeast Asia seem to have been              southward up the Nile into Nubia and from there into the
> Arab merchants who established a colony in Palembang in              northern parts of the modern state of Sudan and to the fringes
> the trading state of Shrivijaya in eastern Sumatra in the            of Ethiopia. Farther west, Muslim merchants from North
> seventh century C.E. In the subsequent centuries, colonies of        Africa were by 1000 C.E. crossing the Sahara in caravans via
> Arab, Persian, and Indian Muslim merchants established               key oasis towns such as Sijilmasa, Tadmekka, and Awdaghast,
> themselves along the coasts of the Malay peninsula and               and had established merchant colonies near the great bend of
> Sumatra, some fleeing the Chinese destruction of the large            the Niger River, particularly at the trading center of Timbuktu.
> Muslim trading colony at Canton in 878. As in coastal India          The revivalist Almoravid movement established a Muslim
> and East Africa, Muslim merchants established a foothold in          state in Mauretania in the eleventh century, and began
> most of the trading ports of Malaysia and Indonesia. The             attacking the Soninke kingdom of Ghana before expanding
> important colony of Aceh on the northern tip of Sumatra is           rapidly northward again. By the thirteenth century, these
> mentioned already in the thirteenth century by Marco Polo            initial seeds of Islamization had grown into several powerful
> as having a Muslim ruler. The trading entrepot of Malacca,           Muslim kingdoms in the western Sudan: Mali and Gao in the
> which controlled the crucial shipping lane through the nar-          Niger valley, and Kanam, in the vicinity of Lake Chad. These
> row strait separating Malaya and Sumatra, seems to have had          kingdoms and other smaller ones periodically waged jihad
> a Muslim ruler by the early fifteenth century. In both cases,         against neighboring non-Muslims, and also encouraged comthe wealth and commercially based assertiveness of these             merce, which drew local tribal peoples into closer contact
> trading entrepots resulted in the spread of Islam to neighbor-       with Muslim merchants and their cosmopolitan vision of
> ing areas. The sultans of Malacca extended their control over        the world.
> nearby areas of the Malay peninsula, bringing to Islam local
> populations that had not already been attracted to Islam by              The spread of Islam in East Africa, along the Indian Ocean
> the glittering prosperity of Malacca’s rulers; but after Malacca’s   littoral, resembled in some ways Islam’s penetration of Southconquest by the Portuguese in 1511, its commerce declined            east Asia. The first agents of Islamization were Muslim
> sharply, particularly because Muslim merchants preferred to          merchants from Arabia, Iran, and India, who came with the
> take their commerce to Muslim Aceh. The sultans of Aceh              monsoon and founded or established colonies in the major
> eventually expanded their influence and control southward in          coastal trading ports from Somalia southward, particularly in
> Sumatra and in adjacent areas at the expense of other local          Zanzibar, where sectarian (Khariji) Muslims from Oman
> chieftains, particularly in the seventeenth century C.E.; they       established ties that endured in political form until the midcontinued to ply their traditional occupations of commerce           twentieth century. Other Muslim colonies remained subject
> and piracy, and the sultanate ended only in the late nine-           to local rulers, but retained close communal and family ties to
> teenth century during the war against Dutch colonial occupa-         their coreligionists in Arabia or India. From the coastal
> tion. The spread of Islam to other parts of Southeast Asia—in        trading ports, Islam gradually penetrated some distance into
> particular Java, Borneo, and the Moluccas—was carried out            the hinterlands from which came the goods exchanged at the
> through a combination of peaceful commerce, proselytization,         ports of trade.
> 
> 244                                                                                              Islam and the Muslim World
> Expansion
> 
> Muslim communities became prominent in Western                See also Conversion; Da
wa; Jihad; Tasawwuf.
> Europe and North America only during the middle and latter
> decades of the twentieth century. In Western Europe, Mus-         BIBLIOGRAPHY
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> munities around the world. During the 1950s and 1960s,            Trimingham, J. Spencer. A History of Islam in West Africa.
> however, this movement underwent an internal transforma-             Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 1962.
> tion (led by such figures as Malcolm X) that led increasing        Trimingham, J. Spencer. Islam in East Africa. Oxford, U.K.:
> numbers of its members to adopt mainstream Islamic values            Clarendon Press, 1964.
> and to abandon the movement’s black separatist origins. The       Trimingham, J. Spencer. The Sufi Orders in Islam. Oxford,
> American Muslim Movement that emerged from the Nation                U.K.: Clarendon Press, 1971.
> of Islam after Elijah Muhammad’s death in 1975 is thoroughly orthodox in its doctrines.                                                                               Fred M. Donner
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                   245
> F
> FADLALLAH, MUHAMMAD                                                      BIBLIOGRAPHY
> HUSAYN (1935– )                                                          Aziz, Talib. “Fadlallah and the Remaking of the Marja
iya.”
> In The Most Learned of the Shi
a: The Institution of the Marja

> Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah, spiritual leader of the Shi
a of                 Taqlid. Edited by Linda S. Walbridge. Oxford, U.K.:
> Lebanon, was born in Najaf, Iraq, in 1935 to a religious family             Oxford University Press, 2001.
> from Southern Lebanon. Known in the West as the spiritual
> leader of Hizbullah, unlike most Shi
a ulema, he traces his                                                            Mazyar Lotfalian
> genealogy to Imam Hassan rather than Imam Hossein. He
> studied with Ayatollah Khui in Najaf, following which
> Fadlallah settled in eastern Beirut and became Khui’s representative. He lived and worked as a Shi
a among Sunnis and               FALSAFA
> Christians during the civil war in Lebanon. At the onset of the
> war he wrote about the relationship between political power              Philosophical speculation in Islamic culture has triple roots in
> and ideology and became an active community organizer. In                theology (kalam), philosophy proper (falsafa), and mysticism
> his relationship with the Islamic Republic of Iran, he has both          (tasawwuf).
> continued his contacts with Tehran as well as maintained a
> Theological Beginnings
> distance from the Iranian leadership.
> The genesis of Muslim philosophical theology is manifested
> Fadlallah’s career is marked by differences from other               in the marriage of Greek logic and monotheistic apologetics
> Shi
a ulema. These differences include his focus on social and           in the school of Mu
tazilah initiated by Wasil ibn 
Ata (d. 748)
> charitable organizations, women’s participation in public life,          and developed by Abu al-Hudhayl al-
Allaf (d. 849/850), his
> and a rather decentered view of leadership. He believes that             nephew al-Nazzam (d. c. 435/445), and the jurist 
Abd almarja
iyya, religious leadership, should be distinguished from           Jabbar (d. 1204/1205). They inquired into such questions as
> wilayat al-faqih,or political leadership. There should be many           the compatibility of free will for creatures and Divine omwaly (political leaders), whereas only one person should hold            nipotence. Can a person act against the will or knowledge of
> the title of marja. This means that there are many waly who             God? If persons have no free will, how can a just God punish
> are the interpreters of religion and politics in society. On the         them for predetermined actions? If rewards and punishments
> other hand, marja is a symbolic and religious leadership and            are arbitrary, why does God send prophets and reveal sacred
> jurisdiction goes beyond the political and national bounda-              scriptures to guide His creatures? Wrestling with such key
> ries. Fadlallah believes that marja should be unified under              issues in theodicy, the prevalent adherents of the Mu
tazilah
> one authority. Regarding jurisprudence, he argues that the               position support the legitimacy of the doctrine of punishment
> Quran takes precedence over the sunna, and that jurists need            and rewards by proffering their view that persons are free and
> to interpret meaning directly from the Quran. Fadlallah’s               that God is just. Their position criticized subjectivism in
> religious and political status increased, especially among               ethics and upheld a rationalist ethic that persons can reason
> radicals, after Ayatollah Khomeini gave him ijaza (religious             about ethics and thus are responsible for moral actions.
> permission) to collect khums (religious tax) from his follow-            Against this family of doctrines arose the school of Ash
arites
> ers in 1982.                                                             (founded by Abu ’l-Hasan al-Ash
ari, d. 935), which advocated the so-called theory of occasionalism. Popularized later
> See also Political Islam.                                                in Europe by Nicolas Malebranche (d. 1715), occasionalists
> 
> Falsafa
> 
> confronted the thorny problem of causality as follows. Among       Ibn Sina’s concepts, such as the essence-existence distinccreated occasions in the world, there is no causation (neither     tions. In this light Islamic texts may be useful both in tracing
> agent-patient nor an event-type of causation). Specifically,        the development of Greek thought as well as in revealing the
> minds/mental events or bodies/physical actions are subject         genesis of some Latin and Hebrew philosophical writings.
> only to an ultimate cause, namely God. Belonging to the
> Sunni school of theology, this school questioned the mean-         Major Muslim thinkers of the classical period. A key
> ingfulness of the notion of free will; by contrast, it advocated   figure is Abu Ya
qub Al-Kindi (d. 873), who proffered a
> that God ordained a total resignation to the cosmos, which it      search for truth over reliance on authority. Moreover, he
> claimed. This position does not imply any negative states for      supported the theory of creation by arguing that the eternity
> humanity; in this tenor, persons (including someone in the         of the world would imply the existence of an actual infinite,
> position of Job) should envision nature and themselves as          which was proven to be impossible by Aristotle. Abu Nasr Almere gifts of the Divine grace; faith commands creatures to        Farabi (d. 950), is known as “the second teacher,” an original
> passively witness the glory of creation as an icon of the          thinker and a logician. His numerous contributions include:
> Creator. Other key issues included the controversy as to           (a) construing a Muslim version of the theory of emanation
> whether or not the Quran is co-eternal with the Divine; this      adopted by a majority of subsequent Muslim philosophers;
> controversy is based on a reading of the Timaeus where Plato       (b) holding a Platonic position that philosophizing takes place
> postulates a co-eternity among the ideas/forms/universals          in context of a polity and its societal ethics; and finally (c)
> and the creator-artist-demiurge. Finally they have constantly      having insights in analytical ontology on topics such as the
> debated the place of reason versus revelation and the place of     relation between language and ontology. He demonstrated
> philosophy in an Islamic society. A number of Sunni theolo-        that in the spite of the fact that Semitic languages like Arabic
> gians like Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (d. 1111) and Ahmid ibn            do not contain the copula, they are nevertheless as capable as
> Taymiyya (d. 1327) criticized what they considered to be           any Indo-European language like Greek or Persian to express
> untenable attempts of philosophers to intrude into theology.       primary ontic concepts designated by terms such as being,
> In contrast, Shi
a writers like Nasir Khusraw, Nasir ad-Din        existence, existent, and substance. Abu 
Ali ibn Sina (d. 1037),
> Tusi (d. 1274), and Sadr ad-Din Shirazi (known as Mulla            who is perhaps the most original and systematic Muslim
> Sadra), all of whom were philosophers in the school of Isfahan     thinker, as is illustrated by the following ideas.
> in the following three centuries, and even as recent as Ruhollah
> Khomeini (d. 1989), all view theology and philosophy as                With respect to the logical structure of metaphysics, Ibn
> interdependent disciplines. The most philosophical group of        Sina modified the ontology of the peripatetic substance-
> Muslim sects consists of the so-called Isma
ilis, among them       event language ontology (where the first division of being was
> Khosrow, Hamid al-Din Kirmani, and Nasir al-Din Tusi.              into the categories of substances and accidents) to a primary
> encounter with being and the threefold modalities of neces-
> Classical Philosophy (Ninth to Thirteenth Century)                 sity, contingency, and impossibility. A concatenation of being
> The classical age of Islamic philosophy is marked by the           with necessity leads to necessary being, which, in the second
> following features: (a) an increasing awareness of the impor-      version of the ontological arguments, leads to the notion of
> tance of Greek philosophy, especially of Aristotelian delinea-     The Necessary Existent, the cause of the actualization of all
> tion and division of philosophical studies such as ontology,       contingent beings.
> epistemology, normative types of inquiry, analytical disciplines such as logic and mathematics, natural sciences, and            With respect to the epistemic meditative experience, he
> theology; (b) the production of commentaries on the Greek          postulated a four-phase hermeneutic phenomenological entexts, and the development of new and creative solutions to        counter as follows: (i) being, (ii) the field of experiencing the
> the traditional controversies such as the nature of imagina-       world as the immediate phenomenon, (iii) a search from a
> tions and the problem of universals; and (c) the pursuit of        contingency of the agent to the inner essence of the agent, which
> philosophical investigations independent of religious con-         is the necessary existent, and (iii) finally an aim toward
> cerns. A majority of recent and some contemporary investiga-       dealienation through a unity of existents. Ibn Sina’s system
> tors in Islamic philosophy focus on the so-called Greek into       may be used to reread the ontological argument of both St.
> Arabic, or/and Arabic into Latin/Hebrew. There is no doubt         Augustine (d. 430) and René Descartes (d. 1650). In this light
> that this historical-reductive approach is a legitimate field as    the most celebrated argument for the existence of God is not
> illustrated in the case of the Persian-born philosopher and        a static, empty logical argument based on definition, but a
> scientist Ibn Sina (known to the West by his Latin name,           phase of transformation due to a search from being, to the
> Avicenna). He claimed that he had read Aristotle’s Metaphys-       self-field of experience, to God and finally a desperate atics about forty times, and both peripatetic and Neoplatonic        tempt to form a dealienating unity among all existents.
> influences are imprinted over his several encyclopedic collections. In turn, Ibn Sina was mentioned over five hundred                In the field of mysticism, Ibn Sina’s account of metatimes by the most important Catholic thinker, St. Thomas           mysticism and his distinctions between mystical, religious, and
> Aquinas (d. 1274), who grounded much of his metaphysics in         ascetic, as well as his description of states and stations of
> 
> 248                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Falsafa
> 
> mystics, paved the way for subsequent scholarships on                  Consequently, reality was depicted as a process; analysis was
> mysticism.                                                             compared to waves in the ocean or wind in motion. Now
> there are two sides to such a process: an external one, like
> His original system integrated various aspects of Aristote-        drops of water coming from a river that in turn came from an
> lian and Neoplatonic Greek theories with the Islamic intel-            ocean; thus a drop of water going back to the ocean, or a
> lectual tradition. Subsequent philosophers had to take account         person dying as an individual and then becoming part of the
> of Ibn Sina’s system, criticizing him, in the case of al-Ghazali,      world, both of which depict the unity of being as entities
> Fakhr al-Din Razi (b. 1149), and Ibn Taymiyya, following               returning to their archetypal mother, or to the source of their
> him (as with Tusi), or including in their philosophy some of           generation. The other side, an internal, an intentional one in
> his visions, like Ibn Rushd (d. 1198), Shihab ad-Din Suhrawardi        light of which a person is transformed from one state of mind
> (d. 1191), Aquinas, and Sadr ad-Din Shirazi (known as Mulla            to another, is depicted either in celebrated cases like the
> Sadra). In sum, a comprehensive Islamic philosophical system           conversion of St. Paul or in typical cases like becoming a
> emerged through Ibn Sina’s encyclopedic works.                         parent, falling in love, and the like. Muslim philosophers
> A parallel vibrant tradition of original philosophy, mysti-         needed this Neoplatonic framework of process language as
> cism, and scholarly commentaries developed in Islamic Spain.           they dealt with the key issue of the paradox of mystical union,
> Mention has already been made of Ibn Rushd—known to the                which aimed to bring an ultimate intimacy between persons
> West by his Latin name, Averroes—who also wrote a number               and their source of genesis, like a child seeking to return to
> of commentaries on Aristotle’s work as well as on Plato’s              the mother. In Aristotle’s vocabulary no two substances could
> Republic. He is known in Christian medieval circles as the             have become identical with one another, as the only substanoriginator of the so-called double-truth theory, which ren-            tial changes were generation and corruption; for example, a
> ders religious and philosophical languages to be isomorphically        cat cannot become a dog. But in process language, two waves
> compatible, although scholars today question this interpreta-          can merge and become a single wave, or a drop of water can
> tion of his theory of truth. Noteworthy among the list of              return to the sea or a fire of love to its source, the heavenly
> other philosophers is Ibn Tufayl (d. 1185), who presents in a          sun. In authentic personal experiences, the birth of their child
> Robinson Crusoe–like tale, an allegorical account of various           represents the visible fruit of the merged love of two lovers.
> phases of the development of persons in light of which issues          Medieval Muslim philosophers use the method of allegorical
> are portrayed such as the acquisition of language, communi-            theology by appeals to motifs such as “drowning” or “light”;
> cation with nature and human being, and finally with God.               in such a framework “mystical union” can be clarified by a
> symbolic or an allegorical theology. Moreover, unlike Aris-
> The Post–Ibn Sina Developments of Metaphysics                          totle’s system, such processes in the world that were external
> and Epistemology                                                       to persons’ bodies had also a personal and an intentional side.
> Ibn Sina’s original insights culminated in a number of the             It should be noted that Aristotle’s system is not a static
> following ideas in later Islamic philosophy.                           metaphysics, as the ultimate model is an organic depiction of
> nature, where the highest state consists in imitating the prime
> The world depicted as a process analogous to a flowing                  movers’ theoretical structure of the cosmos.
> river or a shining sun. To begin with, for Aristotle, the
> ultimate constituent of the world consists of what he called           The rise of philosophical analysis. An aspect of recent
> first substances, which are primarily individual, concrete              postidealism in the West has been the rise of philosophical
> particulars like the stars, living persons, animals, trees, and        analysis, characterized by features such as clarification of key
> rocks. Consequently, other features of the world like quan-            primitive terms and the reconstruction of a clear syntactical
> tity, quality, place, time, relations, and alike are accidental        meta-linguistic framework. This feature was developed in the
> and are actual only because of the characterization of a               philosophy of logical positivism at the turn of the twentieth
> subspace. Against Plato, he argued that the entity, “being             century and culminated in Rudolph Carnap’s (d. 1970) docgreen,” does not exist in or by itself; it is realized if it endures   trine of reconstructionalism. Similar themes are depicted in
> as a color of a specific tree or the color of a person’s eyes. The      the following three theses of Islamic philosophy.
> key issue is his accidental depiction of time, which postulates
> that the primary account of the world is in the language of                The first case lies in Ibn Sina’s tripartite solution to the sosubstances, for example, rocks or trees, and events such as            called theory of universals, which questioned the ontic status
> their locomotion, damnation, and growth, and the alteration            of universals (indicated by notions such as “being a number,”
> of their character. By contrast, in the post–Ibn Sinan philoso-        or “goodness”). Ibn Sina held the position that the meanings
> phy, temporal dimensions of phenomena such as experiences              of single philosophical terms are to be found in the context of
> of persons were depicted as an essential aspect of their reality,      their applications as follows: Syntactical universals (such as
> for which Mulla Sadra coined the expression “substantial               “evenness”) as well as a syntactical analysis of universals are
> motion.” In Sadra’s ontology the universe was depicted as a            significantly independent of our mental state or the actual
> continuum of realms of existents, from the pure absolute               world; conceptual universals, such as intentions, are midexistent, identified as God, to series of layers of entities.           dependent; and finally in the realm of empirical sciences,
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                           249
> Falsafa
> 
> essences and universals follow our encounter with facts that         of what William James (d. 1910) stipulated as “stream of
> are existents and particulars. An awareness of the linguistic        consciousness”; thus the focus is not on persons as thingsimport of philosophical issues can also be found in the clever       substances but on the temporal nature of experiencing the
> solution of Nasir Khusraw (d. 1077) to the question of               world. In this light, both Ibn Sina and Mulla Sadra construe a
> “Which comes first? The chicken or the egg?” He pointed               phenomenological metaphysics in which the mind directly
> out the similarity of this paradox with the inquiry about the        encounters being rather than itself as a substance. In sum, a
> “initiation of the beginning segment in a circle.” He replied        major contribution of Islamic philosophy lies in its depiction
> that a chicken means an actualized egg, while an egg means a         of “persons” in the context of the field of experience.
> potential chicken. Thus, a comprehensive language addresses
> the question’s need to place both of them in the same object         Key epistemological concepts depicted in light of both
> language level of terms (in the same way space and time are          value and experience. Traditionally epistemic models folplaced as primitive notions in contemporary physics). Finally        lowed theoretical frameworks of Platonic writings, where
> let us consider Tusi’s analysis of infinity. As a rational phi-       knowledge was identified with the abstraction of concepts.
> losopher, he had to agree with Aristotle that there is no actual     Later knowledge was limited either to concepts received
> infinite, but as a mathematician, he sought to take “infinite          by the intellect or sense data experienced by the senses.
> number” as a significant notion. Thus, he made a meta-                Analogous to many recent epistemologies such as American
> linguistic distinction between several senses of infinity, syn-       pragmatism, Muslim philosophies examined layers of contactical and ontic, accepting the first sense and rejecting the       sciousness/awareness in varieties of knowing, as well as the
> second. These three examples well illustrate that Islamic            relation between knowledge and morality. Let us consider
> philosophy contains an awareness of philosophical analysis,          some examples from everyday life.
> meta-mathematics, and logic.
> In teaching a trade, the apprentice learns “how to” per-
> Depiction of the self as a ground of experience. The                 form a task, for example, learning how to ride a bicycle, or
> concept of a person is a cardinal issue in the philosophical         learning to dance. In these examples, one learns “how to do
> system due to the observation made by Ludwig Wittgenstein            an activity,” instead of learning and conceiving a clarification
> (d. 1951) that we can never see our eyes directly, or that the       of an analytical fact like an axiom of geometry or empirical
> self is not in the world, but that it is implied in the ground of
> data, like the distance between the sun and earth; one can also
> being-in-the-world. Also, he pointed out that the notion of
> become a better perceiver of danger or have a richer experilanguage is like a game, a societal entity; consequently, a
> ence of music, or sport. With respect to morality and ethics,
> substantial notion of the self may prevent the possibility of
> one may follow Plato’s equation of knowledge with virtue and
> language and thus of knowledge all together. It is for this
> vice with ignorance. Accordingly, learning from the world
> reason that a number of western philosophers have rejected
> makes one also a better human being. The primary sources of
> the Cartesian depiction of the self as a substance. For examthese practical and holistic epistemologies are the works of
> ple, David Hume (d. 1776) depicts the self in terms of a
> Plato and Plotinus. Specifically, Plato uses the allegory of a
> bundle of impressions, while Kant attempts to clarify the
> blindfolded prisoner who, through a continuum of epistemic
> phenomenal self in the search for what he calls a transcendenascents, finally confronts the source of all sight, which is the
> tal unity of perception. Finally, Martin Heidegger’s depiction
> sun; he also depicts love as a ladder through which a lover
> of self as Dasein, meaning “being-in-the-world” is one of the
> most celebrated philosophical formulations of the twentieth          encounters the true form of absolute beauty, which is another
> century. Long before these European thinkers, a number of            icon for the highest good. Plotinus also discusses the ascent of
> Muslim philosophers focused on a depiction of the notion of          the soul as it seeks to be united with the One, analogous to a
> a person in ways to avoid the standard paradoxes such as             daughter, who, recognizing her true love for the father, seeks
> “private language fallacy.” Ibn Sina, for instance, states that if   “no otherness” from the One. Muslim philosophers devela person abstracts his sensations one by one, he can never           oped their epistemologies in ways that resemble Ibn Sina’s
> presuppose that the subject of this experience is empty. In a        theory of pragmatic imagination. Ibn Sina postulates the
> similar manner, al-Ghazali points out that both God and the          epistemology of internal senses, translated here as “prehensive
> self are without any quality or quantity —they belong to the         imagination,” as illustrated in the case of sheep running away
> ground of experience and not to objects of experience (like          at the sight of a wolf. In such a response, it is not necessary for
> Hume’s point that there is no impression of the self). In a Sufi      an agent to be conscious in order to act prudently. Similar
> depiction of the self, persons are construed in a process which      cases are found in Muslim theories of learning through the
> is a continuum of the development of states (ahwal) and              mystical apprenticeship with a Sufic master, as the Disciples
> stations (maqamat); eventually the finite limited ephemeral           of Christ learned from Jesus’ acts or one learns from parables
> self is annihilated (fana) and is merged into its ultimate          in the sacred texts. Recent development in the West in “fuzzy
> source; in such a state, a person merging into its essence           logic,” Gestalt psychology, the epistemologies of Marxists,
> persists (baqa) eternity in this blessed state of union. Here a     American pragmatists, the views of a number of philosophers
> person is not depicted as a substantial soul but in the context      such as Henry Bergson (d. 1941), Alfred North Whitehead
> 
> 250                                                                                               Islam and the Muslim World
> Falsafa
> 
> (d. 1947), and Wittgenstein—all these question the legiti-          original desire. The Muslim mystic’s vision of the ethics of
> macy of the notion of a conscious state independent of life         unity is much stronger than the simple case stated above. The
> activity. Al-Ghazali ironically wrote against philosopher’s         mystical return is, in fact, an integration of the last phase of
> mistakes, but in fact was instrumental in strengthening phi-        the ethics of self-realization, which constitutes the perfection
> losophy among subsequent Muslim scholars. For him the               (kamal) of persons. The Isma
ili philosopher Nasir Khusraw
> major feature of God and persons is intentional volition. In        presents the following Neoplatonic version of this theme of
> the case of the Divine, there is the will to create the cosmos.     unity through emanation and return. To begin with, neither
> In the case of persons, we have intentional epistemic virtues       temporality nor existence may be applied to the term God.
> of the soul’s urge in seeking salvation. The most outstanding       What can be talked about is the cosmogony of the emanation
> features of humanity are found in immediate existential             of the world from the first intelligence, having been begotten
> feeling tones of exuberance (dhawq), urgency (shawq), and           from the One who emanates the universal soul; the latter
> authentic states of intimacy (uns). Al-Ghazali’s system inte-       emanates the individual souls. Now the problem is what to do
> grates a number of insights from various traditions, such as        with these individual souls, as they need to be differentiated
> the supremacy of the power of good will in the Zoroastrian          from one another in the spiritual realm. In this context,
> tradition and in Friedrich Nietzsche, in Wittgenstein’s ear-        Khusrau proffers the view that the souls are temporarily
> lier doctrine as well as in St. Augustine’s account of the          embodied in order to partake of morally significant experisimilarity between persons and the world, of the soul and           ences, and in life’s struggle, they have an opportunity to
> God. Al-Ghazali’s writings were instrumental in integrating         become purified. The theme is a repetition of Plotinus’s view
> the philosophical dimensions with extensive mystical (Sufi)          that a body is like the useful instrument of a musician who sets
> writings in enriching Islamic epistemology and ethics.              it aside after the dance of earthly life. This example clearly
> signifies that the Islamic ethos is not an ascetic one, as Muslim
> Facets of the ethics of self-realization. A major issue in          philosophers, such as Ibn Sina, clearly distinguish between
> Islamic moral philosophy is various epistemic and normative         ascetics, religious devotee, and mystics. In this tenor, it
> facets of the ethics of self-realization. The essence of the self   should be mentioned that the prophet Muhammad’s personal
> is presupposed to be the divine-God-nature; accordingly, the        life is embodied as a prophet statement, as well as in an
> ultimate self-knowledge lies in the archetypal theme of the         Islamic religious law (shari
a), which is concerned with the
> return to the origin of cosmogony, expressed as dealienation.       practical dimension of life on this earth as well as in the
> afterlife. The Quran itself has a number of references to
> As is to be expected, there are varieties of Islamic ethics,    practical issues such as the economics of gender relations, and
> such as treatises on pragmatics of politics for princes, and        to God as a provider of blessings available in this life to His
> ethical issues in legalistic theology, as well as standard philo-   creatures.
> sophical ethics such as utilitarianism and the Kantian type of
> morality emphasizing a sense of duty. The most original and         A global vision of politics. As exemplified in the works of
> complex Muslim contribution to ethics is the Sufi prescrip-          the greatest Muslim social philosopher, 
Abd ar-Rahman ibn
> tion of the good life. Amazingly, this type of ethics may be        Khaldun (d. 1379), Muslim political philosophy, in contrast
> described in the context of the problem of alienation—              to the individualism of John Locke (d. 1704) and John Stuart
> estrangement—taken by Marxists, existentialists, phenom-            Mill (d. 1836), focuses on the Unitarian view of persons,
> enologists, and psychoanalysts to be the most important             viewing these not as independent individuals, but rather as
> problem in modern times. The Islamic mystics, known as the          members of a society or even a global village. The essence of
> Sufis, take a theme common to both Neoplatonism and the              an individual is being a member of a polity. Official Muslim
> Quran that all entities seek to return to their source. Because    theology is tolerant of Zoroastrians, Christians, and Jews, for
> persons are finite and the ultimate being, such as the God of        these “people of the [sacred, monotheistic] book.” Accordmonotheists or the One of the mystics is without a limit, there     ingly, Muslim rulers have a moral obligation to protect
> is a need for a Christ-like sage, a mediator figure who is half-     temples and churches, assuring a societal condition wherein
> human and half-divine, who can link the two realms. Usually         monotheistic believers can practice their own kind of worthis union assumes the absorption of persons into the ulti-         ship. In a so-called imaginary jihad, it is conceivable that
> mate being, as a river returns to the sea. Here is an example.      Jewish and Christian armies can assist Muslims in converting
> Suppose a male realizes that his beloved resembles his mother,      heathens to monotheism. Names of Jewish prophets taken by
> the first instance of the feminine archetype for the male child.     Muslims and numerous references to parables from the
> If so, then naturally his “new love” integrates his urge to         Torah, in the literature of Muslims, show that Muslims regard
> return to the blessed state of an infant cared by his mother.       Jews as the chosen people of the Lord. In the same tenor
> The love of the specific mother induces the unconscious love         Jesus, who is taken to be human but a prophet of God, born of
> of the feminine archetype that results in his discovery of the      a virgin, is often depicted as the mediator figure in Islamic
> actualization of an instance of the feminine archetype in his       mysticism. In light of these affinities, one may ask in what
> future spouse. Thus, love in a sense signifies a return to the       sense Islamic political philosophy may be unique.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                     251
> Falsafa
> 
> Muslims envision themselves not as being opposed to the        meta-theories for making particular laws but as a direct power
> earliest monotheistic approaches to society and the poleitia,      that intervenes in national and international politics of the
> but as a recipient of the later revelation of God to humanity.     nation and is backed by the military branch of the government.
> The Hebrews received the gift of monotheism, calling Elohim/
> Yahweh the only God of the universe, a source of divine                Islamic themes have been integrated in the social thoughts
> justice prescribing both rewards and punishment. Christians        of a number of recent African political thinkers. For example
> preached the message of a loving God, who sacrificed His            
Ali A. Mazrui (b. 1933) proffers Islam as the first Protestant
> Son, God incarnate, for humanity. The salient feature of           type of reformation of Christianity; also Islam is viewed as the
> Islamic political philosophy is its vision of a unity applied to   last revealed universal religion. Moreover, he questions the
> the global politics of achieving a political unity under a         Eurocentric approach of alienating Africa from the Middle
> theocratic order. A further delineation of this political phi-     East and advocates a rewriting of the social map of the area
> losophy has two implications. First is the rejection of the        under the concept of “Afrabia.” Mazrui’s Islamic themes
> legitimacy of separating the state and religion, similar to        envision the Afrocentric agenda as a phase of a dialectical
> Plato’s vision expressed in the Republic that morally useful       encounter to the Eurocentric perspective of the earlier centu-
> “myths” should be embedded in the praxis of the state.             ries. Following the Islamic principle of unity (tawhid), he
> Among the Shi
a, a minority of Islamic creed, this theocracy       proposes a synthesis found in Islamic political philosophy,
> takes a stronger turn.                                             namely a vision of global harmony based on justice such as
> praxes of Black reparation—a vision suited for the global
> The salient philosophical framework of Islam, unlike           village of the present millennium.
> Judaism and Christianity, points to a theocratic political
> philosophy of globalism—that moved individual alliances            Symbolic/allegorical theology. An outstanding feature of
> away from nationalistic conflicts to a single world community       the Islamic intellectual tradition lies in its symbolic expresof faithful global citizens. Consequently, several modern          sion, which is embedded in allegory and extensive metaphysi-
> Muslim thinkers have offered a number of theories about the        cal poetry. These texts should not be treated as “soft minded”
> encounter between Islam and Western cultures. A partial list       philosophy. A number of philosophers, such as Ibn Sina,
> of these social philosophers includes Jamal al-Din Asadabadi       Tusi, and Mulla Sadra, who could and did write technical
> (also known as al-Afghani, d. 1897), Muhammad Iqbal (d.            philosophy, such as logic treatises, also chose to write mysti-
> 1938), Muhammad Husayn Tabatabai (d. 1989), and Ruhollah          cal works. Unlike the descriptive dimensions of physical
> Khomeini. Afghani appealed to special Islamic virtues, such        science, and the analytical and deductive dimensions of synas a combination of rationalism and pragmatics of the relig-       tactical studies like logic and mathematics, mysticism neither
> ious life, such as modesty, honesty, and truthfulness. He          explains the world, nor analyzes concepts. It is the primary
> suggested that by adopting these archetypal virtues and            aim of mysticism to transform the intentional phenomenon
> joining pan-Islamic movements, Islamic culture would be            of the authentic experiences of persons from an alienating
> able to encounter positively the power of Western culture.         one to one marked by harmony—a harmony in which even
> Iqbal was of the opinion that the essence of Islamic culture       the death of one’s body is integrated in one’s life experience.
> lies in its transformation of Greek abstract philosophy into an    Another reason for the use of the symbolic method is that the
> empirical mode of knowledge that takes account of concrete         subject matter of discourse is neither empirically observable,
> scientific facts; he also saw the active expression of mystical     sensible, nor an analytically conceivable specific concept. In
> virtues compatible with an Islamic political agenda. Both he       contrast, it is concerned with topics such as a Gestalt vision of
> and Afghani objected to passive mysticism and attempted to         the unity of being, which places the individual and his
> integrate personal intuition and reflections with societal          experience into a harmonious, unified, connected cosmos,
> praxis. Tabatabai integrated the Shi
a notion of the imam as      where death and birth, knowledge, and ignorance, good and
> an essential mediator figure in a person’s search for his           evil are connected. Let us illustrate this point in the pragmatics
> essence, which leads to knowledge of God. A number of              of the light motif. As Plato uses light symbolism for the sun in
> followers of Tabatabai became part of the group of ayatol-        the allegory of the cave, Aristotle’s depicts the active intellilahs who initiated and carried out the later Islamic revolu-       gence as light, and with Plotinus’s use of the Sun as an image
> tions in the Islamic Republic of Iran, led by the Ayatollah        of the One, it becomes evident that the Sun depicts the
> Khomeini. The praxis of his political vision culminated in a       Divine in its emanating light. The culmination of the “light
> division of government into branches (legislative, executive,      motif” is found in the system of the post–Ibn Sina school of
> and judicial) under the supreme leadership of a jurist who has     philosophy of illumination, founded by Suhrawardi (d. 1119).
> the ultimate power in the state. The new doctrine known as         According to this system, reality may be depicted as a continvalayat-e faqih has important political implications. In fact it   uum of light; the primordial emanatory called the Light of
> establishes the supreme ayatollah jurist as the guardian of the    Lights (depicting the Divine), is part of an eschatological
> state, since he holds the ultimate political power in the          order; last entities are particular bodies, which are also lights.
> government. This interpretation of Islamic theology views          The illumination type of metaphysics overcomes some probthe supreme jurist not as a mere interpreter of archetypal         lems of dualistic ontologies. For example, a mind-body dualism
> 
> 252                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Farrakhan, Louis
> 
> is avoided by depicting mental experiences as enlightenment,       Ibn Sina. The Metaphysica of Avicenna (Ibn Sina). Translated
> and physical entities as particles; thus a single notion, namely      by Parviz Morewedge. New York and London: Columbia
> that of light, can be used in an ontology without breaking            University Press and Routledge Kegan Paul, 1972.
> reality into two incompatible primary terms. Also knowledge        Morewedge, Parviz. “Theology.” In The Oxford Encyclopedia
> as illumination can be used in the context of the incarnation        of Islamic World. Edited by John Esposito. New York and
> (hull) theory of mystical union. For instance, the mystic poet       Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 1995.
> Rumi calls his own master Shams-e Tabrizi, literarily “the         Morewedge, Parviz. The Mystical Philosophy of Ibn Sina.
> Sun of [the City] of/from Tabriz”. The Sufi circular dance            Binghamton, N.Y.: Global Publications, 2001.
> with one hand to the center of the circle, the other extended      Leahman, Oliver, and Morewedge, Parviz. “Islamic Philosoto the sky, depicts an act of imitating the sun and the process      phy, Modern.” In Routledge Encyclopdia of Philosophy. Edited
> of its radiation. In the same tenor, faith is symbolized by          by Edward Craig. London and New York: Routledge, 1998.
> warmth in the heart of the believer, fire as love of the Divine,    Sharif, M. Muhammad. A History of Muslim Philosophy. Wiesand finally the mirror as the prescribed state in which the           baden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1963–1966.
> creature is open to be a witness of the world, which is a
> creation. The theme of the cycle of descent and ascent is also
> Parviz Morewedge
> found in other common sets of icons, such as drowning in the
> sea, a flight of the bird to the heavens, and the like. In sum,
> Islamic epistemologies include but are not limited to the
> standard views of sense perception, conception by analysis         FARRAKHAN, LOUIS (1933– )
> and deduction. The dominance of symbolism in the pragmatic theories of knowledge is due to the emphasis of the          Louis Farrakhan was born Louis Eugene Walcott on 11 May
> Islamic intellectual tradition on mysticism, its ethics of self-   1933 in the Bronx, New York. He attended Winston-Salem
> realization, and its refined delineation of topics like prophecy    Teachers College in North Carolina from 1951 to 1953,
> and various intentional senses of memory, imagination, and         where he majored in English. He joined the Nation of
> communication.                                                     Islam in 1955.
> 
> Conclusion                                                             The Nation of Islam is a community of African Americans
> Philosophical speculations comprise an essential dimension         formed in the 1930s. The community’s spiritual identity is
> of the Islamic intellectual tradition not only in its technical    Islam, and its political identity is black nationalism. Louis
> philosophical corpus, but also in its religious, mystical, and     Farrakhan joined the Nation of Islam because of the message
> literary traditions. It is true that its major framework lies in   of community and the coherence of faith offered by the
> Greek philosophical sources, especially in Aristotle and           community in the face of white American racism and violence
> Plotinus, and that its content derives from Islamic sources        against blacks in the Jim Crow era. After the death in 1975 of
> (the Quran, the tradition or hadith, as well as early theologi-   Elijah Muhammad, the community’s founder and leader for
> ans). However, a number of Muslim philosophers reformu-            over forty years, his son Warithudeen Muhammad changed
> lated the earlier Greek views with novel elements that resemble    the philosophical base from black nationalism to the global
> a number of new trends in Western philosophy. Among                philosophy of Islam. He also enhanced the spiritual identity
> noteworthy views are a metaphysics of intentional processes,       in Islam. This move into orthodox Islam caused a breach in
> the depiction of persons in the language of fields of experi-       the leadership in the Nation of Islam and its collapse. In 1977
> ence, a unified global vision of political philosophy, the          Louis Farrakhan reestablished the Nation of Islam with black
> integration of ethics and metaphysics to form a mystical           nationalism as its philosophy and Islam as its spiritual identity.
> process of dealienation, and the application of philosophical
> analyses to both ethics and metaphysics. The salient features         Between 1953 and 1956 Farrakhan worked as a club singer
> of Islamic philosophy are not only special features that           and musician. He is married to Khadijah (née Betsy Ross),
> differentiate it from other traditions, but they are themes that   with whom he has had nine children. In 1979 Farrakhan
> constitute paradigmatic refinement of philosophical thinking.       established the newspaper The Final Call (whose name is
> derived from the message in the Quran 74:38), and in 1981
> See also Ibn Rushd; Ibn Sina; Kalam; Law; Tasawwuf;                he held the first national convention of the Resurrected
> Wajib al-Wujud.                                                    Nation (a name used briefly to describe the Nation of Islam).
> On Savior’s Day, 26 February 1989, the community that
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                       Farrakhan founded inaugurated the National Center, named
> El-Bizri, Nader. The Quest for Being: Avicenna and Heidegger.      Mosque Maryam in honor of black womanhood, in Chicago.
> Binghamton, N.Y.: Global Publications, 2000.                    During the 1990s Minister Farrakhan was embroiled in a
> Fakhry, Majid. A History of Islamic Philosophy, 2d ed. New         number of controversies: with the American Jewish commu-
> York: Columbia University Press, 1983.                          nity over alleged anti-Semitism, with other Muslims over the
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                      253
> Fasi, Muhammad 
Allal al-
> 
> ideology of the Nation of Islam, and with many others over         BIBLIOGRAPHY
> the black nationalist stance of the Nation of Islam.               Cohen, Amnon. “
Allal al-Fasi: His Contribution Towards
> Morocco’s Independence.” Asian and African Studies 3
> During the 1990s Minister Farrakhan embarked on a
> (1967): 121–164.
> steady program to reestablish the Nation of Islam as an
> African American Sunni Muslim community. This process
> David L. Johnston
> continues today, and the Nation of Islam is recognized as a
> member of the world community of Islam.
> 
> See also American Culture and Islam; Malcolm X;
> Muhammad, Elijah; Nation of Islam; United States,
> FATIMA (C. 605–633)
> Islam in the.
> Fatima (d. 633) was the daughter of the prophet Muhammad
> and Khadija, spouse of Muhammad’s cousin and companion
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> 
Ali b. Abi Talib, and mother of al-Hasan and al-Husayn, the
> Farrakhan, Louis. A Torchlight for America. Chicago: FCN           Prophet’s only male descendants. 
Ali headed the line of the
> Publishing, 1993.                                               Shi
ite imams. Fatima’s genealogical position reveals the
> Muhammad, Elijah. Message to the Blackman in America.              significance attributed to her throughout the Muslim world
> Chicago: Muhammad Mosque of Islam No. 2, 1965.                   and explains the veneration she enjoys.
> 
> Aminah Beverly McCloud             Fatima is said to be the source of blessing (baraka), and is a
> saint, particularly the patron saint of fertility, and is appealed
> to as a mediator between God and humans. Her blessing hand
> is commonly used to protect against the evil eye.
> FASI, MUHAMMAD 
ALLAL AL-
> (1910–1974)                                                            Little is known about the actual figure hidden behind a
> blooming legend that combines the historical with fictional
> 
Allal al-Fasi was a leading figure in the Moroccan indepen-        and mystical elements. Early Islamic literature such as the
> dence movement. From the launching of the new nation, in           Prophet’s biography, historiography, hadith collections, and
> 1956, al-Fasi was also known as president of the influential        exegetical literature do not provide a comprehensive biogra-
> Istiqlal (independence) party. Born to an elite family of          phy of Fatima. However, they present some genealogical and
> Islamic scholars (ulema) in Fez, the religious capital of          biographical cornerstones and occasional events of her life.
> Morocco, al-Fasi studied at the prestigious Islamic university     The date of her birth remains uncertain as well as the date of
> of al-Qarawiyyin, and later joined the protest movement            her marriage to 
Ali b. Abi Talib (622 or 623). Her son Hasan
> against the French and Spanish colonial presence on Moroc-         was born in 624 and Husayn in 626. She also gave birth to two
> can soil. He quickly became one of the most visible national       daughters, Umm Kulthum and Zaynab. The authors agree
> leaders in the pro-independence struggle, and was exiled for       with regard to the year in which she died, although there is no
> nine years by the French to Gabon and Congo-Brazzaville.           clear reference to the month, that is, the exact period of time
> Shortly after his return to Morocco, he chose to leave again,      after her father’s death. Furthermore, we find contradictory
> spending another nine years in Cairo, where he and his party       indications concerning the circumstances of her last hours,
> thought he could best advance the nationalist cause.               her burial at night, and the location of her tomb. Only few
> records deal with historical events she was involved in.
> Author of some twenty books, al-Fasi’s writings fall into
> four categories. The first consists of his reformist, or salafi,         The legend woven about Fatima provides further insights
> works, which focus on the renewal of Islamic law. These            as to her importance as a spiritual personality, both for Sunni
> include al-Naqd al-dhati (1952, Self-criticism), and Maqasid       and Shi
ite Muslims. Hagiographical literature is manifold
> al-shari’a al-islamiyya wa-makarimuha (1964, The objectives        and portrays the Prophet’s daughter as a multifaceted personand ethics of Islamic law). The second category is made up of      ality, appearing in Shi
ite texts as early as the tenth century.
> his political essays on the Islamic socialist positions of the
> Istiqlal party and its support for Morocco’s claim to Mauritania       The Fatima of the legend is given numerous epithets as aland the Spanish Sahara, and includes Manhaj al-istiqlaliyya        Zahra (the Shining one), the Resplendent, or the supreme
> (The method of self-reliance). A third category comprises his      Mary; they all indicate that she represents the female ideal
> writings on the modern history of North Africa, especially         of Islam.
> Morocco, and the fourth consists of his contributions to the
> genre of nationalist poetry.                                          Sunni hagiography emphasized the “orthodox” virtues,
> such as her piety and her rank as the Prophet’s daughter,
> See also Reform: Arab Middle East and North Africa;                whereas Shi
ite sources created a figure of cosmic impor-
> Salafiyya.                                                          tance, the final avenger on the one hand and a luminous,
> 
> 254                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Fedaiyan-e Islam
> 
> celestial being working miracles on the other. Her closeness     more general religious issues, including theology, philosoto the Prophet and the imams is expressed by her belonging       phy, creeds, and 
ibadat (religious obligations or acts of
> to the people of the Prophet’s house, to the five people of the   worship). Traditionally, despite numerous exceptions (parmantle, to the immaculates, and to the people of the ordeal.     ticularly since the eleventh century), the issuer of fatawa,
> termed a mufti—whose authority derives from his knowledge
> Fatima’s first biographers were two European scholars,        of law and tradition—has functioned independently of the
> Henri Lammens and Louis Massignon. Their portraits of the        judicial system, indeed often privately.
> Prophet’s daughter stood in striking contradiction to each
> other. Whereas Lammens’s Fatima is unattractive, of medio-           While court rulings rely on the sifting of evidence and
> cre intelligence, and lacking in significance, Massignon de-      conflicting testimonies, muftis assume the facts presented by
> picts an almost mystical and sublime personality with a          their questioners, which, obviously, can bias the answer.
> religious significance akin to that of the Virgin Mary. Laura     Moreover, a fatwa differs from a court judgment, or qada, not
> Veccia Valieri’s comprehensive study tries to emphasize the      only in its wider potential scope—for instance, although
> fact that historical reality ranges between the two portraits.   
ibadat are essential parts of Islamic law, they transcend the
> Since historical sources are few and sometimes even contra-      jurisdiction of the courts—but also because the qada is
> dictory, the conflict in historical apprehension continues.       binding and enforceable, “performative,” while the fatwa is
> Hagiographical models in the earlier Islamic literature show—    not. Instead, it is “informational,” and, while decisions of
> even in historical literature— that making a clear distinction   shari
a courts usually pertain only to the specific cases they
> between the real person and the legend can be quite difficult.    adjudicate, thus setting no legal precedents, fatawa are very
> often collected, published, and cited in subsequent cases.
> In the course of the Islamic revolution of Iran the legend
> of Fatima enjoyed a considerable renaissance and actualiza-      See also Law; Mufti; Religious Institutions.
> tion as the female role model. She symbolized the committed
> fighter, engaged for the Muslim community and thus became         BIBLIOGRAPHY
> the model in opposition to the Western woman pursuing            Schacht, Joseph. Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence. Oxford,
> only her individual emancipation.                                   U.K., and New York: Clarendon Press, 1979.
> Weiss, Bernard G. The Spirit of Islamic Law. Athens: Univer-
> See also Abu Bakr; 
Ali; Biography and Hagiography;                sity of Georgia Press, 1998.
> Hasan; Husayn; Shi
a: Early; Succession.
> Daniel C. Peterson
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Hermansen, Marcia K. “Fatimeh as a Role Model in the
> Works of Ali Shari‘ati.” In Women and Revolution in Iran.
> Edited by Guity Nashat. Boulder, Colo.: Westview               FEDAIYAN-E ISLAM
> Press, 1983.
> Fedaiyan-e Islam was a Shi
ite fundamentalist group that was
> Klemm, Verena. “Die frühe islamische Erzählung von Fatima
> founded in Iran in 1945 by Sayyed Mujtaba Mir Lauhi
> bint Muhammad: Vom habar zur Legende.” Der Islam 79
> (2002): 47–86.                                                (known as Navvab-e Safavi), a man then in his early twenties,
> with little or no formal Islamic education. Unsettled by the
> Shari
ati, 
Ali. Fatima ist Fatima. Bonn: Embassy of the
> writings of the controversial essayist and historian Ahmad
> Islamic Republic Iran, 1981.
> Kasravi, Safavi masterminded his assassination in March
> Veccia Valieri, Laura. “Fatima.” In Encyclopaedia of Islam.      1946. This was followed by the assassination in November
> Edited by B. Lewis, C. Pellat, and J. Schacht. Leiden:         1949 of 
Abd al-Husayn Hazhir, the influential minister of
> Brill, 1954.
> court, and in March 1951 of prime minister Hajji 
Ali Razmara,
> who opposed the nationalization of the British-owned oil
> Ursula Günther      industry. The Fedaiyan had enlisted the support of the
> activist ayatollah Abu ’l-Qasem Kashani, but failed to win
> over the highest-ranking religious authority in the country,
> Grand Ayatollah Borujerdi.
> FATWA
> The Fedaiyan’s relations with Kashani became strained
> A fatwa (pl. fatawa) is an advisory opinion issued by a recog-   due to the latter’s support for prime minister Mohammad
> nized authority on law and tradition in answer to a specific      Mosaddeq, who assumed power in late April 1951. Refusing
> question. Fatawa can range from single-word responses (e.g.,     to give in to the Fedaiyan’s demands for the establishment of
> “Yes,” “No,” or “Permitted”) to book-length treatises.           shari
a regulations, Mosaddeq detained Safavi in June 1951.
> Although typically focused on legal matters, fatawa also treat   In February 1952, the Fedaiyan’s attempted assassination of
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                255
> Feminism
> 
> Mosaddeq’s key colleague, Husayn Fatimi, left Fatimi se-             and physical danger even in expressing the desire for
> verely injured. By mid-1952 the Fedaiyan had resumed its            equal rights.
> ties with Kashani, who had begun to oppose Mosaddeq. In
> the months preceding the coup of August 1953, which top-                 Whereas one cannot avoid making general comments
> pled Mosaddeq, the Fedaiyan’s antigovernment position led           about Muslim women, it ought to be kept in mind that
> the American and British secret services to count on the             Muslim communities are widespread and diverse, consisting
> group to help oust Mosaddeq. In November 1954 the group’s            of a complex set of interwoven subcultures. For example, the
> failed attempt on the life of prime minister Husayn 
Ala             issues and realities of Saudi Arabian Muslim life, where
> resulted in the execution of Safavi and three of his colleagues.     women must cover their bodies and hair in public, are very
> Despite this crippling blow, affiliates of the group were able        different from those of Indonesian Muslim women, where
> to assassinate another prime minister, Hasan 
Ali Mansur, in         there is currently a female Muslim head of state.
> January 1965.
> A common claim is that pre-Islamic Arabia oppressed
> Based mainly in Tehran, the Fedaiyan largely consisted of       women and Islam liberated them. There is a similar claim
> young men of limited education, lower class origins, and             made today by Islamist movements that Western societies or
> traditional occupations. The group appealed to the resent-           women in non-Muslim cultures in general are oppressed and
> ments of the lower and underclass urban elements; this,              traditional Islam liberates them. One should remember that
> together with its challenge to the ruling elite, enabled it to       spiritual or emotional liberation through Islam is individual
> acquire a significance disproportionate to its size. Ideologi-        and personal and cannot be judged from the outside. But
> cally resembling the al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun (Muslim Broth-            economic, social, and political rights can be gauged by
> erhood) in Egypt, the Fedaiyan espoused a literal reading of        intersubjective criteria and Muslim women lag far behind
> Islamic writings and laws; they abhorred what they consid-           Muslim men in all these areas, especially in Muslim majority
> ered to be decadence resulting from irreligion; they feared          countries. Whether this is due to or despite Islam is open
> modernity, secularism, communism, and civic-nationalism,             to debate.
> and were bent on eliminating those whom they regarded as
> obstacles in their path or stooges of foreigners. Their primary          At the other end of the spectrum from the Islamists, there
> goal was to establish the shari
a, giving a crucial sociopolitical   is a stream of feminist thought that considers Islamic tradirole to clerics. Following the revolution of 1978 and 1979,          tion as irredeemably misogynist and patriarchal. These sentimany of the beliefs that had animated the Fedaiyan became           ments are an echo of those voiced by the women of al-Taif in
> part of the ruling ideology but gradually came to be identified       the seventh century who wailed and protested when the
> with the proclivities of the Iranian regime’s traditionalist and     temple dedicated to the Goddess was destroyed at the inright-wing factions.                                                 struction of prophet Muhammad. Between these two extremes lie a variety of approaches and convictions, both
> See also Fundamentalism; Political Islam.                            defined and undefined, regarding the issue of women and
> Islam. Whereas the Islamists may desire to discredit femi-
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                         nism as a Western ploy, one may posit that neither Islam, nor
> Kazemi, Farhad. “The Fadaiyan-e Islam: Fanaticism, Poli-            feminism as a movement for the full dignity and equality of
> tics and Terror.” In From Nationalism to Revolutionary             women in society, are either Western or Eastern. Feminism
> Islam. Edited by Said Amir Arjomand. Albany: State Uni-            represents a deep human aspiration for a sense of community
> versity of New York Press, 1984.                                   with the world, and Islam, at its core, represents the same
> aspiration for a sense of community both with the human race
> Fakhreddin Azimi        and the realm of the Unseen.
> 
> Most of the literature produced by Muslims in the previous centuries is still in manuscript form waiting to be discov-
> FEMINISM                                                             ered or published. The extent to which women participated
> in the production of the Muslim cultures that they inhabited
> There is a struggle within Islamic societies over the definition
> cannot be determined without access to information that may
> of Islam and the role of women within it. This struggle has
> not have been recorded or that may not have been adequately
> accompanied Muslims throughout their history.
> preserved even if initially recorded. One of the tasks for
> The term “feminism” is controversial. It may conceal a            feminists today is to use the available sources to construct a
> Western attempt at cultural hegemony or it may be labeled as         more accurate picture of women in early Islam, from which
> that by those who oppose women’s rights but would not                they can deduce early Islam’s implications for modern women.
> admit to it. Many Muslim women who may support women’s               This study may entail a wider use of noncanonical texts and
> rights may not choose to identify themselves as feminists. For       sources, as theological canons generally reflect the biases of
> many women there may be a perceived psychological, social,           the male elites.
> 
> 256                                                                                              Islam and the Muslim World
> Feminism
> 
> movements took over the Muslim world women participated
> in them along with men. However, the disillusionment of the
> postcolonial era with its dire economic problems, political
> instabilities, corruption, and military or dynastic dictatorships, as well as covert and overt interference from the superpowers, militated against civil liberties and human rights in
> Muslim countries. Under such conditions Islamist movements gained ascendancy in many of the Muslim countries
> causing women to lose many of the rights that they had
> gained in earlier decades. The loss of women’s human rights
> where religious fundamentalism gained in power is merely an
> indication of the lack of human rights for all in such societies.
> Such a situation has given rise to a spectrum of Muslim
> feminist responses.
> 
> Among Muslim women who had the benefit of higher
> education are feminists who consider Islam to be a matter of
> personal choice that ought not to be “used or abused” for
> political purposes. There are also women feminist scholars
> who are socialist, agnostic, atheist, or Marxist in their orientation. There are scholars who see Islam as a rich and viable
> culture in need of a thorough and yet sympathetic feminist
> critique. There are liberal Muslim theologians writing in the
> politically free Western environment who nonetheless remain apologetic, staying within the prescribed traditional
> approach to the Quran and the sunna.
> Egyptian feminist Nawal Saadawi in her Cairo home in July, 2001,
> a day before an Egyptian court would decide whether to take                 Finally, in the Muslim countries where one sees a mislegal action against her for calling Islam a pagan religion. The case
> matched marriage between feminism and Islamism it is not
> arose because a group of male Islamist lawyers accused Saadawi
> of being an apostate for this statement; if convicted, she would no     clear whether the Islamist Muslim women leaders/preachers
> longer be able to call herself a Muslim and would face compul-          are contributing toward the relative subjugation or relative
> sory divorce from her Muslim husband. The case was finally               liberation of their large female following. The ideological or
> thrown out of court, but not before alarming human rights groups
> worldwide. © REUTERS NEWMEDIA INC./CORBIS                               intellectual differences among Muslim feminist scholars are
> paralleled in the various forms of feminist activism in various
> parts of the Muslim world. In certain areas one finds highly
> In the recent past there has been an urgent attempt to               visible feminist movements, in others only guarded private
> understand the definitive political defeat and colonization of           conversations.
> Muslims at the hands of the Christian West, as this shattered
> the imperial Muslim self-image. Modernist male Muslims                      In general, the area that takes up the attention of most
> forced to study and understand their subjugation, and thus              feminists, whether they work within a traditional Islamic
> feminization, began to name its causes. Some identified the              framework or not, is the implementation of various Islamic
> malaise of the umma (community of believers) as intellectual            laws. Until recently the area of shari
a (Islamic law) that was
> backwardness and lack of dynamism, whereas others identi-               discussed and implemented in most of the Muslim world was
> fied it in falling away from the path of the earliest generations        the Muslim family law covering issues of marriage, divorce,
> of Muslims whose political success was seen to stem from                child custody, and inheritance. In all of these women do not
> their adherence to a certain static conception of Islam. The            have equal status with men. For example, Muslim family laws
> former stream of thought endeavored to study and emulate                and the social consciousness associated with them circumthe West whereas the latter warned of its moral decadence               scribe and constrain women’s lives, and so-called honor
> and sought only to appropriate its material technologies                killings that dishonor the lives of innocent women and the
> of power to regain Muslims’ freedom, dignity, and even                  indiscriminate application of hudud (Islamic criminal) laws
> supremacy.                                                              directly threaten their lives.
> 
> It was from among the reformist modernist male thinkers                  Dishonor killings (an integral feature of all patriarchal
> that the first proponents for the education and rights of                societies) as well as female infanticide (a preemptive dishonor
> Muslim women arose. Women raised in reformist homes                     killing practiced in pre-Islamic Arabia) were outlawed by the
> became the first Muslim feminists. As anticolonial nationalist           prophet Muhammad as evidenced both by texts in the Quran
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                          257
> Fez
> 
> and the sunna. However, the taking of innocent female life in       Ahmed, Leila. Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a
> the name of male honor continues to exist in many Muslim              Modern Debate. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University
> countries with the tacit approval of law enforcement agencies         Press, 1992.
> and clerics, instilling a deep-seated fear of their male family     Barlas, Asma. “Believing Women” in Islam. Unreading Patriarmembers in the hearts of women.                                        chal Interpretations of the Quran. Austin: University of
> Texas Press, 2002.
> More recently, the enforcement of some of the most              Cooke, Miriam. Women Claim Islam. Creating Islamic Femisevere hudud punishments has alarmed a majority of Muslims,           nism Through Literature. New York: Routledge, 2001.
> human rights activists, and feminists internationally. Pseudo-
> Esposito, John. Women in Muslim Family Law. Syracuse,
> liberal Muslims, who in principle do not disagree with an              N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1982.
> informed application of hudud laws, question its implementa-
> Mernissi, Fatima. Beyond the Veil. Male-Female Dynamics in
> tion in the absence of social welfare and economic justice, as is
> Muslim Society (1975). Rev. ed., Syracuse, New York: Al
> the case in some of the areas attempting to implement shari
a         Saqi Books, 1985.
> laws. But these Muslims fail to recognize or address the
> Spellburg, Denise. Politics, Gender and the Islamic Past: The
> significant lack of political, social, and religious freedom for
> Legacy of Aisha bint Abi Bakr. N. Y.: Columbia University
> individuals in such areas to carry out an expression of religion
> Press, 1999.
> that is harsh and lacking in compassion.
> Wadud, Amina. Quran and Women. Rereading the Sacred Text
> In the twentieth century, progressive Muslim scholars             from a Woman’s Perspective. New York: Oxford University
> have come to look at the hadith corpus as a record of the             Press, 1999.
> concerns and understandings of earliest Muslim male communities rather than an authoritative divine guide to all the                                                      Ghazala Anwar
> details of one’s life. Yet they have continued to adhere to an
> understanding of the Quran as the literal word of God. This,
> however, is giving way to a more complex and self-reflective
> reading of the Quran as a vehicle engendering a “theo-             FEZ
> ethics” and aesthetics of mercy and justice as well as a record
> The oldest of Morocco’s four imperial cities, Fez (Ar., Fas) is
> of the Prophetic struggle, both within his own person and
> situated just above the Sefrou valley, at a natural intersection
> with the community of Muslims. The Quran, the primary
> of the commercial routes connecting the Atlantic and Medisymbol of Muslim identity, for the most part has become an
> terranean coasts with the Atlas mountains and the Sahara.
> idol that petrifies the community’s understanding of the
> Fez’s location and water-rich surrounding helped the city
> compassionate will of God in their lives. In an intellectually
> become an important political, religious, and commercial
> and spiritually mature and honest Muslim community the
> center of the medieval Islamic world.
> Quran and its readings would be seen as progressive records
> both of an individual’s and a community’s encounter with, as
> Founded on the east bank of the Wadi Fez in 789 C.E. by
> well as projection unto, the Unseen. Such a Muslim commu-
> Mulay Idris b. 
Abdallah, a descendent of the Prophet who
> nity that understands the good example of the Prophet not in
> had fled from Mecca to Morocco to avoid Abassid persecuterms of any particulars of his life, apparel, and so on, but in
> tion, Fez was expanded onto the west bank by his son, Idris b.
> terms of the ethical values that he struggled to embody at his
> Idris, in 809. Fez grew under the Idrisi dynasty when waves of
> best, shall provide the context within which women and other
> immigrants from southern Spain (Andalusia, or Ar., Algroups targeted for discrimination (simply due to a difference
> Andalus) and northern Africa quickly inhabited both sides of
> in their religion or sexual orientation) will find dignity and
> the city. With the foundation of the Qarawiyyin mosque and
> equitable treatment.
> university in 859 (believed to have been established by a
> wealthy woman from the Tunisian city of Kairouan) and the
> See also Gender.
> Andalusian mosque in 862, Fez became an Islamic capital of
> learning that rivaled Al-Azhar University in Cairo.
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Abou El Fadl, Khaled. Speaking in God’s Name: Islamic Law,             Alternating Fatimid and Umayyad influence over Fez
> Authority and Women. Oxford, U.K.: Oneworld, 2001.                nourished bitter rivalry between the two parts of the city,
> Abu-Lughod, Lila, ed. Remaking Women. Feminism and Moder-           which ensued until they were united by the Almoravid dynity in the Middle East. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univer-       nasty at the end of the eleventh century. Under the Almoravids
> sity Press, 1998.                                                 and the Almohads (who ruled the city from 1145 to 1175) Fez
> Afkhami, Mahnaz, and Friedl, Erika, eds. Muslim Women and           also became an essential military base and was surrounded by
> the Politics of Participation. Implementing the Beijing Plat-    a defensive wall pierced by eight huge gates, which are still
> form. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1997.           functioning today. Fez reached the peak of its political and
> 
> 258                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Fitna
> 
> cultural prosperity under the Marinid dynasty, which con-         Le Tourneau, Roger. Fez in the Age of the Marinides. Norman:
> quered the city in 1248 and made it the capital of Morocco for       Oklahoma University Press, 1961.
> almost three centuries. This period saw the construction of
> numerous prestigious religious colleges in rich Hispano-                                                          Claudia Gazzini
> Moorish style, the finest examples of which are the Al-
> Saffarin and the Al-
Attarin madrasas (Islamic colleges). The
> city became home to the famous Arab traveler Ibn Battuta,
> who composed the memoirs of his journeys across Asia while        FITNA
> living in Fez, where he remained until his death in 1369.
> Although Fez’s political importance waned in the sixteenth        The word fitna (pl. fitan) is used in the Quran to mean both
> century when Marrakesh was preferred as a capital by the          “a temptation that tests the believer’s religious commit-
> Saadi dynasty (1517–1666), it has retained a religious pri-      ments” and “a punishment by trial.” In classical Arabic
> macy throughout the centuries. The treaty of Fez, which           historical texts, it is used primarily to mean “civil war,”
> established the French protectorate in Morocco, was signed        “rebellion that leads to schism,” or “violent factional strife,”
> on 30 March 1912.                                                 but even in historical texts, it bears connotations of “communal test, affliction” and “the temptation to turn upon one’s
> In the twentieth century Fez, whose urban population           fellow Muslims.” In the hadith literature, fitna signifies both
> exceeds 510,000 (1994 census), expanded into four dis-            “strife between Muslims,” and “a trial by which God tests and
> tinct areas:                                                      purifies the believer.” Especially when combined in the
> hadith literature with the words malahim (great battles) or
> 1. The old city (locally referred to as Fez al-Bali),
> ashrat al-sa
a (signs of the [Last] Hour), fitan specifically
> which was declared a world heritage site by the
> indicate apocalyptic schisms and battles predicted to break
> UNESCO in 1981, is characterized by rich alout within the Muslim community before the Last Hour. The
> Andalus architecture, narrow dark alleys crossing
> apocalyptic connotation that the word fitan acquired during
> at irregular patterns, high-walled houses, and trathe first two centuries of Islamic history likely arose partly out
> ditional markets. It treasures the Qarawiyyin
> mosque and university, whose present dimensions            of perceptions that the early civil wars that were cleaving the
> date back to the 1135 Almoravid enlargement.               fledging Islamic community asunder were signs that the
> world was ending, and partly from the propagandistic use of
> 2. The thirteenth-century Fez al-Jedid (New Fez in
> apocalyptic hadiths during those wars.
> Arabic), lying west of the old medina, served as the
> Marinid administrative center and consists of the              Early Islamic history saw a series of fitan, or civil wars,
> Royal Palace with its adjoining Great Mosque, a            unfold in relatively rapid succession. Interspersed between
> Muslim neighborhood, and a formerly vibrant                many smaller uprisings and rebellions, the first three major
> Jewish quarter (the Mellah).                               fitan dominated the historical memory of the early commu-
> 3. The Ville Nouvelle (the New City in French),               nity. The first fitna broke out in 656 C.E.—within twenty-five
> built by the French administration in 1916 to              years of the Prophet’s death—and lasted until 661 C.E. The
> accommodate modern colonial lifestyle, lies on             long second fitna erupted nearly a generation later, in 680
> the southwest plateau and is largely a residential         C.E., and because various rebellions continued to erupt in
> and industrial area.                                       different places, it was a dozen years before Umayyad dynasts
> 4. A new town, which has sprung up since Morocco’s            again consolidated power, in 692 C.E. The third fitna, the
> independence, lies to the northwest.                       Abbasid revolution (747–750 C.E.), successfully overturned
> the Umayyads, bringing to power the new Abbasid dynasty. A
> Fez, which gave its name to the brimless, red felt hat and     fratricidal fourth fitna (which will not be treated here) erupted in
> was its sole producer until the nineteenth century, remains       810 C.E. between two sons of the Abbasid ruler Harun altoday a center of religious learning, traditional crafts, and     Rashid, the brothers al-Amin and al-Mamun, and lasted until
> tourism.                                                          the complete victory of al-Mamun in 814.
> 
> See also Africa, Islam in; Sultanates: Modern.                       Armed strife between Muslims began with complaints
> about oppressive or unjust practices of the third caliph,
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                      
Uthman, and led to that caliph’s assassination by a party of
> Burckhardt, Titus. Fez, City of Islam. Cambridge, U.K.: Islamic   Muslims in 656 C.E. Many Muslims then supported the
> Texts Society, 1992.                                           leadership of 
Ali, the son-in-law and cousin of the Prophet,
> Mezzine, Mohamed, ed. Fès médiévale, entre légende et histoire,   who was chosen to succeed 
Uthman. But troubling questions
> un carrefour de l’Orient à l’apogée d’un rêve. Paris: Edition   about the assassination of 
Uthman harried the caliphate of
> Autrement, 1992.                                                
Ali. Was the assassination of 
Uthman justified, or should the
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                      259
> Fitna
> 
> assassins have been promptly punished? Different religio-          in Shi
ite historical memory, and their deaths are still annupolitical parties formed in response to these questions and        ally mourned in Shi
ite ritual.
> engaged in battles against each other over the correct response (although this was by no means the only issue in-               Several other important Muslims rejected Umayyad rule
> volved). One group supported the leadership of 
Ali, with his      in the years immediately following the death of al-Husayn,
> apparent decision not to punish those who had killed 
Uthman.      including al-Mukhtar, who claimed to represent another son
> Another group, led by the Prophet’s wife 
Aisha and two of        of 
Ali, Ibn al-Hanafiyya, and Ibn al-Zubayr, who represented
> his most important companions, Talha and al-Zubayr, op-            a pious alternative to certain oppressive Umayyad policies.
> posed the leadership of 
Ali and called for the punishment of      Although this fitna ended in 692 C.E. with the Umayyads
> the assassins of 
Uthman. The forces of these two parties met      having regained control, the ideological seeds of the third
> at the Battle of the Camel (656 C.E.) during which 
Ali’s forces   fitna had already been planted. The early Abbasid movement
> routed their opponents, Talha and al-Zubayr were killed, and       that eventually successfully overturned the Umayyads called
> 
Aisha was sent home chastened.                                   for rule by a member of the Prophet’s family, and the earliest
> Abbasids claimed to have inherited their legitimacy from a
> 
Ali’s troubles did not cease with this victory, since a new   descendant of the same man whom al-Mukhtar had earlier
> opponent arose: Mu
awiya, a relative of the slain caliph           claimed to represent, Ibn al-Hanafiya. In terms of political
> 
Uthman, and a seasoned governor of the province of Syria.         ideology, all of the first three major civil wars were thus
> Mu
awiya sent his Syrian forces against 
Ali and his support-      linked, and all involved competing notions of who should rule.
> ers, and the two sides engaged in battle at a village called
> Siffin. The battle of Siffin ended with an agreement to engage           Later Sunni historical works betray some reworking of
> in arbitration. One group of 
Ali’s supporters rejected this       historical accounts aimed at dealing with the vexing question
> agreement, and eventually turned against 
Ali, demanding           of how the Companions of the Prophet and their immediate
> that Muslims adhere to “God’s judgment” alone (manifested          successors, venerated and idealized by Sunnis, could have
> on the battlefield and in Quranic injunctions) rather than         engaged in such violent conflict with each other. The memfallible human judgments exercised in arbitration. This group      ory of these wars and the fracturing of the religious commu-
> (the Kharijites) was defeated by 
Ali’s forces but lived on to     nity were particularly problematic for Sunnis, because the
> challenge both the Umayyad and the early Abbasid dynasties         Quranic verse, “You are the best community that has been
> in later rebellions and depredations.                              raised up for mankind” (3: 110) was widely interpreted as
> referring to the Prophet’s Companions. This presented diffi-
> It was not only the Kharijites who threatened 
Ali’s rule,     culties, since the Sunnis eventually developed the concept
> however. Since the arbitration agreed to at Siffin did not          that all of the Companions, including 
Ali and several of the
> resolve the conflict, the Islamic community became fractured        Companions who fought against him, were to be considered
> for a time into three competing groups: the supporters of 
Ali,    righteous.
> the supporters of Mu
awiya, and the Kharijites. After a
> Kharijite assassin killed 
Ali in 661 C.E., Mu
awiya was eventu-      This series of civil wars—along with many other smaller
> ally recognized as caliph by all but the Kharijites, whose         rebellions—brought up not only issues related to Islamic
> rebellions during Mu
awiya’s firm rule were promptly put            leadership, but other theological issues as well, in part bedown. Thus, although the first fitna came to an end in 661           cause these conflicts over leadership of the community were
> C.E., the issues of the first fitna did not disappear. They would    not understood as mere contests over temporal power, but
> erupt again in the second and third civil wars, to haunt and       rather as struggles to establish righteous Islamic governance.
> eventually undermine the Umayyad dynasty established by            The early Shi
ites deemed 
Ali and his descendants (or, more
> Mu
awiya.                                                          broadly, “the family of the Prophet”) to have had exclusive
> rights to legitimate leadership based on their relationship to
> The sons of several of the leaders involved in the first fitna   the Prophet, their designation by the Prophet as his succesbecame embroiled in the second fitna in 680 C.E.: Al-Husayn,        sors, and their superior knowledge and religious insight. The
> the son of 
Ali and the grandson of the Prophet, rejected the      Kharijites, on the other hand, argued that genealogy played
> caliphate of Mu
awiya’s son Yazid, and set off for the Iraqi       no role in the leadership of the community, which instead
> city of Kufa to gather support for his own bid for the             should be based on pious righteousness and rigorous obsercaliphate. He and a small band of supporters were intercepted      vance of the religious law alone. The Sunni position, as it
> en route from Mecca and cut down by Umayyad forces at              eventually developed, included a requirement that the leader
> Karbala. Al-Husayn was rapidly transformed into a martyr-          be from the Prophet’s tribe, but not necessarily of his family,
> figure among those Muslims who looked to the family of the          and strongly promoted obedience to constituted authorities,
> Prophet to provide just religious and political leadership,        no matter how unjust, so as to prevent the chaos, violence,
> namely, the early Shi
ites. The dramatic story of how al-          and schism engendered by fitna. Issues that arose out of the
> Husayn and his supporters were killed has long loomed large        competing claims made by these groups included, among
> 
> 260                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Fundamentalism
> 
> other issues, the legitimacy of rebellion against unjust or        destruction wrought by intra-communal conflicts in general.
> invalid rulers, predestination and free will, and the question     Although the injunction to obey authorities even when unjust
> of whether or not those who committed grave sins should            and corrupt was strongly expressed in the hadith literature,
> continue to be considered Muslims.                                 some Sunni exegetes and jurists, as Khaled Abou El-Fadl has
> shown, allowed for activist responses to tyranny and oppres-
> The impact that the early fitan had on the Sunni hadith         sion (which also served to justify the actions of 
Ali and others
> literature is manifested in several ways. There are a variety of   in the past.) The Shi
ites, too, developed quietist tendencies
> hadiths that reflect arguments about the relative virtues of        as a result of their successive defeats in their early struggles
> 
Ali on the one hand and the earlier caliphs, Abu Bakr, 
Umar,     for leadership of the community, eventually relegating the
> and 
Uthman on the other. These arguments were linked to           duty to “fill the world with justice as it is now filled with
> competing conceptions of history. In addition, the early civil     injustice” to a descendant of 
Ali who would appear at the End
> wars bequeathed to Islamic eschatology a number of forma-          of Time. Despite the claims of the early Kharijites that
> tive apocalyptic hadiths. Certain hadiths about the figure of       Muslims must be held responsible by other Muslims for their
> the Mahdi, the rightly-guided restorer predicted to usher in a     actions (rather than by God alone), and that rebellion against
> reign of justice before the End Times, can be traced, as           unjust and impious rulers was religiously incumbent upon
> Wilferd Madelung and others have argued, to the second             true Muslims, later moderate Kharijite groups also developed
> fitna. The Sufyani, a mythical heroic figure associated with         quietist doctrines. Thus, the early civil wars and the religious
> the End Times, emerged as part of Umayyad propaganda               schisms that they engendered led to sectarian divisions and
> during that conflict. Finally, the earliest portrayals of the       doctrinal developments that continued to be influential
> figure of the Dajjal (“the Deceiver”), akin to the Christian        throughout Islamic history until today.
> Anti-Christ, predicted to battle the Mahdi in the End Times
> in apocalyptic hadiths, may have been modeled in part upon                                                    Sandra S. Campbell
> another of the participants in the second fitna, al-Mukhtar.
> The Dajjal and the Mahdi are still prominent in Islamic
> eschatological ideas. The third fitna, too, produced numerous
> hadiths extolling the Abbasids, often in the form of apoca-        FOLKLORE, FOLK ISLAM See
> lyptic hadiths aimed at motivating men to fight for the             Vernacular Islam
> Abbasid cause.
> 
> More broadly, the impact of the confusing profusion of
> battles and competing groups associated with the first two
> fitan in particular can be seen in the positive value placed in     FUNDAMENTALISM
> Sunni sources on neutrality or quietism, usually called qu
ud.
> The apocalyptic hadiths found in the canonical sources, as         The term fundamentalism generally describes a religious
> well as in early collections such as those of Nu
aym b.            attitude or organized movement that adheres to most or all of
> Hammad, give a clear sense of the despair engendered by            the following characteristics: a holistic approach to religion,
> fitan that in part led to this Sunni emphasis on qu
ud. One         one that sees religion as a complete moral or legal code,
> such hadith, cited by Nu
aym b. Hammad, predicts that              providing answers for all life’s questions; a tendency toward
> “there will come a time when men will come to graves and roll      literal understanding of scriptures; a belief in a foundational
> on them, as animals roll in the dust, wishing that they could      golden age, when the principles of the faith were perfectly
> be in the graves in place of their occupants—not out of a          applied, and a desire to recreate such a period today; suspicion
> desire to meet God, but because of the fitan they witness.”         and sometimes renunciation of not only people of other
> This aversion to internecine conflict found expression in           faiths, but also supposedly hypocritical adherents of the same
> numerous quietist hadiths attributed to the Prophet, such as       faith; and discomfort with or rejection of many aspects of
> one cited by al-Bukhari: “Whoever dislikes something that          modern, secular societies. The term was coined in the early
> his leader has done, let him be forbearing, for whoever            twentieth century to refer to a Protestant movement in the
> departs even a hand’s span from authority will die the death of    United States that reasserted a literal reading of the Bible in
> a pagan.”                                                          opposition to the new biblical criticism and to such scientific
> theories as evolution, which had gained currency at the time.
> While this quietist position, expressed in credal state-        Because of its Christian origins, many scholars and religious
> ments as well as in hadith, was obviously congenial to the         activists reject its use in other religious contexts. The term is
> political elites, one cannot understand these condemnations        particularly controversial in the Islamic context, where, it is
> of fitna only as tools of domination. Rather, they should be        argued, “Islamic fundamentalism” is used indiscriminately to
> understood as Sunni responses to some of the claims of the         describe all Islamic activists, whether they are radicals or
> Shi
ites and Kharijites, and to the bloodshed, schism, and         moderates, and because it is generally laden with pejorative
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                     261
> Fundamentalism
> 
> meanings, such as obscurantism, dogmatism, sexism, and             organization putatively mirrored the structure of the early
> violence. Many alternatives have been suggested, including         Prophetic community in Medina, but it also resembled the
> “Islamic revivalism,” “political Islam,” or simply “Islamism.”     Sufi orders whose quietism the fundamentalists rejected.
> These terms, however, have the drawback of not allowing
> comparative treatment of a phenomenon common to many                  The ideology of the Jama
at was elaborated primarily
> religious traditions. Namely, from the 1970s to the present        through the prolific writings of Maududi. Al-Banna’s writthere has been an increased social mobilization and political      ings are more limited because of his early death. Sayyid Qutb
> activism on the basis of religion. Moreover, by equating           would become the chief ideologue of the Brotherhood and
> fundamentalism with political Islam, the alternatives dis-         because of Maududi’s influence upon him, the main conduit
> count another ideological strand that has played an important      for propagating Maududi’s ideas in the Arab world.
> role in Islamic revivalism, namely, Islamic modernism. So,
> The fundamentalist worldview is premised on the idea
> for the lack of a satisfactory alternative, “Islamic fundamenthat most societies, including nominally Muslim societies, are
> talism” has been widely adopted in both scholarly and general
> in a state of jahiliyya, or “ignorance,” akin to the jahiliyya that
> parlance.
> prevailed in Arabia before the advent of the prophet Muham-
> Islamic fundamentalism is found today, in varying degrees      mad’s mission. Only a small, committed vanguard of true
> of strength and popular support, in every Muslim-majority          Muslims discern the corrupted state of Muslim affairs and the
> country and in many countries with large Muslim minorities.        proper means to remedy it. Their initial mission is to with-
> Although they do not form a monolithic movement, funda-            draw mentally and even physically, if need be, from the
> mentalists do share certain common features in both their          jahiliyya in order to inculcate truly Islamic values within
> ideology and their organization. The similarities derive from      themselves and their organization. This hijra, or “flight,” is
> the fact that most contemporary Islamic fundamentalist groups      the first type of jihad that they must wage. On the instructions
> trace their origins to two organizations, the Muslim Brother-      of the leader, the Muslim vanguard must transform their
> hood in the Arab countries and the Jama
at-e Islami in the         inner jihad into an outer jihad aimed at overthrowing the un-
> Indian subcontinent. Both emerged during the 1930s and             Islamic order and correcting societal ills. The details of an
> 1940s as responses to the problems confronting Muslims             authentic Islamic political system are left vaguely defined in
> under British imperialism and to the perceived conformism          most fundamentalist writings. The basic principle of such an
> of secular or modernist Muslim elites to European ideas and        order, however, is declared to be hakimiyyat Allah, or the
> institutions. Thus, twentieth-century Islamic fundamental-         “sovereignty of God.” This requires the application of divine
> ism is in many ways a modern phenomenon, a product of both         law, or shari
a, in all its dimensions. The fundamentalists
> foreign and indigenous influences. Yet, it is also the latest       generally do not feel bound to any one school or to the entire
> manifestation of a long tradition of reform and revival move-      corpus of classical jurisprudence that defined shari
a. They
> ments within Islamic culture. Fundamentalist ideologues            feel empowered to perform ijtihad, that is, to derive law
> often quote the Hanbali jurist Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328) to           themselves through their own reading of the Quran and
> provide a classical sanction for their ideas. Similarly, Hanbali   sunna. Compared to the modernists, who also claim the right
> influences are evident in the Wahhabi fundamentalist move-          to ijtihad, the fundamentalist reading of scriptural sources is
> ment of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century,          far more literal and conservative.
> which had a profound, conservative impact, not only in the
> Middle East but also in India and Africa. A more direct                Both Qutb and Maududi castigated those Muslims who
> forerunner of contemporary fundamentalism was the Salafiyya         renounced forceful means in the jihad to establish an Islamic
> movement led by Jamal al-Din Afghani, Muhammad 
Abduh,             order. Qutb was executed for his views and the Muslim
> and Rashid Rida in the late nineteenth and early twentieth         Brotherhood after his death officially renounced revolutioncentury. The more liberal spirit of Afghani and 
Abduh             ary violence against the Egyptian state. The Jama
at under
> animated Islamic modernism, while the more conservative            Maududi was always a loyal opposition party within Pakistani
> approach of Rida hints at the conservative backlash against        politics. During the late 1970s, inspired in part by the Islamic
> modernism that moved Hasan al-Banna to found the Muslim           revolution in Iran, splinter groups consisting of a younger
> Brotherhood and Abu l-A
la Maududi to create the Jama
at-         generation of activists broke off from the two older parties to
> e Islami.                                                          form new, much more violent groups. One of these groups,
> Islamic Jihad, assassinated Anwar Sadat in October 1981.
> Both the Brotherhood and the Jama
at were organized by          Other spin-offs are at the forefront of violent struggles in
> local chapters, into which members were initiated only after       such diverse parts of the Muslim world as Algeria, Palestine,
> they had been tested for their conviction, piety, and obedi-       Afghanistan, Kashmir, and Indonesia. It should be noted,
> ence. The local cells answered to a central coordinating           though, that one of the most widespread and important
> committee. The head of the organization was the murshid            fundamentalist organizations, the Tablighi Jama
at, is not
> (guide) or emir (leader), who was assisted by the majlis al-       only nonviolent in its tactics, it generally eschews politics
> shura, an advisory council of senior members. Thus, the            altogether.
> 
> 262                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Futuwwa
> 
> Shi
ite fundamentalism differs from Sunni fundamental-         Nishapur who adhered to an ascetic way of life, as groups of
> ism in a few particulars, mainly in the greater millenarian        well-to-do fityan who lived apart from society and enjoyed
> emphasis that results from Shi
ite expectations of the return      each other’s company. Some, when traveling to a new town,
> of the Hidden Imam, the greater emphasis upon shahada, or          looked to men’s organizations for musical entertainment,
> “martyrdom” in jihad, and the theory of the direct rule of the     drinking, and self-indulgence.
> Shi
ite religious scholars as enunciated by Ruhollah Khomeini
> Generally, however, during the periods of intermittent
> in the doctrine of velayat-e faqih. Yet, in most other ideologianarchy and competition for political power that charactercal aspects and in organization, Shi
ite fundamentalist groups
> ized the Fertile Crescent from the ninth through the twelfth
> can hardly be distinguished from Sunni groups. Greater
> centuries, these societies were active in the cities, some
> interaction and mutual influences are evident, for example, in
> forming paramilitary groups in Baghdad. Some of these
> the upsurge in suicide attacks by Sunni groups, a tactic
> groups included fityan and 
ayyarun, often defined as vagapioneered by the Shi
ite Hizb Allah in Lebanon.
> bonds, who, at times, fought with the political regime, at
> See also 
Abduh, Muhammad; Afghani, Jamal al-Din;                  other times defended local autonomy against the military
> invader, and frequently terrorized, plundered, harassed, and
> Banna, Hasan al-; Ghazali, Muhammad al-; Ghazali,
> extorted the wealthy. In Syria, similar groups called ahdath
> Zaynab al-; Ibn Taymiyya; Ikhwan al-Muslimin;
> formed urban militias and were used by important notable
> Jama
at-e Islami; Khomeini, Ruhollah; Maududi, Abu
> families for political purposes: as hired toughs to fight against
> l-A
la; Political Islam; Qutb, Sayyid; Rida, Rashid;
> each other or the regime in power.
> Salafiyya; Tablighi Jama
at; Velayat-e Faqih;
> Wahhabiyya.                                                            Historians have disagreed about the origins and nature of
> these groups. Some see their antecedents in earlier versions of
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                       men’s groups that existed in the Middle East such as Byzan-
> Choueiri, Youssef M. Islamic Fundamentalism. Boston:               tine circus factions that originated in the Roman Empire or
> Twayne, 1990.                                                    the Sassanid Persian fraternities ( javanmardi), whose wrestling devotees met at the “House of Strength” (zurkhaneh) in
> Euben, Roxanne L. Enemy in the Mirror: Islamic Fundamentala master-novitiate relationship. Others look to their relation
> ism and the Limits of Modern Rationalism. Princeton, N.J.:
> Princeton University Press, 1999.                                to Sufi orders or guilds of artisans.
> 
> Marty, Martin E., and Appleby, R. Scott, eds. Fundamentalism          By the twelfth century, chroniclers tell of the existence of
> Project. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991.             futuwwa organizations in the Fertile Crescent that were
> Roy, Olivier. The Failure of Political Islam. Translated by        distinctly men’s clubs. Some were paramilitary organizations
> Carol Volk. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University                 or youth gangs. Some were clubs devoted to sports such as
> Press, 1994.                                                     crossbow shooting, wrestling, and training homing pigeons
> Sivan, Emmanuel. Radical Islam. New Haven, Conn.: Yale             while some were mutual aid organizations. Members could
> University Press, 1985.                                         include Muslims and non-Muslims. There were artisans and
> workers, but also the lower class or the marginalized—
> Sohail H. Hashmi       eunuchs and slaves. Women, tax collectors, wine merchants,
> fortune-tellers, magicians, diviners, astrologers, astronomers,
> and perpetrators and accomplices of any serious crime were
> excluded. There were members who practiced celibacy while
> FUTUWWA                                                            some married; often groups lived together in futuwwa
> clubhouses or ate in a common mess hall.
> The term futuwwa refers to organized groups of youth                   Taking different forms in various locations, they neveradhering to a code of honor who devoted themselves to              theless had common characteristics that set them apart from
> manly, noble virtues. By the twelfth century, futuwwa organi-      the rest of Muslim society. They wore special clothing and
> zations appeared throughout the Fertile Crescent and Iran as       were invested with their futuwwa trousers and belt of honor
> organized entities with elaborate rituals and initiation rites.    (libas al-futuwwa) during an initiation ceremony when they
> drank the futuwwa drink, a cup of salted water. The members
> Derived from the Arabic word for youth (fata, pl. fityan),
> were supposed to adhere to the futuwwa code of honor:
> futuwwa groups are mentioned in texts related to Sufi orders;
> generosity, solidarity, courage, and hospitality toward those
> they existed in Transoxiana and Khorasan and as akhis              in their group, the last a virtue not necessarily applicable
> (brotherhoods) in Turkic areas, where they sometimes ap-           toward society at large.
> peared as paramilitary fighters and had connections with
> artisan guilds. During the eighth through tenth centuries,            Futuwwa groups were urban, consisting of groups of youth
> individuals were referred to, such as Nuh al-
Ayyar, a fata of     probably not large in number who formed associations. Some
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                    263
> Futuwwa
> 
> lived apart in special clubhouses, with novices under the                The new regulations bound by tradition were legitimized
> supervision of and discipline of superiors. Each clubhouse           by 
Umar al-Suhrawardi (1145–1234), al-Nasir’s confidant
> (bayt) was distinguished from the others by a particular belief      and founder of pragmatic Sufi orders, and by Ibn al-Mi
mar
> or opinion and there was often animosity between groups.             (d. 1248) whose Kitab al-Futuwwa was written to provide all
> Houses were subdivided into parties (hizb, pl. azhab), each          those interested with information about futuwwa, noting that
> under the supervision of an elder (kabir) with whom the              futuwwa was incorporated in the shari
a, and that only a true
> members had a mutual bond. Members or companions (sing.              believer can be a fata. Futuwwa advocates linked futuwwa
> rafiq) drank to the honor of the kabir who supervised their           ideals with pre-Islamic poetry, the Quran, and the hadith.
> behavior and adjudicated disputes. If companions disagreed           Often cited, these refer to the generosity of Hatim al-Tai;
> the trust in God by the young men in the cave and Ibrahim’s
> with the kabir, they could move to another house but not
> rejection of idolatry (Quran 18:10 and 21:60); and a tradition
> change elders within the same club to avoid dissension in
> about 
Ali as the heroic fata exemplar: “There is no sword but
> the bayt.
> Dhu al-Fiqar [
Ali’s sword] and no fata but 
Ali.”
> 
> In this evolving, mobile world, futuwwa orders provided a             By the late medieval period, futuwwa groups, guilds, and
> niche for men without social status or genealogical prestige.        Sufi orders had become interwoven through institutionaliza-
> With their emphasis on personal qualities as a standard for          tion, membership, and adaptation of geneology, rites, and
> nobility instead of Arab tribal kinship, religious lineage, or       ritual. In modern times, futuwwa has denoted such organizamilitary prestige, futuwwa organizations provided marginal           tions as the Iraqi paramilitary youth organization of the late
> men with social links that crossed class and religious boundaries.   1930s and protectors of Cairo neighborhoods. The javanmardi
> of Iran maintain the religious and social connections closest
> As part of his program to revitalize the Abbasid caliphate,      to the medieval prototype.
> in the face of military threats and competition for leadership,
> See also Youth Movements.
> Caliph al-Nasir li-Din Allah (1181–1223) used the futuwwa as
> a mechanism to instill loyalty to the caliph. He became a
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> member of a futuwwa group in Baghdad and in 1207 declared
> Arnakis, G. G. “Futuwwa Traditions in the Ottoman Empire:
> himself head of all futuwwa organizations in Baghdad and
> Akhis, Bektashi Dervishes and Craftsmen.” Journal of
> throughout the Islamic world. Creating an elitist, courtly             Near Eastern Studies (1970): 28–50.
> version of futuwwa with privilege, he forbade pigeon raising         Cahen, Claude, and Taeschner, F. “Futuwwa.” In Vol. 2,
> and crossbow shooting except under his auspices, and issued            Encyclopedia of Islam. Edited by B. Lewis, Ch. Pellat, and J.
> decrees setting proper behavior for members. As the head of            Schacht. Leiden: Brill, 1965.
> futuwwa, al-Nasir used the society and its codes of behavior to      Floor, Willem. “Guilds and Futuvvat in Iran.” Deutsche
> reduce endemic conflict in Baghdad; and, after initiating                morgenlandischen Gesellschaft Zeitschrift 134 (1984): 107–114.
> neighboring rulers into the order, to create diplomatic bonds
> between local dynasties and himself.                                                                           Reeva Spector Simon
> 
> 264                                                                                              Islam and the Muslim World
> G
> GASPRINSKII, ISMA
IL BAY                                                   Isma
il Gasprinskii also championed women’s rights and
> the importance of education for Muslim women. In one of his
> (1851–1914)
> important journals, Alem-i Nisvan (Women’s world), which
> he began publishing with his daughter Sefika Hanim in 1906,
> Isma
il Gasprinskii (Gaspirali), a leading intellectual in the          he consistently argued that society could only reach a high
> Turkic world, was born in Bahcesaray, Crimea, on 8 March                level of civilization if women were also educated.
> 1851 and died in the same city on 11 September 1914. He
> received his early education in his hometown and later                  See also Education; Feminism.
> attended the Gymnasium in Akmescit (Simferepol). After
> graduating from the Military Academy in Moscow in 1867,                 BIBLIOGRAPHY
> he briefly served in the Ottoman army, and then subsequently             Bennigsen, Alexandre A. Ismail Bey Gasprinski (Gaspiraly) and
> taught at various Muslim schools in Russia. It was the latter             Origins of the Jadid Movement in Russia. Oxford, U.K.: The
> experience that made him realize the necessity of educational             Society of Central Asian Studies, 1985.
> reforms for Russian Muslims to achieve social and economic
> progress.                                                                                                             A. Uner Turgay
> 
> From 1883 on, when he established the newspaper
> Tercuman (Interpreter), Gasprinskii advocated reforms in
> curriculum and teaching methods, with an emphasis on                    GENDER
> advancing the abilities of students in reading, writing, and
> arithmetic. In his view, religion was to be taught as culture           To speak of gender is necessarily to make a distinction
> and for spiritual revival. He believed that many of the ills of         between sex and gender. While sex is the biologically defined
> Muslim societies could be cured by an improved new educa-               capacity of the human body, gender connotes the social
> tional system (Usul-i Cedid).                                           significance attached to members of a particular sex. Gender
> is, therefore, a human construction that nevertheless draws
> At the First and Second Congresses of the Union of                  upon divinely inspired texts, social and cultural conventions,
> Russian Muslims in 1905 and 1906, held in Nizhni Novgorod               and biological capacities to define its role in public and
> private life and societal institutions.
> and St. Petersburg, respectively, Isma
il Gasprinskii’s ideas
> on educational reforms and politics received close attention.           Gender-Related Verses in the Quran
> In 1907 he helped found Ittifak-i Muslumanlar (Union of                 In the Quran, which is regarded as divine revelation by
> Muslims) urging not political but linguistic and cultural unity         Muslims, female life is considered intrinsically valuable (Q.
> among the Muslim Turkic peoples of Russia. During the                   81:9). The creation of the female is attributed, along with that
> following decade, voicing his motto of “Unity in language,              of the male, to a single soul (4:1) from which the other is
> thought and action,” he traveled to Istanbul, Cairo, and India          created as its mate (4:1). Another verse declares: “Allah
> urging educational and social reforms in the Islamic world.             created you from dust, then from a little fluid, then He made
> Despite opposition from existing traditional Muslim educa-              you pairs” (35: 11). These verses have been interpreted as
> tors, by the time of Gasprinskii’s death, around five thousand           granting both sexes equality from the perspective of origin
> Usul-i Cedid schools had been established.                              and spiritual status. Although the Quranic texts do not
> 
> Gender
> 
> specify which sex is the primary creation, some argue that the      an arbiter from each one’s kinsfolk should be appointed to
> feminine form of the noun “soul” (nafs) in Quran 4:1 could         attempt a reconciliation (4:35). According to the Quran, a
> be read to suggest that the female was created first. Unlike the     man who forswears his wife must wait four months (2:226)
> account found in the second book of Genesis, the Quran             during which time he may change his mind; however, if
> does not make the creation of the female derivative from the        divorce is determined as a course of action, then the woman
> male or for the purpose of the male. However, such a view           must wait a term of three menses to ensure that she is not
> enters the Islamic interpretive framework through various           impregnated; if the wife is found to be pregnant it is recomsources, chiefly through the writings of the very earliest           mended that the husband take her back as his wife (2:227).
> commentators on the Quran, as detailed in Barbara Stowasser’s      Should divorce proceed in such an instance, the wife is
> excellent study.                                                    entitled to support from the husband until she gives birth
> (65:4), and, if mutually agreeable, while she nurses (65:6). A
> With respect to morality and spirituality, men and women        woman may be divorced no more than twice by the same
> are equally accountable to God for their actions and for their      husband in order to be retained; after the third time, she may
> religious beliefs and responsibilities (33:35), and in this re-     not be taken back unless she has married another man in the
> gard, the Quran holds an egalitarian vision, as has been           meantime. In cases where a man chooses to divorce a pregpointed out by Leila Ahmed. In the social sphere, women are         nant wife, the Quran urges the man to release her with honor
> entitled to inherit (4:7) half the portions received by men         only after the birth of the child. Additionally, the husband
> (4:11), two women’s testimonies count in weight to that of a        must not obstruct her remarriage if there has been a mutual
> single male’s (2:282), and men are placed in charge of women        agreement based on kindness. Furthermore, upon divorce,
> because they excel over them and are financially responsible         nothing that has been given to the woman can be taken back
> for them (4:34). Women must remain monogamous, al-                  (2:229–232). Widows may choose their own course of action
> though nowhere is this specified in the Quran but rather is         regarding remarriage after a waiting period of four months
> implied in the injunction that “all married women” are              and ten days (2:234). A married man who is about to die
> forbidden to men (4:24). Men are permitted as many as four          should make provisions for his wife or wives for a period of
> wives on the condition that each wife be treated equally, with      one year, including a provision for housing, unless the wife or
> the additional caveat that if a man cannot provide for four he      wives choose to leave of their own accord prior to his death
> should marry only one. He may also possess as many concu-           (2:240).
> bines as he can afford (“their right hand may possess”) (4:3).
> Verse 3:129 further declares that “You will not be able to deal        Women should suckle their children for two years unless
> equally between [your] wives, however much you wish [to do          both parents mutually agree to wean the child earlier, and the
> so],” suggesting to some Muslims that the Quran preferred          father is charged with the duty of feeding and clothing the
> monogamy as the marital state, but in keeping with the              nursing mother appropriately. The child may also be given
> customs of the time allowed polygamy. Men may marry any             out to a wet nurse, provided the nurse is adequately compenof the women of the ahl al-kitab (“people of the Book”) (5:5)       sated (2:233).
> whereas women may marry only Muslim men (this being a
> traditional stipulation rather than a Quranic injunction).             In matters of dress and comportment, both men and
> Marriage to idolatresses is forbidden (2:221), as is marriage to    women are enjoined “to lower their gaze and be modest”
> one’s father’s wives (4:22), one’s mother, daughters, sisters,      (24:30–31); however, in addition women are asked to draw
> father’s sisters, mother’s sisters, brother’s daughters, sister’s   their veils (khumur) over their bosoms, and only reveal of
> daughters, foster-mothers, foster-sisters, mothers-in-law,          their adornment (
awra, lit. pudendum) that which is manistepdaughters born of women with whom one has had conju-            fest, and reveal their adornment only to a specified list of
> gal relations, the wives of blood-sons, and two sisters from the    close relatives with whom marriage is disallowed (mahram),
> same family (4:23) as well as all married women except slaves       eunuchs, and children not yet conscious of women’s nakedalready owned (4:24). Marriage with former wives of adopted         ness. Similarly, women should not stamp their feet in such a
> sons is permitted (33:37). Women with whom marriages have           manner that might reveal their adornments by drawing attennot yet been consummated may be divorced, and should a              tion to their bodies (24:31). Testimony against women acmarriage portion have been promised, half of that must be           cused of lewdness must be brought by four witnesses, and if
> paid unless the woman—who is encouraged to do so as a               the charge is proved, the woman must be confined to her
> pious act—is willing to give it up (235–237).                       house until her death or until God provides new legislation
> (4:15). Those accused of adultery, including the adulterer and
> Conjugal relations are forbidden with menstruating women         the adulteress, are subject to a punishment consisting of one
> (2:222); otherwise, conjugal relations are permitted at will        hundred lashes (24:2).
> (2:223). Disobedient wives are subject to a graduated set of
> measures ranging from admonishment to beating, depending               Special sanctions are placed upon the wives of the Prophet:
> on how the term darraba (admonish, strike) is interpreted           the punishment for lewdness is doubled compared to other
> (4:34). Should a conflict arise between a married couple, then       women (33:30), as is the reward for surrendering to God and
> 
> 266                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Gender
> 
> may be recognized as Muslims and not be harassed (33:59).
> Women past childbearing age with no hope of marriage may
> discard such outer clothing, provided they do not reveal their
> adornments, though it is better for them to retain such
> coverings (24: 60).
> 
> The Quran views women as human beings who are
> creations of God and are vouchsafed full ontological equality
> with men. With regard to their moral agency, women are not
> subordinate to men and, like men, they are called upon to
> surrender to God and the Prophet and embark upon a path of
> righteousness for which they will be justly rewarded.
> 
> In the social sphere, the Quran protects and safeguards
> women’s right to life, inheritance, legal recognition, dowry,
> upkeep, child support after divorce, protection from male
> voyeurism, and safety while in public. These considerations
> are laudable given the seventh-century context into which the
> Quran was revealed. As previously stated, restrictions are,
> however, placed on the portion women may inherit (4:11)
> and on the weight of their legal testimony. The Quran’s least
> egalitarian verse is to be found in 4:34, which declares: “Men
> are in charge of women, because Allah hath made the one of
> them to excel the other, and because they spend of their
> property [for the support of women]. So good women are the
> obedient.” Traditionally, this verse has been interpreted as
> granting to men authority over women, as well as advocating
> a social division of labor, suggesting that it is men’s responsibility to support women (and hence, that women need not
> work but rather should tend the affairs of the hearth). Many
> In Jakarta, Indonesia, Muslim women use fountain waters to make       Muslims, women included, believe that the Quran’s objectheir ablutions before praying. The role of women in Muslim countries varies tremendously: Indonesia has a woman president as of      tive with regard women is to vouchsafe their rights as they
> 2003, yet in some countries women are required to cover their hair.   apply to the economic and legal spheres, especially during
> © AFP/CORBIS                                                          childbearing and child-rearing years. With regard to dress
> codes, there do not appear to be any specific Quranic
> guidelines for male dress, although both men and women are
> the Prophet and engaging in righteousness (33:31); they are           called to observe modesty, a term that could include dress as
> declared not to be “like any other women” and cautioned to            well as behavior. Quran 34:59 asks the Prophet to “Tell thy
> keep their speech customary, not soft, lest it causes another’s       wives and thy daughters and women of the believers to draw
> desire (33:32). They are commanded to stay in their houses            their cloaks (jilbab) close around them [when they go out].
> (33:33) and abstain from ornamentation, as was the case in the        That will be better, that they may be recognized and not
> days before Islam. The Prophet’s wives should pray regularly,         annoyed.” The Quran’s concern here clearly is to protect
> engage in charity, and obey God and his messenger (33:33),            women from the male gaze, especially harassment from the
> keeping in mind the revelations of God and wisdom (33:34).            “hypocrites” or religious backsliders (munafiqun), thereby
> Conversation with the wives of the Prophet is to be con-              tacitly suggesting that women are vulnerable to impropriety
> ducted from behind a curtain (hijab) and visits to the Prophet’s      on the part of males and that males posed a significant threat
> household are to occur upon invitation, with the guests               to women’s safety in that era. In all of these stipulations, the
> departing after the meal is ended. The Prophet’s wives may            Quran’s spirit of affording protections and rights to women
> not remarry after his death (33: 53). They may converse freely        illustrates that it is a sacred document in support of women.
> only with a stipulated set of males: fathers, sons, brothers,
> nephews, the sons of their female slaves, or their male slaves        Sources for Gender Construction
> (33:55).                                                              Should the Quran be construed as a patriarchal text? Later
> Muslim theology developed the notion that the Quran, as a
> Further, the wives of the Prophet, his daughters, and the        body of revelation, is eternal and a copy of a heavenly
> women of the believers are enjoined to “draw their cloaks”            prototype, that is, it is eternally valid in all its aspects. The
> (jilbab) close around them while going out in order that they         Egyptian shaykh Muhammad 
Abduh (d. 1905) argued that
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                        267
> Gender
> 
> while all Quranic injunctions pertaining to 
ibadat (worship          understood and utilized as a basis for social organization
> or ritual acts) were eternally valid and binding on Muslims,           adopted the essentialized notions pertaining to the female
> other Quranic injunctions, such as those pertaining to maslaha        gender that were well established as part of the patriarchal
> or societal well-being, were valid within the context in which         norms of the conquered societies. Further, key social instituthey were revealed. Hence, Muslims must assume responsi-               tions such as the legal regimes that would govern Muslim
> bility for following the intention, and not necessarily the            societies were inscribed with gendered markings consonant
> letter, of the Quran in matters pertaining to societal well-          with the cultural practices of the conquered societies combeing. Some modern scholars, such as Amina Wadud-Muhsin,               prising the Muslim empire. To illustrate, while nowhere in
> have also argued that the social aspects of the Quran should          the Quran is Adam’s partner named or identified as having
> be viewed in a historical and cultural context. From this              proceeded from the male, for the purpose or in service of the
> perspective, pronouncements that were received and intelli-            male, biblical antecedents of the derivative and service-oriented
> gible to the patriarchal milieu of an earlier period must be           origin of the female from the rib of the male enter the Islamic
> reviewed in light of present-day social arrangements and thus          interpretive frame through biblical lore, most likely through
> reinterpreted.                                                         the qisas al-anbiya literature, thereby ensuring for the Muslim
> female a subordinate role in society. To be sure, the Muslim
> Historians such as Leila Ahmed have convincingly shown
> interpreters granted greater weight to the subordinate acthat Islam did not invent patriarchy; rather, it was a form of
> count found in Genesis 2:21 than to the more equitable
> social organization well established in the Mesopotamian,
> account found in Genesis 1:27, but they did so in a social and
> Greek, Iranian, and Byzantine spheres of influence that
> intellectual context in which such a view was favored within
> Muslims encountered during the first century of Islam. Thus,
> their subject peoples. The subordinate role, with respect to
> the key discourses generated in the classical period of Islamic
> the essential nature of the female, however, was firmly lodged
> civilization (from the seventh century to 1250 C.E.) took place
> through the Muslim appropriation of the biblical notion that
> within a patriarchal frame of reference. Indeed, Eleanor
> the female, unnamed in the Quran but named Hawwa by
> Doumato has argued that much of the legislation derived
> Muslim tradition, was ultimately responsible for the fall of
> from the Quran and other sources was consistent with the
> the male, Adam, from the paradisiacal garden as a consecontemporary Jewish and Christian legal praxis.
> quence of her seduction by Iblis, the Arabic equivalent of the
> There are several strands of literature during the first            devil, or Satan. Such moral frailty on the part of the female is
> three centuries of Islamic self-definition that are critical to         attributed by Muslim commentators variously to her weak
> the formation and articulation of gender constructs. These             intelligence, her willful disobedience, or to her sexually
> include the qisas al-anbiya; the asbab al-nuzul; the hadith; the      heightened powers of seduction, and punishments similar to
> tafsir; and the fiqh. The qisas al-anbiya, literally the “stories of   those meted to the biblical female sex are attached to the
> the prophets,” was one of the pathways through which                   Muslim female. All this despite the many occasions in the
> Biblical lore entered the Islamic realm of discourse, through          Quran where either both the primordial couple together or
> which Muslims in general—bearing in mind that many Mus-                Adam explicitly are named as responsible for the act of
> lims were converts from Judaism or Christianity—gained an              disobedience, and where no punishment save expulsion from
> intimate familiarity with Biblical figures and stories. The             the beatific state enjoyed in the garden is visited upon the
> asbab al-nuzul, literally the “context of the revelation,” was a       couple; indeed the primordial couple is assured of God’s
> genre imbedded within many tafasir (commentaries) on the               guidance, with the pledge that “whoever follows My guidance
> Quran, seeking to explain the reasons for a particular revela-        shall have no fear, nor shall they grieve” (2:38).
> tion, reasons that were orally transmitted until such time as
> the Quranic commentators sought to incorporate them                       Having appropriated and elaborated upon the Biblical
> within their commentaries. The hadith (tradition literature),          Eve in order to establish women’s essential nature as morally
> which recalled narratives of the Prophet’s thoughts and                frail, seductively powerful in order to create moral and social
> deeds, was also orally transmitted through succeeding gen-             chaos, and eternally punishable, the Quranic commentators
> erations until hadith collectors such as al-Bukhari (d. 869 C.E.)      continued their implicit project of gender construction through
> and others sought them out, collated them, checked them for            their interpretations of the female figures mentioned in the
> accuracy using various methods, and combined them to form              Quran, whether Biblical, pre-Islamic, or Muslim (such as the
> canonical collections in the ninth and tenth centuries. Finally,       wives of the Prophet). In this project, they were aided by the
> the fiqh (jurisprudence) drew upon various sources, including           bodies of discourse also being produced at that time and by
> primarily the Quran, the hadith, 
urf or local custom, and            the social and institutional arrangements already in place in
> juridical reasoning (variously ray, qiyas, ijtihad, ijma
), to        Arabia and in the conquered territories. Included in these
> formulate the legal regimes adopted by Muslim rulers. It is in         discourses are the asbab al-nuzul literature that “rememthese bodies of literature that extra-Quranic features of the         bered” the context in which a verse was revealed; the qisas alsocial construction of gender are largely located. For in-             anbiya literature that glorified the lives and acts of prior
> stance, the interpretive lens through which the Quran was             biblical figures; and the isra’illiyat literature that comprised
> 
> 268                                                                                                Islam and the Muslim World
> Gender
> 
> the narratives deemed biblical lore. These discourses served       impediment when Muslim women agitate for inclusion in the
> both to illuminate and reinforce the contemporaneous un-           political process or in political leadership.
> derstanding of the role of God’s prophets and their concomitant social arrangements as divinely ordained rather than as           The legal regimes developed over the course of this
> an ever-dynamic result of historical factors, and played a         formative period, from the eighth to the tenth centuries,
> significant role in directing the attitude toward the female        again reflect a patriarchally informed lens that led to a greater
> gender in the construction of the emerging legal regimes           weighting of the socially restrictive verses in the Quran over
> between the first century after the Prophet’s passing and the       the morally equitable verses also found in the Quran. Thus,
> third century (eighth to tenth centuries of the common era).       for instance, the legal formulators found it far more important to lay down the rules under which polygamy was to be
> Stowasser suggests that the Quranic commentators inter-       practiced than heeding the Quranic suggestion that God was
> preted the references to biblical figures mentioned in the          aware that men would not be able to deal justly with more
> Quran as paradigmatic for women’s behavior. Thus, the             than one wife. The discrepancies with respect to gender
> story of Joseph and Zulaykha was seen to be reflective of the       issues between the various Sunni legal schools, and between
> social chaos (fitna) engendered by a woman, and the story of        the Sunni and the Shi
ite legal schools, suggest, at the very
> Moses’s future brides was considered paradigmatic for female       least, that jurists exercised their discretionary interpretive
> conduct in the presence of males (work only if there is no         skills in addressing issues of gender, thereby belying the
> other male to do so; walk behind the male, remain bashful and      notion that the legal regime is divinely ordained, eternally
> shy in his presence). Ironically, the cumulative effect of such    valid, and therefore immutable. The jurists also saw fit to
> discourse was to define the male in relation to and by contrast     inscribe legal codes with concurrent views of gender, thus, for
> to the female, and thus, as argued by Abu-Odin, was far more       instance, although the Quran says nothing about the validity
> relevant to the construction of male gender than, as might         of ritual prayer as predicated on proximity to women, a legal
> ostensibly appear, to the construction of female gender. To        code invalidates all prayers performed by men if not distanced
> be sure, the picture was never entirely a simple one: The          from women by a space of at least two arms’ length, perhaps
> prophetic status of Mary, the mother of Jesus, was debated,        in keeping with the segregation of men and women in Jewish
> and the wives of some of the prophets were depicted as moral       and possibly Christian ritual prayer contexts. The essentialist
> agents in their own right, able freely to choose the path of       views pertaining to women’s weakness that enter the Islamic
> righteousness or disobedience. However, the notion that a          commentarial discourses through biblical lore may explain
> woman might be a moral agent in her own right was not              why the statement found in 4:34 (“Men are in charge over/
> pursued except insofar as how that freedom might be con-           superior to women”) resulted in the legal arrogation of
> tained given woman’s essential nature.                             guardianship rights to the male, extending to women’s buying and selling property, their commercial activity, and their
> Similarly, in the hadith literature, an ambiguous picture of   ability to contract their own mates and so forth, again, none
> women emerges again: on the one hand, women are accorded           of which rights are accorded to men in the Quran explicitly.
> authority by implication through the relatively large number       Rather, these rights are given over to the male through the
> of hadith narrations attributed to women, such as the Prophet’s    explicit statement found in 4.34, and the creative interpretawife 
Aisha; On the other hand, as Mernissi has pointed out,      tion of a Quranic verse that required guardians to handle the
> perhaps the adjudicators of the hadith literature’s veracity       legal affairs of orphans and children (4:6) and those of inferior
> were less vigilant when it came to retaining hadith from           intellect (4:5).
> sources that reflected unfavorably on women from less than
> trustworthy sources, as, for example, the hadith stating the          The present observations regarding the legal regimes
> prophetic remark, “Those who trust their affairs to a woman        produced in the three centuries following the Prophet’s
> will never know prosperity” (Mernissi, quoting a hadith cited      death are not meant to suggest that males willfully and
> in Bukhari). Such a hadith inculcated in many Muslims a            misogynistically curbed women’s legal agency and comportmistrust of the innate capacity and ability of women to hold       ment. Nevertheless, the claim that authoritative discourses in
> political office. In a similar vein, commentators on the Quran     the Islamic world are divinely decreed or generated needs to
> gave relatively short shrift to the account and interpretation     be more carefully examined and analyzed, as it does not take
> of the female political leader, Bilqis (the Queen of Sheba),       into account the historical and social factors and processes
> mentioned in the Quran. Despite the later historical record       through which shari
a law came to be constructed, defined,
> in which women successfully negotiated their way through           and implemented, a process that took at least a couple of
> political institutions to attain leadership roles (as, for in-     centuries. Further, the claim imputes to the divine being legal
> stance, the medieval Yemeni Sulayhid queen Sayyida Hurra)          and social discrimination against women, who are creatures
> and the modern record in which there have been more female         considered in the Quran to be equally worthy of life as men,
> heads of state in Muslim nations than in North America, the        created from the same soul, equally morally accountable, and
> force of the hadith continues to be cited by opponents as an       as much moral agents as men. Such a claim does not stand up
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                     269
> Gender
> 
> to theological reason. Rather, the historically and sociologi-      policy law was handled by his appointees, while laws pertaincally constructed nature of many of the authoritative dis-          ing to worship and to the family were rendered under the
> courses in the Islamic world must be acknowledged, namely,          jurisdiction of the religious specialists, thereby further linkthat the hadith collectors, the Quranic commentators, and          ing worship with laws pertaining to gender issues and making
> the jurists were doing the best they could to contribute to and     it even more difficult to modernize or otherwise ameliorate
> illumine a self-understanding of what it meant to be Muslim         the latter without implicating the former. Legal institutions
> in their day, in social frameworks intelligible to and consis-      under the direct control of the caliph, on the other hand, were
> tent with the cultural modes of the time in the diverse             more amenable to context-driven adjustments, as reflected in
> geographical locales of the Muslim empire(s). Studies in legal      the work of the Ottoman administrator Ahmad Cevdet Pasha
> praxis, such as those of Mir-Hosseini and Tucker, indicate          (d. 1895), a member of the ulema, who took his inspiration
> that jurists treated the shari
a as a fluid set of directives that   from Roman and French legal systems, while remaining
> allowed them some limited scope in taking context into              within the fold of Islamic principles in working out the
> account and in treating each case on its own merit, something       Ottoman code in order to take into account early modern
> that one sees in practice in Iran today.                            legal challenges and approaches.
> 
> The Challenges of Gender Reform                                         The third development concerned the colonial, especially
> Several developments at various points in history left in their     British, practice of relegating personal and family law issues
> wake significations of gender that are almost impossible to          to the control of religiously defined communities, thereby
> dislodge, and render gender legal reform difficult in the            undermining traditional or customary practices developed
> contemporary world. A brief examination of three such de-           over time and resurrecting and perpetuating legal regimes
> velopments is merited. In the first, the influential theologian       developed by religious institutions that were, in the Muslim
> and jurist al-Ghazali (d. 1111) who, in a move reminiscent of       case, formulated several centuries ago. Such a practice further
> St. Augustine, linked piety to shari
a observance. He sug-          reinforced the connection of family law with religious idengested, thereby, that a Muslim, by definition, was one who           tity and perpetuated gender equities inscribed in the religadhered to the shari
a, in contrast to the more loosely articu-     iously formulated legal system. The colonial attitude of
> lated view that defined a Muslim as one who ascertained the
> pointing to the “backwardness” of Islamic societies by holdshahadah (lit. testimony, namely, “There is no God but Allah,
> ing up, for example, the segregation of women from public
> and Muhammad is His messenger,” to which Shi
a add: “and
> spaces, has ironically created, as observed by Leila Ahmed,
> Allah is the Master of the believers”). In addition to according
> the very signifiers through which Muslims now assert their
> the shari
a quasi-divine status, such a move on al-Ghazali’s
> identity as different from the West and their former colonial
> part ensured the difficulty of ameliorating the shari
a in any
> masters. In other words, the bodies of women are the sites on
> manner as to do so would be to suggest that it was a humanly
> which the postcolonial struggles to define and delineate the
> crafted instrument for the governance of society, albeit one
> authenticity, integrity, and marks of an Islamic identity are to
> taking its cue from a divinely ordained text, the Quran. The
> be fought. Such a resignification of women’s bodies, comimplications of this theological development for gender are
> portment, and legal status has been no more vociferously and
> immense: Does any attempt to introduce gender-equitable
> proudly proclaimed than by resurgent Muslim groups. Such
> treatment under the shari
a then suggest that one is tampergroups, often armed with a political agenda that includes
> ing with what it means to be a Muslim? It is no surprise that
> taking control of the institutions of governance—assisted by
> the Hudood Ordinances introduced by President Zia ul-Haq
> all the tools of modern technology, including print, Internet,
> in Pakistan in 1978 under the advisement of the shari
a bench
> and educational media—and attempting to convince Muslim
> have proven to be one of the greatest obstacles in assuring
> youth disenchanted with global Western political and eco-
> Muslim women in Pakistan equal consideration under the
> nomic hegemony, as well as with the ineptitude of local
> law. Indeed, the infamous zina (adultery) laws have provoked
> government and economic instability, that wearing one’s
> international debate with respect to the setback rather than
> Islamic identity on one’s head and a public expression of
> the protection, let alone reparation, they provide raped women
> Muslim piety establish one’s identity as a site of resistance to
> who, as a consequence of these laws, are punishable for the
> the West. There is no doubt that modern Muslims face
> rape. Muslim women academics and activists, such as Asifa
> Qureishi, have proposed different ways in which the issue of        significant challenges, both internal and external, to building
> rape might be conceived within an Islamic framework.                viable and healthy postcolonial societies; however, the use of
> religion for political ends has resulted in the creation of
> The second development was the caliphal prerogative,             organizations calling themselves Muslim who serve to whip
> rendered justifiable by his titular mandate as “Defender of the      minorities, governments, secularists and non-Muslims into
> Faithful,” to set up institutions whereby his office could           pious (thereby unquestionable) submission to a specific pogovern society in manners he saw fit. Thus, for instance, in         litical aim in the name of God by offering the indisputable
> Abbasid and Ottoman times, the caliph could and did set up          promise: (their form of) Islam is the solution. Their goals and
> institutions through which criminal, property, and foreign          methods run contrary to the Quranic call to humans to
> 
> 270                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Gender
> 
> believe, to act righteously and with social justice (76:5–9;       mind. Islamist women also argue that the application of
> 90:13–17), and to impose no compulsion in matters of religion.     Islamic law has ameliorated women’s rights over and against
> feudal or tribal or customary practices. Characteristic of all
> In contemporary times, Muslim women are caught in the          these approaches is the underlying assumption that Islam as a
> nexus of Islamic resurgence, state agendas, feudal social          social and legal system offers gender equality, often drawing
> structures, and the economic forces of globalization with its      upon the oxymoronic adage “equal but different” that bears
> sometimes devastating impact on developing societies. State        the semblance of erasing hierarchy but reinscribes it in
> agendas include the desire to deliver education, training,         making the woman the upholder of the shari
a vision of
> health, and legal parity in order to facilitate social develop-    respectability as the “difference” inevitably reintroduces difment that can harness the productive capacity of women in          ferential equations of power. In the current climate of Islamic
> order to build viable societies. However, the need for states at   resurgence, it is likely that the Islamist form of gender
> times to buy into the legitimating power of Islamic parties has    activism, which entails a form of reinscription of Islamic legal
> meant a nimble bartering away of women’s rights, or simply a       frameworks, is likely to prevail and will continue to do so until
> stalling of reforms in exchange for political power. Islamist      such a time as Muslim societies can work out forms of
> parties have often reinforced feudal social structures that        governance that keep Islam out of politics and enable a fresh
> reinforce a gendered division of labor, thus dovetailing nicely    approach to juridical principles that emphasize women’s
> with the Islamist perception of gender roles and laws. The         agency, control over their bodies and destinies, and full
> effects of globalization have resulted in an increasing number     humanity. Such a prospect requires fresh thinking on how it
> of women finding it essential to join the paid workforce, a         might be possible to remain a Muslim spiritually while
> labor migration in search of work, often separating families or    allowing for clear thinking on what an egalitarian and just
> creating a subclass of domestic worker or sex-worker slavery,      society might look like without being fettered by social and
> and a movement away from the rural areas into urban out-           legal norms developed historically under very different cirskirts in search of work, leading both to urban congestion and     cumstances. In this regard, issues of health, poverty, and
> rural impoverishment, thereby providing increasing fodder          universal access to education, work, and childcare should be
> for Islamist movements. Globalization paradoxically sup-           addressed, and regimes seeking populist affirmation through
> ports both the state agenda for its female population and the      Islamization policies need to be examined closely.
> Islamist resistance to western economic hegemony, leaving              Another approach has been to argue that a Muslim cannot
> the often already weak state machinery further vulnerable to       be Islamized, since a person who is already a Muslim should
> negotiations with the political threat posed by Islamist par-      not be made subject to punitive laws in the name of Islam or
> ties. Any attempt at discussion of gender issues in many parts     be subject to an interpretation of Islam that does not accord
> of the Muslim world has been silenced through tactics that         well with its principles of fairness and social justice. Further,
> have attempted to delegitimize the discussant; such tactics        one does not need to be an Islamist, that is, one who believes
> include accusing the discussant of being brainwashed by the        that public and state institutions must adhere to shari
a
> West, being a western feminist, blaspheming, and so forth.         prescriptions, developed under different circumstances several centuries ago, in order to work for the benefit of society,
> Muslim gender activists, mostly but not exclusively women,
> especially with respect to gender. Thus, for instance, Maha
> have explored various routes toward addressing issues of           Azzam has argued that the challenges facing Muslim women
> gender equity in Muslim societies. In Iran, for instance,          ought to be articulated and addressed “with the use of
> women’s magazines have taken on the challenge of reexamin-         analytical frameworks that, for example, draw on the socioling patriarchal interpretations of the Quran, arguing that the    ogy of religion and on the political and economic dynamics of
> verse supporting male privilege could be understood differ-        nationalism and dependency” (quoted in Esposito and Haddad,
> ently if greater attention were paid to the language of the        p. 49) and not conducted within a religious framework that
> Quran, as in the spirit of the work of the Moroccan feminist      dispenses what the correct comportment of a Muslim woman
> sociologist Fatima Mernissi and the American Muslim activ-         should or should not be from a seventh-century social perist Amina Wadud. Iranian Islamist women, as elsewhere, have        spective. Others, such as the sisters Asma Jahangir and Hina
> also sought to create a parallel universe for women that would     Jilani Jahangir in Pakistan, have sought to address gender
> enable women to participate in activities not normally possi-      equity issues under the rubric of the law and state enforceability,
> ble in a gender-segregated society, as for instance in the         while activist lawyers, academics, and other intellectuals such
> Iranian Women’s Games. Islamist women in various parts of          as Asifa Quraishi, Amira Sonbol, Riffat Hasan, and Amina
> the world have argued that nowhere do sacred texts prevent         Wadud in North America have sought to address issues as
> women from acquiring an education or participating in the          widely divergent as rape laws in Pakistan, gender issues in
> political and the legal spheres. Many Islamist women hold the      legal regimes in parts of the Muslim world, honor killings,
> position that the broad display of headwear and piety has          and rereading sacred texts, to name a few. A significant form
> earned them the right to have a say in public affairs, and here    of activism is the consciousness raising evident in the producthe example of the Egyptian Zaynab al-Ghazali comes to             tion of literary and analytical works by Muslim women
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                       271
> Genealogy
> 
> throughout the world, which, if read by Muslims and non-              Webb, Gisela, ed. Windows of Faith: Muslim Women Scholar-
> Muslims alike, may result in transnational feminist activism            Activists in North America. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse Unithat may finally unmask and address the endless varieties in             versity Press, 2000.
> which Islam, as all world faiths, is used for patriarchal purposes.
> Zayn R. Kassam
> See also Divorce; Feminism; Ghazali, Zaynab al-; Marriage; Masculinities.
> 
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                          GENEALOGY
> Afkhami, Mahnaz, and Friedl, Erika, eds. Muslim Women and
> the Politics of Participation: Implementing the Beijing Plat-      Genealogy plays an important role in Islamic civilizations,
> form. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1997.             often drawing on local pre-Islamic traditions, common to
> Afkhami, Mahnaz. Faith and Freedom: Women’s Human Rights              most oral cultures, of preserving memory and history through
> in the Muslim World. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University           recitation of long chains of ancestors. The pre-Islamic Ara-
> Press, 1995.
> bian tribes, such as Quraysh, the tribe of Muhammad, traced
> Afshar, Haleh. Islam and Feminisms: An Iranian Case-Study.            their lineage back to a common ancestor who was the eponym
> New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998.                                of the group, which was further subdivided into smaller clans,
> Ahmed, Leila. Women and Gender in Islam. New Haven and                each sharing a common line of descent. Islamic concepts of
> London: Yale University Press, 1992.                                genealogy derive from pre-Islamic Arabian identification
> Coulson, N. J. A History of Islamic Law. Islamic Surveys 2.           with tribal lineages, honor, and prestige, participation in
> Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1964.                        early Muslim history, and relationship to the Prophet and his
> Daftary, Farhad. “Sayyida Hurra: The Ismā
īlī Sulayhid Queen          Companions.
> of Yemen.” In Women in the Medieval Islamic World.
> Edited by Gavin R. G. Hambly. New York: St. Martin’s                    With the triumph of the Islamic vision, tribal loyalties
> Press, 1998.                                                        were to be superceded by common Muslim brotherhood.
> Haddad, Yvonne Yazbeck, and Esposito, John L., eds. Islam,            Traces of the tribal genealogical precedence and concept of
> Gender and Social Change. New York: Oxford University               nobility persisted, however, augmented by specifically Is-
> Press, 1998.                                                        lamic associations. One genre of Arabic historical recordings
> Hassan, Riffat. “On Human Rights and the Quranic Per-                was the citation of lineages (ansab), and this was incorporated
> spective.” Journal of Ecumenical Studies XIX, no. 3 (Sum-           in the compilation of early Islamic biographical compendia
> mer 1982): 51–65.                                                   such as the Tabaqat of Ibn Sa
d. The importance of lineage
> Mernissi, Fatima. The Veil and the Male Elite: A Feminist             was based conceptually on the idea of noble ancestry as
> Interpretation of Women’s Rights in Islam. Translated by            shaping character through lineage (nasl ) or origin (asl ).
> Mary Jo Lakeland. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley Pub-               Priority in accepting Islam also had pragmatic benefits in
> lishing Co., 1991.                                                  early Islamic history as the caliph Umar established a system
> Moghadam, Valentine. Modernizing Women: Gender and Social             known as the diwan, recording precedence in conversion and
> Change in the Middle East. Boulder, Colo.: Lynne                    apportioning payments to families based on this ranking.
> Rienner, 1993.
> Moghissi, Haideh. Feminism and Islamic Fundamentalism: The                As the Muslims expanded into new territories, they ini-
> Limits of Postmodern Analysis. London and New York: Zed             tially garrisoned Arab troops separately from local popula-
> Books, 1999.                                                        tions, who needed to form client relationships with Arabs and
> Poya, Maryam. Women, Work and Islamism: Ideology and                  establish quasi-genealogical links to them as they Islamicized.
> Resistance in Iran. London and New York: Zed Books, 1999.           Gradually these populations converted and assimilated, the
> Stowasser, Barbara Freyer. Women in the Quran, Tradi-                dates of this process having been traced by historian Richard
> tions, and Interpretation. New York: Oxford University             Bulliet through genealogical material and especially nomen-
> Press, 1994.                                                       clature preserved in the early biographical compendia. This
> Tucker, Judith E. In the House of the Law: Gender and Islamic         tracing of conversion dates is possible because the period of
> Law in Ottoman Syria and Palestine. Berkeley and Los                the family’s conversion to Islam is visible in the name of the
> Angeles: University of California Press, 1998.                      final ancestor to preserve a local pre-Islamic first name.
> Voll, John Obert. Islam: Continuity and Change in the Modern World. 2d ed. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University                  Arabic names include various components. The kunya
> Press, 1994.                                                        (patronymic) tends to be in the form “son of” (ibn), “daughter
> Wadud-Muhsin, Amina. Quran and Woman: Rereading the                  of” (bint), father (abu), or “mother of” (umm), and additional
> Sacred Text from a Woman’s Perspective. 2d ed. New York:            long strings of a person’s ancestors (nasab) are recorded in
> Oxford University Press, 1999.                                      more formal documents or histories. Names may further
> 
> 272                                                                                               Islam and the Muslim World
> Ghayba
> 
> contain what is called a nisba or relational suffix that may         Tunisia, Ghannoushi received a bachelor’s degree in philosoindicate city of origin or principal residence, tribal or ances-    phy from Damascus University in 1968. After a year in Paris,
> tral relationships, and a further laqab or descriptive epithet      he returned to Tunisia to teach philosophy at a secondary
> based on physical characteristics or profession.                    school. A former member of the Tablighi Jama
at and a
> Quranic study group, he founded the Islamic Tendency
> Descendants of the Prophet are often designated by the          Movement (harakat al-ittijah al-islami) in 1981, which later
> title sayyid and given special respect in certain Muslim socieformed the Renaissance Party (hizb al-nahda, or Ennahda).
> ties. For example, in Iran, sayyid males wear a black turban in
> Ghannoushi was first arrested in 1981, released in 1984,
> ritual settings, in Morocco they are known as the shurafa, and
> rearrested and sentenced for life in 1987, but amnestied in
> in India and Pakistan they are the highest “caste” of Indian
> 1988. Shortly thereafter he left for exile in London. While his
> Muslims, followed, respectively, by those claiming Arab,
> role in the Islamic opposition movement within Tunisia
> Mogul, or Pathan ancestors. These groups are the nobles
> remains controversial, his stature as an eminent representa-
> (ashraf ) or descendants of migrants to India rather than the
> tive of modern Sunni Arab Islamic thought is largely undisdescendants of indigenous converts (ajlaf ). This honoring
> puted. In a series of books, articles, lectures, and interviews he
> may thus be seen to emerge from religious sentiment of
> presented his aim to make Islam relevant for modern society,
> respect for and charisma of the Prophet’s household and
> notably for the young, by integrating key concepts of modern
> Companions, and also of the cultural precedence accorded to
> sociopolitical thought such as good governance, human rights,
> Arab Muslims in non-Arab contexts. A modern example of
> social justice, freedom, pluralism, and equality into an Islamic
> this respect based on genealogy is the designation of Jordan as
> framework, insisting on general norms and values rather than
> “the Hashemite kingdom,” Banu Hashim being the clan of
> conventional understandings of Islamic law and theology,
> the Prophet, as a factor legitimizing the ruling dynasty, who
> which he considered to be largely irrelevant to present
> claim descent from the Prophet’s lineage.
> realities.
> A further element of genealogical understanding in Islamic
> cultures is the concept of spiritual or intellectual lineages in    See also Political Islam.
> Sufi or scholarly traditions. Here chains of succession are
> established to previous masters and authorities, often ascend-      BIBLIOGRAPHY
> ing to the prophet Muhammad himself. This concept is                Hermassi, Abdelbaki. “The Rise and Fall of the Islamist
> known as the shajara (tree) of descent and diagrams tracing           Movement in Tunisia.” In The Islamist Dilemma. The
> such trees form a component of hagiographic and other                 Political Role of Islamist Movements in the Contemporary Arab
> biographical genres and may be ritually recited as part of            World. Edited by Laura Guazzone. Reading, N.Y.: Ithaca
> Sufi ritual.                                                           Press, 1995.
> Tamimi, Azzam. Rachid Ghannouchi: A Democrat Within
> See also Biography and Hagiography; Historical Writ-                  Islamism. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 2001
> ing; Tariqa.
> Gudrun Krämer
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Bulliet, Richard W. Conversion to Islam in the Medieval Period:
> An Essay in Quantitative History. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1979.                                     GHAYBA(T)
> Rosenthal, Franz. “Nasab.” In Vol. 7., Encyclopedia of Islam. 2d
> ed. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1993.                                    Al-Ghayba (Persian ghaybat), literally “the hiding,” is sometimes translated as “the Occultation.” While a number of
> Marcia Hermansen        early Shi
ite theological groupings proposed that their imam
> had gone into “hiding,” it was the Twelver Shi
a, the only
> such group to survive into the classical period in any signifi-
> cant numbers, who fully developed the doctrine. Proclaiming
> GEOGRAPHY See Cartography                                           that one’s imam had gone into hiding had a number of
> and Geography
> advantages for persecuted Shi
ite groups. First, it reduced
> their explicit challenge to the established political order. A
> hidden imam is (potentially) less disruptive than a manifest
> imam, thereby reducing political tension with the ruling
> GHANNOUSHI, RASHID AL- (1941– )                                     Sunni authorities. Second, if this imam is predicted to return
> at some point, the community can be charged with merely
> Rashid al-Ghannoushi is a prominent Islamic thinker and             waiting (intizar) for his return, rather than actively agitating
> political activist. Born in 1941 into a religious family in rural   against the governing political powers. Third, while the Shi
a
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                       273
> Ghazali, al-
> 
> had divided into various groups, based around the charisma of    Sachedina, Abdulaziz. Islamic Messianism: The Idea of the
> particular would-be imams, a hidden imam could act as a             Mahdi in Twelver Shi
ism. New York: State University of
> unifying factor, as personality conflicts between imams were         New York Press, 1981.
> avoided.
> Robert Gleave
> The majority of Shi
a settled upon both an individual and
> a point in time when the imam went into hiding. The
> individual was Muhammad, son of Hasan al-
Askari (a descendent of Imam 
Ali and proclaimed as the eleventh imam),
> and the time was 868 C.E. According to Shi
ite reports, Hasan
> GHAZALI, AL- (C. 1059–1111)
> died when Muhammad was only six. Muhammad, also referred to as the Mahdi, went into hiding in order to avoid       Abu Hamid Muhammad bin Muhammad al-Ghazali (or alpersecution from the Abbasid rulers. At first, he continued to    Ghazzali) (1058/9–1111) was born some seven years before
> communicate with his Shi
a through intermediaries. These         the Battle of Hastings, the Norman conquest that transfour intermediaries (known as “gates” or “ambassadors”)          formed England. As an intellectual and thinker, Ghazali’s
> passed on the orders of the hidden imam. After sixty-nine        legacy is not only rich, but his imprint on the Muslim
> years (in 941), when the fourth agent was close to death, the    tradition is both diverse and complex. For this reason the
> imam announced that from that point on there were no             enigma of his legacy makes him both a highly esteemed as
> further agents. While the imam was not leaving the world, he     well as a controversial figure. Generations of scholars have
> would remain in hiding until God decreed an appropriate          debated Ghazali’s role, studying the range of texts he had
> time for his return. This ended the lesser occultation (al-      written in order to get a better picture of the man and his
> ghayba al-sughra), and the greater occultation (al-ghayba al-    oeuvre. For some people Ghazali is the great “Defender of
> kubra) began. The Shi
a are still awaiting the return of the     Islam” (Hujjat al-Islam, hujjat literally meaning “proof”).
> imam, known as the Mahdi.                                        Others blame him for damaging the rational edifice of Islamic
> thought in his sharp critique of Muslim philosophers such as
> This doctrine appears to have taken some time to reach its    Ibn Sina and al-Farabi. However, Ghazali’s ideas can best be
> final formulation, and later it was subjected to extensive        described as a work in progress and not easily abridged.
> theological justification. For example, in the eleventh century   Therefore, reducing his work to such polarities is to grossly
> Muhammad b. al-Hasan al-Tusi, in his Kitab al-Ghayba,            oversimplify the achievements of a very complex life and mind.
> outlined both textual and rational justifications that later
> became common in Shi
ite texts of theology. He argued that           Ghazali’s childhood was marked by a frugal and impover-
> God would not leave his community without a guide—for to         ished existence, partly caused by the untimely death of his
> do so would entail his neglect of the Shi
a and hence his        father. His early years were spent in his birthplace in Tus,
> injustice. There must, then, be an imam present in the world     near what is today the city of Mashhad in modern Iran. After
> who acts as God’s guide, and this imam must be sinless.          his elementary education with his tutor Ahmad al-Radhkani,
> Because there is no manifest imam who is both sinless and        he traveled to the city of Jurjan near the Caspian Sea for
> recognizable as the emissary of God, the imam must, there-       higher studies with a leading scholar, Isma
il b Mis
ada alfore, be in hiding.
> Isma
ili (d. 1084). We learn of the apocryphal story of his
> The doctrine of the ghayba also has a number of legal        encounter with brigands during his return journey from
> consequences. For example, the zakat and khums taxes, col-       Jurjan. After the brigands had robbed all the travelers in the
> lected by the imam, become problematic. Eventually, Shi
ite      caravan, Ghazali pleaded with the brigands’ leader to return
> jurists avoided these duties being lapsed by proposing the       only his precious dissertation (ta
liqa), offering him the rest of
> doctrine of niyaba (deputyship) of the scholars to carry out     his possessions in return. The brigand leader ridiculed Ghazali’s
> these functions.                                                 claim to knowledge and mocked him by showing that a thief
> could so easily take it away. Struck by this insight, Ghazali
> See also Imamate; Shi
a: Imami (Twelver).                        later commented: “He [the leader of the brigands] was an
> oracle (mustantaq) whom God made to speak, in order that
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                     He could guide me through him.” After that episode Ghazali
> Arjomand, Said Amir. “The Consolation of Theology: The           committed all his notes to memory.
> Shi
ite Doctrine of Occultation and the Transition from
> Chiliasm to Law.” Journal of Religion 76, no. 4                   But the major transformation in Ghazali’s intellectual life
> (1996): 548–571.                                              took place when he attended the Nizamiyya College in
> Kohlberg, Etan. “From Imamiyya to Ithna-
Ashariyya.” In          Nishapur. There he impressed the leading scholar of the day,
> Belief and Law in Imami Shi
ism. Edited by E. Kohlberg.        Abu ’l-Ma
ali al-Juwayni (d. 1085), renowned for his expertise
> Hampshire, U.K.: Variorum, 1991.                               in dialectical theology (
ilm al-kalam) and Shafi
i law. Juwayni’s
> 
> 274                                                                                           Islam and the Muslim World
> Ghazali, Muhammad al-
> 
> influence on Ghazali effectively brought him into a full                  ulum al-din). This is now a classic in Muslim religious writing
> engagement with the rational sciences, especially law, theol-            and is widely used to this day. In it Ghazali explores the
> ogy, logic, and later philosophy. Thus in Nishapur one begins            ethical purposes of religious practices but more importantly
> to see the first signs of Ghazali’s extraordinary strength in law         provides a road map as to how this can lead to a transformaand dialectical theology. In law he followed the Shafi
i school           tion of the self. As a body of writing, Revivification represents
> while also studying Ash
ari theology without being a slavish             Ghazali’s personal journey, in which he writes his ailing soul
> adherent to this orientation. These intellectual gifts would             to health. Given his broad intellectual repertoire, Ghazali was
> serve him well in his rise to intellectual celebrity. At Nishapur,       able to explore a variety of themes in a complex and convinc-
> Ghazali learned Islamic mysticism (tasawwuf) from Abu 
Ali               ing manner, drawing on a variety of sources and ideas that he
> al-Farmadhi (d. 1084/5). It is not clear what Ghazali did for            combines into an almost seamless narrative. The Revivification
> roughly seven years after completing his formal studies in               consists of four books, each addressing an overall theme:
> Nishapur. Most historians believe that he remained in Nishapur           starting with rituals (
ibadat), customs and practices (
adat),
> but regularly joined the retinue of scholars cultivated by the           practices that lead to peril (muhlikat), and salvific practices
> indomitable Seljuk wazir (Ar. wazir) Nizam al-Mulk.                      (munjiyat).
> 
> In 1091 Nizam al-Mulk appointed Ghazali professor of                 See also Ash
arites, Ash
aira; Falsafa; Kalam; Law;
> Shafi
i law at the Nizamiyya College in Baghdad. It is in                 Tasawwuf.
> Baghdad that Ghazali’s intellectual reputation culminated in
> the honorific “Defender of Islam.” It also marked one of the
> most productive periods in his life. He wrote several books on
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> logic and law. It was also during this period that he wrote his          Ghazali, al-. Freedom and Fulfillment: An Annotated Translafamous refutation of the controversial doctrinal beliefs held              tion of al-Munqidh min al-Dalal and Other Relevant Works of
> by Muslim philosophers about the eternity of the world, their              al-Ghazali. Translated by Richard J. McCarthy, S. J.
> rejection of corporeal resurrection and that God only knew                 Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1980.
> universals, The incoherence of the philosophers (Tahafut al-falasifa),   Watt, W. Montgomery. Muslim Intellectual: A Study of alfollowed by a vitriolic exposure of the doctrines of the Isma
ili          Ghazali. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1963.
> Shi
a called The obscenities of the esoterists (Fadaih al-batiniyya).   Zarrinkub, Abd al-Husayn. al-Firar min al-Madrasa: Dirasa fi
> But his meteoric rise came to an abrupt and dramatic end                    Hayat wa Fikr Abi Hamid al-Ghazali. Beirut: Dar alwhen he experienced a debilitating spiritual crisis, which he               Rawda, 1992.
> described in some detail in his spiritual testimony, Deliverance
> from error (al-Munqidh min al-dalal). He decided to abandon                                                             Ebrahim Moosa
> his public life of teaching and embarked on a life of contemplative reflection and asceticism. Explanations abound for
> this dramatic turn in Ghazali’s life. Some argue that he
> suffered intellectual self-doubt in his engagement with phi-
> GHAZALI, MUHAMMAD AL-
> losophy. Others link his anxieties to the series of Ismail
ili
> assassinations targeting political and religious figures, which
> (1917–2001)
> gave Ghazali cause to fear for his own life. There is also a view
> that he found his political alliances with the Seljuk rulers and         Born in 1917, al-Ghazali was an Egyptian Islamic thinker
> his ties to the Abbasid caliphal palace to be a source of moral          who was educated as a jurist at Al-Azhar University, Cairo,
> suffocation. Perhaps cumulatively all these pressures had a              and held prominent positions with the Ministry of Awqaf and
> deleterious impact on his mind and soul.                                 the Mosques Department. During his early career he sided
> with the Muslim Brotherhood party until he separated him-
> Under the pretext of making the pilgrimage to Mecca,                 self from the organization in the 1950s. Al-Ghazali wrote
> Ghazali left his family in the province of Khurasan and sought           over forty books that are considered to be very important in
> the anonymity of Jerusalem and Damascus, where he spent                  the field of modern legal studies and modern theology. In
> time meditating at the Dome of the Rock and the Umayyad                  Islam and Political Despotism and Prejudice and Tolerance in
> mosque. After an absence of nearly five years (1095–1099)                 Christianity and Islam, he advocated the variety of ways in
> Ghazali returned to his native Tus. During this period, as a             which religion could be a source of social justice and promote
> novice on the mystical path, he engaged in reflection and                 peace in the modern world.
> disciplinary practices of the self as taught by master mystics
> such as Junayd of Baghdad, Harith al-Muhasibi, and others. It               As a scholar, al-Ghazali was known for an independent,
> is also in this period of his life that he undertook the writing of      well-balanced approach to jurisprudence, and he cited Ishis magnum opus for which he is best known in the world of               lamic texts in favor of gender equality, greater political
> scholarship, The revivification of the sciences of religion (Ihya         participation, environmental awareness, and human rights.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                          275
> Ghazali, Zaynab al-
> 
> He was critical of modern Muslim scholars who focus too             BIBLIOGRAPHY
> much on pedantic details of adhering to rituals and not             Cooke, Miriam. “Zaynab al-Ghazali: Saint or Subversive?”
> enough on governance, finance, ethics, and moral philoso-              Die Welt des Islams 34, no. 1 (1994): 1–20.
> phy. Al-Ghazali was critical of radical and neoconservative
> Ghazali, Zainab al-. Return of the Pharaoh. Memoirs in Nasir’s
> scholars who failed to understand the comprehensive nature            Prison. Translated by Mokran Guezzou. Broushton Gifford,
> of religion and he refused to recognize their myopic views of         Wiltshire, U.K.: Cromwell Press, 1994.
> faith. He felt that they were poorly trained scholars who
> Hoffman, Valerie J.“An Islamist Activist: Zaynab al-Ghazali.”
> purposely select esoteric hadiths and sunna accounts to argue
> In Women and the Family in the Middle East. Edited by
> their point and further their political agendas. Al-Ghazali’s
> Elisabeth Warnock Fernea. Austin: University of Texas
> contribution to modern Islamic thought was to treat faith as          Press, 1985.
> integrally linked with the political, economic, and social order.
> 
> See also Political Islam.                                                                                          Ursula Günther
> 
> Qamar-ul Huda
> 
> GHAZI, AHMAD B. IBRAHIM AL-
> See Ahmad Ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi
> GHAZALI, ZAYNAB AL- (1917– )
> Zaynab al-Ghazali al-Jabili (b. 1917) is Egypt’s prominent
> female Islamist, a leading figure as a lecturer, teacher, and
> propagator of Islam who describes herself as the “mother” of        GLOBALIZATION
> the Muslim Brotherhood. After a short interlude in Huda
> Sha
rawi’s Egyptian Feminist Union, she resigned and founded        The term globalization is used in various related senses to refer
> the Muslim Women’s Association (1936–1964). Her Islamic             to the intensified integration of the world economy, declinupbringing molded her conviction that a secular and Western-        ing autonomy and separation of the nation-states, the growth
> oriented movement for women’s liberation was not adequate           of international and transnational forms of governance, and
> for Muslim society. Moreover, she emphasizes that the rights        the rapidly expanding communication networks across naof Muslim women were entirely guaranteed by Islam as long           tional, regional, and religious boundaries, especially with the
> as they fulfill their duties as mothers and spouses.                 advent of the Internet. With the exception of Indonesia,
> Malaysia, and Turkey, the impact of economic and financial
> Until 1945 she refused Hasan al-Banna’s offer to incorpoglobalization on the Muslim world has been smaller than in
> rate her organization into the Muslim Brotherhood, but she
> other parts of the world. The integration of Middle Eastern
> asserted her readiness for cooperation. This refusal safeguarded
> and North African countries into the global economy has
> her independence and leadership position, taking into conbeen particularly slow, except for the case of Turkey, and the
> sideration the patriarchal patterns and hierarchies within the
> attempts at the privatization of the economy have been
> Muslim Brotherhood. After the ban of the Brotherhood she
> largely unsuccessful in the region.
> gave al-Banna her oath of allegiance and formally joined the
> organization in 1948, becoming the driving force behind its
> By contrast, the Internet and e-mail have created rapid
> secret reestablishment.
> forms of communication linking different parts of the Muslim world, from Morocco to Indonesia, to each other and to
> Her own organization was banned in 1964. In the course
> the rest of the world, even though the spread of these
> of the arrests of Brotherhood members she was imprisoned
> electronic media has been slower than in many other parts of
> and tortured. Six years later, in 1971, she was released. Her
> the world. This has sometimes been called “globalization
> memoirs from prison made her famous, even beyond Egypt’s
> from below,” to distinguish it from economic globalization
> borders.
> through multinational corporations and international finan-
> The fact that Zaynab al-Ghazali’s own life as a relig-           cial institutions. The globalization of communication through
> ious activist appears to contradict women’s primary duties          the Internet, as well as somewhat older media, such as
> (as mothers and spouses) should in no way diminish her              telecommunications and broadcasting, has had a significant
> significance.                                                        and ongoing impact on Islam as a religion. There has also
> been unprecedented migration, both from the Muslim world
> See also Banna, Hasan al-; Ikhwan al-Muslimin; Politi-              into North America and Western Europe, and within the
> cal Islam.                                                          Muslim world into the Gulf countries. Last but not least,
> 
> 276                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Globalization
> 
> transnational political trends and international organization      These trends remain distinct and are not swamped by
> have also had a notable impact on the Islamic world.               fundamentalism.
> 
> The Push toward Universalism                                          The twentieth century also gave rise to a combination of
> The missionary expansion of the world religions among              internal subglobalization processes typical of the early modnations and across the frontiers of empires can itself be          ern period and externally stimulated globalization. On the
> considered the prototype of the process of globalization.          one hand, the continuous improvement and declining cost of
> These religions have a tendency toward missionary expansion        transportation since the Second World War has greatly
> because they are in principle universalistic, which gives them     increased the number of pilgrims to Mecca, and of missiona built-in tendency to overcome many forms of particularism        aries from Africa and Asia to the main centers of Islamic
> and to expand their influence beyond familial, ethnic, and          learning in the Middle East. It should be noted that this
> national boundaries. In practice, the ideal commitment to          aspect of globalization reinforces Islam’s old universalism,
> universalism is tempered by all sorts of compromises with the      which was institutionalized around the hajj. On the other
> forces of particularism. As a result of globalization, however,    hand, the postcolonial era has also witnessed the massive
> these very compromises transform the character and terms of        immigration of Muslims into Western Europe and North
> reference of particularism from local to what sociologists         America, where sizable Muslim communities have formed.
> have called “glocal” (from the combination of “global” and         Meanwhile, there has been unprecedented global integration
> “local”). Furthermore, globalization is an important factor in     of Muslims through the mass and electronic media.
> the contemporary resurgence of Islam and the growth of
> Islamic fundamentalism.                                               The international repercussions of the Salman Rushdie
> case are the best illustration of the impact of the media on a
> The Internet and satellite communication have weakened         globally integrated Muslim world. The protests and burning
> the very tight control of the states over national radio and       of his Satanic Verses by indignant Muslims began in Bradford,
> television networks that had once compartmentalized the            England. Images of these protests were broadcast throughout
> Muslim world into differently oriented nation-states, and          the world, and stimulated more violent protests in Pakistan
> have stimulated the growth of a new, transnational Muslim          and India. In a particularly low point of Iranian postpublic space within the global context. These effects of           revolutionary politics, after the book had been banned in
> globalization on Islam are interpreted very differently by         India, South Africa, Bangladesh, Sudan, Sri Lanka, and Pakidifferent observers. Some see the combined effect of glo-          stan, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini broadcast his famous
> balization as it impacts upon the world’s one billion Muslims.     fatwa condemning Rushdie, a non-Iranian writer who lived in
> They point to the growth of education and vigorous discus-         England, to death for apostasy on 14 February 1989.
> sion of Islam in books and in public debates in the press, the
> audio-visual, and the electronic media as contributing to an       Particularism within Globalization
> Islamic Reformation. In this view, the current Islamicization      An interesting feature of globalization is the unfolding of
> of social life has been both far-reaching and dispersed, lack-     antiglobal sentiments in particularistic, variety-producing
> ing any focus or single thrust. Whether or not one concurs         movements, which seek local legitimacy but, nevertheless,
> with the value-judgment that it constitutes Reformation, it is     have a global frame of self-reference. The flexibility of
> undeniable that there is an unmistakable dispersion of the         signing international conventions with reservations has alcurrent trends in Islamization. The opposite view holds that       lowed a large number of Muslim states to confirm their
> globalization has put Islam on the front lines of a “Jihad         membership in the international communities by signing
> versus McWorld” confrontation, creating a sharply focused          such agreements while retaining their own particularity of
> and vehement anti-Western as well as anti-universalist strug-      identity and interests. For instance, Muslim nations could
> gle. This latter view tends to obliterate the distinction be-      sign onto the United Nations’ human rights instruments,
> tween Islam and Islamic fundamentalism.                            such as the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child,
> but insist upon significant reservations that affirmed the
> The negative view on Islam and globalization, though           priority of the shari
a rules.
> widely shared by journalists and commentators, seems essentially mistaken. Not only is there variety in Islamic funda-           More typically, however, global integration induces many
> mentalism, but Islamic fundamentalism is by no means identical     Muslims to emphasize their unique identity within the frame
> with all the contemporary manifestations of Islam as a univer-     of reference of their own culture, which can be said to be at
> salist religion. Urbanization, development of roads and trans-     once universal and local or subglobal. There can be no doubt
> portation, the printing revolution, and other contemporary         that global integration has made many Muslims seek to
> processes of social change, including globalization, simply        appropriate universalist institutions by what might be called
> reinforce trends toward expansion and intensive penetration        Islamic cloning. We thus hear more and more about “Islamic
> of society that are typical of Islam as a universalist religion.   science,” “Islamic Human Rights,” an “Islamic international
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                  277
> Globalization
> 
> for the study of Islamic subjects in accordance with global
> standards. This phenomenon is a direct result of globalization,
> not an outcrop of fundamentalism. It is a reactive tendency,
> however, and can be viewed as a form of defensive counteruniversalism. This defensive counter-universalism diverges
> from the old universalism of Islam as a world religion in its
> reactive character and “glocal” self-consciousness.
> 
> Despite its intent, however, the assimilative character of
> defensive counter-universalism is quite pronounced. It has
> already resulted in the assimilation of universal organizational forms, and albeit restrictively, of universal ideas such as
> human rights and the rights of women. It is difficult to escape
> the conclusion that, despite its intent, defensive counteruniversalism is inevitably a step toward the modernization of
> the Islamic tradition.
> 
> A Changing Islam in the Global Context
> The increasing integration of the Middle Eastern states into
> the international system has exposed them to the global wave
> of democratization and the promotion of the rule of law. This
> exposure has introduced a new element of legal pluralism and
> generated ambivalent reactions throughout the Middle East.
> The impact of the human rights revolution on the legal
> culture of Middle Eastern societies has been significant, and
> constitutional and supreme courts of a few Muslim countries,
> such as Egypt and Malaysia, have insinuated international
> rights provisions into their national legal systems.
> 
> Among the human rights, the ones with the strongest
> social backing that results from structural and occupational
> In a shop in downtown Cairo, an Egyptian woman drinks Cocachanges in contemporary Middle Eastern societies are those
> Cola. In February 1999, a Muslim Internet site started a rumor that
> the Coca-Cola logo, looked at upside down or reflected in a            concerned with women’s rights. Women’s rights are repremirror, read “No Mohammed, no Mecca.” Mufti Nasr Farid                sented by official organs of the states, and by a growing
> Wasel, Egypt’s highest religious authority, concluded after a study   number of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that are
> of the logo that the allegation was false and that “there was no
> defamation to the religion of Islam from near or far.” ENRIC MARTI/   increasingly linked with international NGOs and the United
> AP/WIDE WORLD PHOTOS                                                  Nations agencies. According to some reports, the women’s
> NGOs stole the show from the state delegates at the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo
> system” and a variety of organizations modeled after the              (1994), and delegates from the Muslim countries were con-
> United Nations and its offshoots, most notably the Organiza-          spicuous in the Fourth World Conference on the Status of
> tion of the Islamic Conference, which was founded in 1969             Women in Beijing (1995). In Iran, women constituted the
> and has fifty-seven countries as its members.                          largest group of President Mohammad Khatami’s supporters,
> and the reformists in the Majles include a few prominent
> The cloning here is unmistakable. Not only is the charter         women. The Iranian women’s movement has made signifi-
> of the Organization of the Islamic Conference derived from            cant gains since 1997, and is acting as a channel for the slow
> the UN charter, but it has an Islamic Development Bank                but continuous influence of international conventions on
> (modeled after the World Bank), a Commission of the Inter-            women’s rights on Iran’s administrative and civil law.
> national Crescent (corresponding to the Red Cross), and an
> Islamic Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization                In contrast, the transnational Islamic resurgence has caused
> (corresponding to the UNESCO). In 1980, the OIC voted to              the rejection of the assertion of the universality of human
> establish an International Islamic Law Commission to secure           rights, and has generated an official “Islamic alternative.”
> representation of the Islamic viewpoint before the Interna-           This Islamic alternative is embodied in the 1990 Cairo
> tional Court of Justice. The OIC has also set up the Interna-         Declaration on Human Rights in Islam. As is to be expected
> tional Islamic University of Malaysia as a modern university          in an imitative document, much of the legal terminology of
> 
> 278                                                                                                Islam and the Muslim World
> Grammar and Lexicography
> 
> the international human rights conventions is swallowed,            Eickelman, Dale F., and Anderson, Jon W., eds. New Media
> even as quite a number of rights are in substance nullified. For        in the Muslim World. The Emerging Public Sphere. Bloominstance, the Cairo Declaration offers no guarantee of relig-          ington: Indiana University Press, 1999.
> ious freedom. It prohibits the use of any form of compulsion        Therborn, G. “Globalizations: Dimensions, Historical Waves,
> or exploitation of poverty and ignorance to convert anyone to         Regional Effects, Normative Governance.” International
> atheism or a religion other than Islam (Article 10). Article 22       Sociology 15, no. 2 (2000): 151–179.
> of the Declaration bars “the exploitation or misuse of information in such a way as may violate sanctities and the dignity                                                Saïd Amir Arjomand
> of Prophets, undermine moral and ethical values, or disintegrate, corrupt, or harm society or weaken its faith.” It is
> interesting to note that, in flat contradiction to the historical
> experience and the public law of virtually all the signatory        GOVERNMENT, ISLAMIC See Hukuma
> countries, Article 19 of the Cairo Declaration provides that        al-Islamiyya, al- (Islamic Government)
> “There shall be no crime or punishment except as provided
> for in the Shari
ah.” Article 25 further declares the shari
a the
> only source for the explanation and clarification of the articles
> of the Declaration. While endorsing the Cairo Declaration,
> the Islamic Conference of Foreign Ministers in April 1993           GRAMMAR AND LEXICOGRAPHY
> also confirmed “the existence of different constitutional and
> legal systems among [the] Member States and various inter-          In the period before Islam the Bedouin tribes in the Arabian
> national or regional human rights instruments to which they         peninsula held poets (sing. sha
ir) as well as soothsayers (sing.
> are parties.” This amounts to a very significant qualification        kahin) in the highest esteem. Both delivered their message in
> of the categorical recognition of the shari
a in the Cairo          a fixed form of meter or rhyming prose and they occupied an
> Declaration, as most Middle Eastern countries are signato-          important position in their own tribe, while they were feared
> ries to several such international instruments. Iran, for in-       and respected by other tribes. This shows how much power
> was assigned to language and the spoken word in Bedouin
> stance, is among the signatories to the International Covenant
> society. When the prophet Muhammad brought the message
> on Civil and Political Rights. The acknowledgment, therethat had been revealed to him, it was therefore only fitting
> fore, leaves open the kind of insinuation of the international
> that this message emphasized its sacred force by referring to
> law on human rights into national laws of the kind undertaken
> the linguistic and rhetorical qualities of the revealed book:
> by the Supreme Constitutional Court of Egypt.
> The Quran was delivered in a clear, eloquent language
> An increasing number of Muslim intellectuals are defend-        (quranan mubinan), which was the language of the Arabs. At
> ing the right to the freedom of expression by insisting that        the same time, the message emphasized the difference bereligious liberty and freedom of conscience are clearly deduc-      tween the revelation and other literary productions: the
> ible from the text of the Quran. A number of Quranic verses       Prophet was not a poet and the fact that he had never learned
> strongly imply a form of “natural religion” among mankind,          to read or write demonstrated the miraculous nature of the
> which entails religious liberty, and make explicit the concepts     revelation.
> of freedom of conscience and religion, most notably, “there is
> Right from the start, the believers were concerned with
> no compulsion in religion” (2:256). Proliferation of the comthe preservation of the revealed book. According to Muslim
> munications media beyond government control has made the
> tradition, during the life of the Prophet parts of the message
> freedom of interpretation of Islam itself a prominent feature
> were written down on scraps of writing material, and the
> of the emerging Muslim public sphere. In Iran, 
Abd al-
> Prophet himself sometimes employed scribes to whom he
> Karim Sorush has gone so far as putting all the world
> dictated the revelations. It was not until the third caliph
> religions on an equal footing in the 1998 essay, Saratha-ye         
Uthman (r. 644–656) that a codified text of the Quran was
> mostaqim (Straight paths), the very title being a sacrilegious      made, the so-called mushaf. Although this codex became the
> pluralization of a fundamental Quranic concept. In Syria,          canonical text for all later generations, the presence of a large
> Muhammad Shahruhr has offered a similarly radically mod-            number of variant readings forced the believers to concenernist interpretation of Islam.                                     trate not only on the contents of the text, but also on its form.
> 
> See also Internet; Networks, Muslim.                                    After the death of the Prophet, the Islamic conquests led
> to a drastic transformation, not only of pre-Islamic values and
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                        customs, but also of the language of the Arabs. The inhabi-
> Arjomand, Saïd Amir “Islam.” In Global Religions: An Intro-         tants of the conquered territories had to acquire the new
> duction. Edited by M. Juergensmeyer. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford        language in a short period of time, and their mistakes affected
> University Press, 2003.                                          Arabic to such a degree that a new type of Arabic arose, which
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                      279
> Grammar and Lexicography
> 
> eventually became the basis for the modern dialects. As a             with the language of the revelation and with that of the preresult of this process, which was regarded by the Arabs               Islamic poems. In his Kitab, Sibawayhi set himself a task that
> themselves as a process of corruption of speech (fasad al-            went beyond the explanation of the text and aimed at a much
> lugha), the text of the Quran became difficult to understand.         larger scope: the explanation of grammar. He dealt with all
> possible constructions in the language and accounted for
> Because of the central place of the Quran in Islamic             their structural differences in terms of the different case
> society it is not surprising that specialists came forward in the     endings found in them.
> community to help the common believers understand the
> text. The name most often cited in this connection is that of             Sibawayhi introduced a framework that was truly innova-
> Ibn 
Abbas (d. 687), but we may be sure that each city in the         tive, the system of declension (i
rab) that became one of the
> empire had its own experts. The earliest commentaries all             central notions of Arabic grammar. Nouns, and to some
> shared a semantic approach, since they focused on the impli-          extent imperfect verbs, were assumed to have a series of
> cations of the text for religious, legal, and ritual purposes. Yet,   endings whose function differed from that of the permanent
> the existence of variant readings and the discrepancies be-           end vowels of other words such as the perfect verbs or the
> tween the language of the text and everyday vernacular                particles. The declensional vowels were the result of the
> speech also led to an interest in formal elements in the text as      action of an 
amil, an operator governing the case endings.
> well. For instance, signaling the presence of foreign loanwords       This function could be performed either by a verb (e.g., in the
> in the Quran and discussing the tribal provenance of some of         sentence daraba zaydun 
amran “Zayd hit 
Amr” the verb is the
> the lexical items were not essential for the understanding of         operator of the nominative in the agent, zaydun, and the
> the text, but nevertheless most of the commentaries provide           accusative in the object, 
amran), or a particle (e.g., the
> such information.                                                     particle fi is the operator of the genitive in fi l-bayti “in the
> house”).
> Some of the earliest commentators, such as Mujahid (d.
> 722) and Muqatil (d. 767), used conventional terms in dis-                Since it is not always possible to explain the structure of
> cussing, for instance, the various text types that are found in       the actually spoken sentence, it is sometimes necessary to
> the Quran or the vowel-endings of words. The terms for the           have recourse to an underlying level of speech (taqdir). Thus,
> vowel-endings, which were probably derived from the Syriac            for instance, in the sentence an-najdata! “help!” the grammargrammatical tradition, provided a starting point for later            ian posits an underlying verb ad
u “I call for, I ask” in order to
> grammarians and may therefore be regarded as the begin-               explain the accusative in the noun. With the help of the
> nings of the discipline of grammar in Islam.                          notion of taqdir grammarians built a large explanatory framework that was neither intended as normative (after all, the
> From Text to Language                                                 Bedouin were native speakers and did not need correction),
> The preoccupation with the formal properties of the text of           nor as a simple description, but as an explanation of the rules
> the Quran inevitably led to an interest in the structure of the      of grammar. Exceptions were not allowed in this analysis,
> language in which the revelation was couched. The sources             since language was regarded as part of God’s creation, of
> have preserved the names of some scholars in the second               which even the minutest detail must find an explanation.
> century of Islam, who dealt with the Arabic language on a
> professional basis, not only in order to study the revealed              Even though after Sibawayhi competing schools arose in
> book, but also to understand the structure of the language, to        Basra, Kufa, and Baghdad, the theoretical framework re-
> find out the qiyas al-
arabiyya “the rules of Arabic.” Since what      mained the same for all grammarians. Both the grammarians
> is known about these grammarians comes only from later                in Basra, such as al-Mubarrad (d. 898), and those in Kufa,
> sources (chiefly the quotations in the first complete grammar           such as al-Farra (d. 822) and Tha
lab (d. 904), used the
> of Arabic, Kitab Sibawayhi), it is difficult to say with any           principle of 
amal to account for the case endings in the
> certainty what their opinions were, but so much seems to be           language, and although they differed as to the scope of the
> certain that they did not hesitate to correct the text of the         examples they allowed as a basis for their qiyas, essentially
> Quran whenever they thought it was contradicted by the               they may be regarded as belonging to one linguistic paradigm.
> linguistic usage of the Bedouin.
> The science that worked with this paradigm is called in
> This attitude toward the text and the language of the             Arabic nahw (which also means “syntax”). Almost right from
> Quran was to change with Sibawayhi (d. c. 793), a Persian,           the beginning a strict distinction was made between this
> who became the first grammarian to compile a book encom-               science and that of lexicography (
ilm al-lugha). The earliest
> passing the entire structure of the language. For Sibawayhi           beginnings of lexicography are found in the commentaries of
> the text of the Quran had been established once and for all by       the Quran, some of which concentrated on the lexical meanthe 
Uthmanic codex, compiled by order of the third caliph,           ing of words that had become archaic by that time. These
> and he did not feel the need to concern himself with the text         early attempts at compiling word lists of the Quran or the
> itself. Instead, he turned to the structure of the language of        hadith culminated in the Kitab al-
ayn, initiated and perhaps
> the Arab Bedouin, which was assumed to be identical both              partly based on the notes of al-Khalil ibn Ahmad (d. 791),
> 
> 280                                                                                                Islam and the Muslim World
> Greek Civilization
> 
> Sibawayhi’s teacher in grammar. Like the Kitab Sibawayhi,             refining the contents of Sibawayhi’s Kitab rather than innothis dictionary no longer concentrated on the Quran but on           vating the discipline.
> the language itself, as is evident from the fact that poetic
> quotations are far more frequent in it than quotations from               This situation started to change with grammarians such as
> the Quran. The Kitab al-
ayn set the trend for a long line of        Jurjani (d. 1078) who combined their interests in rhetoric and
> ever larger dictionaries that attempted to encapsulate the            grammar and criticized their predecessors for not having
> lexicon of the entire language, culminating in Ibn Manzur’s           taken into account the semantic aspect of speech by focusing
> (d. 1311) famous lexicon, Lisan al-
Arab.                             exclusively on the syntactic parameters. This new interest in a
> comprehensive science of language, including style and poet-
> From Language to Language Use                                         ics, may be yet another example of Mu
tazilite thinking in
> A new development in Arab linguistics was initiated by the            linguistics. Their influence is certainly evident in the field of
> introduction of Greek logic and philosophy in the Islamic             the 
ilm usul al-fiqh, in which the epistemological value of
> world. The translation of Greek texts that had already started        linguistic utterances was studied for its relevance to legal
> under the Umayyad caliphs, usually through Syriac, started in         reasoning. These new developments meant effectively a sepaearnest under the Abbasid caliph al-Mamun (d. 833), who              ration between grammar in the strict sense and other languagepersonally supported this development by founding the Bayt            related sciences.
> al-Hikma (an academy of translators in Baghdad). The influx
> of new ideas in Arabic had a profound influence on Islamic             See also Arabic Language; Arabic Literature; Quran.
> thinking, especially in the theological system of the Mu
tazilites,
> who for some time enjoyed official recognition of their ideas.         BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Bohas, Georges; Guillaume, Jean-Patrick; and Carter, Michael
> Thanks to the Mu
tazilites rationalist logic became the             G. Arab Linguistics: An Introductory Classical Text with
> cornerstone for theological thought. Because of their empha-            Translation and Notes. Amsterdam: J. Benjamins, 1981.
> sis on the unity of God, they refused to accept an eternal            Gully, Adrian. Grammar and Semantics in Medieval Arabic: A
> status for the revealed book, which they regarded as created            study of Ibn-Hisham’s Mughni l-Labib. Richmond, Surrey,
> (khalq al-Quran). Through the discussions on this topic the            U.K.: Curzon Press, 1995.
> Mu
tazilites became interested in questions about the status          Kouloughli, Djamel Eddine. The Arabic Linguistic Tradition.
> of God’s speech, the relationship between word and meaning,             New York and London: Routledge, 1990.
> and the intricate question of the origin of speech. This last
> Larkin, Margaret. The Theology of Meaning: 
Abd al-Qahir alissue had always been connected with the revelation of the
> Jurjani’s Theory of Discourse. New Haven, Conn.: Ameri-
> Quran, but was discussed now as a logico-philosophical                  can Oriental Society, 1995.
> problem.
> Owens, Jonathan. The Foundations of Grammar: An Intro-
> Although grammarians in general avoided any contact                 duction to Medieval Arabic Grammar. Amsterdam: J.
> Benjamins, 1988.
> with the “Greek sciences,” they could not avoid some of the
> topics that had become popular in general debate, such as the         Owens, Jonathan. Early Arabic Grammatical Theory: Heterogerelationship between words and the things they referred to or           neity and Standardization. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: J.
> the logical correlates of grammatical categories, as in Zajjaji’s       Benjamins, 1990.
> (d. 949) Kitab al-idah. Greek influence also manifested itself         Talmon, Rafael. Arabic Grammar in Its Formative Age: Kitab
> in the debate about the status of grammar vis-à-vis logic and           al-
Ayn and its Attribution to Halil b. Ahmad. Leiden: E. J.
> about the competence of logicians and grammarians. Signifi-              Brill, 1997.
> cantly, many grammarians in this period adhered to Mu
tazilite        Versteegh, Kees. Quranic Exegesis and Arabic Grammar in
> ideas. Apart from its influence on the public debate Greek               Early Islam. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1993.
> logic also insinuated itself in the general format of grammati-       Versteegh, Kees. The Arabic Linguistic Tradition. London and
> cal treatises. Contrary to the earlier tradition, it became             New York: Routledge, 1997.
> customary to define grammatical notions and to devote                  Versteegh, Kees. The Arabic Language. 2nd ed. Edinburgh:
> special attention to the division of their treatises into separate      Edinburgh University Press, 2001.
> topics. Likewise, grammarians started to write introductory
> treatises, such as Zajjaji’s Kitab al-jumal or Farisi’s (d. 989)                                                     Kees Versteegh
> Kitab al-idah.
> 
> In the third/fourth centuries of Islam, grammar had become a technical discipline with its own terminology and              GREEK CIVILIZATION
> apparatus. Although grammarians such as Ibn Jinni (d. 1002)
> showed a vivid interest in all matters pertaining to language in      The rapid expansion of the Islamic empire led to its speedy
> his linguistic encyclopedia al-Khasais, most grammatical             contact with a cultural world heavily marked by Greek
> treatises in this period were concerned with repeating and            thought. Greek civilization had spread throughout the urban
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                      281
> Greek Civilization
> 
> areas of the Middle East, North Africa, and the Iberian            thinkers to oppose the use of Greek-inspired thought, from
> peninsula, and it was reflected in the relatively high standards    Abu Sa
id al-Sirafi (893–979) to al-Ghazali (1058–1111) and
> of living and education, for at least a portion of the citizens.   Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328). Interestingly, the arguments against
> When the Arabs came to confront this culture, they might           Greek thought often employed Greek mechanisms and so
> have rejected it totally and sought to destroy it. After all, it   could be representative of Greek civilization’s ultimate sucwas a culture that rested on unbelief, from an Islamic perspec-    cess in the Islamic world.
> tive, and whose practitioners were ethnically quite distinct
> from the Arabs themselves. In the early Middle Ages, how-              In some parts of the Islamic world such as al-Andalus (the
> ever, there was an attempt to understand and learn from the        Iberian peninsula) there was a particularly happy combina-
> Greek-influenced cultures, and to use that knowledge to             tion of Greek thought and Islam, resulting in a great outburst
> improve the delivery of the Islamic message itself. Several        of science and culture generally. There is much evidence that
> theories could explain this. It could be because the new rulers    the intellectual wealth thus produced had as a side-effect
> were intent on obeying those parts of the Quran that recom-       considerable material wealth, and certainly during this period
> mend toleration of divergent points of view, at least when         the Islamic world was far more advanced than Christian
> held by other people of the book; it could have been because       Europe. It may be significant that Christian Europe during
> Islam was not at this stage confident enough to alienate those      the early Middle Ages had only a limited supply of Greek
> under its recent control; or it could be that the Muslims were     texts, and indeed only acquired any significant degree of these
> impressed by the level of wealth and culture that they ob-         when they were translated out of Arabic into Latin (often via
> Hebrew).
> served and sought to emulate it by coming to grips with its
> basis in Greek culture.                                                It is sometimes argued that the Islamic world was not able
> to make creative use of Greek thought, merely being trans-
> A very practical issue that soon faced the Muslims was the
> mitters of Greek civilization. This is plainly false, as a great
> need to argue with their new subjects, since the issue of
> number of original and innovative theories came out of the
> conversion was a live one. Yet the non-Muslims were often
> Islamic world, and the Greeks were not the only group to
> far better at disputation than the Muslims, given their long
> make a contribution to the culture of the Islamic world, since
> practice of rhetoric and logic. The ancient Greeks had develthe role of the Indians within Islamic life deserves careful
> oped the art of disputation to a very high degree, and this
> consideration.
> continued to be studied and practiced by their successors in
> the Middle East. Perhaps even more significantly, the Greeks            In a whole range of disciplines such as mathematics,
> had developed a sophisticated scientific system, not only one       astronomy, chemistry—and, of course, philosophy—Greekthat was theoretically rich in its understanding of how the        inspired thought was the catalyst for a creative outburst. In
> universe might operate, but also a system that was capable of      what are today not regarded as respectable sciences, alchemy
> making a very substantial practical contribution to everything     and astrology, Greek thought played an even more important
> from how to design cities to how to cure (or at least alleviate    role. Greek thought affected the paradigmatically Islamic
> symptoms of) a variety of diseases. Clearly any rational ruler     sciences of theology and law that came to acquire many of the
> was going to avail himself of this intellectual largesse if he     techniques and principles used in Greek thought. Finally, the
> could, and the Muslims certainly took advantage of what they       Islamic adab tradition of literature was also influenced by the
> found in their new territories.                                    Greeks. There were many editions of books that contained
> “wisdom” literature of the Greeks, chiefly consisting of
> The first step that needed to be taken was to rapidly           aphorisms often incorrectly attributed to thinkers like Socrates.
> translate Greek texts, often via Syriac (a Semitic language like   Despite the questionable sources the wisdom literature was
> Arabic). It was an expensive and time-consuming process            probably widely read and certainly had an effect on the notion
> carried out largely by Christian translators. The Abbasid          of what constituted style in literature. Abu Sulayman alcaliph al-Mamun founded in 832 C.E. the House of Wisdom           Sijistani’s collections of wisdom literature were particularly
> (an institution where translators and collectors of Greek and      widely distributed from the tenth century onward. In short, it
> Syriac manuscripts could cooperate; bayt al-hikma), and its        is difficult to find an aspect of Islamic civilization that was not
> scale is an indication of the importance with which the rulers     affected by the Greeks.
> of the time regarded Greek thought. The availability of
> Greek texts in Arabic formed the basis of what came to be a            Another area of thought where Greek civilization played a
> very rich tradition of Islamic philosophy, which continued in      notable part was the development of political thought. The
> the Arabic world until the twelfth century as philosophy, and      idea of a ruler who combines the roles of legislator, thinker,
> that was to enjoy an even longer life in the Persian world,        and religious authority was constructed by adding Islam to
> where philosophy continued to be studied and written for far       Plato, as it were, proving to be a very fruitful way of analyzing
> longer. The problems that philosophy met in the Arabic-            the state and the nature of political authority. The description
> speaking world owed much to its Greek, and hence non-              of the state as organic in Plato’s Republic fit in nicely with the
> Muslim, origins. There was a prolonged campaign by many            Islamic notion of the state being necessarily structured in
> 
> 282                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Gumi, Abu Bakr
> 
> terms of a religious doctrine, where every individual has a role   Leaman, Oliver. “Philosophical and Scientific Achievements
> that satisfies higher purposes than merely providing him with         in Islamic History.” In Intellectual Traditions in Islam.
> particular benefits and duties. It was not difficult to add to the     Edited by Farhad Daftary. London: I. B. Tauris, 2000.
> characteristics of the ruler the status of prophecy, or interme-   Leaman, Oliver. Introduction to Classical Islamic Philosophy.
> diary between the community and the Prophet, and this                Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
> enables the state to claim a higher purpose than merely
> assuring the material welfare of its members. Even long after      Nasr, Seyyed Hossein, and Leaman, Oliver, eds. History of
> the direct influence of Greek thought disappeared from the            Islamic Philosophy. New York: Routledge, 1996.
> Islamic world, this theme in political thought continued and       Peters, Francis E. Aristotle and the Arabs: The Aristotelian
> flourished.                                                            Tradition in Islam. New York: New York University
> Press, 1968.
> See also Africa, Islam in; Americas, Islam in the; Falsafa;
> Islam and Other Religions; South Asia, Islam in; South-            Walzer, Richard. Greek into Arabic: Essays on Islamic Philosoeast Asia, Islam in.                                                 phy. Oxford, U.K.: Bruno Cassirer, 1962.
> 
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Oliver Leaman
> Abed, Shukri. Aristotelian Logic and the Arabic Language in
> Alfarabi. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991.
> Gutas, Dimitri. Avicenna and the Aristotelian Tradition: Introduction to the Reading of Avicenna’s Works. Leiden: E. J.
> Brill, 1988.                                                     GUMI, ABU BAKR See Abu Bakr Gumi
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                  283
> H
> HADITH                                                                        In this tradition the isnad informs us that Abu Sa
id al-
> Khudri, a Companion of the Prophet, reported this saying of
> Hadith is a genre of Muslim literature that originated in the              the Prophet, and that his report has been transmitted via
> early period of Islamic history. It is found in the earliest               
Ata, Ibn Shihab, Malik, and his pupil Yahya to the editor of
> preserved compilations of legal and historical material as-                the collection in which the hadith is found.
> cribed to authors of the eighth century. Since then and
> Role in Muslim Culture
> continuing until the present time, a huge number of hadith
> The hadiths, embodying the tradition on the origins of Islam,
> collections have been brought to light.
> are for Muslims an important source of guidance next to the
> The term hadith (often capitalized by Western scholars)                Quran. The “way” (sunna) of their Prophet and of the first
> denotes both the genre of literature and an individual text of             generations of Muslims is taken as a model of how Muslims
> this genre. Originally the term meant story, communication,                should live in this world in order to lead a happy eternal life in
> or report but as a scholarly term hadith means tradition.                  the hereafter. This is most obvious in that this sunna, particu-
> Muslim scholarship tends to limit the term hadith to the                   larly that of the Prophet, became after the Quran the second
> accounts of the prophet Muhammad. Many Western scholars                    fundamental source of the sharia, the Law of God. According
> use hadith more broadly to include the traditions of the                   to Muslim scholars this status of the sunna is advocated both
> in the Quran and in hadiths of the Prophet and was already
> Prophet’s Companions and even later generations. In this
> acknowledged by his Companions. In contrast, Western
> broader meaning, however, it was also used by early and a few
> scholars usually think that the sunna acquired its status as
> later Muslim hadith scholars.
> second source of the Law only gradually during the eighth
> In the early and classical sources, that is, those dated until         century and that in Sunnite law the hadiths of the Prophet
> the eleventh century, one mostly encounters the hadiths in a               gained the absolute superiority over other expressions of the
> typical form. Every single tradition begins with a chain of                sunna only in the first half of the ninth century. In Imami
> transmitters, called isnad (support, foundation). The first                 Shi
ite law the traditions of the Prophet did not acquire such a
> transmitter in the isnad is often the collector (sometimes even            superiority but are considered equal in value with that of
> his pupil) in whose compilation the hadith in question is                  the imams.
> found, then the collector’s informant is mentioned, then the
> The important role that the hadiths came to play in
> latter’s informant, and so on until the chain arrives at the
> Muslim scholarship in general, and for the establishment of
> original reporter of the text. The text, which is called matn in
> the sharia in particular, induced Muslim scholars to scruti-
> Arabic, could be either a short sentence or a long story. Here
> nize the tradition material critically and to define rules as to
> is an example of a hadith:
> which hadiths could be accepted and which must be rejected.
> The traditional Muslim hadith criticism focused on the
> Yahya related to me from Malik from Ibn Shihab from                     chains of transmitters (isnads), which accompany a hadith, but
> 
Ata b. Yazid al-Laythi from Abu Sa
id al-Khudri that                  also checked whether its content (matn) is compatible with
> the Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant                       other recognized traditions and with the Quran. This led
> him peace, said (= isnad): “When you hear the call to                   among the Sunnites to a classification of hadiths in four
> prayer (adhan), repeat what the muezzin (mu
adhdhin)                    classes: (1) sahih (sound); (2) hasan (fair); (3) daif (weak), with
> says” (= matn).                                                         some subcategories of this class; and (4) mawdu (spurious).
> 
> Hadith
> 
> Additionally, special classification systems were developed         849), the Sunan of Sa
id b. Mansur (d. 841), or the Sunan of alfor the evaluation of isnads and matns. The critical evaluation    Darimi (d. 868), belong to this type, as do the six hadith
> of the hadiths found its expression in special compilations in     collections of al-Bukhari (d. 870), Muslim (d. 874), Ibn Maja
> which their authors collected the hadiths, that they consid-       (d. 886), Abu Dawud (d. 888), al-Tirmidhi (d. 892), and alered reliable or accepted. The “six books” (see the section        Nasai (d. 915), which over time were recognized by Sunnite
> “Collections” below), which among the Sunnites acquired an         scholars as the most reliable ones. The collections of alalmost canonical status, belong to this type of collection.        Bukhari and Muslim were even called the “sound” (sahih).
> Nevertheless, the evaluation of particular hadiths, even of        The canonical hadith collections of the Imami Shi
ites comthose contained in the most revered collections, remained          piled by al-Kulini (d. 939), al-Babuya al-Qummi (d. 991), and
> disputed in Muslim scholarship. In Imami Shi
ism hadith            al-Tusi (d. 1067) also belong to the musannaf type.
> criticism was less sophisticated and appeared late because the
> isnads consisted in large part of the (infallible) imams.              Several comprehensive collections compiled from the
> ninth century onward show another method of ordering the
> In modern times the Muslim debate about the reliability        hadiths. All traditions whose isnads go back to the same
> of the hadiths got a new impetus. Reform-minded scholars           original reporter are put together; for example, the hadiths
> and intellectuals tried to revise the issue of which hadiths are   transmitted from the above-mentioned Abu Sa
id al-Khudri.
> essential and binding for a Muslim and which are not. Names        The entries are arranged alphabetically according to the
> like Sayyid Ahmad Khan (d. 1898), Muhammad 
Abduh (d.              name of the original reporters. Such a type of collection is
> 1905), Rashid Rida (d. 1935), Mahmud Abu Rayya, and                called musnad. Generally it confines itself to hadiths of the
> Ghulam Ahmad Parwez are connected with the critique of             Prophet. The most famous compilation of this type is the
> the traditional hadith scholarship. Scholars advocating Islamic    huge Musnad of Ahmad b. Hanbal (d. 855), but there are
> revivalism, such as Abu l-A
la Maududi (d. 1979), Muham-          earlier ones, such as the Musnad of al-Humaydi (d. 834) and
> mad al-Ghazali, or Yusuf al-Qaradawi, also called for a            the Musnad of al-Tayalisi (d. 813)—the latter probably comreassessment of the classical hadith literature in light of the    piled by one of his pupils—and many later ones, like the
> Quran and modernity. They argued for a more sophisticated         Tahdhib al-athar of al-Tabari (d. 923), which is incomplete;
> criticism of the content (matn) of the hadiths. A few others       the Musnad of Abu Ya
la (d. 919); or al-Mu‘jam al-kabir of allike Fazlur Rahman (d. 1988) and Mohammed Arkoun advo-             Tabarani (d. 970).
> cated a new understanding of the development of the hadiths.
> Muslim scholars did not always use the terms musannaf
> and musnad consistently in the titles of the collections, and
> Collections
> they classify hadith collections also according to several other
> The earliest preserved hadith collections confine themselves
> criteria.
> to certain types of traditions. For example, the Sira of Ibn
> Ishaq (d. 767) in the recension preserved from Ibn Hisham (d.      History
> 828 or 833) contains mainly historical traditions on Muham-        Hadiths are available in collections dating from the ninth to
> mad and his time. The Muwatta
 of Malik b. Anas (d. 795 ) as       the eleventh centuries or even later. The hadiths themselves,
> transmitted by Yahya b. Yahya (d. 848) is a collection of legal    through their isnads, claim to have been transmitted from
> hadiths, as is the Zaydi Shi
ite Majmu al-fiqh ascribed to         earlier times. There are four sources that allow us to know
> Zayd b. 
Ali (d. 740), but probably compiled only by Ibrahim       more about the history of these hadiths: (1) the isnads of the
> b. Zibriqan (d. 799). By contrast, the Tafsir of 
Abd al-Razzaq    traditions; (2) their texts (matns); (3) biographical traditions
> al-San
ani (d. 827) contains exegetical traditions.                about the transmitters found in the isnads; and (4) the later
> norm and practice of transmitting traditions (known from
> This manner of collecting traditions continued and there
> different types of sources).
> are many later examples of compilations confined to a certain
> type of tradition or to traditions on certain topics. From the         Most Sunnite Muslim scholars are convinced that it is
> ninth century onward more comprehensive collections be-            possible to reconstruct the history of the hadiths on the basis
> came available. There are two main types. In most of the           of the four sources, which they consider on the whole as being
> comprehensive collections the traditions are put together in       reliable. They usually sketch the origin and development of
> chapters and paragraphs according to the content of the            the hadiths as follows: The Prophet taught his “way” (sunna)
> traditions. Thus we find chapters on prayer, marriage, com-         to his Companions orally, by writing or by practical demonmercial transactions, Quranic exegesis, maghazi (campaigns        stration. He encouraged his Companions to diffuse his teachof the Prophet), and so forth in which traditions on the           ings and sent teachers and preachers to newly converted
> particular topics are combined. This type of ordering of the       tribes. His Companions were very eager to learn as much as
> subject matter is called musannaf (classified). The oldest          they could from their Prophet. They learned his sunna, that
> comprehensive collections preserved, such as the Musannaf of       is, his practice, by doing it with him, they memorized it, or—
> 
Abd al-Razzaq (d. 827), the Musannaf of Ibn Abi Shayba (d.        if they could write—wrote it down. After the death of the
> 
> 286                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Hadith
> 
> Prophet, his Companions continued their efforts to memo-             it might be possible to discern between them. They differ,
> rize the hadiths and to write them down, and instructed              however, widely as to the methods through which this could
> others whenever they felt that this was needed, and some             be achieved. In this respect more or less skeptical and sophis-
> Companions even attracted circles of students whom they              ticated approaches can be distinguished. Some scholars (like
> taught regularly.                                                    M. W. Watt) rely in their methods mainly on the texts of the
> hadiths, while others (like Juynboll) focus on the isnads, and
> In this way the hadiths were also transmitted to the             yet others (like J. van Ess, H. Motzki, or G. Schoeler) use a
> following generations. The students of the Companions, the           combination of matn and isnad analysis. The latter method
> older Successors, became teachers themselves and the circles         starts from collections in which the traditions are available
> of students committed to the study of the Quran and to the          and tries to detect indications in the isnads and the texts as to
> preservation of traditions grew steadily. There were only few        whether the traditions in question were really transmitted or
> Successors who had collected hadiths from different sources,         fabricated. The investigation can be focused either on a single
> but their students, who flourished in the first half of the            tradition, of which variants are available in different colleceighth century, devoted themselves to the task of collecting         tions, or on the traditions contained in one and the same
> traditions more systematically. They also began to arrange           collection. In the first case the aim is to find out whether it is
> them thematically and transmitted their written collections          possible to reconstruct the transmission history of a particular
> to wider circles of students. This is the material out of which      hadith. In the second case the issue is scrutinized to deterthe early substantial collections of traditions were compiled,       mine whether the history of a whole collection can be reconsuch as Ibn Ishaq’s Sira or Malik’s Muwatta
, which are              structed, whether the collector may have invented the hadiths
> preserved through recensions of their pupils.                        or the isnads or both, or whether he has received them from
> the informants he names.
> This scenario, which has a certain attraction by appearing
> natural or even inevitable, at least as far as the Prophet and his      This source-critical approach produces another scenario
> Companions are concerned, is almost completely based on              of the history of the hadiths. In contrast to the pictures
> information taken from traditions that go back, according to         drafted by Muslim scholars and extreme skepticists, the
> their isnads, to eyewitnesses of the time of the Prophet, the        conclusions of the source-critical scholars are general but
> Companions, and the Successors. It is rejected outright by a         confined to the collections and traditions studied. Their
> Western school of thought that argues that the precise               scenario is therefore fragmentary and provisional.
> history of the hadiths available in the collections of the ninth
> century and later cannot be reconstructed anymore. Scholars             According to the source-critical approach there are colbelonging to this school of thought doubt, first of all, the          lections, such as 
Abd al-Razzaq’s Musannaf or Ibn Hisham’s
> historical value of the isnads, which they consider as generally     Sira, which can be shown to have been compiled from earlier
> fabricated and as arbitrarily attached to the traditions. They       sources. That means that the names to which the collectors
> furthermore argue that the biographical traditions about the         ascribe their materials are, at least partially, their real informtransmitters who appear in the isnads are not an independent         ants. This does not yet say anything about the quality of their
> historical source, because the information contained in the          textual transmission. These informants or sources of the
> biographical traditions may be invented to support the isnads.       collectors, like Ibn Jurayj or Ibn Ishaq, lived in the first half of
> If these two sources, isnads and biographical traditions, are        the eighth century. It is also obvious that the huge amounts of
> unreliable, then we are left with the texts alone. On the basis      traditions that were transmitted by these informants were
> of their content and style, only a very global reconstruction of     mostly not invented by them or falsely ascribed to some other
> their history is possible. As models for such a reconstruction,      informants, but were really received from the persons named.
> the developments of the Jewish and Christian religious litera-       This is suggested by the great variation between the isnads
> ture can be used. The result is “salvation history,” the recon-      and the matns, which are said to derive from the different
> struction of how the Muslim community at the turn of the             informants and by formal peculiarities that suggest a real
> eighth century reflects through its traditions on its own             transmission. In this manner the materials going back, for
> origins. This school of thought derives its inspiration from         example, to 
Ata b. Rabah (d. 733) or 
Amr b. Dinar (d. 744),
> the studies of J. Wansbrough (1977, 1978). According to this         some of the key informants of Ibn Jurayj (d. 767), or the
> approach the hadiths are generally inauthentic in the sense          material going back to al-Zuhri (d. 742), a key informant of
> that they do not reflect the factual history of the first two          both Ibn Jurayj and Ibn Ishaq (d. 767), can be recovered. The
> Islamic centuries. This skepticism of the traditions has its         quality of the material transmitted from these informants—
> roots in the studies of I. Goldziher (1890) and J. Schacht (1950).   flourishing in the first quarter of the eighth century and
> belonging to the Successors, the generation following that of
> Not all Western scholars hold to the extreme skepticism          the Prophet’s Companions—can be evaluated on internal
> that doubts the historical reliability of the Muslim traditions      grounds and by comparing their traditions with variants of
> altogether. Many Western scholars of Islam assume that               them found in other reliable sources and transmitted by
> there may be both unreliable and reliable traditions and that        compilers other than Ibn Jurayj and Ibn Ishaq. In this way
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                         287
> Hadith
> 
> suspicious transmitters can be detected as well. The proce-           Brown, Daniel W. Rethinking Tradition in Modern Islamic
> dure can, at least in some cases, also be applied to the material        Thought. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University
> deriving from the Successors. That means that through this               Press, 1996.
> method it is possible to date large amounts of traditions step        Burton, John. An Introduction to the Hadith. Edinburgh: Edinby step back until, at least in some cases, the time of the             burgh University Press, 1994.
> Companions.                                                           Cook, Michael. “The Dating of Traditions.” In Early Muslim
> Dogma: A Source-Critical Study. Cambridge, U.K.: Cam-
> The materials reconstructed as being earlier sources allow          bridge University Press, 1981.
> for conclusions about the way hadiths were transmitted from
> Donner, Fred M. Narratives of Islamic Origins. The Beginnings
> generation to generation until they were incorporated in the            of Islamic Historical Writing. Princeton, N.J.: The Darwin
> collection in question, for example 
Abd al-Razzaq’s Musannaf.          Press, 1998.
> It could be established, for example, that the transmission of
> Ess, Joseph van. Zwischen Hadith und Theologie. Studien zum
> traditions in Mecca and Medina from the middle of the                    Entstehen prädestinatianischer Überlieferung. Berlin and New
> seventh until the middle of the eighth century occurred orally           York: Walter de Gruyter, 1975.
> but was accompanied by written notes. This indicates that the
> Goldziher, Ignaz. Muslim Studies. Edited by S. M. Stern.
> transmission focused on the content of the traditions, not on           Translated by C. R. Barber, and S. M. Stern. London:
> the exact wording. In the succeeding generations transmis-              George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1971.
> sion occurred orally in combination with verbatim copying.
> Juynboll, G. H. A. Muslim Tradition. Studies in Chronology,
> The use and quality of isnads differed among the early
> Provenance and Authorship of Early Hadith. Cambridge,
> scholars. It seems that incomplete isnads coexisted with com-            U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1983.
> plete ones from the time of the Successors onward until the
> Juynboll, G. H. A. Studies on the Origins and Uses of Islamic
> end of the eighth century.
> Hadith. Aldershot, U.K.: Variorum Collected Studies
> Series, 1996.
> It can also be said that in early Meccan scholarship
> transmission of traditions played a minor role compared to            Kohlberg, Etan. “Shi
i Hadith.” The Cambridge History of
> that of Medina, but the situation changed in Mecca in the               Arabic Literature. Vol. 1, Arabic Literature to the End of the
> Umayyad Period. Edited by A. F. L. Beeston, et al. Camcourse of the first half of the eighth century. These differbridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1983.
> ences notwithstanding, there can be no doubt that there are
> traditions about the Companions and the Prophet that were             Motzki, Harald. “The Prophet and the Cat: On Dating
> Malik’s Muwatta and Legal Traditions.” Jerusalem Studies
> known and transmitted in both centers of learning already in
> in Arabic and Islam 22 (1998): 18–83.
> the second half of the seventh century. It is improbable,
> however, that the source-critical approach can lead to an             Motzki, Harald.“The Murder of Ibn Abi l-Huqayq: On the
> Origin and Reliability of Some Maghazi-Reports.” In The
> earlier period, aside from exceptional cases. One of the
> Biography of Muhammad: the Issue of the Sources. Edited by
> limitations of this method is that it cannot generalize. That
> Harald Motzki. Leiden: Brill, 2000.
> means that as long as a single hadith or a group of traditions
> has not yet been or cannot be scrutinized by this method,             Motzki, Harald. The Origins of Islamic Jurisprudence. Meccan
> Fiqh before the Classical Schools. Translated by M. H. Katz.
> their dating remains obscure. A judgment about their histori-
> Leiden: Brill, 2002.
> cal reliability must be postponed or cannot be made.
> Schacht, Joseph. The Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence.
> See also Succession.                                                     Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 1950.
> Schoeler, Gregor. Charakter und Authentie der muslimischen
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                             Überlieferung über das Leben Mohammeds. Berlin and New
> York: Walter de Gruyter, 1996.
> Abbott, Nabia. “Hadith Literature—II: Collection and Transmission of Hadith.” The Cambridge History of Arabic Litera-         Siddiqi, Muhammad Z. Hadith Literature: Its Origin, Developture. Vol. 1, Arabic Literature to the End of the Umayyad              ment & Special Features. Edited and revised by Abdal
> Period. Edited by A. F. L. Beeston, et al. Cambridge, U.K.:            Hakim Murad. Reprint. Cambridge, U.K.: The Islamic
> Cambridge University Press, 1983.                                      Texts Society, 1993.
> 
> Abdul Rauf, Muhammad. “Hadith Literature—I: The Devel-                Wansbrough, John. The Sectarian Milieu. Content and Compoopment of the Science of Hadith.” The Cambridge History               sition of Islamic Salvation History. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford
> of Arabic Literature. Vol. 1, Arabic Literature to the End of the     University Press, 1978.
> Umayyad Period. Edited by A. F. L. Beeston, et al. Cam-             Watt, W. Montgomery. “The Reliability of Ibn Ishaq’s
> bridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1983.                       Sources.” La Vie du prophète Mahomet. Paris: Presses
> Berg, Herbert. The Development of Exegesis in Early Islam. The          Universitaires de France, 1983.
> Authenticity of Muslim Literature From The Formative Period.
> Richmond, Surrey, U.K.: Curzon Press, 2000.                                                                        Harald Motzki
> 
> 288                                                                                               Islam and the Muslim World
> Hallaj, al-
> 
> Wilks, I. “The Juula and the Expansion of Islam into the
> HAJJ See Pilgrimage: Hajj                                                Forest.” In The History of Islam in Africa. Edited by N.
> Levtzion and R. L. Pouwels. Athens: Ohio University
> Press, 2000.
> 
> Abdulkader Tayob
> HAJJ SALIM SUWARI, AL- (C. 1300)
> Al-Hajj Salim Suwari is a name that appears in a number of
> scholarly lineages in West Africa. He is credited with trans-          HAJ 
UMAR AL-TAL, AL-
> mitting a significant Maliki teaching tradition to a region             (1797–1864)
> stretching from Ghana and Burkina Faso to Senegal and
> Gambia in West Africa. This tradition included jurispru-               The last revolutionary in the jihad tradition of Western
> dence, exegesis, and the biography of the Prophet. Historians          Sudan, Shaykh 
Umar al-Tal was born in Futa Toto, in the
> are divided between his provenance in the twelfth and thir-            Senegambia region, where he received his religious training.
> teenth centuries and the early fifteenth century. Those who             While in Mecca for pilgrimage in 1826 he was appointed the
> support the latter believe that he played a leading role in the        caliph of the Tijaniya brotherhood in the Western Sudan. He
> cultivation of extensive trade in gold between West African            lived in Mecca and Cairo, and eventually settled at the court
> kingdoms and North Africa. According to them, al-Hajj                  of the Sokoto Caliphate. After almost a decade away from
> Salim Suwari laid the foundation for a Maliki tradition that           home he decided, in the late 1830s, to return to the Senegambia
> fostered trade and accepted the authority of non-Muslim                region. He settled first in Dingirai, a town on the frontiers of
> rulers. It is this tradition that played a leading role in relations   the Futa Jalon imamate. There he began to preach and build
> between Muslims and other religious groups until the Fulani            his own following. For the next decade, his focused primarily
> Jihad states emerged in the eighteenth and nineteenth centu-           on writing and teaching. He used his authority to challenge
> ries. But it is also a tradition that continues today in countries     the leaders of the locally powerful Qadiriya Sufi order.
> like Senegal and other regions in West Africa.
> In his efforts to forge a large Muslim state, 
Umar declared
> Following the local hagiographies more closely, S. O.              a jihad around 1852 or 1853, when he began to widen his
> Sanneh believes that al-Hajj Salim Suwari should be situated           military operations north toward the upper Senegal River
> in the twelfth century. Al-Hajj Salim Suwari performed the             through non-Muslim, Malinke-dominated areas. By then he
> pilgrimage seven times, and on returning from the last one,            had acquired firearms and was proving to be a formidable
> he began a migration from Diakhe-Masina on the Niger                   force in the region. By the mid-1850s he had established the
> River to Diakhe-Bambukhu further southwest on the Senegal              Tukolor Muslim empire, with his capital at Nioro. His
> River. There he founded a city-state with his many followers,          activities in the Senegambia eventually led to a confrontation
> and established the scholarly tradition that flourished for the         with the French, who were seeking to establish absolute
> next several generations. Sanneh also believes that al-Hajj            control over the region. 
Umar’s military operations further
> Salim Suwari and his followers, the Jakhanke, were not                 east in the Muslim state of Massina were largely successful,
> directly engaged in the gold trade. Rather, they were engaged          until he was killed in 1864 during a counterattack. His
> in agriculture (through the extensive use of slaves) and were          successors divided up the empire and continued to challenge
> devoted to travel and study. The Diakhe-Babukhu of al-Hajj             the French over the next couple of decades.
> Salim Suwari became a model for many similar city-states in
> the long history of Islam in West Africa.                              See also Africa, Islam in; Caliphate; 
Ibadat.
> 
> See also Africa, Islam in; Islam and Other Religions;                  BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Networks, Muslim.
> Robinson, David. The Holy War of Umar Tal: The Western
> Sudan in the Mid-Nineteenth Century. Oxford, U.K.:
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                             Clarendon Press, 1985.
> Levtzion, N. “Patterns of Islamization in Black Africa.” In
> Conversion to Islam. Edited by N. Levtzion. New York:                                                                 Abdin Chande
> London: Holmes and Meier Publishers, 1979.
> Sanneh, S. O. The Jakhanke: The History of an Islamic Clerical
> People of the Senegambia. London: International African
> Institute, 1979.                                                    HALLAJ, AL- (858–922)
> Wilks, I. Wa and the Wala: Islam and Polity in Northwestern Ghana. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University                     The mystic and martyr Husayn ibn Mansur al-Hallaj was
> Press, 1989.                                                         born in 858 in Bayda, Persia. An Arabized Iranian whose
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                        289
> HAMAS
> 
> grandfather was a Zorastrian, al-Hallaj’s father, a cotton-         See also Heresiography; Kharijites, Khawarij; Mahdi;
> wool carder (hallaj) by trade, converted to Islam. The family       Muhasibi, al-; Tasawwuf.
> had emigrated through textile centers in Iran, settling in
> Sunni (Hanbali) Wasit, Iraq, where the young Hallaj was             BIBLIOGRAPHY
> educated in grammar, the Quran, and exegesis. He returned          Massignon, Louis. La Passion d’al-Hallaj (1922). Reprint.
> in 873 to Tustar and placed himself in the service of the noted       Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1982.
> Sufi shaykh Sahl. In 857 in Basra he received the Sufi habit
> Mason, Herbert. al-Hallaj. Richmond, Surrey, U.K.: Curzon
> (khirqa) and came under the influence of such noted shayks as
> Press, 1995.
> Muhasibi and 
Amr Makki, both of whom were associated
> with al-Junayd, head of the Baghdad school of Sufism.
> Herbert W. Mason
> In the period between 877 and 883 he married and had a
> daughter and three sons. The third son, Hamd, left an
> eyewitness account of his father’s last days in prison and his
> public execution. He became involved in the black slave
> HAMAS
> (Zanj) revolt centered around Basra, which was driven ideo-
> HAMAS is an acronym drawn from the Arabic initials of the
> logically by Shi
ite opponents of the Sunni 
Abbasid Caliphate.
> Islamic Resistance Movement (harakat al-muqawamat al-
> Though Sunni, he moved in Shi
ite circles and was later
> Islamiyyah), but which also bears a literal meaning of “zeal.”
> accused of having been influenced by Mahdism. He made the
> An offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, HAMAS was estab-
> first of this three yearlong retreats to Mecca, and uttered his
> lished in 1987, during the first Palestinian intifada (uprising).
> famous statement “I am the Truth” (Ana al-Haqq), which his
> The context for the creation of HAMAS was the continued
> opponents interpreted as blasphemy but which later supportfailure of efforts such as the Camp David Accords to achieve
> ers interpreted as “God has emptied me of everything but
> the goal of Palestinian statehood.
> Himself.” This was the most extreme expression of mystical
> union with God in the history of Islamic mysticism.                     In November of 1987, the Arab League met in Amman,
> Jordan, and issued a statement identifying the export of
> After his family settled in Baghdad, Hallaj departed on
> Islamic revolution from Iran as the greatest threat to stability
> two long missionary journeys to Khurasan and India between
> in the region. This was the first time the Arab League had not
> 887 and 901, preaching especially to Turkish nomads and
> identified Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory as the
> Manichean Uyghur Turks. During this period he composed
> major threat to regional stability. Feeling betrayed by the
> his first books and was given the sobriquet “the reader of
> international community and abandoned by fellow Arabs,
> hearts” (al-Hallaj al qulub). Between journeys he made his
> some members of the Palestinian branch of the Muslim
> second pilgrimage to Mecca and met two noted shaykhs, the
> Brotherhood lost faith in the approach to the problem of
> aging Nuri and the young Shibli. In 904 he visited Jerusalem,
> Palestinian statelessness taken by that organization during
> praying in the Holy Sepulcher of Jesus, who in an earlier
> the past few decades. The immediate cause of the intifada was
> period he had proclaimed the Mahdi. At this time he also
> the death of some Palestinian workers hit by an Israeli driver.
> preached the idea of fulfilling the pilgrimage obligation
> outside Mecca by creating miniature Ka
bas in homes, which          A group of Islamist Palestinians came together at a meeting
> was raised against him as a transgression of sacred law at his      called to discuss the incident, and the result was the formation
> trial. He preached openly against the tax scandals and politi-      of HAMAS. While the Palestinian Brotherhood’s parent
> cal corruption linked to the weakened Caliphate, which              organization, the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood, continued
> finally resulted in his arrest, in the name of public order,         to follow a quietist approach to achieving Palestinian goals,
> and long imprisonment (913–922). In 922 in Baghdad he               HAMAS leaders were persuaded that militarism would be
> was charged with heresy, flogged, gibbeted, and his body             required to achieve security for Palestinians.
> was burned.
> In addition to distinguishing itself from its parent, the
> Masked as a legal trial for heresy, the death of Hallaj has     Muslim Brotherhood, by insisting on the need for armed
> remained a controversial subject throughout subsequent              resistance, HAMAS distinguishes itself from the PLO (Pales-
> Islamic history, and has become a dramatic theme of many            tine Liberation Organization) in rejecting the right of the
> modern plays in Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and English.              Zionist entity (as it calls Israel) to exist because Israel denies
> Palestinians the rights of freedom and independence. Further
> Among his principal mystical ideas were total union with        distinguishing itself from the PLO, HAMAS demands that an
> God and the Essence of Desire (
ishq dhati), speech with God        Islamic state be established in place of Israel or a secular
> (shath), the existence of substitute saints (abdal) for the whole   Palestinian state. The basis of this position is the claim that
> community, the present witness (shahid ani) of the Eternal,         Jerusalem and, by extension, all of Palestine, are waqf, that is,
> fraternal union of two souls (ittihad an-nafsayn), and the          properties entrusted to Muslims to administer in perpetuity,
> outcry for justice (sayha bi
l-haqq).                               for the benefit of society. HAMAS ideologues believe that an
> 
> 290                                                                                              Islam and the Muslim World
> Harem
> 
> Islamic state is necessary to ensure the rights of all citizens,    Yasin describes the movement as essentially political, in that
> Jews and Christians as well as Muslims, since Islamic law           its goal is to secure the rights of Palestinians in their homeprotects the rights of religious minorities. Thus, the HAMAS        land. Like other political movements, the significance of
> charter proclaims, “God is the goal, the Prophet is the model,      HAMAS is based not so much on the number of its official
> the Quran is the constitution, jihad is the path, and death on     members as on the popularity of its political agenda. The
> God’s path is our most sublime aspiration.”                         popularity of HAMAS among Palestinians is impossible to
> measure precisely without general elections. However, elec-
> The spiritual leader of HAMAS, Shaykh Ahmad Yasin (b.           tions among students in Palestinian universities indicate that
> 1936), was leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Gaza and             by the mid-1990s, HAMAS had the second-largest following,
> founder of Gaza’s Islamic Center. He sought to establish            after FATAH (harakat al-tahrir al-watani al-filastini, the larg-
> HAMAS as an alternative to the PLO. HAMAS, therefore,               est organization in the PLO). While the popularity of milidevotes the majority of its budget to an array of social            tant Islamic groups in general was declining slightly by the
> services. These include support for the families of slain,          end of the 1990s, that trend was reversed following Israel’s
> jailed, or exiled activists; health centers; kindergartens and      withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000. Without clear
> other schools; mosques; and mediation services (a common            benefits to the majority of Palestinians from the 1993 Oslo
> form of civil conflict resolution in Arab societies). Its military   Accords, and in the context of stalled negotiations between
> activities, which it considers legitimate resistance to Israel’s    Israel and the PLO, the claim that militant Islam had defeated
> military occupation which is in violation of UN Security            Israel in Lebanon and could do so in Palestinian territories as
> Council Resolutions 242 and 338, are conducted by an armed          well became believable to some.
> wing called 
Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, named after a
> Palestinian hero killed by the British during its “Mandate”             Because of its military activities and political positions,
> occupation of Palestine in 1936.                                    HAMAS is banned in Israel. Many of its members have been
> arrested or deported, and a number of its leaders have been
> The ability of HAMAS to provide its services depends            assassinated. HAMAS was designated a terrorist organization
> upon its funding, which is both local and international.            by the United States in 1995, and contributing to it was
> Internal funding comes from the Islamic charity offering,           prohibited by the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penzakat. Support also comes from Muslim governments, such as          alty Act (Pub. Law 104–132) of April 1996.
> those of Saudi Arabia and Iran, from Islamic organizations
> throughout the world, as well as remittances from Muslims           See also Arab League; Fundamentalism; Intifada;
> living abroad.                                                      Lebanon; Majlis; Martyrdom; Terrorism.
> 
> Organizationally, HAMAS is linked to the Muslim Broth-
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> erhood. According to the HAMAS charter of August 1988, it
> is a wing of the Muslim Brotherhood Society in Palestine. Its       Abu Amr, Ziad. Islamic Fundamentalism in the West Bank and
> Gaza: Muslim Brotherhood and Islamic Jihad. Bloomington:
> activities are coordinated by liaisons between Gaza, the West
> Indiana University Press, 1994.
> Bank, Jordan, and HAMAS leaders living abroad. Its leadership structure is informal, with several founders and ideologues.   Mithaq harakat al-muqawama al-Islamiyya (Hamas) [Covenant
> of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas)], n.p., 18
> Shaykh Yasin remains the acknowledged spiritual leader, but
> August 1988.
> specific decisions are taken by a consultative council (majlis
> al-shura) with a flexible membership. This structure is in           Rashad, Ahmad. Hamas: Palestinian Politics with an Islamic
> accordance with the traditional Sunni Islamic model, and is            Hue. Anandale, Va.: United Association for Studies and
> Research, 1993.
> effective in allowing the organization to survive the incarceration and exile of its leaders from time to time.                Schiff, Zeev and Ehud Yaari. Intifada: The Palestinian
> Uprising—Israel’s Third Front. New York: Simon and
> HAMAS is most notorious for its use of suicide bombings            Schuster, 1989.
> in its armed struggle against Israel, targeting both military
> personnel and civilians. Both suicide and the targeting of                                                           Tamara Sonn
> civilians are forbidden by Islamic law. Both have been condemned by major Islamic scholars since the attacks against
> America on 11 September 2001. However, many religious
> scholars make an exception to the prohibition of suicide in         HAREM
> the case of the Palestinian struggle against Israeli occupation,
> provided the victims of the attacks are military personnel.         The practice of the harem (Ar., harim), or the seclusion of
> women, dates back to the pre-Islamic period. The root h-r-m
> The HAMAS charter describes the organization as the              also refers to al-haram al-sharif, the sanctuary of Mecca as the
> resistance wing of the Muslim Brotherhood, and therefore a          reserved space for Muslims. The form harem connotes a
> part of an international movement. At the same time, Shaykh         sacred and inviolable space, which is forbidden to any men,
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                     291
> Haron, Abdullah
> 
> other than the members of the immediate family. Its institu-       subservience of these females became necessary. For this
> tion and derivate forms have been common in the Middle             reason, it was in the best interest of the masters to institute a
> Eastern and Mediterranean cultures as an integral part of          severe seclusion and rigid privacy for the females.
> royal and upper-class families.
> For outsiders, the “imagined harem” came to represent
> Culturally, the Mesopotamian, Greek antiquity, and Per-        the abased and subjugated treatment of women in Islamic
> sian societies shared in common the practice of the harem.         civilization. This harem discourse emerged in the seven-
> While women were confined to their quarters, men enjoyed            teenth century after the Europeans discovered harems filled
> the privilege of engaging in the public sphere. This segrega-      with women. The explicit connection between the “imagined
> tion also marked a labor division based on sexual difference;      harem” and the status of women in Muslim society and Islam
> females were responsible for the management of the house-          was generally produced and reproduced by the European
> hold, whereas males served as head of the family and were          Orientalists in the two centuries following the colonization of
> responsible for public affairs. As the women’s role was limited
> the Muslim lands. This harem element shifted the medieval
> to managing the house, their presence in the public sphere
> discourse on Muslim women, which previously portrayed
> was also regulated through a manner of dress that rendered
> them as victimized, yet powerful in charm and deceit.
> them invisible from public gaze. Historically, followers of
> Judaism and Christianity also secluded women. For example,            Stimulated by the translation from the Arabic of the folk
> in the early Jewish family, where gender relations varied,         story The Thousand and One Nights, the “imagined harem”
> women were nonetheless confined to a private sphere in
> produced narratives of Muslim women whose sexual desire
> which they performed household duties for the family as well
> was strong, yet subordinated, oppressed, veiled, and seas religious rites. In the early Christian era, women were
> cluded. These harem narratives circulated in the eighteenth
> often secluded within their own residence, guarded by eunuchs,
> and nineteenth centuries, functioning not only to feed the
> and required to be veiled when they left the home. These
> Orientalist imaginary of the harem, but also to serve the
> practices found their way into the caliphate as the Abbasids
> superiority of imperialist power over the Muslim world.
> conquered the lands inhabited by the dominant Christian and
> Jewish cultures, and so the elite female members of the
> The harem as a social institution for women in the Muslim
> Abbasid caliphate were secluded within their own quarters
> world, especially in the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia,
> called “harem.” The institution of harem flourished in Mus-
> finally came to an end in the early twentieth century. It ended
> lim societies during the successive invasions and conquests of
> not because Muslims discovered that it was incompatible with
> the Mediterranean and Middle Eastern regions, Africa, and
> Islam, but because they lost control over their land and
> India. The conquest of Persia during the Sassanian times led
> politics.
> to the assimilation of Persian culture, especially in the garrison towns. This conquest and the subsequent expansion of
> See also Gender; Marriage; Purdah.
> the Muslim territory provided Muslim dynasties with the
> opportunity to own, inherit, and capture prisoners of wars,
> including eunuchs, slaves, and minors, as well as the wives of     BIBLIOGRAPHY
> royal families. For example, the Abbasid nobles and leaders        Ahmed, Leila. Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a
> adopted the Persian custom of the ownership of hundreds              Modern Debate. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University
> and thousands of concubines and slaves. Muslim dynasties             Press, 1992.
> and the notables maintained a harem as a part of their palaces.    Mernissi, Fatima. Dreams of Trespass: Tales of A Harem Girlhood. New York: Addison-Wesley Publishing Com-
> The inclusion of the harem fit well with the societal             pany, 1994.
> structure adopted from the Irano-Semitic culture in its Islamic
> form, called the ayan-amir system. In this form of administration, the “notables” (ayan) of the towns and villages and                                                          Etin Anwar
> the umara
 (leaders or commanders) of local or regional
> garrison courts shared power and authority. Within this web
> of social relationships, individual social status depended on
> the male’s ability to settle formal quarrels among the tribes or   HARON, ABDULLAH (1924–1969)
> factions and to invite sexual jealousy. The patterns of feuding
> and sex relations with numerous concubines marked mascu-           Abdullah Haron was an imam in Cape Town, South Africa,
> line honor and worthiness in society. These masculine traits       and a symbol of Muslim involvement in the antiapartheid
> belonged exclusively to the notables (the ayan) and the           struggle. Born in Cape Town in 1924 he lived all his life in
> commanders/leaders (the umara). As the masculine honor             that city and died there in 1969, a victim of apartheid’s
> within the ayan system depended heavily on the honor of           security police. He attended a Muslim school in the city and
> wives, concubines, and female slaves, the total control and the    as a youth spent two years as a devotee of a shaykh in Mecca.
> 
> 292                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Hasan
> 
> On his return to South Africa he studied under respected             After the death of his father, 
Ali bin Talib, the first imam,
> local scholars. In 1955 he was appointed to the position of       Mu
awiya became caliph. According to the Shi
ite account,
> imam at a mosque in a Cape Town suburb. He was a keen             Hasan should have succeeded his father. Hasan was an imporsportsman and played rugby and cricket even after he became       tant rawi (reciter) and interpreter of the hadith and sunna
> imam. He concentrated on social issues and established an         (sayings and practices) of the Prophet and his Companions,
> organization devoted to making Islam meaningful to youth in       reflecting the role of the imams in having access also to the
> South Africa. He was the first editor of Muslim News, an           divine meanings of revelation. But Hasan was too weak
> influential weekly among the country’s Muslims.                    politically to challenge Mu
awiya for the leadership of the
> community. After Mu
awiya attempted to have him assasinated,
> As apartheid rule intensified the imam was among a small        and many of his followers abandoned him, Hasan came to an
> group of Muslims that explored ways to challenge the state        understanding with Mu
awiya, wherein Hasan was sent to live
> from an Islamic basis. But Abdullah Haron also believed in a      in Medina, while Mu
awiya promised that leadership would
> united front of the oppressed against racial domination. He       revert to the family of the Prophet upon his death. But
> grew close to members of the then proscribed Pan-African          Mu
awiya broke his promise by appointing his son Yazid to
> Congress. On his travels to the Middle East he met exiled         succeed him, and convinced Ja
da, Hasan’s wife, to poison the
> South Africans and spoke out against apartheid to Arab            imam. In addition to paying Ja
da, Mu
awiyya also promised
> audiences and leaders, including King Faysal of Saudi Arabia.     to marry her to his son and heir, Yazid. The giving of
> In September 1969 he was reported dead in detention, the          poisoned water is the inverse of the denial of water to Husayn
> eighteenth political detainee to die in police custody in the     on the battlefield of Karbala, where the third imam was
> 1960s. During the 1980s, in the last wave of rebellion and        martyred by the forces of Yazid. Imam Husayn’s revolt
> resistance to the apartheid state, his memory and image were      subsequently disgraced Yazid, and created in him the archetypal
> revived as a symbol of Islam’s stand against injustice. He        figure of evil in Shi
ite stories of injustice.
> became better known and more revered as a martyr than
> when he was alive.                                                   This parable structure is also encoded in a hadith quoted
> by Mohammad Baqer Majlesi, the preeminent mujtahed of
> See also Africa, Islam in; Modern Thought.                        the seventeenth century. On Id al-Fitr, according to the
> hadith, Gabriel descended with a gift of new white clothes for
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                      each of the Prophet’s grandsons. The Prophet said that the
> Desai, Barney, and Marney, Cardiff. The Killing of the Imam.      grandsons were used to colored clothes. So Gabriel asked
> London: Quartet Books, 1978.                                    each boy what color he wanted. Hasan chose green, Husayn
> Donaldson, Dwight M. The Shiite Religion. New York: AMS          red. While the clothes were being dyed, Gabriel wept. He
> Press, 1984.                                                    explained: Hasan’s choice of green meant that he would be
> martyred by poisoning, and his body would turn green, and
> Haron, Muhammed. “Imam 
Abdullah Haron: Life, Ideas
> Husayn’s choice of red meant he would be martyred and his
> and Impact.” Master’s thesis, University of Cape
> Town, 1986.                                                     blood would turn the ground red.
> 
> Momen, Moojan. An Introduction to Shii Islam: The History           Hasan is buried in Medina with a green banner on his
> and Doctrines of Twelver Shiism. Oxford, U.K.: George
> mausoleum. Husayn is buried in Karbala with a red banner,
> Ronald, 1985.
> the sign of a martyr whose revenge is yet to come.
> 
> Shamil Jeppie        Sunni accounts of early Islamic history deny that Hasan
> was poisoned, claiming he died of consumption. Sunni accounts also stress the temporary shift of power to Damascus
> under Mu
awiya and Yazid, but since revenues came mainly
> HASAN (624–670)                                                   from Iraq, power eventually shifted to Baghdad.
> 
> Hasan ibn 
Ali ibn Abi Talib was the grandson of the prophet         For Shi
a, Hasan’s story is a precursor to Husayn’s mar-
> Muhammad and the second Shi
ite imam. Born in Medina in           tyrdom, which is the overarching cosmic and paradigmatic
> 624, three years after the hijra, he died at age forty-six in     story of existential tragedy, of injustice in this world triumphing
> Medina in 670. In Shi
ite parables he and his brother Husayn,     often by force over justice, and of the duty of a true Muslim to
> the third imam, are figured as two alternative political strate-   sacrifice himself, to witness for truth and justice.
> gies against injustice in the world and in politics. Hasan
> embodies the path of patience, which allows the enemy slowly      See also Ahl al-Bayt; Imamate; Shi
a: Early; Succession.
> to demonstrate unworthiness and lose any claim to legitimacy. Husayn embodies the path of armed revolt.                                                             Michael M. J. Fischer
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                      293
> Hashemi-Rafsanjani, 
Ali-Akbar
> 
> term refers to a heritage consisting of two distinctive catego-
> HASHEMI-RAFSANJANI, 
ALI-                                         ries of medicine. First, there was what might be termed
> AKBAR (1934–)                                                     Islamic folk medicine, which existed among the populace
> throughout the Muslim world. Folk medicine did not enjoy
> 
Ali-Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani was born in Rafsanjan, Kerman       the blessings of the ruling elite and is still very often dismissed
> province, Iran, in 1934 and was educated in Qom Seminary as       as sheer quackery. Second, there was what might be termed
> one of Ruhollah Khomeini’s students. (The Ayatollayh
> Islamic state-sanctioned medicine. This category was the
> Khomeini became the revolutionary leader of Iran in 1979.)
> pride of the Islamic empire and enjoyed lucrative support
> Rafsanjani was one of the exiled Khomeini’s chief agents,
> from the Muslim ruling elite, particularly during the golden
> opposed to the rule of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, and
> age of the Islamic empire (seventh to thirteenth centuries).
> was arrested on several occasions. He spent three years in
> prison (1975–1977). Upon the overthrow of the shah in 1979,       Islamic Folk Medicine
> Rafsanjani was appointed to the Revolutionary Council. His        Islamic folk medicine derives its legitimacy from its claim to
> loyalty to Khomeini, combined with political skills, resulted     have been based on the teachings of Islam. This claim is
> in his elevation to the leadership of the Iranian parliament.
> corroborated by frequent use of Quranic verses, prophetic
> Rafsanjani orchestrated the arms-for-hostages deal with       prescriptions, and the wisdom of saints and imams. It should
> members of the administration of the U.S. president Ronald        be noted here that exceptionally few passages in the Quran
> Reagan, an action that later set into motion the Iran-Contra      can be related directly to healing and medication. Prophet
> scandal in the United States. After the death of Khomeini in      Muhammad made no claim to be an authority in medicine
> 1989, Rafsanjani emerged as the pragmatist president of Iran      and most of his relevant speeches correspond with what was
> (1989–1997) and declared a plan of economic reform, known         practiced within his culture. The hadith collection of Sahih
> as an “adjustment program,” that included unifying exchange       al-Bukhari, one of the most authoritative works on prophetic
> rates, privatizing the economy, and canceling subsidies.          narratives, stands as testimony to this, that is, to this continu-
> Rafsanjani kept Iran from direct involvement in hostilities       ity with pre-Islamic practices. Al-Bukhari’s voluminous work
> during the Persian Gulf War in 1991. After the war he             contains less than one hundred entries that are of relevance to
> continued to carve out a middle ground between his more           medicine. Most of these entries are no more than different
> conservative religious colleagues’ calls for Iranian insularity   versions of the same narratives. Other less authoritative
> and his own inclination toward oligarchic modernization. He       collections exist, such as al-Tibb al-Nabawi (Prophetic medialso worked to renew close ties with Middle Eastern neigh-        cine). There is a consensus among scholars that collections
> bors and the countries of Europe. Rafsanjani was accused by a     under the term prophetic medicine—a genre of medical writfederal court in Germany of ordering the murders of certain       ings intended as alternatives to the exclusively Greek-based
> opponents who were gunned down in a Berlin restaurant.            system derived from Galen—do not stand up to any scholarly
> Rafsanjani was reelected to the presidency in 1993 but stepped    or theological scrutiny. The Arab philosopher Ibn Khaldun
> down in 1997 and became the leader of the Expediency              described this class of medicine as essentially a Bedouin craft
> Council after completing his second term as president.            that has no divine revelation and thus cannot be obligatory
> under religious laws.
> See also Iran, Islamic Republic of; Revolution: Revolution in Iran.                                                         Barely literate practitioners dominate Islamic folk medicine, serving primarily illiterate masses. Far from being a
> Majid Mohammadi         weakness, this made it more flexible and hence accommodating to the diverse cultures of the Islamic empire. The result is
> a craft that varies with cultures while retaining some degree of
> harmony within each. Many of these diverse cultures did no
> HEALING
> more than adapt their new medical creed to their original
> It is a hazardous task to attempt to offer a summary of Islamic   etiology and treatment of disease.
> medicine and healing and to map the contribution of the
> Four categories are identified in Islamic folk medicine as
> Islamic empire to human civilization. The Islamic empire
> major causes of disease: sorcery, the evil eye, jinn, and adverse
> covered a wide territory stretching from the western shores of
> routine conditions (e.g., adverse weather, food problems,
> Europe to the Indian subcontinent to the former Soviet states
> accidents, etc.). Holy power represents a primary source of
> in Asia. The Islamic empire maintained unchallenged authority in medicine for over six centuries. This entry offers     medicine for all categories of disease except the last. Holy
> brief synopses of this history.                                   power is often manifested in combinations of Quranic verses
> and magical formulas in various forms: Quranic verses that
> Islamic scholars have referred to the medicine that existed    are worn on the body or drunk; direct recitation from a holy
> within the bounds of the Islamic empire as “Islamic.” The         person; an object from a holy site and saintly tombs; and so on.
> 
> 294                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Healing
> 
> Islamic Medicine                                                  truth—and it would be futile to even attempt to map out this
> In general, the contribution of the Islamic empire to modern      vast contribution.
> medicine is often underrated in the West. More often than
> Almost every field of modern medicine has a founding
> not, Western scholars have overlooked Islam’s true contribu-
> figure in the early Muslim world. Avicenna, often called the
> tion to human civilization. A Eurocentric outlook affects even
> “prince of physicians,” left behind more than a million words
> the most authoritative scholars in the field. However, more
> in medical documents. His contribution to science in general,
> recent scholarship shows that medieval Muslim physicians
> but medicine in particular, can also be found in his methodolmade many contributions to the medical knowledge from
> ogy, which insisted on the use of reason alone to solve all
> Greece, Persia, and India that passed through their hands. In
> medical problems.
> reviewing medieval Islamic medicine, one should be wary of
> creating false impressions. The Islamic empire was more               Ibn Haytham (965–1039 C.E.) made great strides in optics,
> welcoming for non-Muslims than is popularly imagined in           earning the nickname “father of optics.” He also made a
> the West. In fact, many of its famous doctors were Jews (Musa     broad paradigmatic shift in the pursuit of science, which he
> ibn Maimun Maimonides, 1135–1204 C.E.), Christians (Hunayn        centered around the use of inductive reasoning in the search
> ibn Ishaq, 809–873 C.E.), and non-Arabs, mostly Persians (al-     for knowledge. Experimentation—the backbone of modern
> Razi / Rhazes, 841–925 C.E.; ibn Sina /Avicenna, 980–1037         science—is what he preached in his approach to medicine.
> C.E.). Moreover, the term “Islamic medicine” disguises a
> 
> fundamental aspect of this class of medicine. Namely, that it         Sinan ibn Thabit (died 946 C.E.) earned a good reputation
> was not based on Islamic teachings. Instead, it simply existed,   in both the Arab world and later in the West. He contributed
> and prospered within that cultural space that the empire          significantly to the art of presenting medical teaching books.
> Moreover, he was instrumental in establishing a regulatory
> afforded.
> system of medical control, examination, and registration of
> In its technological advancement, and to its credit, the      doctors and formulating ethical rules to govern medical
> Islamic empire did not attempt to reinvent the wheel. Start-      practice.
> ing from where others stopped is now a central tenet of
> Another figure who made an immense contribution to the
> modern science. The empire was fortunate that the wealth of
> art of medical writing is 
Ali ibn al-
Abbas al-Majusi (died
> Greek philosophy was already at its doorstep. Up to the sixth     between 982 and 995 C.E.). He was distinguished by his
> century, Alexandria and Athens stood as rival centers of          influential style of presenting medical facts with clarity,
> medical learning. Persia was the new flourishing abode for         lucidity, and freedom from both magical and astrological
> scientists following the expulsion of the “heathen philoso-       ideas of the past. Al-Majusi had a a wealth of knowledge that
> phers” from Athens and Alexandria (527–565 C.E.). Khalid ibn      spanned several branches of medicine, but is legendary for his
> Yazid (655–704 C.E.) was unquestionably the first emir who         illustrated thesis on the movement of the blood in the
> laid the foundation for the translation of Greek works into       human body.
> Arabic. Following its fall under Muslim rule in 641, Alexandria proved to be a rich repository of Greek manuscripts. A           The Islamic empire inherited a medical system in which
> century later, caliph al-Mansur reinvigorated Baghdad as a        surgery was regarded as an inferior branch of medicine, if it
> center of knowledge enshrined in the famous Institute of          was ever a part of it at all. Abu ’l-Qasim al-Zahrawi (936–1013
> Wisdom (Bayt al-Hikma). Scholars were enticed to convert          C.E.) elevated surgery to a primary position in medicine.
> 
> foreign manuscripts appropriated from the city of Junde-          Ample literature attests to his successful clinical treatment of
> Shappur (in Persia) into Arabic. This city provided a vast        bone fractures, bladder lithotomies, hemorrhoids, hernia,
> wealth of Latin manuscripts in addition to equal numbers of       wounds to the abdomen, tonsillectomies, and many other
> other documents of Indian and Chinese origin. The Chris-          ailments that required surgery.
> tian medical scholar Abu Zakariya ibn Masawayh (died 857              The contribution of Islamic medicine was also impressive
> C.E.), who was a personal physician for four caliphs, was in
> in chemistry and preparation of medicinal drugs, distillation,
> charge of this establishment. Other no less famous centers of     and sublimation. Many drugs now in use in modern medicine
> knowledge and translation followed and were abundant across       are of Muslim origin.
> the Islamic empire from the Persian Gulf to the European
> Atlantic borders.                                                     It has often been argued that Islamic medicine was crippled by Islam’s attitudes toward dissection. These attitudes
> Early scholarship tended to portray the contribution of        are said to have been derived from the Islamic prohibition of
> the Islamic empire to world medicine as no more than that of      human body mutilation. It is true that Prophet Muhammad
> a diligent storekeeper. In other words, that no original          instructed his followers to respect the dead, foes and friends
> contribution was made during the vibrant era of the Islamic       alike, and to avoid mutilation. He also instructed his followers
> empire (seventh to thirteenth century) when the Christian         to hasten the burial of their dead, a practice that is favored to
> world was dormant. Nothing could be further from the              this day in the Muslim world. It is conceivable that following
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                    295
> Heresies
> 
> such commands would have made dissection or indeed au-             knowledge. Salerno’s medical establishment was reputed to
> topsy a compromising practice. One must realize that such          be the first organized medical school in Europe. In his visit to
> prohibition was issued in tandem with other prescriptions          Italy as merchant, Constantinus was appalled by the poverty
> accompanying jihad wars and was designed to oppose exces-          of medical knowledge in Italy. He decided to go back to
> sive revenge and humiliation of slain enemies. While few           Tunisia for three years to study medicine and bring worththeologians might have opted to extend this prohibition to         while knowledge to his new abode. That he did with specthe practice of medicine, the ban has never been a central         tacular success and he was later to rank among the most
> issue in debating the advancement of medicine. The Muslim          diligent translators of his time. These medical centers proved
> philosopher and theologian al-Ghazali (d. 1111 C.E.) did           valuable sources of information and were replicated in other
> exactly the opposite when he hailed anatomy as an important        European cities. For many years to come, the same sources of
> branch of medicine, stating “whoever does not know astron-         knowledge were used in the other European schools, which
> omy and anatomy is deficient in the knowledge of God.”              mushroomed in Seville, Montpellier, Paris, Padua, Bologna,
> Indeed many of the prime pillars of Islamic medicine have left     and elsewhere. While many texts of Arab origin continued in
> writings and narratives as evidence of their practice in the       use in these European medical schools throughout the Mid-
> field of tashrih (dissection or anatomy). To name but a few,        dle Ages, names of their Arab authors continued to be filtered
> the list includes Rhazes, Masawayh, al-Zahrawi, and Avicenna.      out through translation or otherwise.
> It is important to note that not every religious prohibition
> was zealously observed, particularly by the powerful. After all,   See also Medicine; Miracles; South Asian Culture and
> the prohibition against alcohol was flouted even in the palaces     Islam; Southeast Asian Culture and Islam.
> of the emirs. The biggest obstacle against dissection was
> possibly the Arabian weather. In the absence of modern             BIBLIOGRAPHY
> methods of refrigeration, it would take much more determi-
> El-Tom, Abdullahi Osman. “Drinking the Koran: The Meannation to handle a cadaver hours if not days after death. It has
> ing of Koranic Verses in Berti Erasure.” Africa 55, no. 4
> often been argued that Islamic medicine was no more than a
> (1985): 414–431.
> theoretical exercise that was not translated into practice.
> Savage-Smith, Emilie. “Attitudes Toward Dissection in Medie-
> Nothing could be further from the truth as most major
> val Islam.” Journal of History of Medicine 50 (1995): 67–110.
> Islamic cities had their medical establishments, which were
> similar to modern teaching hospitals that combine healing          Ullman, Manfred. Islamic Surveys II: Islamic Medicine. Edinwith training. D. L. Wright narrates that hospitals were              burgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1978.
> established in the Arab world as early as the seventh century;     Wright, D. L. “Medicine in the Golden Ages of Islam—The
> that in the thirteenth century, al-Mansuri’s hospital in Cairo       Islamic Legacy.” The Journal of Kuwait Medical Association
> had four large quadrangles complete with fountains. The              20, no. 1 (1994): 98–103.
> same hospital had wards for male and female patients, a
> library, a lecture hall, and a mosque. Such a hospital could                                           Abdullahi Osman El-Tom
> indeed be the envy of modern hospitals in the modern
> Muslim world. In 1160 C.E., Baghdad city had some sixty
> dispensaries and infirmaries.
> HERESIES See Heresiography;
> Early Islamic and Modern World Medicine                            Kharijites, Khawarij
> The eleventh century saw Europe just beginning to awake
> from its long period of oblivion. It was Europe that was
> behind the Arabs in every field. The march to regain supremacy in medicine began with the rebuilding of knowledge,
> most of which was available only in Arabic scripts. In 1085,
> Toledo of Spain was won back from the Arabs and was soon           HERESIOGRAPHY
> to house the School of Translation founded by Domenicus
> Gundissalinus (1020–1087). Other scholars were also com-           Heresiography is, literally, the writing of and about heresies.
> missioned, most notably Gerard of Lombardy (joined 1150),          It is, however, an extremely relative term as one group’s
> who translated hundreds of Arabic works, including the             heresy is ultimately another’s religion. Those who write
> masterpieces of Rhazes and Avicenna.                               about heresies, known as heresiographers, are for the most
> part engaged in the documentation of the errors and incor-
> Italy, too, had its center (Salerno), which far exceeded        rect beliefs of other groups, which are often pejoratively
> Toledo’s establishment. It was the Tunisian-born scholar           referred to as “sects.” However, as Jonathan Z. Smith argues,
> Constantinus Africanus (1020–1087) who helped to realize           “a ‘theory of the other’ is but another way of phrasing a
> the European dream of ascending to supremacy in medical            ‘theory of the self’” (p. 47). Heresiography, then, functions in
> 
> 296                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Heresiography
> 
> two primary ways. First, it lists the perceived heretical doc-      which the Prophet proclaims: “The Jews are divided into
> trines or ideas of others, showing how they have either gone        seventy-one sects, the Christians into seventy-two; my comor been led astray; secondly, and most importantly, it allows       munity will be divided into seventy-three sects.” This tradithe group doing the writing to present what it is not, thereby      tion seems to be the proof text for all subsequent attempts to
> providing the contours of social, ideological, religious and        document and delineate the various heretical groups.
> political self-definition.
> Judaism and Heresy
> Definition and Origin                                                In the background of much Islamic heresiographical writings
> The closest Arabic term for heresiography in Islam is al-milal      is the monolithic category of “the Jews.” Wasserstrom claims,
> wa al-nihal, literally meaning “religions and sects.” The           for instance, that Muslim heresies can often be traced back to
> origin of this phrase is unclear and both words, despite            a Jewish origin. According to Islamic history, the Jews are the
> occurring separately in the Quran, do not seem to appear           archetypal community that has gone astray. As such they are
> together as a technical term before the tenth century.              constantly held up as an example of what must not happen to
> Shahrastani (d. 1153), one of the most famous medieval              the Muslim community. Yet because Islam and Judaism had
> heresiographers, argues that milal (sing., milla) refer prima-      been in contact with one another since the advent of Islam in
> rily to the parameters of a shared social or communal set of        the seventh century, they were phenomenologically very
> beliefs, whereas its synonym din more closely approximates          similar. As a result, much time is spent differentiating Islam
> what we would today call “religion.” Other sources, however,        and Muslim teaching and dogma from that of the Jews.
> do not make such a sharp differentiation between these two          Moreover, when the Muslim heresiographers look for interterms. In one of its earliest usages, that by Abu Bakr al-          nal divisions within Islam they tend to blame it on a Jew or a
> Khwarizmi (d. c. 977), it is employed to denote religions           Jewish convert to Islam. In many ways all heresies within
> other than those of ahl al-kitab (i.e., “the people of the Book,”
> Islam begin with the fact that Muhammad produced no male
> meaning followers of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity). The
> heirs, something that was generally blamed on Jewish magi-
> first time the phrase is employed in a title is in the Kitab alcians. Moreover, it was Jews that were said to be responsible
> milal wa al-nihal of al-Baghdadi (d. 1037). Other Arabic terms
> for the following “heresies”: the Christian decision to worused in Islamic heresiographical literature to designate hereship Jesus, the ghulat (Shi
ite extremists), the Shi
ites, the
> tics include zandaqa (“free-thought,” or “atheism”) and ilhad
> Isma
ilis, the Fatimid dynasty, and one of the most divisive
> (“heresy,” or “heterodoxy”).
> theological issues in early Islam, that of the created Quran.
> The Muslims were extremely interested in documenting
> A common feature used in the literature associated with
> the religious beliefs and doctrines of other groups. They did
> heresiography is the list of sects and where they have gone
> so, however, not as dispassionate scientists or academics, but
> wrong. Such lists are, according to John Wansbrough, “scheoften as legal scholars, whose main job was to delineate and
> matic and based on a variety of propositions: (1) numerical (to
> establish the beliefs, and thus legal status, of other religious
> make up the celebrated total of ‘seventy-three sects’); (2) ad
> groups in order to determine both their taxation rates and
> rights under Islamic law (sharia). The basis for all their         hominem (‘schools’ generated from the names of individuals
> categories of comparison, then, was not necessarily meant to        by means of the nisba suffix [denoting origin or descent]); and
> be scholarly or anthropological in its own right, but rather it     (3) doctrinal (divergent attitudes to specific problems).” Furwas grounded in the traditional sources of Islam (e.g., Quran,     thermore, despite the fact that Islam is generally considered
> hadith). Yet, both the breadth and depth of the taxonomies          to be an orthoprax (“correct practice”) religion as opposed to
> that the Muslim heresiographers created were impressive.            an orthodox (“correct belief”) one, heresiography is primarily
> According to Gustave von Grunebaum, “in their books on              concerned with documenting the incorrect or heretical besects, or comparative religion, the research acumen of the          liefs, as opposed to actions, of others. The goal is to show how
> Muslims shows at its best.” Precisely because so much of the        such beliefs are to be differentiated from what is considered
> milal wa al-nihal literature deals with the collection and          to be “normative,” which of course differs according to those
> subsequent listing of the beliefs of others, many modern            doing the writing. Every Muslim group, then, is interested in
> scholars frequently refer to this genre as a genealogical           showing how its belief system is “normative” and how that of
> precursor to the modern history of religions.                       its rivals is heretical. A common feature is that heretical belief
> is always something that deviates from, and is thus subse-
> Steven Wasserstrom locates the origins of this technical        quent to, an original or pure teaching. For this reason heresy
> genre of literature in the eighth and ninth centuries, when         in Islam is often synonymous with the charge of innovations
> Muslims increasingly encountered other, rival, monotheisms          (bida).
> in a highly “disputational, polemic, apologetic, and sectarian
> milieu.” Despite the ambiguity surrounding the origins of           Muslim Heresiographers
> milal wa al-nihal as a technical term, the literature associated    One of the most famous of Muslim heresiographers is the
> with it seems to be predicated on the following hadith, in          Andalusian Ibn Hazm (994–1064), an important though
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                       297
> Heresiography
> 
> idiosyncratic legalist, philosopher, exegete, and polemicist.         certain Islamist groups have issued blanket fatwas condemn-
> His al-Fisal fi al-milal wa al-ahwa wa al-nihal (The book of           ing all Jews and Christians as enemies of Islam; yet other
> opinions on religions, heresies, and sects) offers an elaborate       groups have employed fatwas to condemn the rulers of Arab
> account of all the religious groups that had ever come into           countries as infidels. It should be noted, however, that many
> contact with Islam from the seventh century to his own day.           who issue such controversial fatwas are often accused by those
> In addition to his extremely thorough historiographical               in the mainstream of having insufficient credentials to do so.
> method, Ibn Hazm was also a zealous theologian who employed a literalist (zahiri) reading of the Quran and Islamic           In recent times, heresiography has taken on even greater
> doctrine. His Fisal examines both the histories of various            political and ideological dimensions, as it is used now as a
> groups, their offshoots, and their present status, thereby            means of silencing one’s perceived enemies. In many Islamic
> showing how they have changed or stayed the same over time.           countries this is as easy as employing the concept of takfir, or
> For example, his treatment of the Jews is severe, accusing the        accusing someone, often one’s political opponent, of kufr
> rabbis who produced the Talmud of heresy and of intellectual          (“unbelief”). A famous example of this in the 1990s was the
> skepticism. Interestingly, he accuses the rabbis of the same          case of a University of Cairo professor by the name of Nasr
> heretical doctrine as the materialists of early Islamic theol-        Hamid Abu Zayd. An Islamic moderate, he called for an
> ogy. This reveals a common theme in Islamic heresiography:            understanding of the Quran and other early Islamic litera-
> Often one loosely labels a number of one’s opponents with             ture according to literary, contextual, and historical princithe same heretical doctrine.                                          ples. In particular, he asked the question: What does the
> Quran as a document, and not necessarily as the sacred
> Ibn Hazm’s goal, then, was not necessarily historical or           scripture of Muslims, say about a given subject (e.g., human
> theological accuracy. He did not simply study religions for           rights)? When Egyptian Islamists got wind of his academic
> their own sake; on the contrary, he attempts to demolish the          work they accused him of heresy and began legal proceedings
> errors of others and, in the process, set Islam up as the most        against him. An Egyptian high court, to the great surprise of
> perfect of all religions. As such, he is less interested in           many, agreed and declared him an apostate. As a result Abu
> understanding other religions than in reducing them to                Zayd was ordered to divorce his wife and was effectively
> certain dogmas or problems that allow him to compare them             forced out of Egypt. To this day he is a professor in the
> with, often artificially, Islam. In short, Ibn Hazm knew what          Netherlands. This case is so interesting and problematic
> his conclusions were before he ever set out to establish the          because it raises the nature of the tenuous relationship bepremises of comparison.                                               tween what is considered heretical, the religious establishment, and, at least in theory, the autonomous nature of the
> Another famous heresiographer was the aforementioned              court system in Egypt.
> Shahrastani, who wrote the Kitab al-milal wa al-nihal, which,
> in his own words, proposed to present “the doctrinal opinions             Heresiography is, thus, instrumental in defining not only
> of all the world’s people.” Like the work of Ibn Hazm,                the parameters of what is considered to be normative for a
> Shahrastani is interested not only in documenting the vari-           religion, but is also employed by the various groups that
> ous religious groups both in his day and before, but also             constitute that religion. Heresiography has been used, in one
> in examining the various doctrines of the philosophers.               way or another, since the advent of Islam in seventh-century
> Shahrastani divides his book into two parts, with the first            Arabia. At that time, it helped to differentiate Islam from rival
> dealing with revealed religions that base their obedience on a        monotheisms in the area of the Hijaz. Gradually, however, it
> book (e.g., Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians), and the second           was employed as a genre to help establish “normative Islam”
> examining the doctrines that are of purely human origins              by showing how various “sects” had gone astray in terms of
> (e.g., the Sabians, philosophers, and the pre-Islamic Arabians).      their beliefs. So although one uses heresiography as a way of
> showing who is “inside” and who is “outside” one’s group, as a
> Function of Heresiography                                             genre it often tells us more about the “in” group than it does
> Heresiography was, and still continues to be, used as a means         about anyone else.
> of legitimating the ideology—whether political, religious,
> legal, or other—of the group defining what constitutes the             See also Bid
a; Hadith; Hallaj, al-; Historical Writing;
> “real Islam.” In recent years this has coincided with the             Islam and Other Religions; Kalam; Quran; Shari
a.
> increased use of the fatwa, a legal ruling that is given by a legal
> expert. Such legal experts need not occupy official positions,         BIBLIOGRAPHY
> but they are generally recognized for their legal learning and        Brann, Ross. Power in the Portrayal: Representations of Jews and
> acumen. More recently, fatwas have become a convenient                   Muslims in Eleventh- and Twelfth-Century Islamic Spain.
> vehicle employed by various groups, many of whom are                     Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2002.
> marginal, as a way of condemning the beliefs and practices of         Grunebaum, Gustave E., von. Medieval Islam. Chicago: Unigroups, Islamic or not, with differing opinions. For example,           versity of Chicago Press, 1969.
> 
> 298                                                                                               Islam and the Muslim World
> Hijri Calendar
> 
> Laoust, Henri. “L’hérésiographie musulmane sous les                See also Astronomy; Muhammad.
> Abbassides.” Cahiers de civilisation medievale 10
> (1967): 157–178.
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Shahrastani, Muhammad b. Abd al-Karim, al. Muslim Sects
> and Divisions.Translated by A. K. Kazi and J. G. Flynn.          Crone, P., and Cook, Michael. Hagarism: The Making of the
> London: Kegan Paul, 1984.                                          Islamic World. Cambridge, Mass.: Cambridge University
> Press, 1977.
> Smith, Jonathan Z. “What a Difference a Difference Makes.”
> In “To See Ourselves as Others See Us”: Christians, Jews, and    Guillaume, A. Islam. Middlesex, U.K.: Penguin Books, 1973.
> “Others” in Late Antiquity. Edited by Jacob Neusner and          Schimmel, Annemarie. And Muhammad is His Messenger.
> Ernest S. Frerichs. Chico, Calif.: Scholars Press, 1985.            Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985.
> Wansbrough, John. The Sectarian Milieu: Content and Composition of Islamic Salvation History. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford                                                           Rizwi Faizer
> University Press, 1978.
> Wasserstrom, Steven M. Between Muslim and Jew: The Problem of Symbiosis under Early Islam. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1995.
> HIJRI CALENDAR
> Aaron Hughes       There is no reference in the Quran to the pre-Islamic system
> of anwa
 in which the year is divided into precise periods on
> the basis of the rising and setting of certain stars. According to
> tradition, this system was considered anathema in Islam. The
> HIJAB See Veiling                                                  most relevant Quranic allusion to calendar-related computation is to the stations of the moon (manazil al-qamar, 10:5,
> 36:39). There are twenty-eight such stations defined on the
> basis of a combination of the pre-Islamic system of anwa
 with
> the lunar stations system.
> HIJRA
> The official Islamic calendar is lunar, with year one
> In 622 C.E. the Meccan prophet Muhammad immigrated to
> coinciding with the year 622 C.E., the date of Muhammad’s
> Yathrib, later known as Medina (al-nabi), on the invitation of
> migration (hijra) from Mecca to Medina. This calendar was
> a group of Arabs from that town. This event is termed hijra.
> adopted during the reign of the second caliph 
Umar. The
> Having sent his adherents ahead, Muhammad secretly fol-
> Hijri lunar calendar is used as the basis for computing the
> lowed with Abu Bakr b. Quhafa, leaving 
Ali b. 
Abi Talib in
> official months (ahilla, new moons), and for determining the
> his (Muhammad’s) bed, to deceive the Meccans who sought
> dates for important religious activities such as fasting and
> to kill him. On the way they stopped at a cave on Mount
> pilgrimage. The lunar months alternate between twenty-nine
> Thaur, where a spider’s web, spun across the entrance, fooled
> and thirty days, and the lunar month retrogrades yearly by
> the Meccans into not looking within (Q. 9:40). Here, accordabout eleven days. Although the beginning of the lunar
> ing to Sufi tradition, the Prophet taught Abu Bakr the secrets
> month is determined by sighting the new moon, numerous
> of silent remembrance, dhikr-e khafi,which earned Abu Bakr
> methods were developed to compute the exact length of the
> the title Yar-e ghar, friend of the cave.
> lunar months, to determine the days of the lunar year in
> Hijra has also been interpreted to mean “the breaking of        relation to the solar year, and to perform calendar converold ties,” cutting off the era of knowledge from the previous      sions between different eras.
> era of ignorance (jahiliyya). The caliph 
Umar b. al-Khattab,
> establishing an Islamic calendar, chose this event as its start-       Initially, folk astronomy and nonscientific traditions proing point. Muhammad reached Medina in September 622.               vided handy methods for solving problems related to the
> The calendar opens wih the first month of the Arabic lunar          regulation of the lunar calendar and the determination of the
> year in June 622 and proceeds without intercalation for a 354-     times of prayer. Folk astronomical methods, such as the
> day year in keeping with the lunar months.                         observation of the lunar crescent and the use of simple
> arithmetical shadow schemes, were used even after the intro-
> Hijra is based on the root h-j-r, the root of the name          duction and dissemination of sophisticated scientific meth-
> Hagar, the concubine of Abraham; the term Mahagraye was            ods. A more mathematical approach to timekeeping developed
> used by Christian sources to describe the Arab-Muslims, the        as Muslims acquired and developed skills in mathematical
> descendants of Hagar. Muhajirun is the Arabic term given to        astronomy. Although the computations of astronomers may
> those who emigrated from Mecca with the Prophet.                   have initially been appreciated only by a small group of
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                      299
> Hijri Calendar
> 
> Hijri calendar
> The diagram shows approximate dates for 1996.
> 
> Year 2
> Muharra
> m
> 7                              1     2                  Sa
> 6                                                                 far                                           Key
> Muhar
> - l- H i j j a              ram                                                                    1 Muharram                       5 
Id al-Fitr
> D hu
> 2 Festival of 
Ashura            6 8–13 Dhu-l-Hijja
> a   
da                             May                                 Sa                                            3 Beginning of Ramadan           7 
Id al-Adha
> -Q                                                      Jun
> r il                                                                                                  4 Lailat al-Qadr                 8 Mawlid al-Nabi
> l
> 
> far
> Ap                                           e
> u-
> Dh
> 
> rch
> 
> Ju
> al
> 
> ly
> Ma
> Shaww
> 
> R a b i

> l
> August
> February
> 
> 5                                                                                                                                                SOLAR CALENDAR DATES FOR 2003
> 4                                                                                                                                               •   
Id al-Adha (Festival of Sacrifice), 12–15 February 2003
> ad a n
> 
> Rabi

> Sep                                            •   Al-Hijra (New Year's Day), 4 March 2003
> 
Ashura, 13 March 2003
> Ram
> 
> •
> y
> uar
> 
> te m
> 
> ll                  •   The prophet Muhammad's Birthday (20 August 570 CE),
> n
> 
> be
> Ja
> 
> 14 May 2003
> r
> 
> Oc
> •   Lailat al-Isra Wal Mi
raj (The Prophet's Night Journey to
> r
> n
> 
> be                           tob
> Ju
> ba
> 
> 3                                              em                                 e
> Jerusalem & Ascension), 21 September 2003
> m
> 
> November Dec                           r
> a

> 
> ad
> Sh                                                                    I      a
> •   Lailat al-Barah (Night of Forgiveness), 14 October 2003
> J um                                                        •   Ramadan (month of fasting) 27 October–25 November 2003
> Rajab                     a d a II
> •   Lailat al-Qadr (Night of Power), 23 November 2003
> •   
Id al-Fitr, 25 November 2003
> 
> SOURCE: Breuilly, Elizabeth; O'Brien, Joanne; and Palmer, Martin. Religions of the World. New York: Facts on File, Inc., 1997.
> 
> The Hijri calender is normally 344 days, making it eleven days shorter than the Solar calender.
> 
> scientists, their methods eventually supplanted the simple                                                                              various times of the year. Another problem of timekeeping
> methods of folk astronomy. The establishment of the office                                                                               that was addressed in various astronomical treatises is the
> of a mosque timekeeper (muwaqqit) illustrates the official                                                                               problem of crescent visibility. The lunar month starts right
> recognition, by the religious institution, of the authority of                                                                          after sunset with the sighting of the crescent. The visibility of
> the exact-scientific methods of astronomers in the fields of                                                                              this crescent, however, is itself a function of several variables,
> calendar computation and the determination of times of prayer.                                                                          including the celestial coordinates of the sun and the moon,
> the latitude of the place where the crescent is sighted, and the
> With the rise of the office of the timekeeper in the
> brightness of the sky. Various methods were devised to
> thirteenth century, the technical knowledge of the astronodetermine the conditions under which the crescent would be
> mers became more accessible because the compilation of
> visible.
> extensive tables made the results of the exact-mathematical
> methods more readily usable. The science of timekeeping                                                                                 See also Astronomy.
> (ilm al-miqat) was thus an area of investigation where religion
> and science intersected.
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Timekeeping tables, first compiled in Baghdad in the                                                                                  Breuilly, Elizabeth; O’Brien, Joanne; and Palmer, Martin.
> ninth and tenth centuries, were later expanded by timekeep-                                                                                Religions of the World. New York: Facts on File, Inc., 1997.
> ers employed at the major mosques of Syria and Egypt to
> Kennedy, E. S., Colleagues and Former Students. Studies in
> include hundreds of thousands of entries. In contrast to                                                                                  the Islamic Exact Sciences. Edited by David A. King and
> earlier Greek sources, Islamic astronomical handbooks often                                                                               Mary Hellen Kennedy. Beirut: American University of
> started with discussions of calendar computations and con-                                                                                Beirut, 1983.
> versions between different eras (for example, Persian, Coptic,
> King, David. Astronomy in the Service of Islam. Aldershot,
> Syriac, Chinese-Ughur, Jewish, and Hindu calendars). In
> Hampshire, U.K.: Variorum, 1993.
> addition to the basic computational techniques, numerous
> works also provide additional information covering calendar-                                                                            King, David. Islamic Mathematical Astronomy. Aldershot, Hampshire, U.K.: Variorum, 1993.
> related subjects such as the length of day and night; patterns
> of weather and wind; dates and descriptions of Christian,
> Jewish, and Indian festivals; and agricultural practices at                                                                                                                                  Ahmad S. Dallal
> 
> 300                                                                                                                                                                     Islam and the Muslim World
> Hinduism and Islam
> 
> al-Islam (Paths of Islam) is probably the most popular work
> HIKMA, BAYT AL- See Education                                     of Shi
ite law among later commentators, and represents
> Muhaqqiq’s most lasting influence on subsequent Shi
ite
> tradition. It belongs to the type of work known as abridged
> (mukhtasar), in which an author presents his interpretation of
> the sharia in a highly abbreviated form. This style made the
> HILLI, 
ALLAMA AL- (1250–1325)                                    work an excellent basis for later discussions of the law, even
> though subsequent jurists did not always agree with his
> 
Allama al-Hilli was a Twelver Shi
ite jurist and theologian
> conclusions. His other mukhtasar, an even more abbreviated
> based in Hilla in southern Iraq. Hasan b. Yusuf al-Hilli is
> legal compendium entitled al-Nafi (The useful), was also the
> credited with establishing a set of Twelver theological and
> subject of commentaries by later generations of scholars. He
> legal ideas that dominated subsequent Shi
ite learning. Bioalso wrote an influential work of the principles of jurisprugraphical sources list around five hundred works attributed to
> dence (Maarij al-ahkam), which one also finds regularly cited
> him, though some of these are undoubtedly chapters within
> in later works. In particular, Ja
far al-Muhaqqiq introduced
> works or short treatises. Those that have survived form an
> the idea that the rules and regulation of the sharia were not all
> impressive oeuvre encompassing theology, jurisprudence,
> known with absolute certainty, for the texts are not always
> and biography (rijal). In his theological works and creed
> clear and the reports from the Prophet and the imams are not
> commentaries, he argued, primarily from logic and reason,
> always reliable. Such doctrinal advances paved the way for the
> for all the main Twelver doctrines. This extensive use of
> full elaboration of these concepts by his nephew and pupil, alreason rather than traditional textual sources was to be the
> 
Allama al-Hilli (d. 1325). Other famous pupils include varidominant mode of theological discourse in Twelver Shi
ism
> ous members of the influential Ibn Tawus family.
> from 
Allama onward. His legal works were the subject of
> much commentary and in legal theory (usul al-fiqh), he             See also Hilli, 
Allama al-; Law; Shi
a: Imami (Twelver).
> showed extensive originality by incorporating the previously
> disparaged term ijtihad into Shi
ite jurisprudence. His bio-
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> graphical work is a comprehensive dictionary of early Shi
ite
> transmitters of the imam’s doctrines. He soon outshone his        Calder, Norman. “Doubt and Prerogative: The Emergence
> teachers, who included such luminaries as Nasir al-Din al-          of an Imami Shi
i Theory of Ijtihad.” Studia Islamica 70
> (1989) 57–78.
> Tusi (d.1274) and al-Muhaqqiq al-Hilli (d.1277). Hilli also
> had some relations with political powers, and is credited with    Stewart, Devin. Islamic Legal Orthodoxy: The Twelver Shiite
> the conversion of the Ilkhanid sultan Khudabanda of Iran to          Responses to the Sunni Legal System. Salt Lake City: Univer-
> Twelver Shi
ism.                                                     sity of Utah Press, 1998.
> 
> See also Hilli, Muhaqqiq al-; Law; Shi
a: Imami                                                                     Robert Gleave
> (Twelver).
> 
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Arjomand, Saïd Amir, ed. “
Allama al-Hilli on the Imamate         HINDUISM AND ISLAM
> and Ijtihad.” In Authority and Political Culture in Shiism.
> Edited by S. A. Arjomand. Albany: State University of          The relationship between these two great religious traditions
> New York Press, 1988.                                          in South Asia is often characterized as one of civilizational or
> Calder, Norman. “Doubt and Prerogative: The Emergence             cultural clashes, confrontations, and discontinuities. Popular
> of an Imami Shi
i Theory of Ijtihad.” Studia Islamica 70        accounts of South Asia’s religious history often juxtapose
> (1989): 57–78.                                                  Hinduism’s tolerance of diversity, innate spirituality, and
> Stewart, Devin. Islamic Legal Orthodoxy: The Twelver Shiite      rootedness in the Indian soil with Islam’s doctrinal rigidity,
> Responses to the Sunni Legal System. Salt Lake City: Univer-   innate militancy, and foreignness. Such essentializations,
> sity of Utah Press, 1998.                                      which gained ascendancy during the era of British imperialism, fail to recognize that, as complex social and cultural
> Robert Gleave     phenomena, religions undergo historical change. A critical
> assessment of the relationships between Hinduism and Islam
> accounts for multiple histories involving subtle encounters,
> exchanges, and conversions, as well as overt confrontation
> HILLI, MUHAQQIQ AL- (1205–1277)                                   and conflict. A more accurate and multifaceted range of
> perspectives emerges, reflecting the ways in which Hinduism
> Muhaqqiq al-Hilli Ja
far b. al-Hasan was a Twelver Shi
ite        and Islam interact with each other, and with other social,
> jurist based in Hilla, southern Iraq. Al-Muhaqqiq’s Shara
i      cultural, and political formations in South Asia through time.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                     301
> Hinduism and Islam
> 
> A Demographic Overview
> Today there are an estimated 1.2 billion Muslims, one-third
> of whom live in South Asia—mainly in India, Pakistan,
> Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka. Indeed, there are as many Muslims in South Asia as there are in the Middle East and North
> Africa combined. The majority of South Asian Muslims come
> from indigenous ethnic populations. Muslims constitute clear
> majorities in Pakistan (96%) and Bangladesh (87%), while in
> India and Sri Lanka they are sizable minorities (12% and
> 7.6%, respectively). Prior to the 1947 partition an estimated
> 24 percent of greater India’s population was Muslim, the
> remainder being predominantly Hindu. Today, there are
> more than 800 million Hindus in South Asia.
> 
> The extent of Islam’s indigenization in the region is
> reflected in the languages spoken by its adherents: Numerous
> Arabic and Persian loanwords are found in local languages,
> especially those of the Indus and Ganges basins. Furthermore, the primary language of most Muslims is the same as
> that spoken by local non-Muslim populations, such as Punjabi
> or Bengali in the North and Malayalam or Tamil in the South.
> 
> Just as Hindu religious ideas and practices are constituted
> in a variety of traditions and movements, ranging from the
> brahmanic to the devotional, mystical, intellectual, and reformist, so too Indian Islam finds expression in diverse ways.
> Sunni Islam, primarily of the Hanafi legal tradition, has been
> the official religion for most urban Muslims and landholders.
> Less than one-fifth of South Asian Muslims adhere to one of
> Jahangir Preferring a Sufi Sheik to Kings. In this painting, Mogul
> two main divisions of Shi
ism, the Ithna
shariyya (Twelvers)      emperor Jahanagir (1569–1627) makes King James I of England,
> or the Isma
iliyya (Isma
ilis). Most South Asian Muslims have     the Sultan of Turkey, and a Hindu courtier wait while he converses
> been formally and informally affiliated with Sufi shrines and       with a Muslim mystic. Muslim Arab colonies emerged in southern
> tariqas (brotherhoods). Indeed, it is widely held that Islam      India by the ninth century, arising from a history of commerce
> between the subcontinent and the Near-East. In the north, howwas established in South Asia through Sufism, though there is      ever, Islamic rule was established by invading armies under
> little evidence of an organized, deliberate Sufi strategy of       Turkish rule in the twelfth century. Relations between Hindus and
> conversion. Nonetheless, Sufism has participated in the crea-      Muslims in India have been frequently difficult and violent, and
> were exacerbated by colonial rule. Due to shared communities,
> tion of local expressions of Islam, which embody the greatest
> intermarriage, and conversion, however, in many areas the two
> degree of assimilation of Hindu religious ideas and practices.    groups share strikingly similar cultures. FREER GALLERY OF ART
> Since the sixteenth century, several Islamic reform and revival movements have emerged, directed in part against
> unorthodox practices among Sufis and the Shi
a, and also           even claim that at least one Hindu prince converted to Islam
> against Hindu influence on Muslim belief and practice. Thus,       and went to Mecca on the hajj. Muslim trading colonies also
> assimilation and differentiation are the two alternating proc-    flourished in Sri Lanka and on the Coromandel Coast in what
> esses governing relations between Hindus and Muslims              is now Tamil Nadu. By the time the Portuguese arrived in
> through more than one thousand years of shared history.           1498, Islam was firmly implanted in the region, and intertwined with its Hindu cultures.
> Medieval Hindu-Muslim Encounters
> The first contacts between Hindus and Muslims occurred                Islamization in northern India followed a different course.
> through trade and conquest. Arab Muslim colonies involved         Arab Muslim expeditions reached the banks of the Indus by
> in the Indian Ocean spice trade appeared on the Malabar           711, but systematic raids into the heartland did not com-
> Coast of southern India as early as the ninth century, continu-   mence until the tenth century. Armies under the command of
> ing a long history of commerce and migration between India        the Turkish rulers based in Afghanistan, most notably
> and the Near East. Local Hindu rulers granted Muslims             Mahmoud of Ghazni (r. 998–1030 C.E.), repeatedly plundered
> permission to build mosques and intermarry with their sub-        towns in the Punjab and Sind. Muslim rule in the Indian
> jects. Though these early immigrants were merchants, Mus-         heartland was established when Turkish, Persian, and Afghan
> lim legends remember them as holy men and pilgrims, and           warriors crossed the northwest frontier, defeated Indian
> 
> 302                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Hinduism and Islam
> 
> Rajput forces in 1192, and established their capital at Delhi in   an all-or-nothing break with Hindu belief and practice, nor
> the Indo-Gangetic plain. The Delhi Sultanate (1211–1526),          did it usually occur at the end of a sword. Rather, it was a
> bolstered by Muslim immigrants fleeing Mongol armies in             process that occurred in different degrees, and it involved a
> the west, extended Muslim control across northern India to         variety of social, cultural, political, and economic factors.
> Bengal and southward into the Deccan, rendering the region         Indeed, one of the most striking aspects of the history of Islam
> a dar al-islam. However, the Delhi Sultans often yielded to        in South Asia is that it gained the most converts in areas
> local Muslim and Hindu rivals when they were unable to             situated beyond the traditional centers of political power and
> absorb them into the imperial order, as did the Mughal             brahmanical religious authority. Today, the largest propordynasty that succeeded it (1526–1857).                             tions of Muslims are to be found in the northwest (now
> Pakistan and Kashmir) and northeast (now Bangladesh); even
> In retrospect, Muslim historians recalled the conquests as
> Kerala (1991: 23.3%) in the south has a higher percentage of
> heroic wars against pagan infidels (kafirs), and they lauded
> Muslims than does Uttar Pradesh (1991: 17.3%), where
> conversions along with the destruction of Hindu temples.
> Delhi and Agra are located.
> These accounts obscure the fact that where Muslim attacks
> were made on Hindu temples, they were aimed at enriching              The chief agents for Islamization on the local level were
> Muslim elites (temples were repositories of gold, jewelry, and     wandering Muslim saints, teachers, and warriors. Isma
ili
> cash), and undermining the power of local rulers, the tradi-       missionaries in Sind and Rajasthan adopted Nath yogi guise
> tional temple patrons. Mosques and shrines were erected in         and formulated their Islamic message in terms of Hindu
> their stead. However, most rulers treated subjugated Hindus        concepts of divinity and cosmology. In Bengal, communities
> as “protected” peoples (dhimmis), leaving temples untouched,       grew up around saint shrines and mosques built where lands
> authorizing and often patronizing new shrines. Nonetheless,        had been newly converted to wet-rice agriculture during the
> there were occasions when they followed the advice of men          Mughal era. Through local Sufi centers Islam was often
> like Diya al-Din Barani (1285–1357), a court historian, who,      introduced and integrated into the socioreligious landscape,
> in counseling rulers to maintain the purity of the “true           establishing points of exchange between the Muslim rulers
> religion,” urged them to “use their efforts to insult and          and the populace, thus integrating people and property into
> humiliate and to cause grief to and bring ridicule and shame       the infrastructure of the kingdom. Across India shrines are
> upon the polytheistic and idolatrous Hindus” (Mujeeb, p. 68).      patronized and even managed commonly by Muslims, Hindus,
> Brahmanic Hindus, for their part, regarded Muslim invaders         Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, and Christians, and some have evolved
> as impure mlecchas (aliens), or as Turks, Tajiks, and even         into major pilgrimage centers, such as that of Mu
in al-Din
> Greeks, which suggests that they defined Muslims more by            Chishti in Ajmer. Such places are identified with supermundane
> their foreign ethnicity than by their religious identity.          beings who offer their devotees power, healing, fertility, and
> Muslim elites sought to comprehend the religions of their      occasions to participate in ecstatic rites. Muslim warrior
> subjects intellectually. Al-Biruni (973–c. 1050) gives the ear-    saints have been incorporated as guardian deities into the
> liest and most detailed Muslim account of Indian religion,         cults of Hindu hero gods and goddesses, where Muslims as
> writing in detail about brahmanic concepts of divinity, cos-       well as Hindus worship them. This is exemplified by Vavar,
> mology, reincarnation, ritual practices, and yoga. He ap-          the battle companion of the popular south Indian deity
> proached these topics comparatively, drawing parallels with        Ayyappa, and by Muttal Ravutan, guardian of Draupadi
> Sufism and Greek philosophy. The Mogul emperor Akbar (r.            shrines in Tamil Nadu.
> 1556–1605), famous for his interest in comparative religions,
> The interpenetration of Hinduism and Islam is further
> sponsored Persian translations of Hindu epics, the Bhagavad
> evident in folk epics and religious poetry. Thus, regional oral
> Gita, and books on Vedanta philosophy. His great-grandson,
> epics contain elements from the classical Hindu epics of the
> Dara Shukoh (1615–1659), befriended Hindu holy men,
> Mahabharata and the Ramayana that have been reshaped as a
> translated the Upanishads and, inspired by Ibn 
Arabi’s panresult of interaction with Muslims. At assemblies of poets
> theistic ideas, attempted a synthesis of Sufism with Hindu
> throughout India, Hindus, Muslims, and others recite the
> Vedanta. He was executed for heresy by his brother and rival
> compositions of poet saints such as Kabir (died c. 1448),
> to the throne, Aurangzeb (r. 1658–1707). As a zealous proknown as the “apostle of Hindu-Muslim unity.” The compomoter of Sunni revivalism, Aurangzeb reimposed taxes on
> sitions of vernacular poets like Baba Farid Shakarganj, Sultan
> Hindu subjects and razed temples in major Hindu religious
> Bahu, and Bulleh Shah are on the lips of every Punjabi,
> centers. As Akbar and Dara Shukoh became emblematic
> regardless of creed. The Sikh religion founded by the North
> of Hindu-Muslim conviviality, Mahmoud of Ghazni and
> Aurangzeb are today remembered as symbols of Muslim                Indian holy man Guru Nanak (d. 1539) is often characterized
> militancy and intolerance.                                         as a fusion of Islamic monotheism and Hindu devotionalism.
> Across north India and Pakistan, people sing romantic bal-
> Conversions and Convergences                                       lads, or qissa, such as Hir-Ranjha, Sassi-Punnu, Mirza-Sahiban,
> Most South Asian Muslims are descended from indigenous             and Layla-Majnun. These are inevitably tragic tales of romanpeoples who converted to Islam. As a rule, conversion was not      tic heroes and heroines destined to remain apart and doomed
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                    303
> Hinduism and Islam
> 
> to die because of differences in caste, class, and religion.
> Nonetheless, the songs in which these boundaries are crossed
> are sung and beloved by people from all walks of life. Through
> richly symbolic language and imagery qissa are also mystical
> allegories of the human soul seeking union with God.
> 
> Hindustani music is another excellent example of the
> interplay between Hindu and Muslim culture. One of the
> greatest innovators of Hindustani classical music is often
> identified as Tansen (d. 1589), the Great Mogul Emperor
> Akbar’s court musician. The musical modes and the code of
> conduct within the musical lineages, or gharanas, draw on
> Indian and Perso-Arabic styles. The initiation ceremony of
> the student into the master’s school closely mirrors that of the
> Hindu guru-sishya initiation. Furthermore, although many of
> these lineages are principally Muslim in terms of personnel,
> worship of Hindu deities, especially the goddess Saraswati,
> and the lighting of lamps and garlanding of musicians are all
> common practices associated with Hinduism. The popularity
> of explicitly Islamic devotional styles such as kafi, ghazal, and
> qawwal, and of Muslim singers such as Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan
> and Abida Parveen among all audiences indicates a shared
> aesthetic culture.
> 
> Finally, in many areas conversion, intermarriage, and
> shared community life have led to common cultural practices.
> Often customs and observations of lifecycle events, such as
> births, marriages, and death, are regionally extremely similar.    Muhammed 
Ali Jinnah, left, an advocate for a separate Muslim
> The offering of a child’s first haircutting or pilgrimage to        state, and Mahatma Gandhi, in Bombay in 1944, outside of
> Jinnah’s home, where the two met to discuss the Hindu-Muslim
> bless a marriage is performed by all religious communities at
> conflict. Tensions between Indian Muslims and Hindus worsened
> local shrines. Dress and eating habits are frequently shared.      during the struggle for independence from British rule. Despite
> Muslim social status usually reflects caste distinctions found      Ghandi’s efforts to support Muslim endeavors, violence worsamong the wider society; and in Malabar, Muslim traders            ened between the two groups and over 500,000 people died
> when the British left in 1947. AP/WIDE WORLD PHOTOS
> intermarried with Hindu locals to such an extent that they
> adopted their matrilineal social organization.
> 
> Hindu-Muslim Encounters after 1857                                 on internal revitalization, and still others mobilized to op-
> The Mogul Empire’s territory reached its apogee under              pose British rule. Hindu revivalist groups such as the Brahmo
> Aurangzeb, encompassing the Deccan plateau and parts of            Samaj, Arya Samaj, Hindu Mahasabha, and Rashtriya
> the South Indian coast. After his death in 1707, Mogul power       Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) advocated different means of
> rapidly unraveled, paving the way for the British East India       promoting Hinduism in modern society. Whereas the
> Company to transform its commercial power bases into               Mahasabha, RSS, and Arya Samaj strove to purify Hinduism
> political centers. In 1757 at the Battle of Plassy, the British    and reestablish an inherently Hindu national identity, the
> forces took effective control of much of North India, placing      Brahmo Samaj emphasized social reform and education more
> it under the Raj. Though nominal authority still lay in Mogul      in line with modern Western concepts. Similarly, Muslim
> hands, this ended following the British defeat of a large-scale    organizations addressed the educational, social, and political
> rebellion of Hindu and Muslim troops in 1857. After this           interests of the Muslim population. The Dar al-
Ulum
> power shift, religious movements arose to address the new          Deoband was founded in 1867 to generate a new Indian body
> sociopolitical milieu, which rewarded modernism, secular-          of ulema. In 1875, Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan established
> ism, and progressive scientific thought over traditional values.    Aligarh Muslim University with a westernized secular curriculum, to educate Muslims capable of reviving Islam and
> Reaction to the impact of foreign rule was channeled            addressing the exigencies of modernity. The Jama
at-e Islami,
> in many cases through religious movements. Revivalist and          founded by Abu l-A
la Maududi in 1928, advocated religious
> reformist groups emerged representing the full range of            renewal and political independence. Grassroots movements,
> responses to the new power structures. Some sought to              like Tablighi Jama
at (founded 1926), arose to teach basic
> incorporate and integrate Western values, others focused           Islamic principles and practices and to eradicate “Hindu”
> 
> 304                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Hinduism and Islam
> 
> accretions, such as pilgrimage to saints’s tombs, music, elabo-    and central governments and the Supreme Court, the situarate weddings, and mourning and death rites. The Muslim            tion remains unresolved. In 1992 Hindu radicals tore down
> League formed in 1906 as a political group working to protect      the mosque and placed Rama’s image at the site. The riots
> minority Muslim interests in an independent India.                 subsequent to this demolition claimed thousands of lives, and
> the tension is periodically reactivated with similarly tragic
> Throughout the independence struggle relations between         results. In 2002 a move by Hindu organizations to begin
> Hindus and Muslims worsened. Many factors contributed to           construction of a temple resulted in another round of disturthis: British divide-and-conquer policies, Muslim under-           bances, destabilizing interreligious relations.
> development, the Hinduization of the nationalist movement,
> and Hindu and Muslim prejudices and fears. Following the               Finally, at Partition, Muslim-majority Kashmir gained
> Indian National Congress’s (INC) formation (1892), Muslim          “special status,” or semiautonomy, under Article 370 of the
> participation decreased steadily. However, there were mo-          Indian Constitution. India has promised a referendum on
> ments of cooperation, such as Gandhi’s support for the             statehood or independence, but three wars with Pakistan,
> Khilafat movement to reestablish the Ottoman caliphate.            continual border skirmishes, Pakistani support to militants
> Gandhi viewed this as a kindred freedom struggle and a             and freedom advocates, severe government repression of
> means of garnering Muslim support. Nevertheless, as the            Muslim movements, and Hindu agitation over Article 370
> independence movement progressed, the Congress leader-             keep tensions high. This situation is more alarming now that
> ship consistently failed to address Muslim fears of a Hindu        both nations are nuclear powers.
> majority nation without safeguards for their sizable (24%)
> minority. The INC rejected power-sharing schemes pro-                  Real fissures do exist between Hindu and Muslim commuposed by the British in the Communal Award (1932) and              nities testifying to continued Hindu resentment of temple
> during the final Cabinet Mission negotiations (1946). After         desecration by Muslims (real or alleged) and persistent Musthe Muslim League in 1940 publicly called for the creation of      lim fears (both reasonable and baseless) of assimilation or
> a separate state for Muslims, many Hindus no longer trusted        annihilation in Hindu-majority India. This mutual suspicion
> Muslim ambitions for a free and unified India. Hindus sought        and hostility threaten constantly to overshadow the enora strong center and Muslims wanted strong regional govern-         mously rich and diverse shared traditions of the subcontinent.
> ments and electoral reservations. Unable to find a compro-          Yet the constitutional secularism of the largest democracy in
> mise, the rapid departure of the British in 1947 resulted in       the world, the persistence of shared places such as the shrine
> horrific violence—an estimated 500,000 to 1 million died as 8       of Vavar in Kerala, and the continuing popularity of common
> million Hindus and Sikhs shifted to India and 7 million            cultural traditions such as music, literature, and art forms,
> Muslims departed for East and West Pakistan.                       indicate that there is a sound and strong common ground.
> 
> Since Partition, India’s non-Hindu population has stead-       See also Akbar; South Asia, Islam in; South Asian Culily increased, whereas Pakistan’s non-Muslim population has        ture and Islam.
> declined—currently below 5 percent. The secular mandate of
> India’s constitution nominally protects equal rights, and          BIBLIOGRAPHY
> several controversial government schemes—particularly res-         Ahmad, Aziz. Studies in Islamic Culture in the Indian Environervation of seats for various minority groups in the civil           ment. 1964. Reprint, Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999.
> service, elected bodies, and universities—ensure at least some     Bayly, Susan. Saints, Goddesses and Kings: Muslims and Chris-
> Muslim presence in India’s civic life. Nonetheless, divisive          tians in South Indian Society 1700–1900. Cambridge, Mass.:
> politics persist. Three issues in particular frustrate under-         Cambridge University Press, 1989.
> standing between Hindus and Muslims: Muslim personal
> Eaton, Richard M. Essays on Islam and Indian History. Oxford,
> law, Ayodhya, and Kashmir.                                            U.K.: Oxford University Press, 2000.
> Currently there is a separate personal law for Muslims         Gilmartin, David, and Lawrence, Bruce, eds. Beyond Turk and
> regarding marriage, divorce, and inheritance. Hindu nation-           Hindu: Rethinking Religious Identities in Islamicate South
> Asia. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2000.
> alists and many women’s advocacy groups champion a uniform civil code, which would apply the same legal regulations      Hiltebeitel, Alf. Rethinking India’s Oral and Classical Epics:
> to every Indian citizen. Many Muslims cling to their separate         Draupadi among Rajputs, Muslims and Dalits. Chicago:
> legal code as a small realm of autonomy and the only available        University of Chicago Press, 1999.
> institutional means of maintaining their cultural identity.        Khan, Dominique-Sila. Conversions and Shifting Identities:
> Ramdev Pir and the Ismailis in Rajasthan. New Delhi:
> In the early twentieth century Hindu radicals identified          Manohar, 1997.
> the Babri Masjid, a sixteenth mosque in Ayodhya, Uttar             Metcalf, Barbara, ed. Moral Conduct and Authority: The Place of
> Pradesh, as the god Rama’s birthplace and began agitation for        Adab in South Asian Islam. Berkeley: University of Califorits “liberation.” In the absence of decisive action by the state     nia Press, 1984.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                   305
> Hisba
> 
> Mujeeb, Mohammad. The Indian Muslims. London: Allen &                despite their appearance as theoretical, also provide an in-
> Unwin, 1967.                                                       sight into medieval Muslim practices (many of which have
> Robinson, Francis. Islam and Muslim History in South Asia.           been left unrecorded elsewhere) since the more literate schol-
> New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2000.                          ars demanded that such practices be restricted.
> Wink, Andre. Al-Hind: The Making of the Indo-Islamic World.
> Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1990.                                             The theory was translated into practice by the appointment of local muhtasibs in various parts of the Abbasid
> empire. After the Mongol invasions and the reemergence of
> Anna Bigelow
> Muslim dynasties in Turkey, Iran, and India, the position of
> Juan Eduardo Campo
> muhtasib and the enforcement of hisba also reappeared. Local
> muhstasibs were charged with enforcing hisba in towns and
> cities across the Muslim world. One particular emphasis was
> HISBA                                                                the role of the muhtasib in ensuring that market law was
> obeyed, and official documents regularly refer to such a
> The Arabic term hisba (or in later works ihtisab) is associated      figure. In some parts of the Muslim world, the muhtasib was
> with the idea of “reckoning” or “accounting” and has, in             responsible solely for ensuring that traders used the correct
> works of Islamic law, come to refer to the activities of state-      weights and measures. In this role of restricting unscrupulous
> appointed individuals (usually termed muhtasib) who enforce          merchants, some muhtasibs gained a reputation as protectors
> the law of Islam (the sharia) in both the public and private        of the poor. The institution only died out with the introducspheres. The function is normally conceived of as more               tion of more organized police forces and administrative
> preventative than remedial: the muhtasib’s task is to prevent        ministries in the nineteenth century.
> transgressions of the law, and thereby avoid the need for
> court proceedings. However, he does have the power to bring          See also Ethics and Social Issues; Law; Political
> individuals before a judge (qadi) if they fail to take heed of the   Organization.
> hisba regulations. Most works of law from the twelfth century
> onward contain some discussion of the role of the muhtasib,          BIBLIOGRAPHY
> often in the section dealing with the role and functions of the      Amedroz, H. F. “The Hisba Jurisdiction in the Ahkam
> qadi. While enforcing hisba (“bringing people to account”) is          Sultaniyya of Mawardi.” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society
> conceived of in these works as the role of an appointed                (1916): 290–301.
> person, it is recognized that this person is merely performing       Sergeant, R. B. “A Zaidi Manual of Hisbah from the 3rd
> the general duty (to which all Muslims are bound) of “pro-              Century (H).” In Studies in Arabic History and Civilisation.Edmoting good and prohibiting evil” (al-amr bil-maruf wal-               ited by R. B. Sergeant. London: Variorum Reprints, 1981.
> nahy an al-munkar). This is a Quranic phrase (e.g., 3:104 and
> 9:61), and linking it with the doctrine of hisba (which is not                                                         Robert Gleave
> explicitly mentioned in the Quran) gives hisba (and its institutional manifestations) a firm grounding in the Quran.
> 
> Works that describe the function of hisba in Muslim              HISTORICAL WRITING
> society are often highly theoretical, and depict what might be
> termed an “ideal” law-enforcement system for an Islamic              The term ta
rikh is presently used in languages such as Arabic,
> community. The works open with a discussion of the various           Turkish, and Persian for “history.” Similar to the connotameanings of hisba and ihtisab, followed by discrete chapters on      tions of the term in the major European languages it refers,
> various activities that a muhtasib is supposed to prevent, and       on the one hand, to the past itself and, on the other hand, to
> finally a description of the powers of a muhtasib and his             the writing of history. Narrative texts (chronicles, biographirelationship with the judicial system. The list of activities        cal dictionaries, etc.), written with the explicit purpose to be
> considered forbidden, and therefore coming under the                 preserved, have been of particular importance for studying
> muhtasib’s power, are often an interesting indicator of local        the history of the Islamic lands. Even more than in the
> religious life in the area where the work was written. The           European and the Chinese contexts, substantial documentary
> muhtasib is recommended to restrict the playing of chess or          and archival evidence of history for regions such as the
> backgammon in various works, and in the Indian sub-continent         Arabic-speaking lands is practically nonexistent for the peworks, Muslims visiting the temples of Hindus is specifically         riod prior to the fourteenth century. Hence, most of our
> mentioned as a reprehensible practice. Works written in the          knowledge of the regions’ past depends on its representation
> western parts of the Muslim world, such as al-Hisba fil-Islam         in Islamic historiography.
> by Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328), mention the visitation of Muslims
> to tombs of the shaykhs in search of intercession, as a practice        In contrast to the modern study of historical writing for
> needing to be restricted by the muhtasib. Works of hisba, then,      other regions such as the European lands, the study of Islamic
> 
> 306                                                                                               Islam and the Muslim World
> Historical Writing
> 
> historical writing is to a large degree still characterized by        this beginning was of importance: The outwardly isolated
> predominantly philological concerns. It is only since the             character of each single report (khabar) proved to be influen-
> 1990s that an interest into the wider societal context of the         tial in shaping longer narratives. This early material has
> production of historical knowledge has taken a significant             engendered a major ongoing debate in present-day scholarplace in works such as Tarif Khalidi’s Arabic Historical Thought      ship about its authenticity as its dating has posed manifold
> in the Classical Period (1994). Approaches taking up the chal-        problems. One of the earliest reliable examples is the sira by
> lenges and possibilities arising out of the linguistic turn in the    the hadith scholar Muhammad Ibn Ishaq (d. 761), a biograsecond half of the twentieth century are rare except isolated         phy of the Prophet.
> examples such as Aziz al-Azmeh’s Histoire et Narration (1986).
> In the following centuries historiography found two main
> Historiography, in the sense of reflecting on the writing of       forms of expression: chronicles and biographical dictionaries.
> history itself, was restricted to short references in the intro-      The religious scholar al-Tabari (d. 923) composed in Baghdad
> duction of historical works in the Islamic lands until the            the typical example of the former category: the universal
> fourteenth century. The Persian religious philosopher al-
Iji         chronicle History of Prophets and Kings, which dealt with
> (d. after 1381/82) composed in Arabic the first reflection on           events from the creation of the world until his time. “Univerthe technique and methodology of writing history, the Gift of         sal” referred here obviously to Islamic history and what was
> the Poor Man. This and similar treatises of the following             perceived to be its predecessor(s). At the same time, chronicentury were partly translated by Franz Rosenthal in A                cles were produced with a more limited geographical focus on
> History of Muslim Historiography (1968). The famous North             towns (e.g., Damascus) and regions (e.g., Syria). The writing
> African scholar and official Ibn Khaldun (d. 1406) developed           of history in the form of chronicles is similar to the writings
> in his Introduction a theoretical pattern to classify events of the   produced in Latin Europe or Early and Middle Imperial China.
> past, well beyond mundane considerations of technique and
> methodology.                                                              On the contrary, the second major form of historical
> writing, biographical dictionary, was in its importance and
> Similarly, history gained only over time an independent            elaboration unique to Islamic historiography. Reflecting preplace in the Muslim canon of disciplines. Philosophical classi-       Islamic genealogical interests and Islamic concerns of tracing
> fications of sciences such as those by al-Farabi (d. 950) did not      the reliability of transmitters, the genre experienced an imrefer to history as an independent field of knowledge, emulat-         portant development from early times onward. An early
> ing the tradition of the Hellenistic classifications. However,         example of this genre, Ibn Sa
d’s (d. 845) Grand Book of the
> educational classifications included it as a discipline in its own     Generations, reflects its exclusive theological concern by foright from the tenth century onward, although it was rarely           cusing on transmitters of hadith. This focus changed over the
> taught as such in madrasas. At the same time, introductions to        centuries, and in the thirteenth century the jurist Ibn Khallikan
> chronicles show that the authors considered themselves,               (d. 1282), for example, included in his dictionary individuals
> among others, as historians (mu
arrikh)—a term also often             from more varied backgrounds. More specialized works started
> encountered in medieval biographical entries.                         to be limited to specific towns or specific professions, such as
> the Generations of Physicians by Ibn Abi Usaybi
a (d. 1270).
> Historical Writing in the Central Islamic Lands—
> Premodern Period                                                         This development was an expression of the gradual change
> Islamic historiography, in the sense of recording history,            in the social identities of authors of historical works. From
> started with texts written in Arabic, but its early development       the eleventh century onward important parts of the ulema
> is still largely unknown. The Greek and Persian literary              started to interact more closely with court circles and rulers.
> traditions of the newly conquered lands were not adopted as           Typical examples in this regard are Saladin’s biographer Ibn
> direct models to build upon. It was rather the oral pre-Islamic       Shaddad (d. 1234), who was the ruler’s judge of the army, and
> Arabic tradition that shaped early Islamic historiography to a        Ibn al-
Adim (d. 1262), the author of a local chronicle of
> certain degree. The focus on genealogy and the authentica-            Aleppo, who served the ruler of the town as a secretary, judge,
> tion of reports by means of chains of transmitters were               and wazir. Nevertheless, authors of historical works continremnants of this heritage. However, the concrete forms of             ued to belong almost exclusively to the elusive group of the
> this historiography developed very much within the dynam-             ulema. Authors, being part of the military elite, continued to
> ics of early Islamic history, that is, through the interplay          be rare, while authors belonging to the commoners remained
> between the different Near Eastern cultural traditions                nonexistent.
> 
> Early Islamic historical writing was intimately linked to             Toward the end of the tenth century Arabic lost its
> immediate theological concerns. The first writings, which              position as the exclusive literary language in the Islamic lands.
> might be labeled as being historical, treated the life of the         The regionalization of political power also found its expresprophet Muhammad and his Companions. These writings                   sion in the rise of Persian historiography. This development
> were recorded mainly as hadiths, that is, as reports on the           was not only of linguistic nature. Persian historiography
> deeds and sayings of the Prophet. For later historiography            gained specific characteristics, such as stronger efforts to
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                        307
> Historical Writing
> 
> offer an explicit unified narrative, a more limited focus on            The interplay between oral and written historical tradievents linked to courts and, initially, a near-absence of bio-     tions was also a salient feature in sub-Saharan Africa. While
> graphical works. Rashid al-Din (d. 1318) produced with his         historiography written by indigenous authors came into ex-
> Collection of Chronicles a Persian universal history unmatched     istence around 1500, these narratives continued to circulate
> in its breadth. This chronicle was written for the Mongol          simultaneously in a context of oral culture. The first written
> ruler and was outstanding as it included the history of all        texts appeared in those regions that had previously been
> known people, instead of only those of the Islamic lands.          strongly Islamized and Arabized: the Sudan Belt and the East
> African Swahili coast. Consequently, chronicles such as the
> Historical Writing Beyond the Central Islamic Lands—               East African Kilwa Chronicle, written around 1530, or the
> Premodern Period                                                   West African Ta
rikh al-Sudan, written by the Timbuktu
> Persian historiography spread subsequently also to newly           historian al-Sa
di in the seventeenth century, were generally
> Islamized regions like South Asia. There, Muslim                   composed in Arabic. West African Muslim historiography
> historiography was from its outset in the thirteenth century       developed also the genre of biographical dictionaries, such as
> almost exclusively written in Persian. Early Indo-Persian          Ahmad Baba’s (d. 1627) work on the learned men of the
> historical writings reflected closely the outlook of its Persian    Western Sudan. During the nineteenth century, authors
> models, such as its intimate links with court life. It is only     switched increasingly to indigenous languages such as Hausa
> during the Mogul period (sixteenth to eighteenth centuries)        and Fulfulde written first in Arabic and subsequently in Latin
> that Muslim South Asian historiography developed distinct          script. In combination with the developing dominance of
> characteristics, like the genre of memoirs written by mem-         European languages, Arabic ceased to be the literary elite’s
> bers of the royal family or private persons.                       prime means of expression.
> 
> The life of Nur al-Din Raniri (d. 1658), a South Asian         Historical Writing in the Central Islamic Lands:
> scholar with a partly Arab genealogy, might serve as an            Ottoman and Modern Periods
> example for the close links between the historiographical          During the fifteenth century Ottoman Turkish emerged as a
> traditions of the different predominantly Muslim regions.          major literary language in Anatolia and in parts of the Arabic-
> After moving to the sultanate of Aceh (Northern Sumatra) he        speaking Middle East. Ottoman historiography started in the
> composed a Malay chronicle striving to mirror the classical        fourteenth century with rather short appendixes to existing
> historiographical style (e.g., al-Tabari) and drawing simulta-     chronicles. It was only in the fifteenth century that indepenneously heavily on the Malay Annals. The Malay Annals are          dent historical works in Ottoman Turkish were composed.
> one of the early examples of Southeast Asian Muslim                These works were mainly chronicles written by individuals
> historiography, written around 1500. Here, an anonymous            close to court circles. Other genres (e.g. biographical dictionauthor writing in Malay had cautiously aimed at harmonizing        aries) did not play a significant role in Ottoman historiography.
> indigenous traditions and Islam, that is, Raniri’s text reflected   History of Events, a work by the officially appointed imperial
> a bundle of different regional historiographical traditions.       historian Mustafa Na
ima (d. 1716), enjoyed considerable
> This interaction within the Muslim world via members of its        popularity. His recourse to Ibn Khaldun’s patterns in order to
> literary elites might not be sufficient to legitimize the use of    describe the perceived decline of the empire was typical for
> the single term “Muslim historiography” for such diverse           this period’s historiography. With the Ottoman period the
> traditions. Nevertheless, it shows at least that texts shifted     importance of narrative historiography for modern day scholareasily from one region to the other and were reworked during       ship decreases. The large amounts of surviving archival and
> this process.                                                      documentary material for the central Islamic lands allow
> more varied venues to the history of this and the following
> Central Asia and sub-Saharan Africa are further examples       periods.
> of how texts and genres were transferred and adopted. Muslim troops conquered the western lands of Central Asia                 Persian, Ottoman, and Arabic historiographies witnessed
> during the early eighth century. Therefore, the region’s           significant changes during the late nineteenth century. This
> historiography was part of the Arabic and later Persian and        process culminated for the Arabic context in works such as
> Turkic traditions as well. However, in regions beyond these        the History of Islamic Civilization by the Syrian Christian Jurji
> initial conquests, the development of a Muslim historiography      Zaydan (d. 1914), published in Egypt between 1902 and
> was more complex. Here, the interplay between local oral           1906. Here a distinct shift in form and content becomes
> traditions and written Muslim works was more accentuated.          visible, especially as he drew heavily on European works
> For example, the earliest surviving history for the Volga-Ural     dealing with Arab or Islamic history. Nevertheless, these
> area, the Turkic Collection of Chronicles, completed in 1602 by    “modern” works were still to a large degree embedded in
> 
Ali Jalayiri, derived not only from Rashid al-Din’s fourteenth-   traditional historiography, visible in a similar use of poetry.
> century work with the same name but also to a large degree         Contrary to traditional assumptions, which refer the ninefrom oral folklore sources circulating among the Mus-              teenth century developments exclusively to the modernizing
> lim nomads.                                                        impact of the West, recent scholarship such as Crecelius
> 
> 308                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Hizb Allah
> 
> (2001) has stressed the vivacity of Arabic historiography also       Meisami, Julie. Persian Historiography to the End of the Twelfth
> in the “declining” eighteenth century.                                 Century. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1999.
> Rosenthal, Franz. A History of Muslim Historiography. 2d ed.
> The changes led in the late nineteenth century to a                Leiden: Brill, 1968.
> reorientation of historiography toward narratives of Ottoman and Arabic national origins. In the early twentieth                                                              Konrad Hirschler
> century the Ottoman narrative was Turkified and with the
> rise of Arab national states the Arabic version started slowly
> to be supplemented and ultimately replaced respectively by
> national narratives. This universal trend toward national            HISTORY See Historical Writing; Timelines and
> identities was also visible in other Muslim regions. The             Genealogies in backmatter
> politician and writer Muhammad Yamin (d. 1962), for example, integrated the Malay Annals into his narrative of an
> Indonesian national history dating many millennia back.
> 
> The dominant second trend during the twentieth century            HIZB ALLAH
> was the professionalization of the writing of history. The
> general expansion of higher education in the Middle East,            Hizb Allah (Hezbollah, Hizbullah) from the Arabic hizb allah,
> especially after World War II, led also to a significant rise in      or “party of God,” became a popular name for political
> the number of university history departments. This has               Islamist groups in the late twentieth century, after Ayatollah
> changed the general pattern of the first half of the century          Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran began to use the Quranic phrase
> when Middle Eastern historians generally took their degree           (5:56–59; 58:19–22) to distinguish the righteous from the
> from Western universities. However, historical research re-          oppressors.
> mains a difficult task because of limited material resources              Focusing on the perennial conflict between the forces of
> and the variant political conditions, which are not always           good and evil, and the Quran’s apocalyptic vision in which
> favorable for dealing with certain topics.                           the “party of God” will be “victorious” and will go to heaven,
> whereas the “party of Satan” will ultimately “be the losers,”
> See also Arabic Literature; Biography and Hagiography;
> was effective in consciousness-raising and forging solidarity
> Heresiography; Ibn Khaldun; Tabari, al-.
> in the postcolonial context of sociopolitical strife. This general usage of “Hizb Allah” dominated in Iran in the late
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                         1970s, when it was used by those who supported Ayatollah
> Azmeh, Aziz al-. “Histoire et Narration dans l’Historiographie       Khomeini in his opposition to the shah, “the West,” and
> Arabe.” Annales ESC 41 (1986):411–431.                             Israel, and in his advocacy of government based on Islam as
> Choueiri, Youssef M. Arab History and the Nation State. A            interpreted by religiously trained (Shi
ite) legal scholars.
> Study in Modern Arab Historiography 1820–1980. London              Somewhat earlier, a group of Sunni political Islamists in
> and New York: Routledge, 1989.                                     Yemen called themselves Hizb Allah, and later another small
> Crecelius, Daniel. “al-Jabarti’s aja
ib al-athar fi l-tarajim wa-   Sunni Hizb Allah appeared in Egypt, reputedly under the
> l-akhbar and the Arabic Histories of Ottoman Egypt in the          leadership of Yahya Hashim. A faction that broke away from
> Eighteenth Century.” In The Historiography of Islamic              Islamic Jihad in Palestine during the 1980s, led by Ahmad
> Egypt (C. 950–1800). Edited by Hugh Kennedy. Leiden                Muhanna, also called itself Hizb Allah. The Palestinian Hizb
> and Boston: Brill, 2001.                                           Allah, like its parent Islamic Jihad, is military in nature, rejects
> Frank, Allen J. Islamic Historiography and ’Bulghar’ Identity        compromise with Israel, and believes the question of Pales-
> Among the Tatars and Bashkirs of Russia. Leiden, Boston:          tine is fundamentally religious in nature. That is, returning
> Brill, 1998.                                                      Palestine and, in particular, Jerusalem, to Islamic sovereignty
> Freitag, Ulrike. “Writing Arab History: The Search for               is considered a religious duty.
> the Nation.” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies21
> However, the term Hizb Allah (Hezbollah/Hizbullah) is
> (1994):19–37.
> most frequently associated with the Lebanese Shi
ite group
> Hall, D. G. E. Historians of South East Asia. London: Oxford
> founded in 1982, following the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.
> University Press, 1961.
> Shi
ite leader Sayyid Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah, who had
> Humphreys, R. Stephen. Islamic History. A Framework for              studied with Khomeini in Najaf during the latter’s exile in
> Inquiry. 2d ed. London and New York: I. B. Tauris, 1995.           Iraq, became an outspoken opponent of Israel, and of “the
> Khalidi, Tarif. Arabic Historical Thought in the Classical Period.   West” in general. At that time, Iran’s Islamic government
> Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1994.                 sent a contingent of Revolutionary Guards to Lebanon to
> Lewis, Bernard, and Holt, Peter M., eds. Historians of the           assist in the resistance to Israel, becoming the core of Shi
ite
> Middle East. London: Oxford University Press, 1962.                militancy in Lebanon. The movement is led by a secretary
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                          309
> Hojjat al-Islam
> 
> general (most recently Hojjat al-Islam Hassan Nasrallah) and          structure of the Shi
ite seminary system. At first, scholars like
> advised by a council (Jihad Council), including Lebanese              Muhammad Baqir al-Shafti (d.1844) were given the titles
> Shi
ite scholars and military advisors. Since its inception,          mujtahid, Ayatollah, and Hojjat al-Islam. Later usage of the
> however, Fadlallah has been the movement’s spiritual leader           term Hojjat al-Islam was restricted to scholars of a rank lower
> and spokesperson.                                                     than Ayatollah. A Hojjat al-Islam, since the Islamic revolution
> in Iran, is an “aspiring Ayatollah” who has completed his
> With support from Iran, Syria, and private donations,             bahth-e kharij (the highest level of formal instruction) and is
> Hizb Allah expanded its activities to include assistance to           teaching, but has not yet gained sufficient prestige to be
> families of those who have died in war or are imprisoned,             regarded as Ayatollah. While both Ayatollah and Hojjat almedical facilities (hospitals, pharmacies, rehabilitation cen-        Islam were titles of distinction in the late nineteenth and early
> ters), factories, education (scholarships), social services (in-      twentieth centuries, the titles have become relatively comcluding scouting and sports activities), communications (radio        mon in recent years, and this may reflect either a lowering of
> and newspapers), as well as infrastructure (including rebuild-        the qualification threshold, or an improvement in educaing sites destroyed in war). Since 1992 it has operated as a          tional techniques in the Shi
ite seminaries of Mashhad, Qum,
> political party as well, competing successfully for the Shi
ite       and the Atabat.
> vote in parliamentary elections. Nevertheless, Hizb Allah is
> most widely known for attacks carried out by its militia for          See also Ayatollah (Ar. Ayatullah); Shi
a: Imami
> covert operations, the Organization of the Islamic Jihad.             (Twelver).
> These attacks have been waged against foreigners in Lebanon,
> both individuals (assassinations and kidnappings) and groups          BIBLIOGRAPHY
> (such as the bombings of U.S. diplomatic and military instal-         Mottahedeh, Roy P. The Mantle of the Prophet: Religion and
> lations in 1983 and 1984), as well as Israeli occupation forces         Politics in Iran New York: Simon and Schuster, 1985.
> in southern Lebanon.
> 
> In Iran, the popularity of Hezbollahi rhetoric has waned                                                            Robert Gleave
> with the rise in popularity of Mohammed Khatami, who was
> elected president by a wide margin in 1997 on a campaign
> stressing the need for reform within Iran rather than opposi-
> HOJJATIYYA SOCIETY
> tion to the West. Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon
> in 2000 after eighteen years of warfare led by Hizb Allah
> The Hojjatiyya (Hojjatieh) Society is an anti-Bahai group
> forces, by contrast, greatly enhanced Hizb Allah’s standing in
> that was established in 1957 by Mahmood-e Halabi, one of
> Lebanon and the Arab Middle East.
> the well-known preachers and publicists of Mashad, the
> See also Political Islam.                                             religious center of Khorasan province in Iran. (Bahaism is a
> religious movement that originated in Iran in the nineteenth
> century.) After the resignation of Reza Shah (1941), who
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> opposed political activity by clerics, Halabi began to criticize
> Jaber, Hala. Hezbollah: Born with a Vengeance. New York:              the history and doctrine of Bahaism. When Halabi moved to
> Columbia University Press, 1997.
> Tehran, after Mohammad Reza Shah’s coup d’etat against
> Kramer, Martin S. Hezbollah’s Vision of the West. Washington,         the national government of Mohammad Mosaddegh at 1953,
> D.C.: Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 1989.              he found significant support from the conservative clergy,
> Saad-Ghorayeb, Amal. Hizbu
llah: Politics and Religion. Lon-          and the leading ulema approved of the Hojjatiyya Society’s
> don: Pluto Press, 2002.                                            activities. Hojjatiyya opposed any radical or revolutionary
> activity, and consequently there were no prohibitions on its
> Tamara Sonn        social and cultural approach.
> 
> After Iran’s Islamic revolution in 1978–1979, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who opposed Hojjatiyya’s thesis as
> HOJJAT AL-ISLAM                                                       criticizing and crushing Bahaism as the main agenda of the
> Islamic Revolution, put some limitation on the activity of this
> Hojjat al-Islam literally means “Proof of Islam.” Hojjat al-          group. Nevertheless Hojjatiyya was successful in closing the
> Islam began as an honorific title given to high-ranking schol-         Bahai’s public meetings and preventing the dissemination of
> ars (ulema) in both Sunni and Shi
ite Islam. Hence al-Ghazali         the movement’s ideas. In 1983, Halabi stopped the educa-
> (d. 1111) was given the title Hojjat al-Islam, to signify his skill   tional activities of the Hojjatiyya Society, following Khomeini’s
> in arguing for the truths of Islam. It appears to have remained       request that he do so. Hojjatiyya members have since been
> a general term of respect for a scholar. In the nineteenth            active in Iran’s judiciary, security system, and in offices
> century, the title began to reflect the more hierarchical              responsible for staffing Iran’s governmental institutions.
> 
> 310                                                                                               Islam and the Muslim World
> Holy Cities
> 
> See also Bahai Faith; Revolution: Islamic Revolution in
> Iran.
> 
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Baghi, Emad al-din. Hizb-e-Qaedin Zaman.Tehran: Ettela
at
> Publisher, 1984.
> 
> Majid Mohammadi
> 
> HOLY CITIES
> The Prophet of Islam is reported to have said that a Muslim
> should not embark on a pilgrimage or pious visit to any
> mosque other than the Holy Sanctuary of Mecca, the Prophet’s
> Mosque in Medina, and the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.
> This statement in a sense maps out the sacred geography of
> the Islamic landscape. Muslims revere the cities of Mecca,
> Medina, and Jerusalem primarily because of the powerful
> spiritual symbolism associated with these sanctuaries.
> 
> Different religious traditions define sacred space according to different criteria, alluding to the multiplicity of ways in
> which holiness is conceptualized. Some traditions hold that
> sacred space is discovered through the manifestation of the
> divine, while others argue that holiness is created through a        At the end of the annual hajj in Mecca in March of 2000, tens of
> process of cultural labor. In the Islamic tradition, the origins     thousands of pilgrims at a time surround the Ka
ba in the Haram
> al-Sharif or “Noble Sanctuary.” Because of the Ka
ba and this
> and the performance of rituals of worship play an integral part      annual journey by millions of Muslims commemorating Abraham,
> in the sanctification of space. As such, the concept of the holy      Hagar, and Isma
il, Mecca is the holiest city in Islam. © AFP/CORBIS
> is more closely linked to the process of cultural labor, whereby
> space is sanctified due to its function in divine communion
> and not because of the perceived manifestation of the divine
> progeny of Isma
il, flourished in the region but deviated from
> in a certain place. Therefore, the cities of Mecca, Medina, and
> the pure monotheism of their noble ancestors, and at the time
> Jerusalem are embraced as holy and regarded as sacred
> of the birth of the prophet Muhammad, Mecca was a center of
> centers because of their intimate association with fundamenidol-worship.
> tal Islamic ritual practices.
> 
> In order to grasp the significance of these holy cities to the         When Muhammad began preaching his message he was
> Muslim imagination their religious symbolism needs to be             severely persecuted by his fellow Meccans and was forced to
> emphasized alongside their histories. Foremost among the             seek asylum in the nearby city of Medina. With the rise of
> three centers is Mecca, followed by Medina, and finally               Islam, the Prophet was finally able to conquer Mecca. He
> Jerusalem.                                                           entered the city in 630 C.E., purging it of all its idols and
> reestablishing the Ka
ba as a symbol of pure monotheism
> Mecca                                                                once again. Mecca thus became a center of Muslim pilgrim-
> The city of Mecca has been venerated as a holy center since          age (hajj). Even today, Muslims from all over the world
> time immemorial. In the pre-Islamic period it served as a            congregate in the city annually to perform the hajj, which is
> center of pilgrimage for the pagan Arabs and was home to             one of the five fundamental pillars of Islam.
> their most important idol deities. Muslims, however, view
> Mecca as the center of monotheism and the city where the                 The Prophet did not choose to remain in Mecca, and
> Ka
ba, the first house for the exclusive worship of the one true      settled in Medina instead. Thus, Mecca never became a city
> God—Allah—was established. The prophet Abraham is re-                of any political significance, and the seat of governance in the
> ported to have built the Ka
ba in this barren valley by divine       Muslim world was always located elsewhere. The only time
> command. Abraham had long before left his son, Isma
il, with         the city was of political importance was during the brief
> his mother, Hagar, in this place, also by divine command.            period after the death of the caliph Mu
awiya. He was
> Returning many years later, Abraham and his son undertook            succeeded by his son Yazid in 680 C.E., but his rule was
> the construction of the Ka
ba. The Arabs, who are the                contested by 
Abdallah ibn Zubayr, who was proclaimed
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                          311
> Holy Cities
> 
> caliph in Mecca. Ibn Zubayr managed to gain ascendancy                 The second ritual performed in the Mosque is the sai
,
> over most of Arabia and certain parts of Iraq, but was finally       which literally means to strive. The pilgrim reenacts the
> crushed and killed by the Ummayad general al-Hajjaj in 692 C.E.     frantic search for water undertaken by Hagar, an African
> freed slave, who ran between the two hills of Saffa and Marwa.
> When the Abbasids ousted their Ummayad cousins, they             Abraham had left her there, alone with her son, without any
> chose to continue ruling from Baghdad. Mecca was well               provisions. She ran between the two hills until God finally
> patronized by the Abbasid caliphs, and they distributed vast        rewarded her quest with the blessed well of Zamzam, which
> sums of money to its inhabitants during their visits on             suddenly gushed forth from the ground. The pilgrim therepilgrimage. The appearance of the Qarmitiyya, a militant sect       fore recalls the anguish of this noble woman, and is also
> opposed to the Abbasids, made some impact on the history of         reminded of the mercy of Allah.
> Mecca in this era. Over a fifty-year period, the sect made
> constant raids on pilgrim caravans, and in 930 C.E. they raided        Another sacred space linked to the pilgrimage is found on
> Mecca, massacring its inhabitants. They even carried away           the outskirts of Mecca, not too far from the holy Mosque.
> the Black Stone, the cornerstone that marks the beginning of        This is the campsite of Mina. Not only do the pilgrims spend
> the ritual of circumambulation around the Ka
ba. It was,            most of the five days of pilgrimage camped at Mina, but they
> however, returned some twenty years later, and a relatively         also perform the ritual pelting of Satan there. This ritual is
> calm state of affairs ensued thereafter, with pilgrimage taking     associated with Satan’s attempt to dissuade Abraham from
> precedence over politics in Mecca once again.                       obeying Allah’s command, and Abraham is reported to have
> chased the Evil One away by pelting him with pebbles on
> The city’s recent history also bears witness to some            three occasions. The pilgrim therefore reenacts this event
> dramatic political events. In 1979 a group of Saudi militants       through the ritual pelting, thereby striving to fight his or her
> stormed the sacred sanctuary that houses the Ka
ba and              own spiritual weakness rejecting temptation. Mina only comes
> occupied it for sixteen days, killing many civilians and soldiers   to life once a year, during the pilgrimage, and is virtually
> in the process. Apart from these infrequent events, however,        uninhabited for the remainder of the year.
> Mecca has always been of preeminent importance to Muslims
> because of the Ka
ba and the hajj. It is solely because of the          Moving on from Mina, the pilgrim follows the path to the
> rituals of hajj performed in the city and its environs that         plains of Arafat, about 9 kilometers away from central Mecca.
> Mecca is haloed in sanctity.                                        Arafat also only comes to life during the pilgrimage, and is the
> site where the prophet Muhammad delivered the famous last
> When viewed in terms of sacred geography, the city can          sermon. Standing on the plains of Arafat and supplicating
> best be conceived of as a patchwork of sacred spaces. At the        Allah is the pinnacle of the hajj. The pilgrim who does not
> very center is the Ka
ba, which is for Muslims a veritable          manage to make his way to Arafat on the specified time and
> gateway opening into the realm of the transcendent. Muslims
> day invalidates his or her pilgrimage and has to perform it
> the world over face in the direction of the Ka
ba during the
> over again. This ritual, unlike most of the others, is not
> performance of the five daily prayers, and the Ka
ba is
> related to Abraham and is more directly associated with the
> undoubtedly the most potent symbol of Islamic identity, due
> prophet Muhammad, who is reported to have said that the
> to its intimate association with the obligatory act of prayer.
> essence of pilgrimage is the supplication at Arafat.
> The history of the Ka
ba is even detailed in the Quran, and it
> is described as the first house established for the sole purpose        Between Mina and Arafat is Muzdallifa, an area intimately
> of worshipping God (3:96). Although the Quran describes            linked to the pilgrimage rituals as well. The pilgrim must pass
> Mecca as being “full of blessing” (3:96) and as an “asylum of       through Muzdallifa on the way back to Mina after completing
> security” (5:97), it goes on to emphasize the functional            the supplication at Arafat and perform the obligatory prayers
> characteristic of the Ka
ba far more cogently. It was built for     there, as was instructed by the prophet Muhammad.
> no other purpose but the establishment of prayer (14:37).
> Like any world capital, Mecca is continuously being trans-
> The immediate vicinity of the Ka
ba was also regarded as a       formed and upgraded. The pilgrimage sites have been develsanctuary, and as such the Ka
ba and its surroundings make          oped to facilitate the millions that visit there, and the city
> up the holy Mosque of Mecca, which is commonly known as             itself will surely grow and expand in the future. However,
> al-Haram al-Sharif (the Noble Sanctuary). Two very impor-           Mecca will always retain its aura primarily because of the
> tant rituals of hajj are performed in this Mosque. The first is      pilgrimage.
> the circumambulation of the Ka
ba. This ritual is associated
> with Abraham and Isma
il’s building of the house. As they laid      Medina
> the foundations, the two prophets supplicated Allah, implor-        Unlike Mecca, a visit to Medina is not an obligatory part of
> ing for mercy and asking that their sacrifice be accepted. In        the pilgrimage, but the Prophet had personally sanctioned
> similar vein, the pilgrim reenacts the process and supplicates      journeying to his mosque in Medina for the purpose of ziyara,
> Allah as he or she completes the cycles known as tawwaf.            or pious visit. During the early Islamic era, Medina, called
> 
> 312                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Holy Cities
> 
> The second holiest city in Islam is Medina, where the Prophet’s Mosque, shown here, is located. Though he was born in Mecca, Muhammad
> failed to convince people there of his beliefs and was severely persecuted before he resettled in nearby Medina, where he gained more
> followers. AP/WIDE WORLD PHOTOS
> 
> Yathrib in pre-Islamic times, had been the political capital of      conquer the Byzantine Romans and the Persians that threatthe nascent Islamic empire. Mecca was and still is by far the        ened its northern frontiers.
> more important in terms of sacred geography, however. The
> oasis town of Yathrib, which lies about 500 kilometers away              Medina remained the political capital of the Islamic Empire
> from Mecca, was renamed in honour of the Prophet, and is             during the reign of the four caliphs who succeeded the
> more properly referred to as al-Madina al-Munawwarra, or             Prophet. With the outbreak of civil war during the reign of
> the Illuminated City.                                                
Ali (the last of the four caliphs) the city slowly began to lose
> political importance. 
Ali left Medina in October 656 C.E. to
> The Prophet had migrated to Medina in 622 C.E., after            quell insurrections in Iraq and never returned. The city of
> failing to convince the Meccans of his mission. The city was         Kufa was for a brief period the center of events, but with the
> far more diverse than Mecca, with a population comprised of          ascendancy of Mu
awiya as caliph in 661 C.E., Damascus
> Jews, Muslims, and idolaters. The Prophet attempted to               became the political capital of the Muslim world. Apart from
> unite the various factions into a single polity and his efforts      isolated instances of upheaval, not much else occurred in
> were recorded in a pact known as Sahifa al-Madina, or the            Medina that was of major political significance from here on.
> constitution of Medina. In the interim, the conflict between
> the nascent Muslim community of Medina and the Meccan                    While Medina may have become completely marginalized
> pagans continued. The Prophet undertook over seventy                 in the political sphere, it gained considerable fame as a center
> expeditions against the Meccans from his new power base in           of Islamic intellectual life. The scholars of Medina played an
> Medina before finally conquering Mecca. The Prophet did               important role in the early development of Islamic jurisprunot return to Mecca, however, as Medina was now his home.            dence and in the collection of hadith (prophetic traditions).
> It was from here that he turned his attention to spreading the       In this important formative period, the legal school of Medina
> message of Islam to frontiers beyond the Arabian Peninsula.          was made famous through the work of one of its most
> By the time of his death in 632 C.E., Islam stood poised to          outstanding scholars, Malik ibn Anas, who died in 795 C.E.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                       313
> Holy Cities
> 
> However, it is neither the intellectual nor the early politi-       Religious literature on Medina is replete with accounts
> cal status of Medina that is ultimately of primary importance       that outline the virtues of the city, but many of these are
> to the Muslim community. Medina is venerated because it is          apocryphal and therefore not worthy of mention. Such acthe city of the Prophet of Islam and the first Islamic polity. It    counts do, however, lend an added aura and appeal to the holy
> is in Medina that Islam took root and was strengthened. The         status of the city, even if they are not really of great importance.
> city is also the site of a few important mosques that are
> intimately associated with the history of the ritual prayers.       Jerusalem
> This is perhaps the main reason why the Prophet encouraged          Although Jerusalem’s status as the third holy city of Islam is
> Muslims to visit Medina. Its sacred sites not only capture the      extremely well established in the primary Islamic sources,
> early history of the prayer ritual, but also strengthen the         Muslims do not claim exclusive spiritual rights to the holy
> believer’s resolve and commitment to these very practices.          city. Jerusalem is dear to all three of the Abrahamic faiths, and
> has been severely battled over by Muslims, Christians, and
> The first mosque built in Medina was the mosque of               Jews through the centuries.
> Quba. This mosque lies on what was then the outskirts of the
> The Jews have always venerated the city as the site of the
> city, and it is where the Prophet paused for a few days before
> holy temple, but the pagan Romans had already obliterated
> entering the city. Here he laid the foundations of the Quba
> all remaining vestiges of Jewish life in Jerusalem about five
> Mosque. The mosque at Quba remained dear to the Prophet,
> centuries before the city came under Muslim rule, in 638 C.E.
> and long after he had settled in Medina he would still make
> When the Roman emperor Constantine embraced Christihis way there on Saturdays to spend time in prayer and
> anity, the city was covered in Christian monuments. Although
> reflection. Muslims visiting Medina today still emulate this
> there was no chance of the Jews rebuilding their temple,
> practice, and follow the path to the mosque of Quba in the
> Constantine did allow them into the city once a year, on
> early hours on Saturday mornings, where they remain until
> payment of a fee, so that they could mourn the destruction of
> noon, as was the habit of the Prophet.
> the temple.
> Nonetheless, the most important mosque in Medina is
> In 614 C.E. the Persians captured Jerusalem, massacring
> still the Prophet’s Mosque, also referred to as the Haram althousands of Christians in the process. Fourteen years later,
> Madina (the Sanctuary of Medina). The Prophet’s own living
> the Roman emperor Heraclius was able to drive the invaders
> quarters were attached to the mosque, and when he died he
> out and recover the land and the city. He, in turn, wreaked a
> was buried in one of his apartments. The Prophet’s gravesite
> terrible vengeance upon the Jews, who were accused of
> is thus attached to his mosque even today. While orthodox
> colluding with the Persian invaders. At the dawn of Islam,
> Islamic doctrine frowns upon the veneration of gravesites,
> therefore, the Jewish presence in Jerusalem had once again
> Muslims the world over come to the mosque to visit the
> been viciously purged by the Christians.
> grave. This practice is tolerated as long as it is done under the
> pretext of visiting the mosque, for the Prophet is reported to          The Islamic Empire underwent massive expansion after
> have said that prayer in his mosque is rewarded more greatly        the demise of the Prophet. In the reign of the third caliph,
> than prayer elsewhere, except for prayer in the haram of            
Umar ibn al-Khattab, the Byzantines conceded Jerusalem to
> Mecca, which carries the highest reward. In Medina, as in           Islam. In 638 C.E., the caliph himself accepted the capitulation
> Mecca, it is once again the act of prayer that lends sanctity to    of the city from its Christian patriarch, Sophronius. In an
> this important space.                                               unprecedented display of tolerance, 
Umar granted the Christians protection of their religious sites and vouched for their
> The final mosque that enjoys special status is the Qiblatyn      safety. He even refused the patriarch’s offer to perform the
> Mosque, which literally means the mosque of two directions.         midday prayer in a Christian shrine, recognizing the signifi-
> Unlike the first two, this mosque is more of historical than         cance of the prayer in the appropriation and sanctification of
> ritual significance. There is no special reward mentioned for        space. He explained his reasons for refusing, saying that he
> praying in it, nor did the Prophet set a precedent of visiting it   did not want to create a pretense for future generations that
> on a regular basis. However, it is important because of the         may seek justification for the confiscation of this Christian
> momentous event that occurred in it. For a period of sixteen        shrine and turn it into a place of Islamic worship.
> months after the Prophet’s migration to Medina, the obligatory prayers were performed facing in the direction of Jerusa-         
Umar immediately set about identifying the sites that
> lem. While praying in the Qiblatyn Mosque, the Prophet was          were of religious significance to Muslims. Jerusalem is menordered by divine directive to change orientation and face the      tioned in the Quran as the city to which the Prophet had
> Ka
ba in Mecca while praying (2:142). Even today, Muslims           traveled in a night journey and in which he had assembled
> the world over pray facing Mecca, and in memory of God’s            with all the previous prophets, leading them in prayer. 
Umar
> command to the Prophet, Muslims still frequent this mosque          therefore sought out this area and marked it out as a sanctuwhen visiting Medina.                                               ary. It was here that the al-Aqsa mosque was built. The
> 
> 314                                                                                               Islam and the Muslim World
> Holy Cities
> 
> Al Aqsa Mosque and Temple Mount in Jerusalem. After he conquered Jerusalem in 638, the third caliph, ’Umar ibn al-Khattab, built Al Aqsa.
> The caliph chose a site the Qu’ran describes the Prophet Muhammad having traveled to in a night journey in order to gather all the previous
> prophets and lead them in prayer. © DAVE G. HOUSER/CORBIS
> 
> Prophet is then reported to have ascended to the heavens,               rule the Jewish community once again thrived in the city,
> where the five daily prayers were obligated upon him and his             finding safe asylum from persecution there.
> followers by Allah. His ascension was from a large rock,
> which was discovered under a dung heap, indicating that the                It is important to note that no Jewish place of worship is
> area of the sanctuary was of no significance to the other                made mention of from the time of the Arab conquest in
> religious communities at that time. 
Umar ordered the area to           Jerusalem. Mention of the Wailing Wall as a place where
> be cleaned and performed the prayers there. Building of the             pious Jews came to lament the loss of the temple only
> structure known as the Dome of the Rock commenced round                 appeared around the time of Saladin’s reconquest. This wall
> about 688 C.E. on the order of 
Abd al-Malik ibn al-Marwan,             was identified as the Western wall of the Al-Aqsa compound,
> the fifth caliph after Mu’awwiya.                                        and Jews from thereon frequented the place to pray.
> 
> Jerusalem became known to Muslims as Bayt al-Maqdis or                  This act of devotion was tolerated by the Muslim rulers of
> simply al-Quds (the Holy City). It was thereafter patronized            Jerusalem, with the gravest of consequences in recent times,
> and maintained as a sacred site by all the Muslim caliphs from          after the establishment of the Jewish State of Israel in occuthe Abbasids right through to the Ottomans, who finally lost             pied Palestine. What was initially a gesture of tolerance came
> the city to British mandate in the early twentieth century.             to be held by some faithful Jews as an absolute right, not
> The city remained under Muslim rule for thirteen centuries,             merely of access but ultimately of possession. Today the strife
> with the exception of the brief interruption effected by the            between Jews and Muslims over the site of the al-Aqsa
> Crusades. In this long period, the greatest calamity to have            complex rages fiercely.
> befallen Islam was the loss of Jerusalem to the Crusaders in
> 1099 C.E. The city was finally reconquered by Salah al-Din al-              United Nations attempts to accord the city of Jerusalem
> Ayyubi (Saladin) ninety years later, in 1187 C.E. In the in-            international status, with equal access for all three faithterim, thousands of Muslims and Jews were slaughtered in the            groups, has up until now been unsuccessful. What Jerusalem
> name of Christ. Saladin displayed remarkable tolerance not              needs today is the tolerance and foresight of a modern-day
> only to the Jews, but to the Christians as well, and under his          
Umar or Saladin; a leader with the temperament to show
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                            315
> Homosexuality
> 
> equal respect to all three faiths and uphold the sanctity of
> Jerusalem to the benefit of all.                                       HOMOSEXUALITY
> 
> Holy cities or sites are inextricably linked with the tran-        Both erotic attraction and sexual behavior between members
> scendent and will always dominate the religious imagination,          of the same sex have always been recognized phenomena in
> in spite of the tremendous toll sometimes exacted through             Islamic societies, but attitudes toward them have been comconflict and contestation. It is only in these sacred spaces that      plex, severe religious and legal sanctions against the latter
> human mortality is ultimately transcended, enabling the               coexisting with accommodating and at times indeed celebratory
> believer to stand in the presence of the divine. As long as           expressions of the former.
> Muslim practice and faith prevail, there will always be people
> who lay claim to the sanctity of the three spiritual capitals of          Religious discourse has mostly focused on sexual acts,
> the Islamic world: Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem.                      which are unambiguously condemned. The Quran refers
> explicitly to male-male sexual relations only in the context of
> See also Caliphate; Dome of the Rock; 
Ibadat; Mi
raj;                the story of Lot, but labels the Sodomites’s actions (univer-
> Muhammad.                                                             sally understood in the later tradition as anal intercourse) an
> “abomination.” (Female-female relations are not addressed.)
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                          Reported pronouncements by the prophet Muhammad
> Armstrong, Karen. A History of Jerusalem. London: Har-                (hadith) reinforce the interdiction on male-male sodomy,
> perCollins, 1996.                                                   although there are no reports of his ever adjudicating an
> actual case of such an offense; he is also quoted as condemn-
> Chidester, David. “The Poetics and Politics of Sacred Space:
> Towards a Critical Phenomenology of Religion.” In From              ing cross-gender behavior for both sexes, but it is unclear to
> the Sacred to the Divine: A New Phenomenological Approach.          what extent this is to be understood as involving sexual
> Edited by Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka. Boston: Kluwer                   relations. Several early caliphs, confronted with cases of
> Academic Publishers, (1994): 211–231.                               sodomy between males, are said to have had both partners
> Eliade, Mircea. The Sacred and the Profane. Translated by             executed, by a variety of means. While taking such precedents
> W. R. Tusk. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1959.               into account, medieval jurists were unable to achieve a con-
> Farouk-Alli, Aslam. “A Quranic Perspective and Analysis of           sensus on this issue; some legal schools prescribed capital
> the Concept of Sacred Space in Islam.” In Journal for the          punishment for sodomy, but others opted only for a relatively
> Study of Religion, 15, no. 1 (2002): 63–78.                        mild discretionary punishment. There was general agreement, however, that other homosexual acts (including any
> Goitein, S. D. “The Historical Background of the Erection of
> the Dome of the Rock.” In Journal of the American Oriental          between females) were lesser offenses, subject only to discre-
> Society (JAOS), 70 (1950): 104–108.                                 tionary punishment.
> Goitein, S. D. Studies in Islamic History and Institutions. Leiden:
> Whatever the legal strictures on sexual activity, the posi-
> E. J. Brill, 1966.
> tive expression of male homoerotic sentiment in literature
> Hilali, T., and Khan, M., tr. Interpretation of the Meanings of       was accepted, and assiduously cultivated, from the late eighth
> the Noble Qur
an in the English Language. Riyadh: Dar-uscentury until modern times. First in Arabic, but later also in
> Salam, 1995.
> Persian, Turkish, and Urdu, love poetry (by men) about boys
> Peters, F. E. Hajj: The Muslim Pilgrimage to Mecca and the Holy       more than competed with that about women, it overwhelmed
> Places. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994.
> it. Anecdotal literature reinforces this impression of general
> Peters, F. E. Mecca and the Hijaz: A Literary History of the          societal acceptance of the public celebration of male-male
> Muslim Holy Land. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University            love (which hostile Western caricatures of Islamic societies in
> Press, 1994.
> medieval and early modern times simply exaggerate). As in
> Shariati, Ali. Hajj: Reflection on its Rituals. Translated by Laleh    other premodern societies, such love was generally under-
> Bakhtiar. Chicago: Kazi Publications, 1993.                         stood as an asymmetrical relationship, between an adult male
> Tibawi, A. L. “Jerusalem: Its Place in Islam and Arab His-            (the lover) and an adolescent boy (the beloved), clearly
> tory.” In The Islamic Quarterly XII, no. 4 (1968): 185–218.        paralleling the power differential between men and women in
> Watt, W. M. and Winder, R. B. “Al Madina.” In The                     heterosexual relationships; rather than a single category of
> Encyclopaedia of Islam. Edited by E. Van Donzel, B. Lewis,          “homosexuals,” there were two, or rather three: “active”
> and C. Pellat. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1978.                           male-male lovers, “passive” adolescent beloveds, and a third,
> Watt. W. M., et al. “Makka.” In The Encyclopaedia of Islam.           pathological and despised, category of adult males who sought
> Edited by E. Van Donzel, B. Lewis, and C. Pellat. Leiden:           out the passive role. Female-female relationships (never a
> E. J. Brill, 1978.                                                  subject for literary celebration) were less role-dominated, at
> least in earlier times; by the late Middle Ages a “butch-
> Aslam Farouk-Alli       femme” paradigm seems to have asserted itself for them as well.
> 
> 316                                                                                               Islam and the Muslim World
> Hospitality and Islam
> 
> With the impact of Western colonialism in the late              early Qajar periods onward. Starting in the mid-1950s, buildnineteenth century, these patterns (specifically, accepted “ac-      ings serving similar religious purposes have been named after
> tive” homoeroticism, subject to the same strictures on behav-       other imams and Shi
ite saints. For instance, in 1996 there
> ior as obtained with regard to extramarital heterosexual            were 1358 hosayniyya, 148 tekkiyeh, 34 fatimiyya, 32 mahdiyya,
> relations) began to change in most Islamic societies. The           and 57 zainabiyya in the Khorasan province. Scores of such
> Western construction of the “homosexual”—often, however,            buildings built during the last few decades of the twentieth
> misinterpreted as representing only the traditional patho-          century in the city of Mashhad bear such names as sajjadiyya,
> logical adult “passive”—has imposed itself with increasing          baqiriyya, sadiqiyya, kazimiyya, radawiyya, jawwadiyya, naqawiyya,
> force. Legal sanctions on homosexuality in various Islamic          askariyya, mahdiyya, fatimiyya, nargisiyya, and zaynabiyya.
> countries today vary considerably, as does their degree of
> dependence on traditional pronouncements of Islamic law.                Apparently, the religious influence of the Safavid era
> Societal attitudes have become more negative, and increas-          (1501–1736) led to the building of the ashurkhanas of the
> ingly dominated by the new, imported paradigm of what               Deccan during the reign of the Shi
ite Qutb-shahi dynasty,
> “homosexuality” is (for both males and females); but recent         and Mir Muhammad Mumin Astarabadi (d. 1625), an emiliberalizing shifts in attitude in the West are also having their   nent religious and political figure, is known to have built
> effect, and the entire subject is currently a nexus of consider-    several of them in and around the city of Hyderabad, estabable conflict.                                                       lishing a tradition that later spread to the north and other
> parts of India. The magnificent imambara of Asaf ad-Dawlah
> See also Eunuchs; Gender.                                           at Lucknow is perhaps the most impressive of this kind of
> structures ever built.
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> See also Rawza-Khani; Ta
ziya (Ta
ziye).
> Murray, Stephen O., and Roscoe, Will, eds. Islamic
> Homosexualities: Culture, History, and Literature. New York:
> New York University Press, 1997.                                                                                 Rasool Jafariyan
> Rowson, Everett K. “The Categorization of Gender and
> Sexual Irregularity in Medieval Arabic Vice Lists.” In Body
> Guards: The Cultural Politics of Gender Ambiguity. Edited by      HOSPITALITY AND ISLAM
> Julia Epstein and Kristina Straub. New York and London:
> Routledge, 1991.
> Generous hospitality extended to family, friends, and strang-
> Schmitt, Arno, and Sofer, Jehoeda, eds. Sexuality and Eroticism     ers is one of the best-known feature of Muslim societies,
> among Males in Moslem Societies. New York: Harrington            whether pastoral, rural, or urban. This tradition of hospitality
> Park Press, 1992.
> goes back to ancient times in the Middle East, an arid region
> where trade early became more important than in other
> Everett K. Rowson      regions and where the need for travelers to rely on the
> kindness of strangers was correspondingly greater. In Arabia,
> the pre-Islamic chieftain Hatim al-Tai represents the ideal
> generous host, and has remained a symbol of exhuberant
> HOSAYNIYYA                                                          hospitality to this day.
> Hosayniyya is a rather recent name for public buildings in Iran,        For Muslims, the ideal of hospitality derives first from the
> Iraq and Lebanon that are used by the Shi’a for mourning            Quran itself, which requires that hospitality or charity be
> ceremonies, especially during the months of Muharam and             offered to travelers: “It is righteous to believe in God; [and] to
> Safar (the first two months in the Muslim calender) wherein          spend of your substance, out of love for Him. For your kin,
> the martyrdom of Imam Husayn b. 
Ali, grandson of the               for the needy, for the wayfarer, for those who ask,” (2:177;
> Prophet, is mourned. Their counterparts in India and Paki-          2:215; 4:36; 8:41; 9:60; 17:26; 30:38; 59:7) and to the poor
> stan are called imambara or azakhana, and in some places,          (5:89; 22:28, 36; 58:4; 74:44; 76:8–9; 90:14–18, 93:10; 107:3).
> ashurkhana, dargah, and alawi. Although mourning ceremo-          The Quran also mentions rules relating to the hospitality of
> nies have been common since the Buwayhid era, no definite            relatives and friends (24:61), and portrays the Prophet Abradate can be set for the emergence of the name hosayniyya            ham as offering hospitality to the visiting angels by slaughterbefore the last part of eighteenth century. Until that time         ing a calf (11:69–70; 51:24–27). Refusing to offer hospitality
> these ceremonies were held in royal palatial halls, spacious        is reproved (18:77), as is treating guests insultingly or threathouses, in streets, and open spaces. Apparently, from the           ening them (11:77; 15:68). Indeed, such behavior is considsecond half of the Safavid era the tekkeyyeh and khaneqa (also      ered a great shame.
> khanakha), buildings that originally served as establishments
> of the dervishes, were gradually transformed into hosayniyyas,         The prophet Muhammad’s own well-attested hospitality
> often assuming this name from the latter part of the Zand and       included reluctance to ask guests who had stayed too long to
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                       317
> Hukuma al-islamiyya, al-
> 
> leave, even though he was the head of state at Medina (33:53),       and Middle East and in the West. In the nineteenth cenand he let multitudes of envoys, guests, and the poor there          tury, concepts such as political rights, public liberties,
> enjoy hospitality in the mosque, which was also the courtyard        constitutionalism and related issues, found their way into the
> of his house. More directly, in many extra-Quranic tradi-           Muslim world through thinkers such as the Egyptian scholar
> tions the Prophet insisted that generosity be shown to guests,       Rifa
a Rafi
 al-Tahtawi (1807–1871) and the Persian diplotravelers, and strangers. As a result, Muslim law recognized         mat Miza Malkom Khan (1833–1908). In the Ottoman Empire,
> offering guests three days’ hospitality as the Prophet’s way         significant reforms were initiated with the hatt-i serif (1839;
> (sunna).                                                             noble rescript of Sultan 
Abdulmejid) and the hatt-i humayun
> (1856; imperial rescript, reaffirming the hatt-i serif) guaran-
> Khalid Yahya Blankinship        teeing security of life, honor, and property, and a fair and
> public trial for individuals, and civil equality for all Ottoman
> subjects.
> 
> HUKUMA AL-ISLAMIYYA, AL-                                                 The United Nation’s Charter of Human Rights of 10
> (ISLAMIC GOVERNMENT)                                                 December 1948 was signed by the Muslim countries. In 1990
> the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC, founded in
> While continuing to refer to classical doctrines of the caliphate,   1973), which is composed of all the Muslim countries, subcontemporary Sunni concepts of the Islamic state, or Islamic         mitted the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam, in an
> order (al-nizam al-islami), have moved well beyond classical         attempt to identify specific Islamic features of human rights
> precedents to include elements of what is today considered to        in combination with elements of international law. The Cairo
> constitute “good governance”: the rule of law, participation,        Declaration has not been ratified; nevertheless it is referred to
> accountability, and the independence of the judiciary, with-         as a meaningful contribution to the discourse on human
> out abandoning certain specifically Islamic notions such as           rights and Islam. Although the signatories emphasized in the
> “Sovereignty lies with God, who has defined the fundamental           OIC preamble their “commitment to the UN Charter and
> moral and legal code regulating all human activity” (sharia).       fundamental human rights,” the document of 1990 reveals
> Government and society derive their legitimacy from “apply-          differences and even conflicts with international human rights
> ing” the sharia. In their capacity as God’s representatives or      theory, since the latter does not accept that religious concepts
> trustees on earth (sing. khalifa), men and women are equal           are of overriding importance.
> (though within specific domains, their rights and duties are
> Article 24 of the Cairo Declaration subordinates all rights
> not identical). The ruler (caliph, imam, or president) derives
> and freedoms to sharia (Islamic law), without clarifying the
> his authority from the community of believers, who elect him
> and are bound to obey him as long as he stays within the limits      limits or questioning the area of conflict between civil and
> of God’s law. Consultation (shura) in all public affairs is          political rights, enacted in the constitution and international
> obligatory, albeit not necessarily binding on the ruler. He is       conventions on human rights, and the obligations that arise
> accountable before God and the community (though the                 according to sharia. The sensitive points lay in the area of
> instruments of sanction, including his removal from office,           equality, particularly gender equality, as well as in the fields of
> remain ill defined). Some authors further include universal           art and science. Some examples may illustrate the dilemma:
> suffrage, majority rule, and the separation of powers as basic       Under sharia, all human beings, men and women, Muslims
> elements of Islamic government in the modern age.                    and non-Muslims, are equal in terms of dignity, but not in
> terms of rights. For instance, Muslim women and non-
> See also Political Islam.                                            Muslims are not equal with Muslim men regarding family law
> and the law of inheritance. Although non-Muslim citizens
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                         enjoy the same rights and obligations as Muslim citizens, they
> are excluded from certain positions. Freedom of expression
> Krämer, Gudrun. “Visions of an Islamic Republic. Good
> Governance According to the Islamists.” In The Islamic             has to comply with the principles of sharia, that is, it must
> World and the West. Edited by Kai Hafez. Leiden: Brill, 2000.      conform to the prevailing interpretation of Islam. Furthermore, the right of religious freedom is extremely limited for
> Gudrun Krämer         Muslims, since apostasy entails numerous civil law sanctions—
> such as the loss of the entitlement to inherit or the loss of the
> right to remain married to a Muslim partner—and even
> carries the possibility of a death sentence. It should be
> HUMAN RIGHTS                                                         mentioned that numerous human rights organizations and
> activists in the Muslim world (for example, in Tunisia, Morocco
> Contemporary discourses concerning human rights (huquq               and Algeria) have called for a revision of the Cairo Declaraal-insan) and Islam, or rather their compatibility or incom-         tion in order to bring it into line with the fundamental
> patibility, are manifold and controversial, both in the Near         principles of the UN Declaration.
> 
> 318                                                                                               Islam and the Muslim World
> Humor
> 
> The actual situation in Muslim countries reflects the            individual responsibility before God, and in this sense procomplex social and political balance of power, inclusive of the    vides a moral and ethical basis for a society, but this does not
> monopoly of definition and interpretation, rather than the          imply any specific form of political system.
> relation between Islam and human rights. This explains the
> Some modernists even go further in arguing the secularexisting gap between ideals and practice. Still, contemporary
> ists’ thesis. Like the secularists, they hold that Islam does not
> interpretations and applications of the sharia, especially
> impose political or legal prescriptions, and add that Islam
> under prevailing culturally or socially rooted inequalities and
> does not resolve the problems concerning the few and definiunder authoritarian regimes, serve as a “legal” basis for
> tive legal regulations specified in the Quran and in the
> violations of human rights. In these cases Islam is used to
> tradition. For Islam to do so, they argue, would call into
> legitimize undemocratic measures. Pakistan provides one of
> question the Quran’s authenticity as the eternally valid word
> the most striking examples because tribal (also patriarchal)
> of God. In order to avoid this, modernists such as the Syrian
> traditions and customs, a gradual Islamization of the legal
> Muhammad Shahrur argue that although the Quran is the
> system, and a lack of adequate state protection there have
> last revelation and thus the last truth, this does not mean that
> resulted in the violation of several fundamental principles of
> there is only one interpretation. To the contrary, the Quran
> human rights, such as freedom of religion, protection of
> is open for different approaches and readings. Shahrur’s ideas
> minorities, and women’s rights or gender equality. Muslim          elicit a great many positive responses within the Arab world.
> Shi
ite communities and members of the Ahmadiyya, who are          He is but one example of a scholar who pleads for an
> considered to be heretical, and non-Muslim (Christians)            interpretation of Islam supportive of human rights. He, and
> minorities suffer severe persecutions and violence. Discrimi-      scholars like him, challenge the prevailing Western perspecnatory practices against women, including honor killings,          tive on Islam, while revealing that it is not Islam as such that is
> abuse, rape, institutionalized gender bias, among others, are      (or is not) compatible with human rights, but rather that
> widespread and rarely prosecuted.                                  certain interpretations of Islam are at the root of the issue.
> 
> The case of the Egyptian scholar Abu Zayd provides but         See also Ethics and Social Issues; Gender; Law; Organione example of how the limits set by the principles of sharia     zation of the Islamic Conference; Secularism, Islamic;
> are defended by orthodoxy. Abu Zayd was accused of apostasy        Shari
a.
> in 1993 because of his writings. After having taken his case to
> Egypt’s final court of appeal, he was condemned to divorce in       BIBLIOGRAPHY
> 1996. Further, despite concepts in legal thought providing         An-Nai
im, Abdullahi Ahmed. Toward an Islamic Reformation:
> for the protection of minorities in Muslim societies, the            Civil, Human Rights, and International Law. Syracuse, N.Y.:
> actual situation contrasts sharply with existing theoretical         Syracuse University Press, 1990.
> ideals. Non-Muslim critics and intellectuals focus on the          
Ashmawi, Muhammad Sa
id al-. “Shari
a: The Codification
> apparent contradiction between the United Nation’s Decla-             of Islamic Law.” In Liberal Islam. A Sourcebook. Edited by
> ration of Human Rights and the principles of sharia. On the          Charles Kurzman. New York and Oxford, U.K.: Oxford
> one hand, civil and political rights are accorded to any citizen      University Press, 1998.
> in Muslim countries by the constitution and the UN Charter         Mayer, Ann. Islam and Human Rights: Traditions and Politics.
> but, on the other hand, the necessity of conformity with the         Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1991.
> norms and prescriptions of sharia are religiously legitimized.
> However, this discourse rarely includes the intense and di-                                                         Ursula Günther
> verse debates that are going on simultaneously within the
> Muslim world regarding the limits and possibilities of the
> adoption of human rights within the Islamic context.
> HUMOR
> The contemporary voices are complex and diverse, but an
> There is no classical Muslim definition of humor, but profesinquiry into two positions should be ample to give an idea of
> sor Franz Rosenthal offers one that attempts to be universally
> the wide range of interpretations and readings with regard to
> inclusive. In his Humor in Early Islam, Rosenthal suggests that
> human rights within the Muslim world. Secular positions,
> the hallmark of humor is a “certain freedom from convensuch as that of the Egyptian scholar 
Ali 
Abd al-Raziq
> tional motions” that, in ordinary circumstances, constrain us
> (1888–1966), argue that the Quran does not prescribe any
> all. Thus any “deviation” from what is expected may cause
> particular form of government, and therefore a system wherein
> laughter even if it happens to be partially tragic.
> religion and politics are separated is not necessarily un-
> Islamic. Many scholars and intellectuals are in favor of 
Abd      Humor in Early Islam
> al-Raziq’s model, for example, the Egyptian jurist Muham-          Humor is a modality for releasing tension. Muslims, like all
> mad Sa
id al-
Ashmawi and the Syrian sociologist Burhan            other peoples, have their share of jokes, anecdotes, and other
> Ghaliyun. Proponents of this position state that Islam implies     “deviations from ordinary reality,” to use one of Rosenthal’s
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                       319
> Humor
> 
> phrases. While in early Islam there was a tendency to lean         much and laugh little.” At the same time numerous scholars
> toward seriousness because of the need to maintain hilm            in early Islam and continuing on into the Middle Ages found
> (dignified and civil behavior, propriety), there was consider-      laughter and joking to be of extreme importance to their
> able divergence from this austere stance. In the first century      literary enterprise. The most notable reference work listing
> of Islam, for example, there were several schools of humor-        collections of humor stories comes from Ibn Nadim’s Kitab
> ists, storytellers, and professional entertainers. These schools   al-fihrist, a bibliographic work from the tenth century.
> trained individuals in the art of devising as well as relating
> humorous anecdotes (nawadir, sing. nadira), along with teach-          Among the works of notable Muslim scholars and mystics,
> ing the skills of vocal and instrumental music. While there        who have either mentioned amusing anecdotes in their otherwas religious objection to these arts, the justification for        wise serious scholarly (adab) works, or have devoted entire
> humor in early Islam was also based on religious arguments.        works to the subject of humor, al-Jahiz’s (d. 868) Kitab al-
> The Quran does not forbid laughter as it is God “who grants       bukhala
 (Book of misers) stands out. There are many others,
> laughter and tears” (53:43). In fact, there are many instances     including Uyun al-akhbar by Ibn Qutaybah (d. 889), al-Iqd
> of humor in Muslim scripture, providing testimony to Islam’s       al-farid by Ibn 
Abd Rabbih (860–940), al-Basa
ir wal-dhakha
ir
> “lighter side.”                                                    by al-Tawhidi (d. 1010). In al-Jahiz’s style of writing, serious
> subjects are presented together with jokes and amusing sto-
> Second only to the Quran are the traditions of the             ries, and he quotes the Quran in associating laughter with
> prophet Muhammad, who is said to have made frequent use            life, stating that while laughter is not prohibited, it must be
> of humor. There are numerous reports, found in authentic           carried out in moderation.
> hadith collections, of the Prophet either smiling or laughing,
> or causing others to laugh. 
Aisha, the wife of Muhammad,             Other scholars, such as al-Husri al-Qayrawani (d. 1022) in
> reportedly said that the Prophet often smiled. She noted,          his Jam al-Jawahir fi al-Mulah wal-Nawadir, followed alhowever, that he never laughed in a loud manner or exposed         Jahiz in inserting amusing stories in their adab works. Simihis uvula. The following anecdote, found in Sunan Abu              larly, many Shi
ite scholars, such as Baha al-Din al-
Amili (d.
> Dawud, illustrates the Prophet’s humor:                            1621) and Ni
mat Allah al-Jazairi (d. 1701), argued for and
> made use of anecdotal humor in their writings, often citing
> hadith examples specific to Shi
ism.
> A man broke his fast during Ramadan. The Messenger
> of God commanded him to emancipate a slave or fast                  There is ample evidence that numerous collections of
> for two months, or feed sixty poor men. He said: “I             such anecdotes (nawadir) existed in early centuries of Islam.
> cannot provide.” The Apostle said: “Sit down.” There-           Some collections have survived, but many disappeared during
> after, a huge basket of dates was brought to the Mesthe Middle Ages due to criticism of witticism from orthodox
> senger of God. He said: “Take this and give it as sadaqa
> circles. It is therefore to be noted that jocularity and laughter
> [charity].” He said: “O Messenger of God, there is no
> one poorer than I.” The Messenger of God thereupon              was not just a literary issue but also a moral and a religious one
> laughed so that his canine teeth became visible and             for many Muslim authors. Despite religious stiffness, howsaid: “Eat it yourself.”(Hasan 1984., hadith 2386)              ever, a rich heritage of Arab and Islamic humor exists today
> by way of folklore. Contemporary Islamic and Sufi studies
> have also helped revive the humorous in conjunction with
> The eleventh-century Muslim author al-Husri refers to          learning.
> the prophet Muhammad’s liking of humor, saying he possessed a rather pleasant personality and was not averse to a       Humor Characters in Islamic Literature
> decent joke. He even reports that the Prophet played practi-       In his 1927 essay on humor in Arabic literature, Margoliouth
> cal jokes. For instance, he reports that the Prophet told an       reports that in early Islam there were not only the profeselderly woman that old women will not enter Paradise,              sional entertainers and court-jesters (sing. maskhara) whose
> causing her great distress. The Prophet then cited the Quran,     job was to keep the ruler entertained, but even some cities had
> which promises that she will enter Paradise as a young             their known jesters and entertainers. One such personage was
> woman. Other companions of the Prophet are also reported           Ghadiri of Medina, who earned his living by telling amusing
> to have approved of humor. For example, Ibn al-Jawzi refers        stories to his rich patrons and who was later taken over by
> to Imam 
Ali as having said: “Whoever possesses a humorous         Ash
ab. The figure of Ash
ab, called “the greedy,” was clearly
> element is cured of vanity and self-pride.”                        known for his comic poetry and humorous remarks in a
> variety of circumstances, and his jokes remained popular well
> Classical Attitudes Toward Humor                                   into the Abbasid period. In one of the many Ash
ab anec-
> In traditional Muslim religious discourse, one finds a general
> dotes, the greedy one is told:
> reproach for laughter and joking (al-hazl) within a religious
> context. A widely circulated hadith in support of this stance is      “If you would transmit traditions [ahadith, sayings of
> taken from Sahih al-Bukhari, which quotes the Prophet as              the Prophet] and give up your jokes, it would be more
> saying: “By God, if you knew what I know you would weep               becoming of you.” Ash
ab replied: “Indeed, I have
> 
> 320                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Humor
> 
> heard traditions and transmitted them.” Asked to tell a         way of bringing insults on himself. A description of Abu
> tradition, he said: “I was told by Nafi
 on the authority        Dulama’s style of entertainment is found in al-Husri’s Jamalof Ibn 
Umar that the Messenger of God said: ‘A man             jawahir:
> in whom there are found two qualities belongs to
> God’s chosen friends.’” When asked what the two
> qualities were, Ash
ab replied: “Nafi
 had forgotten                Let it be known to you, Abu Dulama
> one, and I have forgotten the other.” (Rosenthal
> 1956, p. 117)                                                      You neither belong to a noble people,
> 
> nor do you have any nobility in you.
> Another personage who came to be famous in many
> When you put on the turban, you appear like a monkey,
> Islamic societies and who has survived till the present is Juha,
> also variously called Joha, Hoca, Zha, and many other names.          And when you put off the turban, you look like a swine.
> Juha is seen as a strange character who combines wit and
> simplicity in his actions. He appears to be foolish and yet his       You have combined in yourself both ugliness and
> foolishness contains a deeper wisdom. Juha has a reputation           meanness,
> for escaping trouble, and his silly actions are a sign of
> And meanness is always followed by ugliness.
> foresight. For instance, when Juha was appointed governor
> by Timur, the emperor, he wrote his accounts to be submit-            If you happen to have obtained the worldly pleasure,
> ted to the emperor on thin pieces of bread. This seemingly
> foolish act is, in fact, quite wise, because he knew that Timur,      Don’t shout, for the Day of Judgement is quite
> when angered by his previous governor, had forced that                near at hand.
> unfortunate man to eat his account books. There were other
> characters, such as Abu Nuwas and Bahlul, who had similar             (Ali, 1998, p. 57)
> reputations.                                                       Contemporary Humor
> By the eleventh century Juha was accepted as a historical      Although modern humorous literature may properly be shelved
> entity, but his precise name and lineage were still a matter of    under folklore, contemporary Sufi writers have argued that
> much confusion. In the late Middle Ages, Juha appears in           the use of humor has always been essential in conveying the
> Turkish writings as Nasreddin Hoca (in Arabic, Nasr al-Din         spiritual wisdom of the sages. Idries Shah, for example, has
> Khwaja, the name signifies “a learned man”). The name of            related many stories featuring the character of Mulla Nasrudin.
> Hoca seems to have replaced Juha in popular folklore, and in       In his work on the Sufi use of humor, Special Illumination,
> later Islamic writings they are seen as the same person with       Shah argues that humor endures because it has the power to
> two different names. Among Persian speaking peoples, he            teach while it amuses:
> became known as Mulla Nasr al-Din (or Nasrudin). In the
> Jokes are structures, and in their Sufic usage they may
> seventeenth century, Turkish folklore absorbed vast number            fulfill many different functions. Just as we may get the
> of anecdotes from earlier centuries in the name of Hoca, even         humor nutrient out of a joke, we can also get several
> though these stories existed in some form before the develop-         dimensions out of it on various occasions: there is no
> ment of the latter figure.                                             standard meaning of a joke. Different people will see
> different contents of it; and pointing out some of its
> This jester is still known by various names. As Nasrudin or        possible usages will not, if we are used to this method,
> Nasreddin, he has over twelve hundred stories attached to his         rob it of its efficacy. . . .The joke, like the non-humorous
> name. In Egypt they know him as Juha, in Turkey and                   teaching-story, thus presents us with a choice instru-
> Persian-speaking countries he is widely known as either Hoca          ment of illustration and action. (Shah 1977, p. 11)
> or Nasreddin; in other regions, including Indonesia, his jokes
> are told in the name of Abu Nuwas. He thus represents a vast
> Humor is also a medium for expressing social and political
> number of characters that have been developed over the
> criticism. Often it can present a subject which is otherwise
> centuries by professional humorists and other religious and
> prohibited by political or religious authorities. In her article
> adab writers, and can be found in some form in every Muslim
> “Humor: The Two-Edged Sword,” Afaf Lutfi al-Sayyid
> culture. He has gained considerable popularity in many non-
> Marsot offers one example of political humor from Egypt.
> Muslim countries.
> 
> Humor and wit are also found in poetry, which is a
> When Nasser died, the question of where to bury him
> developed art form in Islamic civilization and finds expression        arose during a cabinet meeting. One minister said,
> in Arabic, Persian, and other Islamic languages, such as Urdu.        “Let us bury him in the tomb of the Unknown Sol-
> The poetic humorists especially flourished during the Abbasid          dier.” Another objected, saying, “You can’t bury a
> period. They were called shuara
 al-mujjan, and included             colonel with a common soldier.” A third suggested that
> court poets such as Abu Dulama, who used to entertain by              he be buried in one of the tombs of the Mamluk
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                     321
> Husayn
> 
> sultans. “No! No!” was the objection. “You can’t bury         existential tragedy, of injustice in this world triumphing over
> the Rais with a slave.” Finally running out of burial         justice, of the duty a true Muslim has to sacrifice oneself, to
> sites, someone suggested Jerusalem. Whereupon, the            witness for truth and justice as Husayn did, and to shock
> rest of the cabinet rose in horror and said, “Never! The      others into returning to the cause of Islamic social justice, a
> last time they buried someone there, he came back             theme that has come again to political importance in the
> after three days!” (p. 263)
> rhetoric of Iran’s Islamic Revolution of 1977 through 1979,
> but also in Iraq in the aftermath of the overthrow of Saddam
> During the Gulf War in the early 1990s, many Palestini-       Husayn in 2003.
> ans came up with their own jokes to escape the otherwise
> The Importance of the Difference between Sunni and
> horrible experiences of the war and its aftermath. One such
> Shi
a Interpretations
> joke is related by Sharif Kanaana in his article “Palestinian
> What is at issue in the different understandings of Sunni and
> Humor during the Gulf War”:
> Shi
a is not mere history, but the abstractions from history
> that compose the mythos or symbolic structure of religious
> Shortly after the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait, Saddam’s        belief. The account of early Islam by Western historians, as
> little daughter had a birthday. Saddam asked her,             well as the Sunni account, is a story of alliances among
> “What would you like me to get you for your birth-            Bedouin tribes that controlled the trade between the three
> day?” She replied, “Get me Qatar.” (Kanaana                   great agrarian empires of Byzantium, the Sassanians, and
> 1995, p. 70)                                                  Abyssinia. The second caliph, 
Umar, was the architect of
> expanding the polity that Muhammad had initiated. He
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                     nominated Abu Bakr to succeed Muhammad, then 
Umar
> Ali, Abdul. “Humour Literature: An Arab-Islamic Legacy.”         became the second caliph. Conquest proceeded quickly across
> Hamdard Islamicus 21 (1998): 47–59.                           the Fertile Crescent, Egypt, and Iran. The state was based on
> Hasan, Ahmed, trans. Sunan Abu Dawud. Lahore: Sh. M.             the separation of the Arab military garrisons from the con-
> Ashraf, 1984.                                                  quered populations. 
Umar’s governor in Syria, Mu
awiya,
> commanded from Damascus, but elsewhere garrison towns
> Kanaana, Sharif. “Palestinian Humor During the Gulf War.”
> were established: Kufa near Ctesiphon, Basra on the Gulf,
> Journal of Folklore Research 32, no. 1 (1995): 65–75.
> Fustat at the head of the Nile delta. A register of Muslims was
> Margoliouth, D. S. “Wit and Humour in Arabic Literature.”
> established so that these garrisons could be paid from the
> In Arabic Literature and Thought. Edited by Mohamed
> booty of war and revenue from lands conquered. As expan-
> Taher. New Delhi: Anmol Publications, 1997.
> sion slowed, this system caused problems under the third
> Marsot, Afaf Lutfi al-Sayyid. “Humor: The Two-Edged               caliph, 
Uthman, who reacted by relying increasingly on his
> Sword.” In Everyday Life in the Muslim Middle East. Edited
> own clansmen, the Umayyads. This provoked further comby Donna Lee Bowen and Evelyn A. Early. Bloomington
> plaints. In an attempt at symbolic unity, 
Uthman imposed a
> and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1993.
> standardized Quran; this also led to resentment. 
Ali became
> Marzolph, Ulrich. “Timur’s Humorous Antagonist, Nasreddin
> a center of opposition to these policies. 
Uthman was
> Hoca.” Oriente Moderno 15, no. 76 (1996–1997): 485–498.
> assasinated in 656, and 
Ali was proclaimed the fourth caliph
> Pellat, Ch. “Seriousness and Humour in Early Islam.” Islamic     in an attempt to stabilize the state by using his religious
> Studies 2 (1963): 353–362.
> position as imam to strengthen the secular position of amir al-
> Rosenthal, Franz. Humor in Early Islam. Leiden: E. J.            muminin. But it did not work: he was assassinated, Mu
awiya
> Brill, 1956.                                                   became caliph, and he appointed his son, Yazid, to succeed.
> Shah, Idries. Special Illumination: The Sufi Use of Humour.       The Hejaz refused to recognize Yazid, and Kufa invited
> London: The Octagon Press, 1977.                               Husayn to lead a revolt. It failed, ending with Husayn’s death
> at Karbala.
> Irfan A. Omar
> This history can be followed in the Shi
ite version but with
> quite different nuances, emphases, and meanings: Leadership
> should have passed from Muhammad to 
Ali, his cousin and
> HUSAYN (603–661)                                                 son-in-law, whom the Prophet had adopted as a boy even
> before Muhammad’s first marriage. According to Sunnis
> Husayn ibn 
Ali ibn Abi Talib, grandson of the prophet           succession was elective, and Abu Bakr, the father-in-law of
> Muhammad, the third Shi
ite imam, was born according to          Muhammad’s youngest wife, was legitimately elected. But
> Sunnis on 6 Ramadan, according to Shi
a, on 3 Shaban. He        according to Shi
a this was an usurpation, not just of Muhamwas martyred at Karbala at noon on Friday the tenth (
Ashura)   mad’s designation but of the special access to the infallible
> of Muharram at the age of fifty-eight in the year 680 C.E. For    interpretation of the Quran that passes via the lineage of the
> Shi
a, Husayn’s martyrdom is the paradigmatic story of           twelve imams from 
Ali to Hasan and Husayn. 
Ali withdrew
> 
> 322                                                                                          Islam and the Muslim World
> Husayn
> 
> into quiet teaching, and also compiled an authoritative edi-     Muhammad. Sunnis focus their symbolic structure on Muhamtion of the Quran (having been one of the recorders of          mad, while Shi
a, also honoring the details of Muhammad’s
> Muhammad’s recitations of revelation), allowing the first         life, focus attention on 
Ali, Husayn, the Five Pure Souls of
> three caliphs to show by their actions and legal decisions how   the Family of the Prophet, and the twelve imams. Key
> imperfect and unfit they were to lead. The story of 
Ali’s        calendrical events differ: For Shi
a, Husayn’s birthday is not
> martyrdom while praying in Kufa on the 19 Ramadan 661 C.E.       the 6 Ramadan, nor 
Ali’s 22 Ramadan, as they are for Sunnis,
> provides Shi
a with a prologue to the central maryrdom of        and all such happy events are in other months the better to
> Husayn: 
Ali’s foreknowledge of his death, his generosity        focus on the martyrdom of 
Ali during Ramadan. Sunnis deny
> toward his assassin, his courage in battle, his knowledge of     that Hasan was poisoned: He died of consumption; Sunnis
> Islamic law, his humility as an officeholder, and his wisdom as   say that Abu Bakr, not 
Ali, was the first man (after Muhama judge. These are celebrated by Shi
a. Hasan, 
Ali’s eldest     mad’s wife Khadija) to accept the call to Islam.
> son, who was too weak to wrest the leadership from Muawiya,
> was poisoned, and Muawiya declared his own son, Yazid, his          Such systematic differences help signal the Shi
ite drama
> successor.                                                       of faith: Believers are witnesses (shuhada) through their acts of
> worship (ibada) to the metaphysical reality that is hidden
> Husayn’s Martydom at Karbala                                     (gha
ib). Shuhada means both martyrs and witnesses. Husayn,
> Husayn, 
Ali’s second son, refused to swear allegience. It is    knowing he would die, went to Karbala to witness the truth,
> alleged by Shi
a that Yazid sent assassins to mingle with        knowing that his death would make him an enduring, immorpilgrims at the hajj. To avoid bloodshed during the hajj,        tal witness, whose example would be a guide for others.
> Husayn cut short his pilgrimage. Foreseeing his martyrdom,       Ghaib refers to a series of inner truths: a God who is not
> he released his followers from any obligation to follow, and     visible, a twelfth imam who is in occultation, a personal inner
> with his family and seventy-two men, he went toward Kufa.        faith, and the special light (nur) that created Muhammad, 
Ali,
> Yazid had co-opted the Kufans. Husayn’s forces, who were         Fatima, Hasan, and Husayn, the Five Pure Souls of the
> trapped in the desert at Karbala, were denied access to water    Family of the Prophet (33:33), and whose direct connection
> (to the Euphrates), and on the tenth of Muharram all but two     with the divine passes down through the line of the imams.
> of Husayn’s men were slain, his body was desecrated, and the     The nur doctrine parallels the divine royal farr of Persian epic
> women were taken prisoner. According to a Shi
ite legend         tradition. There is a story that Bibi Shahbanu, the daughter of
> Husayn’s head was taken to Damascus, where the caliph            the last Sassanian king, married Husayn so there is a connec-
> Yazid beat it with sticks in a vain attempt to keep it from      tion between Persian royalty and the imams. The nur docreciting the Quran. The details of the battle of Karbala form   trine says that all 124,000 prophets as well as the imams were
> the key imagery of passion plays (taziyeh, shabih) and          created from a ray of divine light, often making for a divine
> preachments (rawzehs).                                           birth, as was the case with Husayn. Fatima emerged from a
> stream pregnant, the pregnancy lasted only six months, and
> The details heighten the significance of Yazid’s tyranny      her womb glowed with incandescent light.
> and desecration of the sacred and proper order of life and
> Islam. Not only had Yazid usurped the caliphate and was              There are thus three parts to the notion of the Karbala
> using that office tyrannically, but he had attempted to dese-     paradigm as encoding for the Shi
a story of Husayn: (1) a
> crate the hajj, had desecrated the time of communal prayer       story expandable to be all-inclusive of history, cosmology,
> (Friday noon), and had destroyed one by one the elements of      and life’s problems; (2) a background contrast (of Sunni
> civilized life symbolized most powerfully by the denial of       conceptions, but also other religions) against which the story
> water. Three sons of Husayn were slain: the infant 
Ali          is given heightened perceptual value; and (3) ritual or physical
> Asghar, the five-year-old Jafar, and the twenty-five-year-old     drama to embody the story and maintain high levels of
> 
Ali Akbar. Destruction of family, community, government,        emotional investment: rawzeh, shabih, taziyeh, data, and matam.
> and humanity are all themes of the Karbala story, retold and
> relived in rawzehs (a form of preaching that uses the Karbala        Husayn is an intercessor at Judgment Day, and with
> story to frame the topic of the sermon), taziyehs or shabihs     various interpretive sophistication, one is induced by the
> (passion plays), dasteh or matam (lines of men chanting,         pietistic and didactic exercise of the rawzeh to weep for
> beating their chests, and flagellating their foreheads and        Husayn in an act of repentance so that he may intercede and
> backs with knives), and the carrying in processions of naqls     judge one’s sins more lightly and with compassion. Some
> (large wooden structures representing Husayn’s bier that         rawzeh-khwans (preachers) elicit tears for the injustice of the
> requires scores of men to carry; called taziyehs in India and   world and the misfortunes that befell Husayn and Shi
a;
> Trinidad, there in the shape of the Taj Mahal).                  others stress Husayn as an example of bravery and courage in
> the fight for freedom rather than as a victim. Ayatollah
> The Karbala Paradigm                                             Ruhollah Khomeini at the time of the Iranian revolution
> For Sunnis, the tenth of Muharram is merely a day of             stressed that one should not cry for Husayn, but one should
> voluntary fasting that has to do, not with Husayn, but with      march with the same determination that he showed to fight
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                   323
> Husayn
> 
> Muharram is a Muslim festival commemorating the death of the martyr Imam Husayn, Muhammad’s grandson and the third Shi’ite imam
> (pictured here with Nawab of Nurshidabad in prayer). Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims conflict in their versions of Husayn’s story. THE ART ARCHIVE/
> BRITISH LIBRARY
> 
> for justice against all odds. Since martyrs are said to go to           Husayn and his children suffered a greater thirst and were
> heaven, one need not mourn their deaths as one does the                 denied water. God substituted a ram for Isma
il, but Husayn
> deaths of ordinary people. During the Iranian revolution                was in fact slain.
> young men wore white shrouds to symbolize their willingness
> to die, and wall graffiti proclaimed that those who died did                In politically charged times—as in the years before the
> the work of Husayn, those who fought did the work of                    1977–1979 Islamic revolution in Iran—the Karbala paradigm
> Zaynab (she kept the survivors of Karbala together and                  could be a vehicle for political mobilization. The shah was
> maintained the message of Husayn until the fourth imam had              identified with the caliph Yazid (who sent his army to defeat
> recovered and could assume leadership), and those who did               Husayn) and injustice, while Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini,
> not fight did the work of Yazid.                                         who would lead the revolution, was identified with Husayn
> and with the forces of justice. Preachers could speak against
> The dramatic performances of the events of the first ten             Yazid and be understood to be attacking the shah. In the
> days of Muharram at Karbala (the passion plays, shabih,                 Persian Gulf and the Subcontinent (Lucknow, Karachi), the
> taziyeh, and rawzehs) are occasions when the story can be              processions of 
Ashura, the tenth of Muharram—when the
> expanded to stories of the earlier prophets who had fore-               bier of Husayn (taziyehs in India, nagls in Iran) is carried
> knowledge of the martyrdom of Husayn and were told that                 through the streets along with chanting (“Husayn! Husayn!”)
> their own sufferings were minor in comparison. Thus, Adam,              and breast-beating groups of men (dasteh) sometimes also
> when first put on Earth, wandered across the future site of the          beating their backs with chains and slashing their foreheads
> battle of Karbala and cut his toe, a prefiguration, God told             with knives—in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries often
> him, of the more serious blood that would be shed there by              caused riots between Sunnis and Shi
a. Under Khomeini,
> Husayn. The infant Isma
il suffered thirst but found water;             conflict with Saudi Arabia was stirred up by invoking the hajj
> 
> 324                                                                                                   Islam and the Muslim World
> Husayn, Taha
> 
> in the Husayn story, and using the hajj as a site for organizing   his attempts failed and he joined the Arab Revolt in 1936.
> and spreading the message of the revolution; in the war with       When the British tried to arrest him, he fled to Baghdad,
> Iraq, Iran utilized slogans about Karbala and a series of          where he participated in an unsuccessful anti-British revolt.
> military operations were code-named Karbala.                       Al-Husayni fled to Germany and cooperated with the Nazis
> until 1945. He rejected the 1947 UN partition resolution,
> In less politically charged times, as well, the emotional      and the Palestinians, despite Arab military help, were unable
> work of the passion plays, processions, and rawzehs is one of      to stop the establishment of Israel. Some 726,000 Palestinians
> instilling stoicism and determination to fight for justice even     fled or were expelled by Israel during the 1948 war. The
> against the overwhelming odds of a corrupt world. After the        Mufti spent the rest of his life as a religious leader in the
> ousting of Saddam Husayn from power in Iraq in 2003, on the        Islamic world, where he had been popular since the 1930s.
> fortieth day after the tenth (
Asura) of Muharram, hundreds
> of thousands of Shi
a joyfully joined processions to Karbala (a
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> practice forbidden under Saddam Husayn) with many dastehs
> Husayni, Amin al-. Haq
iq An Qadiyyat Filastin. 2d ed. Cairo:
> of chanting men, head slashing and flagellation with chains.
> Dar al-Kitab al-
Arabi bi-Masr, 1957.
> See also Imamate; Martyrdom; Shi
a: Early; Shi
a: Imami            Mattar, Philip. The Mufti of Jerusalem: al-Hajj Amin al-
> (Twelver); Succession.                                               Husayni and the Palestinian National Movement. Rev. ed.
> New York: Columbia University Press, 1992.
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Fischer, Michael M. J. “Shi
ite Islam: The Karbala Paradigm                                                          Philip Mattar
> and the Family of the Prophet.” In Iran: From Religious
> Dispute to Revolution, 2d ed. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2003.
> HUSAYN, SADDAM See Ba
th Party;
> Lassy, Ivar. The Muharram Mysteries Among the Azarbeijan
> Modernization, Political: Administrative, Military
> Turks of Caucasia. Hesingfors, Finland: Lilius and
> Hertzberg, 1916.                                                and Judicial Reform; Nationalism: Arab;
> Pan-Arabism
> Shaban, M. The Abbasid Revolution. Cambridge, Mass.: Cambridge University Press, 1970.
> Strothman, R. “Shi
a.” In Shorter Encyclopedia of Islam. Edited
> by H. A. R. Gibb and J. H. Kramers. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell
> University Press.                                               HUSAYN, TAHA (1889–1973)
> Michael M. J. Fischer     Taha Husayn was a prominent Egyptian writer and educational reformer. Born in a village in upper Egypt, Husayn was
> left blind after an illness at age two. In 1902, he began studies
> at al-Azhar in Cairo and was quickly at odds with its tradi-
> HUSAYNI, HAJJ AMIN AL-                                             tional curriculum and teaching methods. Switching to the
> (1895–1974)                                                        newly opened Cairo University, he became the first student
> to receive a doctorate there in 1914. He completed a second
> Amin al-Husayni was both the religious and preeminent
> doctorate at the Sorbonne (Paris, France) in 1919. As a
> political leader of the Palestinians during British rule in
> professor of Arabic literature at Cairo University, he quickly
> Palestine (1917–1948). Born in Jerusalem to a patrician
> emerged as one of the most prolific and controversial literary
> family, he studied briefly at al-Azhar University.
> figures in the Arab world. His book Fi
l-shir al-jahili (On pre-
> The British appointed him mufti (jurist who gives legal         Islamic poetry), published in 1926, incurred the condemnadecisions, or fatawa) of Jerusalem in 1921, and President of       tion of religious conservatives for casting doubt on the
> the Supreme Muslim Council in 1922. Fearing Zionism’s              authenticity of pre-Islamic poetry and, by extension, possibly
> consequence on his people, he helped galvanize the Palestini-      of the Quran and other early religious texts. His most
> ans and the Arab and Islamic world against the Zionist             systematic work of social commentary is Mustaqbal al-thaqafa
> program in Palestine. To emphasize the centrality of Jerusa-       fi Misr (The future of culture in Egypt), in which he argues
> lem to Muslims, he renovated in the 1920s the Dome of the          that Egypt was historically an integral part of the Mediterra-
> Rock, with Muslim funds, and organized two Islamic confer-         nean culture that gave birth to Western civilization. Modern
> ences in Jerusalem in 1928 and 1931.                               Egyptians should therefore see themselves, and be seen by
> others, as part of Europe. Essential to this new identity is the
> The 1929 disturbance (Western [Wailing] Wall riots)             secularizing of national life in Egypt. His three-volume
> catapulted him to political power. He cooperated with the          autobiography, begun in 1929 as al-Ayyam (The days), is
> British and attempted to change their pro-Zionist policy. But      considered a milestone in modern Arab literature.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                     325
> Husayn, Taha
> 
> See also Arabic Literature; Modern Thought.                      A Passage to France. Translated by Kenneth Cragg. Leiden:
> E. J. Brill, 1976.
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                  Malti-Douglas, Fedwa. Blindness and Autobiography: Al-Ayyam of
> Husayn, Taha. Al-Ayyam, Vol. 1: An Egyptian Childhood.          Taha Husayn. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
> Translated by E. H. Paxton. London: Routledge, 1932;          Press, 1988.
> Vol. 2, The Stream of Days. Translated by Hilary Wayment.
> London and New York: Longmans, Green, 1948; Vol. 3,                                                    Sohail H. Hashmi
> 
> 326                                                                                      Islam and the Muslim World
> I
> 
IBADAT                                                                   rewarded and performance will be punished. These qualifications may vary among the law schools with regard to their
> precise connotation.
> The sacred law of Islam (the shari
a) distinguishes two kinds
> of practices: 
ibadat (practices concerning the relations be-
> Together with the testimony of faith (shahada), the 
ibadat
> tween God and human beings, or devotional practices) and
> constitute the five pillars of Islam (arkan al-Islam) According
> mu
amalat (social ethics, i.e., the part of the law that guides
> to Islam, humans have been created to serve God. Both the
> the relations between humans). The 
ibadat include the salat
> individual and the community are under the obligation to
> (prayer), zakat (alms giving), sawm Ramadan (fasting during
> follow the stipulations of the revealed law. According to the
> the holy month of Ramadan), and the hajj (the pilgrimage to
> scholars, the religious duties are clearly set out in the two
> Mecca and the holy places near to this holy city, namely
> sources of the revelation: the ayat al-shari
a in the Quran and
> 
Arafat, Muzdalifa, and Mina).
> in the sunna, the Prophetic tradition. There is no difference
> of opinion among scholars with regard to the obligatory and
> Some aspects of the 
ibadat can be qualified as ritual and
> clear (bayan) nature of these duties. This status explains why
> other aspects fit less easily in this category. For example, zakat
> someone who denies them their obligatory character places
> regulations pertain to goods or wealth that are to be handed
> him- or herself outside religion. That person expresses kufr,
> over to certain categories of persons who are entitled to it (in
> unbelief.
> particular, the needy). This takes place in a nonritual context
> on the one hand, and a ritualized context, that of giving zakat           Status
> (zakat al-fitr) on the Day of the Breaking of the Fast, on                 According to religious views, the 
ibadat are constant and do
> the other.                                                                not allow for varying interpretations based on spatial and
> temporal circumstances. In reality, however, some changes in
> According to the shari
a, the 
ibadat are all the individual          the way the 
ibadat have been performed and interpreted by
> duties that each mentally competent, mature, and healthy                  the believers have taken place. There can be no doubt that its
> Muslim (male and female) is obligated to perform. The                     religious status explains why the 
ibadat changed far less than
> formulation of the niyya, the intention to perform these                  the mu
amalat. They are the “symbolic capital” (the term was
> rituals before performing them, is of crucial importance for              coined by Pierre Bourdieu) of the ulema, who have been able
> their validity, or, as the Prophetic tradition has it: “The works         to retain their position until the present day. Nowadays that
> are (only) rendered valid by their intentions.”                           position is being challenged by emerging religious authorities, such as liberal intellectuals like Mohamed Arkoun, and
> In the fiqh (jurisprudence), actions are qualified as follows.           also Islamist leaders who enjoined no traditional religious
> Fard or wajib indicates that an act is obligatory in such a way           education, such as the late Sayyid Qutb.
> that omission will be punished and the performance will be
> rewarded. The qualification sunna or mustahabb indicates                      New media and political situations also allow further
> that an act is recommended but that omission will not be                  possibilities to acquire authority. For example, “Cyber muftis,”
> punished. Mubah or jaiz means that it is indifferent, and                who give fatwas via the Internet, and often have unclear
> makruh, reprehensible, that is, omission will be rewarded.                backgrounds, draw new audiences. In 1960 Tunisian presi-
> Finally, forbidden (haram) indicates that omission will be                dent Habib Bourguiba argued in various addresses to his
> 
> 
Ibadat
> 
> After Friday prayers during the fasting month of Ramadan in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Muslims descend a staircase underneath five clocks
> showing the daily prayer times at the National Mosque. © AFP/CORBIS
> 
> population that under the circumstances in which the nation          the rules of the fiqh, but also by cultural and political tradifound itself, namely that of the recently recovered freedom          tions, local circumstances, the norms and values of the befrom French colonial rule, it should be permitted not to fast        liever’s own community and other religious communities,
> during Ramadan. According to him, Tunisia could be consid-           politics, and society at large. A discussion about whispering or
> ered to be in an economic jihad, with regard to its struggle for     reading aloud particular recitations during the salat among
> a better economic position. Fasting, he stated, would bring          the Gayo (Indonesia) had a background in local debate
> about too considerable a loss of productivity. It soon ap-           between traditionalists and reformists about conceptions of
> peared, however, that the most important Tunisian ulema did          community and faithfulness to the normative example of the
> not endorse the proposal and that the population did not give        prophet Muhammad. This shows that the opposition beup the fast.                                                         tween universal versus local meaning, or great and little
> traditions, does not hold in the case of the salat. Other
> The aforesaid high status of ritual obligations does not          researchers made it clear that connected oppositions, namely
> always correlate with a high rate of performance. Empirical          between orthodox (male) versus heterodox (female), did not
> research by Bruno Etienne and Mohamed Tozy showed that               hold in the case of gender roles, either.
> only 10 percent of the men in the Moroccan city of Casablanca
> attended the obligatory Friday prayer and that only one out of       Ritual in Pre-Islamic Arabia
> every thousand persons performed the daily salats in a mosque.       The rituals that became the 
ibadat as we know them today
> were not unknown in sixth-century Arabia. Rituals such as
> Although often discussed as if they are isolated phenom-         fasting were known (see Q. 19: 26–27). Certain fasting
> ena, the 
ibadat are in practice embedded in and closely             practices and purity regulations were also observed by Meccan
> interwoven with a complex system of informal and formal              monotheists. Hence, the religious scholars make a distinction
> religious behaviors. These behaviors are not only guided by          between the meaning of a term such as sawm (fasting) in daily
> 
> 328                                                                                              Islam and the Muslim World
> 
Ibadat
> 
> use and its meaning in the shari
a. In daily use, sawm means         Religious Identity
> abstention, for example, from food or drink. In the terminol-        Traditions recommended that believers distinguish themogy of the shari
a it has received the (revealed) meaning of         selves from the followers of other religions and not assimilate
> refraining from food and drink from dawn to sunset.                  with regard to dress and prayer rituals (for example, whether
> or not to pray while wearing shoes). These traditions were an
> The hajj was also practiced in the pre-Islamic period            expression of the desire to establish an Islamic religious
> (“time of ignorance”), but in a form different from the Islamic      identity, and they have continued to influence Muslim attihajj. Unlike today, pilgrims performed different hajj rituals.       tudes and behavior until today and are the cause of numerous
> For example, the tribal alliance called the Hums, to which the       discussions. For example, the present-day custom among
> Prophet belonged, refrained from performing the standing at          Dutch Muslims of Surinamese origin to make a ball of flour
> 
Arafat and the running between the hills al-Safa and al-            out of the child’s hair and throw it in the river should be
> Marwa for religiopolitical reasons. Instead, the importance of       shunned, for it was said to have been taken over from the
> the Ka
ba as a central sanctuary was enhanced. It is also            Hindus. Another example is the question of whether Muslims
> known that tribes had different talbiyas, and ihram practices.       are allowed to attend Christmas celebrations, a matter that is
> hotly debated in many places.
> In pre-Islamic times, the rituals were embedded in a cycle
> that was determined both by the solar and lunar calendars.               But not only did such behavior serve to mark off Islam
> The 
umra was a spring ritual in the month of Rajab in which         from other religions, it also functioned inside the Islamic
> animals were sacrificed, the hajj fell in the autumn, celebrat-       community. For example, in medieval times there was a great
> ing the harvest. The eleven days separating the lunar from the       ritual divide between Sunni and Shi
ite Islam about the
> solar year were compensated for by the so-called intercalation,      acceptability of the purification ritual of passing the hand
> the nasi. The nasi was abolished by the Prophet after the          over the boots, which even found its way to medieval creeds.
> conquest of Mecca, as is attested in the Quran (9:37). From         The issue here was whether it was permissible to wipe the
> that moment onward calendrical feasts and rituals were no            boots instead of the feet themselves when travelling. Shi
ites
> did not allow this, while Sunni Muslims did.
> longer tied to the seasons.
> Emerging Rituals
> Other ritual changes introduced by the Prophet aimed at
> New customs were not always looked upon favorably by the
> dissociating rituals from sunset and sundown, for example,
> ulema. In many cases they were qualified as innovations
> the running of the pilgrims between 
Arafat and Muzdalifa
> (bid
as). The celebrations of the birthday of the Prophet (the
> and prayer during sunrise. Ritual restrictions observed by the
> mawlid al-nabi) and of the middle night of Sha
ban are two
> Hums were also abolished in order to symbolize the unity of
> famous cases in point. Complete inventories of such bid
as
> mankind in Islam. Hence the Quran states that there is no sin
> came into existence in the Middle Ages. Many ulema applied
> (2:158) in performing the sa
y (pacing back and forth seven
> the same sort of rules to these bid
as as to other actions, hence
> times) between Safa and Marwa, something that the Hums
> they might vary from laudable to forbidden. Rispler Chaim
> had refrained from doing. Through the example of the
> argues that the purpose of such inventories was not to
> Prophet during the farewell-pilgrimage, the 
umra was joined         prohibit such new ritual forms, but rather to bring them
> to the hajj and so both rituals became united. They can still be     under control and steer them in such a way that their
> performed separately, however. Moreover, the rituals of              performance would not infringe on morality and good manrunning around the Ka
ba and running between the Safa and            ners (for example, by mixing men and women).
> Marwa were united with the rituals in 
Arafat, particularly
> one of the hajj’s central rituals of “standing.” This ritual takes       Muslim are exhorted not to devote themselves to rituals to
> long hours where, ideally, the pilgrims stand in prayer. A           the detriment of the body. Hence, women may abstain from
> preferred place for this ritual is near or on the Hill of Mercy.     fasting, and the ill and sick do not have to perform the salat or
> fast. Islam advises believers to take care of the body and soul
> Thus, prayer, giving zakat (2:215, 9:6), fasting (2:179), and    in a harmonious way. Islam incorporated and transformed
> the hajj (3:91) became individual Islamic duties. Friday after-      existing rules of purity in its religious system. The overall
> noon became the day of communal prayer, accompanied by a             term for these rules is tahara, which means purity. A wellsermon (khutba). This day and time were chosen since a               known tradition says “Purity is half the faith.” All 
ibadat are
> market was held in Medina in the morning and many people             in one way or the other related to notions of purity. For
> gathered there. After the death of the Prophet in 632 C.E. the       example, giving alms is associated with purifying goods as
> rituals further developed both with regard to actual practice        well as oneself (see 9:103, “Take alms from their wealth,
> and the norms and values held by the community. In this              wherewith thou mayst purify them and mayst make them
> process the religious identity of Islam as a separate religion       grow, and pray for them”). The salat should also be perplayed a great part.                                                 formed in a ritually clean state (5:6.).
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                       329
> 
Ibadat
> 
> Prayer (Salat)
> The following passages from the Qur
an form the foundation of the five daily prayer times.
> 
> So give glory to God when you reach evening and when you rise in the morning. Yes, to Him is praise in the heavens and on earth and in the afternoon and when the
> day begins to decline. (30:17–18)…celebrate the praises of your Lord before the rising sun, and before its setting. Yes, celebrate them for part of the night and at the
> sides of the day, so that you may have spiritual joy. (20:130)
> 
> The five prayers should take place in the following order:
> • Fajr: break of day
> • Zuhr: midday
> • Asr: during the afternoon
> • Maghrib: evening
> • Isha: night
> 
> These are a few of the words and positions of prayer, which is always said in Arabic. Movements one through five constitute one rak ah. Each of the prayer times
> consists of two to four rak ahs. Movements six and seven complete the prayer.
> 
> 1                                            2                                                 3
> 
> Through wudu
, the ritual                        God is most great.                        O God, glory and praise are                          God is most great.
> washing, Muslims prepare                                                                   for You, and blessed is Your
> for prayer in mind, body                                                                   name, and exalted is Your
> and spirit.                                                                                majesty; there is no god
> but You.
> 
> 4                                           5                                        6                                             7
> 
> Glory to my Lord, the Highest.                          God is most great.                  All prayer is for God and worship                 Peace and mercy of God
> and goodness. Peace be on you, O                  be on you.
> Prophet, and the mercy of God
> and His blessings.
> O Lord, make me and my children
> steadfast in prayer. Our Lord,
> accept the prayer. Our Lord, forgive
> me and my parents and the believers
> on the day of judgment.
> 
> SOURCE:    Breuilly, Elizabeth; O'Brien, Joanne; and Palmer, Martin. Religions of the World. New York: Facts on File, Inc., 1997.
> 
> The prayer order and traditions, diagrammed.
> 
> For this reason books on fiqh usually begin with a discus-                            mustache, removing the hair from armpits and pubis. All
> sion of purity rules. A key term in this respect is that of the                          these acts refer to bodily practices with a connotation of
> fitra, a concept that can be rendered as the natural disposition                          purity. According to many Muslim scholars, the salat perof humankind created by God. The state of fitra includes                                  formed by an uncircumcised man is void, nor can he serve as
> circumcision (khitan), the clipping of the nails, trimming the                           an imam during prayer. However, that purity is not of a
> 
> 330                                                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> 
Ibadat
> 
> Sudanese Muslims in ceremonial clothing on the first day of Ramadan, a thirty-day period that requires Muslims to fast during daylight hours.
> Ramadan is an important part of 
ibadat, Islamic devotional practices. © HULTON-DEUTSCH COLLECTION/CORBIS
> 
> medical-material nature, but has a religious symbolic side, it          above) and is rejected by movements that consider it to be
> appears, from the possibility of using sand or dust instead of          veneration of a human being, something that should be
> water for the ablution when the latter cannot be found                  reserved exclusively for God and hence as shirk (the act of
> (tayammum, mentioned in 5:6). The ground on which the                   associating with God).
> salat is performed (hence the use of prayer rugs) should also
> be pure. Dress should be modest. Private parts should be                    The first Friday night in Rajab, which is especially celecovered. In addition to the body, Islamic devotional life               brated in Turkish Islam, is a holy night, called laylat salat alstructures time (rites of passage, feasts, festivals, pilgrimages)      raghaib. On 27 Rajab, the Laylat al-Mi
raj, or night of
> and place and space (the home, mosque, masjid). These                   ascension, is celebrated. The ascension of the Prophet via
> aspects will be discussed below.                                        Jerusalem (al-israwal-mi
raj) is one of the great symbols of
> Islam in which the believer ascends toward God. It is at this
> The Ritual Calendar
> occasion that the number of daily salats was fixed at five.
> The ritual cycle is connected to the lunar year, which opens
> Elements of the ritual celebration may include recitation of
> with the feast of 
Ashura on 10 Muharram. For Shi
ite
> surat al-isra (17), followed by commentaries, singing, and the
> Muslims this marks the day on which the martyrdom of the
> recitation of religious poems of sorts.
> grandson of the Prophet, al-Husayn, at Karbala in 680 C.E.,
> is commemorated by emotional and at times violent mourn-
> The celebration of the fifteenth middle night of Shaban,
> ing rituals. According to Sunni fiqh 
Ashura had been a fasting
> also called laylat al-baraa, is another bid
a. Its popularity can
> day before the prescription of the Ramadan fast, and it has
> be explained by its age-old associations with the divine
> remained a voluntary fasting day until the present. In Morocco
> decision of who will die the next year, which is believed to be
> it is a festival on which the dead are honored, and during
> made on that night .
> which the participants give alms, eat dried fruit, and buy toys
> for their children. It is accompanied by reverie and carnival-
> The month of Ramadan is marked by the fast, and on the
> like rituals such as masquerades, processions, and theater.
> 21, 23, 25, 27, and 29 of that month Laylat al-qadr (97) is
> On 12 Rabi
 I, the third month, the birthday of the                 celebrated. Ramadan is the holy month par excellence. Even
> Prophet is celebrated. This festival grew out of the Fatimid            those who otherwise hardly practice Islam participate in the
> Shi
ite ritual practice (eleventh century C.E.), commemorat-            Ramadan fasting. According to popular beliefs, the devils
> ing the birthdays of the members of the the Prophet’s                   (shayatin) and jinn are powerless, while in contrast God is
> immediate family, the Prophet, and the reigning Fatimid                 nearer than during other months. This increased religious
> imam. It was gradually introduced in Sunni circles in succes-           awareness culminates in laylat al-qadr, when, as some people
> sive parts of the Middle East and the Muslim West. Nowa-                believe, the gates of heaven are opened. On 1 Shawwal, the
> days, celebrated nearly everywhere (although exceptions,                Day of the Breaking of the Fast (
id al-fitr) is celebrated. After
> such as Saudi Arabia, exist), its status as a feast has neverthe-       the salat al-
id, people pay visits to relatives, which often
> less remained controversial. It is considered to be a bid
a (see        includes visits to the graves (ziyarat al-qubur).
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                             331
> 
Ibadat
> 
> On 10 Dhu-l-Hijja, the twelfth month of the Islamic year,         the phrase “prayer is better than sleep” is inserted. Shi
ites
> 
id al-adha is celebrated. This ritual marks the end of the year,     insert between the fifth and the sixth line the words: “Come
> but in fact it does not represent the end of the ritual cycle,        to the best work.”
> since there is a clear connection between the 
id and the
> 
Ashura rituals.                                                         Many believers at times perform voluntary (nafila) salats,
> for example, during Ramadan, when the salat al-tarawih is
> Rites of Passage                                                      performed in the mosques. In addition to the salat, there exist
> Other elements of the 
ibadat fit in the life-cycle rituals or         numerous invocations (du
as), to be said at different times of
> rites of passage. This holds true for birth rituals, circumci-        the day, and for different reasons. There are also many
> sion, and death rituals. Birth rituals include the custom of          motives why Muslims may fast outside Ramadan. The fiqh
> whispering the adhan and iqama in the newborn’s ear. This             books detail these different types of fasting.
> includes the recitation of the shahada or Confession of Faith,
> as discussed below. This ritual is recommended according to           Place and Space
> the Shafi
ite madhhab. The 
aqiqa, the sacrifice of a sheep or          Prayers and other rituals can and may be performed at any
> goat, takes place on the seventh day, through which joy and           place, in agreement with the injunction that it is laudable to
> thanks for the child are expressed. It is usually accompanied         pray together with others. The Friday prayers (salat al-jum
a)
> by a naming ceremony (tasmiya) during which the child                 are obligatory for men and must be performed in the mosque.
> receives its name, and shaving the hair of the child as a             Moreover, a hierarchy of sacred places exists. Such places
> sacrifice. The meat of the sacrifice and the weight of the hair         may be buildings such as mosques, graves (the visiting of the
> in silver are sometimes given away as alms. Circumcision (Ar.         graves or ziyarat al-qubur), zawiyas—but also geographical
> khitan, tahara) is a fixed sunna (strongly recommended)                areas; mountains, rivers, wells, and cities. Often the relative
> according to most schools. The Shafi
ites are of the opinion           merits of these places, for example, in the works on the fadail,
> that it is obligatory. In actual life, virtually all male Muslims     or merits, express political notions as well.
> are circumcised.
> The hajj has Mecca (the Ka
ba and the Safa and Marwa,
> The deceased is purified by a ritual bath (ghusl), and the          nowadays all part of the complex of the Masjid al-Haram) and
> corpse is dressed in a kafan, which resembles in many ways the        the holy places near to it (Muzdalifa, Mina, 
Arafat) as its
> clothing of the pilgrim, the hajji. The salat al-janaza is            direct objects. Mecca, whose haram was founded, according
> performed. The deceased is buried with the face in the                to Muslim tradition, by the prophet Ibrahim, and Medina,
> direction of the qibla. Marriage, another life cycle ritual, is not   the haram of which was founded by the Prophet himself,
> reckoned among the 
ibadat, but among the mu
amalat, and              became the most holy cities in Islam. On the haram where the
> will therefore not be considered here.                                Masjid al-Aqsa was built, Caliph 
Abd al-Malik erected the
> Dome of the Rock at the end of the seventh century.
> Daily Rituals
> The days of the believers are marked by the rhythm of five                Rituals, among which a is a tawaf, performed in the
> obligatory salats: the morning salat (salat al-subh or fajr)          opposite direction as the tawaf in Mecca, were instituted in
> consisting of two rak
as, to be performed between first dawn           order to divert the pilgrims from Mecca, which at the time
> to sunrise; the noon prayer (zuhr) to be performed after the          was in the hands of an opponent, 
Abdallah b. al-Zubayr
> sun has reached its highest point until the mid-afternoon,            (624–692 C.E.). It was in this period that Jerusalem became
> consisting of four rak
as; the 
asr (from mid-afternoon to            an established object of pilgrimage. Many other places throughsunset) consisting of four rak
as; the prayer after sunset            out would follow. Nowadays, ziyaras, visits to the tombs of
> (maghrib) consisting of three rak
as; and the 
isha (after           the male and female saints (Ar. wali, pl. awliya; 10:63), and to
> complete darkness). It is sunna to perform the call to prayer         sacred places, are quite common in many parts of the world
> (adhan). In places where Muslims live as minorities (about            both in Sunni and Shi
ite Islam.
> 30%) the public performance of the call to prayer has always
> been a very important symbol call to prayer has always been a             Also very important is the birthday festival (
urs or mawsim)
> very important symbol for the public presence of Islam. In            of the saint, when huge celebrations may take place. The
> Western Europe, the adhan is especially publicly performed            veneration of saints serves the psychological needs of many
> before the salat al-jum
a (see above). The formula of the adhan       believers to be close to their objects of veneration, from
> is the following: “God is great [4 times, only the Malikites          which they hope to receive baraka (blessing), cure from
> pronounce it twice], I testify that there is no god but God [2        illnesses, help in misfortune, intercession with God, and so
> times], I testify that Muhammad is the messenger of God [2            on. The connection with notions of kinship and descent from
> times]. Come to Prayer, Come to salvation, God is most                the Prophet is symbolized in the notion of nobility (sharaf).
> Great, there is no God besides God.” This formula is the              Because of large-scale globalization and diasporic processes,
> same for all schools of law; although they differ with regard to      one nowadays witnesses the creation of many new “Muslim
> repetition of some lines. In the adhan before the salat al-subh       spaces.”
> 
> 332                                                                                               Islam and the Muslim World
> Ibn al-
Arabi
> 
> See also Devotional Life; Law; Shari
a.                             and Sufism. His more complete name is Muhammad ibn 
Ali
> ibn Muhammad ibn al-
Arabi al-Tai al-Hatimi.
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> He was born in the Moorish kingdom of Murcia, where
> Abu Zahra, Nadia. The Pure and the Powerful: Studies in
> his father was a government official. After his family moved to
> Contemporary Muslim Society. Reading, U.K.: Ithaca
> Press, 1997.                                                      Seville, a visionary experience shook him out of adolescent
> concerns. He famously recounts how his father took him, his
> Antoun, Richard T. “The Social Significance of Ramadân
> beard not yet sprouted, to visit the great philosopher Averroes,
> in an Arab Village.” The Muslim World 58 (1968):
> who was awed by the God-given understanding he saw in the
> 36–42, 95–104.
> boy. He studied hadith and the other religious sciences with
> Bashear, Suleyman. “On the Origins and Development of the
> many teachers in Andalus. In 1200, a vision instructed him to
> Meaning of Zakat in Early Islam.” Arabica 40, no. 1
> go to the East. In 1202 he made the pilgrimage to Mecca,
> (1993): 84–113.
> then traveled widely through the Arab countries and Anatolia,
> Buitelaar, Marjo. Fasting and Feasting in Morocco: Women’s
> and in 1223 settled down in Damascus, where he taught and
> Participation in Ramadan. Oxford, U.K.: Berg, 1993.
> wrote until his death. He is the author of over four hundred
> Denny, Frederick M. “Islamic Ritual: Perspectives and Theo-         highly sophisticated and technical treatises, including the
> ries.” In Approaches to Islamic Studies. Edited by Richard C.
> encyclopedic al-Futuhat al-makkiyya (The Meccan openings),
> Martin. Oxford, U.K.: Oneworld, 2001.
> the celebrated Fusus al-hikam (The ringstones of wisdom),
> Elad, Amikam. Medieval Jerusalem and Islamic Worship: Holy          and a few collections of poetry. His teachings became contro-
> Places, Ceremonies, Pilgrimage. Leiden: Brill, 1995.
> versial with Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328).
> Goitein, Shlomo Dov. “The Origin and Nature of Muslim
> Friday Worship.” In Studies in Islamic History and Institu-           In the later literature Ibn al-
Arabi’s name is closely
> tions. Edited by Shlomo Dov Goitein. Leiden: Brill, 1966.         associated with the notion of wahdat al-wujud (“oneness of
> Grunebaum, Gustave von. Muhammadan Festivals (1956).                being”), though it is difficult to explain why this should be so
> Reprint. London: Curzon, 1992.                                    simply on the basis of his writings. Few of his works have been
> Etienne, Bruno, and Tozy, Mohamed. “Le glissement des               studied with care by modern scholars, but it is safe to say that
> obligations islamiques vers le phénomène associatif à            they circle around a number of themes. Chief among these is
> Casablanca.” Annuaire de l’Afrique du Nord 18                    the depiction of the various paths to perfection represented
> (1979–1980): 235–259.                                            mythically by the 124,000 prophets sent by God, though he
> Haarmann, Ulrich. “Islamic Duties in History.” The Muslim           focuses on Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad. He is
> World 68 (1978): 1–24.                                            commonly labeled a “Sufi,” but not by himself; he would have
> Kister, M. J. “‘Rajab is the month of God. . .’ A Study in the      much preferred the term muhaqqiq, “realizer” or “verifier,”
> Persistence of an Early Tradition.” Israel Oriental Studies 1    the active participle of the word tahqiq. Derived from the
> (1971): 191–223.                                                 word haqq—truth, reality, worthiness—tahqiq means to see
> Peters, Francis E. The Hajj. The Muslim Pilgrimage to Mecca         all things in relation to the unity (tawhid) of al-haqq, the
> and the Holy Places. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University       absolute truth and reality that is God, and then to act
> Press, 1994.                                                     appropriately. To achieve tahqiq, one must open the two eyes
> Rispler-Chaim, Vardit. “Medical Aspects of Islamic Wor-             of the heart (qalb), which are reason (
aql) and imagination
> ship.” In his Islamic Medical Ethics in the Twentieth Century.   (khayal). With the eye of reason, the heart verifies that the
> Leiden: Brill 1993.                                              absolute haqq is transcendent and incomparable with any
> Stillman, Yedida. “Costume as Cultural Statement: The               created thing. With the eye of imagination, it verifies that this
> Esthetics, Economics and Politics of Islamic Dress.” In         same infinite haqq is immanent and present in every created
> The Jews of Medieval Islam. Edited by Daniel Frank. Leiden:     thing. The indispensable guidelines for achieving tahqiq are
> Brill, 1995.                                                    provided by the Quran and the sunna.
> Tayob, Abdulkader. Islam: A Short Introduction. Signs, Symbols
> and Values. Oxford, U.K.: Oneworld, 1999.                             The Fusus al-hikam, object of well over one hundred
> commentaries before modern times, offers an epitome of Ibn
> Gerard Wiegers       al-
Arabi’s methodology and goals. In twenty-seven chapters
> it discusses twenty-seven wisdoms, each designated by one of
> the fundamental attributes of reality, such as holiness, realness, light, unity, and mercy. Each wisdom is embodied in a
> IBN AL-
ARABI (1165–1240)                                           divine word (kalima) that takes human form, the first of which
> is Adam and the last Muhammad. Adam incarnates the
> Ibn al-
Arabi was a prolific, influential, and controversial          wisdom of the name Allah, which comprehends the meaning
> scholar whose writings, based on close readings of the Quran,      of all the divine names. It was Allah—not the Creator or the
> combined the perspectives of jurisprudence, philosophy, kalam,      Compassionate—who created Adam in his own image, and it
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                     333
> Ibn Battuta
> 
> was Allah who “taught him all the names” (Q. 2:30). Human           returned to North Africa through India and the Middle East
> perfection is then to realize every divine attribute as one’s       during the time of the Black Death. He arrived back in
> own, in keeping with the prophetic saying, “Assume the              Morroco in November 1349. After a short stay he visited
> character traits of God.” The children of Adam represent the        Moorish Spain and later traveled to Mali. He ended his
> infinitely diverse synthetic images of God that arise because        travels in December 1353.
> of the differing proportions in which the divine names become manifest in each individual. The twenty-six perfect                After completing his long journey Ibn Battuta spent two
> human beings to whom the remaining chapters are devoted             years dictating the story of his travels to his secretary, Ibn
> realized the full divine image while simultaneously displaying      Juzayy, who was appointed to him by the sultan of Morocco.
> the characteristics of one specific divine attribute. Each           The result was a masterly contribution to the genre known as
> chapter builds on references in the Quran and the hadith to        rihla, and Ibn Battuta gave this kind of travel narrative a new
> illustrate the applicability of the revealed passages to the        dimension. Less than a century earlier Marco Polo had made
> prophet in question and to human beings in general.                 a journey to Asia with a resulting narrative of lesser scope
> and detail.
> The Fusus has attracted much attention partly because its
> often obscure contents allowed scholars to demonstrate their           Ibn Battuta’s account of his journeys is a narrative of
> mastery of the science of tawhid. Its sometimes provocative         travels through three continents, 120,000 kilometers (80,000
> interpretations of Quranic verses, rare in Ibn 
Arabi’s other      miles) of known and unknown cultures, and included, among
> writings, aroused the ire of a great number of critics and          other observations, ceremonies at the courts of sultans, the
> produced an extensive secondary literature of attack and            burning of widows in India, and African cannibals. Ibn
> defense.                                                            Battuta’s travels represent the longest journey overland before the invention of the steam engine.
> See also Falsafa; Kalam; Tasawwuf; Wahdat al-Wujud.
> See also Cartography and Geography; Travel and
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                        Travelers.
> Addas, Claude. Quest for the Red Sulphur: The Life of Ibn 
Arabî.
> Cambridge, U.K.: The Islamic Texts Society, 1993.                 BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Chittick, William C. The Self-Disclosure of God: Principles of      Dunn, Ross E. The Adventures of Ibn Battuta. Berkeley: Uni-
> Ibn al-
Arabî’s Cosmology. Albany: State University of New          versity of California Press, 1989.
> York Press, 1998.
> Chodkiewicz, Michel. An Ocean Without Shore: Ibn Arabi, the                                                          Thyge C. Bro
> Book, and the Law. Albany: State University of New York
> Press, 1993.
> 
> William C. Chittick
> IBN HANBAL (780–855)
> Ahmad b. Muhammad Ibn Hanbal was a renowned traditionist,
> theologian, and jurist who was born in Baghdad where he
> IBN BATTUTA (1304–1368)                                             spent most of his life studying and teaching. As a young man,
> he traveled widely in connection with his studies, most
> Ibn Battuta (sometimes Batuta or Battutah), whose full name         especially in the cities of Kufa and Basra in Iraq and Mecca
> was Abu 
Abdallah Muhammad ibn 
Abdallah ibn Muham-                 and Medina in Arabia. He made the pilgrimage to Mecca five
> mad ibn Ibrahim Shams al-Din al-Lawati al-Tanji, was a              times. Ibn Hanbal had inherited a modest estate and was able
> Moorish traveller who was born 25 February 1304. He died in         to spend most of his time in study. He was not, in any formal
> Morocco in 1368 or 1369.                                            sense, a teacher or part of a school, but as his reputation for
> knowledge grew, he was widely consulted as an expert on all
> Although some details of Ibn Battuta’s itinerary are lost or     matters of law and religion. As a scholar, Ibn Hanbal was one
> uncertain, it is known that he left Tangier on 13 June 1325,        of the foremost members of a group called the traditionists,
> and traveled across North Africa to Egypt and Syria to              or ahl al-hadith. The traditionists believed that as a source of
> Mecca. He toured the Middle East and the Near East, sailed          religious knowledge, the sunna, or practice of the Prophet
> along the East African coast, returned to Mecca, and then           and the early community of Muslims, was second only to the
> traveled through Asia Minor, stopping in Constantinople,            Quran and that the sunna could be ascertained through a
> capital of the Byzantine Empire. Ibn Battuta journeyed through      study of traditions, or hadith.
> the territories of The Golden Horde (the steppes of Central
> Asia) and across the Himalayas to India, where he stayed for           After the death of the Prophet, the members of the early
> eight years. Afterward he traveled to the Maldives, Sri Lanka,      community transmitted knowledge of the sunna orally and in
> Bengal, Assam, Sumatra, sailing all the way to China. He            anecdotal form, but as time went on, and the first few
> 
> 334                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Ibn Khaldun
> 
> generations of Muslims died off, remembering and recording          traditions. The rationalists, on the other hand, preferred to
> the sunna became an important scholarly task. Hadith collec-        base their decisions on thinking through a problem rather
> tions provide the documentation of the sunna. Each hadith           than finding a solution in a tradition. The rationalists quoted
> consists of a text (matn) preceded by a chain of its oral           the opinions of their teachers and colleagues as authoritative;
> transmitters (isnad), beginning with the most recent. The           the traditionists thought they thereby placed human reasonearliest transmitter is usually a relative of the Prophet, one of   ing above the divine guidance found in the Quran and the
> his close associates, his Companions, or someone who knew           sunna. Although the practical results of the rationalist jurists
> one or more of his Companions. Ibn Hanbal’s collection, his         were not very different from those of the traditionist jurists,
> Musnad, is among the most esteemed of the Sunni hadith              the methodological differences between the two groups were
> collections.                                                        fiercely debated.
> 
> By Ibn Hanbal’s day, there were thousands of hadiths in            At his death, Ibn Hanbal was widely mourned. His erudicirculation, some patently false, others less obviously so. The     tion, personal piety, and moral fortitude had made him a
> traditionists separated the genuine from the false, and then        revered and famous scholar, and his tomb in Baghdad was
> compiled and presented the genuine traditions in an orderly         much visited until it was destroyed by flood in the fourteenth
> fashion. This required knowledge about the reliability of the       century. His disciples carried on his teaching. A number of
> people included in isnads, as well as about the subject matter      them, including his sons Salih (d. 879/880) and 
Abdallah (d.
> of each matn. Ibn Hanbal’s knowledge of traditions was              903), compiled collections of his masail, the responses he
> prodigious, and traditionists traveled to Baghdad from other        gave to questions of ritual, law, and dogma put to him by
> parts of the Muslim world specifically to study with him. His        colleagues and students. Ibn Hanbal’s responses are impor-
> Musnad contains between twenty-seven and twenty-eight               tant both for their specific content and for the traditionist
> thousand traditions, whereas the standard collections of Sunni      method they illustrate. The Hanbalite legal school (or rite) of
> hadith, the “Six Books” contain fewer than half that number.        Sunni Islam evolved on the basis of the interpretation of these
> Further, unlike these somewhat later collections, the Musnad        responses by successive generations of Hanbalite scholars.
> is arranged according to the name of the initial transmitter        His son 
Abdallah was also responsible for collecting, editing,
> rather than according to subject matter.                            and commenting upon his father’s Musnad. The Musnad is
> Ibn Hanbal’s best-known work. Most of his other works have
> Ibn Hanbal’s activity was not limited to teaching and           not survived intact although they are often quoted by later
> answering questions about hadith. In theology, the traditionists    scholars, and very little if anything by him is available in
> were ranged against the “rationalists,” and here, too, Ibn          English. For a translation of a creedal statement attributed to
> Hanbal was preeminent among the traditionists. They avoided         Ibn Hanbal, see Cragg and Speight; for several versions of his
> rational speculation and held that belief in the divine nature      responses on topics related to marriage and divorce, see
> of the text of the Quran and obedience to its tenets as            Spectorsky.
> practiced by the Prophet were the goals of the true believer.
> See also Ahl al-Hadith; Hadith; Kalam; Law; Mu
tazilites,
> The rationalists speculated about the nature of God, His
> Mu
tazila.
> qualities, and His relationship to the created world. The
> group of rationalists who engaged in this kind of speculative
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> theology during Ibn Hanbal’s lifetime were the Mutazilites.
> Cragg, Kenneth, and Speight, Marston, eds. Islam from Within.
> A particular point of disagreement between the traditionists
> Anthology of a Religion. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth Puband the Mutazilites was on the nature of the Quran. The
> lishing Company, 1980.
> Mutazilites held that God had created it in time; the
> Melchert, Christopher. The Formation of the Sunni Schools of
> traditionists held that it was the uncreated word of God. In
> Law, 9th–10th Centuries C.E. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1997.
> 833, shortly before his death, the caliph Mamun adopted a
> Spectorsky, Susan A. Chapters on Marriage and Divorce: Responses
> policy of demanding that prominent religious figures pubof Ibn Hanbal and Ibn Rahwayh. Austin: University of Texas
> licly embrace the doctrine of the created Quran. Ibn Hanbal
> Press, 1993.
> refused to do this, and was imprisoned and tortured. Although
> the next two caliphs continued Mamun’s policy, Ibn Hanbal
> Susan A. Spectorsky
> was released from prison after two years. However, he did not
> resume teaching publicly until 847 when a new caliph finally
> abandoned the Mutazilite doctrine and reinstated traditionist
> Sunnism.                                                            IBN KHALDUN (1332–1406)
> In jurisprudence too, the traditionists—again with Ibn          
Abd al-Rahman b. Muhammad b. Muhammad b. Abu Bakr
> Hanbal preeminent among them—were ranged against the                Muhammad b. al-Hasan, better known as Ibn Khaldun, was
> rationalists. The traditionists wished all juridical problems to    born in the North African region of Ifriqiyah (Tunis) in 1332.
> be solved by reference to the sunna as expressed through            Well known and controversial in his time, his Muqaddima
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                     335
> Ibn Maja
> 
> (Introduction), has become one of the best-known and im-            Muqaddima to his world history (Kitab al-
Ibar) between 1375
> portant works on medieval historiography for modern schol-          and 1379, as well as a number of other important works. By
> ars. Ibn Khaldun was also actively involved in the politics of      1378, Ibn Khaldun returned to Tunis to work as a scholar and
> the period and traveled extensively across Spain, North             teacher. His ideas, however, were considered threatening by
> Africa, and the Middle East. He died in Cairo on 16                 several of his peers and he was forced to flee to Cairo in 1382.
> March 1406.
> In Cairo, Ibn Khaldun continued to teach and write, and
> Ibn Khaldun came from an influential family that had             by 1399 was appointed judge. In 1400 he accompanied the
> originally settled in Andalusia at the beginning of the Muslim      Mamluk sultan al-Nasir to Syria during the invasion of
> conquest of the Iberian Peninsula. Shortly before the begin-        Timur and was involved in negotiations with the Mongol
> ning of the Reconquista his ancestors migrated to Tunis,            leader for the surrender of Damascus. As had previously been
> where they became important administrators in local govern-         the case, Ibn Khaldun frequently ran afoul of political powers
> ments. His father, however, worked primarily as a jurist and a      and was dismissed from his judgeship upon his return. Over
> scholar. Because of his father’s position as a legal scholar, Ibn   the remaining six years of his life he was appointed and
> Khaldun was able to attain an education from some of the            dismissed from the judiciary five more times.
> most famous North African scholars of the age. In the midfourteenth century the western Berber Marinid tribe invaded             Ibn Khaldun remained a controversial figure even after his
> Tunis and established a short-lived dynasty. The Marinids           death. His Muqaddima, and to a lesser extent his other
> imported a large number of legal scholars and theologians           writings, were both respected and reviled by later scholars. In
> into Tunis and for a short period Ibn Khaldun, at this time in      the Muqaddima, Ibn Khaldun sets forth a clear exposition of
> his mid-teens, was able to learn from a wide array of scholars      his theory of social and historical development and decline.
> in a variety of fields. The Marinid occupation of Tunis was,         He describes the various Islamic sciences, their development,
> however, short and by the time Ibn Khaldun was seventeen            and the process of professionalization that scholars had to
> endure to become certified by their contemporaries as qualimost of the great scholars had already left Tunis for Fez,
> fied academics. This process of professional certification,
> Morocco.
> according to Ibn Khaldun, which had become so extensive by
> The Marinid occupation of Tunis left its mark on the            the medieval period that it prevented scholars of in-depth
> young scholar. He came to see the period as a model for the         knowledge in any one field, was one of the factors that led
> historical development and decline of Islamic societies. He         Muslim societies to decline. His theories about the decline of
> argued that Islamic societies followed a specific path of            Muslim society would influence late-nineteenth and twentiethdevelopment and decline whereby desert tribes invade a given        century Muslim scholars who embraced Ibn Khaldun’s theosociety and infuse it with a sense of vitality and what he called   ries as evidence of the need for renewal of Islamic culture and
> asabiyya (group solidarity). 
Asabiyya becomes the foundation       thought.
> for all social relations and provides the fundamental motives
> See also 
Asabiyya; Falsafa.
> for cultural, intellectual, and economic development. Over
> time, however, the sense of group solidarity breaks down,
> followed by a slow period of decline until a new group asserts
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> itself into society and brings with it a new sense of 
asabiyya.    Baali, Fuad. Social Institutions: Ibn Khaldun’s Social Thought.
> Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1992.
> The withdrawal of the Marinids back into Morocco left an         Brett, Michael. Ibn Khaldun and the Medieval Maghrib. Brookintellectual and political vacuum in Tunis, and by 1353 Ibn            field, Vt.: Ashgate Variorium, 1999.
> Khaldun decided to migrate west to Fez. In Fez, Ibn Khaldun         Rosenthal, Franz, trans. The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to
> rose quickly into the inner circle of the Marinid sultan Ibn          History. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1969.
> Abi 
Amr. By 1357 he fell out of favor with the sultan and was
> thrown in prison until Ibn Abi 
Amr’s death in 1358. Ibn                                                          R. Kevin Jaques
> Khaldun appears to have attempted to remain involved in the
> changing political situation, but by 1359 he decided to retire
> from politics and accepted a position as a judge. By 1362 his
> position became so untenable that he was forced to flee to           IBN MAJA (824–887)
> Granada.
> Ibn Maja, Abu 
Abdallah Muhammad b. Yazid, was from
> Over the next twelve years Ibn Khaldun continued to             Qazwin in Persia and lived from circa 824 until 887 C.E. He is
> involve himself in the politics of Spain and North Africa. By       the compiler of the last of the “Six Books” of authoritahis late forties, however, he had tired of politics and decided     tive (sahih) Sunni hadith collections. Ibn Maja’s Kitab alto return to scholarship once again. He wrote a number of           Sunan contains 4,341 reports that he collected during his
> works during this period and appears to have begun develop-         peregrinations through the Hejaz, Syria, Iraq, and Egypt,
> ing many of his ideas on history and sociology. He wrote his        conducted in search of hadiths. About three thousand of these
> 
> 336                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Ibn Sina
> 
> hadiths are contained in the other five standard collections.       continuing influence in Jewish and Christian Europe long
> Initially Ibn Maja’s collection was criticized for containing a    after he was forgotten in the Islamic world.
> number of weak (sc. defective) (da
if) and discredited reports,
> which prevented it from being accepted by the large majority       See also Falsafa; Law.
> of scholars as a reliable compilation. Although Abu Daud and
> al-Tirmidhi, editors of two other authoritative hadith compi-      BIBLIOGRAPHY
> lations, also recorded weak hadiths, they identified them as        Leaman, Oliver. Averroes and his Philosophy. Richmond, U.K.:
> such, whereas Ibn Maja did not. For these reasons, some of           Curzon, 1997.
> the traditionists preferred the Sunan work of al-Darimi (d.        Nasr, Seyyed, and Leaman, Oliver, eds. History of Islamic
> 869), another well-known hadith scholar, over that of Ibn            Philosophy. London: Routledge, 1996.
> Maja. However, by about the early twelfth century C.E., Ibn
> Maja’s standing as a traditionist (muhaddith) had improved                                                         Oliver Leaman
> considerably and his Sunan ultimately became recognized as
> one of the Six Books, although it is still regarded as the
> weakest one.
> IBN SINA (980–1037)
> See also Hadith.
> Ibn Sina (Avicenna), was a poet, music theorist, astronomer,
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                       and politician, but he was best known as a philosopher and as
> Rauf, Muhammad Abdul. “Hadith Literature: The Develop-             a medical doctor.
> ment of the Science of Hadith.” In The Cambridge History of
> Arabic Literature. Vol. 1: Arabic Literature to the End of the       From his autobiography we learn that he was born in an
> Umayyad Period. Edited by A. F. L. Beeston, et al. Cam-          Isma
ili family in Afshana, in the Persian region of Bukhara.
> bridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1983.                  By the age of ten, he had completed the study of language and
> literature and memorized the Quran. He studied Greek logic
> Asma Afsaruddin       and mathematics under his father’s friend al-Natili, a teacher
> and a prominent advocate of Isma
ili Shi
ism. However, he
> soon felt that his education and skills exceeded his teacher’s
> and he no longer needed him. By the age of sixteen, he had
> IBN RUSHD (1126–1198)                                              covered the various sciences and became a teacher and practitioner of medicine. Because of his fame as a doctor, he was
> Ibn Rushd, whose Latin name was Averroes, was the most             called upon to treat the prince Nuh Ibn Mansur, who then
> outstanding philosopher in the Islamic world working within        gave him access to the princely library, which was rich in rare
> the Peripatetic (Greek) tradition. He was particularly inter-      books. By eighteen, he was confident that he had mastered
> ested in the work of Aristotle and wrote a large number of         the sciences except for metaphysics. He read Aristotle’s
> commentaries of differing length on his works. Ibn Rushd           metaphysics many times without understanding it until he
> was not only a philosopher but also a judge, legal thinker,        came across al-Farabi’s interpretation of it. He spent his last
> physician, and politician, like so many of the other philoso-      years writing and practicing medicine in Isfahan, but owing to
> phers in the Islamic world. His work is marked by its commit-      constant travel, insufficient sleep, and hard work, he fell sick
> ment to what he took to be pure Aristotelianism and his            and died. He was buried in Hamadhan.
> relative antipathy to Neoplatonism. He defended the acceptability of philosophy in the Islamic world, arguing that it       Ibn Sina wrote over 250 works, including books, odes, and
> does not contradict religion but complements it. Ibn Rushd         essays. The most important of his philosophical books are
> held that philosophy represents the system of demonstrative        Healing and Remarks and Admonitions. Each has four parts, the
> or rational argumentation, while religion presents the con-        first three being logic, physics, and metaphysics. The first
> clusions of philosophy to a wider audience in a form that          work closes with a part on mathematics, the second with one
> enables the latter to understand how to act.                       on Sufism. His most important medical work is the Canon of
> Medicine, which served as a significant reference in Europe
> This thesis came to be characterized as the “double-truth”     from the eleventh to the seventeenth century.
> thesis, which held that philosophy and religion are both true
> despite contradicting each other. Nevertheless, Ibn Rushd              Ibn Sina’s philosophy centers primarily on the divine and
> did not hold such a thesis, whatever views were attributed to      human natures and their relationship to each other and the
> him outside of the Islamic world after his death. During his       rest of the universe. The human soul individuates its body
> lifetime, Ibn Rushd suffered at the hands of rulers who were       and gives it motion and life. Thus the body is dependent for
> occasionally unsympathetic to philosophy, and after his death      its survival on its soul, but the soul’s existence is independent
> his style of philosophy soon fell out of fashion in the Arabic-    of the body. In life the soul uses its body for gaining sensory
> speaking Islamic world. It is the commentaries that led to his     knowledge. This knowledge, when abstracted, becomes pure
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                     337
> Ibn Taymiyya
> 
> universals that can be imprinted on the theoretical intellect,      Ibn Taymiyya accused of deviating from the pure Islam of
> the highest and noblest part of the rational soul—the latter        Muhammad and the Quran by adopting non-Islamic systems
> being the highest part of the human soul and the only part          of belief, in particular the logic and philosophy of the anthat survives death. Such imprinting actualizes the theoretical     cient Greeks.
> intellect, rendering it eternal, because these universals are
> eternal and because known and the knower are one. With                 Ibn Taymiyya’s life can be divided into three distinct
> eternity, the soul attains its highest pleasure or happiness.       periods, each representing a significant phase in his development as a thinker and reformer. The first phase goes from his
> Ibn Sina was an intellectual giant whose philosophy com-         birth until 1304, during which time he received his training as
> bined Greek and Islamic thought but was unique in many              a scholar and was involved in defending Damascus from
> respects. His ideas left a strong impact on future Eastern and      incursions by the Mongol Ilkhans of Persia. The second
> Western thought.                                                    period lasts from 1304 until 1312, during which time he was
> in Egypt. This period is marked by his growing controversy
> See also Falsafa; Wajib al-Wujud.                                   with Sufi mysticism as well as his involvement with the
> political turmoil related to Sultan al-Nasir Muhammad b. al-
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                        Qalawun’s consolidation of power. Ibn Taymiyya spent many
> Avicenna. Healing: Metaphysics X. In Medieval Political Philoso-    years on trial and in prison during this time, stemming from
> phy: A Sourcebook. Edited by Ralph Lerner and Mhusin             his religious pronouncements and his support for al-Nasir
> Mahdi. Translated by Michael E. Marmura. New York:               Muhammad. The third phase begins with his return to
> Free Press, 1963.                                                Damascus in 1312 and lasts until his death in 1328. This is the
> Gohlman, William E., ed., trans. The Life of Ibn Sina: A            period of the maturing of his ideas and the time of his most
> Critical Edition and Annotated Translation. Albany: State         prolific and significant writings. Although these years were
> University of New York Press, 1974.                               relatively free of controversy, toward the end of his life he
> Shams, Inati. Ibn Sina and Mysticism: Remarks and Admoni-           came into conflict with religious and state authorities over
> tions, Part Four. London: Kegan Paul, 1996.                       doctrinal and legal issues. Ibn Taymiyya died in prison in
> Damascus shortly after being denied contact with all but his
> Shams C. Inati      closest family members and being forbidden to write any
> more letters, essays, or legal rulings.
> 
> The core of Ibn Taymiyya’s thought revolves around a set
> IBN TAYMIYYA (1263–1328)                                            of principles from which he develops an elaborate worldview.
> These principles can be summarized as follows: an absolute
> Taqi al-Din Ahmad ibn Taymiyya was born in Harran in                distinction between the creator and the creation, revelation as
> northern Syria in 1263 C.E. and died at the age of sixty-five in     a complete and self-sufficient system, and a necessity to
> Damascus in 1328. A prolific writer on all subjects related to       constantly return to and understand the Quran and the
> the Quran, hadith, sunna, theology, law, and mysticism, he         sunna in light of the traditional teachings of the earliest
> was a dynamic and controversial figure during his lifetime,          generations of Muslims (al-salaf al-salih).
> and he remains to this day an influential figure in Islamic
> thought and practice. A loyal associate of the Hanbali theo-           Ibn Taymiyya has been described as a “dogmatic histological and legal school of thought, he put his beliefs into        rian,” for he developed a theology based on the concept of a
> practice as a religious, political, and social reformer. Respond-   necessarily preserved true religion. This religion as emboding to various crises of the late thirteenth and early fourteenth   ied in the Quran and the sunna of prophet Muhammad was
> centuries in the Middle East, such as the Mongol invasions,         transmitted intact by the salaf al-salih. The canonical collecthe destruction of the Abbasid caliphate, and the eventual rise     tions of authenticated hadiths contain this transmitted wisof the Mamluk dynasty of Egypt and Syria, Ibn Taymiyya              dom, and thus, for Ibn Taymiyya, forms the basis for all
> sought the revival of Islamic society based on a model of what      interpretation and practice in Islam. His methodological
> he believed was the pristine community of Muslims at the            approach is premised on the correct use of five sources for
> time of the Prophet and his companions at Medina. But his           gaining knowledge of the beliefs and practices that are pleasefforts to revive Islamic society were not only aimed at            ing to Allah. These are (1) the Quran, (2) the sunna of the
> political and social reform, he sought also to achieve the          Prophet, (3) the statements and actions of the companions of
> revival of the inner or spiritual components of Islam. In fact,     the Prophet (al-sahaba), (4) the opinions of the followers (alhe believed the inner reform had to occur first before any           tabi
un) of the companions, and (5) the Arabic language,
> outward reform would be possible. This perspective on his           which for him is the only divinely ordained religious lanpart brought him into conflict with many speculative theolo-         guage. These sources make up what Ibn Taymiyya believes is
> gians (mutakallimun), philosophers, and Sufi mystics, whom           a comprehensive notion of revelation. Any methodology or
> 
> 338                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Identity, Muslim
> 
> belief system outside revelation is not deemed to be an              BIBLIOGRAPHY
> acceptable means of attaining truth.                                 Hallaq, Wael B. Ibn Taymiyya against the Greek Logicians. New
> York: Oxford University Press, 1993.
> In relation to jurisprudence and the schools of law
> (madhahib), Ibn Taymiyya maintains that theoretically the            Makari, Victor. Ibn Taymiyyah’s Ethics: The Social Factor.
> Chico, Calif.: The Scholar’s Press, 1983.
> four imams of the recognized Sunni schools of law agreed on
> the principles (usul) of Islam, but pragmatically they differed      Memon, Muhammad Umar. Ibn Taymiyya’s Struggle against
> concerning particular rulings (furu
). Thus he upholds the             Popular Religion: With an Annotated Translation of his Kitab
> iqtida as-sirat al-mustaqim mukhalafat ashab al-jahim.
> legitimacy of the four schools yet argues that scholars must
> The Hague and Paris: Mouton, 1976.
> continue exerting independent judgment (ijtihad) in an effort
> to come ever closer to the theoretically pure Islam. He argued       Michel, Thomas. A Muslim Theologian’s Response to Christianthat blind following (taqlid) of one scholar or school of              ity. Delmar, N.Y.: Caravan Books, 1984.
> thought was tolerated for the layperson, but scholars were
> under an obligation to seek out and follow the truth even if it                                                        James Pavlin
> is found to lie outside their particular affiliation to a school of
> thought. This stance brought him into conflicts with other
> jurists, even with his fellow Hanbalis.
> IDENTITY, MUSLIM
> But more than his political and legal opinions, Ibn
> Taymiyya’s theology remains the most salient feature of his          In Islamic societies, religion, rather than language and ethreligious thought. Devoted to a defense of a monotheism that         nicity, has typically defined political, social, and personal
> does not compromise the nature and attributes of Allah as            identity. Obviously, Muslims have always been aware of
> derived from the Quran and the sunna, he set himself against        linguistic, ethnic, and territorial divisions, but, through much
> the great traditions of speculative theology (kalam), philoso-       of Islamic history, these have seemed relatively unimportant
> phy, and mysticism that had evolved in Islamic civilization.         to them. Their formative past and spiritual ancestry were to
> Following closely the creeds established by Ahmad Ibn Hanbal         be found in the line of prophets and believers chronicled in
> and other hadith scholars of the ninth century, Ibn Taymiyya         the Quran, prominently including the prophet Muhammad
> developed a very sophisticated and subtle theology that he           and his companions, rather than, depending upon where they
> promoted quite vigorously. His theology begins with the              lived, among the related but spiritually foreign peoples of,
> notion of God as the eternal, omniscient, and omnipotent             say, pharaonic Egypt, or polytheistic Babylonia.
> creator who brought the universe into existence out of nothingness (ex nihilo) as a willful act. He rejects any form of             Although the situation has become more complex during
> pantheistic thought that compromises this belief. Thus he            the past two centuries, Muslims have traditionally been
> devotes much of his writings to refutations of mystical phi-         integrated by their common identity as followers of Muhamlosophies, such as that of Ibn al-
Arabi (d. 1242). However, he      mad and the Quran, and, secondarily, by their allegiance to
> does not want to compromise the idea of a personal God with          dynastic rulers (caliphs and sultans). At least in theory (but
> whom a believer can establish an intimate spiritual relation.        very often in fact), Muslims of entirely distinct tongues and
> Therefore, he also rejects the sterile descriptions of Allah put     genealogies have recognized one another as brothers, yet
> forth by philosophers and speculative theologians, who stripped      reject as aliens compatriots who, while sharing both dialect
> him of many of his essential names and attributes. His main          and ancestry, differ in religious affiliation. In recent years,
> targets of refutation are the Mu
tazilites, the Ash
arites, and      certain unfortunate consequences of these attitudes—generphilosophers such as Ibn Sina (d. 1043). These theological           ally reciprocated with at least equal fervor by the nondebates often brought the charge of anthropomorphism                 Muslims involved—have been strikingly illustrated in the
> against Ibn Taymiyya because he insisted on affirming attrib-         Balkans and elsewhere.
> utes to Allah such as that he has a hand and a face, that he loves
> and hates, and that he ascends and descends while remaining              Before residents of the region adopted such nineteenthrisen above the throne over the heavens. Ibn Taymiyya’s              and early twentieth-century terms as Middle East and Near
> defense is that these descriptions appear in the Quran and          East, no equivalent vocabulary, and, hence, no unifying conauthentic hadiths and have been maintained by the compan-            cept of shared geographical identity, seems to have existed in
> ions of the Prophet. He also argues that these attributes            the area. Until modern times, the Turkish language had no
> cannot be comprehended by human intellect but must be                word for Turkey; the word used today to designate the nationaccepted as a matter of faith without questioning (bi la kayf)       state originated in Europe. Arabic still lacks a word for
> the manner in which these attributes exist in Allah.                 Arabia. On the other hand, such distinctions as that between
> the dar al-islam (the “abode of Islam” or “of submission [to
> See also Fundamentalism; Law; Reform: Arab Middle                    God]”) and the counterpoised dar al-harb (“the abode of
> East and North Africa; Traditionalism.                               strife” or “of war”) were readily available and far more salient.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                       339
> Identity, Muslim
> 
> It must be understood that religion in the areas dominated        came, with the passage of time, to signify a religious commuby Islam has commonly included rather more than a mere               nity, especially the Islamic community. Opposed to the comsystem of belief and worship, distinct from and possibly             munity of Muslims, according to a popular tradition rather
> subordinated to national and political allegiances. Those of         dubiously ascribed to the prophet Muhammad, was the com-
> Muslim background often retain a shared communal identity            munity of unbelievers—undifferentiated because their differeven in instances where Islamic faith and practice have been         ences, like those among believers, were unimportant: “Unbelief
> abandoned.                                                           is one milla,” the Prophet is reported to have said. Nonetheless, by the time of the Ottomans in the fourteenth century,
> Initially, the fact that the Quran had been revealed in         the term millet also signified non-Muslim communities, le-
> Arabic, while obviously useful to its first hearers, was not          gally recognized to be plural and varied.
> enough to forge a unique identity. After all, its entire original
> audience, both believers and unbelievers, were Arabic-speakers.          From at least the fifteenth century, Muslim rulers (par-
> With the spread of Islam westward to Iberia and eastward to          ticularly among the Ottomans) managed religious diversity in
> India, however, the Quran’s Arabic character (emphasized in         their domains through a system based on the millets. A quite
> the book itself at 12:2; 13:37; 16:103; 20:113; 26:195; 39:28;       complex structure of semiautonomous communities whose
> 41:3; 42:7; 43:3; 46:12) marked the Arabs as a favored nation        religious leaders had formal relations with their Muslim
> whose ethnic identity was intimately connected with the              overlords promoted peaceful coexistence and minority repreidentity most of them shared as Muslims. Arabic came to be           sentation at court. In the nineteenth century, however, under
> the principal language of a vast civilization that, although it      the influence of European nationalism and with grave impliincluded considerable numbers of non-Muslims who enjoyed             cations for traditional arrangements, millet came to mean
> the status of protected dhimmis, had been formed and shaped          “nation” as well as “religious community.”
> by Arab-Islamic sensibilities. In this were sown the seeds of
> later Arabic nationalism.                                            The Ottoman Empire and Its Immediate Aftermath
> In its classic Ottoman form, the millet system dates from the
> From the start, there also existed a sense of distinct Islamic   reign of Mehmed II (r. 1451–1481), and endured until the
> peoplehood that went beyond ethnicity. It was compounded
> nineteenth century. By the end of Mehmed’s reign, Orthodox
> of both genuine reality and idealistic aspiration. “Let there be
> Christian, Armenian Christian, Jewish, and Muslim millets
> from among you,” says the Quran, “an umma summoning to
> had been organized. Each was headed by its own highestgood and forbidding evil” (3:104; compare 3:110, also 2:143).
> ranking religious dignitary (respectively, the Orthodox patri-
> The term umma is used several times in the Quran to refer to
> arch, the chief rabbi, the Armenian patriarch, and, for Musordinary ethnic groupings, both past and present. In certain
> lims, the Shaykh al-Islam). Once chosen by their respective
> passages, however, it plainly characterizes the body of Muscommunities, these officials were confirmed into office (or,
> lim believers as a new kind of supertribe, transcending family,
> occasionally, rejected) by the Ottoman government. Millets
> clan, and ethnic affiliation. “This your umma is one umma,”
> decided on issues related to religious doctrine and practice
> says the Quran (21:92).
> and questions of personal status (e.g., marriage, divorce, and
> Even in the days of the Prophet and his immediate                inheritance).
> successors, however, old tribal and other affiliations proved
> However, Ottoman sultans understood themselves, first
> resilient, as appears in early tensions between the muhajirun—
> and foremost, as Muslim emperors ruling an Islamic empire.
> the “emigrants” who, like Muhammad himself, had sought
> Subsequent Ottoman monarchs accordingly sought to tranrefuge in Medina—and the ansar or “helpers” who took them
> scend their dynasty’s origin as a line of successful war lords
> in. Long-standing tribal rivalries continued to be a factor in
> and border skirmishers—so frankly expressed in the title
> the early days of the Arab conquests. And even as Arabian
> sultan itself, which is derived from the Arabic word sulta,
> tribal divisions decreased in importance, other ethnic rivalries—
> meaning “power”—and to claim religious sanction for their
> such as those between Arabs and non-Arabs (particularly
> Persians)—came to the fore in such movements as the so-              rule. This is evident in the treaty of Kucuk-Kaynarca (1774),
> called shu
ubiyya. Moreover, the question of precisely what          in which, for the first time, the sultanate asserted extraterritoconstituted a believer, and what caused one to forfeit that          rial religious jurisdiction over non-Ottoman Muslims. A few
> status, was a matter of significant controversy in the first           years later, the story appeared that the last Abassid caliph had
> period of Islamic thought.                                           transferred the caliphate—the right to universal Islamic rule
> as legal heir of the prophet Muhammad—to Selim I upon the
> The survival and even flourishing of non-Muslims within            Ottoman conquest of Egypt in 1517. While the claim had
> areas of Islamic rule also helped adherents of Islam to refine        relatively little practical impact beyond the effective borders
> and sharpen their own sense of identity. Central to this was         of Ottoman political power, it reinforced the sultan’s claim to
> the Quranic Arabic term milla (Turkish millet). In the Quran,      authority based on the religious identity and self-understanding
> the word milla is essentially equivalent to religion, and it         of the majority of his subjects.
> 
> 340                                                                                              Islam and the Muslim World
> Identity, Muslim
> 
> Vocal claims to Islamic authority, however, carried no          of eastern and central Europe was fully available to them.
> weight with the sultan’s non-Muslim subjects, and, indeed,          Thus, when in 1875 the Ottoman treasury declared insolprobably tended to alienate them. Thus, as the empire weak-         vency, nationalist revolts broke out among the Christians of
> ened and Western influences (including legal and commer-             the Balkans, leading to bloody ethnic and religious confroncial privileges granted to European powers) increased in            tations. Responding, the European powers pressured Otto-
> Ottoman lands, nationalist sentiments arose among the em-           man leadership to grant autonomy to Christians. And, in fact,
> pire’s Christian minorities, who had a natural kinship to the       the short-lived legislative assembly established by the Consti-
> Christian West and were understandably more susceptible to          tution of 1876 included deputies from all the peoples of
> its influence. These new nationalist ideas were introduced to        the empire.
> populations lacking any prior experience of secularism, or of a
> separation between religion and politics. Minority nationalisms         A disastrous war with Russia nearly ended the Ottoman
> therefore came to be expressed religiously, within the context      state in 1877, and the difficult negotiations that ensued
> of the already existing millet system.                              continued until 1882. Ultimately, the Ottomans surrendered
> large territories to Russia, the Balkan states, and other pow-
> In partial reaction, the Ottoman government attempted to        ers. These territorial losses, which cost the sultan many of his
> establish “Ottomanism” as the legal basis of the empire as          Christian subjects and precipitated a substantial migration of
> reflected, for example, in the law of nationality and citizen-       Muslims from Russia and the Balkans into the remaining
> ship promulgated in 1869 and the Constitution of 1876. The          Ottoman lands, left the empire overwhelmingly Muslim.
> related concept of hubb al-vatan, “love of country” or patriot-     Seen by many Muslims as an episode in the battle between the
> ism, had already appeared in Turkish by 1841. Thinkers              dar al-islam and the dar al-harb, the crisis inflamed religious
> connected with the Young Ottoman movement (formed in                sentiments and, by the century’s end, inspired a yet more
> 1865) were promoting the “fatherland” (vatan; Arabic watan)
> insistent Muslim nationalism—before which the ambivalent
> and the Ottoman “nation.” Ottomanism, however, was someand never very popular “Ottomanism” quickly gave way.
> what ambivalent with regard to the weight to be placed upon
> Islamic faith as component in individual, societal, and politi-         Attempting to cope, 
Abd al-Hamid II (r. 1876–1909)
> cal identity. The new constitution also included a formal           concentrated government investments and reforms in the
> declaration that the “high Islamic caliphate” belonged to the       predominantly Muslim parts of the empire. He emphasized
> Ottoman ruling house, thus staking a claim to universal             Islam as a basis of internal social and political stability and
> Muslim authority. And the writings of Namik Kemal, the              solidarity, further stressing his authority not merely as sultan
> Young Ottomans’s intellectual leader, show interest neither         but also as caliph in a bid to simultaneously neutralize
> in the history of Anatolia prior to the arrival of the Muslim       opposition from the varied Muslim ethnicities within his
> Turks nor in the history of the Turks before their conversion.
> dominions and to mobilize support, when needed, among
> In fact, he seldom uses the word Turk at all. Instead, he
> Muslims beyond his borders. Although he affirmed the prinemphasizes the term Ottoman, which, although it sometimes
> ciple of legal equality for minority religions, he felt that
> designates all of the sultan’s subjects, of whatever religion,
> Muslims were the only truly loyal Ottoman subjects. For this
> often denotes only the sultan’s Muslim subjects.
> reason, pan-Islamists like Afghani regarded 
Abdulhamid as a
> Ottomanism was, in fact, incoherent, torn between par-          symbol of Islamic solidarity and cohesion.
> ticularistic loyalty to the multiethnic, multi-faith empire as it
> By the opening of the twentieth century, however, nationwas and a dream of Muslim unity similar to that which
> alistic movements in and about the Ottoman empire had
> motivated the famous pan-Islamic activist, Jamal al-Din
> destroyed more than the idea of political unity among Mus-
> Afghani (d. 1897). Of course, despite his own public piety,
> lims, Christians, and others. With the imperial regime in
> Afghani himself seems to have been a natural-law deist and
> Istanbul looking increasingly helpless both domestically and
> rationalist, and to have valued Islam primarily as a civilization
> in foreign affairs, separate nationalist movements arose even
> rather than as a religious faith. Clearly indicating that he
> among Muslims—which severely undermined 
Abdulhamid
> recognized its power as a political force, however, he insisted
> on orthodox Islam for the masses.                                   II’s appeal to Islamic solidarity. As various non-Turkic peoples sought to dissolve their ties to the sultanate and to forge
> Ottomanist ambivalence did not escape the non-Muslim            their own destiny, Ottoman intellectuals became aware of the
> minorities. Understanding that they were not, and could not         pre-Islamic history of the Turks. Partially on that basis, they
> be, incorporated into the empire as full equals, sharing a          created a distinctively Turkish nationalism. At the same time,
> common culture, they realized that they could not truly be          centralizing, industrialized European nation-states—foreign
> Ottoman patriots in the same sense that English, Spanish, or        to the reality in which they found themselves—became the
> French patriots were loyal to a country and a unified nation-        ideal among the Ottoman elite. Consequently, when the
> state. In contrast, the separatist ethnic nationalism that had      Young Turk revolution occurred in 1908, it was strongly proalready arisen in the polyglot empires and small principalities     Turkic, devoted to a centralizing and secularizing vision.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                     341
> Identity, Muslim
> 
> Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s famous and more lastingly sig-         beyond Egypt, the history and legacy of the pharaohs clearly
> nificant political involvement began in terms of Ottomanism,       fascinated him. They also served the complexly pan-Islamic
> and, early on, he tended to speak in pan-Islamic terms. His       purposes of Afghani, who praised the glories of pagan Egypt
> conversion to Turkish nationalism was accelerated by the          (as well as the ancient polytheistic Hindus) in polemics
> disastrous 1912–1913 Balkan War, but, although he is associ-      composed, unlike those of Kemal and the Young Ottomans,
> ated with secularism, there is no evidence that he ever sought    in Arabic.
> to attack Islam. Ataturk’s notable successes garnered immense prestige for the secular nationalism he came to es-            For their part, the khedives encouraged and even sponpouse, which has assured its dominant role in Turkey into the     sored this new patriotism, since the cultivation of a distinctive
> twenty-first century.                                              Egyptian identity and personality so obviously furthered
> their own separatist ambitions, and the “National” or “Patri-
> Among the Arabs                                                   otic Party” (al-hizb al-watani) was founded in 1879. It cannot
> The Young Ottoman thinker Namik Kemal argued that                 be maintained that the new Egyptian patriotism was wholly
> separatist movements would not arise among the empire’s           secular—for most of its advocates, Islam was an essential part
> diverse ethnic groups because they were too intermingled to       of Egyptian identity—but it grounded a movement that even
> be able to form viable states. The only possible exception to     non-Muslim Egyptians felt they could join. Thus, even prior
> this, he felt, was the Arab community. However, he reasoned,      to British occupation in 1882, the Christian journalist Selim
> Arabs were bound to the Ottoman state not only by their           Naqqash coined the slogan “Egypt for the Egyptians,” which
> loyalty to the sultan but by their sense of Islamic brotherhood   was then popularized by the Jewish pamphleteer Abu Naddara
> with the empire. And, in fact, Afghani’s great Egyptian           and put into practical action by the Muslim soldier 
Urabi
> disciple, Muhammad 
Abduh (d. 1905) opposed local patriot-        Pasha. But the Syrian intellectuals and others who had taken
> ism or nationalism as a threat to Islamic unity. Race and         refuge in the relatively open society of Egypt were often
> nation, in his view, were unimportant accidents, irrelevant to    marginalized as “intruders” (dukhala) by prominent Egyptian
> one’s fundamental identity as a member of the Islamic umma.       patriots.
> 
> Kemal was wrong. Arab nationalism—the idea that Arabic           Significantly, it was chiefly Syrian immigrants who brought
> speakers form a single nation with legitimate aspirations to      the idea of political Arabism to Khedivial Egypt. Prominent
> separate statehood—seems to have been born among the              among these were 
Abd al-Rahman al-Kawakibi (d. 1902),
> Christian Arab elite of Lebanon, perhaps under the influence       who was perhaps the first to demand an Arab state headed by
> of their European fellow believers. They, of course, felt no      an Arab caliph independent of Ottoman Turkish rule, and
> religious loyalty to the sultan, but deeply prized the language   Muhammad Rashid Rida (d. 1935). On the whole, however,
> and culture they shared with their Muslim fellow-Arabs. In        Egypt proved resistant to pan-Arabism, although that ideol-
> 1860, the Christian journalist Butrus al-Bustani founded          ogy played a substantial role during the presidency of Jamal
> “The Patriotic School” (al-madrasa al-wataniyya); by 1870,        
Abd al-Nasser (under whom, for a time during and after his
> the motto “love of country is part of the faith” appeared on      abortive merger with Syria, the venerable name Egypt was
> the masthead of the magazine he edited. The watan of which        officially sacrificed in order to build a “United Arab Republic”).
> he spoke, however, was not the Ottoman empire. His
> “country” was Syria, an Arabic-speaking land.                         
Abd al-Hamid II’s imperial pan-Islamism thus proved
> entirely unsuccessful. And, eventually, with the abolition of
> Graduates of newly founded schools in Syria and Iraq          the sultanate in 1922 and of the caliphate in 1924, the last
> were likewise infected with nationalism and political con-        effective, legitimate political symbol of collective pan-Islamic
> sciousness, but their pride, too, was in Arabic language and      identity disappeared. Former Ottoman Muslims found them-
> Arabic history. They called first for decentralization, then       selves residing in a disunited variety of nation-states, much as
> independence. The Arab revolt of 1916 resulted in the             their descendants do today.
> eventual creation of at least nominally independent states in
> Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Jordan after the interwar British       The Mogul Empire
> and French mandates ended. These were constructed essen-          Founded in 1526 and lasting until the mid-eighteenth centially on the European model that had been invoked previ-         tury, the Mogul empire ultimately dominated the entire
> ously by the Young Turks.                                         Indian subcontinent excepting the south. Yet the existence of
> a vast, subjugated population of Hindus had always posed a
> Local patriotism did appear in Egypt, somewhat later than      problem for India’s Muslim rulers, and continued to do so
> in Turkey, largely under the influence of Shaykh Rifa
a Rafi
       under the Moguls.
> al-Tahtawi (d. 1873). In numerous odes and poems, al-
> Tahtawi, also fond of the formula “love of country is part of        Acutely aware of the problem, Akbar (r. 1556–1605),
> the faith,” praised Egypt, the Egyptian army and its soldiers,    arguably the greatest of the Mogul emperors, chose a radical
> and the then-ruling dynasty of the Khedives. While his works      method of dealing with it. He integrated Hindus into all
> evince little or no interest in other Muslims or Arab speakers    levels of imperial administration, married Rajput princesses,
> 
> 342                                                                                           Islam and the Muslim World
> Identity, Muslim
> 
> and abolished the jizya tax on non-Muslims. Worse, in the          that both Islam and Hinduism were comprehensive social
> eyes of many devout Muslims, he began to experiment with           orders that could not be merged into a single nationality,
> an eclectic blend of Islamic and Hindu concepts. Akbar’s           concluded that the religious, political, and cultural interests
> actions, in their view, represented a serious threat not only to   of Muslims could be safeguarded fully only in a separate
> the Islamic identity of Muslim India but to Islam itself.          Muslim state. Interestingly, the Deobandi ulema overwhelmingly opposed Jinnah and his proposed separate state, pre-
> The most significant opposition to Akbar’s syncretistic
> sumably because his vision for Pakistan—and that of the
> liberalism emerged out of the Naqshbandi Sufi brotherhood.
> poet-philosopher Muhammad Iqbal (d. 1938)—was insuffi-
> This helped to foster a religious revival among Indian Musciently grounded in strict observance of the shari
a. Nonethelims in the face not only of the emperor’s heresies and the
> less, Pakistan came into existence on 14 August 1947, following
> resurgence of local Hinduism, but, as time passed, in opposithe independence and partition of British India, and is now
> tion to Portuguese, Dutch, English, and French incursions
> the world’s second most populous Muslim nation. Uniquely
> into India. Ahmad Sirhindi (d. 1624), an Indian Sufi who
> among Islamic countries, it was expressly established in the
> powerfully influenced the development of the Naqshbandi
> name of Islam. More than a hundred million adherents of
> order, is often considered by Muslim admirers to have saved
> Islam continue to live in India, however, making it roughly
> Indian Islam.
> equal to Pakistan (and thus one of the largest of all nations) in
> Certainly Sirhindi represented a challenge to Mogul au-        terms of Muslim population.
> thority. Accordingly, a subsequent emperor, Awrangzib (r.
> 1658–1707), banned portions of his writing. But as                 Iran
> Naqshbandi-inspired Islamic opposition grew, and amid              Iran, the ancient Persia, resembled Egypt in possessing a long
> spreading Hindu and Sikh restiveness that many Muslims             and distinguished history and relatively clearly demarked
> attributed to Mogul laxity, Awrangzib also found himself           borders. Its people spoke a distinct language that was deeply
> obliged to dismiss non-Muslims from government service             rooted in antiquity. Perhaps most importantly, it was distinand to replace them with Muslims. Furthermore, under               guished from the Sunni Ottomans to the west and the Sunni
> pressure from the orthodox ulema, he ordered the restoration       Uzbeks and Moguls to the east by the Shi
ite form of Islam
> of the jizya tax and reimposed shari
a (Islamic law).              that it had adopted after the founding of the Safavid dynasty
> in 1501. When the Shi
ite Safavids assumed power, Iran was
> But Naqshbandi revivalism was by no means limited to the        mostly Sunni, but descendants of 
Ali enjoyed prestige and
> Indian subcontinent. As early as 1603, Naqshbandi emissaries       privileged status among ordinary people. The Safavids themhad entered the Arabic lands, and, soon thereafter, texts of the   selves were originally Turkic speaking, possibly even of
> order were being translated from Persian into Arabic. The          Kurdish extraction, so Persian nationalism as such was not
> important Naqshbandi figure Shah Waliullah of Delhi (d.             acceptable to them as a basis for fostering unity within their
> 1765), in fact, sometimes composed his works in Arabic,            domain and between themselves and their subjects. A naprobably in an effort to address a much wider Islamic public.      tional transition from Sunni to Shi
ism suggested itself to
> them, therefore, as both desirable and reasonably easy, and,
> Mogul power had virtually disappeared by the midthus, within the first century of Safavid rule, an orthodox
> eighteenth century, and the British deposed the last emperor
> form of Twelver Shi
ism was established as the state religion.
> in 1858. Many Muslims, however, feared that their loss of
> political power would also result in Islamic cultural and
> In the sixteenth century Iran was already far along the path
> religious losses. Accordingly, figures such as Sir Sayyid Ahmad
> to becoming what we would today recognize as a national
> Khan, while still maintaining loyalty to British rule and
> state. There has been relatively little tension between Iranian
> admiration for English culture, insisted on a separate political
> patriotism and Islamism as foci of national identity, since the
> identity for Indian Muslims. Similarly, educational movetwo are so closely related. Despite strong interest in Persia’s
> ments such as the Deobandis sought to cultivate and preserve
> ancient past (as reflected, for example, in Firdawsi’s epic tale,
> Muslim traditions. More dramatically, Sayyid Ahmad Barelwi
> Shahnameh) and with some fluctuations of emphasis, Islam
> emerged from circles close to the family of Shah Waliullah to
> has maintained its primacy in Iranian self-identification. The
> lead a jihad in northwestern India, seeking to restore Muslim
> constitutional revolution of 1906 gave a considerable boost to
> political rule in that region. His followers persisted in the
> the Iranian national identity and to patriotism, and the
> attempt for roughly thirty years after his death in batmodernization of the state under the Pahlevis (r. 1921–1979)
> tle in 1831.
> went hand in hand with the enhancement of Iranian national
> The concept of a sovereign Islamic political domain was         identity in modern schools. The late shah, like his father
> kept alive by various figures over the intervening years. In        before him, launched a campaign to glorify pre-Islamic Iran.
> 1906, the All-India Muslim League was established as a             Leaders of the Islamic Revolution denounced the effort as a
> counterweight to the Hindu-dominated Indian National Con-          return to paganism and even spoke of destroying the ruins of
> gress. Eventually, Muhammad 
Ali Jinnah (d. 1948), arguing         Persepolis (as, more recently, the Afghan Taliban obliterated
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                     343
> Ijtihad
> 
> the Buddhas of Bamiyan). But an unmistakably Iranian patri-          Orthodox churches. In January 1952, anti-British demonotism thrives even amid the explicitly religious rhetoric            strators in Suez, angry at the British, killed several Coptic
> favored by leaders of the Islamic Republic.                          Christians—arguably Egypt’s most Egyptian residents—and
> looted and burned a Coptic church. Meanwhile, many hun-
> The Persistence of Islamic Identity                                  dreds of miles away, the Algerian response to the French
> Through the ideological turbulence of the past two centuries,        slogan of “Algérie française” was neither “Algérie arabe” nor
> the fundamental self-understanding of Muslims as Muslims
> “Algérie algérienne,” but “Algérie musulmane” (“Muslim Algeremained intact, though sometimes tacit. The first Arab
> ria”). During the Lebanese civil war, when civil government
> rebellion against Ottoman Turkish rule came with the rise of
> lost effective authority over the country, residents reverted to
> Wahhabiyya in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centutheir essential identities as Maronite Christians, Druze, and
> ries, and its attempt to repair, Islamically, what it perceived as
> Sunni and Shi 
ite Muslims.
> serious defects in Muslim society. Although that irruption
> was contained and reversed, Wahhabiyya again came to                 See also 
Abd al-Qadir, Amir; 
Abduh, Muhammad;
> power, this time more lastingly, with the Saudi conquest of          Afghani, Jamal al-Din; Ataturk, Mustafa Kemal; Balthe holy cities of Mecca and Medina in 1925. The discovery           kans, Islam in the; Dar al-Harb; Dar al-Islam; Ethof Arabian petroleum in the 1930s has made advocates of this         nicity; Kemal, Namik; Pan-Islam; Secularization;
> brand of militantly Islamic self-identification both wealthy          Shaykh al-Islam; Umma; Wahhabiyya; Young Ottoand influential.                                                      mans; Young Turks.
> Resistance to European imperialism has been most effectively captained, in many instances, not by political or mili-       BIBLIOGRAPHY
> tary officials but by popular religious figures. For example,          Dawn, C. Ernest. From Ottomanism to Arabism: Essays on the
> Ahmad Brelwi, who was both an initiate of the Naqshbandi               Origins of Arab Nationalism. Urbana: University of Illinois
> order and a Wahhabi, led armed resistance between 1826 and             Press, 1973.
> 1831 both to perceived encroachments of the Sikhs and to the         Hourani, Albert. Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 1798–1939.
> rising menace of British power in northern India. Slightly             London and New York: Oxford University Press, 1970.
> later, from 1830 to 1859, Shamil of Daghistan, another               Keddie, Nikki R. An Islamic Response to Imperialism: Political
> Naqshbandi, led similar resistance against the infidel Rus-             and Religious Writings of Sayyid Jamal ad-Din “al-Afghani.”
> sians, and, between 1832 and 1847, 
Abd al-Qadir, a chief of           Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983.
> the Qadiriyya dervish order, fought the infidel French in             Lewis, Bernard. The Shaping of the Modern Middle East. New
> North Africa. Likewise, the struggle of the Sanusi order in            York: Oxford University Press, 1994.
> Libya against the Ottomans and, later, the Italians, and the         Lewis, Bernard. The Emergence of Modern Turkey. 3d ed. New
> revolt of the Sudanese Mahdi, were explicitly conducted in             York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
> the name of Islam, not local patriotism.
> Schimmel, Annemarie. Islam in the Indian Subcontinent. Leiden:
> The Young Turk revolution faced a short-lived mutiny in             E. J. Brill, 1980.
> 1909, when members of a pan-Islamic group calling itself the         Shaw, Stanford J., and Shaw, Ezel Kural. The History of
> “Muhammadan Union” joined with the First Army Corps to                 the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, Vol. 2: Reform,
> demand imposition of the shari
a. Later, the Young Turks               Revolution, and Republic: The Rise of Modern Turkey,
> themselves flirted with pan-Islamism (at least for propaganda           1808–1975. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge Unipurposes) with Enver Pasha’s 1918 launch of the “Army of               versity Press, 1977.
> Islam,” designed to liberate the Muslims of Russia. The
> previous year, the grand wazir Mehmed Said Halim Pasha                                                           Daniel C. Peterson
> had delivered a classic statement of pan-Islamic belief, declaring that “the fatherland of a Muslim is wherever the shari
a
> prevails.” Even the communists, jockeying for power in the
> months after the fall of the Ottoman empire, found them-
> IJTIHAD
> selves constrained to invoke Islamic solidarity rather than
> In early Islam ijtihad, along with terms such as al-ray, qiyas,
> class struggle.
> and zann referred to sound and balanced personal reasoning.
> The Muslim masses have continued to see the chief threat         By the third century of Islam, however, prophetic traditions
> to them not in foreigners but in infidels. (That the two were         replaced these terms as the primary indicators of the law after
> often identical obscures but does not remove the distinction.)       the Quran. The term qiyas remained operative but was
> When, for example, on 2 November 1945, Egypt’s political             severely curtailed by jurists of all schools. Ijtihad, however,
> leaders invited protests to mark the anniversary of the Balfour      was universally embraced by all jurists and theologians, in-
> Declaration, resulting demonstrations turned into anti-Jewish        cluding those who, in all other matters, held strongly opposriots and then into attacks on Catholic, Armenian, and Greek         ing views. This was perhaps due to ijtihad’s authority residing
> 
> 344                                                                                              Islam and the Muslim World
> Ikhwan al-Muslimin
> 
> in a prophetic tradition, but more likely it was because the
> actual definition of the term varied from jurist to jurist. Al-
> IKHWAN AL-MUSLIMIN
> Shafi
i, for instance, when asked, replied that ijtihad and qiyas
> The first modern Islamic mass movement, the Society of the
> are two names for the same process. Ibn Hazm, in contrast,
> Muslim Brothers (Jam
iyyat al-ikhwan al-Muslimin), was born
> denounced qiyas but not ijtihad: The former, he maintained,
> in Ismailia, Egypt, in 1928. Its founder, Hasan al-Banna
> referred to baseless speculation, and the latter, to the individ-
> (1906–1949), was from a pious Muslim home and inherited
> ual’s attempts at unraveling the truth by textual corroborahis father’s Salafiyya (reformist) orientation. He was strongly
> tion. All nonetheless used ijtihad to refer to no more than the
> affected by both the rigor and devotion of Sufism and the
> search for the legal norm (hukm) in Islam’s corpus sancta
> nationalist spirit of the 1919 anti-British uprising. Upon
> without much regard for context.
> graduating in 1927, he was appointed to teach primary school
> In contrast, postcolonial Islamic thinkers used ijtihad as      in the Suez Canal town of Ismailia, where he called people to
> shorthand for intellectual and social reform, and as a break        fervently practice Islam (da
wa).
> from taqlid or blind imitation of past legal rulings. The Indian
> There al-Banna founded a society which, in its first four
> poet/ philosopher, Muhammad Iqbal, for instance, saw ijtihad
> years, built a mosque, a boys school, and a girls school. The
> as the catalyst for Islam’s intellectual resurgence, whereas the    society’s branches multiplied around the country, founding
> grand mufti of Egypt, Muhammad 
Abduh, considered it a              numerous Quran schools, clinics, and hospitals, and estabbreak from traditional scholarship, and Maududi as the key to       lishing a system of cooperative insurance for its poorer
> establishing an Islamic political order. The relationship be-       members. In the 1930s it rapidly developed its own distinctive
> tween taqlid and ijtihad during this period became less juridi-     characteristics, enabling it to endure and continue to play a
> cal and more symbolic: The former now referred to the               key religious and sociopolitical role in many Muslim coungeneral deterioration of everything Islamic and the latter to       tries until today.
> its reformation. In general, ijtihad served to validate the
> reformist’s efforts to subordinate the sacred texts to the          Features of the Ikhwan
> exigencies of a modern context.                                     The Society of the Muslim Brothers aims to bring complete
> spiritual revival (nahda) to society under Islam—a vision
> While ijtihad was warmly received, no methodology for           encompassing the moral reformation of youth through physireasoning by ijtihad was established, as was the case with qiyas,   cal training, sports, religious and ideological indoctrination,
> for instance. Jurists spoke of the four essential constituents of   social welfare, national pride, resistance against foreign dominaqiyas, and its various forms, but in the case of ijtihad, spoke     tion, and the establishment of a state run by Islamic norms. Its
> only of the qualifications of the mujtahids who do ijtihad, and      members share an activist ethos, critical of traditional Islam,
> of their rankings within particular schools of law. More            as well as a certain pragmatism that sanctions the use of
> importantly, they spoke of the closing of the doors of ijtihad.     Western ideas and technology as a tool to advance Islam. Its
> The Crusades, the rise of regional dynasties subsequent to          founder’s unique talents and sense of divine call was evithe collapse of the Abbasid empire, and the Mongol invasions        denced by his celibacy and his tireless self-sacrifice in visiting
> were seen as threats to Islamic intellectualism in general.         the society’s branches all over Egypt, as well as a commitment
> Coupled with this, attacks by rationalists and philosophers on      to writing, speaking, and organizing.
> Muslim orthodox thinking convinced jurists that any further
> ijtihad posed a great danger to orthodoxy itself. The doors of         The society enjoyed phenomenal growth right from the
> ijtihad were thus closed in the fourth Islamic century, and a       start. Although it could boast only 5 branches in 1930, that
> long period of taqlid followed. Recent scholarship has chal-        number had jumped to 2,000 in 1949; by 1941 the society had
> lenged this view based on evidence that mujtahids existed well      become so influential that the British had the Egyptian prime
> into the sixteenth century, and that several prominent              minister arrest al-Banna and his lieutenant, Ahmad al-Sukkari,
> premodern scholars denied the closure of the doors of ijtihad.      but he soon released them without British permission, fearing
> that their continued imprisonment would touch off a revolt
> See also Law; Madhhab; Reform: Arab Middle East and                 that would topple his government.
> North Africa; Shari
a.
> The society was organized in a tight, hierarchical structure. Executive power was vested in the General Guide (al-
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> murshid al-
amm), who was supported by a General Guidance
> Fareed, Muneer. Legal Reform in the Muslim World. San               Bureau (Maktab al-irshad al-
amm) whose members num-
> Francisco, 1996.                                                 bered fifteen in 1934 and who were handpicked by the
> Hallaq, Wael. Law and Legal Theory in Classical and Medieval        General Guide. During the 1930s, most administrative tasks
> Islam. Brookfield, Vt.: Variorum 1995.                             were carried out by a Central Consultative Council (the
> Majlis al-shura al-markazi)—a structure which required cen-
> Muneer Goolam Fareed         tralization—at the district level (al-dawair), of which there
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                       345
> Ikhwan al-Muslimin
> 
> were eighty-nine in 1937. The society possessed an efficient         underground, yet its activities nonetheless have exerted a
> system for recruiting, training, and multiplying cadres and,        powerful influence at the grassroots.
> over time, several levels of commitment were developed. For
> instance, the Rover scouting movement (jawwala) empha-                  Sayyid Qutb (1906–1966), after a three-year assignment
> sized teaching (ta
rif) with summer camps, athletic training,       in the United States for the Ministry of Education, returned
> prayers, Quranic study, and charitable work. The Battalions        in 1951 as a convert to the Ikhwan’s version of Islam and
> (al-Kataib, meaning “formation”) were added in 1937 and            became the Brotherhood’s chief ideologue. Arrested and
> were composed of one to four subgroups of ten members,              tortured with others in the movement in 1954, he spent most
> each subgroup being headed by a deputy (mandub), to whom            of the rest of his life in prison. This is where he wrote two of
> the local members pledged an oath of strict obedience,              his most influential works, a voluminous Quranic commendiscipline, and secrecy. Later, al-Banna replaced the Battal-       tary, Fi zilal al-Quran (1952–1965, In the shade of the
> ions with the “cooperative family” (usra).                          Quran), and Ma
alim fi al-tariq (1964, Signposts along the
> way), which inspired an entire generation of more radical
> A third level of commitment (tanfidh, “execution”) materi-       Islamist groups. Central to his writings were his identification
> alized around 1940, when al-Banna founded the Special               of Nasser with Pharaoh, and the bulk of Muslims with the
> Apparatus, which served as the secret military branch of the        “ignorant” people who preceded Islam in Arabia (al-jahiliyya).
> organization. Current research suggests, however, that pres-        Under these conditions, he wrote, only through violent jihad
> sure from his more militant members led al-Banna to allow           could a truly Islamic state be instituted.
> the formation of the Special Apparatus earlier than he might
> have personally chosen, and that he worked hard to maintain             Four milestones can be discerned since the 1980s, with the
> its low profile during the period of the Second World War.           mainstream of the Ikhwan increasingly turning toward peaceful, progressive methods of implementing Islamic law (shari
a).
> The society’s core belief was that, just as the Prophet ruled
> Between 1974 and 1981 there appeared several militant
> in Medina, there could be no Islamic society without an
> groups, including al-Jihad, which was responsible for Anwar
> Islamic state. But in the 1930s and 1940s, al-Banna explicitly
> al-Sadat’s assassination in 1981. Between 1981 and 1988 the
> sought to reform society though education and to foster
> Brotherhood founded a number of Islamic investment com-
> Islamic principles within the existing government. Although
> panies and joined with other political parties in order to have
> he condemned the multiparty system, he sought to increase
> its people elected to parliament. In 1984, the Brotherhood
> the Ikhwan’s political influence within the Palace and the
> claimed twelve parliamentary seats, and in 1987 that number
> Wafd parties. The Brotherhood’s clear ideological stance of
> rose to thirty-eight seats. The Mubarak government (1981 to
> social justice and championing the rights of the educated
> the present) has cracked down on Islamic businesses and, with
> lower classes, peasants, and urban poor presented a strong
> a failing economy, Egypt has witnessed greater violence on
> challenge to ruling elites.
> the part of Islamists targeting police and tourists. At the same
> Ikhwan Milestones                                                   time, the influence of the Brotherhood has been felt in all
> The evolution of the Ikhwan reveals unresolved inner ten-           strata of society, especially within professional syndicates.
> sions between the moderate and pragmatic option chosen by           Since 1998, the violence has lessened, and a new party has
> al-Banna and more militant options that would seek immedi-          broken off from the Brotherhood. This is the Wasat (“middle
> ate military overthrow of the state. In 1939 dissenters broke       ground”), which includes both Christians and women. Some
> off from the Brotherhood to form the more militant Muham-           analysts view this as possibly the dawning of a “post-Islamist”
> mad’s Youth. In 1947 and 1948 al-Banna collaborated with            era in Egypt.
> the Arab League to send arms, money, and some of his trained
> units as volunteers for the Palestinian resistance. Further, in     The Ikhwan in Syria and Jordan
> 1948, in a climate of great unrest, the Ikhwan’s organization       The Ikhwan spread their message into Syria in the mid 1930s,
> (including its publications arm) was shut down, and al-Banna        chiefly through students returning home from Egypt. In
> was placed under house arrest. In response, in December of          addition, Hasan al-Banna visited Syria in 1946, after which
> that year, the Egyptian prime minister was assassinated by          the movement officially entered Syrian politics as the Islamic
> some Ikhwan brothers. Al-Banna publicly condemned this              Brotherhood Party. Its first General Secretary (al-muraqib alaction, but was himself assassinated in February 1949 by            
amm) was Mustafa al-Sibai, an al-Azhar graduate.
> government agents.
> When the Syrian Ikhwan entered the fray of democratic
> The Ikhwan reached the zenith of its influence in 1952,          politics, some Brotherhood members entered parliament,
> after the “Free Officers” revolution, but consequently drew          while others accepted ministerial portfolios. This stopped,
> the ire of Jamal 
Abd al-Nasser. Legally dissolved in January       however, after the Ba
thist coup of 1963. The general secre-
> 1954, the Brotherhood was decimated: Six of its top leaders         tary, 
Issam al-
Attar, chose self-exile in Europe, and the rest
> were hanged publicly, and thousands of members were im-             kept to a more traditional Brotherhood role. In their place,
> prisoned. Since then the organization has remained mostly           new Islamist groups rose up, with militant names and agendas.
> 
> 346                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Ikhwan al-Muslimin
> 
> The coming to power of Hafiz al-Asad in 1970 inaugu-            for King Abdallah II, due to Jordan’s majority Palestinian
> rated a second round of confrontation between the Syrian           population. As in Syria, the Brotherhood in Jordan is com-
> Ikhwan and an authoritarian, socialist regime, The Brother-        mitted to nonviolence and multiparty democracy, but the
> hood succeeded in securing benefits mostly for the poorest          question remains: How long they will be able to contain the
> minority, the Alawis, who were considered a heretical sect by      anger and frustration of the lower classes?
> the Sunni majority of the urban elites. Al-Asad’s strategy
> against the Ikhwan was two-pronged. First, he began to             The Ikhwan in Sudan
> include more Islamic symbols in Syria’s political and cultural     The Sudanese Muslim Brothers’ Society officially came into
> life; second, he mercilessly repressed the Islamist groups that    being as an extension of its Egyptian counterpart when Hasan
> had launched a campaign of assassinations in Syria in the          al-Banna appointed a director general in 1949. Already, an
> 1970s. Al-Asad’s policies culminated in the massacre of more       indigenous movement had started to operate among students
> than ten thousand civilians in the city of Hama in 1982.           under the name Islamic Liberation Movement. The various
> strands of politically minded Muslims, mostly in university
> In the 1990s, the Syrian government permitted a timid          circles, banded together in the years following independence
> liberalization of the economy, aiming to revive the private        (1956), forming an Islamist coalition and pressing for an
> sector, and thus lessening some tension between itself and the     “Islamic” constitution. By the early 1960s the movement
> Islamists, who mostly came from the petite bourgeoisie. Also,      emerged as a political party called the Islamic Charter Front
> noticing the growing Islamization of Syrian society as else-       (Jabhat al-Mithaq al-Islami), and from this time forth, the
> where, al-Asad initiated a mosque-building campaign, and           leader for the Ikhwan strand of Islamism became Hasan alsought to coopt the moderate elements among the Ikhwan. At         Turabi, who in 1962 had just returned from his studies in
> the turn of the century Syrian ruler, Bashar al-Asad, elected      Britain.
> to pursue his father’s course, and the Brotherhood joined
> other parties to call for greater political openness and respect      In spite of the Front’s participation in two elections and its
> for human rights.                                                  success in getting the Communist Party banned from Sudanese politics, it remained weakened by internal divisions.
> By contrast, King 
Abdallah of Jordan encouraged the           Two main tendencies vied for control, both inherited from
> founding of the Jordanian Ikhwan in the 1940s, and that            the Egyptian mother organization. Of these, the “political”
> tradition of common alliance against communism continued           option, led by Turabi, believed that achieving power in the
> under King Hussein. Despite their differences, the Jordanian       political sphere was a prerequisite for Islamization. A second,
> Ikhwan’s reformist stance never moved beyond a loyal oppo-         “educationalist” option prioritized indoctrination and resition to a monarchy proud of its Islamic legitimacy. The          form. By 1969 Turabi’s ideology had prevailed.
> political reforms introduced by King Hussein in 1989 marked
> a new era by opening the way for multiparty parliamentary              At first the military coup of 1969, led by Colonel Ja
far
> elections. The Ikhwan ran candidates with good results,            Nimeiri (Ar. Numayri), established a seemingly irreversible
> winning twenty-two seats out of eighty, with twelve more           trend toward secularism and thus, during most of the 1970s,
> going to independent Islamic candidates.                           the Ikhwan joined forces with the opposition, participating in
> three failed coup attempts. Then, in 1977, as Nimeiri saw his
> The Jordanian Brotherhood then joined the cabinet, but it      own support base eroding, he began to call for a rapprochehas not been able to capitalize on its early momentum. First,      ment with Islamic parties. The Ikhwan rallied to his side,
> their inexperience in legislative politics showed, as accusa-      along with the leader of the Umma Party, Sadiq al-Mahdi
> tions of inefficiency and mismanagement were levelled against       (who was also Turabi’s brother-in-law). This enabled the
> several of their elected members. Second, its moderation has       Islamists to implement an impressive strategy aimed toward
> tended to radicalize the smaller, more militant Islamic off-       becoming a mass movement poised to take over the state.
> shoots. One group, started by mostly Afghan returnees (Mu-         They achieved this by using their new-found freedom to
> hammad’s Army), began a series of attacks in 1991. Eight           recruit followers outside the university setting; by gaining
> were arrested and tried in a military court. Although the king     experience in statesmanship by participating in the Nimeiri
> later commuted their death sentences to life imprisonment,         government; and by exploiting an experiment in “Islamic
> the strong message from the palace was clear. This and other       banking” to build an extensive Islamist business network.
> instances of violence and repression worked to discredit the       Their campaign to Islamize society succeeded so well that
> Islamists. Third, when a new round of elections came in 1993,      Nimeiri decreed the enactment of the shari
a penal laws
> the king changed the election law, thus weakening the chances      (hudud) in 1983.
> of a new Ikhwan-controlled Islamist coalition, the Islamic
> Work Party. The outcome was predictable: poor voter turn-             A popular uprising in 1985 enabled Suwar al-Dhahab to
> out, and less than half of the original seats for the Islamists.   topple Nimeiri through a military coup, and in the elections
> of 1986 the Ikhwan candidates successfully ran as the leaders
> The failed peace process between Palestine and Israel has       of the new National Islamic Front (NIF). Their influence
> rendered relations with the Brotherhood all the more delicate      continued to rise, to the point that most observers believe that
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                     347
> Ikhwan al-Safa
> 
> the military coup led by Omar al-Bashir in 1989 was actually       traditions, and a critical stance toward what they perceived to
> staged by the Ikhwan. Certainly, until the fallout between         be the cultural and political stagnation of the time. The
> Bashir and Turabi in 2000–2001, Sudan was ruled by the             evidence in the text, as well as references to them in early
> NIF, with Turabi as its chief ideologue.                           Isma
ili writings suggest that the philosophy reflected in the
> Rasail was closely affiliated with Isma
ili aspirations of the
> The 1990s were marked by a hardening of the NIF’s one-         pre-Fatimid period.
> party authoritarian regime, the imposition of an intolerant
> Islamization of Sudanese northern society, and the intensifi-       Intellectual Approach
> cation of the war against the southern forces—a civil war that     Beyond what initially appears to be an encyclopedic work,
> since 1983 has killed over two million people. Though              there is a far-ranging and comprehensive program of intellec-
> Turabi’s writings project a progressive and almost liberal         tual and educational reform. Such an agenda of reform was
> Islamist position on democracy and human rights, the United        founded on three assumptions.
> Nations’ International Labor Organization and numerous
> human rights groups have protested the use of torture, ethnic          First, the Ikhwan acknowledged the existence of “sciences
> cleansing, and the return of slavery to the Sudan. The             and wisdoms,” some divinely inspired, which had been pro-
> Sudanese situation in the early 2000s appears as precarious as     duced by past faith communities, individuals, and learned
> ever, unless Bashir’s post-Turabi regime develops a more           societies. This base of knowledge represented a foundation
> open Islamist political agenda.                                    for developing a synthesis, appropriate to a new time and
> circumstances. Such a synthesis would harmonize Quranic
> See also Banna, Hasan al-; Fundamentalism; Qutb,                   and Muslim values and ideals with the best that all other
> Sayyid; Reform: Arab Middle East and North Africa;                 religious philosophical systems had to offer.
> Turabi, Hasan al-.
> Second, the ultimate goal of such a synthesis, taught and
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                       properly applied to life and society, was a moral one. It was
> Hinnebusch, Raymond A. “State and Islamism in Syria.” In           the advancement of human beings in their material life and
> Islamic Fundamentalism. Edited by Abdel Salam Sidahmed           conditions and their spiritual lives here and in the hereafter.
> and Anoushirami. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1996.           Such an objective was best fulfilled through personal moral
> Lia, Brynjar. The Society of Muslim Brothers: The Rise of an       and intellectual growth and spiritual development through
> Islamic Mass Movement. Reading, U.K.: Ithaca, 1998.             sound teaching and learning. This, however, assumed a
> foundation of knowledge, pedagogy, and the capacity to
> Mitchell, Richard P. The Society of Muslim Brothers. Foreword
> synthesize and assimilate existing resources through the apby John O. Voll. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993.                                                plication of intellectual and moral discipline. This personal
> commitment and emphasis on character development re-
> Sihahmed, Abdel Salam. Politics and Islam in Contemporary
> ceives a great deal of emphasis in the Rasail. Piety, compas-
> Sudan. Richmond, U.K.: Curzon, 1997.
> sion, gentleness, and humility are prerequisites to wisdom
> and virtue. The attainment of such wisdom is the highest
> David L. Johnston
> quality of Muslim learning, hikma, a religious and philosophical wisdom.
> 
> Third, the acquisition of knowledge as a virtue that fosters
> IKHWAN AL-SAFA                                                     moral character created in turn a society with a common set
> of civic values and behavior. Thus, the individual, social, and
> Ikhwan al-Safa, literally “Brethren of Purity” or more broadly
> religious goals intersected in the Ikhwan’s vision. The buildthe “Fellowship of the Pure,” is a term used to designate a
> ing of this foundation of learning drew upon the following
> group of Muslim intellectuals who compiled the well-known
> major sources:
> encyclopedia of learning called the Rasail Ikhwan al-Safa.
> Many of them lived in the tenth century, constituting a               Mathematical and natural sciences
> collaborative forum for discussion, debate, and writing that
> Scriptures revealed through prophets
> led to the composition of fifty-two epistles of the Rasail.
> Nature and the environment
> The consensus of modern scholarship is that the philo-             Inspiration vouchsafed to purified souls
> sophical attitudes and ideas reflected in the Rasail are consistent and have much in common with views developed by                  Each source was capable of being converted into a series of
> Shi
ite Isma
ili thinkers of the same period. Their writings       disciplines, further formalized into a curriculum, directed at
> reflect clearly a vibrant philosophical orientation, strong         students through sessions involving reading, study, and disfamiliarity with the major sciences, religious and intellectual    cussion. These were divided into four broad areas:
> 
> 348                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Imam
> 
> Mathematics and deductive subjects, including, inter-         BIBLIOGRAPHY
> estingly enough, music                                      Nanji, Azim. “On the Acquisition of Knowledge in the Rasil
> Physical and natural sciences, including the study of           Ikhwan al-Safa.” Muslim World 66 (1976): 262–271.
> biology of living things and culture                        Nasr, Sayyed Hossein. Islamic Cosmological Doctrines. London:
> Psychology and intellectual inquiry                             Thames and Hudson, 1978.
> Religious science and knowledge, including ethics and         Netton, Ian. Muslim Neoplatonists: An Introduction to the Thought
> governance                                                   of the Brethren of Purity. London: George Allen and
> Unwin, 1982.
> The hermeneutical approach of the Ikhwan, and their          Poonawala, Ismail. K. “Ikhwan al Safa.” In Vol. 7, The
> blending of knowledge traditions, reflects the growth and           Encyclopedia of Religion. Edited by Mircea Eliade, et al.
> diversity of learning in the Muslim world of the ninth and         New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1987.
> tenth centuries. In particular, the translation of the ancient
> heritage of Greece and the Mediterranean world had made                                                              Azim Nanji
> available to Muslims tools from philosophy and science that
> could serve to underpin an interpretation and explanation of
> Quranic principles. The Ikhwan like other Muslim philosophers or rationalist groups, such as the Mu
tazila, were         IMAM
> committed to building such an intellectual framework, but in
> the process they wished to affirm a commitment to core            The word “imam” is an Arabic term signifying a leader, a
> notions such as tawhid, the unity of God, the necessity of       model, an authority, or an exemplar. The term occurs in the
> religious faith, law, and salvation, which they perceived,       Quran, for example at 2:124, with reference to God’s promquoting the Quran (89:26), as the return of the contented       ise to make Abraham an “imam for the people,” and at 11:17
> soul to the God of Unity.                                        and 46:12, where the “Book of Moses” is characterized as an
> “imam.” In early theological and juristic literature, the Quran
> Just as the symbolic significance of numbers and mathe-       and the sunna are sometimes referred to as imam, although
> matical values reflected their methodological approach to         the Quran does not describe itself as such. The leader of the
> science, so with regards to the Quran, whose verses they        congregational prayers is typically designated as an imam,
> considered as having an interior, symbolic meaning (batin)       and from the ninth century onwards the term was also used
> that required a rational interpretation and a hermeneutical      for leading Sunni religious scholars. Most commonly, howapproach.                                                        ever, the term refers to the caliph in the Sunni juristic
> literature and, in Shi
ism, to the infallible guide of the
> The Rasail also contains many references to Christian and    community.
> Jewish scriptures and traditions, acknowledging respect and
> recognition of the commonalities the Abrahamic traditions            Debates on the question of who was best qualified to be
> share and the affirmation that an ecumenical spirit is a          the imam and whether a sinful leader might be removed from
> prelude to knowledge and appreciation of the other. In           his position as the head of the community played an imporaddition, the Ikhwan draw from the literature of ancient Iran,   tant role in the development of Sunni religious and political
> India, and Buddhism. They used well-known stories and            thought. Medieval Sunni jurists held the position of the imam
> parables, such as the legend of Bilawhar and the Debate of the   to be deducible from revelation rather than reason, and
> Animals, which suggest the diverse milieu of the time, but are   considered this position to be essential for the defense of
> also indicative of the Ikhwan’s efforts to broaden and deepen    Islam and the implementation of the sacred law, the shari
a. In
> Muslim discourse by engaging it with the intellectual strands    general, they required that the caliph/imam be a member of
> of the time. Their approach thus reflects the ethos of the        Muhammad’s tribe of Quraysh, be duly elected by the people
> period—a time of debate, intellectual ferment, and synthesis     or nominated by his predecessor, and possess moral probity,
> in many fields of Muslim thought, including philosophy,           religious knowledge, and the physical faculties necessary for
> theology, law, and politics.                                     the discharge of his duties. With the decline of the caliphate
> and the rise to power of the military warlords, however, the
> By and large their work was read by and influenced many       jurists came to recognize that any ruler—and not necessarily
> later Muslim thinkers. The Rasail were translated into many     the caliph—who wielded effective political power was the
> languages and transmitted all over the Muslim world. Their       legitimate imam, as long as his actions did not flagrantly
> writings have also attracted the attention of Muslim and other   contravene the shari
a.
> scholars in modern times, and their approach and commitment to education as the most constructive vehicle for change        To the Shi
ites, the term imam has a different signification
> appears to have stood the test of time                           altogether. It refers to a member of the family of the Prophet
> (ahl al-bayt), and usually to a member of “the family” as
> See also Falsafa; Shi
a: Isma
ili.                               descended from Muhammad’s daughter Fatima (d. 633) and
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                   349
> Imamate
> 
> her husband 
Ali ibn Abi Talib (d. 661). The history of           protection, and when necessary, it was the imam who would
> Shi
ism is marked by numerous disagreements on the precise        lead the state in war with the enemies of Islam. This theoretiidentity and number of the imams, as well as on how to define      cal presentation was rarely realized, and the gap between
> the imam’s authority and functions; and many of these disa-       theory and practice was recognized by other terms for the
> greements have continued to the present, as have distinct         actual holders of political power (khalifa, sultan, amir, and
> Shi
ite communities. The Imamis, who came to be the most          even shaykh) that were rarely used to describe leaders in the
> numerous group among the Shi
ites, believe in twelve imams,       theoretical works of jurisprudence, but were the standard
> hence their common designation as “Ithna 
asharis” or             appellations in works of history and biography, and in the
> “Twelvers.”                                                       increasingly popular mirror works, containing advice for
> kings and governors. The compromise evident in the inter-
> The Twelver imams are believed to be sinless, the reposi-      face between the theory and the historical development of the
> tory of authoritative knowledge, and indispensable for the        Muslim community is neatly exemplified by the debate among
> guidance and salvation of the community. The last of these        Sunni thinkers concerning the imamate of one who, though
> imams is believed to have gone into hiding in 874. While          not the most pious of the community, has the appropriate
> leading Twelver-Shi
ite jurists (mujtahids) have continued        political skills.
> the imam’s function of providing religious guidance and
> leadership to the community (even as they have long debated           It is perhaps in the Shi
ite tradition that the term imam has
> the scope of their own authority in his absence), belief in his   been subject to the most discussion. For all the Shi
a, the
> eventual return is a cardinal feature of the Twelver relig-       imam was the descendant of 
Ali (the cousin and son-in-law of
> ious system.                                                      the prophet Muhammad), who held both religious and political authority (irrespective of the extent of his own personal
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                      power). The imam was commonly held to have inherited
> these roles from the prophet Muhammad. In this sense, an
> Amir-Moezzi, M. A. The Divine Guide in Early Shi
ism.
> Translated by David Streight. Albany: State University of       imam was like a prophet. However, in other ways the imam
> New York Press, 1994.                                           was distinguished from a prophet. In particular, the imam was
> not the recipient of a divine revelation (wahy), but was
> Calder, Norman. “The Significance of the Term Imam in
> Early Islamic Jurisprudence.” Zeitschrift fur Geschichte der    “inspired” to lead the community. This was often attributed
> arabisch-islamischen Wissenschaften. Edited by F. Sezgin.       to an unusually close relationship with God, through which
> Frankfurt: Institut fur Geschichte der arabisch-islamischen     God guides the imam, and the imam in turn guides the
> Wissenschaften, 1984.                                           people. The divisions between the various contemporary
> Madelung, Wilferd. “Imama.” In The Encyclopaedia of Islam,        Shi
ite groupings (Twelvers, Zaydis, and Isma
ilis) are, pri-
> 2d ed. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1960.                               marily, over questions of the imamate (What authority does
> he have? What power can he exert? Who, precisely, is the
> Sachedina, A. A. Islamic Messianism: The Idea of Mahdi in
> Twelver Shi
ism. Albany: State University of New York          imam at the present time, and how is the imam selected or
> Press, 1981.                                                   elected from among the Prophet’s descendants?). The Zaydi
> Shi
a (so called because of their belief in the imamate of Zayd
> b. 
Ali, a son of the great-grandson of the prophet Muham-
> Muhammad Qasim Zaman
> mad) have determined the imam to be a learned and pious
> descendant who comes forward to claim the office of the
> imam. For Zaydis, there may be periods when the world is
> IMAMATE                                                           devoid of an imam, and for some Zaydis, there may be times
> when there are two Imams. The major Zaydi community is
> Imamate is the English word used to describe the office of the     based in Yemen, and the political leaders of Yemen were
> imam. In works of Muslim jurisprudence, both Shi
a and            usually considered imams. However, in 1962, the last Zaydi
> Sunni, the leader of the Muslim state is referred to as the       imam (Imam Ahmad Hamid al-Din) died, leading to a revoluimam. The term imam is also used in other religious contexts      tion in Yemen and the end of the Zaydi imamate there. There
> (such as a prayer-leader). This entry will concentrate on the     has been no universally recognized imam for Zaydi Shi’ite
> former usage.                                                     since then, though there is no theoretical bar to one emerging
> in the future. The Isma
ili Shi
a have consistently argued that
> The imam, in Sunni political theory, was the head of the      the imam is the current oldest male in a long line of descen-
> Muslim state, whose responsibility it was to ensure that the      dants of the Prophet descended from Isma
il, the son of Ja
far
> state operated in the correct Islamic manner. It was to the       (the great-great-great grandson of the Prophet). Isma
il faimam that the Muslims should pay their alms (zakat) and land      thered Muhammad, and the Isma
ili imams are all, suppostax (kharaj). It was with the imam that minority communities      edly, descended from him. The Isma
ilis have splintered into
> (such as Christians or Jews, normally termed “the protected       various groups over the past one thousand years. Some
> people” or ahl al-dhimma) would make their agreement of           believe the line of imams to have disappeared and been
> 
> 350                                                                                           Islam and the Muslim World
> Imamzadah
> 
> replaced with a line of “propogators” (du
at); many others             Arjomand. Albany: State University of New York
> have recognized a line of imams, right up to the pres-                 Press, 1988.
> ent day. The current holder of the imamate (according to            Momen, Moojan. Introduction to Shi
ite Islam. New Haven,
> these Isma
ilis), is Karim Khan Agha Khan, who became                 Conn.: Yale University Press, 1985.
> imam in 1971.
> Robert Gleave
> A most extensive discussion of the Shi
ite theory of the
> imamate is that found within the Twelver Shi
ite tradition.
> Twelver Shi
a (or Ithna 
ashari) are so named because of their
> belief in twelve imams (
Ali, followed by eleven descendants),      IMAMZADAH
> the last of whom has gone into hiding on a semipermanent
> basis (ghayba), to return at some point in the future to judge      Imamzadah, literally “one borne of an imam,” refers to a
> humankind. The Twelver Shi
ite writers shared with some             descendant of a Shi
ite imam and, by extension, to a shrine
> Isma
ili theologians a rational argument for the existence of       where such a descendant is buried. Imamzadahs exist throughan imam: God would not leave the world without some sort of         out the Shi
ite world; their relative importance is determined
> “guidance” (huda) for humanity, for to do so would make him         by the perceived legitimacy of their genealogy. The major
> both uncaring (in terms of neglect for his creation) and unjust     tombs of Zaynab, daughter of the first imam, 
Ali b. Abi
> (in that people would be punished in the afterlife for sins         Talib, and Ruqayyah, daughter of the third imam, Husayn,
> committed due to a lack of guidance from God). The imam,            are located in Damascus, Syria. Prominent imamzadahs in
> then, becomes a necessary condition of humankind’s con-             Iran include the tomb in Qum of Fatimah, also known as
> tinuation of religious life in the world. In Twelver philo-         Masumah, sister of the ninth imam, Riza, and the tomb of
> sophical works (such as those of the Twelver Mulla Sadra [d.        Ahmad b. Musa, popularly known as Shah Cheragh (King
> 1637]), the imam’s role is expanded, from a mere guarantor of       Light) in Shiraz. Imamzadahs of less-certain provenance are
> religious life to a creational conduit, through whom the world      venerated in cities, towns, and the countryside. Although
> was created, and by whom the world is maintained in exist-          formally educated Shi
ites often disdain less well known
> ence. In addition to these rational deliberations on the nature     imamzadahs and view fervent devotion of them as tantamount
> of the imam, there were exegetical efforts, whereby the             to idolatry, those who visit imamzadahs approach the shrines
> imams were identified with certain expressions within the            with sincere faith and affection. Imamzadahs are regarded as
> Quran. Quran 7:181, for instance, mentions people created         accessible local representatives of divinity, and are appealed
> by God to “guide [human beings] to the truth.” This for             to as intercessors.
> Twelver Shi
ite writers like the great Quranic exegete al-
> Pilgrimage to an imamzadah is known as ziyarat, a formal
> Tabarsi (d. 1158) is a clear reference to the imams. The
> personal visit. The amount of time spent visiting an imamzadah
> Twelver Shi
ite theologian al-Shaykh al-Tusi (d. 1067), for
> is proportional to the saint’s importance. For example, three
> example, outlines the qualities of an imam, which include
> days are considered appropriate for a visit to Hazrat-e
> designation (nass—by a previous imam), omniscience, being
> Masumeh; one day suffices for ziyarat to Shah Cheragh.
> the most excellent (afdal) of the people, and (most crucially)
> Cursory visits are paid to small neighborhood shrines. Pilbeing infallible (ma
sum).
> grims visit the shrines in much the same spirit as they would
> While the strictly political functions of the imam in Shi
ite   visit senior relatives.
> thought do not differ significantly from those outlined in
> Imamzadahs have distinct characters, and are often re-
> Sunni writings, the notion (particularly evident in Isma
ili
> garded as having specialties related to the character and
> and Twelver writings) of the imam’s infallibility (
isma), both
> personal history of the individual to whom they are dedicated.
> in terms of interpretation and in terms of behavior, makes the
> For example, the Seyyed 
Ala al-din Husayn shrine in Shiraz,
> Shi
ite conception distinctive. The imam, therefore, holds a
> burial place of an imamzadah who died at thirteen years of
> more central role in Shi
ite community life than the imam of
> age, is renowned as a site where children may be cured. Other
> Sunni political theory. He is both perfect political leader and
> shrines cure particular diseases or provide special kinds of
> unchallenged religious authority.
> assistance. Female imamzadahs are particularly responsive to
> See also Ghayba(t); Mahdi; Shi
a: Imami (Twelver);                  women’s and girls’ concerns, such as the desire to find a
> Shi
a: Zaydi (Fiver).                                               suitable husband or have an easy childbirth.
> 
> Visits to small local imamzadahs are popular among many
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                        women. Men are more numerous at formal religious sites,
> Abrahamov, Binyamin. “al-Kasim Ibn Ibrahim’s Theory of              which are generally less comfortable places for women to
> the Imamate.” Arabica 34 (1987): 80–105.                          spend time. Locations of imamzadahs are suggested by dreams
> 
Allama al-Hilli. “
Allama al-Hilli on the Imamate.” In Au-         or the discovery of old tombstones, and confirmed by the
> thority and Political Culture in Shi
ism. Edited by S. A.        occurrence of miracles. Graves of popular imamzadahs are
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                   351
> Internet
> 
> marked by zarihs, often elaborate barred enclosures that           MSAs). Their concerns remain the concerns of Muslims
> surround the tombs and protect them from visitors anxious to       worldwide: to foster cyber Islamic environments that reincarry away some of the shrine’s blessing, or barakat. Letters of   force Muslim values no matter what the dominant culture or
> petition addressed to the saints as well as money and gifts may    the vocational demands that individual Muslims face.
> be placed inside the zarih to signal vows made or answered.
> Shrines that attract many visitors may be divided into sepa-       The Boundaries of Digital Islam
> rate men’s and women’s sections, each on one side of the zarih.    One of the most fertile and recurrent metaphors from Muslim imagery is the Straight Path. It is first introduced in the
> Political figures eager to demonstrate their piety may pay       opening chapter of the Quran. “Guide us on the Straight
> well-publicized visits to prominent shrines or assure that the     Path,” each Muslim asks of Allah each day and each time that
> shrines are refurbished with government funds. Since the           he or she engages in canonical prayer (salat). The Straight
> advent of the Islamic Republic in 1979 in Iran, imamzadahs in      Path, and only the Straight Path, leads to peace, to truth, to
> that country have received a great deal of official attention       certainty, in this world and also in the next.
> and investment. Shrines are maintained by support from
> donations given to the imamzadahs or, lacking these, from the         The boundaries of digital Islam reflect the scriptural,
> government endowments (awqaf ) office. Popular imamzadahs           creedal, and historical boundaries of Islamic thinking before
> are frequently located near bazaars, which benefit from the         the Information Age. There can be no Islam without limits or
> flow of pilgrims. As sacred space, shrines can provide sanctu-      without guideposts. One cannot have a Straight Path unless
> ary and often serve as focal points for Shi
ite rituals, such as   what is beyond or outside or against the Straight Path is
> 
Ashura observances.                                               known. Cyberspace, like social space, must be monitored to
> be effectively Muslim. As Gary Bunt has noted, “much is
> See also Devotional Life; Dreams; Imam; Pilgrimage:                done by Muslims in the name of Islam that is dismissed as
> Ziyara; Religious Beliefs; Religious Institutions.                 inappropriate, or worse, by other Muslims. Not every surfer
> (Muslim or non-Muslim) is able to make appropriate judg-
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                       ments, or possess the knowledge to determine ‘the truth.’”
> Ayoub, Mahmoud. Redemptive Suffering in Islam: A Study of
> the Devotional Aspects of 
Ashura in Twelver Shi
ism. The            Yet the horizontal, open-ended nature of the Internet
> Hague: Mouton, 1978.                                             makes the boundaries of digital Islam more porous and more
> Betteridge, Anne H. “Muslim Women and Shrines in Shiraz.”          subject to change than those of its predecessors. There are
> In Everyday Life in the Muslim Middle East, 2d ed. Edited by    still the same guideposts: the scripture (the Quran), the
> Donna Lee Bowen and Evelyn A. Early. Bloomington:               person (the Last Prophet) and the law (with the ulema or
> Indiana University Press, 2002.                                 religious specialists as its custodians). Each has to be defined
> Chelkowski, Peter. “Imamzadah.” In The Oxford Encyclopedia         or redefined in cyberspace in order to reflect the staggering
> of the Modern Islamic World. New York: Oxford University         diversity within the worldwide Muslim community (umma).
> Press, 1995.                                                     The cyber-umma remains a subset of, not a substitute for, the
> Friedl, Erika. “Islam and Tribal Women in a Village in Iran.”      actual umma.
> In Unspoken Worlds: Women’s Religious Lives. 3d edition.
> Edited by Nancy Auer Falk and Rita M. Gross. Belmont,               The most profound diversity is the global distribution of
> Calif.: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2001.                       Muslims themselves. Muslims comprise between one-quarter
> Momen, Moojan. An Introduction to Shi
ite Islam. New Haven:        and one-third of the world’s population. More Muslims are
> Yale University Press, 1985.                                     Asian than African, more are African than Arab, and many
> Muslims now live outside their countries of origin, whether
> Anne H. Betteridge      in Europe or North America. It is Euro-American Muslim
> immigrants who form the leading edge for change in the
> Muslim world as a whole. Children of the information technology revolution, they have a heightened sense of diversity,
> INTERNET                                                           at the same time that they use expanded human and material
> resources to link themselves with other, like-minded groups.
> The Islamic presence in cyberspace relates to both religious
> authority and the accessibility of authoritative texts, scrip-        There is a debate about whether or not the Internet
> tural and juridical, reflecting a spectrum of views internal to     encourages democracy in the Muslim world. Some cybernauts
> the diverse Muslim community. Digital Islam projects Mus-          have assumed that the expansive technology of the World
> lim values yet is also bound by them. It is further influenced      Wide Web makes it as democratic in access as it is global in
> by the American origins of the World Wide Web: Afro-Asian          scope. But others claim that the Internet further shores up
> Muslim students who came to the United States to be trained        traditional authority, since only certain groups of Asian (or
> as engineers were also the first to create specifically Islamic      Arab or Iranian) Muslim immigrants get their views projected
> websites (especially through Muslim Student Associations, or       on web pages in cyberspace. The South Asian cultural critic
> 
> 352                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Internet
> 
> Ziauddin Sardar (1996), for instance, lambasts cyberspace as          is too early to predict how transformative the Internet will be,
> “social engineering of the worst kind. . . . The supposed             its impact on individual, communal, and national identity is
> democracy of cyberspace only hands control more effectively           growing.
> back to a centralized elite, the ideology of the free citizen
> making everyone oblivious to the more enduring structures                The challenge for Muslim cybernauts is the same as for
> of control.”                                                          other “netizens” (a neologism meaning “internet citizens”):
> How to define place and community in new ways that do not
> The Internet and the Information Age                                  oppose virtual and real but rather see them as complemen-
> For those Muslims who do have access to cyberspace, two key           tary? Can social networking in the flows of the information
> terms frame their experience of the Internet. Both terms,             superhighway provide an alternate context within which to
> Muslim networks and the Information Age, come together in             build communities as small as a kinship group, or as large as
> digital Islam. Muslim networks precede and inform the Infor-          a nation?
> mation Age. Manuel Castells accents the difference inaugurated
> by the information technology revolution. This revolution                 The cybernetic revolution provides unprecedented opdid not erase prior networks, but it did enhance the way they         portunities for local and transnational community formation.
> function. The information technology revolution has made              Whether Muslims aggregate in virtual associations, such as
> the internal diversity and historical networking of Muslims           cyber-Muslim chat groups, or actual networks, such as Women
> more apparent. The Internet, in particular, opens up access to        Living Under Muslim Laws (<http://www.wluml.org>), they
> communities that were closed or inaccessible, thus facilitat-         project a common pattern of fragmentation, dispersal, and
> ing an investigation of the ways in which diverse peoples             reaggregation. In this era of mass migration, when violence
> encounter their diversity and interpret their experiences. It         and economic necessity have forced many to travel, diasporic
> provides options for new forms of collective interaction.             Muslims are split from their birth communities. They are
> compelled to negotiate multiple speaking positions as they
> During the 1990s, the Internet became part of daily life in      imagine and project national identities. Nationalism today,
> many parts of the world. While access in Africa and Asia              though geographically fragmented, is socially networked
> remains limited for economic and political reasons, grass-            through language and systems of meaning that allow particiroots organizations are learning how to exploit the democra-          pants to share cultural practices and experiences. People are
> tizing potential of e-connectivity and to circumvent attempts         able to diversify their participation in various communities to
> to centralize control. In Malaysia, for example, networks             reflect shared interests rather than shared place or shared
> opposed to the government have established a tiered system            ancestry. They may also form contingent virtual communiof distribution. Elites with computer access download mate-           ties to respond to emergencies at the collective and individual
> rials as hard copies, which are then widely distributed into          levels, as well as to provide companionship, social support,
> rural areas, where they can be read aloud to groups of                and a sense of belonging.
> illiterate people. Virtual communities are becoming the norm,
> even as technophiles debate with neo-Luddites about whether               The Internet seems to empower individuals who would
> they are the harbingers of a brave new world or the end of            not otherwise have a public voice to express and present their
> fully human life.                                                     opinions to strangers. However divergent from the norm, an
> individual can insist on his or her unorthodox position. A
> While the information revolution emerges out of techno-           debate that could be closed in real space by the assertion of
> logical developments and organizational patterns long in              dominance by a majority remains open in virtual space.
> place throughout the world, it can be marked as a revolution          Consider the fierce debate concerning women’s rights as
> because of its difference from these same antecedent patterns.        human rights and Muslim women as fully the equal of
> What is different are the speed, scope, and directness of             Muslim men. Often this debate centers on one hadith of the
> communication, nowhere more evident than in the concept               prophet Muhammad, to wit, that “a nation which places its
> of telepresence.                                                      affairs in the hands of a woman shall never prosper.” Traditionalists have used it to deny women any role in affairs of
> Telepresence and Resistance                                           state or the public domain, but a contemporary Nigerian
> Telepresence is a new form of association, and, as such, it           jurist, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, has demonstrated through an
> compels a reconsideration of the meaning of community:                essay circulated on the Internet (at <www.gamji.cm/sanusi.
> What is community when participants do not share place but            htm>) the extent to which rival interpretations of this hadith
> can communicate as if they did? If shared place is not a              render it suspect as the eternal norm governing Muslim
> necessary condition, is the notion of community as embodied           women’s access to professional employment and politicontact a romantic projection of an idealized past? Sociolo-          cal power.
> gists since the nineteenth century have been worrying about
> the impact of technology on community, as though it pos-                  Heteroglossia and contestation do not automatically resessed a solid, immutable core. But a century later, communi-         place the ideological closure of other forms of telecommunities survive, albeit in less solid but no less real forms. While it   cation such as newspapers, television, radio, and even telephone.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                        353
> Internet
> 
> Still, dissension that might have been quashed previously in       conduit and the center for the one billion strong umma. Yet
> an environment where hegemonic discourse held sway might           the HADI-sponsored websites have little relationship to
> today persist beyond presumed endings. To the extent that          other cyber-Muslim voices with a variant notion of Islamic
> the necessarily horizontal nature of relationships on the Net      loyalty and ritual practice.
> challenges traditional hierarchies, the democratizing potential of the Net holds out hope for people living under                 Among the numerous alternative Muslim websites, two
> authoritarian rule in many postcolonial Muslim states.             kinds contrast sharply with Islamicity in Cyberspace. One is
> the principal Twelver Shi
ite website at <www.al-islam.org>.
> Consequences of the Information                                    This site, like HADI, originates from North America, in this
> Technology Revolution                                              case from Canada, but instead of the dominant Sunni stress
> The Information Age is an age defined by media, whether             on scripture and Prophetic practice, it projects a personal
> print (newspapers), auditory (the radio and telephone), audio-     loyalty to 
Ali, the cousin/son-in-law of the Prophet and an
> visual (television and movies), or print-auditory-visual-tactile   individual whom Shi
ite Muslims esteem as one of the
> (the World Wide Web). There could be no World Wide                 Infallibles, or perfect beings who guide others to Allah. Also
> Web without antecedent technological breakthroughs, yet it         reflecting a personal loyalty, but to other semidivine mediarepresents the culmination of a process the further consetors, are numerous Sufi sites, among them those dedicated to
> quences of which no one yet knows. While Muslims did not
> the Chishti-affiliated Sufi Order of the West and its founder,
> create the World Wide Web, they have been among its
> Hazrat Inayat Khan. For example, <www.cheraglibrary.org/
> beneficiaries, at least in those nodes of the global capitalist
> library.htm> is the home page of a Chishti devotee from New
> community where Muslims work, live, and pray either in
> Mexico, and it offers a broad appeal to numerous, nontheir own cosmopolitan centers or as part of the demographic
> Muslim spiritual paths, all under the canopy of a universal
> pluralism of Western Europe, North America and South/
> perspective of Sufism.
> Southeast Asia.
> 
> What will be the consequence of the information technol-           The huge conceptual gap between the IslamiCity sites and
> ogy revolution for Islam during the next two decades? Castells     their Shi
ite or Sufi counterparts illustrates the second major
> has argued that it will augur the biggest revolution experi-       demurral from a cyber-utopia of the sort that Castells proenced by humankind since the invention of the Greek alpha-         jects. Differences in virtual space will be as multiple and
> bet in 700 B.C.E. It is too early to confirm Castells’ grand        myriad as ground-level disparities within the umma. Not only
> vision, but even if one acknowledges its long-term potential,      will there be a limited number of Muslims who have access to
> its immediate impact has to be qualified on two major points.       the World Wide Web, but those who do become Muslim
> First, the boundaries of religious knowledge are not so            netizens will find many competing notions of Islamic loyalty
> easily or so swiftly changed. The major web site for Mus-          and options for ritual practice. It will also continue to matter
> lims in the Euro-American diaspora today is IslamiCity in          where one resides. In Malaysia or Turkey the government is
> Cyberspace, located at <www.islam.org>, <www.islamic.org>,         less prone to monitor or to filter websites than in Saudi
> and <www.islamicity.org>.                                          Arabia or Syria, and, while hacking can take place as easily
> within a cyber-Islamic environment as elsewhere, it will
> It has been embraced by Muslim Student Associations            occur more often in border zones of actual conflict, such as
> throughout North America, at the same time that it has             Palestine and Kashmir. Because information technologies,
> benefited from the early endeavors of student-based                 like religious traditions, are inherently conservative, they
> webmasters to create Cyber Islamic environments. Because           tend to reinforce global structures and asymmetries rather
> IslamiCity in Cyberspace claims 120 million hits since Janu-       than to bode a new era for civil society and transformative
> ary 2001, it would seem that it fulfills its mission, namely, to    justice. The information technology revolution will continue
> service the global Muslim ecommunity.                              to benefit diasporic Muslims more than their homeland co-
> But does IslamiCity actually represent all Muslims, in          religionists. The disparity between north and south, between
> geographic space as well as in cyberspace? IslamiCity in           rich and poor will be as evident, alas, among Muslims as it is
> Cyberspace is itself an offshoot of HADI, the acronym for a        among non-Muslims, at least for the foreseeable future.
> Saudi overseas holding company based in California: Human
> See also Globalization; Networks, Muslim.
> Assistance and Development International. In Arabic, hadi
> means guide or leader. Hadi is also one of the “99 Most
> Beautiful Names of God,” and it echoes the phrase from the         BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Quran cited above: “Guide us on the Straight Path.” In this       Bunt, Gary R. Virtually Islamic: Computer-Mediated Communicase, however, the Straight Path guides the Muslim cybernaut         cation and Cyber Islamic Environments. Lampeter: Univertowards norms and values that reflect the Saudi sponsors of           sity of Wales Press. 2000.
> HADI. It reflects the effort of the Saudi government to             Castells, Manuel. The Information Age: Economy, Society, and
> project itself as the bastion of Islamic orthodoxy, at once the      Culture. Oxford, U.K.: Blackwell, 1997.
> 
> 354                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Intifada
> 
> Eickelman, Dale F., and Anderson, Jon W., eds. New Media           as a form of collective punishment and for security reasons. In
> in the Muslim World: The Emerging Public Sphere. Bloom-         short, Israeli repression and unmet Palestinian expectations
> ington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1999.        of freedom and independence contributed to years of pent-up
> Mandaville, Peter. “Digital Islam: Information Technology          frustration, despair, and rage.
> and the Changing Boundaries of Religious Knowledge.”
> International Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern         Like the first Intifada, Palestinians in October 2000 began
> World Newsletter, no. 2 (March 1999): 21–24.                     by using nonviolent methods. After 144 Palestinians had been
> Sardar, Ziauddin. Cyberfutures: Culture and Politics on the        killed, however, Islamist groups, such as HAMAS and Islamic
> Information Superhighway. New York: New York Univer-            Jihad, began a campaign of suicide bombings against mostly
> sity Press, 1996.                                               civilians in the occupied territories and Israel, while groups
> associated with Fatah organization, such as al-Aqsa Martyr’s
> Bruce B. Lawrence      Brigade, focused on resistance against Israeli army incursions
> Miriam Cooke        and conducted attacks on settlers in the West Bank and Gaza.
> Starting in January 2002, al-Aqsa Brigade also began conducting suicide bombings against mostly Israeli civilians, a
> practice condemned by the international community. Yasir
> INTIFADA                                                           
Arafat, head of Fatah and the PLO, and president of the
> Palestinian Authority (PA) since 1996, did not initiate the
> Intifada (“shaking off”) is the name given to two Palestinian      Intifada, but he reportedly gave tacit approval to armed
> uprisings against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and      resistance and terrorism, despite his promise made in the
> Gaza Strip. The first began in December of 1987 as a popular        Oslo Accords in 1993 to Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin to
> uprising, its hallmark being the image of Palestinian youths       renounce “the use of terrorism and other acts of violence.”
> throwing rocks at Israeli soldiers and settlers in the occupied
> territories. This Intifada was triggered by an incident in Gaza        Sharon became Israel’s Prime Minister on 6 February
> that turned violent and subsequently spread rapidly to the         2001. A proponent of Greater Israel, an architect of the
> West Bank territories. Over the next several years, the Intifada   settlements, and an opponent of the Oslo process, he proescalated, involving demonstrations, strikes, riots, and vio-      ceeded, with broad public support, to use harsh measures
> lence against Israelis. The Intifada lasted until 1993 when, in    against the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. In
> response to the uprising, the Oslo Accords were drawn up           response to Palestinian violence, he initiated a policy of
> between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators.                       assassinations, euphemistically called “targeted killings,” of
> suspected terrorists leaders, but which included activists and
> Al-Aqsa Intifada began after Ariel Sharon, a leader of the     innocent bystanders. He reoccupied major Palestinian cities,
> Israeli right-wing LIKUD Party, visited al-Haram al-Sharif         using helicopter gunships, war planes and tanks. Some of
> (Temple Mount), in Jerusalem, on 28 September 2000. Al-            Sharon’s methods were condemned by both human rights
> Haram, which contains al-Aqsa Mosque, is the third holiest         groups and the United States.
> shrine of Islam. The visit was provocative to Palestinians,
> especially because Sharon was accompanied by one thousand             The Intifada was costly to the Palestinians, Israel, and the
> riot police, but what triggered the Intifada the following day     United States during the first thirty months. Some strategists,
> was the Israeli police use of live ammunition and rubber           including Palestinian analysts, considered the militarization
> bullets against unarmed, rock-throwing Palestinian demon-          of the Intifada to be a blunder. The Oslo process was
> strators, killing six and injuring 220.                            destroyed, 
Arafat sidelined, the Palestinian economy damaged, and the PA areas occupied, while settlement construc-
> The fundamental cause of al-Aqsa Intifada was the break-       tion continued apace. Sharon’s harsh measures cost the lives
> down, in July 2000, of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process       of over 2,000 Palestinians, of whom most were civilians,
> that had begun with the Oslo Accords of 1993. Palestinians         including about 275 children. In addition, the Palestinians
> expected that the Palestine Liberation Organization’s (PLO)        lost much popular, moral, and diplomatic support around the
> recognition of Israel, which was a part of that agreement,         world. The Intifada also cost the lives of over 700 Israelis,
> would lead to an end of the thirty-three-year Israeli occupa-      most of whom were civilians, brought insecurity to their lives,
> tion of the West Bank and Gaza, and to the establishment of a      and resulted in the loss of faith in the Palestinians as peace
> Palestine state. However, the number of Israeli settlers in the    partners.
> West Bank and Gaza doubled to 187,000 and increased to
> 170,000 in East Jerusalem in the 1990s, and Israel confiscated      See also Conflict and Violence; HAMAS; Human Rights.
> more Palestinian land for the settlements and their access
> roads. Israel extended its policy of restricting the movement      BIBLIOGRAPHY
> of Palestinians, and of establishing checkpoints where Pales-      Lockman, Zachary, and Beinin, Joel. Intifada: The Palestinian
> tinians experienced humiliation. Israel also continued to            Uprising Against Israeli Occupation. Boston: South End
> demolish homes and to uproot and burn olive and fruit trees,         Press, 1989.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                   355
> Iqbal, Muhammad
> 
> O’Ballance, Edgar. The Palestinian Intifada. New York: Mac-            Although calling for practical action in the world, Iqbal’s
> millan, 1998.                                                    poetry remained steeped in erudite, abstract, and metaphorical language and in the metrical conventions of the Persian
> Philip Mattar     tradition. At the same time he mixed in allusions to European
> literature and contemporary events. His most ambitious
> work, the Javid Nama (1932), a kind of Divina Commedia,
> recounts the poet’s journey through the solar system, guided
> IQBAL, MUHAMMAD                                                    by the great Sufi poet Jalaluddin Rumi (1207–1273 C.E.),
> (C. 1877–1938)                                                     encountering a wide range of mythic and historical figures.
> The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam (1930) sets
> Muhammad Iqbal, South Asian poet and ideological innova-           forth his social and religious philosophy, which seeks to
> tor, wrote poetry in Urdu and Persian and discursive prose,        construct a concept of a dynamic, democratic society inspired
> by the Quran and the life of the prophet Muhammad.
> primarily in English, of particular significance in the formu-
> Rejecting the goals of secular nationalism associated with
> lation of a national ethos for Pakistan. A popular lyric and
> Europe as a false division of matter and spirit, Iqbal’s ventures
> patriotic poet in his youth, he later shifted to more philointo politics as president of the Muslim League in 1930,
> sophical themes that sought to discover in the heritage of
> participation in the London Round Table Conferences in
> Islam a spirit of individual and social activism that would
> 1931 and 1932, and occasional commentary, set forth a
> inspire an alternative path to modernity and demonstrate the
> positive vision of a modern Muslim social and political order.
> universal relevance of Islam for the modern world. An opponent of nationalism, particularly the Indian nationalist move-     See also Liberalism, Islamic; Persian Language and
> ment, he promoted a renewed aspiration for a worldwide             Literature; South Asia, Islam in; Urdu Language,
> Muslim umma. Nevertheless, his advocacy of Muslim social           Literature, and Poetry.
> self-sufficiency and his occasionally more specific political
> statements were later construed in Pakistan as the guiding         BIBLIOGRAPHY
> principles for the country’s separation from India.
> Iqbal, Muhammad. The Secrets of the Self (Asrar-i-Khudi): A
> Philosophical Poem. Translated by Reynold A. Nicholson.
> Born in Sialkot, Punjab, of Kashmiri background and
> Lahore, Pakistan: Sh. Muhammad Ashraf, 1940.
> modest economic circumstances—his father had a small
> Iqbal, Muhammad. Javid-Nama. Translated by A. J. Arberry.
> tailoring and embroidery shop—Iqbal received an early edu-
> London: George Allen and Unwin, 1966.
> cation in Arabic and Persian and a British colonial education
> that earned him a masters degree in philosophy at Govern-          Iqbal, Muhammad. The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in
> Islam. 1951. Reprint, Lahore, Pakistan: Sh. Muhammad
> ment College, Lahore, where he also established his reputa-
> Ashraf, 1971.
> tion as a poet. His academic brilliance won him a scholarship
> to continue his studies at Cambridge University in 1905,           Iqbal, Muhammad. Iqbal: a Selection of the Urdu Verse. Translated by D. J. Matthews. London: School of Oriental and
> while also qualifying him as a barrister. He then earned a
> African Studies, University of London, 1993.
> Ph.D. in philosophy from Munich in 1908 with a dissertation,
> Schimmel, Annemarie. Gabriel’s Wing: A Study of the Religious
> The Development of Metaphysics in Persia, which was published
> Ideas of Sir Muhammad Iqbal. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1963.
> that year. His three years in Europe, during which he was
> immersed in philosophical idealism, also inspired a powerful
> David Lelyveld
> concern with the historical circumstances of Muslims throughout the world in the face of the technological and political
> domination of the West. His Urdu poem Shikwa (Complaint), in 1911, asked why God had allowed Muslims to fall        IRAN, ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF
> from their position as leaders of humanity.
> Founded in 1979 in the wake of a violent and dramatic
> To reach a wider Muslim audience and establish a deeper
> revolution, the Islamic Republic of Iran walked a delicate
> historical connection with the cosmopolitan civilization of
> tightrope between modernity and theocracy. For millions of
> Islam, Iqbal chose to write most of his later and more
> Muslims throughout the world, the Islamic Republic inspired
> philosophically ambitious poetry in Persian. Asrar-e khudi         hope that Muslim law could be applied to a modern nation
> (Secrets of the self, 1915), his first major poem in Persian, was   state, while for others who were opposed to its agenda, the
> a sharp rejection of the mystical goal of absorption into          country stood out as a repressive, fearful regime.
> undifferentiated being, which Iqbal associated with passivity
> on the part of individuals and communities. For Iqbal, the            The Islamic Revolution of 1978 and 1979 destroyed the
> assertion of khudi, individuality, allows for the possibility of   monarchy of the Pahlavis, who had pursued a secularization
> love and creativity in the unfinished creation of the world.        policy at the expense of the majority public opinion and
> 
> 356                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Iran, Islamic Republic of
> 
> allowed foreign investment to control large sectors of the
> national economy. Millions of Iranians of varying political
> persuasions—leftists, merchants, and ulema—were particularly troubled by the predominant influence of the American
> government on Iranian foreign policy and economic decisionmaking. Despite some gains for the population during the
> White Revolution (1967–1963) most Iranians lived in poverty, totally alienated from the luxury of the Pahlavi regime,
> and repressed by its security forces.
> 
> The revolution forced Muhammad Reza Shah (1919–1980)
> to abandon the country by January 1979, ushering the return
> of the exiled Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (1902–1989).
> Although Khomeini had been in exile since 1964, his anti-
> Western and anti-secularization messages had been distributed widely throughout the country, in both print and cassette form. In the wake of the shah’s exile, Khomeini returned
> to Iran in February 1979, becoming the spiritual figurehead
> of what was now an Islamic Revolution. On 1 April 1979,
> Iranians voted overwhelmingly to found an Islamic Republic.
> Their action was inspiring to some, and frightening to others.
> 
> From 1979 until 1982, Iran existed in a revolutionary
> crisis mode. The entire apparatus of government had collapsed, along with the economy. The military and police
> forces were in disarray, and battles between hard-line clerics
> and more moderate politicians raged in an effort to determine
> who would control the new society. The extreme anti-
> Western, and particularly anti-American, tone of the revolu-       Iranian clergymen wait to vote in Iranian parliamentary elections
> tion cut Iran off from the West, compounding its economic          in February, 2000, in the courtyard of the Masoumeh holy shrine
> in Qum, Iran. Though Muhammad Khatemi, elected as president
> problems, yet giving strength to its revolutionary credibility
> in 1997 and reelected in 2001, is seen as a liberal reformer
> among struggling nations. Although there were many fac-            interested in opening ties with the West, his stances are balanced
> tions against him, Khomeini was able to come to the forefront      by a conservative Islamic legislature heavily influenced by the
> of the government with the backing of the Revolutionary            ulema. AP/WIDE WORLD PHOTOS
> Guards, formed in 1979 to suppress opponents of the Islamic
> Republic, and a series of revolutionary tribunals, which meted
> States Embassy in Tehran, holding fifty-seven hostages for
> out harsh justice to collaborators of the Pahlavi regime. For
> 444 days. This inflamed Western hatred of the revolution,
> the next few years, those shaping the new Islamic government
> fueling its radicals further. Moreover, in September 1980,
> would completely crush their opposition in a bid to consoli-
> Iraq invaded Iran, hoping to take advantage of its fragility to
> date their power over Iran.
> seize control of its large oil fields, as well as to prevent the
> By the end of 1979, Iran had a new constitution, officially     spread of the revolution across its borders. While antideclaring the nation an Islamic Republic. The government           Western sentiment was fueling the purge of the military
> was structured with an elected president, a prime minister         establishment, Iran was now forced to mount a military
> chosen by the president, and an elected parliament, the            defense.
> Majlis, and a twelve-member Council of Guardians, domi-
> In the midst of these international problems, the Islamic
> nated by six religious jurists with veto power over all legisla-
> Republic’s first president, the secular leftist Abu ’l-Hasan
> tion passed by the elected parliament. Finally, the most
> powerful position in the government lay in the institution of      Bani-Sadr (b. 1933), attempted to rein in the power of the
> velayat-e faqih, which established the office of supreme jurist,    ulema at home by consolidating the power of local revoluone who would rule on all workings of government on behalf         tionary tribunals under the watch of the central government
> of the Hidden Imam of Twelver Shi
ism. This jurist would be        and by promoting secular reforms. However, the ulema
> Khomeini, effectively making him the supreme leader of the         resented his attempts to assert secular authority, as well as his
> Islamic Republic.                                                  botched efforts to resolve the hostage crisis with the Americans and the escalating war with Iraq. By 1981 Bani-Sadr was
> In 1980, the new republic faced serious new crises. In           impeached and forced into exile in France, the same place he
> November of 1979, students took control of the United              had been exiled during the shah’s regime. Now the road was
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                      357
> Iran, Islamic Republic of
> 
> paved for Khomeini and his Islamic Republic Party (estab-          1992 it went a step further and revoked government assistlished in 1979) to take full control of Iran.                      ance from any family with more than three children; and it
> made abortion legal up to 120 days after conception.
> In the first years of the Republic, a radical program of
> Islamization purged all secularists and leftists from education,       Such reforms made Khamanei and Iran’s third president,
> civil service, the military, and other aspects of public life.     
Ali-Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani (b. 1934), popular with mod-
> Universities were particularly altered, with new curricula and     erates in the country, but the republic continued throughout
> libraries privileging Islamic values over all others, and all      the 1990s and beyond to vacillate between periods of
> students with leftist backgrounds barred from attendance.          liberalization and moments of hard-line crackdown. Under
> Strict sex-segregation in public was enforced, and women           Rafsanjani, Iran’s markets became more open to Western
> were required to wear the traditional hijab while in public.       goods, but the clerical ruling class continued to exercise
> The Islamic Republic’s strict moral codes were enforced by         dramatic influence over all aspects of public life, particularly
> the Revolutionary Guards, who maintained a vigilant watch          in the realm of gender segregation and speaking out against
> over society on behalf of the clerical ruling class. All secular   Islam. Meanwhile, sales from Iran’s vast oil reserves could not
> law was replaced by Islamic interpretations, and those who         stabilize its economy, and people struggled to maintain their
> rebelled against Islamization were subject to imprisonment.
> families in the wake of increased prices.
> Meanwhile, the war between Iran and Iraq continued. For
> At the end of Rafsanjani’s second term, in 1997, spiraling
> eight years these neighboring nations battled in a brutal war
> inflation and public dissatisfaction with censorship ushered in
> of attrition, ultimately resulting in 262,000 Iranian casualties
> the presidency of Mohammad Khatami (b. 1943), a man
> and 105,000 Iraqi deaths. Iran stunned the world by repelling
> many saw as a reformer interested in opening up debate in
> the Iraqis and maintaining its borders, but it was not without
> Iranian political life and building social and political bridges
> cost. Iraqi bombing left 1.6 million Iranians homeless, and
> with the Western nations. Although he was reelected in 2001,
> the nation was forced to dip deep into its already unstable
> Khatami’s liberal positions were balanced by the clerical elite,
> financial reserves to accommodate widowed families and
> rebuild its damaged infrastructure. However, the Islamic           who continue to exert their influence over a conservative
> Republic was not toppled by Iraq; indeed, its ability to           legislature. Opening up Iran’s public culture to the influences
> maintain its sovereignty boosted public morale, despite the        of Western consumerism, secular government and nonterrible human and economic costs.                                 Islamic culture is still a sensitive issue in the Islamic Republic,
> more than two decades after the beginning of its dramatic
> In 1988 the war with Iraq ended, and Iranians now faced a       revolution. Despite landslide victories in two presidential
> hard question: Should they continue to reject all Western          elections (1997 and 2001), in the elections for municipal and
> overtures or was it possible to engage economically with           village councils in 1999, and in the parliamentary elections in
> Western nations and still remain Islamic in government? In         2000, Khatami and the reformists have made little progress in
> the next decade, Iran restored diplomatic relations with many      the power struggle against the clerical ruling elite.
> European countries. However, it did not restore ties with the
> United States, which continued to be its primary adversary on          The creation of the Islamic Republic of Iran was one of the
> the world stage. Even as late as 2002, the United States           most dramatic events of the twentieth century. For millions
> considered Iran part of an “axis of evil” in the world, while      of Muslims throughout the world, its foundation was a
> Iran continued regular anti-American protests in response.         symbol of the continued validity of their religion for the
> modern world. For those weary of theocracy, however, it
> With the death of Khomeini in 1989, grief struck the           stood as a symbol to be feared. For many Iranians and others,
> Islamic Republic, and the ruling establishment had to find a        the Islamic Republic continues to represent, in the words of
> replacement for the society’s preeminent religious guide.          its founder Khomeini, a “third way, neither East nor West.”
> The new supreme jurist, Sayyed 
Ali Khamanei (b. 1939),
> had been president since 1981 and had assumed the position,        See also Abu ’l-Hasan Bani-Sadr; Hashemi-Rafsanjani,
> knowing full well that Iran faced tremendous difficulties.          
Ali-Akbar; Khomeini, Ruhollah; Muhammad Reza
> Normalizing the nation after years of revolution and war, and      Shah Pahlevi; Revolution: Islamic Revolution in Iran.
> stabilizing an economy facing a shocking demographic shift
> would be difficult. In the early 1980s, the new regime had
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> banned birth control and abortion, and the government
> promoted the notion that all families should have as many          Keddie, N. R. Modern Iran: Roots and Results of Revolution.
> New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2003.
> children as they could provide for. This gave Iran a birthrate
> of 3.9 percent by 1983, and the population nearly doubled to       Mackey, Sandra. The Iranians: Persia, Islam and the Soul of a
> over sixty million people by 1990. That year the government,         Nation. New York: Dutton, 1996.
> overloaded with trying to provide for such a massive increase,
> changed its policy, allowing contraception once again. In                                                        Nancy L. Stockdale
> 
> 358                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Islam and Islamic
> 
> was not translated into Latin but there are indications that
> IRHAB See Terrorism                                               some of his ideas were known in the Latin West perhaps
> through Hebrew sources and a number of Jewish philosophers who were ishraqi in their perspective.
> 
> The ishraqi school holds that the origin of philosophy is
> ISHRAQI SCHOOL                                                    divine revelation and that this wisdom was handed down in
> ancient times to the Persians and the Greeks, creating two
> The term ishraq, from the Arabic root sh-r-q, meaning both        traditions that met again in Suhrawardi, who spoke explicitly
> illumination and orient, has been used in a general sense in      of eternal wisdom or the perennial philosophy. This school
> several contexts in Islam, including in reference to certain      believes that authentic philosophy must combine the training
> currents of Sufism. More specifically, however, the term            of the mind with the purification of the heart and that all
> ishraqi refers to the school of philosophy/theosophy founded      authentic knowledge is ultimately an illumination. The ishraqis
> by Shaykh Shihab al-Din Suhrawardi in the twelfth century         always emphasized the unbreakable link between philosophy
> C.E. The most important source of this school of thought is       and spirituality and the salvific power of illuminative knowlthe major opus of Suhrawardi, Hikmat al-ishraq (“Theosophy        edge. They considered God to be the Light of lights and all
> of the Orient of Light” also known as The Philosophy of           degree of cosmic reality to be levels and grades of light. They
> Illumination), which is also the name of this school in tradi-    rejected the sensualist epistemology of Aristotle and were
> tional Islamic languages. Certain other works of Suhrawardi,      critical of not only Aristotelian cosmology but also of his logic
> especially his Hayakil al-nur (Temples of light), are also of     and epistemology.
> much importance for the later ishraqi tradition.
> During the twentieth century the teachings of Suhrawardi
> After Suhrawardi was killed by the political authorities in   were introduced to the West by Henry Corbin and have
> Aleppo in 1191, followers of his teachings went underground       attracted many European philosophers. In Persia and certain
> for a generation. But in the middle thirteenth century two        other Islamic countries there is also a major revival of interest
> major commentaries on Hikmat al-ishraq appeared, the first         in Suhrawardi and the ishraqi school.
> by Shams al-Din Shahrazuri and the second by Qutb al-Din
> Shirazi, the next two major figures of the ishraqi school. From    See also Falsafa; Ibn al-
Arabi; Mulla Sadra; Tasawwuf;
> that time on, the teachings of this school became widespread,     Wahdat al-wujud.
> especially in Persia itself from which Suhrawardi had hailed.
> Such figures as 
Allama al-Hilli and Jalal al-Din Dawani           BIBLIOGRAPHY
> wrote commentaries on Suhrawardi in the thirteenth and            Aminrazavi, M. Suhrawardi and the School of Illumination.
> fourteenth centuries. The founder of the School of Isfahan,         London: Curzon, 1997.
> Mir Damad, who lived in the Safavid period that began in          Corbin, Henry. History of Islamic Philosophy. Translated by L.
> Persia in 1499 and lasted until the eighteenth century, was         Sherrard. London: Kegan Paul International, 1993.
> influenced by Suhrawardi and used the name Ishraq for his          Nasr, Seyyed Hossein. The Islamic Intellectual Tradition in
> pen name. Mulla Sadra, his student, wrote one of the major          Persia. London: Curzon, 1996.
> works of the ishraqi school, his annotations on the Hikmat al-    Ziai, H. Knowledge and Illumination. A Study of Suhrawardi’s
> ishraq. Later Persian philosophers such as Sabziwari were also       Hikmat al-ishraq. Atlanta, Ga.: Scholars Press, 1990.
> deeply interested in ishraqi teachings, and a figure such as the
> nineteenth-century philosopher Shihab al-Din Kumijani was                                                    Seyyed Hossein Nasr
> a purely ishraqi figure.
> 
> The school of ishraq also spread into India and had many
> followers there, including Fathallah Shirazi and Muhammad         ISLAM AND ISLAMIC
> Sharif Hirawi. Suhrawardi’s teachings became in fact a part of
> the program of traditional Islamic madrasas, a program that       The word islam is a verbal noun (Ar., masdar) in Arabic for the
> came to be known as the Nizami curriculum. The ishraqi            action of submission or total commitment, usually referring
> school attracted even the attention of Hindus and the Parsis      to acceptance of and submission to the will of God. It is the
> of India.                                                         name identifying the faith tradition and community of those
> who believe that there is one God and that the prophet
> Likewise, the teachings of the ishraqi school spread widely   Muhammad was God’s messenger, and the person who subin the Ottoman Empire, especially in Anatolia, and produced       mits is a “Muslim.” In the Quran, islam appears eight times.
> some notable figures such as Isma
il Anqarawi, who lived in        It is associated with the concept of din, which is translated in
> the seventeenth century. The complete history of this school      modern times as “religion” but has a broader sense of includin the Islamic world, especially in India and the Ottoman         ing creed, normative standards, and the whole range of
> Empire, has not been fully studied. As for the West, Suhrawardi   standard behavior. The Quran affirms that “With God, the
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                    359
> Islam and Other Religions
> 
> din is al-islam” (3:19), which can be translated more generally    Smith, Wilfred Cantwell. The Meaning and End of Religion.
> as stating “With God, the true way is submission” or more            New York: Macmillan Company, 1963.
> specifically, “With God, true religion is Islam.”
> John O. Voll
> In the historical development of the faith tradition and
> community of Muslims, the term “Islam” is important in at
> least two different frameworks. In religious thought, one
> important issue was defining the relationship between Islam,        ISLAM AND OTHER RELIGIONS
> identified as submission to God expressed in observance of
> ritual requirements and social behavior, and iman or the inner     Understanding the relations between Muslims and a variety
> faith of the believer. In this issue, the concept of islam was a   of religious “Others,” including Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians,
> component part of the broader structure and vocabulary of          Hindus, Buddhists, as well as Africans, Chinese, Mongols,
> theology.                                                          Turks, and Westerners, depends on how one defines religion
> and religious. In addition, there is a diversity of Muslim
> A second significant framework is that “Islam” was used as
> identities that shapes the various perceptions of and relations
> the term denoting the whole body of the faith tradition and
> to religious Others, just as there are many identities other
> the peoples and regions where Islam was practiced. Within
> than religious ones that intersect with the Muslim-Others
> this context, the identification of someone as a “Muslim” gave
> duality, such as tribal, ethnic, linguistic, national, and the like.
> emphasis to being a member of the community of those who
> recognize the Quran as the record of God’s revelation and            As with any categorization of identities and concepts, the
> Muhammad as the messenger of God, with less emphasis on            boundaries between Islam and Others remain fluid, and
> the particular practices and behavior of the individual Muslim.    exceptions can often be found. The most striking example of
> this fluidity is the term umma, which came to mean, from the
> This usage facilitated the transition to modern usage in
> first centuries of Islam until today, the community of all
> which “Islam” is identified in the scholarly study of this
> Muslims in contradistinction to all Others, whether religious
> religion as one of the major religions of the world. This
> or not. Yet, initially, umma included Muslims as well as nonreification of “Islam” was similar to the processes of Western
> Muslims, and it especially included Jews, as indicated in the
> scholarly classification of other “world religions,” as in what
> so-called Constitution of Medina negotiated by the prophet
> came to be called “Hinduism” or “Confucianism.” Initially,
> Muhammad as a basis for the migration of his nascent Islamic
> other objectionable and historically inaccurate terms like
> community from Mecca to Medina in 622 C.E. The umma
> “Mohammedanism” were used but they have gradually been
> referred to then was inclusive of all the peoples living in
> displaced in common usage by “Islam.”
> Medina under the leadership of the prophet Muhammad.
> By the late twentieth century, in the context of the Islamic
> It is nevertheless possible to generalize and say that the
> resurgence, some made a distinction between “Muslim” used
> history of Muslim-Other relations has been interpreted by
> as an adjective and “Islamic.” The term Muslim is increas-
> Muslims through the lenses of a tripartite theological division
> ingly identified with the existing community and the pracof the human world: Muslims, who submit to the will of God
> tices of people self-identified as Muslim. The term “Islamic”
> as revealed in the Quran; People of the Book, who believe in
> has sometimes been reserved for those instances where there
> the same God although their knowledge comes from a disis a conscious effort to reflect the fundamental principles and
> torted version of the original divine revelation; and Unbelievideals of Islam interpreted in a relatively restrictive way. In
> ers, who either associate idols to God or deny God’s existence.
> this usage, for example, a “Muslim state” is a state where the
> This categorization emerged out of the unique historical
> majority of the people are Muslim, while an “Islamic state”
> context of the lifetime of the prophet Muhammad, (ca.
> would be one in which there is a formal program of im-
> 570–632 C.E.) in central Arabia, and evolved over time, beplementation of the regulations and ideals of Islam. “Iscoming increasingly complex as Islam grew in numbers and in
> lam” remains the identification of the religion underlying
> geographical spread.
> both usages.
> The Lifetime of the Prophet Muhammad
> See also Islamicate Society.
> The first period of Muslim-Other relations corresponds to
> the lifetime of the prophet Muhammad. The best sources on
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                       these first relations between Muslims and religious Others
> Arkoun, Mohammed. Rethinking Islam: Common Questions,              include pre-Islamic poems, the Quran, early hadith, and
> Uncommon Answers. Translated by Robert D. Lee. Boul-            biographies. While the reliability of these sources for historider, Colo.: Westview, 1994.                                     cal reconstruction has been highly debated in recent years, it
> Asad, Talal. Genealogies of Religion. Baltimore, Md.: The          remains possible to infer that prior to 610 C.E., when the
> Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993.                           prophet Muhammad is believed to have received the first
> 
> 360                                                                                              Islam and the Muslim World
> Islam and Other Religions
> 
> Quranic revelation, his encounters with religious Others           The short history of Muslim-Jewish relations in Medina that
> primarily included Christians and Jews that he may have met         had started well with the Constitution of Medina ended up
> in some Arabian oasis as well as during his northern caravan        tragically with the disappearance of the Jewish tribes from the
> trips into greater Syria. With subsequent revelations, which        oasis. These various historical events are reflected in the
> he continued to receive until his death in 632 C.E., the prophet    many, and at times contradictory, Quranic passages regard-
> Muhammad gradually distanced himself from the various               ing the Jews in general and Muslim-Jewish relations in
> tribal practices of his fellow Quraysh tribesmen while devel-       particular.
> oping a new Islamic identity, thereby turning most Meccans
> of his own clan and tribe into religious Others too. Together          This brief history holds the hermeneutical keys to the
> with the earliest converts, the prophet Muhammad experi-            subsequent treatment of Jews and other minorities on the
> enced a series of encounters with religious Others that in-         basis of analogy. The hermeneutical concept of abrogation
> cluded an increasingly hostile Meccan resistance as well as         (which holds that later revelations supercede earlier ones) has
> hunafa (sg. hanif: monotheistic ascetics), Jews, and Christians     been used at different times in Islamic history, but especially
> of mostly unknown theological leanings, except for the small        in the later part of the twentieth century, to claim more
> number of early Muslim converts who sought refuge with              intolerant and exclusivist positions regarding Jews, but others
> Ethiopian Christians in the Abyssinian kingdom in 615 C.E.          favor a return to the ideal of the constitution of Medina
> because it implies that a more tolerant and inclusivist ap-
> A greater formative influence came from 622 C.E. onward,         proach was willed initially by the prophet Muhammad. In
> after the prophet Muhammad had negotiated the Constitu-             reconstructing these historical encounters, contemporary
> tion of Medina, which allowed the Muslim community to               Muslims and non-Muslims alike have uncovered a dual hismigrate there from Mecca. This agreement not only pro-              torical process: The historical events of the pristine commuvided an escape for the nascent Muslim community increas-           nity become paradigmatic models that shape future relations.
> ingly threatened in Mecca, but it also propelled the prophet        With newer historical events, new interpretations emerge,
> Muhammad to the status of both arbitrator and religio-              but always within the conceptual framework of what the
> political leader of this oasis. Its two largest, formerly animist   paradigm initially set forth. This process can be exemplified
> tribes, the Aws and Khazraj, had been fighting each other for        today in how the constitution of Medina serves as a rich
> many years before they settled on the prophet Muhammad as           historical and theological document to guide contemporary
> their arbitrator. The Constitution stipulated the conditions        reinterpretations of how Muslims ought to relate to religious
> for the Prophet’s intervention as leader, as were the respec-       Others, especially within contemporary nation-states in which
> tive rights and responsibilities of the immigrant Muslims and       Muslims comprise the majority population.
> Ansars (the newly converted Medinan Muslims of the the
> Aws and Khazraj), as well as those of the three small Jewish        The Early Muslim Conquests: 632–750 C.E.
> tribes (Banu Qaynuqa
, Banu Nadir and Banu Qurayza).                The second period in Muslim-Other relations begins after
> the death of the prophet Muhammad, in 632 C.E. With the
> Within the Constitution, Jews were included in the defi-         sudden departure of their religiopolitical leader, Muslims
> nition of the one community or umma. This marked the                developed additional and, at times, overlapping categorizabeginning of a short period of cooperation between Muslims          tions and concepts to manage their relations with religious
> and Jews that has left permanent traces in Muslims’ self-           Others, whether within the nascent Islamic polity or outside
> understanding as monotheists, such as the incorporation into        of it. The dual categorization of the house of Islam (dar al-
> Islamic beliefs of the long genealogy of Jewish prophets. In        islam) versus the house of war (dar al-harb) emerged to
> addition, early Muslims recognized Jesus as another Jewish          describe the relations between Muslims in Muslim-controlled
> prophet, albeit with some unique Christian characteristics,         areas and Others in non-Muslim controlled areas.
> such as the virgin birth and the special role he played in being
> the messenger of the injil (Gospel). Other influences included           Within Muslim-controlled areas, the concept of the prothe brief use of Jerusalem as the direction for daily prayers,      tected people (ahl al-dhimmi) arose to regulate Muslim-Other
> the development of fasting during the month of Ramadhan in          relations. The dhimmis, organized collectively by religion,
> opposition to and part imitation of the day of atonement (yom       had to pay a head tax (jizya) and a land tax (kharaj) in exchange
> kippur), and the emphasis on orality within a sacred textuality,    for military protection by Muslim armies. They included
> later developing into the unique religious legalism that makes      Jews, Christians, and Sabians, as noted in the Quran, but
> Islam so similar to Judaism. However, in 624, due to attacks        soon also included Zoroastrians, who constituted the majorfrom the Meccans and accusations of treasons, the Jewish            ity population of the Sassanian Empire, which was taken over
> tribe of Banu Qaynuqa
 was expelled from Medina. A year             by Muslims within a decade of the Prophet’s death. There
> later, after another defeat, the Banu Nadir suffered the same       were a few exceptions to this general practice, such as the
> fate. Finally, in 627, after a long siege of Medina itself, the     Armenians contributing men to the Umayyad army to fight
> barely victorious Muslims exterminated the last Jewish tribe,       against the Byzantine Empire, thereby briefly avoiding the
> the Banu Qurayza, under recurring accusations of treason.           jizya tax. Yet, on the whole, these new categorizations and
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                      361
> Islam and Other Religions
> 
> concepts remained central to Islam for over a thousand years.    customary practices (
ada) in various parts of the expanding
> They continue to this day to be used in their traditional        Muslim world. This flexibility in the Islamic legal system to
> meanings by many Muslims, while a few others reinterpret         accommodate many local cultural practices that did not
> them in light of new modern political realities. The silent      directly infringe on central Islamic tenets greatly enabled the
> majority probably dismisses these traditional categorizations    long term consolidation of Islam wherever it spread. Muslimand meanings as no longer relevant.                              Other relations thus often proved to be a two-way bridge with
> mutual influences.
> The Consolidation of Power: 750–1258 C.E.
> The centralization and consolidation of Muslim political             An important incursion into the heart of Islamic lands
> power was exemplified respectively by the first and second         occurred when the Crusaders captured Jerusalem, in 1099.
> halves of the Abbasid Empire (749–1258 C.E.). This long          Their arrival was marked by massacres of both Muslims and
> period witnessed a slow conversion process that led to the       Jews. They were considered barbarians by the mostly Muslim
> gradual emergence of majority Muslim societies in what came      local population. Salah al-Din recovered Jerusalem in 1187
> to be known as central Islamic lands from Spain (al-Andalus)     without any bloodshed. The Crusaders slowly lost control of
> to central Asia. Internally, most religious Others within        their principalities until their last defeat, in 1302. The mem-
> Muslim polities were Islamized over generations. In part         ory of the Crusades remains alive to this day, having caused
> because Islamic worldviews and practices became normative        great distrust between Muslims and Christians in particular.
> in these regions, exerting social pressure to convert, and in    Today, many Arab Muslims use this historical vignette as a
> part because dhimmi laws came to be perceived as discrimina-     trope for interpreting mid- to late-twentieth and early twentytory and no longer as relevant in a period of pax islamica.      first-century politics associated with the creation of the State
> Externally, in addition to the People of the Book, Muslims in    of Israel.
> South and Central Asia came into contact with increasing
> numbers of Hindus, Buddhists, and a variety of Turkic and        The Continued Expansion of Islam: 1258–1798 C.E.
> Chinese Others, which often rendered the boundary between        After consolidation, Islam continued to spread through a
> religion and culture harder to delineate.                        slow process of land migrations and conversions in Southeastern Europe; sub-Saharan Africa; and South, Southeast
> The greatest experiment in coexistence and mutual reand East Asia, up to and into the colonial period. This was a
> spect between Muslims on the one hand and Jews and
> vast and mostly peaceful expansion on the peripheries of
> Christians on the other is undoubtedly the case of Muslim
> central Islamic lands, with two exceptions: the Ottoman
> Spain, al-Andalus, during its own Umayyad dynasty (756–1031
> Empire (1300–1918), centered in what is today called Tur-
> C.E.). The degree of symbiosis that emerged, especially during
> key, and the Mughal Empire (1483–1858) of South Asia.
> the respective but not sequential reigns of the three 
Abd al-
> Between the two, the smaller and short-lived Safavid Empire
> Rahmans (styled I, II, and III), is exemplary of its popular
> (1501–1722) exemplified the internal Islamic conversion from
> name, the Golden Age of Spain.
> Sunni to Twelver Shi
ite Islam, bringing few changes to the
> By the end of the weakened Abbasid Empire, the destruc-      interpretation of religious Others. The continued presence,
> tion brought about in the mid-thirteenth century by the          albeit dwindling, of Zoroastrians, Assyrian Christians, and
> Mongol invasions from the east to what had been the center       Jews proved the long-term resilience of the traditional Isof Islamic power surprisingly resulted in the Islamic conver-    lamic system of ahl al-dhimma, traces of which are found
> sion of this new enemy. The changes brought about by this        today in the fixed Jewish, Christian, and Zoroastrian seats in
> rapid influx of new cultural traditions from peripheral nomadic   the democratically elected parliament of the Islamic Repubcultures were therefore not as dramatic, but they did bring      lic of Iran.
> about a certain cleansing that resulted in a greater homogene-
> At the height of its power in the sixteenth and seventeenth
> ity in those parts of the Muslim world. A similar phenomenon
> centuries, the Ottoman Empire expanded dramatically into
> had already happened earlier at the extreme west of the
> Southeastern Europe and besieged Vienna twice (1529 and
> Islamic world, with the sequential waves of the al-Murabitun
> 1683). The Ottomans refined the millet system, an adminis-
> (Almoravids 1056–1147) and the al-Muwahhidun (Almohads
> 1130–1269), sweeping from the Sahara into what is now            trative elaboration on the ahl al-dhimma concept that accom-
> Morocco and Spain. They were reacting in part to the             modated religious diversity and often provided each religious
> Christian Reconquista that was gradually taking over Muslim-     community (milla) with a large degree of autonomy. Howcontrolled areas in the Iberian Peninsula.                       ever, the Ottomans also developed the practice of devshirme:
> the forcible conscription and conversion to Islam of young
> The long Abbasid period was marked by the consolidation       Christian boys, especially in the Balkans, in order to build an
> of Islamic laws that became normative and remain so up to        elite military corps, the Janissaries. Since much benefit could
> this day. They consolidated many practices regarding non-        have come from a link to central power through one’s son, at
> Muslims through the integration of earlier key concepts such     times, Christian elite families, even some Muslim families,
> as People of the Book and ahl al-dhimma, together with           offered up their sons to the Ottomans voluntarily.
> 
> 362                                                                                          Islam and the Muslim World
> Islam and Other Religions
> 
> At the same time, in South Asia, the Mughal Empire              The Post-Colonial Period: 1945 to the Present
> reached its apogee. The difference was that the majority of         The post-colonial period has seen a continuation of many
> the population under its control, mostly Hindus, never con-         established trends, despite the emergence of independent
> verted to Islam. The Mughal emperors used radically differ-         nation-states. New technologies, however, brought about
> ent approaches in their relations to their subjects. While the      radical changes in migration patterns: Muslim workers were
> initial and later Muslim military and political presence in         brought into Western Europe in the 1950s and 1960s, others
> South Asia witnessed much intolerance and destruction, the          migrated to Australia and the Americas, especially to North
> most powerful of its emperors, Akbar (1542–1605) and his            America. In the United States, important African-American
> nephew Dara Shukoh (1615–1659), tried to have Hindus                conversions to Islam started a local Islamization process that
> recognized as People of the Book. Emperor Akbar even                is currently unfolding rapidly, despite the backlash in Amerideveloped his own religion, din ilahi, that combined Islamic        can perceptions of Muslims.
> and Hindu worldviews and practices. While his efforts were
> ultimately unsuccessful, a similar but more popular effort led          Scientism was imported initially through colonialism and
> to the development of Sikhism in the Punjab.                        later strengthened by programs of national education supported by the westernized Muslim elites of newly independent
> The Colonial Period: 1798–1945 C.E.                                 majority Muslim nation-states. With this, much Orientalist
> The period of Western European colonization of most ma-             thinking was integrated into popular modern Islamic selfjority Muslim lands radically changed the nature of power           understanding. This influence is clearly at work in the rise of
> dynamics in Muslim-Other relations. In 1798, Napoleon               militant Islam, which is a phenomenon similar to Christian
> invaded Egypt for a brief period of three years. This event is      fundamentalism in the West in that they both essentialize
> often referred to as the symbolic beginning of a major shift in     their understanding of religion in political discourses. The
> power between Muslims and non-Muslim Others, whether                result is a growing reciprocal popular intolerance between
> religious or not. While earlier political events such as the        the West and Islam, further fueled by the 11 September 2001
> Crusades, the Reconquista, as well as the Mongol and Turkic         events in the United States and their subsequent impact on
> (Tamerlane 1336–1405) invasions directly impinged on ma-            world politics.
> jority Muslim areas, the first was relatively brief, the second
> took place over centuries, and the third and fourth resulted in         The encounter with modernity through colonialism has
> the conversion to Islam of the new Mongol and Turkic rulers,        taken a toll on the possibility of seeing positively the values of
> the last two being more inconspicuous in the collective             democracy, the rule of law (Western style), and human rights,
> memory despite their even more violent histories than that of       because such discourses come from political oppressors. With
> the Crusades. In contrast, the military and political Western       the continuation of this control through the more subtle
> European takeover of most of the world between 1492 and             forces of neo-liberal discourse and globalization, the West
> 1945 took place together with an economic, cultural, and            has become an overarching Other among many Muslims
> ideological penetration that overwhelmed majority Muslim            worldwide. The cost of this has been the development of a
> societies. For the first time in their history they lost control     major malaise for many westernized Muslims, and especially
> over the balance of power that they had collectively held since     for Muslims living in the West itself. Yet, the Muslim world is
> their earliest memories. Only Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and to a        no different from many other religiocultural worlds that have
> lesser degree, Iran, retained some measure of independence.         fought to distinguish between modernization, which they
> want to participate in for its obvious material benefits, and
> Parallel to this colonial enterprise was the introduction of    westernization, which often imposes Western values and
> new scientific discourses that have sought, ever since the           models for democracy upon societies that have their own
> Enlightenment period, objective truth about the world, both         cultural heritage and blueprints for collective decision-making.
> material and human. The part of science which has dealt
> with discovering the truth about Islam has been known as               The interaction between Muslims and Others in general
> Orientalism. This influential school of thought helped con-          remains a two-way bridge of potential mutual benefits, if only
> solidate power in the hands of the colonial masters by means        reciprocal fears did not prevent many of both sides from
> of arguments that often, though not always, supported the           traveling across it. The advent of interreligious dialogue in
> logic of empire: The West would civilize the backward               the later part of the twentieth century has encouraged this
> Islamic world (as part of the ‘Orient’). Yet, despite its politi-   movement, however. Many contemporary Muslims are thinkcally pro-Western bias, Orientalist scholarship also brought        ing anew not only their relationship to sacred Islamic texts
> about new standards of interpretation and preservation of           and their various traditions of interpretation in light of
> much Islamic heritage, resulting in greater mutual under-           historicocritical and dialogical methods of inquiry, but are
> standing. Nonetheless, much of the Muslim-Other relations           also reconsidering the very nature of their interdependence
> during this period were reduced to Muslim-Westerner rela-           with religious Others, whether by opposition or attraction.
> tions, due to the unavoidable colonial power of the West.           With the advent of Western European colonialism and the
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                       363
> Islamicate Society
> 
> emergence of postcolonial nation-states, as well as the expan-       understand Islam. The converse for any religious Others who
> sion of Muslims worldwide in modern times, the balance of            have come in contact with Muslims throughout their history
> power has recently undergone radical change. Many of the             is equally true.
> older Islamic categorizations and concepts that have served
> Muslim-Other relations relatively well in the past have now          See also Andalus, al-; Central Asia, Islam in; Christianeither faded or been judged as obsolete by well-thinking but         ity and Islam; Dar al-Harb; Dar al-Islam; East Asia,
> often paternalistic modernists, or else are in the process of        Islam in; European Culture and Islam; Expansion;
> being reinterpreted for a better integration of past and             Hinduism and Islam; Hospitality and Islam; Internet;
> present, as well as internal and external aspects of Islam.          Judaism and Islam; Modernism; Networks, Muslim;
> Orientalism; Science, Islam and; South Asia, Islam in;
> The New Expansion of Islam in Cyberspace:                            Theology; Umma; Vernacular Islam.
> 1995 to the Present
> The advent of the Internet is radically changing the nature of       BIBLIOGRAPHY
> communication worldwide, creating transnational communi-             Bamyeh, Mohammed A. The Social Origins of Islam: Mind,
> ties of all kinds into virtual entities that are both global and       Economy, Discourse. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
> local at once. This transformation brings in its wake new rules        Press, 1999.
> of communication and the potential for new forms of grass-           Daniel, Norman. Islam and the West: The Making of an Image.
> roots politics, as well as a paradoxical understanding of what         Oxford, U.K.: Oneworld, 1993.
> constitutes private and public spaces, thereby affecting both        Esack, Farid. Quran, Liberation, and Pluralism: An Islamic
> traditional Islamic self-understanding as well as Muslim-               Perspective of Interreligious Solidarity Against Oppression.
> Other relations. The potential impact of this new period of             Oxford, U.K.: Oneworld, 1997.
> expansion is as yet unknown for the future of Islam and              Hillenbrand, C. The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives. Edinburgh:
> Muslim-Other relations. This cyberspace expansion helps at              Edinburgh University Press, 1999.
> once to sustain greater cultural and religious continuities          Laiou, Angeliki E., and Mottahedeh, Roy Parviz, eds. The
> globally, despite large migration movements, and yet threat-            Crusades from the Perspective of Byzantium and the Muslim
> ens the fabric of traditional Islam by its very intrusion into the      World. Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research
> private spaces of those who can afford being wired into this            Library and Collection, c. 2001.
> new space to be explored, shared, disputed, but never truly          Madigan, Daniel A. The Quran’s Self-Image: Writing and
> conquered.                                                             Authority in Islam’s Scripture. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
> University Press, 2001.
> Complex, Ongoing History                                             Runciman, S. A History of the Crusades. Cambridge, U.K.:
> Throughout their long history, Muslims have continued to               Cambridge University Press, 1951.
> develop and expand worldwide, bringing them into contact             Waardenburg, Jacques, ed. Muslim Perceptions of Other Religwith a variety of religious and nonreligious Others. The               ions: A Historical Survey. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University
> legacy of those encounters is rich and complex, with moments           Press, 1999.
> of great tolerance and cross-fertilization as well as episodes of    Yeor, Bat. Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide.
> intolerance and mutual violence. External and internal influ-            Teaneck, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2002.
> ences from religious Others have been felt at all times and
> continue to this day. What has changed the equation from                                                         Patrice C. Brodeur
> tolerance to intolerance at different times in history, including very recently, is the degree to which threats and insecurities are perceived by a Muslim community that has internalized
> the ideal of political control as an implicit measure of its         ISLAMICATE SOCIETY
> collective identity and success, from the inherited reading of
> its own history from the time of the prophet Muhammad                The term Islamicate culture was coined by Marshall Hodgson
> until today.                                                         (d. 1968) in the first volume of his The Venture of Islam (1974).
> Hodgson invented the term in response to the confusion
> The history of Muslim-Other relations is, therefore, a           surrounding such terms as “Islamic,” “Islam,” and “Muslim”
> complex and ongoing set of both tolerant and intolerant              when they are used to describe aspects of society and culture
> attitudes and episodes. Both sets are diverse in kind at any one     that are found throughout the Muslim world. Hodgson used
> time, even sometimes contradictory to one another; they are          the term to describe cultural manifestations arising out of an
> shaped by socio-political, theological, and ideological reali-       Arabic and Persian literate tradition, which does not refer
> ties that change over time, albeit at different rhythms. Inter-      directly to the Islamic religion but to the “social and cultural
> nal dynamics within Muslim societies have always been                complex historically associated with Islam and the Muslims,
> interdependent with external ones. The history of Muslim-            both among Muslims themselves and even when found among
> Other relations is, therefore, an integral part of any search to     non-Muslims” (p. 59). For example, Hodgson argued that
> 
> 364                                                                                              Islam and the Muslim World
> Islamic Salvation Front
> 
> there are a variety of artistic, architectural, and literary styles   succeeded in eliminating the security threat of the Jihad, at a
> indicative of Islamicate culture. No matter where these aes-          high cost of repression and violation of the basic human right
> thetic styles are found, they are identifiable as deriving from        of nonviolent opposition. Some Jihad members escaped into
> Islamicate cultural complexes. Thus, if one finds the use of           Afghanistan and joined Usama bin Ladin in forming alarabesques, calligraphy, or arched doorways anywhere in the           Qa
ida. The most prominent of them is Ayman Zawahiri,
> world, these forms are identifiable as Islamicate in origin. In        second to Bin Laden and linked to the terrorist attacks of 11
> constrast, Hodgson argued that those elements of Islamic              September 2001.
> society that are not shared by non-Muslims are not indicative
> of Islamicate culture (for instance, mosque architecture). Due           The Palestinian Harakat al-jihad al-Islami (Islamic Jihad
> to the overriding influence of Islam on non-Muslims living             Movement) was founded by Fathi al-Shiqaqi and 
Abd alwithin Muslim realms, however, Hodgson used the term to               
Aziz 
Auda in 1981. Both studied in Egypt and were infludemonstrate the importance of Islam as a cultural force that          enced by the teachings of Egyptian radical Islamists. Another
> influenced non-Muslim forms of art, literature, and custom.            inspiration was the Iranian Revolution. The main goal of this
> organization is the liberation of Palestine, as the central issue
> See also Islam and Islamic.                                           for Muslims, and the establishment of an Islamic state. At
> least two other groups embrace the same name, but the
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                          Shiqaqi faction remains the largest. The group carried out
> Hodgson, Marshall G. S. The Venture of Islam: Conscience and          several violent attacks against Israelis prior to the first intifada
> History in a World Civilization. Chicago: University of             (1987–1993), in which it was active. Israel retaliated by
> Chicago Press, 1974.                                                expelling its two founders, and arresting and even assassinat-
> Martin, Richard C. Islamic Studies: A History of Religions            ing some of its activists, including Shiqaqi, who was mur-
> Approach. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1996.            dered by the Mossad (the Israeli secret service) in Malta in
> October 1995. Ramadan Shalah succeeded Shiqaqi as the
> R. Kevin Jaques      organization’s Secretary General. Since the establishment of
> Hamas in 1988, the Islamic Jihad has lost some of its appeal.
> Despite hostility in the late 1980s between the two groups,
> both have closed ranks in their opposition to the Oslo
> ISLAMIC JIHAD                                                         agreement and the Palestinian Authority, and after 1994,
> were joined in this effort by leftist Palestinian groups. Since
> Two groups have the name Islamic Jihad (sometimes called
> the outbreak of the second intifada in September 2000, the
> the Organization of the Islamic Jihad), one Egyptian, the
> Jihad has taken active part in fighting occupation forces and
> other Palestinian. These two movements contend that armed
> assailing Israeli civilians.
> struggle is the Islamically ordained form of striving against a
> corrupt authoritarian regime in Egypt and military occupa-            See also Ikhwan al-Muslimin; Political Islam; Qa
ida,
> tion in Palestine. Both were influenced by the teachings of the        al-.
> Muslim Brothers, but grew more critical of its reformist
> approach.                                                             BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Faraj, Mohamed 
Abd al-Salam. Al-Jihad: al-farida al-gha’iba
> A small group of students founded the Egyptian Tanzim                (Jihad: The forgotten obligation). Jerusalem: Maktabet 
Iz
> al-Jihad (Jihad organization) in Alexandria in 1977. The Jihad           al-Din al-Qassam, 1982.
> concentrated its activities in Cairo, while its rival al-Gama
a       Ghadbian, Najib. “Political Islam and Violence.” New Politial-Islamiyya (The Islamic Group) dominated Upper Egypt.                 cal Science 22 (2000): 77–88.
> Despite similarities in dogma and membership—and an at-               Shiqaqi, Fathi al-. Al-Mashrou 
al-islami al-mu 
asir fi filastin
> tempt at unification in 1981—Jihad has not formed a grass-                (The contemporary Islamic project in Palestine). n.p., 1995.
> roots movement. The main theorist of the Jihad is Muhammad
> 
Abd al-Salam Faraj, who wrote a tract entitled al-Farida al-                                                          Najib Ghadbian
> ghaiba (The forgotten obligation). The forgotten obligation
> among Muslims today is jihad, or the struggle to uproot
> Muslim leaders perceived by the group as infidels, and replace         ISLAMIC SALVATION FRONT
> them with a comprehensive “Islamic state.” The main path to
> its goal is by penetrating the military. The closest the group        Even for Algerians, the founding of the Islamist party, the
> came to attaining its goal was when members of Jihad assassi-         Islamic Salvation Front (FIS, Front Islamique du Salut, or alnated President Anwar Sadat on 6 October 1981, but failed to          Jabha al-Islamiyya li-l-inqadh), in February 1989, and its
> complete the takeover of the state. Conspirators were exe-            sweeping electoral victories in the 1990 municipal elections,
> cuted and hundreds of other members arrested. Arrested                and then in the first round of legislative elections in Decemmembers were young, educated, and lower to middle class. It           ber 1991, were events as unforeseeable as they were phewas not until the late 1990s that the Egyptian government             nomenal. Islamic symbols and discourse had been used
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                          365
> Islamic Society of North America
> 
> repeatedly to oppose the alliance between the army and the           See also 
Abd al-Hamid Ibn Badis; Madani, 
Abbasi.
> sole legal political party, the National Liberation Front
> (FLN, or Front de Libération Nationale), since Algeria’s birth       BIBLIOGRAPHY
> as a nation in 1962. Nonetheless, the meteoric rise of the FIS
> Shahin, Emad Eldin. Political Ascent: Contemporary Islamic
> can mostly be attributed to the growing economic gap be-               Movements in North Africa. Boulder, Colo.: Westview
> tween the elites and the masses, which worsened in the 1980s           Press, 1997.
> and pushed people over the edge of frustration and despair.
> Shah-Kazemi, Reza, ed. Algeria: Revolution Revisited. London:
> Islamic World Report, 1997.
> In October 1988 young people took to the streets to
> protest the state’s inability to satisfy their basic needs, and in
> five days the army had killed over five hundred protesters.                                                        David L. Johnston
> President Chadli Benjedid, sensing the gravity of the situation, boldly proposed a constitution to pave the way for
> multiparty elections. Yet it was not the handful of secularleaning parties who gained from the riots, but rather those          ISLAMIC SOCIETY OF
> who saw in Islam the salvation for the nation’s woes—                NORTH AMERICA
> Algeria’s homegrown Islamism.
> The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) was founded
> Islam had already played a key role in Algeria’s struggle         in 1982 and is currently based in Plainfield, Indiana. ISNA
> against French colonialism. The reformist Salafiyya move-             grew out of the Muslim Students Association (MSA), which
> ment was launched by Shaykh 
Abd al-Hamid Ibn Badis                  was founded in the 1960s by predominately South Asian
> when, in 1931, he founded of the Association of Algerian             Muslim students who, upon graduation, sought to organize
> Ulema. The FIS’s two founding leaders claimed to wear Ibn            professional Muslim associations under one administrative
> Badis’s mantle, yet only 
Abbasi Madani (b. 1931) could              apparatus. The ideology of the organization is influenced by
> realistically do so. Indeed, he grew up in ulema circles, joined     the writings of Abu l-
Ala Maududi (d. 1979).
> the FLN, and spent several years in French prisons. He later
> obtained a doctorate in philosophy in England. As a professor            Maududi argued that Islam had become corrupted behe and other Islamic leaders cultivated the growing Islamist         cause of a general Muslim ignorance of Islamic history and
> student movement of the 1980s. By contrast, the second               piety. Only through an active movement of community
> leader, 
Ali Belhadj, born in 1956, was a school teacher, and        organization and education could Islam return to the position
> knew no French. His rise began as a young, fiery, eloquent            of power and authority that Maududi understood the classical
> imam who successfully organized a massive peaceful rally at          Muslim world to possess. ISNA has sought to educate Amerithe end of the bloody 1988 riots. From the start, Madani led         can Muslims through a variety of programs and by funding
> the more moderate, reformist wing of the FIS, and Belhadj its        workshops and conventions to teach people how to develop
> more radical wing.                                                   strong Muslim communities in a North American cultural
> context. Since the mid-1990s, and especially after the 11
> The army arrested Madani and Belhadj in June 1991 and,           September 2001 terrorist attacks on Washington, D.C. and
> after the December first-round elections, which portended             New York, the centerpiece of ISNA activities has been its
> an Islamist majority in parliament, deposed Benjedid and             Community Development Department, which organizes a
> banned the FIS. With all of its leaders either imprisoned or         variety of conferences and workshops dealing with such issues
> exiled, the uneasy populist coalition fell apart. A more moder-      as community development, domestic violence prevention,
> ate leadership took over the party under 
Abdelkader Hachani,        conflict resolution, and media relations.
> and the radicals broke off to found the GIA (Groupe Islamique
> Armé). In the bloody civil war that ensued (over 120,000                 In contrast to other Muslim organizations, ISNA has
> killed, mostly civilians, in ten years), two rays of hope ap-        tended to stay out of electoral politics, preferring to educate
> peared in the 1990s. First, eight opposition parties, including      Muslims about the American political system and allowing
> the FIS, signed the Rome Platform in 1995, condemning                local communities to choose candidates based on local needs.
> violence and calling for the reestablishment of democracy.           In addition, ISNA also publishes a bimonthly magazine,
> Second, single presidential candidates were successively elected     Islamic Horizons, which discusses issues relating to Muslim life
> by majority vote, Liamine Zeroual (1995) and 
Abd al-
Aziz           in North America, and includes information on conventions
> Bouteflika (1998). In the early 2000s the army retained its           and workshops as well as a matrimonial section. ISNA does
> strong grip on power, but in spite of the continued ban on the       not currently publish membership statistics. As of the year
> FIS and the competition of two other legal Islamist parties          2003, however, Islamic Horizons reported a circulation of
> (HAMAS and al-Nahda), most Algerians believe that without            approximately 60,000. Since many, if not most members
> the reinstatement of the FIS, Algeria will not likely see the        receive the magazine as a part of their membership, this
> return of democracy and national reconciliation.                     figure most likely reflects membership totals.
> 
> 366                                                                                              Islam and the Muslim World
> Isma
il I, Shah
> 
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                         Before becoming king, Isma
 il’s religiosity reflected Shi
ite
> Haddad, Yvonne. The Muslims of America. New York: Oxford          “exaggerated” beliefs such as anthropomorphism with re-
> University Press, 1991.                                         spect to God, transmigration of souls, and occultation and
> Mawdudi, Abul Alaa. Towards Understanding Islam. n.p.:           return. In his poetry, he claims divinity for himself, and
> Islamic Circle of North America, 1986.                          proclaims to be the Hidden Imam. His followers were said to
> Smith, Jane I. Islam in America. New York: Columbia               have followed him into battle without wearing armor, believ-
> University Press, 1993.                                         ing him to be invincible.
> 
> In 1501, however, Isma
 il established not ghuluww Shi
ism,
> R. Kevin Jaques
> but orthodox Twelver Shi
ism as the official state religion,
> imposing this sect upon a predominantly Sunni Iran. He
> spent the next ten years of his career consolidating and
> ISMA
IL I, SHAH (1487–1524)                                       expanding his rule inside Iran and beyond. He was defeated in
> Azerbaijan by the Ottomans at the battle of Chaldiran in
> Shah Isma
il (r. 1501–1524) was founder and first king of the      1514. This led to a ceasing of military campaigns. Isma
 il
> Safavid dynasty, which ruled Iran until 1722. Isma
il lived       died ten years later, in 1524.
> during a turbulent time in Iran’s history, in a period of
> political fragmentation and decentralization. When Isma
il’s      See also Empires: Safavid and Qajar.
> brother Sultan 
Ali was killed in battle by the ruling house of
> Aq Qoyunlu in 1494, Isma
il went into hiding in northern          BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Iran. In 1499, he and his Qizilbash followers, Turkoman           Savory, Roger. Iran under the Safavids. Cambridge, U.K.:
> tribesmen, attempted to seize power, and defeated the last Aq        Cambridge University Press, 1980.
> Qoyunlu ruler. He was crowned king in the northern Iranian
> city of Tabriz in 1501.                                                                                         Sholeh A. Quinn
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                   367
> J
> JA
FAR AL-SADIQ (C. 701–765)                                                 Al-Sadiq attracted an intellectual and cohesive following.
> He is reported to have trained thousands of disciples in
> Born sometime between 700 and 702, Ja
far al-Sadiq died in                diverse fields such as theology, jurisprudence, and Arabic
> 765 C.E. An erudite jurist of Medina, al-Sadiq was associated             grammar. Speculative Shi
ite theologians and jurists like
> with a wide range of scholars. Abu Hanifa, and Malik b. Anas,             Hisham b. al-Hakam, Zurara b. A
yan, and Muhammad b.
> among other prominent figures, are alleged to have heard                   Muslim were associated with him. Some of his prominent
> hadith from him. Regarded as a reliable traditionalist in                 disciples are reported to have differed with him on major
> Sunni circles, he is cited in several isnads (chains of transmis-         points of law and theology, for which they were condemned
> sions). Al-Sadiq is credited with the construction of a legal             or excommunicated. Al-Sadiq claimed that they had misrepsystem called Ja
fari school of law, which Shi
ites follow. He            resented his teachings.
> is also seen as an eminent ascetic and is revered in Sufi circles.
> Many mystical ideas are narrated from him. According to the                   Al-Sadiq was at the center of much extremist speculation.
> alchemist Jabir al-Hayyan, al-Sadiq was also a teacher in                 Abu ’l-Khattab (d. 755–756) claimed that al-Sadiq had desigalchemy.                                                                  nated him to be his deputy and had entrusted him with
> esoteric knowledge and the greatest name of God, thus
> Sunni sources maintain that Shi
ites, such as Hisham b. alempowering him to comprehend occult sciences. He also
> Hakam, formulated distinctive doctrines like that of the
> attributed divinity to al-Sadiq. Along with other extremist
> imamate and ascribed it to al-Sadiq. In Shi
ite sources, algroups, Abu l-Khattab was repudiated by al-Sadiq.
> Sadiq is considered as the sixth Imam and the author of
> thousands of traditions that were recorded by his disciples
> After his death, al-Sadiq’s followers differed on his succesand documented in the writings of al-Kulini and Ibn Babuya,
> sor. The Isma
ilis claimed al-Sadiq had designated his eldest
> among other, later, scholars. These sources also indicate that
> al-Sadiq was responsible for the formulation and crystalliza-             son, Isma
il, to succeed him. Most of al-Sadiq’s followers
> tion of the Shi
ite doctrine of the imamate. This stipulated              initially accepted 
Abdallah, the eldest surviving son. When
> that the imam be designated by God through the Prophet or                 
Abdallah died without a son, the majority accepted al-Sadiq’s
> another imam. The imam was also believed to be infallible,                next son, Musa. They formed the basis of the Twelver
> hence he was empowered to provide authoritative interpreta-               Shi
ites. The Nawusiyya asserted that al-Sadiq was in occultions of Islamic revelation. Designation and infallibility were           tation (hiding), and would reappear as the eschatological
> complemented by the imam’s possession of special knowl-                   Messiah (mahdi).
> edge that was either transmitted from the Prophet or derived
> from inherited scrolls. The imams reportedly had access to                See also Imamate; Law; Succession.
> esoteric knowledge and were able to foretell future events.
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Al-Sadiq’s political stance became the cornerstone of
> Shi
ite political theory, which taught coexistence with rather            Hodgson, Marshall G. “How did the Early Shi
a Become
> than opposition to tyrannical rulers. The removal of the                    Sectarian?” Journal of the American Oriental Society 75
> imamate from a political role was compounded by al-Sadiq’s                  (1955): 1–13.
> teaching of dissimulation, which meant the imam did not                   Jafri, Syed H. The Origins and Development of Shi
a Islam.
> have to publicly proclaim his leadership.                                     London: Longman, 1979.
> 
> Jahannam
> 
> Sachedina, Abdulaziz A. The Just Ruler in Shi
ite Islam: The        See also Calligraphy; Janna; Law; Muhammad; Qur
an;
> Comprehensive Authority of the Jurist in Imamite Jurispru-       Tafsir.
> dence. New York: Oxford, 1988.
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Liyakatali Takim
> Achtemeier, Paul J., ed. “Gehenna.” In Harper’s Bible Dictionary. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1985.
> Jeffrey, Arthur, ed. A Reader on Islam: Passages from Standard
> JAHANNAM                                                                Arabic Writings Illustrative of the Beliefs and Practices of
> Muslims. The Hague: Mouton & Co., 1962.
> Jahannam is a designation for hell and is related to the
> cognate Hebrew word gehinnom (“Hinnom Valley”), origi-                                                       Juan Eduardo Campo
> nally a site near ancient Jerusalem where children were
> immolated as sacrificial offerings, which subsequently became a garbage dump. In early Jewish and Christian eschatology, Gehenna was believed to be where wrongdoers would be           JAHILIYYA
> punished by fire in the hereafter. This is the meaning Jahannam
> carries in the Quran (where it is mentioned seventy-seven          The word jahiliyya, rendered as ignorance or barbarism,
> times), the hadith, and later Islamic eschatological discourses.    occurs several times in the Quran (3:148; 5:55; 33:33; 48:26).
> It is often used synonymously with “the Fire” (“nar”), and in       Used pejoratively to describe pre-Islamic Arabia, it means the
> juxtaposition to “the Garden” (“janna”), the Islamic paradise       period in which Arabia had no dispensation, no inspired
> of the blessed.                                                     prophet, and no revealed book.
> The Quran depicts Jahannam as an infernal dwelling or              The seven Mu
allaqat, written down in Umayyad times,
> refuge with seven gates (counterparts for the seven heavens)        are believed to be a collection of prize-winning pre-Islamic
> awaiting unbelievers, hypocrites, and other sorts of offenders      poems on the courage and endurance of its warriors, recited
> (4:140; 15:43–44). It will be the fiery abode of jinns and
> in contests at the annual fair at 
Ukaz. Fragments of similar
> satans, as well as humans (11:119; 19:68), including polytheists
> poems are also found in the Kitab al-aghani of al-Isbahani (d.
> and “people of the book” (98:6). Indeed, according to one
> 967). The ideal Arab virtues referred to in this literature are
> verse, all will go to Jahannam, but God will save the pious and
> murua (courage, loyalty, and generosity). and 
ird (honor).
> abandon wrongdoers there on their knees (19:72). Polytheists
> Courage was reflected in the number of raids undertaken, and
> and their idols will become fuel for its fire (21:98). The
> generosity in the readiness with which one sacrificed one’s
> authoritative hadith collections, such as those of al-Bukhari
> camel for a guest. Killing was discouraged. Murder resulted
> (d. 870), Muslim (d. 875), and Ibn Hanbal (d. 855), expand
> in blood feuds and vendetta. Three months of the year (Rajab,
> upon these Quranic discourses, detailing its horrific features
> Dhu-l-Qa
da, and Dhu-l-Hajj) were pronounced sacred, howand inhabitants. Hadiths describe it as a pit of fire seventy
> ever, when no fighting or raiding were permitted.
> times hotter than earthly fire, guarded by the angel Malik,
> into which plunge the damned who fail to cross a narrow test            Trade had brought wealth to some, but the poverty of
> bridge (al-sirat) that traverses it. They enumerate the kinds of    many was disregarded, and there was no strategy to care for
> sinners punished there, among whom are the Jahannamites—
> them. Females were regarded as a burden and many were
> Muslims who have committed major transgressions, but who
> killed at birth. Muhammad viewed this attitude as ungodly.
> will eventually win entry to paradise.
> The religion of the pre-Islamic Bedouin was primarily
> The most elaborate descriptions were formulated in the          animistic, while urban populations, such as the Meccans,
> tenth century C.E., and later commentaries and eschatological       worshiped a supreme God, al-Ilah, and its three daughters, altexts are those of al-Tabari (d. 922), al-Samarqandi (d. c. 983),   
Uzza, al-Lat, and Manat. Hubal was the chief deity of the
> al-Ghazali (d. 1111), al-Qurtubi (d. 1273), Ibn Kathir (d.          Ka
ba. Women were required to circumambulate the Ka
ba
> 1373), Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya (1350), and al-Suyuti (d.             in the nude. Various tribes in different regions identified with
> 1505). In these books, Jahannam is said to consist of seven         different gods to whom they turned for immediate favors.
> hierarchical levels, the highest for Muslims and the lower          There was no belief in an afterlife or a day of judgment.
> levels for Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians, polytheists, and         Muhammad, who preached the existence of one, invisible
> hypocrites. Commentators furnished it with geographic fea-          God, taught that man would be judged for his actions, and
> tures such as blazing mountains, valleys, rivers, and seas, as      rewarded accordingly. He fought to establish Islam in Arabia,
> well as houses, prisons, bridges, wells, and ovens. They also       and had the pre-Islamic idols systematically destroyed. Thus,
> provided it with venomous scorpions and snakes to torment           he claimed, Islam brought an end to jahiliyya. Nevertheless,
> its inhabitants. In modern times, Jahannam remains a popu-          several pre-Islamic observances have been incorporated into
> lar sermon topic.                                                   Islamic ritual, such as the circumambulation of the Ka
ba, and
> 
> 370                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Jama
at-e Islami
> 
> the running between Saffa and Marwa, with new significance                  To start with, the Jama
at-e Islami needed to consolidate
> attributed to them.                                                    its base, which would strengthen its internal bonds and
> permit the development of a sense of umma, a term that
> In the twentieth century, jahiliyya took on a new meaning.          means “the imagined community.” From its founding days in
> Writing from Pakistan, Abu l-A
la Maududi (d. 1979) had               the city of Pathankot, the party grew through a strong
> considered aspects of modern life reflecting Muslim imita-              campaign that disseminated its ideals through a variety of
> tion of the West, as comparable to jahiliyya. On the same              channels of communication, including political conventions
> lines, the Egyptian Sayyid Qutb (1906–1966) asserted that              and the use of the mass media.
> the world consisted of but two cultures, Islam and jahiliyya,
> which included both the West and the atheistic communist                   The Jama
at-e Islami is strictly and hierarchically organworld. The polytheistic societies of Asia, and Christian and           ized, under the leadership of its emirs. Party affiliation can be
> Jewish societies, were now considered “ignorant” or jahili             broken down into two categories, fully-fledged members
> because of their movement away from God, as were the                   (arkan) on the one hand, and sympathizers and workers
> Muslims who accepted Western elements into the Islamic                 (karkun) on the other. In the first year of the party’s existence,
> system. For Qutb the only antidote to jahiliyya was hakimiyya,         1941, there were 75 members. A decade later, in 1951,
> that is, the adherence to the belief that governance, legisla-         membership had grown to 659, with 2,913 sympathizers. By
> tion, and sovereignty belong only to God.                              1989, membership had swelled to 5,723, with some 305,792
> nonregistered but active sympathizers. In 2003, membership
> See also Arabia, Pre-Islam; Modern Thought; Political
> reached 16,033, and the number of sympathizers to the
> Islam; Qutb, Sayyid.
> party’s goals had reached 4.5 million. The party is guided by
> an emir who is obliged to consult an assembly called the
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                           shura. This authoritarian, pyramidlike structure is comple-
> Boullata, Issa. Trends and Issues in Contemporary Arab Thought.        mented by other sub-organizations, such as women’s wings
> New York: SUNY Press, 1990.                                          and student organizations, all working toward the common
> Guillaume, Alfred. Islam. Middlesex, U.K.: Penguin Books               goal of establishing an ideological Islamic society, particu-
> Ltd., 1956.                                                          larly through educational and social work. Jama
at-e Islami’s
> Hodgson, Marshall G. S. The Venture of Islam. Vol. 1. Chi-             organizational structure is replicated throughout the world,
> cago: University of Chicago Press, 1974.                             wherever it has taken root.
> 
> Rizwi Faizer         The Jama
at-e Islami is based on social action in a variety
> of fields, and encourages Muslims to set up a better society
> here and now through constantly contesting the political
> establishment. In Pakistan, most of its members come from
> JAMA
AT-E ISLAMI                                                       the educated lower-middle class, including immigrants from
> India, called the muhajirun. The party never did appeal to the
> Jama
at-e Islami (JI) is one of the most influential religiopolitical   upper-class clientele that favored most of Pakistan’s other
> parties in the Muslim world, particularly in South Asia. It was        parties, such as the Pakistan People Party and the Muslim
> founded in 1941 in Lahore, the creation of Abu l-A
la                 League, who frequently based their platforms upon tradi-
> Maududi, who was working for the Islamization of Pakistan.             tional landowning loyalties. The Jama
at-e Islami also failed
> The party’s goal was to contest the Congress (representing             to attract the poorer classes, who lacked the literacy that
> the Hindu majority) and the Jam
iyat-e Ulama-e Hind (JUH;             would permit them to comprehend the Jama
at’s rhetorics.
> aiming for composite nationalism) as well as the Muslim
> League (with territorial nationalism as its platform). In con-             Anchored firmly in the rather ambitious middle class, with
> trast to these other parties, the Jama
at-e Islami party echoed        a following drawn from the newly rising elites, the Jama
at-e
> the ideas of Maududi, who favored the creation of an Islamic           Islami increasingly finds itself in confrontation with the
> state. Maududi was supported by a number of young, activist            power assertions of the postcolonial political establishment,
> religious scholars, among them some Deobandis and Nadwis.              which is characterized by the party as westernized and cor-
> Maududi was the first emir (commander) of the Jama
at-e                 rupt. The discontent that motivates the collective member-
> Islami, a post he held until 1972. As can be seen from the             ship of the Jama
at-e Islami derives from the difficulty people
> shifting areas of popularity, the history of the JI cannot be          face in gaining access to political power and cultural privilege.
> separated from the emirs’s lives—Maududi (1941–1972),                  The party has enlisted the help of a small religious elite that is
> a muhajir settled in Punjab; Miyan Tufail Muhammad                     itself struggling for political survival and controls a mass base,
> (1972–1987), a muhajir-converted Punjabi; and Qazi Husain              and which provides a common language and symbolism with
> Ahmad (since 1987) from the frontier province—a fact also              which to express and generalize the social discontent that
> reflected in its seats in provincial assemblies.                        Jama
at-e Islami seeks to redress. In the terms of this language
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                          371
> Jama
at-e Islami
> 
> Qazi Husayn Ahmed, head of the Pakistani religious party Jama
at-e-Islami (Party of Islam) in Peshawar, Pakistan, speaking to religious students
> in a mosque, where he condemned the introduction of new laws by the Musharraf government designed to bring the madrasa system under
> greater government control, as well as American presence in Pakistan. Jama
at-e-Islami was founded in 1941 by al-Maududi in Lahore to
> advocate an Islamic state. AP/WIDE WORLD PHOTOS
> 
> and symbolism, only the spread of Sunni Islam throughout                  consistently confronted the Pakistani government on this
> the world can make possible the revival of an ideal, if mythi-            issue, questioning the state’s legitimacy, ultimately forcing
> cal, original community. The Jama
at-e Islami relies heav-                the politicians to include provisions regarding Islam in the
> ily upon the concept of purification. Not being bound by                   national constitution. The ongoing struggle between Jama
at-e
> history, the party is free to distinguish itself from secular poli-       Islami and the government led to the party being outlawed
> ticians, sometimes radically, and see itself as the avant-garde.          several times. The anti-Ahmadiyya movement in 1953–1954,
> however, was the party’s ticket into the mainstream of Paki-
> Jama
at-e Islami’s fundamentalist critique centers on is-             stani politics because by heresizing the Ahmadiyya movesues of moral decline, particularly on sexual morality, and sets          ment, thereby questioning the Islamicity of state functionaries,
> itself up in opposition to European culture and values and the            the JI also opened up to other schools of thought.
> concept of modernity. The social pathologies resulting from
> modernization are often cited as evidence of a Machiavellian                  During the Ayub era (1958–1969), the Jama
at-e Islami
> strategy employed by the West with the goal of seizing                    was forced into the background for a while, until 1965, when
> power. The purpose of such rhetoric is to produce a norma-                it entered into new political alliances against the Ayub regime
> tive consensus, to increase cultural self-confidence, and to               and, at last, became a proper political party. Its participation
> mobilize the party’s membership and sympathizers. In its                  in the anti-Bhutto coalition intensified the politization of the
> dealings with the broader society, the party’s spokespersons              Jama
at-e Islami, for it could now call the government ungenerally employ ideological arguments, keeping references                Islamic. Eventually the party was able to mobilize a large
> to purely Islamic symbols to a minimum. But when address-                 enough portion of the society to topple the Bhutto regime. It
> ing traditionalist groups, the party employs a more overtly               supported Zia ul-Haq’s coup d’etat in 1977, and earned
> theological approach, supporting public worship and partici-              leading positions within the government. But the party was
> pating in debates on religious issues.                                    unable to widen its social basis, and found itself being used by
> the government to further its own ends, instead. Hence, in
> When Maududi first became politically active in post-                  the elections that followed, the JI was not able to secure
> partition India and Pakistan, it was through the party that he            enough seats to gain an effective political voice.
> articulated his political visions and ideas. Only a few years
> after the creation of Pakistan, the Jama
at-e Islami was forced             Since the 1980s, the party has started to diversify its
> to face the issue of the role of religion in politics. Maududi            membership, spreading out from Karachi into other areas of
> 
> 372                                                                                                      Islam and the Muslim World
> Jamil al-Amin, Imam
> 
> the country. It has accomplished this through its welfare           Lumpur, Delhi, Lahore, Cairo, and more recently, in Lonprogram, especially in the field of university higher educa-         don, Paris, and Washington, D.C.
> tion, and by establishing madrasas (religious training centers),
> as well as by working hand in hand with the relief agencies in
> See also Ibadat; Masjid; Religious Institutions.
> the Afghan refugee camps after 1979.
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> In spite of its limited electoral success prior to 1988, the    Campo, Juan Eduardo. The Other Side of Paradise: Explorations
> Jama
at-e Islami has become a powerful political and cultural         into the Religious Meanings of Domestic Space in Islam.
> force in Pakistani politics. In the late twentieth and early          Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina, 1991.
> twenty-first centuries, the party has been increasingly successful in recruiting members and sympathizers, and thus has                                             Muneer Goolam Fareed
> been able to establish links with future leaders drawn from a
> wide spectrum of society, including the bureaucracy and the
> civil service. In 1997 the party publicly called for the adoption   JAMIL AL-AMIN, IMAM (1943– )
> of a more populist approach, and was rewarded with a
> swelling of its ranks to 2.2 million registered members by          A gifted rhetorician and civil rights activist, the American
> mid-August of that year. In the 2002 elections, the Jama
at-e       Muslim leader Jamil al-Amin (formerly H. Rap Brown, born
> Islami could claim sixty-eight members in the National              in 1943) came to national prominence in the 1960s as an
> Assembly, gaining for itself the ability to play “kingmaker”        outspoken advocate of black power. In 1967, Brown sucwithin Pakistani politics. The party’s success in Pakistan has      ceeded Stokely Carmichael as leader of the Student Nonnot been mirrored by equal success for its counterpart in           Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), a prominent
> India. Since the Pakistani-Indian partition in 1947, the Indian     African-American civil rights organization. Brown also bebranch of the party has taken a much more docile and secular        came known for his advocacy of black self-defense and his
> approach toward politics and religion. As one of the few            saying that “violence is as American as cherry pie.” In 1969,
> national Islamic parties in India, it has attracted a following     he published his most famous work, Die Nigger Die, a blisterthrough its activities in missionary work, social services,         ing critique of American racism. Because of Brown’s radical
> publications, and conventions.                                      rhetoric, he became a target of the FBI’s Counter Intelligence
> Program (COINTELPRO), which harassed many black lead-
> See also Maududi, Abu l-Ala
; Pakistan, Islamic Republic           ers during this period. In 1972, Brown was apprehended on
> of.                                                                 federal weapons charges, tried, convicted, and sentenced to
> four years in prison. During his prison term, he converted to
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                        Islam under the auspices of Darul Islam, a predominately
> African-American Islamic group organized in the 1960s. He
> Ahmad, Mumtaz. “Islamic Fundamentalism in South Asia:
> also adopted a new name, Jamil Abdullah al-Amin. Paroled in
> The Jamaat-i-Islami and the Tablighi Jamaat of South
> Asia.” In Fundamentalism Observed. Edited by Martin E.            1976, al-Amin moved to Atlanta, Georgia, where he became
> Marty and Scott R. Appleby. Chicago: Chicago Univer-              the owner of a community store and an imam (leader) at a
> sity Press, 1991.                                                 local mosque. Over the next two decades, he emerged as a
> Sunni Muslim leader with followers throughout the United
> Nasr, Seyyed Vali Reza. The Vanguard of Islamic Revolution:
> States. Over thirty mosques recognized Imam Jamil as leader
> The Jama
at-i Islami of Pakistan, London: I. B. Tauris, 1994.
> of a group called the National Islamic Community. Focusing
> on economic and social, as well as religious, empowerment,
> Jamal Malik      he also became known for his role in attempting to revitalize
> the West End of Atlanta. In March 2000, Imam al-Jamil was
> accused of murder in connection with the death of a police
> officer. But many American Muslims of diverse racial and
> JAMI
                                                               ethnic backgrounds defended Imam al-Jamil’s innocence and
> offered him financial and moral support as he prepared for his
> The jami
, like the masjid and the musalla, is where the Islamic
> trial. In March, 2002, he was convicted of murder and was
> community performs the daily prayer. And while both the
> sentenced to life in prison without parole.
> masjid and the jami
 are also used for teaching and preaching,
> only a masjid specially dedicated to the Friday prayer is           See also American Culture and Islam; Americas, Islam
> designated a jami
. Whereas previously local mosques were           in the; Nation of Islam.
> managed by area residents and the jami
 by the state, nowadays many states, under the pretext of law and order, strictly      BIBLIOGRAPHY
> control even the musallas. Apart from Medina and Jerusalem,         McCloud, Aminah Beverly. African American Islam. New
> some of Islam’s greatest Friday mosques are located in Kuala          York: Routledge, 1995.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                   373
> Jam
iyat-e 
Ulama-e Hind
> 
> Van Deburg, William. A New Day in Babylon: The Black Power          Friedmann, Yohanan. “Jam
yatul 
Ulama-I Hind.” In The
> Movement and American Culture, 1965–1975. Chicago:                   Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World. Edited by
> University of Chicago Press, 1992.                                   J. L. Esposito, et al. New York and Oxford, UK: Oxford
> University Press, 1995. Vol. 2, pp. 362–363.
> Edward E. Curtis IV
> Jamal Malik
> 
> JAM
IYAT-E 
ULAMA-E HIND                                            JAM
IYAT-E 
ULAMA-E ISLAM
> Muslim politics saw the era of institutionalization in two new
> Jam
iyat-e 
Ulama-e Islam (JUI) broke off from the Jam
iyatreligiopolitical bodies that formed in 1919: All-India Khilafat
> e Ulama-e Hind (JUH), which stood for Indian nationalism
> Committee and Jam
iyat-e 
Ulama-e Hind (The Association             and opposed the demand for an independent Pakistan. In
> of Scholars of India, or JUH). The JUH was the first political       contrast to its mother organization, the JUI, established in
> solidarity foundation of Indian ulema, who saw themselves as        1945 under the leadership of Shabbir Ahmad 
Uthmani,
> religious guides, even in political matters, at the peak of the     supported the Muslim League’s demand for Pakistan. How-
> Indian Muslim agitation for the Ottoman Caliphate. By using         ever, after independence in 1947 it had to struggle for a long
> the potential of the religious infrastructure, along with new       period before being accepted by the Pakistani elites.The JUI
> political structures, ulema were mobilized and unified to            remained a religious organization until the late 1960s, when
> defend the caliphate. The first meeting in November 1919 in          general elections were announced after the collapse of the
> New Delhi demanded that Muslims abide by Islamic tenets,            Ayub Khan regime. The JUI then entered the Pakistan
> strengthen their relationship with the Islamic world, and           political arena, where it demonstrated a remarkable career. It
> foster Muslim-Hindu amity. The holy places of Islam were to         soon split into a a politically quiet faction, led by the Karachibe defended, separate shari
a courts and zakat system were to       based Ihtisham al-Haqq Thanawi, and a more activist group
> be established, and the Indian Congress supported. This             centered around Mufti Mahmud and Ghauth Hazarawi,
> solidarity traditionalism found its climax in a fatwa for nonco-    primarily in the Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP).
> operation and civil disobedience in 1920. Use was made of           During the elections of 1970 Mufti Mahmud’s faction of the
> Islamic repertory—proselytization and forcible conversion           JUI became quite popular by making use of Islamic symbolwere rejected. JUH stood for an independent, multireligious         ism, postulating the establishment of shari
a in Pakistan, and
> India in which Muslims and Hindus would have their sepa-            advocating the implementation of Islamic economic and
> rate institutional structures.                                      social reforms. The party benefitted from the use of traditional infrastructure, such as madaris (Islamic schools) and
> The major contribution of the JUH was the idea of
> waqf (pious foundations), and established an umbrella organicomposite nationalism (muttahida qaumiyat), in contrast to
> zation of religious schools. In this way it won quite a number
> the two-nation theory proclaimed by the Muslim League in
> of seats and eventually entered into a coalition with the
> 1940. This concept of territorial nationalism was unique in
> National Awami Party (NAP) and thus managed to form
> Islamic thought, and was put into practice by a nationalist
> provincial governments in NWFP and Baluchistan. Mufti
> campaign against the creation of Pakistan.
> Mahmud became chief minister of the NWFP from 1971 to
> 1973. The Islamization of this region under his tenure influ-
> Shortly before the partition of India in 1945, a dissident
> enced the following political scenario.
> group was formed, the Jam
iyat-e 
Ulama-e Islam (JUI).
> Under the leadership of Fazl al-Rahman, the son of Mufti
> After 1947, JUH pursued noncommunalism, stood for
> Mahmud, the JUI became increasingly orthodox and also
> social and religious reforms, and supported the secular conanti-Shi
ite, as can be witnessed in the activities of the
> stitution of the Republic of India. However, it still holds rigid
> Punjab-based communal Anjuman-e Sipahan-e Sahaba, a
> positions concerning Muslim personal law, but the ambivamilitant splinter group of the JUI established in 1985. In the
> lent image created through the tussle between political pragsame year JUI senators Sami al-Haqq—who runs the largest
> matism and religious dogmatism has been improved through
> religious school in Pakistan, the Dar al-
Ulum Haqqaniya—
> its social activities.
> and Qadi 
Abd al-Latif introduced the Shariat Bill to the
> See also Jamiyat-e Ulama-e Islam; South Asia, Islam               National Assembly.
> in.                                                                     Although the JUI has not been very successful in gaining
> political influence at the national level, it is one of the most
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                        powerful political and social forces in Pakistan, particularly in
> Agwani, M.S. Islamic Fundamentalism in India. Chandigarh,           the NWFP and Baluchistan. It controls a large number of
> India: Twenty-First India Society, 1986                           religious schools throughout the country that have been
> 
> 374                                                                                              Islam and the Muslim World
> Janna
> 
> recruitment centers not only for thousands of young religious          its drawing its constituency from the followers of Sufi pirs—
> scholars but also for the Afghan mujahidin who fought against          preferably Qadiris—observance of ritual traditions associated
> the Soviets in Afghanistan. Since the mid-1990s the madaris            with saint worship, and usage of millenarian postulates and
> also have been very actively supporting the Taliban. The               symbols mediated in a multimedial staging. Like the JUI, the
> talibanization of Pakistan goes to the extent that after the           JUP runs an umbrella organization of madaris (Islamic schools),
> Afghani Taliban takeover of Kabul in 1996, the JUI openly              and has been actively defending the nationalization of pious
> declared abjuring the electoral politics of Pakistan. The JUI is       foundations.
> also believed to have a wide international jihadi connections,
> such as in Tajikistan, Chechnya and Kashmir.                           See also Deoband; Jamiyat-e Ulama-e Hind; Jamiyat-e
> Ulama-e Islam; South Asia, Islam in.
> See also Deoband; Jamiyat-e Ulama-e Hind; South
> Asia, Islam in; Taliban.                                               BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Ahmad, Mujeeb. Jam‘iyyat ‘Ulama-i-Pakistan 1948–1979,
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                             Islamabad: National Institute of Historical and Cultural
> Malik, Jamal. Colonialization of Islam: Dissolution of Traditional       Research, 1993.
> Institutions in Pakistan, 2d ed. New Delhi: Manohar Publi-           Malik, Jamal. “The Luminous Nurani: Charisma and Politications, 1998.                                                         cal Mobilisation among the Barelwis in Pakistan.” Pnina
> Werbner (ed.): Person, Myth and Society in South Asian
> Nasr, Seyyed Vali Reza. “Jamiat-e Ulama-e Islam.” In The
> Islam, Adelaide 1990.
> Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World, J. L.
> Esposito, ed.Vols. 1–4. New York and Oxford, UK: Oxford
> University Press, 1995.                                                                                                Jamal Malik
> Waseem, Mohammad. Pakistan under Martial Law, 1977–1985.
> Lahore: Vanguard Books, 1987.
> JANNA
> Jamal Malik
> Janna (Ar. “garden,” pl. jannat; Persian firdaws “paradise,”
> “enclosure,” “orchard”) is the designation for the primordial
> paradise of Adam and Eve and for the paradisal garden (or
> JAM
IYAT-E 
ULAMA-E PAKISTAN                                           gardens) in the hereafter, where the blessed will dwell for
> eternity after passing the trial of the last judgment. This dual
> The Jam
iyat-e 
Ulama-e Pakistan (JUP) is a Barelwisignificance of the garden in Islamic cosmography is rooted in
> dominated religious party established in 1947 under the
> ancient Near Eastern myths and afterlife visions that were
> leadership of Abu al-Hasanat (1896–1961) and 
Abd alsubsequently adapted to biblical narratives about the origin
> Hamid Badayuni (1898–1970). The JUP attempted to give
> and destiny of the human being, and were further elaborated
> legitimacy to the cause of Pakistan and the Muslim League,
> within the communities of rabbinic Judaism and early Chriscontrary to the Jam
iyat-e 
Ulama-e Hind (JUH), and also in            tianity. In Islamic discourse, janna is usually juxtaposed to
> some contrast to the Jam
iyat-e 
Ulama-e Islam (JUI). The              nar (“fire”), the hellish abode of wrongdoers (nar and
> JUP proclaims Ahmad Reza Khan, the founder of the Barelwi              jahannam).
> movement, as the first to advocate the two-nation theory,
> which led to the partition of Pakistan and India. Engaged in               Muslims usually conceive of janna as a real place where
> social activities—mainly the settlement of refugees in Sindh           humans experience contact with supramundane beings, as
> and rural Punjab—the JUP remained politically insignificant             well as pleasurable bodily existence. This understanding of
> for more than two decades. It established, however, a Sufi              paradise was canonized in the Quran and elaborated further
> organization in 1948 and a student wing in 1968, when its              in the hadith, theological tracts, and visionary literature.
> leader Shah Ahmad Nurani (born 1926) started propagating               Thus, Adam and Eve enjoyed communion with God and the
> Islamization. In 1973, Nurani was nominated for the position           angels, and consumed the fruits of the garden until they ate of
> of prime minister by the member parties of the United                  the forbidden tree (2:35–36, 20:117–123), which caused their
> Democratic Front against the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP).            fall into the abode of mortal life. God then promised their
> When in 1977 the JUP stood for the establishment of the                return to immortality in the hereafter. In contrast to the
> Muhammadan System, it united the Islamic parties in the                Bible, extensive passages of the Quran deal with the subjects
> Pakistan National Alliance (PNA) against Zulfiker Ali Bhutto’s          of resurrection and the afterlife, beginning with chapters
> PPP. After 1977, JUP changed sides several times—sympathiz-            traditionally consigned by scholars to the Meccan phase of
> ing at times even with its main adversaries, the JI (Jama
at-e         Muhammad’s career (c. 615–622 C.E.). In the Quranic after-
> Islami) and JUI. Its integrity thus suffered and therefore it          life world, paradise is a domesticated arboreal garden or park
> split into two major factions (Nurani faction and 
Abd al-             perfumed by musk, camphor, and ginger, through which
> Sattar faction). Its success lies in its reliance on oral tradition,   rivers of milk, honey, and wine flow (47:15). It is populated by
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                        375
> Jerusalem
> 
> families of immortal believers who dress in elegant garments         Campo, Juan Eduardo. The Other Sides of Paradise: Exploraand who dwell in heavenly mansions furnished with couches,             tions into the Religious Meanings of Domestic Space in Islam.
> carpets, and precious household vessels (9:72, 15:47, 36:55–58,        Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina Press, 1991.
> 88:10–16). Angels greet them (13:23–24), and handsome                Ghazali, Abu Hamid al-. The Remembrance of Death and the
> youths and beautiful houris (black-eyed maidens) offer food            Afterlife (Kitab dhikr al-mawt wa-ma ba
dahu): Book XL of
> and drink (43:71, 52:19–24, 76:15–22). The Quran also                 the Revival of the Religious Sciences (Ihya 
ulum al-din).
> intimates that the blessed will enjoy the vision of God there          Translated by T. J. Winter. Cambridge, U.K.: Islamic
> (10:26, 39:75, 75:22–23), a doctrine that was later subject to         Texts Society.
> much debate among theologians and Quran interpreters.
> The hadith mention that paradise has eight gates, each named                                                 Juan Eduardo Campo
> for a virtue through which the blessed possessing that virtue
> will enter. They also speak of the existence of eight paradises
> rather than a single one, each deriving its name from a
> Quranic term or phrase, such as dar al-salam (House of              JERUSALEM See Holy Cities
> peace), jannat al-khuld (Garden of eternity), and jannat 
Aden
> (Garden of Eden). In number, therefore, paradise surpasses
> hell, which is said to have only seven levels or gates (jahannam).
> It is also speculated that God’s throne (kursi) stood above
> paradise. Sufis acknowledged the lower levels of paradise, but        JEVDET PASHA (1822–1895)
> stressed the ecstasy of communion with God in the heart, or
> in the highest level of paradise—that of the elect.                  Ahmet Jevdet Pasha was an Ottoman historian, administrator, and educational and judicial reformer. Born in Bulgaria,
> Ideas of paradise so captured the Muslim imagination that
> he pursued a religious education; dissatisfaction with tradithey inspired caliphs and sultans, artists and architects, learned
> scholars—even ordinary people—to invest the cultural land-           tional methods led him to study secular mathematics, law,
> scape with heavenly significance. According to the hadith, the        and history. He wrote the first Ottoman grammar primer in
> Ka
ba and the Black Stone in Mecca originated in paradise,           Turkish, Kavaid-i Osmaniye.
> and the span between the Prophet’s grave and the minbar in
> Jevdet’s unique combination of religious and secular eduhis Medina mosque is one of the gardens of paradise. Reprecation made him useful as an advisor to the Tanzimat resentations of heavenly gardens occur on the Umayyad Grand
> former, Mustafa Resit Pasha. He worked on educational
> Mosque in Damascus (seventh century C.E.), in the Alhambra
> reforms, wrote a religious text for schoolchildren, and began
> of Granada (fourteenth century C.E.), on Persian royal pavilhis history of the later Ottoman Empire, Tarih-i Jevdet, based
> ions (seventeenth century), and in illuminated Turkish and
> on state papers and personal observation. He became a judge
> Persian manuscripts of the Muhammad’s Night Journey and
> Ascension (fifteenth to eighteenth centuries). The city and           and member of the government, writing judicial and cadastral
> palaces of Baghdad, the imperial capital of the Abbasids (r.         regulations. After a series of administrative positions in the
> 750–1258), were named and described as earthly paradises. In         reformist government of the Tanzimat, he became minister
> India, the enclosed park within which the Taj Mahal, the             of justice, established a secular court system, and drew up a
> grand mausoleum of Shah Jahan (r. 1628–1657) and his queen           modernized Islamic law code, the Mejelle (1869–1876), based
> Mumtaz Mahal (d. 1631), was constructed was an adaptation            not on French law but on Islamic Hanafi law.
> of the “four garden” (chahar bagh) design of royal Persian
> Jevdet opposed the constitution of 1876 and the deposigardens, a microcosmic image of paradise with its four rivers.
> tion of Sultan 
Abdulaziz. He served the absolutist Sultan
> The magnificent building itself may well represent God’s
> throne in heaven, believed to be located above paradise.             
Abd al-Hamid II in various ministerial posts and prosecuted
> Elsewhere, inscriptions and murals in mansions and ordinary          the reformer Midhat Pasha for the murder of 
Abdulaziz
> Muslim homes created metaphorical relations between the              (1881). He retired in 1882 and continued work on his history
> domestic spaces of the living and the abodes of the blessed in       and his memoirs, Tezakir, but returned to government servthe hereafter.                                                       ice from 1886 until his death in 1895.
> 
> See also Calligaphy; Jahannam; Law; Muhammad;                        See also Modernization, Political: Administrative, Mili-
> Qur
an; Tafsir.                                                      tary, and Judicial Reform.
> 
> BIBILIOGRAPHY                                                        BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Blair, Sheila, and Bloom, Jonathan M., eds. Images of Paradise       Chambers, Richard L. “The Education of a Nineteenth
> in Islamic Art. Hanover, N.H.: Hood Museum of Art,                  Century Ottoman Alim, Ahmed Cevdet Pasa.” Interna-
> Dartmouth College, 1991.                                            tional Journal of Middle East Studies 4 (1973): 440–464.
> 
> 376                                                                                              Islam and the Muslim World
> Jihad
> 
> Lewis, Bernard. The Emergence of Modern Turkey. Oxford,            divine law (shari
a). Defining and understanding jihad, a
> U.K.: Oxford University Press, 1961.                             concept with complex religious and moral significance, naturally occupied a great deal of their attention. The scholars
> Linda T. Darling      outlined a number of different types of jihad, all of which may
> be grouped into two basic categories, the spiritual jihad and
> the physical jihad. The objects of the first type included one’s
> own soul (nafs), whose evil inclinations had to be overcome,
> JIHAD                                                              or Satan (Shaitan), whose attempts to sow doubt and confusion and to lead the believer astray had to be perpetually
> The word jihad is derived from the Arabic root jahada,             fought. The physical jihad was aimed at unbelievers outside
> meaning “to strive” or “to exert oneself” toward some goal. In     the Muslim community, as well as hypocrites and troublethis general sense, jihad could mean striving to achieve           makers within the Muslim ranks. Its goal was to establish the
> something with no particular moral value, or even a negative       supremacy of divine law and thereby to promote justice and
> value. The Quran itself twice uses the verb when describing       social welfare according to Islamic values. In this sense, jihad
> the efforts of pagan parents to induce their Muslim-convert        was closely related to the Quranic injunction that Muslims
> children to return to polytheism (29:8, 31:15). Other occur-       “command the right and forbid the wrong” (amr bil-ma
ruf
> rences of this verbal form and its derivatives, however, are       wa nahy 
an al-munkar).
> limited to the struggle of the Muslims to attain and maintain
> The classical scholars also listed various means by which
> their faith. Thus, jihad has come to mean in the Islamic
> both the spiritual and the physical jihad could be conducted,
> context only a virtuous struggle, toward some praiseworthy
> including by the heart, tongue, pen, hand, and sword. Some
> end, as defined by religion. It is therefore often linked with
> traditions ascribed to Muhammad profess the merits of jihad
> the phrase fi sabil Allah, meaning “struggle in the path of God.”
> conducted by the tongue, as in one hadith in which the
> The term jihad occurs infrequently in what are believed to     Prophet said, “The greatest jihad is a word of truth spoken to
> be the Meccan revelations of the Quran. During this first          a tyrant.” Other traditions describe the jihad of the pen, that
> part of the Prophet’s mission, lasting some twelve years, jihad    is, of scholars, as more meritorious than the jihad of the
> is used in the sense of cultivating personal piety, perseverance   sword. One of the most famous such hadiths declares the
> in the preaching of Islam, and forbearance and patient suffer-     spiritual jihad to be the greater jihad (jihad al-akbar) as
> ing in the face of persecution by the Muslims’ enemies.            compared to the physical jihad, which is the lesser jihad (jihad
> Quran 25:52, for example, advises Muslims to “listen not to       al-asghar).
> the unbelievers, but strive against them with it [the Quran]          But the most widespread use of the term jihad in classical
> with the utmost effort.” There is no recorded instance during      Islamic thought was in the sense of a divinely sanctioned
> the Meccan period in which the Prophet ordered or allowed          struggle, through war if necessary, to establish Islamic soverhis followers to use violence against their enemies. Jihad         eignty and thereby to propagate the Islamic faith to unbelievduring this period meant exclusively nonviolent resistance.        ers. In classical jurisprudence (fiqh), the dominant strand of
> intellectual activity in these early centuries, the chapters on
> Following the Prophet’s migration to Medina (the Hijra),
> jihad in legal treatises contained rules for the declaration,
> occurrences of jihad increase in the Quran. While some of
> conduct, and conclusion of such religiopolitical wars.
> these verses may be understood as still referring to nonviolent
> struggle, the majority clearly refer to physical force or fight-        At the heart of the classical theory was the division of the
> ing (qital). Quran 22:39 is believed by many scholars to be the   world into two basic spheres, dar al-islam (land of Islam), a
> first verse on this topic. It permits the Muslims to retaliate      unitary state comprising the community of Muslims, living by
> with force against those who continue to attack and persecute      the shari
a, and led by the just ruler (imam); and dar al-harb
> them. A subsequent series of verses (2:190–191) converts the       (land of war), where Islamic law did not prevail, leading
> permission of self-defense into an obligation, with the argu-      presumably to anarchy and moral corruption. It was comment that “oppression is worse than killing.” Then, after          monly understood that Muslims had an individual obligation
> eight years of warfare between the Muslims and their polytheist    (fard 
ayn) to defend dar al-islam whenever it was threatened
> enemies, the Jewish tribes of Medina, and the Christian            by aggression from dar al-harb. This type of war received
> empire of the Byzantines, the Quran seems to enjoin a war of      little attention in the chapters on jihad.
> conversion against all remaining polytheist Arabs (9:5) and a
> war of subjugation against Christians and Jews (9:29).                 The jurists’ attention was focused on what may be called
> the expansionist jihad. The imam was obliged to undertake a
> The Classical Theory                                               jihad whenever the conditions of the Islamic state permitted
> Following the Prophet’s death, Muslim scholars produced a          him to reduce dar al-harb and bring its lands and peoples into
> large body of literature analyzing Quranic terms and collect-     dar al-islam. This was a collective duty of the Muslim commuing traditions of the Prophet as part of their effort to codify    nity (fard kifaya), one that required participation only from
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                    377
> Jihad
> 
> During an Islamic Jihad rally at Hebron University in 1997, some two thousand students rallied and chanted against Israel and America as a
> round of Palestinian and Israeli peace talks began in Washington D.C. This protester’s headband reads “Allahu Akbar” (God is Great). Though
> the idea of jihad has been used by some terrorist groups to advocate killing civilians, mainstream Muslim scholars condemn such supposedly
> Qu’ranic justifications. AP/WIDE WORLD PHOTOS
> 
> those financially and physically capable of undertaking it.              Before the start of any attack, the enemy was to be offered the
> One school of Sunni jurisprudence, the Shafi
i, interposed a             choice of accepting Islam, in which case no further action
> third category between the other two, dar al-sulh (land of              against them was permissible. If they refused, they were to be
> truce), comprising peoples with which the Muslims had a                 offered dhimmi (protected) status as an autonomous commutreaty of truce, which suspended, but did not end, the jihad            nity within dar al-islam. This option, deriving from Quran
> obligation. The maximum duration of such a truce, according             9:29, initially pertained to Jews and Christians, but was
> to most scholars, was ten years, although nothing prevented             steadily expanded to include Zoroastrians, Hindus, and Budthe imam from renewing the truce if he deemed it in the                 dhists as the Islamic frontiers expanded. Only the polytheist
> Muslims’ interest.                                                      Arabs who had fought so bitterly against Muhammad and the
> early Muslim community were excluded from the dhimmi
> The jihad in dar al-harb, in the view of the scholars, was          option and forced to convert according to Quran 9:5.
> aimed at bringing Islam’s higher civilization to those unaware
> of it, not territorial conquest or plunder. Thus, they elabo-              In fighting the enemy, Muslim soldiers were to avoid
> rated rules on what Muslim armies may or may not do in dar              directly targeting women and children. Some jurists included
> al-harb. The basis for such moral injunctions was the Quran’s          old men, peasants, hermits, merchants, the insane, and other
> general command, “Do not transgress limits, for God loves               males who do not ordinarily take part in fighting on the list of
> not transgressors” (2:190), which was given greater specificity          prohibited targets. According to most scholars, all ableby the practice of the Prophet and his first four successors.            bodied adult males could be killed at the discretion of the
> 
> 378                                                                                                  Islam and the Muslim World
> Jinnah, Muhammad 
Ali
> 
> imam, whether they were fighting or had been taken pris-            fighting if necessary, to establish the Islamic order over all
> oner. The scholars permitted the use of all types of weapons       unbelievers. The more tolerant and pacific texts relating to
> or military tactics that were necessary to overcome the            unbelievers were abrogated by the later, more belligerent
> enemy, including laying siege to fortresses, firing incendiary      verses. But the category of unbelievers in fundamentalist
> devices, cutting off the water supply, or flooding. The excep-      writings includes nominal Muslims as well as non-Muslims.
> tions were certain practices that were categorically prohibited    The transformation of hypocritical Muslim societies into
> by the Prophet, such as killing by mutilation or torture,          true Islamic communities, led by true Muslim leaders, is the
> burning individuals alive, and violating oaths or grants of        immediate goal of most fundamentalist ideologies. Although
> security to soldiers or envoys.                                    some writers continue to speak of dar al-Islam and dar al-harb,
> the jihad to spread Islam beyond its current borders seems for
> The difference in Shi
ite views on jihad was that only the     most fundamentalists to be a secondary concern.
> righteous imam, a descendant of 
Ali, could lead the expansionist jihad. Because the line of imams ended with the                As for the proper conduct of war today, the vast majority
> disappearance of the twelfth imam in the ninth century,            of Muslim scholars agree that principles of international
> according to the dominant strand of Shi
ism, only a defensive      humanitarian law are compatible with Islamic teachings.
> jihad to repulse enemy aggression is theoretically possible.       These include the notion of noncombatant immunity and the
> prohibition against inhumane forms of killing. Muslim ter-
> The classical theory was already outdated as it was being       rorist groups have, however, sought to justify the killing of
> formulated in the eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries. With         civilians on Islamic grounds, but their arguments and tactics
> the launching of the Reconquista in Spain and the Crusades         have been condemned by mainstream scholars.
> in Syria and Palestine, the expansionist jihad gave way to a
> defensive struggle. In the nineteenth century, as European             Finally, many Muslims today are trying to reclaim the
> imperialism advanced throughout much of the Muslim world,          broad meaning of jihad as “effort” or “struggle” apart from
> the defensive aspects of jihad assumed paramount importance.       war. Increasingly, we find references to such struggles as the
> “jihad for literacy” or the “jihad for economic development.”
> Modern Interpretations
> The Christian missionary activity that accompanied British         See also Conflict and Violence; Terrorism.
> rule in India led some Indian Muslims to undertake major
> revisions of classical notions of jihad. The literature produced   BIBLIOGRAPHY
> by these writers is unmistakably apologetic in tone, straining     Hamidullah, Muhammad. Muslim Conduct of State. 7th ed.
> to answer the charge of Christian writers that Islam was             Lahore: Shaykh Muhammad Ashraf, 1961.
> spread by the sword. According to the apologists, the wars of      Johnson, James Turner, and Kelsay, John, eds. Cross, Crescent,
> early Islam were purely defensive in nature, and jihad in             and Sword: The Justification and Limitation of War in Westmodern times should be largely divested of its military con-          ern and Islamic Tradition. New York: Greenwood, 1990.
> notations and reduced mainly to its spiritual aspects.             Kelsay, John, and Johnson, James Turner, eds. Just War and
> Jihad: Historical and Theoretical Perspectives on War and
> Such writings inevitably created a backlash among other          Peace in Western and Islamic Tradition. New York: Green-
> Muslim interpreters. Two broad reactions may be identified,           wood, 1991.
> the modernist and the fundamentalist. The modernists’ goal         Khadduri, Majid. War and Peace in the Law of Islam. Baltiis not so much to respond to criticisms of early Islamic history     more: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1955.
> and dogma, but to reinterpret jihad in ways that make it           Peters, Rudolph. Islam and Colonialism: The Doctrine of Jihad
> compatible with the principles of modern international law.           in Modern History. The Hague: Mouton, 1979.
> Thus, they challenge the classical theory’s conception of a dar    Peters, Rudolph. Jihad in Classical and Modern Islam. Princeal-islam in opposition to a dar al-harb, pointing out that such       ton: Markus Wiener, 1996.
> categories are nowhere to be found in the Quran or hadith. If
> these two basic sources for Islamic law and ethics are properly                                                Sohail H. Hashmi
> analyzed, they claim, jihad cannot be properly understood as
> a war to spread Islam or subjugate unbelievers. It is waged
> only in self-defense, in conformity with international law,
> when the lives, property, and honor of Muslims are at stake.       JINNAH, MUHAMMAD 
ALI
> (1876–1948)
> The fundamentalists also appeal to the Quran and hadith
> to challenge what they consider various false understandings       Muhammad 
Ali Jinnah was born on 25 December 1876 in
> of jihad. First, they refute the mystical strand of thought that   Karachi and became one of the most celebrated leaders of the
> emphasizes the superiority of the inner, spiritual jihad over      independence movement. Later he became the founder of
> the outer, physical jihad. By the end of the Quranic revela-      Pakistan. He died one year after independence on 11 Septemtion, according to them, jihad meant a struggle, through           ber 1948.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                   379
> Judaism and Islam
> 
> People of Pakistan know him better by his title, Quaid-i
> Azam, meaning “the great leader.” After earning his degree in
> law from London’s famous Lincoln’s Inn in 1896 and with a
> certificate to join the bar of any court in British India, he
> returned to his homeland. He settled in Bombay where he
> practiced law and soon rose to fame as the most distinguished
> attorney in the country. He split his time between the legal
> profession and politics. As a liberal nationalist trained in
> British constitutional and democratic tradition, he became a
> passionate advocate of Hindu-Muslim unity against British
> rule. For almost two decades, he devoted his energies to
> bringing the two communities together on one political
> platform by focusing on the idea of common political interests against British imperialism.
> 
> By the early 1920s, he began to feel disenchanted by the
> leaders of the Indian National Congress Party. He did not
> feel comfortable with their militant, confrontational style
> with the British. Rather, he advocated the course of moderation and dialogue to win freedom. His real disappointment
> came on the issue of minority rights, specifically those of the
> Muslims who comprised nearly 20 percent of the population,
> with concentration in the eastern and western parts of the
> British Indian Empire. Given their numbers, they were not a
> minority in a traditional sense, but a people with a heritage of
> more than one thousand years of Muslim rule and separate
> sense of identity. Jinnah favored a tripartite understanding on
> the constitutional guarantees for the rights of the Muslims        Muhammed Ali Jinnah (1876–1948) was the leader of the Indian
> once India became independent.                                     Muslim League and the driving force in the creation of Pakistan as
> an independent Muslim state in 1947. © HULTON ARCHIVE/
> GETTY IMAGES
> Muslim nationalism developed parallel to secular Indian
> nationalism in the later part of the nineteenth century.
> Muslims in the Indian subcontinent regarded themselves as a
> See also Pakistan, Islamic Republic of.
> separate community with distinctive culture and civilization.
> But their political separatism was confined to the issue of
> minority rights that Muslim leaders like Jinnah strongly                                                         Rasul Bakhsh Rais
> advocated in seeking representation in elected councils through
> separate electorates for Muslims. That ensured that Muslims
> would get adequate representation according to the size of
> JUDAISM AND ISLAM
> their population. The dominant Hindu groups, including the
> Congress Party, were opposed to continuing any such ar-            Jewish-Muslim relations have been shaped by the interacrangements once the British left.                                  tions of the theological perspectives of both religions and the
> historical circumstances in which they are found. Both use
> By the late 1930s, Jinnah began to argue for a separate
> sacred texts and history to form the basis of their perceptions
> country for the Muslims in the eastern and western fringes of
> of the other, with the result that there are often conflicting
> British India. With the passage of the Lahore Resolution in
> versions of the same events. This entry will show how
> 1940 by a great assembly of Muslim leaders from all over
> historical circumstances, the place of Jews in Islamic religious
> India, Jinnah formally demanded the creation of a Muslim
> text, and political ideology combine in varying degrees to
> homeland. For the next seven years, he mobilized the Muslim
> shape Jewish-Muslim relations.
> masses on the basis of separate nationhood and convinced the
> British that that was the only option to prevent a communal        Historical Perspective
> war between Hindus and Muslims. Although Jinnah invoked            In each historical period, the definition of who was a Muslim
> Islamic symbols for political mobilization, he was a liberal,      or a Jew has shifted. Often only a religious identification,
> constitutionalist politician with a rational and progressive       more frequently it signifies a particular social, economic, or
> outlook.                                                           political group. Ethnic categories and religious identities
> 
> 380                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Judaism and Islam
> 
> have been conflated by both insiders and outsiders alike,              Christianity meant also choosing to ally with a superpower
> thus complicating the task of analyzing intergroup and                interested in dominating Arabia.
> intercommunal relations. In the first two centuries of the
> Islamic era, for example, we have evidence that some Jews                Arab sources report that at the time of Muhammad’s birth,
> who had converted to Islam still retained Jewish home prac-           some Meccans had abandoned polytheism and had chosen
> tices, not from hypocritical motives, but because the develop-        monotheism (Ar. hanif ), in a Jewish, Christian, or nonsectarment of Islamic practices for the home were somewhat                  ian form. From Quranic and other evidence, it is clear that
> underdeveloped.                                                       Meccans were conversant with the general principles of
> Judaism and Christianity and knew many details of worship,
> Another important tool for Jewish-Muslim intergroup               practice, and belief.
> analysis is the placement of behaviors and ideas in specific
> temporal and geographic contexts. Visions and ideas of the                When Muhammad had his first revelation in 610 C.E., his
> past have a strong influence on both religions. Many Muslims           wife, Khadija, tested the validity of his experience by seeking
> have as keen an awareness of the events around the time of the        the advice of her cousin, Waraqa b. Nawfal, a hanif learned in
> Prophet as they do their own time. The Quran and the sunna           Jewish and Christian scriptures. In declaring that Muhamof the Prophet are guides for a Muslim’s relations with Jews,         mad was a continuation of the prophetic traditions of Judaism
> as they are in all areas of behavior. A similar level of historical   and Christianity, he said that he had been foretold in Jewish
> consciousness, albeit with different perspectives and details,        and Christian scripture. A central doctrine of Islam places
> helps shape Jewish attitudes toward Muslims. The historic             Muhammad at the end of a chain of prophets from God,
> interactions of Muslims and Jews have resulted in each being          starting with Adam and embracing all the prophetic figures of
> shaped and transformed by the other, and both by interac-             Judaism and Christianity, and holds that Muhammad’s adtions with Christians, Zoroastrians, Hindus, and others. It is        vent is announced in the Torah and Gospels. Denial of this
> hard to imagine how each religion would be as it is without           central idea by Jews and Christians is said to be a result of the
> the presence of the others.                                           corruption of the sacred texts, either inadvertently or on
> purpose. This disparity of perspective underlies much of what
> When the prophet Muhammad was born in 570 C.E.,                   Muslims believe about their Jewish and Christian forebears
> Arabia, a central trade and military location, was caught in the      and conditions Islamic triumphalist views about the validity
> Byzantine-Sassanian rivalry. Arabs, including Jewish Arabic-          of Islam against the partial falsity of the other two traditions.
> speakers, were in the armies of both sides, providing horse
> and camel cavalries, and each empire maintained Arab client               The Quran and the Sira, the traditional biography of
> states as buffers and bases of operation. Only around fifty            Muhammad, present ambivalent attitudes toward Jews and
> years earlier, the last Jewish kingdom in southern Arabia,            Christians, reflecting the varied experience of Muhammad
> allied with the Persians, had been defeated, replaced by a            and the early community with Jews and Christians in Arabia.
> Byzantine-supported Christian army from Abyssinia. Accord-            Christians are said to be nearest to Muslims in “love” in
> ing to early Muslim historians, this army, led by a general           Quran 5:82, but Muslims are not to take Jews or Christians as
> named Abraha, is referred to in Surat al-Fal in the Quran.           awlilya, “close allies or leaders” in Quran 5:51. The Quran
> sometimes makes a distinction between the “Children of
> The Hijaz had numerous Jewish settlements, most of long            Israel,” that is, Jews mentioned in the Bible, and “Jews,”
> standing, dating to at least the time of the destruction of the       members of the Jewish tribes in Arabia during Muhammad’s
> Second Temple in 70 C.E.. According to some scholars, the             time. This distinction is also present in the Sira and other
> earliest Jewish presence in the Hijaz was at the time of              histories, and one sees some Jews as hostile to Muhammad
> Nabonidus, circa 550 B.C.E. The Jews in these settlements             and his mission, while others become allies with him. The sowere merchants, farmers, vintners, smiths, and, in the desert,        called Constitution of Medina, which Muhammad negotimembers of Bedouin tribes. The most important Jewish                  ated with the Ansar, the Muhajirun, and the Jews of Medina,
> dominated city was Yathrib, known later as Medina. The Jews           include Jews in the umma, allowing them freedom of associaof the Hijaz were semi-independent, but often allied with             tion and religion in return for the payment of an annual tax,
> both Byzantium and the Persians. Some made the claim to be            originally called the kharaj. This agreement and the subse-
> “kings” of the Hijaz, most probably meaning tax collectors            quent treaties negotiated by Muhammad with the Jews of
> for the Persians, and for a variety of reasons, more Jews were        Khaybar, Tayma, and other cities in the Hijaz, establish the
> loyal to Persian interests against those of the Byzantine             precedent of including “people of the book” (Ar. ahl al-kitab)
> empire. Jews, as well as Christians, seem to have been en-            in the umma. As the armies of conquest encountered commugaged in attempting to convert the Arabian population to              nities of Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians, the model of
> their religious and political views, often with some success.         Muhammad’s accommodating behavior extended the origi-
> The loyalties of the Jews and Christians to one or the other of       nal notion to incorporate all these recipients of God’s revelathe two empires meant that choosing either Judaism or                 tion as ahl al-dhimma, or dhimmi.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                        381
> Judaism and Islam
> 
> generally displacing other groups. Also, because Muslims
> expanded to include most of the world’s Jews in their polity,
> Rabbinic Judaism was able to develop its institutions within
> the context of the Islamic umma. For the newly forming
> Islamic state, the loyalty of the exilarch, and, by extension, the
> Jews, added legitimacy to Muslim claims to legitimate rule
> over its various non-Muslim populations. The interaction
> between Jews and Muslims thus produced profound effects
> on both Judaism and Islam. The occasional uprisings against
> Muslim rule—as the Jewish uprisings of the early eighth
> century—were local, over specific grievances, and not anti-
> Islamic as such. In fact, the Jewish revolt against the Umayyads,
> driven, it seems, by messianic visions, was sympathetic to
> early Shi
ite ideology while it unsuccessfully tried to overthrow the last Umayyad caliph.
> 
> The first two Islamic centuries were a time of translating
> Jewish and Christian scripture into Arabic, along with a vast
> body of commentary, particularly on biblical figures. Quranic
> tafsir became the repository of much Jewish tradition about
> such figures as Abraham, Moses, Solomon, and others. It was
> during this period that Rabbinic Judaism met a strong challenge from Karaite Judaism and ultimately triumphed as the
> dominant form of Judaism in the world.
> 
> Moses Maimonides (1135–1204), a rabbi, philosopher, and phy-               The period from the tenth through the eighteenth centusician, was born in Cordoba, Spain, where Christians and Jews          ries of the common era witnessed a rise of Western military,
> participated in a lively intellectual community along with Muslims. When Maimonides was still young, however, Almohads
> technological, and economic power, ultimately eclipsing the
> from North Africa arrived in Cordoba and forbade Christians and        great agrarian-based Islamic empires that had formed in the
> Jews to worship openly, so his family left and eventually settled in   wake of the collapse of the Abbasid caliphate. In the western
> Egypt. © CORBIS-BETTMANN                                               Islamic lands of the Iberian peninsula and North Africa, Jews,
> Christians, and Muslims combined in a society that is often
> described by later historians with the adjective “golden.” The
> The death of Muhammad and the subsequent expansion                 areas of poetry, music, art, architecture, theology, exegesis,
> of Islam out of Arabia brought about a break with the Jewish           law, philosophy, medicine, pharmacology, and mysticism
> Arabian communities, so that subsequent relations are built            were shared among all the inhabitants of the Islamic courts
> on Jewish and Christian interactions with Muslims who knew             and city-states at the same time that Muslim armies were
> the Prophet’s actions only as idealized history. During the            locked in a losing struggle with the Christian armies of the
> first Islamic century, the period of the most rapid expansion           Reconquista. In the eastern Mediterranean, similar symbiotic
> of Islam, social and religious structures were so fluid that it is      societies could be found. Within the intellectual circles of the
> hard to make generalizations. Jews and Christians were theo-           Islamic world, Jews become Hellenized through contact with
> retically expelled from Arabia, or, at least, the Hijaz, but later     Muslim philosophers and theologians, just as Muslims had
> evidence shows that Jews and Christians remained for centu-            from contact with Christians earlier. In the areas of comries afterward. As late as the eighteenth century, for example,        merce, world trade was dominated by trading associations
> Jewish Bedouin roamed Northwestern Arabia, terrorizing                 made up of Muslims, Jews, and Christians from Islamic lands.
> pilgrims.
> Political Ideology
> The era of the Umayyads was a time in which Muslims,                The twin attacks on the Islamic world in the Middle Ages by
> Jews, and Christians negotiated the new power arrange-                 the Crusaders from the West and the Mongols from the East
> ments. The parameters of dhimmi status were developed, and             transformed Muslim attitudes toward the dhimmi. In the
> both head and land taxes were paid to the Muslim rulers. Jews          resulting visions of society, the influence of Jews, Christians,
> and Christians related to the Muslim caliphs through repre-            and Shi
ites was circumscribed and made more rigid, but not
> sentatives and not individually. For the Jews, the Resh Geluta         eliminated. Muslim religious scholars used depictions of Jews
> or exilarch was designated as a “prince” in the Muslim court,          and Christians found in the foundation texts as cautionary
> representing all the Jews. Because the exilarch was from the           models for Muslims, but actual communities of Jews and
> Rabbinic branch of Judaism, it became the dominant form,               Christians were treated with strict adherence to Islamic legal
> 
> 382                                                                                                 Islam and the Muslim World
> Judaism and Islam
> 
> precedent. Dhimmis had to wear distinctive clothing and           status. By the eve of World War II, most Islamic countries
> badges to indicate their position in society, as did Muslims as   were prepared to overthrow colonialism and establish nationpart of a general “uniform” indicating rank and status. Cer-      states along Western secularist models. When this happened
> tain occupations became common for Jews and Christians,           after World War II, constitutions were modeled after such
> such as tanning, which was regarded as imparting ritual           countries as Switzerland, the United States, and France,
> impurity to Muslims, and it became less common in this            usually guaranteeing freedom of religion, but providing no
> period to find Jews and Christians in the highest ranks of         particular safeguards for religious expression. Other religious
> advisors to the rulers. Jews and Christians usually lived in      and ethnic groups also desired nation-states. Christian states
> separate quarters of cities, and, while they were inferior to     were formed in the Balkans and the Jewish state of Israel was
> Muslims in public, barred from riding horses or blocking the      formed in the formerly British Mandate territory of Palespublic way with religious processions, they lived autonomously    tine. The creation of the state of Israel in 1948 became a
> with respect to their communal affairs. This autonomy, while      central focal point for Jewish-Muslim relations that had
> protective of the individuals, was to prove to have long-term     steadily deteriorated since before World War I. The worsenconsequences, however.                                            ing conflicts in Palestine increased Jewish-Muslim conflict in
> the Arab states, where Jews were seen as both foreign and
> When Jews and Muslims were expelled from Spain in             instruments of Western colonial designs. Within twenty
> 1492, the majority of Jews chose to move to Islamic lands, the    years after the formation of the state of Israel, the majority of
> area of the Ottoman Empire in particular. The Iberian Jews        Jews living in Arab lands migrated to Israel, thus crystallizing
> were so numerous, well educated, and prosperous that Iberian      the conflict in Palestine into a Jewish-Muslim conflict. Rulers
> Jewish culture often supplanted that of the older Jewish          in predominantly Muslim countries no longer had a constitucommunities so that Sephardic became the general term for         ent Jewish population. Jews became an abstract and hostile
> Jews living in Islamic lands. The trading and manufacturing       Other, and Judaism, increasingly identified with Zionism by
> skills and the capital of these immigrants to the Ottoman         Jews and non-Jews alike, was revalorized as the ever-present
> empire provided much of the wealth for Ottoman expansion.         opposition to Muslims in Islamic history. This last notion,
> Under the Ottomans, Jewish and Christian communities              while having its roots in the foundation texts of Islam, was
> achieved the greatest degree of autonomy. Through the millet      now abstracted in a way unlike any time in the past, and
> system, each community was distinct and responsible directly      Jewish-Muslim relations took a new direction.
> to the sultan.
> Jews in Islamic History
> In the Ottoman Empire, the British and French found           A common thread among many Islamic intellectuals con-
> Jews and Christians to be attractive agents for their commer-     cerned with the role and direction of Muslims in the
> cial activities, and the Ottomans, in turn, were pleased to       postcolonial world is the role of the Jews in Islamic history. As
> employ the dhimmi for these purposes as well. Many Jews           mentioned above, the historical circumstances of a strong
> sought to secure the benefits of Western societies for them-       Jewish presence in the Hijaz during Muhammad’s time and
> selves and their offspring by asking for and getting Western      the opposition of a few of the Jewish tribes to Muhammad’s
> protection, passports, and, in some instances, citizenship.       mission, embedded numerous seemingly anti-Jewish state-
> The increasing identification of Jews and Christians with          ments into the early literature. For a few, in a quest to use the
> non-Muslim powers served only to isolate these non-Muslims        Islamic historical past to explain the present, the negative
> from the rest of Islamic society. By the end of the nineteenth    accounts of Judaism and Christianity became abstracted so as
> century, most Muslims were under Western political and            to conflate the past with the present Arab-Israeli and Eastlegal influence. The secular legal systems devised in the West     West conflicts. Biblical descriptions of Jews rebelling against
> supplanted Muslim customary and religious law, seriously          God’s commands, Medinan Jewish opposition to the forming
> challenging or eliminating the category of dhimma in those        Muslim state, and Israeli actions against Palestinians were
> countries. The result was often a complete separation of Jews     read together as an eternal Jewish character, a view somefrom a relationship in law with Muslims and an increasing         times informed by Western anti-Semitic literature. The
> identification of Jews as “European.” This was particularly        article by Egyptian intellectual Sayyid Qutb, “Our Struggle
> the case in Western Islamic lands, where a knowledge of the       with the Jews,” is one example, as are the views expressed in
> growth of European forms of Judaism was greatest.                 America by leaders of the Nation of Islam.
> 
> The dissolution of the Ottoman Empire at the end of               Other Muslim intellectuals read the same foundation texts
> World War I resulting in the creation of a number of small        with an emphasis on the special relationship between God
> nation-states brought about a further separation of non-          and people of the book. While deploring the problems in
> Muslims from Muslims. The ideology of nationalism reduced         Palestine, they separate the Arab-Israeli conflict from discusreligion to the status of only one of the components of a         sions about Jews (and Christians). Some at Al-Azhar in Egypt
> nation-state ideology. Education became Western, techno-          cite Quran and sunna to support peace accords between
> logical, and secular, further reducing religion to peripheral     Israel and the Palestinians, and Warith D. Muhammad, the
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                    383
> Judaism and Islam
> 
> son of Elijah Muhammad, has countered the anti-Jewish            considerable polemic. It has also produced positive calls for
> essentialist reading of the past with a Quranic-based message   mutual respect and cooperation. It remains to be seen if the
> of mutual cooperation among Muslims, Jews, and Christians.       positive richness of past Jewish-Muslim relations can overcome the current antipathies.
> Discourse about Jewish-Muslim and Christian relations
> has been dominated in the last century by the problems of
> See also Christianity and Islam; Islam and Other Religforming new group identities after the dissolution of colonialism. Muslim, Jewish, and Christian communities have all
> ions; Minorities: Dhimmis.
> suffered from conflicts pitting one ethnic group against
> another. As with any conflict, this period has produced                                                     Gordon D. Newby
> 
> 384                                                                                         Islam and the Muslim World
> K
> KALAM                                                                            The subject matter of kalam included such topics as God
> and his attributes, classification of and arguments against
> other religions, ethical responsibility and its eschatological
> Kalam is an Arabic term for speech, and has several other,
> consequences, and the doctrine of the imamate (political
> related, technical connotations in Islamic religious thought.
> theology). Ilm al-kalam became the lingua franca of most
> Used in the phrase kalam allah it means the word of God as
> religious discourse among sects and groups in medieval
> revealed to humankind through prophets (2:75, 9:6, and
> Islamic society from the eighth century onward. Sunni and
> 48:15). In this sense, kalam is analogous to the Greek term                  Shiite schools adopted the kalam method. So, too, did
> logos, as it is used in Jewish theology by Philo of Alexandria in            medieval Christian and Jewish communities living in Iraq and
> about the first century C.E. In its second sense, kalam desig-                Iran and elsewhere in the central Islamic lands. After the
> nates God’s creative word. In the Qur
an, God’s words, as                    eleventh century, Aristotelian philosophy and logic began to
> commands, create reality. This can be seen in such Qur
anic                  wax as the kalam methods and schools waned. Nowadays,
> quotations as: “Yet when We will a thing We only have to say                 kalam is studied historically but does not claim thriving
> ‘Be’ and it is” (16:40). In this context, the word of God, kalam,            schools or exponents. Nonetheless, in his widely read theotakes on a performative function—the utterance of the word                   logical treatise on Islam and modernity, Risalat al-tawhid
> accomplishes the creative act.                                               (Theology of unity), Shaykh Muhammad Abduh (d. 1905)
> preserved a modified version of the dialectical method of the
> The third and the most primary usage is found in the                     medieval Mutazilite and Asharite schools.
> phrase 
ilm al-kalam, which connotes “the science of (dialecti-
> See also Ash
arites, Ash
aira; Disputation; Falsafa;
> cal) theology” that establishes and elaborates on the doctrinal
> Knowledge; Murjiites, Murjia; Quran.
> teachings of the various schools (sing. madhhab) of theology,
> such as the Mutazilites, Asharites, and Maturidites. In Islamic
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> intellectual traditions, the scholars of kalam gradually came to
> Wolfson, Harry A. The Philosophy of the Kalam. Cambridge,
> be delineated as dogmatic theologians (mutakallimun), as
> Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1976.
> distinct from philosophers (falasifa) and mystics (Sufis).
> Parviz Morewedge
> The mutakallimun developed a dialectical method of framing and defending religious claims over rival teachers and
> schools. Some scholars believe that Greek and Hellenistic
> philosophy influenced the rise of kalam as a form of theology,                KANO
> while others point out that Islam, as a revealed, word-
> Kano is the capital city of Kano State, in northern Nigeria. Its
> centered religion, was the primary factor in the emergence of
> 1992 population (the last year for which census data is
> the kalam method and schools of thought. The latter method,
> available) was estimated at 700,000 inhabitants. Kano State
> as it appears in literary form, strongly indicates the disputational
> has an area of 16.630 square miles and an estimated populacontext of early and medieval Islamic thought. A theological
> tion 5.6 million.
> claim was made, then defended against critics in a series of
> conditional statements of the form: “if someone from such                        Archaeological evidence suggests that Kano was founded
> and such a school asks you so and so, then say to him . . . .”               in the fifth century as a settlement at the foot of Dalla Hill.
> 
> Karaki, Shaykh 
Ali
> 
> The early inhabitants were animist, believing that a soul or          Other prominent buildings in Kano are the Amir’s palace, the
> spirit inhabited all things. The animist tradition is still fol-      Grand Mosque, and the museum.
> lowed by some peoples of northern Nigeria, but Kano’s
> inhabitants were introduced to Islam possibly as early as the         See also Africa, Islam in; Marwa, Muhammad; 
Uthman
> tenth century.                                                        Dan Fodio.
> 
> Kano was visited by strangers in the tenth century. These          BIBLIOGRAPHY
> newcomers may have been early Muslims, but a firm Islamic              Hogben, S. J., and Kirk-Green, A. H. M. The Emirates of
> presence was not established until the fourteenth century. By           Northern Nigeria. London: Oxford University Press, 1966.
> the late 1300s, Kano became an independent Islamic sultanate,
> Smith, M. G. Government in Kano, 1350–1950. Boulder,
> with close links to other Islamic centers located across the            Colo.: Westview Press, 1997.
> Sahara to the north. With the creation of the sultanate, the
> people of Kano began to publicly observe Islamic festivals,
> Thyge C. Bro
> and the appointment of eunuchs to office—a practice common in courts elsewhere in the Islamic world—was begun in
> Kano as well.
> 
> By the fifteenth century, Kano had assumed control of the
> KARAKI, SHAYKH 
ALI
> trans-Sahara caravan trade, due in large part to its powerful
> Nur al-Din Abu 
l-Hasan Ali b. al-Husayn b. Abd al-Ali alarmy. Camels appeared in the city, acquired through trade,
> Karaki, also known as al-Muhaqqiq al-Thani (d.1533), was an
> and slave raiding in the countryside to the south had become a
> Arab Twelver Shiite jurist from Karak Nuh in present-day
> profitable occupation of the Kano aristocracy. Later in the
> Lebanon, who acquired the scholastic tradition of Jabal Amil
> fifteenth century, Kano came in direct contact with European
> in Syria and stood in the intellectual line of descent from
> traders, and further expanded their trade repertoire by spe-
> Muhammad b. Makki (d.1384), who was known as al-Shahid
> cializing in indigo-colored textiles and red “Morocco-leather.”
> al-Awwal (the First Martyr). Al-Karaki was the first major
> During the period of European colonization, Kano devel-            Shiite scholar to emigrate from Jabal Amil to Najaf in Iraq
> oped as a center of Western-style education. The British              during the sixteenth century and from there to Safavid Iran
> colonial government set up a school to train teachers of              (1501–1736), where Shah Ismail (r. 1501–1524) appointed
> Arabic and Islamic sciences in the methods of modern peda-            him shaykh al-Islam. He implemented the Jafari (Twelver
> gogy. Nonetheless, the city remained an important center of           Shiite) legal rulings, observed the previously suspended
> Sufi activities as well. It became in the same period an               Friday prayer, and tried to draw Shiism out of its scholastic
> emporium of the new groundnut trade, on which the econ-               puritanism to fit the Safavid state structure. In 1532, and as a
> omy of northern Nigeria today largely depends.                        visible sign of al-Karaki’s eminence at the court, Shah Tahmasp
> (r. 1524–1576) issued a royal decree declaring him the deputy
> Kano is not remarkable for creative literary contributions.       (naib) of the imam and the seal of jurisconsults (khatam al-
> It relied on works that were imported from peripheral Islamic         mujtahidin), thus undermining the position of the Iranian
> areas. The first Kano scholar in Islamic literature was Usuman,        sadrs, chiefs of the Safavid religious administration who
> an imam from Miga, who lived in the middle of the eight-              adjudicated in criminal and religious matters. Shah Tahmasp
> eenth century. A century later Asim Degal contributed works           also conferred on al-Karaki extensive land holdings as a
> on astrology. The Makarantan Ilmi schools of higher Islamic           hereditary waqf (religious endowment). Al-Karaki’s ardent
> learning play an important part in the Islamic life of Kano           defense of the Shiite faith earned him the nickname “inven-
> City. There are at least twelve establishments of this kind in        tor of the Shiite religion.” Among his descendants was the
> Kano, but the number is believed to be much higher.                   seventeenth-century Iranian jurist and philosopher Mir Damad.
> 
> In the eighteenth century Kano was besieged by the                See also Empires: Safavid and Qajar; Isma
il I, Shah;
> Fulani, a powerful West African people. After the Fulani              Shaykh al-Islam; Shi
a: Imami (Twelver); Tahmasp I,
> came the Europeans. British troops took the city in 1903 and          Shah.
> imposed indirect colonial government. The emir stayed in
> power, but a British colonial official was present at all times.       BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Kano grew during the twentieth century. A railroad was built          Arjomand, S. A. “Two Decrees of Shah Tahmasp Concernin 1912, an airport in 1937, and a system of roads and                   ing Statecraft and the Authority of Shaykh Ali al-Karaki,”
> highways expanded over the years. Today the city preserves a             In Authority and Political Culture in Shi
ism. Albany: State
> mixture of the old and the new. Its walls still stand. Built in the      University of New York Press, 1988.
> fourteenth century of mud-brick, the walls are nearly 30              Arjomand, S. A. “The Mujtahid of the Age and the Mullabashi:
> kilometers long, with 15 gates. Still standing, too, are tradi-          An Intermediate Stage in the Institutionalization of Religtional houses of mud-brick, finely decorated in Hausa style.              ious Authority in Shiite Iran.” In Authority and Political
> 
> 386                                                                                               Islam and the Muslim World
> Kemal, Namek
> 
> Culture in Shi
ism. Albany: State University of New York       Qajar dynasty, covered the dome in gold and the manara of
> Press, 1988.                                                   the sanctuary. In April 1802, twelve thousand Wahhabis
> under Shaykh Saud invaded Karbala, killed over three thou-
> Rula Jurdi Abisaab     sand inhabitants, and sacked the city.
> 
> See also 
Ali; Husayn; Quran; Shi
a: Early.
> 
> KARBALA                                                           BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Karbala is the second largest town in Iraq, with over 350,000     Honigmann E.. “Karbalâ’.” In Vol. IV, The Encyclopaedia of
> inhabitants in the early twenty-first century. It is situated        Islam. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1978.
> about sixty miles southwest of Baghdad, where the mauso-          Jafri, S. H. M. The Origins and Early Development of Shi
a
> leum of Muhammad’s grandson Husayn (Mashhad Husayn)                   Islam. New York: Longman, 1981.
> was erected and frequently destroyed and restored during the      Momen, Moojan. An Introduction to Shi
i Islam. New Haven,
> early centuries of Islam.                                           Conn.:Yale University Press, 1985.
> 
> When the first Umayyad Sunni caliph, Muawiya, died in
> Diana Steigerwald
> 680 C.E., his son Yazid came to power. The majority of
> Muslims saw the nomination of Yazid to the caliphate as an
> usurpation of the notion of consensus (ijma
), the legitimate
> means of choosing a caliph. When Husayn received confirmation of the loyalty of the Kufis from his cousin Muslim Ibn
> KEMAL, NAMEK (1840–1888)
> Aqil, he headed toward Kufa. On his way, Husayn learned
> that his cousin had died at the hands of Yazid’s men and that     Namek Kemal, a writer and journalist belonging to the group
> the Kufis had shifted their allegiance to Yazid.                   of the Young Ottomans, attempted to introduce political
> liberalism into the bureaucratic despotism of the Tanzimat
> Husayn nevertheless continued in the direction of Kufa.       reform era. Kemal came from an aristocratic background, and
> Ibn Ziyad, the governor of Kufa, with one thousand soldiers       after learning French he began his career in the Translation
> at his command, told Husayn that he could neither go to Kufa      Office of the Ottoman government in Istanbul in 1857. He
> nor return to Mecca, and was permitted only to go to              published a journal and wrote essays on reform in a simple but
> Damascus, the capital. Instead, Husayn led his heavily out-       powerful Turkish style. In 1865 he helped found a secret
> numbered and underequipped followers to battle in Karbala,        political society and was dismissed from his government
> where they were slain mercilessly on the battlefield. This         position when this became known. In exile in Europe
> event played an important role in the development of Shiite      (1867–1870), he discovered European civilization and French
> theology and has been the source of dissension among Mus-         revolutionary thought, which he found compatible with cerlims. The battle of Karbala accentuated the split between the     tain Islamic political ideas. He popularized the concepts of
> two major branches of Islam. The event forged in Shiite          fatherland and freedom, and started the newspaper Hurriyet
> Muslims an identity as believers who are subjected to perse-      (Freedom) to develop public opinion (1868). On returning
> cution for the sake of the true succession of Muhammad.           from exile he became a journalist and political essayist,
> advocating liberal political rights founded on Islamic princi-
> A cult of martyrdom is linked to the death and downfall of
> ples, constitutional separation of powers, and halting of
> Husayn at Karbala. The 
Ashura (date of Husayn’s death) was
> European economic penetration. His controversial 1873 paelaborated upon and systematized in the articulation of Shiite
> triotic play, Vatan (Fatherland), resulted in renewed impristheology. Every year during the first ten days of the month of
> hijra, the battle of Karbala is commemorated by Shiite           onment and exile. In 1876 he returned to join state service
> Muslims during Muharram, and many go on pilgrimage to             under the constitutional regime. He criticized Ottoman mod-
> Karbala. Husayn’s martyrdom has become a source of strength       ernization as insufficiently liberal, destroying old safeguards
> and endurance for Shiite Muslims in times of suffering,          against absolutism, notably the shari
a and the Janissaries
> persecution, and oppression.                                      (elite corps of Turkish troops) without providing new ones.
> Suspected of plotting to depose Sultan Abdulhamit after the
> During its long history the tomb of Husayn was dese-           1878 abrogation of the constitution, he was again exiled and
> crated several times and had to be restored. In 850 and 851,      his writings were banned. He died in exile, but his works, read
> the Sunni Abbasid caliph al-Mutawakkil destroyed the tomb         secretly, fired the imagination of the Young Turks, who took
> of Husayn and prohibited pilgrimages to the sanctuary.            up the cause of liberalism during the autocratic regime of
> Sulayman the Magnificent visited the tomb in 1534 and 1535         Abdulhamit.
> and participated in its restoration. At the end of the eighteenth century Agha Muhammad Khan, the founder of the              See also Young Ottomans.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                  387
> Khalid, Khalid Muhammad
> 
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                        in 1939. Khamane
i finished his study in Qom Seminary in
> Mardin, Serif. The Genesis of Young Ottoman Thought: A Study        1964. During the rule of Mohammad Reza Shah, Khamane
i
> in the Modernization of Turkish Political Ideas. 1962. Reprint,   was a student of Ruhollah Khomeini, the future leader of the
> Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 2000.                  Iranian Revolution. Khamane
i was arrested many times
> during the shah’s rule, served a total of three years in prison
> Linda T. Darling      between 1964 and 1978, and was exiled for a year between
> 1978 and 1979, spending his time in Kanshahr, Baluchistan
> province. In 1979, following the overthrow of the shah, he
> was selected as the representative of the Revolutionary Coun-
> KHALID, KHALID MUHAMMAD                                             cil in the army as well as Deputy for Revolutionary Affairs at
> (1920–1996)                                                         the National Ministry of Defense. He was also chosen as the
> leader of the Friday prayer in Tehran.
> Khalid Muhammad Khalid was a popular Egyptian writer on
> religious and political topics, and the author of more than             In 1980 Khamane
i was elected to the Iranian Parliament.
> thirty books and numerous newspaper and magazine articles.          He was one of the founding members of the Islamic Republic
> He received his theological degree from the faculty of shari
a      Party. In June 1981 he became the target of an unsuccessful
> at al-Azhar University in 1947, and then gained a teaching          assassination attempt. In 1981, following the assassination of
> certificate, also from al-Azhar. He taught Arabic language,          President Raja
e, he was elected as the third president of
> and then worked in the Egyptian Ministry of Education and           revolutionary Iran. He was reelected president in 1985 and
> in the Ministry of Culture. He became a supervisor in the           served a second four-year term. On 4 June 1989, after the
> Department for the Publication of the Heritage.                     death of the ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Assembly of
> Experts chose Khamane
i as the vali-ye faqih or leader of the
> His first book, From Here We Begin (Min huna nabda),            Islamic Republic of Iran. His main problem in leadership as a
> published in 1950, was a forceful and controversial call for        substitute for his predecessor, Khomeini, has been his lack of
> separation of religion from state, as well as for a democratic      traditional and charismatic legitimacy.
> socialism, effective birth control, and furtherance of the
> rights of women. It was shortly translated into English, as was         After several attempts to make him the sole marja
 al-taqlid
> the Islamist response to it, Our Beginning in Wisdom, by his        (Twelver Shia leader) had failed, he was endorsed as one of
> friend Muhammad al-Ghazali. These two books provide a               seven maraje
 by the conservative Qom clerics in December
> good sample of the secularist-Islamist debate in Egypt at mid-      1994. His political modus operandi includes conspiracy thecentury. Khalid expressed similar views in other passionately       ory, religious authoritarianism, antipluralism, and antiwritten books in the 1950s and early 1960s.                         intellectualism. Khamane
i has been accused of killing about
> eighty political activists and intellectuals both within and
> Later he wrote a number of books on Muhammad and
> outside Iran since the 1990s. He closed more than eighty
> other heroes of early Islam. In his book al-Dawla fi al-Islam
> newspapers and imprisoned sixty journalists, political activ-
> (The State in Islam), published in 1981, he revised his earlier
> ists, and intellectuals in 2000 and 2001.
> secularist position, stating that Islam does have civil principles that should be applied by the state, although it does not      See also Iran, Islamic Republic of; Revolution: Islamic
> prescribe a “religious government.” According to Khalid,            Revolution in Iran.
> parliamentary democracy is the contemporary application of
> the Islamic principle of shura (consultation).                                                                    Majid Mohammadi
> See also Ghazali, Muhammad al-.
> 
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> KHAN
> Khalid, Muhammad Khalid. From Here We Start. Translated
> by Ismail R. al-Faruqi. Washington, D.C.: American
> The meaning of the word khan is dependent upon the context
> Council of Learned Societies, 1953.
> in which it is used. It is often used as a title, but can also refer
> to an office, a form of address, an attribute of rulership
> William Shepard
> (following Genghis Khan’s thirteenth-century Mongol unifi-
> cation), or as part of a place name. Its etymology is obscure,
> though probably Turkic. It continues to be used commonly
> KHAMANEI, SAYYED 
ALI (1939– )                                     in Central Asia, North India, Pakistan, Iran, and Turkey. It is
> seldom used in Arabic, except as a place name.
> Sayyed Ali Khamane
i, the leader of the Islamic Republic of
> Iran (r. 1989– ) was born in Mashad, Khorasan province, Iran,                                                       G. R. Garthwaite
> 
> 388                                                                                               Islam and the Muslim World
> Khan, Reza of Bareilly
> 
> By the sixteenth century, khanqas began their steady
> KHANQA (KHANAQA, KHANGA)                                             decline as they had lost their patrons. Indeed, the Ottomans,
> new masters of the region, were rather interested in patroniz-
> In twelfth century Sufism—a new strand of Islam based on
> ing Sufi orders. Since khanqas did not follow any particular
> the knowledge of God through personal experience of a
> order, the Ottomans showed no interest in maintaining these
> spiritual nature—developed its own institutions, the most
> institutions. Moreover, times had changed and the whole
> important of which were the zawiya and khanqa. Zawiyas were
> society had experienced a rise in popular Sufism sponsored by
> mostly associated with Tariqas (Sufi “orders”). They spread a
> the masses. Although it had managed to maintain itself a little
> type of popular Sufism, which appealed to the masses, and
> longer, soon the institution became defunct. Sufism survived
> they were left free to develop from the control of the ruling
> in the zawiyas, which remain active today.
> elite. Khanqas, known for their spread of a type of “orthodox”
> Sufism, often had their fate closely linked to that of the ruling     See also Architecture; Tariqa; Tasawwuf.
> elite, whose patronage was crucial to their survival.
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> The khanqa institution made its first appearance in Persia
> from where it spread rapidly to the rest of the Muslim world.        Fernandes, Leonor. “The Foundation of Baybars al-Jashankir
> in Cairo: Its Waqf, History and Architecture.” Muqarnas
> It was introduced to Egypt in the twelfth century by Saladin,
> 4 (1987): 21–42.
> who put the institution under the control of the state. Two
> centuries later, the khanqa had reached its full development         Mala, S. B. “The Sufi Convent and its Social Significance
> in the Medieval Period of Islam.” Islamic Culture 51
> thanks to patronage of the Mamluks.
> (1977): 31–52.
> According to the fifteenth century historian al-Maqrizi,          Trimingham, John Spencer. The Sufi Orders in Islam. Oxford,
> the term khanqa (Arabic form, pl. Khawaniq) derives from the            U.K.: Clarendon Press, 1971.
> Persian. It is formed by two words: khan, which means sultan,
> and kah, which means people. In the Eastern lands of Islam,                                                       Leonor Fernandes
> the term khanqa was used to refer to foundations reserved for
> Sufis. In these “monasteries” Sufis and their master could
> dedicate their lives to the practice of orthodox Sufism according to the rules set by their patrons. For medieval Egypt and        KHAN, REZA OF BAREILLY
> Syria, the set of rules that regulated the communal life of          (1856–1921)
> Sufis are known from extant endowment deeds (waqfiyyas).
> Sufis and their master were generally appointed by the                Ahmad Reza Khan Barelwi (Bareilly) was an influential scholar
> founder of the khanqa or his successors. They were housed in         and Sufi whose followers emerged in the colonial period as
> the foundation, and were given a salary, food, and clothing.         one of two major groupings among South Asian Sunni
> Sufis living in a khanqa were to remain celibate; the ones            Muslims—the other being the Deobandis. Ahmad Reza’s
> married would spend the day there but would live outside it.         voluminous writings include a translation of the Qur’an and
> All Sufis were required to attend the daily Sufi gatherings,           many volumes of advisory opinions, or fatawa. Although
> perform the ritual of Dhikr (remembrance) and spend time in          often called “Barelwi” by outsiders, those associated with this
> meditation. As the khanqa evolved, its function became asso-         religious style claim the name Ahl al-Sunna wa al-Jamaat,
> ciated with that of the madrasa. As a result, Sufis’ activities       that is, the true Sunnis. They follow the Hanafi school of
> also included attending classes in the various religious sciences.   legal interpretation and primarily follow the Qadiri order in
> Sufi affiliation.
> Khanqas were mostly urban foundations to which the
> founders often attached their funerary domes. The plan for               For the Barelwis, a good Muslim is defined as one faithful
> khanqas did not differ much from that of the madrasa. Most           to the shari
a and personally devoted to the prophet Muhamkhanqas followed the four iwan (vaulted hall) plan with an           mad as continuous intercessor to Allah through the mediaopen courtyard in their middle. In time the latter’s size was        tion of the Sufi master. Unlike other reformers, they participate
> reduced and it was covered by a roof. Fifteenth-century              in ceremonies like the 
urs observances at Sufi shrines (the
> khanqas consisted of elaborate complexes that included a             saint’s “wedding” with the divine) and the mawlid celebration
> grain mill, a bakery, an oil press, and living quarters for the      of the Prophet’s birthday. Conflict with the Deobandis refounder and his family.                                              volved around issues related to the Prophet’s attributes: his
> ability to see into the future, to have knowledge of the unseen,
> The presence of a khanqa within an urban setting affected         and to be present in multiple places, all of which they
> the life of the individuals living around it. Often the growth of    accepted. Ahmad Reza charged those who differed with him
> the whole quarter depended on the khanqa’s survival, and             as being “Wahhabi,” a politically charged label in the colonial
> sometimes the ruin of the khanqa meant the gradual disap-            context because it linked opponents with the militant followpearance of the quarter.                                             ers of the Arab Muhammad Abd al-Wahhab (1703–1787).
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                      389
> Kharijites, Khawarij
> 
> Ahmad Reza opposed participation in the Khilafat move-          branch of Kharijites known as the Ibadis persevered and are
> ment and, subsequently, his followers were aloof from the           found today in Oman and North Africa.
> Jamiyat-e Ulama-e Hind. Mosques and madrasas identifying themselves as Ahl al-Sunna wa al-Jamaa are currently           See also Law.
> found across South Asia and in places of Indo-Pakistani
> settlement like Britain and South Africa. The Jamiyat-e            BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Ulama-e Pakistan political party represents these ulema in         Madelung, Wilfred. “Kharijism: The Ajarida and the
> Pakistan. The apolitical Dawat al Islami movement engages             Ibadiyya.” In Religious Trends in Early Islamic Iran. Albany,
> in grassroots “Barelwi” proselytizing in both India and Pakistan.     N.Y.: Bibliotheca Persica, 1988.
> Mubarrad, Abu l-Abbas Muhammad b.Yazid. Al-Kamil fi l-
> See also Jam
iyat-e 
Ulama-e Pakistan; Khilafat Move-                 lugha wa-l-adab. Edited by Muhammad Abu al-Fadl Ibrahm.
> ment; South Asia, Islam in; Wahhabiyya.                               4 vols. Cairo: Dar al-Fikr al-’Arabi, n.d.
> Shahrastani, Abu al-Fath Muhammad b. Abd al-Karim. Al-
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                          Milal wa-l-nihal. Edited by Muhammad Sayyid Kilani.
> Metcalf, Barbara Daly. Islamic Revival in British India: Deoband      (1396.) Reprint. Cairo: Maktabat wa-Matbaat Mustafa all860–1900. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University                    Babi al-Halabi, 1976.
> Press, 1982.
> Annie C. Higgins
> Sanyal, Usha. Devotional Islam and Politics in British India:
> Ahmad Riza Khan Barelwi and his Movement, 1870–1920.
> Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 1996.
> Zafaruddin Bihari. Hayat-i A
la Hazrat. Karachi, Pakistan:          KHIDR, AL-
> Maktaba Rezwiyya, 1938.
> Al-Khidr (“the green” man) is the guide and mentor of Moses
> Barbara D. Metcalf       described in Sura Kahf (Q. 18.60–82) as “Our exceptional
> servant to whom We gave compassion from Ourselves and
> inner knowledge from Our presence.” Exegetes interpret this
> as “God-given knowledge” (ilm laduni), which complements
> KHARIJITES, KHAWARIJ                                                Moses’s knowledge of sharia. The Qur’an narrates that
> Moses vowed to his servant (identified in hadith as Joshua) to
> The Kharijites, or Khawarij, began as a group of Ali’s
> reach the place where the two seas meet. When Moses learns
> supporters who “exited” (kharaju) after the battle of Siffin
> their fish has plunged into the water, he resolves to return and
> (657 C.E.), when Ali accepted arbitration (tahkim) with
> finds al-Khidr, God’s exceptional servant filled with God’s
> Muawiya (r. 661–680). The “exiters” (khawarij) opposed a           Compassion and Inner Knowledge. Moses asks to follow alhuman tribunal in place of a battle victory decided by God’s        Khidr. Al-Khidr cautions that since Moses will neither be
> judgment, hence their slogan, “Judgment belongs to God              able to be patient with him nor understand, he must agree not
> alone,” echoing Qur
an 6:57, 12:40, and 12:67. They subse-          to ask any questions until al-Khidr gives him permission.
> quently identified themselves as “exchangers” (shurat) for           Moses protests when al-Khidr scuttles the boat in which they
> God’s pleasure, as in Qur
anic verse 2:207. Both militant           ride. Al-Khidr renews his warning about patience. When alactivists and quietists used the exchange concept in their          Khidr kills a child, Moses protests, and receives a similar
> rhetoric, including their highly esteemed poetry. In opposi-        reprimand. In a village where they are denied hospitality, altion to the dynastic nature of the Umayyads, they purported         Khidr rebuilds a wall. When Moses protests, al-Khidr anto choose leaders by religious merit rather than by heritage.       nounces their parting and explains the true meaning (ta’wil)
> Considering themselves true Muslims, they developed rigid           of the events: The ferrymen were poor people whom alstandards for proving one’s faith and for what is permissible       Khidr wanted to prevent from having their boat seized by an
> in Islam, which led to a variety of practices and consequent        approaching king; the child would have corrupted the faith of
> divisions. Militant groups attacked towns, engaging Umayyad         his believing parents and will be replaced; and the wall
> generals al-Hajjaj and al-Muhallab for decades. Major leaders       concealed an inheritance belonging to two orphan sons of a
> included the activists Nafi b. al-Azraq al-Hanafi, Qatari b. al-     righteous man, a “treasure which is a mercy from your Lord,”
> Fuja
a, and Shabib b.Yazid al-Shaybani, and quietists Najda         signifying the deep meaning, learned through patience, that
> b. Amir al-Hanafi, and Abdallah b. Ibad al-Tamim. “Sufriyya”       behind apparent injustice lies mercy.
> is a general term used for quietists. Many quietists took up
> arms after the Umayyad’s brutal massacre of Abu Bilal Mirdas            In al-Bukhari’s collection of hadith, the prophet Muhamb. Hudayr b. Udayya and his men while praying, in 680.              mad is quoted as saying: “He was named al-Khidr because
> Women were involved militarily and culturally. The Khawarij/        after he sat upon barren land, it became green with vegeta-
> Shurat were found variously in Arabia, Iraq, and Iran until         tion.” Bukhari presents the story of Moses and Khidr as a
> largely eradicated at the end of the Umayyad period (750). A        model for seeking knowledge with diligence and humility.
> 
> 390                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Khilafat Movement
> 
> The association of al-Khidr with Alexander the Great (356–323      editors from Delhi, their spiritual guide Maulana Abdul Bari
> B.C.E.) stems from the fact that the Khidr narrative in the        of Lucknow, the Calcutta journalist and Islamic scholar
> Qur’an precedes that of Dhu l-Qarnayn (the man “of two             Maulana Abu
l Kalam Azad, and Maulana Mahmud al-Hasan,
> horns”), who is often identified with Alexander, and from the       head of the Deoband madrasa. These publicist-politicians
> motif in the narrative of the water of life reviving a cooked      and ulema viewed European attacks upon the authority of the
> fish; al-Khidr, like Elijah, Jesus, and Idris, is considered        caliph as an attack upon Islam, and thus as a threat to the
> immortal. Al-Khidr is a protector of travelers, a rescuer, and a   religious freedom of Muslims under British rule.
> saint. In the Levant, sacred places often have multiple dedications to Khidr, Elijah, and St. George. In India, Khwaja               The Khilafat issue crystallized anti-British sentiments
> Khidr is depicted as resembling Vishnu’s Matsya (fish) Avatar.      among Indian Muslims that had been increasing since the
> British declaration of war against the Ottomans in 1914. The
> In Sufism, al-Khidr represents the saint and the spiritual      Khilafat leaders, most of whom had been imprisoned during
> master. For Sufi Qur
an commentators, al-Khidr represents           the war, were already politically active in the nationalist
> spiritual guidance (suhba) as distinguished from instruction       movement. Upon their release in 1919, the issue of the
> (talim). In hagiographies, Khidr gives to humankind initia-       khilafat provided a means to achieve pan-Indian Muslim
> tion, guidance, and liturgies. The famous Sufi Ibn al-Arabi        political solidarity in the anti-British cause and a source of
> reported receiving al-Khidr’s mantle of initiation (khirqa)        communication between the leaders and their potential mass
> twice, and the poet and mystic al-Rumi’s relationship to           following. The Khilafat movement also benefited from Hindu-
> Shams-e Tabrizi was described by Rumi’s son, Sultan Veled,         Muslim cooperation in the nationalist cause that had grown
> as being like that of Moses and Khidr.                             during the war, beginning with the Lucknow Pact of 1916
> between the Indian National Congress and the Muslim
> See also Prophets.
> League, and culminating in the protest against the Rowlatt
> anti-sedition bills in 1919. The Congress, now led by Mahatma
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                       Gandhi, called for nonviolent noncooperation against the
> Wheeler, Brandon. “Moses or Alexander? Early Islamic Exe-          British. Gandhi espoused the Khilafat cause, as he saw in it
> gesis of Qur
an 18.60–96.” Journal of Near Eastern Studies        the opportunity to rally Muslim support for the Congress.
> 57, no. 3: 191–215.                                               The Ali brothers and their allies, in turn, provided the
> noncooperation movement with some of its most enthusias-
> Hugh Talat Halman        tic troops.
> 
> The combined Khilafat-noncooperation movement was
> the first all-India agitation against British rule. It saw an
> KHILAFAT MOVEMENT                                                  unprecedented degree of Hindu-Muslim cooperation and it
> established Gandhi and his technique of nonviolent protest
> The Khilafat movement (1919–1924) was an agitation on the
> (satyagraha) at the center of the Indian nationalist movement.
> part of some Indian Muslims, allied with the Indian national-
> Mass mobilization using religious symbols was remarkably
> ist movement, during the years following World War I. Its
> successful, and the British Indian government was shaken. In
> purpose was to pressure the British government to preserve
> late 1921 the government moved to suppress the movement.
> the authority of the Ottoman sultan as caliph of Islam.
> The Ali brothers were arrested for incitement to violence,
> Integral to this was the Muslims’ desire to influence the
> tried, and imprisoned. Gandhi suspended the noncooperatreaty-making process following the war in such a way as to
> tion movement in early 1922, following a riot in the village of
> restore the 1914 boundaries of the Ottoman empire. The
> Chauri Chaura that resulted in the deaths of the local police.
> British government treated the Indian Khilafat delegation of
> He was arrested, tried, and imprisoned soon thereafter. The
> 1920, headed by Muhammad Ali, as quixotic pan-Islamists,
> Turks dealt the final blow by abolishing the Ottoman sultanate
> and did not change its policy toward Turkey. The Indian
> in 1922 and the caliphate in 1924.
> Muslims’ attempt to influence the treaty provisions failed, as
> the European powers went ahead with territorial adjust-            See also South Asia, Islam in.
> ments, including the institution of mandates over formerly
> Ottoman Arab territories.
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> The significance of the Khilafat movement, however, lies        Bamford, P. C. Histories of the Non-Cooperation and Khilafat
> less in its supposed pan-Islamism than in its impact upon the        Movements (1925). Reprint. Delhi: Deep Publications, 1974.
> Indian nationalist movement. The leaders of the Khilafat           Hasan, Mushirul. Nationalism and Communal Politics in India.
> movement forged the first political alliance among Western-           New Delhi: Manohar Publications, 1991.
> educated Indian Muslims and ulema over the religious sym-          Minault, Gail. The Khilafat Movement: Religious Symbolism and
> bol of the khilafat (caliphate). This leadership included the        Political Mobilization in India. New York: Columbia Uni-
> Ali brothers—Muhammad Ali and Shaukat Ali—newspaper               versity Press, 1982.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                   391
> Khirqa
> 
> Qureshi, M. Naeem. Pan-Islam in British Indian Politics: A           dynasty in Urgench, a city in the north of Khiva, today
> Study of the Khilafat Movement. Leiden: Brill, 1999.               situated in Uzbekistan. In 1619, following a catastrophic
> drought, the capital of the khanate was moved to Khiva. By
> Gail Minault      the late seventeenth century the effective reign of the Yadigarids
> began to decline, and their successive khans were left as
> protègès of influential Uzbek clans. During this period the
> unvarying assaults by Turkmen tribes, in addition to the
> KHIRQA                                                               endeavors at subjugation by Peter the Great of Russia in
> 1719, and by Nadir Shah of Persia in 1740, accelerated the
> A khirqa is a wool cloak, often patched (muraqqa
a). Sufis            process of disintegration of the khanate. In 1804, Inaq Iltuzer
> wore the khirqa as a sign of having embarked on the Sufi path         deposed the latest Yadigarid khan and established the Qungrats
> from at least the eighth century. By the eleventh century Sufis       dynasty. Following their earlier unsuccessful attempts to
> had developed ways of transmitting spiritual knowledge and
> conquer the khanate, the Russians eventually (1873) occupied
> authority: Sufi authors describe the binding of a disciple to a
> Khiva and imposed a protectorate status on the khanate. The
> master through an oath (the akhdh al-
ahd or the bay
a),
> protectorate status lasted until 1920 when, with the aid of Red
> becoming part of the master’s spiritual chain of authority
> Army, the era of the khanate of Khiva came to an end and
> (silsila), the inculcation (talqin) of a method of prayer (dhikr),
> Khiva became the capital of the newborn Khwarezm People’s
> and the bestowal of the khirqa from a master to a disciple.
> Soviet Republic. In 1924 Khiva was incorporated into the
> Investiture with the khirqa had an initiatic aspect. A disciple
> Soviet Republic of Uzbekistan.
> could be given the khirqa at the beginning of his training with
> a shaykh, in which case the khirqa indicated that the disciple          In the khanate of Khiva, the khan was the absolute suhad been invested with the means necessary for progressing           preme ruler in all affairs. During the early period of its
> along the path. The bestowal of a khirqa could certify that the      formation, the khanate was divided between the male associnovice had been trained by a master who could attest to his          ates of the ruling dynasties, each enjoying the military supspiritual fitness and preparedness. The silsila and the khirqa        port of various leading tribes. However, following the
> served the same purposes as the chain of authority (isnad) and       establishment of Qungrats dynasty, the administrative hierthe certificate of permission (ijaza) in ulema circles: They          archy was systematically developed. Below the khan was the
> certified that the Sufi had studied and trained under an               divan-begi or prime minister, who was followed by the kushauthoritative master, whose spiritual pedigree could be traced       begi, who was in charge of military affairs, and finally the
> back to the Prophet, and they gave him the authority to              mehter, who ran the civil administration of the khanate.
> transmit a particular spiritual way.                                 Furthermore, the khanate was divided into a capital and
> twenty districts, known as begliks; each beglik was governed by
> See also Clothing; Khilafat Movement; Tasawwuf.
> a hakim or local governor. The nomads’ chieftains, usually
> bypassing the hakims, were directly accountable to the khan.
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Schimmel, Annemarie. Mystical Dimensions of Islam. Chapel                The khanate’s judiciary system was based on shari
a or
> Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1975.             Islamic jurisprudence and adat or customary values. The
> Sells, Michael, trans., ed. Early Islamic Mysticism: Sufi, Qur,      highest position belonged to the qazi-kalan or chief judge/
> Miraj, Poetic and Theological Writings. New York: Paulist         prosecutor. Following qazi-kalan,there were qazis and then
> Press, c. 1996.                                                   the qazi’s agents or reis who were policing the civil as well as
> moral behavior of the population. The Khanate’s tax-collectors,
> Margaret Malamud         known for their corrupt behavior, were also subordinate to
> the qazis.
> 
> On the eve of the twentieth century, the population of the
> KHIVA, KHANATE OF                                                    khanate of Khiva was estimated at 700,000. A majority of the
> people worked in agriculture, either as tenant farmers, share-
> The khanate of Khiva (Khwarazm) was established in 1511 on           croppers, or slaves. Cotton, wheat, and fruits were the main
> the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea, to the south of the Aral       agricultural products. Cattle breeding was common among
> Sea and along the lower course of the Amu Darya River. The           the Turkmen. The Sarts chiefly engaged in foreign trade,
> main ethnic groups living in the khanate were Uzbeks,                which was mainly with Russia and Iran.
> Turkmen, Karakalpaks, Kazakhs, and Sarts, the latter being
> the original inhabitants of the region.                                 During the Soviet era, the city of Khiva, like the other old
> khanate capitals, lost its political importance.
> The first ruler of the khanate was Sultan Ilbars, who had a
> Shaybanid Uzbek connection. He founded the Yadigarids                See also Central Asian Culture and Islam.
> 
> 392                                                                                               Islam and the Muslim World
> Khomeini, Ruhollah
> 
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                          the Indian subcontinent from about the thirteenth century
> Hambly, G. Central Asia. London: Weidenfeld and                       onward. More particularly, it included certain groups, pre-
> Nicolson, 1969.                                                     dominantly from Gujarat and Cutch, who retained strong
> Holdsworth, M. Turkestan in the Nineteenth Century: A Brief           Indian ethnic roots and caste customs while sustaining their
> History of the Khanates of Bukhara, Kokand and Khiva.               Muslim religious identity under continual threats of persecu-
> Oxford, U.K.: Central Asian Research Centre & St.                   tion. In the nineteenth century, the Ismaili imamat (office of
> Antony’s College – Soviet Affairs Study Group, 1959.                the imam) became established in India and a program of
> Soucek, S. A History of Inner Asia. Cambridge, U.K.: Cam-             consolidation and reorganization of the community and its
> bridge University Press, 2000.                                      institutions began. These changes led to differences of opinion among Khojas. While the majority of the Khojas re-
> Touraj Atabaki      mained Ismaili, one group became Ithna
 Ashari and a
> smaller number adopted Sunnism.
> 
> In the context of the overall policy of the Ismaili imam of
> KHOI, ABO L-QASEM                                                   the time, Aga Khan III, of consolidating the Shia Ismaili
> (1898–1992)                                                           identity of his followers, the ethnic connotation of being
> “Khoja” became diluted over time and a wider sense of self-
> Sayyed Abo 
l-Qasem Musavi, Grand Ayatollah, was born in              identification as Ismaili Muslims began to emerge. With the
> Khoi, Azerbaijan. He was one of the well-known Shiite
> increasing recognition of the diversity of the worldwide
> maraje (sources of emulation). His book Ajvad al-Taqrirat
> Ismaili community itself and the positive value of the pluralist
> (The best interpretations) is one of the more important texts
> heritage represented within each of the traditions, the Khojas
> in Shiite seminaries. His other book, Al-Bayan (Explananow regard themselves as an integral part of the larger
> tion), is a comprehensive text on Qur
an commentaries. He
> community, to whose development they make a strong
> taught at the highest level of seminaries in Najaf, Iraq. He
> contribution.
> also instituted the Al-Khui Foundation with many branches
> around the world, including London and New York.
> The Khoja Ithna
 Asharis, while seeking to develop rela-
> Kho
i was apparently the undisputed marja
 of Iraq and            tions with the larger Twelver Shia community, retain their
> gained ground among the Shiite people of Iran, Lebanon,              own organizational framework.
> India, and other parts of the Muslim world. Kho
i was a
> The Khojas live today in East Africa, the Indian subcontitraditionalist of the old school and disagreed with the notion
> of clerical rule, or the Islamic state under the rule of the jurist   nent, Europe, and North America and show a strong
> (velayat-e faqih), as put forward by the Ayatollah Khomeini.          commitment to values of Muslim philanthropy in their
> entrepreneurship and contribution to societies in which
> Kho
i had good relations with the shah of Iran and                they live.
> received the Iranian queen shortly before the Islamic revolution of 1979. After the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq, Kho
i,            See also Aga Khan; Nizari; South Asia, Islam in.
> having observed absolute silence during the Iraq-Iran war
> (1980–1988), published an anti-Saudi fatwa prohibiting the                                                                Azim Nanji
> “recourse to the non-believers against Muslims “and inviting
> the latter “to resist to the enemies of God, who seek to attack
> Islam.” This was reportedly issued under great pressure from
> Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.                                       KHOMEINI, RUHOLLAH
> (1902–1989)
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Razi, Mohammad Sharif. “Ganjine ye Daneshmandan.” In                  Spiritual and political leader of the Islamic Revolution in
> Encyclopedia of Shi
ite Mullahs. Vols. 2 and 4. Tehran:
> Iran, Ruhollah Khomeini became one of the most influential
> Eslamieh, 1974.
> theologians of the twentieth century. A prolific writer and
> charismatic speaker, Khomeini inspired millions of Iranians
> Majid Mohammadi
> to rise up against the Pahlavi regime and establish Iran as a
> truly Islamic republic.
> 
> KHOJAS                                                                   Khomeini was born in 1902 in Khumayn, into a family of
> Shiite clerics. As a child and young man, he learned Arabic
> Derived from the Persian khwajah, a term of honor, the word           and studied Islamic law, and by 1923 he was a student in the
> Khoja referred to those converted to Nizari Ismaili Islam in         holy city of Qum. Here Khomeini dedicated nearly forty
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                        393
> Khutba
> 
> years to the study of traditional shari
a, as well as mysticism,    against author Salman Rushdie for having written a novel that
> gnosticism, ethics, and philosophy.                                 contained passages offensive to his view of Islam. Khomeini
> died in June 1989, still hugely popular among the people who
> By 1944, Khomeini had grown increasingly angry at the           looked to him as Iran’s spiritual leader. His funeral was
> secularization of Iranian life under Reza Shah Pahlavi. He          attended by over one million mourners.
> continued to teach at Qum, but also began his prolific career
> of political writings. Over the next two decades he collected       See also Iran, Islamic Republic of; Muhammad Reza
> disciples, whom he taught to relate their study of the shari
a to   Shah Pahlevi; Revolution: Islamic Revolution in Iran.
> all aspects of public and private life.
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> In 1963, Khomeini stepped into the national spotlight by
> Algar, Hamid. “Imam Khomeini: The Pre-Revolutionary
> leading anti-Pahlavi protests in Qum. Horrified by the vio-             Years.” In Islam, Politics, and Social Movements. Edited by
> lence of the government’s response, he became the leading              E. Burke III and I. M. Lapidus. Berkeley: University of
> religious figure opposing the regime. Exiled for his outspo-            California Press, 1988.
> ken views, he ultimately went to Iraq (1965), settling in the       Arjomand, Said A. The Turban for the Crown: The Islamic
> holiest of Shiite cities, Najaf. Through his writings, how-           Revolution in Iran. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.
> ever, Khomeini’s views were widely disseminated throughout          Brunner, Rainer, and Ende, Werner, eds. The Twelver Shia in
> Iran, denouncing the shah and his allies in the United States.         Modern Times: Religious, Cultural, and Political History.
> Leiden: Brill, 2000.
> In 1978, a variety of anti-Pahlavi forces—leftists, mer-
> Khomeini, Ruhollah. Islam and Revolution. Translated by
> chants, and ulema—rose up in open revolt, inspired by
> Hamid Algar. Berkeley, Calif.: Mizan Press, 1981.
> Khomeini’s vision of a new future for Iran that eliminated the
> corruption of the shah’s regime. Finally, in January 1979, the
> Nancy L. Stockdale
> shah fled Iran and Khomeini returned from exile to lead the
> revolution. In March 1979 a referendum established the
> Islamic Republic of Iran, and Khomeini became its spiritual leader.                                                        KHUTBA
> In opposing the shah, Khomeini had taken the title of            The sermon, or khutba, serves as the primary formal occasion
> imam, legitimizing his leadership by associating himself with       for public preaching the Islamic tradition. Sermons occur
> Holy Imams of Iranian Shiism. Surrounding himself by a             regularly, as prescribed by the teachings of almost all legal
> coterie of former students, he created a revolutionary govern-      schools, at the noon (zuhr) congregation prayer on Friday,
> ment dedicated to restoring Islam to the center of Iranian life.    the weekly day of assembly, which it is incumbent upon all
> He created new national institutions predicated on the teach-       free and able adult male Muslim residents to attend. In
> ings of Islam and administered by clerics, using the confis-         addition, similar sermons are called for on the two festival
> cated property of the previous rulers to pay for his reforms.       days, or in response to an eclipse or excessive drought,
> Although he called for an elected governing body, all political     although these sermons are expected to contain features
> offices were reserved for clerics. In an attempt to shake off        relevant to the celebrations or the natural phenomena at
> Western influences, he supported the 1979 occupation of the          hand. For instance, on 
id al-fitr the preacher is charged to
> United States embassy, holding its staff hostage, and thereby       instruct the faithful concerning zakat, or almsgiving, while on
> touching off a world crisis.                                        
id al-adha he is to include remarks specifying rules for the
> sacrifice.
> In 1980, Iraq invaded Iran with United States support.
> The war, which lasted eight years, became increasingly un-             Sermons or related types of religious oratory may be
> popular, and Khomeini ultimately agreed to sign a cease-fire.        pronounced in a variety of settings and at various times, but
> In its aftermath, Khomeini continued his attempt to create a        the term khutba, abbreviating the more ample expression
> truly theocratic state, suppressing dissenters, including those     khutba al-jum
a, usually refers only to the address delivered in
> who practiced minority variants of Islam.                           the mosque at these weekly and annual rituals. Other occasions of preaching may be described as a lesson (dars) or an
> As ruling jurist of the new, theocratic Iran, Khomeini           admonition (wa
z), and their formats would differ accordingly.
> grew increasingly vehement in putting down dissent, ordering mass executions of prisoners who had run afoul of his               The khutba is believed to have its origins in the practice of
> revolutionary courts. Isolated from the West by his anti-           the prophet Muhammad, who used to speak words of exhor-
> American rhetoric and from the Soviet Union for his insis-          tation, instruction, or command at gatherings for worship in
> tence on the centrality of religion in his government, he           the mosque, which consisted of the courtyard of his house in
> further incensed outside observers when, in February 1989,          Medina. However, the word khutba with this technical meanhe issued a fatwa (a judgement carrying the sentence of death)      ing does not appear in the Qur
an. But one passage that
> 
> 394                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Khutba
> 
> explicitly alludes to the Friday noon prayer summons believ-       to a few central locations, but are common in mosques of all
> ers to “the remembrance of God” (dhikr Allah) [Q. 62:9], an        sizes and conditions, as well as being dispensed through
> expression that some commentators have regarded as denot-          newspapers and broadcast on radio and television. Moreover,
> ing the sermon.                                                    a formidable market of sermons circulated on cassette recordings has emerged in recent decades, providing an especially
> Building on this precedent, the khutba has been closely        appealing medium for dissident preachers who are denied
> associated with authoritative discourse in several important       access to official channels.
> ways. Initially, for example, the delivery of the Friday sermon
> was restricted to the caliph himself, or his official representa-       Finally, the khutba has drawn traditional authority from its
> tives such as provincial governors. Eventually, however, the       conformity to a classically defined structure and rhetorical
> task was delegated to others, chosen for their learning and        style. Recommendations regarding preaching arise, for ineloquence, who then spoke in the ruler’s name. From this           stance, in certain hadith, such as the well-known dictum:
> relationship, the practice emerged that the preacher (khatib)      “Make your prayers (salat) long and your sermon (khutba)
> was obliged to include within the sermon an explicit mention       short.” But the recognized legal sources also specify set
> of the sovereign, normally in the form of a blessing upon him.     features and formulas for the validity of a khutba’s perform-
> This aspect of the sermon resulted in a political function for     ance. First, a Friday sermon must consist of two parts,
> khutba as it became, notably in periods of great tension and       sometimes referred to as two sermons, between which a pause
> instability, the moment for signaling a change of regime, a        occurs. Second, within the sermon, a preacher is obliged to
> shift in loyalty, or a call for rebellion.                         pronounce the praise of God, blessings upon the Prophet,
> and prayers on behalf of the congregation. Third, he is to
> In modern times, the naming of a ruler in a Friday sermon      exhort his listeners to virtue, such as warning of judgment,
> has largely fallen into disuse, expect perhaps on patriotic        and to recite from the Qur
an.
> occasions, although the established bond between the pulpit
> and political legitimacy has not disappeared. This deeply              Sermons were also to be delivered in classical Arabic, a
> rooted relationship helps to account for the shape of contro-      linguistic requirement that not only assumed substantial
> versies in many Islamic lands, where governments may vari-         training on the part of preachers if their sermons were to
> ously, through financial subsidies or censorship, seek control      consist of original compositions, but a notable degree of
> over preachers, while some who contest this assertion in the       education on the part of listeners, especially non-Arab Musname of reform or resistance may resort to sermons as              lims, if the sermons were to be fully intelligible. Not surpriseffective vehicles for opinion formation and mobilization.         ingly, this expectation of the khutba contributed to the growth
> of a literary genre consisting of model sermons, such as those
> Another important way that sermons have expressed their        by the renowned ibn Nubata (d. 984), which were committed
> authority derives from the physical context framing their          to memory by some preachers and then recited with little
> presentation. Traditionally, as defined by classical legal          adaptation. However, preaching in colloquial languages, while
> treatises, Friday congregational prayers were restricted to        often retaining certain Arabic expressions, has become inurban centers and normally to one major mosque in each city.       creasingly common. This, in turn, has led to disputes be-
> Such a site designated as a masjid jami
, that is, a “Friday       tween traditionalists, who prefer classical Arabic, and revivalists,
> Mosque” or a “cathedral mosque,” would typically be distin-        who insist that the sermon should be delivered in a language
> guished by its central location, extraordinary dimensions, and     understood by the audience.
> monumental architecture. This facility would also contain a
> number of symbolic furnishings indicative of its exalted              Like many elements of Islamic learning and piety in
> stature, the most demonstrative of which was a ritual pulpit       modern times, the sermon has been the object of concerted
> or minbar.                                                         efforts at reform and revitalization. These efforts have led to a
> renewed scholarly interest in the history of the khutba and a
> It was from this platform, possibly several meters high and    widening enthusiasm regarding its use.
> frequently impressively built and adorned, that the sermon
> was proclaimed, and only the preacher would occupy it.             See also Arabic Language; 
Ibadat; Minbar (Mimbar);
> Likewise, a number of fixed rubrics were to accompany the           Masjid; Religious Institutions.
> khutba. These specified such details as the preacher’s dress,
> his posture, a sequence of standing and sitting, and the           BIBLIOGRAPHY
> directive that he speak while leaning on a bow, a sword, or a      Antoun, Richard T. Muslim Preacher in the Modern World: A
> staff. In the contemporary Islamic world, many of these              Jordanian Case Study in Comparative Perspective. Princeton,
> archaic specifications may no longer be observed, while other         N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1089.
> culturally appropriate elements have been adopted. Most            Berkey, Jonathan P. Popular Preaching and Religious Authority
> notably, both in largely Islamic lands and elsewhere, Friday          in the Medieval Islamic Near East. Seattle: University of
> congregational prayers with sermons are no longer restricted          Washington Press, 2001.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                        395
> Khwarazm
> 
> A mullah delivers a sermon, or khutba, in Termez, Uzbekistan. The majority of religious schools require a weekly khutba on Fridays, the Muslim
> day of assembly. All able male adults are expected to attend. AP/WIDE WORLD PHOTOS
> 
> Gaffney, Patrick D. The Prophet’s Pulpit: Islamic Preaching in           Mutazilite controversy, of which al-Kindi appeared to have
> Contemporary Egypt. Berkeley: University of California                 affinities with Mutazilism.
> Press, 1994.
> Wensinck, A. J. “Khutba.” In Encyclopaedia of Islam. 2d ed.                  A significant contribution of al-Kindi is his assimilation
> Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1960.                                             and appropriation of Greek science and philosophy, writing
> nearly two hundred and fifty treatises on philosophy and
> Patrick D. Gaffney         science, of which less than forty are extant. Examples of this
> assimilation are his adoption of such Aristotelian concepts as
> the act/potency, form/matter, substance/accident relations,
> and the four causes. One also finds hints of Neoplatonism in
> KHWARAZM See Khiva, Khanate of                                           his discussion of the “one” and the “many” in his On First
> Philosophy and his subsequent positing of the One True
> Being. Still al-Kindi did not blindly follow the Greeks,
> especially when Greek philosophy contradicted the Qur
an.
> Thus, notably, he rejected the eternity of the world, a doc-
> KINDI, AL- (801–866)                                                     trine held by most Greek philosophers and most other
> Islamic falasifa (e.g., al-Farabi, Ibn Sina, and Ibn Rushd).
> Abu Yusuf Yaqub Ibn Ishaq al-Sabbah al-Kindi, also known
> as “the philosopher of the Arabs,” was born around 801 and                   Al-Kindi’s scientific achievements included work in mathedied in Baghdad around 866. He belonged to the courts of the             matics, optics, medicine, and music. Again, although Greek
> caliphs al-Ma
mun and al-Mutasim, but lost influence at the              scientists such as Hippocrates, Euclid, and Ptolemy influend of his life during the caliphate of al-Mutawakkil. Al-               enced him, his work shows originality, especially in optics and
> Kindi flourished during the period of both the Arabic transla-            medicine.
> tion movement of Greek philosophical and scientific texts, of
> which he played a limited role as a translator, and the                  See also Falsafa; Mu
tazilites, Mu
tazila.
> 
> 396                                                                                                     Islam and the Muslim World
> Knowledge
> 
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                            The nonobservational dimension of scientific knowledge
> Ivry, Alfred. Al-Kindi’s Metaphysics: A Translation of Ya‘qub Ibn   employs concepts in a syntax depicting logical and mathe-
> Ishaq al-Kindi’s Treatise “On First Philosophy”. Albany: State   matical axioms of the model used in scientific theory. Here,
> University of New York Press, 1974.                              knowledge is achieved primarily by carrying out an analysis of
> Jolivet, Jean, and Rashed, Roshdi. “Al-Kindi”. Vol. 15, suppl.      concepts and making deductions of conclusions from prem-
> 1, Dictionary of Scientific Biography. New York:                 ises according to valid rules of logic, thus preserving a
> Scribner’s, 1978.                                               correspondence of truth that continues, unbroken, from the
> premises to conclusion. Muslims contributed to the develop-
> Jon McGinnis       ment of logic through the discussion of temporal modalities,
> including the modalities of necessity, impossibility, and contingency. Within these discussions, these modalities, along
> with temporal indexes, were relevant in evaluating the truth
> KNOWLEDGE                                                           value of statements.
> 
> The concept of knowledge in Islam is generally designated by            A small number of Muslims, such as Abu Hamid Ghazali
> two Arabic terms that have overlapping meanings but differ-         (d. 1111), as well as a minority of European thinkers, such as
> ent connotations, 
ilm and ma
rifa. 
Ilm designates knowl-          René Descartes, followed the views of ancient Greek skeptics,
> edge, the “science or study of” a field such as the Qur
an,          who held that neither perception nor analysis provides cerprophetic traditions (hadith), grammar, dialectical theology        tainty. In spite of such occasional skepticism, philosophers
> (kalam), and astronomy. It also denotes the knowledge of            subsequent to Aristotle, including Muslims as well as Jews
> God in particular. Ma
rifa acquired two different meanings,         and Christians, followed Aristotle’s classification of scientific
> secular knowledge on the one hand and gnosticism (secret            knowledge into three kinds: theoretical (in which the subjectknowledge) on the other. This latter sense was particularly         matter of knowledge is not related to the inquirer), practical
> characteristic of the language of tasawwuf (Sufism). The             (where the inquirer is involved in the inquiry), and productive
> mystical Islamic vision of knowledge expresses the celebrated       (which aims to produce useful entities).
> Arabic proverb that “He who knows [has the gnosis of] his
> soul also knows [has the gnosis of] his God.”                           Whereas, in Aristotelian philosophy, there are three categories of scientific knowledge, there are five kinds of theo-
> Other terms give the concept of knowledge in Islam an
> retical inquiries, or sciences. First, are the dialectical religious
> even richer complexity of breadth and depth. For example,
> sciences, such as kalam (speculative theology) and fiqh (discishi
r also translates as knowledge, but usually in the special
> plined interpretation of the sources of the sacred law). Next is
> sense of learning or knowing something intuitively. One of
> philosophy, understood as a study of being and a study of
> the primary meanings of shi
r is “poetry.” Fiqh means to
> causes. Here subjects of inquiry are unrelated to physical
> understand or comprehend something, to have knowledge of
> bodies (things) in definition or examples. The next type of
> something, particularly legal knowledge. The chief antonym
> speculative inquiry is analysis, to which belong the disciplines
> or opposite of 
ilm is jahl, which connotes ignorance, but also
> of mathematics, logic, and music. Here the subjects of inquiry
> includes the concepts of boorishness and cultural crudeness.
> are not related by definition, but are conceptually related to
> Islam teaches that the time before the revelation of the
> physical bodies. Finally there are the natural sciences, such as
> Qur
an was a dark age of ignorance of knowledge of God.
> physics proper, physics of motion, astronomy, meteorology,
> This era is called the Jahiliyya.
> zoology, botany, and psychology. Here, both definitions and
> The Traditional Sense of Knowledge                                  examples are related to bodies. Finally, there are the practical
> The key sense of knowledge, in both Persian and Arabic,             sciences, which include public management (with religious
> then, is the one attributed to 
ilm. This term is related to the    laws and politics as subdisciplines), and household manage-
> Persian danish, the Latin scientia, and the Greek episteme. In      ment. Subdisciplines of the latter include the science of the
> ordinary English, this term refers to the concept of scientific      household, civics, which concerns one’s duty as a citizen, the
> knowledge. By adopting this sense of knowledge for the              science of the self, which includes the various senses, and the
> sciences, the subsequent Jewish, Christian, and Muslim              science of the soul.
> epistemologies formulated natural science as having two
> major constituents: (external) sense experience and analytic            Among all of the aforementioned sciences, the subdiscipline
> conception. According to this epistemology, external senses         of practical science known as the science of the soul is most
> provide the knowledge of the surface of bodies. Both sense          relevant to epistemology. Like those of its Western counterdata and analytical (mathematical and logical) axioms are           parts, Islamic epistemologies follow Aristotle’s tripartite docconstituents of an axiomatic system, which provided the             trine of the classification of the souls into vegetative, animal,
> genesis of contemporary notion of a “model.” Such a system          and rational types. Two kinds of intelligence, the passive and
> uses scientific laws to both explain and predict nature.             the active, mark the rational soul. The passive intellect
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                         397
> Knowledge
> 
> This painting from a thirteenth-century Seljuk Turkish manuscript in Arabic called “The best Maxims and Most Precious Dictums of Al-
> Mubashir” depicts a philosophical debate between master and students. THE ART ARCHIVE/TOPKAPI MUSEUM ISTANBUL/DAGLI ORTI
> 
> abstracts conceptual features from the sensible, such as the        and expressed by service to humanity in imitation of Imam
> symmetry between two figures; whereas the active reason              Husayn and Isa (Jesus).
> receives by intuition the first principles of science. Muslim
> philosophers and theologians, like other medieval monothe-          Three Senses of “Imagination” and a Creative Vision
> istic theologies, added a religious, spiritual dimension to the     of Knowledge
> active intelligence.                                                Traditional epistemology divides the senses into the five
> external senses (sight, touch, taste, smell, and hearing), and a
> Al-
aql (reason, intellect) has many functions in Islamic       set of “internal senses,” such as memory. Muslims extend the
> thought. In theology and law it is usually contrasted with          Greek theories of internal sense, which included common
> tradition (naql or sam
). While a majority of epistemologies of     sense and the notion of memory as “sense imagery,” into
> physical sciences follow the Aristotelian model, in the mysti-      refined accounts of “intentional” memory and three special
> cal as well as the post–Ibn Sina (Avicenna, b. 980, d. 1037)        senses of imagination. In this usage, a psychological notion is
> traditions, Muslims go beyond the peripatetic (that is to say,      “intentional” if it fails the so-called rule of extensionality.
> Aristotelian) model. For example, the Muslim instrumental           This rule can be exemplified in the following way. Suppose
> theory of knowledge emphasizes the intentional, pragmatic,          “John thinks he loves Mary” and “Mary is a spy”; it does not
> practical, and normative senses of knowledge. Moreover, it          follow that “John thinks that he loves a spy.” A number of
> also encompasses an account of knowledge as wisdom, which           philosophers hold that intentional notions cannot be exincludes but goes beyond discursive science by seeking norms,       plained by a materialistic, reductionist psychology. Because
> and thus partakes of the search for the secret of the good life.    Muslim philosophical psychology followed an experiential or
> For the religious devotee, the best life is lived in imitation of   a phenomenological method, it did not use materialistic
> the lives of the prophets, like Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad,         causes to explain a number of psychological notions.
> 
> 398                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Knowledge
> 
> In this light, new Muslim theories of imagination ex-           has fallen in love. This person begins to comprehend her or
> tended beyond the passive, reproductive type to embrace             his transformation from a self-involved individual to an entity
> creative and productive types of images experienced, in both        who is part of a union with a partner in the context of love,
> waking and dream states, variously characterizing it as: (a)        marriage, and family. To the members of such a couple, their
> imagination providing cognitively significant icons, (b) im-         child is a living testimony to their intended union through
> agination providing sacred and mystical insights, and finally        marriage.
> (c) an intentional sense of imagination with pragmatic and
> prehensive significances (when the meaning of an event is                In Islam, revelation and sacred insights are provided to a
> different for every person, i.e., love).                            privileged few, such as the prophets, imams, mystics, and
> Ayatollah-jurists. These images imparted are not of particu-
> The first sense of iconic imagination points to the creative     lar objects, which are available through the senses, but of
> role assigned to visions and dreams, and follows an earlier         societal and meta-legal dictums, from the Qur
an and other
> tradition, exemplified in the Hebrew Bible. It is the sense of       sources, delineating religious social law (shari
a) and formal
> Joseph’s celebrated interpretation of the pharaoh’s dream,          jurisprudence. It is the third sense of imagination, as an
> where a specific dream has a social significance. The cogni-          intentional sense of imagination with pragmatic and prehensive
> tive import of this interpretation points to an iconic imagery      significances, that signals a radical departure of Islamic episthrough a natural revelation. This medium (the dream) con-          temology from the confines of mainstream, realistic, discurtains insights about future events, mediated by an agent, the       sive epistemology. A paradigmatic case of this type of
> pharaoh in this case, who is not a prophet; instead, he or she is   epistemology is the notion of prehensive imagination (wahm), as
> a spokesperson who can be understood in the role of the             illustrated by the example of a sheep running away from a
> religious archetype of the messenger. Consequently, in addi-        wolf, providing a symbolic representation of apprehension
> tion to its psychological and therapeutic significance, the
> (realization) of fear.
> iconography of mystical and religious symbolism and rituals
> contains cognitive information about the actual world.                  Muslim philosophers took the Aristotelian notion of active reason, extended it, and incorporated it into their mysti-
> The most celebrated of these kinds of symbolism is the
> cal framework. They began with the assumption that the
> light motif, employed by Plato, Aristotle, and Plotinus, all
> distinguishing faculties of the human soul are passive and
> three of whom use light to symbolize self-realization and
> active faculties of reason. Passive reason expresses the soul’s
> mystical progress. Plotinus takes this symbolism the furthest,
> ability to abstract non-sensible relations from experience, for
> using an allegorical or symbolic type of theology to express
> example, in observing the topological symmetry between two
> the emanation of the word from the One (which is supra-
> figures. In such an operation, the mind does not create a new
> being) in the language of illumination (he also uses the
> datum in the actual world, but has the ability to abstract
> analogies of a fountain of water and the reflection in the
> relations of particulars observed by the senses. A majority of
> mirror). In a similar vein, the Qur
an depicts God as the Light
> the Muslim philosophers who followed Aristotle did not
> of the Heavens and the earth. Following from this, the
> share the Platonic view that interpreted mathematical and
> illumination philosophy of Suhrawardi depicts the ultimate
> being (God) as the Light of Lights, with the rest of the world      other forms as suprasensible realities independent of human
> being its emanation. Other symbolism includes drowning in           minds. A few philosophers, such as Shihab ad-Din Suhrawardi
> the water (recalling the fish as a symbol of Christ in Christian     (d. 1234) and Mir Damad (d. 1631) adopted the realist
> iconography), and the flight of the birds toward the heavens.        ontology in taking mathematics to be re-cognition of actual
> In Islamic carpets, four-footed animals depict the body, the        entities and not intellectual abstraction from particulars.
> tree symbolizes the various phases of life-experience, and a        Most Muslim philosophers postulated that, unlike passive
> bird depicts the soul. Other ways of symbolically depicting         intellect, active intelligence demonstrates an ability to intuit
> the mystical way of self-realization include parables that tell     the first principles of science, such as the premises of Euclidof awakening (attaining puberty) and stories of birds caught        ean geometry. They held that, as these axioms are derived by
> by hunters.                                                         deduction, we can derive knowledge of arithmetic, various
> types of geometries, and other analytical sciences, which
> These examples illustrate various different dimensions of        provide the frameworks that are used in the empirical sciences.
> the Islamic notion of knowledge. To begin with, the primary
> sense of knowledge used in science is to explain experience         Theological Knowledge as an Activity
> and to predict the future, in order to produce a technology         The celebrated theologian Abu Hamid Ghazali (1058–1111)
> that will control nature for useful projects. In contrast, the      proffered that philosophy should begin with an inquiry into
> aim of the present iconographically related experience trans-       how creatures should imitate the Divine will in the act of
> forms a person through dealienation—through the recogni-            creation. This “vector” of will to life-reality is analogous to
> tion that an individual participates in a larger social or          the theoretical axiom of the ancient Persian Zoroastrian
> spiritual context. Consider the case of a young person who          religion, according to which believers, by positive living—for
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                     399
> Knowledge
> 
> This painting depicts Ibn al-Muqaffa
 trapping birds in a net, from the fourteenth-century Persian manuscript of the Tale of Kalila and Dimna.
> The term 
ilm is the primary type of knowledge in Persian and Arabic; its English translation refers to the concept of scientific knowledge, but in
> the Islamic tradition it also indicates knowledge of Allah. THE ART ARCHIVE/NATIONAL LIBRARY CAIRO/DAGLI ORTI
> 
> example, being engaged in farming, begetting children, de-                 the refinements of Muslim epistemologies, it is necessary to
> veloping cities, and creating social order—adopt a perspec-                use the frameworks of post-peripatetic Western philosotive that denies the evil force (Ahriman). Evil here is understood         phers. Recent Muslim investigators such as Nader El-Bizri
> as the denial of life and the privation of all existence.                  use the conceptual frameworks of philosophers such as
> Gottfried von Leibniz (1646–1716), who held the nexus
> In this tenor, Ghazali outlined a list of mystical virtues,            of metaphysics is monads as energy; Martin Heidegger
> which are both epistemic and ethical. They include archetypal              (1889–1976), who began his metaphysics by the temporal
> recall (memory), exuberance, intimacy, and a taste for life.               concept of “being-in-the world”; Alfred North Whitehead
> Such a doctrine moves ontology from an investigation of                    (1861–1947), who proffered a process instead of a substancesubstances to the pursuit of the good will. Ghazali posits that            event metaphysics); and Rudolf Carnap (1891–1970), who
> facts and values are interrelated. His thought also upholds an             clarified the notion of “scientific model.”
> instrumental theory of knowledge, rejecting the so-called
> spectator theory, which places the mind of the agent outside               Mystical Knowledge as an Authentic
> of the object of knowledge. In contrast, Ghazali’s instrumen-              Hermeneutic Dealienation
> tal theory of knowledge mixes ethics with a practical sense of             It is revealing that Ibn Sina, who was one of the most
> knowledge.                                                                 significant Muslim philosophers, wrote an Arabic version of
> Plato’s Symposium, wherein he shared with the Greek phi-
> Up to the last thirty years of the twentieth century, most             losopher the vision that love is the salvation of the human
> investigators approached Islamic philosophy from the stand-                soul. For Plato, the highest knowledge is a confrontation with
> point of Aristotlian thought. This approach imposed a lim-                 the Absolute Good, a stance that is analogous to the notion of
> ited rendering of Islamic epistemology in the peripatetic,                 Shahada (being an authentic witness to God’s gifts—unique
> static context of the discursive knowledge of external senses              existence, guidance, and creation) as presented in Islamic
> and axiomatic system. However, to take account of some of                  mystical theology. In addition, Ibn Sina’s version shares with
> 
> 400                                                                                                        Islam and the Muslim World
> Knowledge
> 
> Plotinus’s vision a view of the mystical journey as a return to    experiences, as well as by its psychosomatic features, such as
> the origin and the ground of all existence.                        habits and unconscious behaviors.
> 
> For Ibn Sina, three main phases of this journey are            Philosophical Knowledge as an
> alienation, love, and union. In the first phase, a person           Immediate Encounter with “Being”
> individuates his or her personality by building a castle, a wall   Ibn Sina and a number of his successors challenged the
> of privacy, that protects and distinguishes the person from        peripatetic model of knowledge by adopting the phenomenoothers. Soon, this castle or wall of protection imprisons the      logical method, in which ontology is not separated from
> person and alienates him or her from the rest of humanity and      epistemology. Here, philosophy begins with the world as it is
> nature. In the next phase, by falling in love, a person tran-      revealed in experience. Accordingly, Ibn Sina, Nasir al-Din
> scends his or her egocentric perspective to form a relation of     Tusi (d. 1274), Mulla Sadra (b.1571–1640), and others reintimacy, leading to the opening up of an authentic encounter      placed the substance-event language of ontology with an
> with others. This is a phase that is often depicted through the    intentional phenomenology of the mind’s direct encounter
> archetypal role of the beloved, who acts as a mediator figure, a    with “being” (wujud, hasti). Subsequent, ontology proceeds
> logos, or through the role of a prophet, who links the alienated   by an application of “being” to three modalities (impossibilself to its source. Finally the last phase is a mystical union     ity, contingency, and necessity), which then results in imposbetween the person, symbolized as a river that flows toward         sible entities (such as a round square), necessary entities
> Divine-nature, which is the origin, arche, as well as the          (namely the Necessary Existent), and contingent entities
> completion of the person. This union is often depicted as a        (such as an entity of humanity, a unicorn, or a chair).
> drop of water joining a river that returns it to an ocean.
> In the next phase, the mind encounters the subject of
> being-in the world—experience. This entity is not a Carte-
> The process of self-enlightenment in Sufism points to two
> sian substance, but rather a field of experience. It is similar to
> distinct but interrelated dimensions of knowledge that can be
> the phenomenal self, or the notion of “a transcendental unity
> illustrated in the common pedagogy used to teach a foreign
> of apperception,” as it is termed in the philosophy of Immanuel
> language. The teacher instructs the pupil to perform exter-
> Kant (1724–1804). It is also analogous to Martin Heidegger’s
> nally imposed tasks, such as memorizing a set of words, using
> (1889–1976) notion of “dasein.” Unlike Aristotle and, later,
> verb-conjugation flashcards, practicing writing exercises, and
> René Descartes, (1596–1650), Kant, David Hume (1711–1176),
> repeating sentences in conversation courses. The pupil oband Heidegger, as well as a number of other Western thinktains a certain level of knowledge in vocabulary and rules of
> ers, reject the view that a human soul is a substance.
> grammar. Having reached this stage, the pupil can now
> recognize the content of a conversation and a written French           The third phase is an inquiry for the inner-essence (dhat)
> communication. In a similar sense, the more persons in love        of the self. This notion differs from another sense of (comshare experiences, like cooking and traveling together, vis-       mon) essence (mahiyya) shared by other members of the same
> iting each others’ parents, and working on common tasks, the       species. For example, it is common to say that an essence of a
> more they “prehend” each other’s personality and are able to       child’s mother, like the essence of any human, is her possesmake crucial decisions such as marriage.                           sion of a rational soul; but for the child, there is another,
> existential sense of “essence” (expressed by the Arabic-Persian
> This notion of “prehension,” as used in the philosophy of
> ‘dhat’), which concerns the peculiar dependence of a specific
> Alfed North Whitehead, signifies an epistemic, non-conscious
> child to a particular mother. In Persian mystical poetry, God,
> state of immediate-intimacy and intuition, is also expressed
> or one’s mother, is depicted as “the existence of my existby the Arabic-Persian term, hal, which refers to the role of the
> ence,” or “the cause of the actualization of my life.” The
> mystical master in directing his disciple. For example, a
> mystics seek a connection with this sense of essence. The
> person believing himself to be pious is directed to walk into a
> nature mystics add a last phase to this process, namely a
> bazaar carrying bloody pig meat on his shoulder, which             search for a dealienation or the unity of existence (wahadt almakes people lose their respect for him. After such an experi-     wujud). Here we come back to the celebrated Arabic proverb,
> ence, he loses his pride and is able to reflect authentically on    that “he who knows [gnosis] his self-soul, also knows [gnosis]
> the ground of his soul. Such tasks lead to self-knowledge as       his God.”
> well as to self-strength, as the disciple learns that his happiness should not depend on gaining the approval of the                 In the primary sense of knowledge as “scientific inquiry,”
> common people. In the Sufic tradition, knowledge is thus            Muslims philosophers followed the Greek tradition as outassociated with goodness, as in becoming a better person, and      lined by Aristotle. In addition to a few innovations in logic,
> in learning to live in harmony with nature. It is a process of     such as temporal and modal types of logic, the Muslim
> dealienation, enabling people to cope with responsibilities        contribution to epistemology is found in secondary senses of
> outside of parental protection as well as with problems, such      knowledge. These include a phenomenological intentionality,
> as aging, and fates like death. In addition, knowledge is          the development of the pragmatics of an instrumental theexplainable in both theoretical terms and through practical        ory of knowledge, creative theories of imagination, and
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                     401
> Komiteh
> 
> iconography. The crown of Islamic epistemology, however,           members of the the revolutionary committees received forlies in a unique application of the notion of unity (tawhid),      mal ranks in the police staff, based on their experience.
> which integrates persons with God, or the ultimate being of
> philosophers. Similarly, Judaism and Christianity seek an          See also Revolution: Islamic Revolution in Iran.
> authentic encounter with the Divine, but Islamic mysticism
> seeks an identity beyond any duality. It follows the theme that                                                Majid Mohammadi
> the soul seeks no “otherness” from the One.
> 
> See also Ghazali, al-; Ibn Sina; Mulla Sadra; Tasawwuf;
> Theology; Tusi, Nasir al-Din.
> KUNTI, MUKHTAR AL- (1729–1811)
> Al-Shaykh Sidi-Mukhtar al-Kabir al-Kunti was born in 1729
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                       near Arawan north of Timbuktu. He was a descendant of a
> Corbin, Henry. Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn            highly ramified Arabic-speaking tribe, the Kunta, that has
> 
Arabi. Translated by R. Manheim. London: Routledge              become widely dispersed over the Southern Sahara, from
> and Kegan Paul, 1970.                                            Mauritania to the Adrar-n-Ifoghas in Eastern Mali and be-
> Ha
iri, Mehdi. The Principle of Epistemology in Islamic Philoso-   yond. The Kunta tribe claims descent from noble origins,
> phy: Knowledge by Presence. Albany: State University of          specifically from the celebrated Qurashite Muslim com-
> New York Press, 1992.                                            mander Uqba b. Nafi al-Fihri, who was the stepbrother of
> Morewedge, Parviz. The Mystical Philosophy of Avicenna.            Amr b. al-As al-Sahmi, the first governor of Muslim Egypt.
> Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y.: Institute of Advanced
> Theology of Bard College, 2002.                                      According to the so-called tarikh, Kunta Sidi Ali, a
> Rahman, Fazlur. Prophecy in Islam: Philosophy and Orthodoxy.       descendant of Uqba b. Nafi, married the daughter of Muham-
> Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979.                      mad b. Kunta b. Zazam, who was chief of the Ibdukal (also
> called Abdukal), a subgroup of the Lamtuna Berbers, alleg-
> Rosenthal, Franz. Knowledge Triumphant: The Concept of Knowledge in Medieval Islam. Leiden: Brill, 1970.                     edly in the early fifteenth century. Their son, Muhammad,
> married into another Lamtuna group, as did also his son,
> Ahmad al-Bakka
i. Ahmad al-Bakka
i then had three sons of
> Parviz Morewedge
> his own, from whom all the later branches of the Kunta were
> derived.
> 
> After the death of Sidi Ahmad-al Bakka
i in the second half
> KOMITEH                                                            of the sixteenth century, a quarrel broke out between two of
> his sons, which is said to have caused the Kunta to split into
> The Komiteh-ha-ye Enghelab, or Revolutionary Committwo groups. The Western Kunta lived in and around the
> tees, were created immediately after the victory of the Islamic
> Hawd, today the southern part of Mauritania, and the East-
> Revolution in Iran in February 1979. The Komiteh substiern Kunta lived in and around Azwad, the area of the Sahara
> tuted for some of the governmental institutions that no
> immediately southwest of Tadmakkat.
> longer functioned after the shah was deposed, such as social
> services, security, and police. The Komiteh were more wide-            While a young man, Sidi al-Mukhtar gained a wide
> spread and active in cities than rural areas and were located in   reputation as greatly gifted, intellectually, and as an outstandcaptured police centers, in the houses of former government        ing Muslim scholar. When only twenty-five years old he was
> officials, and in some public places such as the parliament.        given the title of Shaykh al-tariqa al-Qadiriyya, making him a
> Before the establishment of the Revolutionary Guard Corps          spiritual leader within the Qadiri order of Sufis. In this
> (Sepah-e Pasdaran-e Enghelab) in 1979, these committees            position he attracted many students, who came to study in the
> were responsible for eliminating counterrevolutionary ele-         zawiya he established at al-Hilla in Azwad. His camp at al
> ments within Iran. During the Iran-Iraq War, the revolution-       Hilla rapidly became not only the center of studying the
> ary committees served on the front alongside Iran’s Army,          Qadiriyya teachings, but also the center from which a new
> Besiege and Revolutionary Guard Corps. In cities, they             Qadiri suborder was spread throughout the Sahara regions.
> fought against the narcotics trade and worked as agents of the     This new suborder bore the name of Sidi al-Mukhtar, and its
> judiciary and security systems. The members of these com-          followers came to be known as al-Mukhtariyya.
> mittees were mostly uneducated, undisciplined revolutionaries.
> Al-Kunti achieved a high degree of social and political
> After the death of Ayatollah Khomeini and during the first       influence among the active political players in the Sahara
> period of Ali-Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani’s presidency, Iran’s       arena. He succeeded in healing the rift between the eastern
> police, gendarmerie, and revolutionary committees were             and western branches of the Kunta, and he did much to help
> merged, and a new organization, called the Disciplinary            conclude a peaceful settlement between the Tuareg chiefs
> Force (Niru-ye entezami), was established. With this change,       and Arab warrior groups in the area. He also mediated
> 
> 402                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Kunti, Mukhtar al-
> 
> between the leadership of the city of Timbuktu and the            Mauritania and in Hausaland in northern Nigeria, by the
> Tuaregs, who were known to harass that city on several            successive shaykhs of the Kunta tribe.
> occasions, most notably in 1770–1771, when a siege of the
> town was lifted only after his intervention.                      See also Africa, Islam in; Tariqa; Tassawuf; Timbuktu.
> 
> Al-Kunti furthered the use of peaceful means in spreading      BIBLIOGRAPHY
> the Islamic faith among infidel groups in the Sahara. He also      Batran, A. A. “The Kunta, Sidi al-Mukhtar al-Kunti and the
> adopted tender and graceful methods for preaching and for            Office of Shaykh al-Tariqa al-Qadiriyya.” In Vol. 1, Studthe propagation of the Qadiriyya order, but although he              ies in West African Islamic History, Edited by J. R. Willis.
> restricted himself to this moderate approach, he nonetheless         London: F. Cass, 1979.
> expressed his approval of the militant jihad employed by          Clarke, Peter B. West Africa and Islam. London: E.
> Uthman dan Fodio in the first decade of the nineteenth               Arnold, 1984.
> century. Shaykh Sidi al-Mukhtar proclaimed himself a regen-
> Hisklett, Marvin. The Devolopment of Islam in West Africa.
> erator (mujaddid); in fact, he claimed to be the sole regenera-      London and New York: Longman, 1984.
> tor of the thirteenth century of the hijra.
> Levtzion, Nehemiah. Muslims and Chiefs in West Africa.
> Shaykh Sidi al-Mukhtar the Great died in 1811. His               Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon, 1968.
> son, Sidi Muhammad (1765–1826), inherited his position            Trimingham, J. Spencer. A History of Islam in West Africa.
> as the Shaykh and leader of the Mukhtarriyya-Qadiriyya               Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970.
> suborder. The wird, a phrase-patterned devotion used by the
> Mukhtarriyya order, became widely propagated in south                                                          Khalil Athamina
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                  403
> L
> LANGUAGE See Arabic Language; Persian
> Language and Literature; Urdu Language,                                    Central concepts in law
> Literature, and Poetry
> fiqh         understanding, law
> usul al-fiqh sources of law: Qur
an, hadith (sayings of the Prophet); ijma
> (consensus of schools and community); qiyas (reasoning by
> analogy)
> ilm         knowledge, especially of law, the learning of the alim (pl.
> ulema)
> taqlid       imitation; following the established teachings
> LAW                                                                        ijtihad      independent judgment of qualified legal scholar (mujtahid)
> sharia      the way, the total corpus of Muslim law and belief
> fatwa        advisory opinion on a matter of law given by a mufti
> The emergence of Islamic law originates in a definition of                               (jurisconsult)
> human deeds as understood from a specifically Islamic view-                 qada         court judgment made by a qadi (judge) on the basis of sharia
> 
> point. This could only be developed over time, as notions of               SOURCE: Lapidus, Ira M. A History of Islamic Societies. New York:
> 
> good and bad evolved according to the interpretation of the                Cambridge University Press, 1988.
> Qur
anic verses, Prophetic sayings, and the Islamic legacy as a
> whole. The evaluation of the goodness or badness of deeds                Key concepts of Islamic law.
> according to the Islamic point of view was called fiqh (understanding), and the person holding the qualities of knowledge
> and competence to produce opinions in this respect was                       In the second century of Islam, a theoretical foundation
> called faqih (the knowledgeable who understands well). The               for juridical thought evolved, leading to a properly consticonsideration of human actions within an Islamic religious               tuted legal system. At this point, fiqh came to concern itself
> context was encouraged by sayings of the Prophet, such as                with codifying this theoretical understanding, while still
> dealing with issues relating to the proper conduct of worship
> “He whom God favors with good, God makes him the one
> (
ibadat). To complement the now more narrow scope of fiqh,
> who understands in religion (faqih),” (Bukhari, Sahih, I, 25)
> a broader legal context, embodied in the concept of religious
> and “there may be some narrators who may narrate the words
> law (shari
a), extended the formal Islamic legal order to all
> to some of the receivers who may be able to understand better
> aspects of societal life.
> (afqah) than the narrators themselves” (Tirmidhi, Sunan, V,
> 34). In the Prophetic era and years immediately following,                  Beginning with the initial concept of fiqh, Islamic law
> fiqh was not specifically about practical human deeds, but                 organizes the understanding and, thus, definition, of human
> covered a general range of issues that were of religious                 deeds along a continuum. At one end are those behaviors
> concern, such as general religious knowledge and the under-              deserving of the utmost prohibition, and at the other end are
> standing of the sacred texts. However, the day-to-day prac-              those deeds subject to the utmost imperative injunction. At
> tice of Islam at this early stage of development was still being         the very center point of the continuum are found the behavworked out, and fiqh came to be employed for the creation of              iors deemed to be neutral, neither prohibited nor enjoined.
> legal definitions and interpretations of proper behavior. Over            Thus, the prohibited and the enjoined share the same quality
> time, the role of fiqh was gradually narrowed to the considera-           of being mandatory, whereas acts falling between these two
> tion of legally relevant matters, dealing with both personal             extremes become a matter of scholarly opinion and are
> and public concerns.                                                     therefore less binding.
> 
> Law
> 
> In evaluating the potentially infinite range of human           expanded, giving rise to two schools of juridical thought, one
> deeds, criteria of judgment (dalils) were needed. There are        centered in Medina, the other in Kufa. The scholars of
> two sources of these: the Qur
an and the prophetic sunna.          Medina included Rabi
at al-Ray (d. 753) and al-Zuhri (d.
> The Muslim community was explicitly referred to these by           742), who were early proponents of the pro-hadith school
> the Prophet himself, who said, “I have left for you two            (hadith refers to sayings of the Prophet). Leading scholars in
> principles; should you stick to them you will never err”           Kufa included al-Nakhai and his disciple Hammad Ibn Abu
> (Malik, Muwatta, II, 899). These two principles were by no         Sulayman (d. 738), followed by Abu Hanifa Numan Ibn almeans the sole criteria offered by the Prophet. They were          Thabit (d. 757), who favored the reasoning approach. These
> supplemented by the practice of shura, for example, which          legal trends are also known, respectively, as ahl al-hadith (the
> held that authorities should seek the counsel of the wise when     people of the hadith line) and ahl al-ra
y (the people of the
> running the affairs of the community. In addition, judges          pro-reasoning line). They were also called the schools of
> were enjoined to employ reasoning in order to make proper          Hijaz and of Iraq, respectively, making reference to their
> decisions. Moreover, legal decision-making had to be carried       geographical domains.
> out within the larger context of Islamic tradition. Finally, the
> evolution of Islamic law was influenced by politics, war, and           The line of distinction between these two early trends in
> other societal events, which variously endorsed, transformed,      legal thought was found in their perceptions of the hadith.
> or replaced traditional practices. All these factors provided      For the school of Hijaz, hadith was the actual legacy of the
> the framework within which the development of Islamic              Prophet, and was the ultimate source of both legitimacy and
> society and law occurred during the time of the Prophet and,       solutions to social problems. This approach was well suited
> later, the prominent Companions (the immediate successors          for Medina, which provided a strong Islamic culture of
> of the Prophet).                                                   practice starting from the exemplary Prophetic era. By contrast, Iraq was relatively new to Islam. In addition, Iraq was
> This early, emerging structure of Islamic society prevailed    something of a gate for the eastward advancement of Islam,
> in the first century of Hijra, which covers the age of the          and thus was host to many travellers passing through, each
> Prophet and largely that of the Companions. The signifi-            with a competing understanding of the life of the Prophet.
> cance of this era was twofold. On the one hand, the Compan-        This gave rise to multiple hadith, leading to doubt about the
> ions were concerned with the preservation of the Qur
anic          accuracy of the narrations. To overcome such doubts, reasontexts, and were therefore conservative in their application of     ing was applied. Thus, Abu Hanifa of Iraq understood hadith
> the Prophet’s sayings when substantial legal matters were at       through applying his concept of dhabt (precise preservation).
> stake. On the other hand, the Companions’ era was a time in        Dhabt was, in his view, the precise understanding of the
> which trends of legal thought and methodology were initi-          juristic content of the hadith and its precise transmission.
> ated for the forthcoming generation of Islam’s leading think-      The narrator himself therefore needed to be faqih in order to
> ers. In the first century of Islam, Medina was the main center      understand the precise content of what he narrated. Here, the
> for the development of Islamic knowledge and practice, but         significance of reasoning prevails over the literal transmission
> these were complemented by the work of other competent             of the texts.
> figures who were appointed to fulfill juridical and administrative duties elsewhere. Among these were Ibn Masud, who                Although Medina stood as the center of political power in
> served in Iraq, and Mu
az Ibn Jabal and Abu Musa al-Ashari,       Islam during the era of the Prophet and in the thirty years that
> both of whom served in Yemen. In the late decades of the first      followed, it was later transferred to Syria. There it remained
> century, in addition to the ruling political authorities, there    for the entire duration of the Umayyad reign, and it was in
> were others living throughout the expanding Muslim world           Syria where the prominent and influential jurist Abd alwho made substantial contributions to juristic thought. Among      Rahman al-Awzai (d. 764) built his legal career in association
> there were Said Ibn al-Musayyab (d. 713), Urwa Ibn al-           with the Hijazi trend of law. Al-Awzai is famous for his work,
> Zubayr (d. 716), Ubeydullah Ibn Utbah (d. 717), and Abu          called al-Siyar, but this text has been lost to later generations.
> Bakr Ibn Abd al-Rahman (d. 713) in Medina; and Alqamah           Nonetheless, it is known that this lost work marked the
> Ibn Qays (d. 682), Shurayh Ibn al-Harith (d. 679), Masruq          beginning of a literature that developed later and that dealt
> Ibn al-Ajda (d. 683), and Ibrahim al-Nakha’i (d. 714) in Kufa.     with issues of war and peace. It also influenced the work of
> Abu Yusuf, one of the prime disciples of Abu Hanifa of Iraq.
> By the turn of the first century of Islam, the political        Abu Yusuf wrote al-Radd 
ala siyar al-Awza
i (The response to
> authorities had already pursued two main policies relating to      the Siyar of al-Awzai), and from it one can glean not only Abu
> the use of the textual sources of Islamic law. First, the          Yusuf’s counterviews but also al-Awzai’s original theses.
> standardization of Qur
an began under the reign of Abu Bakr
> and was later finalized under the reign of Uthman. Second,             Abu Yusuf’s treatise provides insights into interregional
> the Umayyad caliph, Umar Ibn Abd al-Aziz, encouraged the         activities and the flourishing state of legal thought. Medina,
> collection of the sayings of the Prophet. In the early decades     the birthplace of the Islamic society, had a special advantage
> of the second century, scholarship regarding Islamic law was       for traditional Islam and remained a main center of gravity for
> 
> 406                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Law
> 
> Derivation of a Shari legal decision
> 
> God
> 
> Qur
an                           sunna (practice of Muhammad)
> 
> hadith (report)                             ijma (agreement)
> 
> ilm (learning)
> of the ulema
> qiyas (analogy)                                                 isnad (reporters)                               (the learned)
> 
> ijtihad (inquiry, or, independent judicial
> [ra
y (private judgement)]                               reasoning) by a mujtahid
> 
> fiqh (jurisprudence) of a faqih
> 
> sharia (the way of the faithful)
> 
> fatwa (advisory decision) of a mufti
> 
> qada
 (court judgment) of a qadi (judge)
> 
> SOURCE: Hodgson, Marshall G. S. The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a World Civilization. Vol. 1. Chicago: University of Chicago,
> 1974.
> 
> Visual explanation of how legal decisions are made.
> 
> the Islamic legal scholarship. Medina’s dominance in this                        an overarching, ecumenical system of legal thought. In Shafii’s
> field is expressed in the concept of 
amal ahl al-Medina (the                     point of view, the Iraqi concepts were inaccurate or inconsispractice of the Medinese people), which served as an example                     tent, while the Medina-based Hijazi school was too regionally
> of proper practice throughout the Islamic world. Jurists were                    specific. The diversities in legal thought that arose through
> thus enjoined to follow the Medina example when seeking a                        these interregional argumentative dialogues gradually paved
> better understanding of Islamic laws. The vital role attributed                  the way for the evolution of a supra-regional system of legal
> to Medina attracted the scholarly attention of several impor-                    thought, an evolution inspired by Shafii’s leadership.
> tant jurists, such as Shaybani (d. 804), and Shafii (d. 819),
> who eventually argued against it. Shaybani, who was a key                            In the first half of the second century, the Iraqi-led legal
> jurist of the Iraqi school, studied the hadiths called al-                       trend was mostly identified with Abu Hanifa and, thus, with a
> Muwatta, Malik’s collection of mainly legal content. In his                     more free use of reason. He recognized three sources of
> own work, Shaybani often mentioned the disagreements of                          Islamic law: the Qur
an undisputedly came first, followed by
> the Iraqi jurists with the views presented by Malik. Further-                    the hadith of the Prophet and then the ijma
, which is the
> more, Shaybani compiled an independent work called al-                           consensus of the Companions. Abu Hanifa had a relatively
> Hujjah 
ala ahl al-Medina (The argument against the people of                    cautious and restrictive attitude toward accepting hadiths,
> Medina).                                                                         giving greater weight to the juristic contents of the sayings
> than to the literal understanding of the words themselves. He
> Shafii, too, had studied the Medinese and the Iraqi                           treated the diverse opinions of the Companions as various
> notions of law. He took a position against both, arguing for                     options that needed to be evaluated before choosing one from
> the elimination of regional concepts and promoting instead                       among them. He held that the methodological key to this
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                                   407
> Law
> 
> N      Early schools of law
> 
> Founding father                           Region              School
> Hanbali

> school                                                    al-Awzai (d. 744)                        Syria               Awzai
> Abu Hanifa (d. 767)*                      Iraq                Hanafi
> Baghdad
> Malik b. Anas (d. 795)*                   Medina              Maliki
> Cairo
> al-Shafii (d. 820)*                      Egypt               Shafii
> Bahrayn                    Delhi          Ibn Hanbal (d. 855)*                      Iraq                Hanbali
> Dawud b. Khalaf (d. 883)                  Iraq                Zahiri
> Shafi^i

> school     Medina                       O
> m                                 *These schools became Sunni madhhabs (orthodox schools of law).
> Mecca
> an                                SOURCE: Lapidus, Ira M. A History of Islamic Societies. New York:
> en
> ema
> Ya                     
                     Cambridge University Press, 1988.
>  
> Early schools of law.
> 0      500     1,000 mi.
> Law and Jurisprudence:
> 0   500 1,000 km
> Spread of the Schools
> Hanafi school
                                                      In about 750 C.E., the Umayyads were overthrown by the
> Maliki school

> Qaramitah (Shi^a) school
                                       Abbasid revolution, and the center of power in the Muslim
> Zaydi (Shi^a) school
                                           world moved from Damascus to Baghdad. The new regime
> Sack of Mecca, 927

> City

> sought to bring a new order to Islamic society. This need for
> 
                                                               change was most felt by Ibn al-Muqaffa (d. 757), the chief
> advisor to the Abbasid caliph Abu Jafar al-Mansur, who
> Law and jurisprudence 816–963. XNR PRODUCTIONS, INC./GALE                    diagnosed an intolerable state of disorder in the judiciary and
> decried the injustices that the people were suffering. Ibn al-
> Muqaffa asked the caliph to take control of the matter by
> evaluation was a methodology called qiyas (analogical reason-                imposing consistency in judicial administration and a cohering), which required that a jurist look to previous cases for                ent system for the application of laws. He further urged the
> precedents when determining the outcome of a current case.                   caliph to codify the law, making it possible to perpetuate the
> Through this method of qiyas, the jurist could establish                     legal system. In addition, he advised the caliph on the selecconnections between the present and the past and thus
> tion of the team of jurists who should be assigned these tasks,
> produce systematic juristic opinions, but it sometimes failed,
> making a strong case for the use of Iraqi scholars over those
> when similar cases could not be found, or their similarities
> from other regions.
> were only superficial. At such times, Abu Hanifa would
> abandon qiyas and instead employ free reasoning, or istihsan.                    The Abbasid regime followed the recommendations of
> He described his approach to legal thought in the follow-
> Ibn al Muqaffa, and in time managed to overcome the
> ing terms.:
> reluctance of famous jurists to serve the government that had
> long characterized the scholars of the Iraqi school. Abu Yusuf
> What comes from the Companions [in disagreement]                          was appointed to the newly created post of qadi al-qudat (chief
> we do not abandon altogether. . . [we chose from                          judge) and was granted discretionary power over the adminisamong their varying opinions]; and what comes from                        tration of the entire judiciary. First among his tasks was the
> the Successors we ignore them. (Ibn al-Qayyim,                            grand project of codifying the laws and policies of the new
> ILam, IV, 123)                                                           judicial and fiscal order, thus demanding a degree of textual
> orientation never previously confronted by the Iraqi school of
> This statement shows Abu Hanifa’s lack of interest in the                law. Abu Yusuf’s thought on finance is contained in his Kitab
> narrated opinions of the Successors of the Companions. It                    al-Kharaj (The book of taxation), which was written during
> also demonstrates his confidence in the reasoning abilities of                the reign of Caliph Harun al-Rashid. (Abu Yusuf’s other main
> jurists of his own generation. This confidence in the reliabil-               works are Kitab al-Athar, Ikhtilaf Abu Hanifa wa Ibn Abi Laila,
> ity of free reasoning allowed Iraqi jurists to override textual or           and al-Radd 
ala Siyar al-Awza
i).
> systematic limitations. Iraqi jurists also opposed the Umayyad
> political power based in Syria, which meant that they were                      Muhammad al-Shaybani, another preeminent disciple of
> not employed by the government and thus did not have to                      Abu Hanifa, was also employed by the new Abbasid regime,
> compromise their methodology to suit the practical limita-                   serving as judge and as a teacher of jurisprudence. Shaybani,
> tions that such political affiliation might impose. However,                  though lower in rank than Abu Yusuf, was a more prolific
> this freedom from political constraint would not last for long.              writer, and thus achieved more real advances for the Hanafi
> 
> 408                                                                                                          Islam and the Muslim World
> Law
> 
> School of law. His main works, known collectively as Zahir al-        content, that was paramount in determining the legitimacy of
> riwaya (The reliable narrations), consist of the following            the narrations and recitations of the sunna. This approach
> titles: al-Asl, al-Jami al-kabir, al-Jami al-saghir, al-Siyar al-   contradicted the Medinese perception of the sunna which was
> kabir, al-Siyar al-saghir, and al-Ziyadat. In general, these          more concerned with Medina tradition and practice as it
> works cover a wide range of religious-legal issues, such as           reflected the legacy of the Prophet, and it differed from
> prayer, tax, marriage, divorce, commerce, and punishment,             previous Iraqi legal trends, which judged the authenticity of
> with the exception of al-Siyar al-kabir and al-Siyar al-sighir,       hadiths on their content as distinct from their sole letter.
> which are thematic of laws of war and peace. Also, these              Shafii’s literalist understanding had an enduring impact
> works that represent early Hanafite legal thought were col-            upon the Hafanite legal thought. For instance, Abu Bakr allected by al-Hakim al-Shahid al-Marwazi (d. 955) in the tenth         Jassas (d. 980) of the Hanafi School was forced to attempt to
> century and presented under the title of al-Kafi. They were            distinguish among the words of the Prophet, conceding that
> later reinterpreted and elaborated upon by Sarakhsi (d. 1090)         at least some of the Prophet’s utterances were divinely reunder the title of al-Mabsut. Shaybani’s work, as well as             vealed or inspired, whereas others reflected his “ordinary” or
> Sarakhsi’s commentary, discloses the evolution of law in Iraq,        more humanly derived opinion.
> starting with the free use of reason as championed by Abu
> Shafii’s approach to the ijma
 is perhaps the most polemic
> Hanifa and his predecessors and moving toward greater
> of all. In the Shafiite view, the ijma
 should mean the
> textual orientation and structural regulation. This trend toconsensus of the entire umma (community), and this is not
> ward the institutionalization of juristic principles can be
> possible unless it is with the participation of each and every
> attributed to two factors: the accession of leading post-Abu
> Muslim individual. This perception of ijma
 contrasts with
> Hanifa Iraqi jurists into the official power circles and, later, to
> the perception held by the Medinese jurists, who restricted
> the indelible impact of al-Shafii (d. 819).
> their understanding of ijma
 to the consensus of the scholars
> Al-Shafii came to dominate the next phase of the evolu-           of Medina, as it was reflected in the practice of the Medinese
> tion of Islamic legal theory. He limited the legitimate sources       people. It also contradicted earlier Iraqi perceptions of ijma
,
> of juristic knowledge to four: the Qur
an, the sunna, ijma
,          which called for the consensus only of the jurists of the Iraqi
> and qiyas. He utterly rejected the principle of istihsan that had     legal trend. However, Shafii’s arguments were more explicbeen advanced by Abu Hanifa. Shafii’s approach to each of             itly directed against the views of his nearer contemporaries,
> the four approved sources emphasized the development of a             the Iraqi jurists of the post-Abu Hanifa period.
> centralized perception of Islamic law, and rejected the valid-
> Shafii’s argument boils down to the claim that true
> ity of regional variations that contradicted this unitary conconsensus of all Muslims or even merely of all jurists on a
> ception of the law. Moreover, in his work titled al-Risala, he        juristic personal opinion (ijtihad) cannot be reached. At best,
> argued that the only language suitable for Islamic scholarship        it can only be apparent, because a verbalized consensus could
> was Arabic: “[T]he entire book of God came down in none               easily mask silent disagreements. In his view, the only viable
> but the Arabic language” (Shafi
i, Risala 40).                         ijma
 is to be found in the already existing acceptance, by each
> and every Muslim, of obligatory matters such as belief in the
> Shafii’s emphasis on Arabic as the language of the Qur
an
> necessity of prayer. Obviously, this conception of ijma
 is
> meant that translations of the Qur
an into other languages
> better suited to theological purposes governing elements of
> were not equivalent of the Qur
an. From this it follows that
> faith than to legal ones, which are more concerned with
> not only scripture and scholarship, but also the prayers of the
> matters of behavior.
> faithful, must be in Arabic, for the language was held to be an
> essential element. This position was in outright contrast with           Shafii’s refutation of the ijma
 of all jurists may be valid on
> that of Abu Hanifa, who approved of the recitation of the             grounds of logic, but it renders the concept irrelevant for
> Qur
an in Persian in prayers. As Shafii’s literalist approach         legal purposes. Nonetheless, both al-Jassas and al-Sarakhsi
> gained ascendency, Abu Hanifa’s disciples were forced to              were forced to contend with its implications. They responded
> reinterpret their mentor’s position (that prayer in Persian was       by dividing the ijma
 into two main types. The first follows
> permissible) as exclusive and temporary, applicable only in           Shafii’s formulation, including all Muslims, whereas the
> certain exceptional cases until people could learn the proper         second refers specifically to consensus among the jurists alone.
> Arabic recitation of the Qur
anic verses.
> Shafii’s approach to the qiyas rests in his rejection of
> Shafii’s sunna of the Prophet was twofold. He considered           istihsan. The legitimacy of qiyas arises from the fact that it
> the further sacralization of the Prophet, whose sayings were          relates new cases to previous ones. In this retrospective
> divinely inspired, and held that the authenticity of the say-         process, the qiyas ultimately draws the jurist back to the prime
> ings’ transmission through narrators was directly dependent           sources of juristic knowledge: the Qur
an, the sunna of the
> upon the literal faithfulness of their narrations. In other           Prophet, and the ijma. On the other hand, the Shafiite
> words, it was the letter of the narration, rather than the            school of legal thought considers istihsan as disconnection
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                         409
> Law
> 
> Aral
> Sea
> 
> Ca
> Black Sea
> 
> spi
> an S
> ea
> Cordoba
> Almeria       Bougie                                                                                        Ma                       Nishapur
> Qayrawan                                                   Aleppo                         z a n d eran
> M edi t e                                                               Tehran
> Fez            Tlemcen
> rranean                             Salamiyya
> Sea                     Damascus             Baghdad
> Isfahan
> Morocco                                 Tripoli                                   Gaza                    Kufa         Wasiè

> Benghazi     Barqa                                             Al Hira
> Cairo                                         Basra        Shiraz
> N                                                                             Mada&in
> 
> Medina

> 
> Re
> (Birthplace of Malik)
> 
> dS
> ea
> Spread of                        0         300        600 mi.
> the Schools                       0   300     600 km
> Hanafi school

> Malik&s pupils

> From Medina

> Shafi^i school

> A ra b i a n
> From Qurtuba
                                                                                                                             Sea
> From Salamiyya

> City
> 
> Law and jurisprudence: Spread of the schools. XNR PRODUCTIONS, INC./GALE
> 
> from the letter of these three recognized sources of knowl-                      use of talil (reasoning) in shar (legislation with religious
> edge because, in contrast to qiyas, it involves the use of free                  overtones). The Zahiri School, zealously defended and sysreason without reference to the legitimate origins of law.                       tematized by Ibn Hazm, thus insists that human reason
> Also, there can be no legitimacy accorded to the free use of                     cannot be part of decision-making in religious law.
> reason when consensus is restricted to the scope of the nusus
> (the sacred texts), as in Furud and Muharramat (which are                            Ahmad Ibn Hanbal (d. 855), an admirer of Shafii for his
> held to stem from a divine origin), the sunna of the Prophet                     emphasis upon the hadith, became an inspiring source for a
> (considered to be divinely inspired), and the Qur
an. Yielding                   distinctly hadith-oriented trend of law called the Hanbali
> to the pressure from the Shafiite position regarding the use                     School. Ibn Hanbal is famous for his nonconformist position
> of istihsan, and the Hanafite School eventually replaced the                      against the official pressure of the “rationalist” Abbasid reterm istihsan with the designation “hidden qiyas” to signify                     gime (particularly of al-Mamun and al-Mutasim), which
> that istihsan was just another type of qiyas.                                    ordered him to speak in support of the theological belief that
> the Qur
an was makhluq (created). Ibn Hanbal was a re-
> Shafii rejected istihsan because it was the product of the                   spected hadith scholar, but he was not particularly famous as a
> human mind, rather than deriving from the nusus. This                            jurist. Indeed, the hadiths he presents in his main work, alposition attracted the attention and admiration of Dawud al-                     Musnad, are overwhelmed by the citations of the names of
> Isfehani (d. 883), because of the distinction it drew between                    their narrators. However, his position, and his focus on
> divine and human decisions. Eventually, Dawud noticed that                       hadith, helped inspire a certain pro-hadith line of legal
> qiyas, too, involved human reasoning. Thus, he took a radical                    thought.
> step further than the Shafii, rejecting the qiyas in addition to
> the istihsan. This line of legal thought is known as the Zahiri                      The Hanbali School of Law in proper terms was systema-
> (literalist) School of Law, because its theory strives to prove                  tized in the great work of Ibn Qudame (d. 1223), al-Mughni.
> that legitimacy in religious law is confined to the literal scope                 Prominent scholars belonging to this legal school include
> and contents of the nusus and the ijma
 that are in agreement                    such jurists as Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328) and Ibn al-Qayyim alwith the Qur
an, and the hadiths, too, are held to be literal                    Jawziyya (d. 1350). The Hanbali line of legal thought still
> narratives of the acts and practice of the Prophet, devoid of                    holds enormous influence throughout most of Gulf region,
> interpretation. This line of thought is sharply opposed to the                   and in Saudi Arabia, in particular.
> 
> 410                                                                                                                      Islam and the Muslim World
> Lebanon
> 
> Shafii’s role in the development of Islamic legal theory       Tastan, Isman. The Jurisprudence of Sarakhsi with Particuwas decisive in challenging the regional schools of law and          lar Reference to War and Peace: A Comparative Study in
> their diverse methodologies, and in motivating them to               Islamic Law. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, the University of
> evolve their concepts and terminology toward a centralized           Exeter, 1993.
> Islamic legal thought. In the formative period of Islamic law,     Tastan, Osman. “Islam Hukukunda Sahabi Otoritesinin
> the Medinese legal trend had been basically expressed by the         Kaynagi ve Niteligi.” Islami Arastirmalar 8, no. 2
> Muwatta
 of Malik and further substantiated by the volumi-           (1995): 115–121.
> nous work of Sahnun (d. 854), al-Mudawwana, which focused          Tastan, Osman. “Islam Hukukunda Literalizm: Anahatlariyla
> on the concept of Medinese practice. Meanwhile, the Iraqi            Mukayeseli Bir Analiz.” Islami Arastirmalar 9, nos. 1–4
> legal trend evolved from being primarily rationalistic into          (1996): 144–156.
> being the gradually centralizing and relatively conservative       Tastan, Osman. “Merkezilesme Surecinde Islam Hukuku:
> Hanafi School of Law, in line with the prevalent Shafiite             Bolgesellige Veda veya Safii Faktoru.” Islamiyat 1, no. 1
> influence. The Hanbali School of Law was itself systematized          (1998): 25–34.
> long after the death of Ibn Hanbal, gaining a strong place in      Tirmidhi, Muhammad Ibn Isa. Sunan. Edited by Ibrahim
> the history of Islamic law. The Zahiri legal trend, on the            Atwah Iwad. Istanbul: Cagri Yayinlari, 1981.
> other hand, was denied legitimacy and was ultimately excluded from the Sunni arena of Islamic law, principally
> Osman Tastan
> because of its rejection of qiyas. In today’s Islamic law, the
> four “legitimate sources” of juristic knowledge, set forth by
> Shafii, provide the minimum of the compulsory criteria to be
> satisfied for any legal trend to take place within the context of
> LEBANON
> Sunni legal theory.
> Like many other states in the Middle East, the state in
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                       Lebanon was established in the early 1920s, following the
> Bukhari, Muhammad Ibn Ismail. Sahih al-Bukhari. Istanbul:         downfall of the Ottoman Empire in the First World War.
> Cagri Yayinlari, 1981.                                           Greater Lebanon, as the new state was initially called, was
> Hallaq, Wael B. “Was the Gate of Ijtihad Closed?” Interna-         formed out of a territorial nucleus, the Mutasarrifiya of
> tional Journal of Middle East Studies 16 (1984): 3–41.           Mount Lebanon, established in 1861. A special political and
> Hallaq, Wael B. A History of Islamic Legal Theories: An Intro-     legal arrangement devised after the 1860 civil strife and
> duction to Sunni Usul al-Fiqh. Cambridge, U.K.: Cam-             recognized by the six major European powers, the Mutasarrifiya
> bridge University Press, 1997.                                   gave Mount Lebanon a semiautonomous status within the
> Ibn al-Muqaffa. Risala Ibn al-Muqaffa’ fi al-Sahaba. In Rasail     Ottoman empire, and succeeded the Imara (1516–1842),
> al-Bulagha. Edited by Muhammad Kurd Ali. Cairo, 1954.           the political system that prevailed in Mount Lebanon since
> Karaman, Hayreddin. Islam Hukuk Tarihi. Istanbul: Iz               the early sixteenth century, after a short interval. While
> Yayincilik. 1999.                                                confessionalism had its origins in the Ottoman millet system,
> Malik, Ibn Anas. al-Muwatta
. Edited by Muhammad Fuad              the Mutasarrifiya formalized political representation along
> Abd al-Baqi. Istanbul: Cagri Yayinlari, 1981.                    confessional lines in an elected twelve-member body, the
> Sarakhsi, Muhammad Ibn Ahmad. Sharh al-Siyar al-Kabir.             Administrative Council, headed by an Ottoman governor
> Edited by Salah al-Din al-Munajjid and Abd al-Aziz             (Mutasarrif) of the Catholic faith and representing Mount
> Ahmad. Cairo: Matba
at Shirkat al-Ilanat al-Sharqiyya,         Lebanon’s six major communities (four Maronites, three
> 1971–1972.                                                      Druzes, two Greek Orthodox, one Greek Catholic, one
> Sarakhsi, Muhammad Ibn Ahmad. Islam Devletler Hukuku:              Shia, one Sunni). Abolished by the Ottomans in 1914, the
> Serhu’s-Siyeri
l-Kebir, Translated by Ibrahim Sarmis and        Mutasarrifiya gave Mount Lebanon over fifty years of politi-
> M. Sait Simsek, edited by Ahmet Yaman, Konya: Egitas            cal stability and orderly confessional relations.
> Yayinlari: 2001.
> Shafii, Muhammad Ibn Idris. al-Umm, Beirut: Dar al-                    Under the French mandate (1920–1943), Lebanon’s 1926
> Ma’rifa, 1973.                                                   constitution stipulated that representation in government
> Shafii, Muhammad Ibn Idris. al-Risala. Edited by Ahmad             office would be temporarily on a confessional basis.
> Muhammad Shakir. Cairo: Dar al-Turath, 1979.                     Confessionalism was institutionalized in post-1920 Lebanon,
> Shaybani, Muhammad. The Islamic Law of Nations: Shaybani’s         particularly in the personal status law of the seventeen recog-
> Siyar. Translated by Majid Khadur. Baltimore: Johns              nized communities and in government office. The greatest
> Hopkins Press, 1966.                                             beneficiary of the confessional system was the Shiite com-
> Shaybani, Muhammad. al-Hujja 
ala Ahl al-Medina. Edited by         munity whose Ja
fari jurisprudence was recognized by the
> Mahdi Hasan al-Kaylani al-Qadiri. Beirut: Alam al-               state in 1926, a right that had been denied under Sunni
> Kutub, 1983.                                                     Ottoman rule.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                   411
> Lebanon
> 
> Although the 1932 census showed a slight Christian ma-           Political parties-turned-militias exercised power in areas unjority, the demographic structure in post-1920 Lebanon was           der their control along with several non-Lebanese parties
> radically transformed with the enlargement of the Mutasarrifiya       directly involved in the war: the PLO until 1982–1983, Syria
> to include territories with a Muslim majority. The Maronite          before and after that date, Israel in the south from 1978 to
> community, for example, decreased from over 60 percent of            2000, and the Islamic Republic of Iran since the early 1980s.
> Mount Lebanon’s population to nearly 30 percent in post-
> 1920 Lebanon, while the Sunni community increased from                   The fifteen-year war ended with another act of war, when
> about 5 percent in Mount Lebanon to nearly 25 percent after          Syrian forces joined units of the Lebanese army to oust an
> 1920. Similarly, the Shiite community increased from about          interim premier, General Michel Aoun, from office. An-
> 5 percent in Mount Lebanon to nearly 20 percent after 1920.          other development was the political settlement embodied in
> Beginning in 1937, the custom of the Maronite presidency             the Document of National Understanding, commonly called
> and Sunni premiership was established while the Shiite              the Ta
if Agreement, which was signed on 22 October 1989
> speakership continued to be contested until 1947 between             by Lebanese deputies in the Saudi city of Ta
if. One compothe Shia, the Greek Orthodox, and the Greek Catholic                nent of the Tai
f Agreement dealt with political reforms, the
> communities.                                                         other with sovereignty. While the Ta
if Agreement preserved
> the custom of the Maronite presidency, the Sunni premiership,
> Independence was achieved in 1943 not only because
> and the Shiite speakership, it greatly diminished the power
> Lebanese from different communities opposed French rule
> of the president and enhanced that of the prime minister, the
> but also because leaders, particularly those of the two influencouncil of ministers, and the speaker. Ta
if also called for the
> tial communities, the Maronites and the Sunnis, reached an
> abolition of political confessionalism according to a staged plan.
> understanding on the basis of the National Pact. An unwritten agreement, the National Pact confirmed the distribution
> As for sovereignty, the Ta
if Agreement called for the
> of government office along confessional lines and sought to
> redeployment of Syrian troops to specific areas two years
> situate Lebanon’s foreign policy on an equal distance beafter the incorporation of Ta
if’s provisions into the constitutween East, that is, the Arab world and particularly Syria, and
> tion in September 1990, and for the withdrawal of Israeli
> West, particularly France.
> forces from the south in accordance with the 1978 United
> Like other Arab countries shaken by the rise of Nasserism        Nations resolutions 425 and 426. Israel withdrew its forces in
> (pan-Arab populist movement led by Egyptian president                May 2000 but Syrian troops did not redeploy. Ta
if also
> Jamal Abd al-Nasser) in the mid-1950s during the height             introduced the notion of “privileged relations” with Syria.
> of cold war politics in the region, Lebanon witnessed a              Beginning in May 1991, Lebanon and Syria signed a series of
> six-month armed conflict in 1958. Lebanon quickly recov-              bilateral agreements that tied Lebanese affairs ever closer to
> ered from the conflict and the decade 1958–1968 witnessed             Syria in the political, security, economic, cultural, and comlarge-scale administrative reform, political stability, and eco-     mercial arenas. Since 1990, the political decision-making
> nomic prosperity, especially under President Fouad Chehab            process in Lebanon has been very much in Syrian hands. The
> (1958–1964).                                                         Shiite community was greatly affected by the war and by
> regional developments that unfolded during the war years. It
> Once again, regional developments shaped the course of
> underwent drastic political change: from the control of tradi-
> Lebanese politics: the Arab defeat in the 1967 Arab-Israeli
> tional leaders prior to the war, to the reformist platform of
> war and the emergence of a militant Palestine Liberation
> Imam Musa al-Sadr, the founder of the Amal Movement in
> Organization (PLO). From 1969, when Lebanon had to sign
> the mid-1970s, to the radical Islamist agenda of Hizb Allah
> an agreement with the PLO (the Cairo Agreement) that
> since the mid-1980s. In a period of two decades, Shiite
> allowed the PLO’s military action against Israel from Lebanpolitics have been greatly radicalized. Backed by Syria, Iran,
> ese territory, until the outbreak of war in 1975, political crises
> and the Lebanese government, Hizbollah—the only Lebanand armed conflict hinged on the PLO’s armed presence.
> ese party that was not disarmed after the war—led the war
> Confrontation between Lebanon’s raison d’état and the PLO’s
> raison de révolution was bound to occur, just as it did in           against Israel in south Lebanon in the 1990s and is today the
> Jordan in 1970–1971. But unlike Jordan’s authoritarian state,        most mobilized and active political-cum-military organiza-
> Lebanon’s openness, confessional democracy, and consensual           tion in the country.
> politics did not enable the state to contain the PLO and to
> The withdrawal of Israeli forces from the south has
> stop PLO-Israeli warfare in south Lebanon.
> reactivated the debate on the presence of about twenty-five
> War broke out in April 1975 and ended in October 1990.           thousand Syrian troops in the country. Although the sectar-
> It evolved in five phases; the most violent were the first and         ian divide is deeper in postwar Lebanon than prior to the war,
> last two years of the war and the 1982 Israeli invasion              a politically significant Christian-Muslim consensus emerged
> of Lebanon. The war crippled government institutions,                in 2000–2001 on the need to implement properly the Ta
if
> factionalized the army, and widened the sectarian divide.            Agreement and to establish balanced relations between
> 
> 412                                                                                               Islam and the Muslim World
> Liberation Movement of Iran
> 
> Lebanon and Syria. Consensus was confirmed by the formali-             equality, and progress. Islamic liberalism forms one strand of
> zation of the reconciliation between Christians and Druzes,           Islamic modernism, which also encompasses modern values
> following the historic visit of the Maronite patriarch, Cardi-        that are not associated with the liberal tradition, such as statenal Nasralla Sfeir, on 5 August 2001, to areas that were              building and scientific authority.
> displaced during the war. The government’s response to
> these positive developments was a massive crackdown on                    Islamic liberalism emerged in the mid-nineteenth century
> Christian activists in August 2001. But the casualty this time        as a response to the hypocrisy of European liberalism, which
> was not only the growing intersectarian opposition to the             was introduced to the Islamic world by the highly illiberal
> Syrian-backed Lebanese authorities but to the country as a            means of imperial conquest. Since that time, conservatives
> whole: government institutions, the rule of law, and the              have consistently accused Islamic liberalism of being overly
> economy with a public debt that rose from over $1 billion in          enthralled with European traditions. Yet Islamic liberalism’s
> 1990 to over $25 billion in 2001.                                     self-understanding centers on Islamic traditions, including
> the sacred sources that require or allow liberal practices and
> See also Fadlallah, Muhammad Husayn; Hizb Allah;                      the precedents in Islamic history for tolerance and peaceful
> Sadr, Musa al-.                                                       coexistence. In the late twentieth century, a new form of
> Islamic liberalism added the argument that human interpre-
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                          tation of revelation is inherently fallible and pluralistic. In
> Akarli, Engin. The Long Peace: Ottoman Lebanon, 1861–1920.            this view, the repression of Islamic liberalism is an illegiti-
> Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993.                     mate exercise in hubris, because no mortal can presume to
> Binder, Leonard., ed. Politics in Lebanon. New York: John             know the meaning of divine revelation with any certainty.
> Wiley, 1966.                                                       Islamic liberalism has generally been a minority position in
> El Khazen, Farid. The Breakdown of the State in Lebanon:              the Islamic world. Its representatives have sometimes fared
> 1967–1976. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University                    well when elections are free and fair, though more frequently
> Press, 2000.                                                       liberalism has been stymied by hostile responses of tradition-
> Hanf, Theodor. Coexistence in Wartime Lebanon: Decline of a           alists, revivalists, and secularists.
> State and Rise of a Nation. London: The Center for Lebanese Studies and I. B.Tauris, 1993.                                  See also Modern Thought.
> Harik, Iliya. Politics and Change in a Traditional Society: Lebanon
> 1711–1845. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University                    BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Press, 1968.                                                        Binder, Leonard. Islamic Liberalism. Chicago: University of
> Hudson, Michael, C. The Precarious Republic: Political Mod-              Chicago Press, 1988.
> ernization in Lebanon. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Encore
> Kurzman, Charles, ed. Liberal Islam: A Sourcebook. New York:
> Edition, 1985.
> Oxford University Press, 1998.
> Maila, Joseph. The Document of National Understanding: A
> Commentary. Oxford, U.K.: Center for Lebanese Stud-
> Charles Kurzman
> ies, 1992.
> Makdisi, Ussama. The Culture of Sectarianism: Community,
> History, and Violence in Nineteenth-Century Ottoman Lebanon.
> Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000.
> LIBERATION MOVEMENT OF IRAN
> Salibi, Kamal, S. The Modern History of Lebanon. New York:
> Praeger Publishers, 1965.
> The Liberation Movement of Iran (Nehzat-e azadi-ye Iran),
> or LMI (also called Iran Freedom Movement, or IFM), was
> Farid el Khazen      established as a liberal Islamic opposition in May 1961.
> Its twelve founders, including Mehdi Bazargan, Ayatollah
> Mahmud Taleqani, and Yadollah Sahabi, presented it as
> LEXICOGRAPHY (ARABIC) See Grammar                                     Muslim, Iranian, constitutionalist, and Mosaddeqist; that is,
> and Lexicography                                                      they claimed the ideological legacy of Mohammad Mosaddeq’s
> National Front. In 1963 the shah banned the LMI and
> imprisoned its leaders for a number of years.
> 
> LMI gained power during the Iranian revolution in 1978
> LIBERALISM                                                            and 1979. Its members formed the core of the postrevolutionary
> provisional government and on 5 February 1979, Mehdi
> Islamic liberalism may be defined as a movement to reconcile           Bazargan was appointed prime minister of the provisional
> Islamic faith with liberal values such as democracy, rights,          government by Ayatollah Khomeini. He resigned in protest
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                         413
> Libraries
> 
> after the occupation of the American embassy in Tehran on 4       monuments and patronized scholars and poets—to acquire
> November.                                                         reputations as cultivated rulers. Libraries of elegant manuscripts and learned treatises were thus appropriate posses-
> Though formally banned by Khomeini in 1988, the LMI           sions for kings and those who imitated them, and it was not
> was generally tolerated, but not allowed to participate in        uncommon for Islamic rulers, military officers, and high
> elections. It openly criticized the doctrine of velayat-e faqih   officials to have well-earned reputations for literary taste and
> (i.e., the rule of the religious jurisprudent) as well as the     scholarship. Third, books were central to Islamic religious
> executions, torture, and the ban of parties and free media.       life. Despite a stress on oral learning in medieval Islam, books
> Although its members are mainly academic veterans of the          were necessary to record the masses of traditions of the
> opposition to the shah, since the 1990s LMI has also appealed     Prophet, legal rulings, information concerning transmitters
> to the young who admire Mosaddeq—the only democrati-              of religious lore, and linguistic lore that were the raw material
> cally elected prime minister of Iran. The left wing of the LMI    of the Islamic sciences. Even the oral transmission of knowlis represented by Ezzatollah Sahabi, who, in 1992 founded         edge usually involved the production of a dictated book, so
> the magazine Iran-e farda.                                        that studying a book involved producing a copy of it. Fourth,
> medieval Islamic bureaucrats were accustomed to use books:
> After the death of Bazargan in 1995 and under its new
> encyclopedias of useful information, literary manuals useful
> chairman, Ebrahim Yazdi, the movement became more caufor producing elegant official documents, literature for amusetious. Nevertheless, in spring 2001, the revolutionary court
> ment, and such things as manuals of occult sciences. Finally,
> ordered an end to all LMI activities. Although charged with
> the Islamic law of waqf, charitable endowments, allowed
> conspiring against the Islamic system on 13 November 2001,
> Muslim bibliophiles to donate their books to the libraries of
> Yazdi was not touched by the authorities. But more than
> mosques and madrasas with reasonable hope that their collecthirty other members were sentenced to jail by the revolutions would be maintained intact.
> tionary court on 27 July 2002, among them Ezzatollah
> Sahabi. They were charged with a series of crimes, including          The earliest Islamic libraries were the collections of Qur
ans
> seeking to topple the country’s government. The trials were       that accumulated in mosques. Qur
an reading was an imporheld behind closed doors.                                         tant Islamic devotional practice, and both copying Qur
ans
> and donating them to mosques were acts of piety. Larger
> See also Bazargan, Mehdi; Iran, Islamic Republic of.
> mosques often acquired more diverse libraries, mostly through
> gifts. When a mosque was built or renovated, the donor often
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                      gave a collection of books as the basis of the library. Biblio-
> Chehabi, Houchang E. Iranian Politics and Religious Modern-       philes and scholars, particularly those who taught in a parism. The Liberation Movement of Iran under the Shah and         ticular mosque, often willed their books to the mosque
> Khomeini. London: Tauris, 1990.                                 library. Books copied in class were often given to the mosque
> library. To this day, many of the most important collections
> Claudia Stodte     of Islamic manuscripts are in mosque libraries—for example,
> al-Azhar in Cairo and Suleymaniyyeh in Istanbul.
> 
> There are records of royal libraries as early as Umayyad
> LIBRARIES                                                         times, the earliest associated with the scholarly Umayyad
> prince Khalid b. Yazid. The zenith of Islamic royal libraries
> Several factors contributed to the prevalence of libraries in     was in the Abbasid period. The Abbasid caliph al-Ma’mun (r.
> the medieval Islamic world. First, manuscript books were          813–833) founded the Bayt al-Hikma, the house of wisdom,
> relatively cheap. Papermaking technology arrived in the           which was the center for translation from Greek, Syriac, and
> Islamic world in the eighth century, providing Muslims with       Pahlavi and which was the basis of a caliphal library that
> a material cheaper than the papyrus used previously in the        survived for more than a century. The Umayyad royal library
> Middle East and far cheaper than the parchment and vellum         at Cordova, founded by al-Hakam II (r. 961–976), was supmade from animal hides used in medieval Europe. Moreover,         posed to have had 400,000 manuscripts. The greatest of the
> the Arabic script with its cursive forms and many ligatures       royal libraries was that of the Fatimids in Cairo, founded in
> could be written much faster than the medieval versions of        1004 by the caliph al-Hakim (r. 996–1021). It survived,
> the Roman alphabet. Second, the medieval Islamic world was        despite some vicissitudes, until it was ordered closed by
> a literate culture. Men and even women of the upper and           Saladin in the late twelfth century and its collections were
> middle classes were almost always literate. Both religious and    dispersed and partly destroyed. The royal libraries sometimes
> secular literatures were popular, and scholarly and literary      had aggressive programs of commissioning both the copying
> attainments were respected. Islamic rulers, constantly hungry     and the composition of books. Both the Abbasid Bayt alfor legitimacy, collected books for the same reason they built    Hikma and the Mogul royal library in Delhi commissioned
> 
> 414                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Libraries
> 
> extensive translations, in the latter case often of Sanskrit        the family home over many generations. Examples include
> Hindu literature of all sorts. Most of the great illustrated and    the al-Husayni, al-Khalidi, and al-Budayri libraries in Jerusailluminated Islamic books are the product of royal commissions.     lem, each of which dates from the eighteenth century.
> 
> There were also public libraries known as dar al-
ilm,          Destruction and Dispersal of Libraries
> houses of knowledge. These were more or less public librar-         Islamic chronicles mention the destruction of many libraries,
> ies, often established for sectarian purposes. These institu-       either deliberately or, more commonly, accidentally. Apart
> tions played a role in the establishment of madrasas, Islamic       from a few places and times, warfare was endemic in the
> seminaries. With the rise of madrasas in the eleventh century,      Islamic world and took its toll. Few surviving libraries in the
> their libraries became increasingly important.                      Islamic world predate the older Istanbul libraries. While the
> story that the Muslim invaders burned the library of Alexan-
> Size, Nature, and Organization of Premodern                         dria has long been known to be false—it had been destroyed
> Islamic Libraries                                                   in Roman times—the sack of cities did often result in the
> Medieval accounts mention libraries containing hundreds of          destruction of libraries. Most of the major libraries of Abbasid
> thousands or even millions of books, notably the royal librar-      Iraq were destroyed during the Mongol invasion. The Islamic
> ies of Baghdad, Cairo, and Cordoba. Individual scholars are         library in Tripoli was destroyed when the city was sacked by
> mentioned whose libraries consisted of some thousands of            the Franks during the First Crusade, beginning in 1095. The
> books. The higher numbers are scarcely credible. Istanbul,          American invasion of Iraq in 2003 apparently resulted in the
> for example, has more than a hundred manuscript libraries or        destruction of much of the collection of the National Library
> collections dating from Ottoman times, some four centuries          in Baghdad.
> old, yet in 1959 a careful survey indicated that there were only
> about 135,000 Islamic manuscripts in the city, the largest              Sometimes the destruction was ideologically motivated.
> collection containing about ten thousand manuscripts. It            Mahmud of Ghazna burned the heretical works in the library
> certainly is credible, however, that the larger medieval Islamic    of the wazir Ismail b. Abbad and confiscated the rest. The
> libraries contained tens of thousands of manuscripts and that       books on philosophy and the natural sciences in the library of
> wealthy individual scholars and bibliophiles possessed librar-      al-Hakam II in Cordoba were burned by the orthodox during
> ies of several thousand volumes—collections dwarfing any-            his son’s reign. The mass destruction of Arabic books was part
> thing in Europe at the time.                                        of the Catholic kings’ program to suppress Islam in Spain,
> including the burning of Arabic books in Granada at the
> At their finest, Islamic libraries were large, well-organized    order of Cardinal Cisneros. There also was a curious tradiinstitutions with specially built facilities for book storage and   tion of scholars destroying their own books at their death,
> reading, professional staff, regular budgets and endowments,        either to suppress embarrassing or incomplete works or to
> catalogs, and even lodging and stipends for visiting scholars.      avoid unauthorized transmission of hadith and other texts
> Public access varied, depending on the nature of the libraries,     that ought to be transmitted orally.
> but established scholars could generally gain access to most
> collections. Books were usually stored on shelves or in cabi-           Finally, lack of supervision led to the decay of many
> nets, stacked on their sides with a short title written on the      libraries, with books stolen by readers or dishonest librarians
> upper and lower edge of the book to aid in finding it.               or lost to damp and insects, the latter a particular menace in
> (Traditional Islamic bookbindings do not usually contain the        South and Southeast Asia, where insecticide is still sometimes
> title or author.) Catalogs were either bound handlists, the         sprinkled between the pages of books.
> waqf documents donating the books, or lists posted on the
> doors of the cabinet. Collections were organized by subject.           The destruction of libraries in wartime was not always, or
> Avicenna describes visiting the royal library in Bukhara, for       even usually, deliberate. Books were valuable, and thus were
> example, where rooms were devoted to different subjects.            better stolen than destroyed. There is a report that when
> Paper, pens, and ink were sometimes furnished for the use of        Constantinople fell to the Ottomans, the sultan ordered the
> patrons.                                                            surviving Greek manuscripts in the city collected for the
> palace library, and there can be no doubt that the size and
> Smaller collections had less elaborate facilities. Most         quality of the manuscript collections in Istanbul are in good
> mosques and madrasas had libraries. Private libraries and           part the result of the imperial reach of the Ottoman armies.
> individual books were often donated to such institutions as         Likewise, many of the Islamic manuscript collections in
> waqf, endowment, and the terms of the gift would be carefully       Europe were, to some extent, the product of colonial wars.
> recorded on the flyleaf. Donated collections were often kept         The great Islamic manuscript collections in Russia are the
> as separate units. There were also family libraries. In a society   product of the Russian expansion into Central Asia in the
> where professions were often hereditary, some families pro-         eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The treasures of the
> duced scholars and clerics generation after generation for          Mogul royal library were dispersed after the 1857–1858
> centuries. Not uncommonly a library would accumulate in             mutiny, and many of the finest items ended up in London.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                     415
> Literature
> 
> Libraries in the Modern Islamic World                               monographs and periodicals poses particular difficulties for
> With some exceptions, the library situation in modern Islamic       academic libraries in the poorer Islamic countries, and the
> countries falls short of the glories of the medieval period.        lack of such materials is one of the most difficult problems
> Some premodern libraries have survived and prospered. In            faced by academics in the Islamic world. The increasing
> Ottoman Turkey a stable bureaucratic tradition and internal         importance of computers and electronic resources is an
> stability meant that most of the old waqf libraries survived as     additional burden that few academic libraries in the Islamic
> functioning institutions until they were taken over by the          world can afford.
> modern Turkish state. Several of the larger Ottoman libraries
> in Istanbul are still functioning, and the collections of most of       Elementary and secondary school libraries are generally
> the smaller libraries have been gathered in a central library in    weak or nonexistent. Public library systems are also usually
> the Suleymaniyyeh mosque. Al-Azhar University in Cairo              inadequate and rarely have much priority in competition for
> has a library that has functioned for centuries in one form or      scarce public resources. Public libraries exist in major cities,
> another.                                                            but much less commonly in provincial cities or small towns.
> Translations of foreign works are relatively scarce. Cultural
> Most of the libraries of the Islamic world are of more          factors sometimes hinder progress. Where public libraries
> recent date. These may be divided into two classes: libraries       exist, there may be restrictions on circulation, subscription
> of traditional type founded in the nineteenth and twentieth         fees, or educational requirements that hinder free access, as is
> centuries, and Western-style libraries founded by colonial          the case for the best public libraries in Pakistan. The Islamic
> administrations or modern independent Islamic states.               world has not yet had its Andrew Carnegie, endowing mass
> self-education through free public libraries. As a result, for-
> Even after the occupation of most of the Islamic world by       eign institutions such as the British Council still play a
> European colonial powers and the establishment of modern            significant role in providing library facilities, despite their
> nation states in the Islamic lands, libraries continued to be       existing only in the largest cities. The new Alexandria Library
> established that, despite occasional appurtenances of modern        being built in Egypt in emulation of the ancient library
> libraries and the prevalence of printed books, were indistin-       deserves mention, though it is far from clear that it will be
> guishable in style and purposes from those established centu-       able to achieve its goal to become a world-class research
> ries earlier. The libraries of the Muslim rulers and nobility of    library.
> princely states in British India were royal libraries of the old
> sort—for example, the Raza Library in Rampur, based on a               There have also been challenges applying modern library
> collection started by the Rohilla Nawabs of Rampur in the           techniques. The mixture of Arabic and Roman script books
> eighteenth century, and the Salar Jung Museum Library in            has posed problems for cataloging and computerization. The
> Hyderabad, Deccan. New mosques and madrasas had librar-             Dewey Decimal System has been widely adopted, despite the
> ies indistinguishable from those of previous centuries, apart       inadequacies of its treatment of Islamic and Middle Eastfrom the presence of printed books. A notable example is the        ern topics.
> Marashi library in Qom, founded by a bibliophilic grand
> See also Education; Ma
mun.
> ayatollah in the mid-twentieth century, which emerged as a
> major library after the Iranian Revolution of 1979.
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> The colonial period marked a major change, with the             Atiyeh, George N. The Book in the Islamic World: The Written
> introduction of European-style libraries intended to promote           Word and Communication in the Middle East. Albany: State
> the diffusion of modern knowledge and to support the new               University of New York Press, 1995.
> systems of education and, to a lesser extent, to support            Nadim, al-. The Fihrist of al-Nadim: A Tenth-Century Survey of
> modern industry. At the top of the pyramid are national               Muslim Culture. Edited and translated by Bayard Dodge.
> libraries, supported by depository laws and national bibliog-         New York: Columbia University Press, 1970.
> raphies. In some cases, such as Egypt and Iran, these libraries     Pedersen, Johannes. The Arabic Book. Translated by Geoffrey
> emerged from earlier royal libraries and are themselves im-           French. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984.
> portant repositories of Islamic manuscripts. In other cases,        Rosenthal, Franz. The Technique and Approach of Muslim
> such as Pakistan, they are new foundations rivaled or over-           Scholarship. Rome: Pontificium Institutum Biblicum, 1947.
> shadowed by older university and traditional libraries. The
> introduction of modern educational systems led to the crea-                                                        John Walbridge
> tion of school and university libraries. University libraries are
> well established across the Islamic world, though in general
> only a few of the older universities have really major libraries:
> Istanbul University, American University of Beirut, and Punjab      LITERATURE See Arabic Literature; Persian
> University in Lahore, for example. Many newer universities          Language and Literature; Urdu Language,
> have very limited library facilities. The high cost of foreign      Literature, and Poetry
> 
> 416                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> M
> MADANI, 
ABBASI (1931– )                                                    BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Burgat, Francois, and Dowell, William. The Islamic Movement
> Algerian Islamic activist and opposition leader, 
Abbasi Madani               in North Africa. Austin: Center for Middle Eastern Studwas born in 1931 in Sidi 
Uqbah, in southeastern Algeria. An                  ies, University of Texas at Austin, 1993.
> early member of the National Liberation Front (Front de                     Ciment, James. Algeria. The Fundamentalist Challenge. New
> Libération Nationale, or FLN), Madani was imprisoned                          York: Facts on File, 1997.
> throughout the eight-year war against the French. After the
> independence in 1962, Madani joined the Qiyam (Islamic                                                                    Claudia Gazzini
> values) association and took a critical stance against the
> socialist and secular orientation of the FLN. He received a
> religious education, then studied philosophy and psychology,
> and in 1978 received a Ph.D. in education in Britain. Madani                MADHHAB
> upheld the ideas of Algeria’s reformist movement and criticized the state’s secular policies, calling for Islamic revival and         Lexically, the term madhhab denotes a “way of going,” and by
> the Arabization of the predominantly francophone educa-                     extension a “manner followed,” an “ideology” or “movetional system.                                                              ment.” Most commonly, the term and its plural (madhahib)
> refer to the different “schools” of Islamic law.
> Madani ascended the political ladder during anti-FLN
> riots in October 1988. The following year he founded the                        The classical Sunni schools of law emerged in the late
> religiously inspired Islamic Salvation Front (Front Islamique               ninth and early tenth centuries C.E.; they were built on the
> du Salut, or FIS), which quickly became the opposition party,               legal opinions of certain local authorities from the late eighth
> representing the vast majority of the urban poor. Madani’s                  and early ninth centuries. By the late tenth and early eleventh
> first electoral victory came in June 1990, during Algeria’s first             centuries, the legal opinions of scholars identified as “followmultiparty municipal elections, and subsequently he emerged                 ers” (ashab) of people like Malik b. Anas, Abu Hanifa, and alas the potential successor to the then-president Chadli                     Shafi
i were condensed into compendia that represented the
> Benjedid. In May 1991, Madani called for an indefinite                       perspectives of the five main schools: Maliki, Hanafi, Shafi
i,
> general strike to protest against a new electoral legislation,              Hanbali (following Ahmad b. Hanbal), and the Zahiri (folbut was arrested soon thereafter. During his incarceration,                 lowing Daud b. Khalaf). The followers of local authorities
> military intervention against FIS’s success in the first round               such as al-Awza
i, Sufyan al-Thawri, and others, did not
> of the December 1991 national elections resulted in the                     materialize into institutionalized schools of law beyond the
> party’s ban and years of civil violence. He was freed in                    tenth century though their opinions continued to play a role
> July 1997. Madani endorsed the beliefs of many Islamic                      in the legal theory of the other schools.
> modernists who call for an Islamic solution to the crisis of
> modernity and, through the FIS, brought Islam to the fore-                     Following the eleventh century, each school continued to
> front of Algerian national identity.                                        develop distinct legal theory while maintaining constant
> interaction and dialogue with the other schools. Divisions
> See also Islamic Salvation Front; Political Organiza-                       among the schools were often characterized not only in terms
> tion; Reform: Arab Middle East and North Africa.                            of general approaches to the authoritative sources (usul) and
> 
> Madrasa
> 
> methods of interpretation, but also in terms of legal rulings
> on specific issues or practices.                                    MADRASA
> The Hanafi madhhab is sometimes called the “followers of        Madrasa, is an Islamic college, literally a “place of instrucopinion” (ashab al-ra
y), denoting a perception of their greater   tion,” especially instruction in religious law. In medieval
> reliance on logic and reasoning, as opposed to the label           usage the term referred to an institution providing intermedi-
> “followers of the hadith” (ashab al-hadith) applied to the         ate and advanced instruction in Islamic law and related
> Shafi
i and Hanbali madhahibs. Other schools, such as the           subjects. This contrasted with elementary schools, which
> Zahiri madhhab, were known for their eschewing of reason           provided basic Quran instruction, and nonreligious instituand logic, relying instead on the “literal” interpretation of      tions, which provided instruction in such subjects as mediauthoritative sources. The Maliki madhahib asserted its au-        cine. In modern usage the term usually applies to schools
> thority as a continuation of the practices that originated with    offering Islamic religious instruction at any level. The madrasa
> the prophet Muhammad at Medina. It was not uncommon,               can be considered as a building, as a legal entity, and as an
> however, for individual jurists to belong to different madhhabs,   educational institution. As a rule, the medieval madrasa
> such as Muhammad b. Khalaf (d. 1135), who was called               served male students who were past the elementary level and
> “Hanfash” because he was first a Hanbali, then a Hanafi, and         who intended to acquire credentials as ulema, religious schol-
> finally a Shafi
i.
> ars. Elementary schools and schools offering vernacular or
> It has been remarked that the later developments of the        practical education were usually known by other names.
> schools lacked innovation and fluidity, being too reliant on
> Description and Architecture
> imitation of earlier legal opinions. Much of the postclassical
> A typical Islamic madrasa contained rooms for students, a
> scholarship did take the form of commentaries (shuruh) upon
> earlier texts, and in both premodern and modern times there        prayer hall, and classrooms and would likely also contain a
> were attempts to codify the “law” of a particular madhhab.         residence for one or more professors, a library, and sanitary
> The epistemological and methodological structure of Islamic        facilities. It was usually attached to a mosque, and large
> jurisprudence (fiqh) in conjunction with changing social cir-       mosque complexes, such as those in Istanbul, might contain
> cumstances seemed to require a continual rethinking and            several madrasas. The typical Middle Eastern madrasa was a
> examination of the authoritative sources. Each madhhab has         square building of one or two stories surrounding a courtits own distinct means for authorizing such change and for         yard. The student rooms opened onto the courtyard, and if
> linking new legal opinions with past precedents.                   the madrasa had two stories, the student rooms might be on
> the upper floor with classrooms and service rooms on the
> In addition to the Sunni madhahib, there are Shi
ite madhahib   ground floor. Sometimes the central courtyard was replaced
> that emerged at various times due to changes in the authority      by a domed central hall. In their architecture madrasas are
> of certain Shi
ite imams. The best known of these Shi
ite          closely linked with other kinds of Islamic public buildings,
> madhahib is the “Twelver” or “Imami” Shi
i madhhab that was        notably mosques and caravansaries. There is, however, a
> established after the greater occultation of the twelfth imam      great deal of variation in the design of madrasas. Some of the
> in 941. The Twelver Shi
ite madhhab is characterized by            earliest surviving madrasas have few student rooms or none,
> greater jurisitic authority and formal hierarchy but conforms      perhaps because they served little more than a neighborhood,
> in many ways to the principles governing the shape of the
> in contrast to great royal foundations that drew students from
> Sunni madhahib.
> far away. Many madrasas, especially in Egypt, contain the
> See also Abu Hanifa; Ibn Hanbal; Kalam; Law; Malik                 mausoleums of their founders, with the madrasa proper being
> Ibn Anas; Shafi
i, al-; Shi
a: Imami (Twelver).                     almost an afterthought. In crowded cities a cramped or
> irregular site often resulted in modification of the traditional
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                       plan. The fact that a madrasa’s prayer hall might serve as a
> Chamberlain, Michael. Knowledge and Social Practice in Medie-      neighborhood mosque sometimes resulted in the addition of
> val Damascus, 1190–1350. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge              a minaret and the separation of the student rooms from the
> University Press, 1994.                                          rest of the madrasa. When, as in the great Ottoman mosque
> Melchert, Christopher. The Formation of the Sunni School of        complexes, the madrasa was closely associated with a mosque,
> Law, 9th–10th Centuries C.E. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1997.          the prayer hall shrank to make room for other facilities.
> Stewart, Devin J. Islamic Legal Orthodoxy: Twelver Shiite          When a madrasa was intended for more than a single legal
> Responses to the Sunni Legal System. Salt Lake City: Univer-    school, separate teaching facilities were provided for each
> sity of Utah Press, 1998.                                       professor, so that there are cruciform madrasas providing
> Weiss, Bernard G. The Spirit of Islamic Law. Athens, Ga., and      symmetrical facilities for professors of each of the four Sunni
> London: University of Georgia Press, 1998.                       schools of law. Finally, a house or some other existing
> building might simply be used as a madrasa without any
> Brannon M. Wheeler        special modifications.
> 
> 418                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Madrasa
> 
> The Medieval Madrasa                                               descendants. Second, a madrasa was less expensive to build
> The madrasa appears as an institution in about the eleventh        and endow than a mosque, putting it within reach of those of
> century and evolved from the informal schools that operated        more modest wealth or allowing a ruler to build a larger
> in mosques or teachers’ homes. Islamic education was usually       number of institutions. Finally, a madrasa could be an ideoa distinctly personal and informal matter, and prior to the rise   logical tool, a way to help Islamize newly conquered territoof the madrasa, as is still often the case, religious scholars     ries or to combat the influence of a rival sect.
> would teach in a convenient mosque, perhaps teaching more
> advanced students, or controversial subjects, in their homes.      Curriculum and Instruction
> It was customary for medieval Muslim students of the relig-        The madrasa education was intended to teach the student
> ious sciences to travel extensively to study with well-known       how to deduce religious law from the authoritative Islamic
> teachers, and teachers also often traveled long distances          texts. The students who went through the whole course were
> seeking opportunities to teach, receive patronage, and further     qualified to be judges and religious scholars, but most stutheir own studies. A well-known hadith attributed to Muham-        dents doubtless dropped out earlier, becoming mosque imams
> mad says, “seek knowledge, even in China.” A mosque,               or pursuing secular careers with the added prestige of a
> however, was not a suitable place for professors or significant     religious education. The method of instruction was scholastic
> numbers of students to live for long stretches, so by the tenth-   and dialectical: intense debate about the interpretation and
> century khans, inns, were being built adjacent to mosques.         difficulties of a set of standard textbooks. Students came to
> The first great burst of madrasa construction occurred in the       the madrasa knowing the Quran by rote and a fair amount of
> eleventh century in the Seljuk empire and is associated with       Arabic. Students studied Arabic, logic, and the core subjects
> the name of the great wazir Nizam al-Mulk, who founded a           of the Islamic religious sciences: fiqh (Islamic law), Quran
> number of madrasas known as Nizamiya, the most important           interpretation, and the hadith, sayings of the Prophet. Better
> of which, the Nizamiya in Baghdad, became one of the               students went on to study usul al-fiqh (jurisprudence), along
> greatest educational institutions in the Islamic world. What-      with some theology, philosophy, mathematics, astronomy,
> ever Nizam al-Mulk’s philanthropic goals may have been, he         and sometimes medicine.
> probably also intended his madrasas to combat the threat
> posed to Sunni Islam by various forms of more or less              Modern Developments
> revolutionary Shi
ism. The institution of the madrasa soon         The arrival of modern educational institutions was a major
> spread across the Islamic world and became the dominant            challenge to the madrasas. Colonial administrators, nationalform of institution of higher learning. It was not the only        ists, and Islamic reformers alike dismissed the scholastic
> form of educational institution; there were also Quranic          madrasa education as out-of-date. Traditional sources of
> schools for younger pupils; Sufi monasteries; hospitals; ob-        income dried up. Talented students sought new opportuniservatories; vernacular schools for the children of merchants,     ties in modern universities and professions. Islamic revivalists
> shopkeepers, and artisans; and various forms of private tui-       complained of the rationalist character of the traditional
> tion for the children of government officials.                      madrasa curriculum and its neglect of core religious subjects.
> Postcolonial governments sometimes attempted to close or
> Legal Status                                                       co-opt madrasas, fearing that they might become centers of
> A madrasa was legally a waqf, a charitable endowment. The          opposition. This was the case in Turkey, where Ataturk
> founder would donate property, from whose proceeds the             closed the madrasas, and Indonesia, where the government
> madrasa was built and maintained. The income from the              tried to reduce the influence of the madrasas, known there as
> endowment supported one or more professors, various ser-           pesantrans, by controlling the curriculum, giving teachers
> vants and functionaries, and the students, who received room,      government salaries, and establishing rival institutions. In
> board, and perhaps a small stipend. The founder’s instruc-         many cases, standards of instruction and numbers of students
> tions governed such matters as the legal school to which the       declined precipitously, though in most places the major
> professor would belong. The extensive legal literature relat-      institutions survived. The attempts of the Pahlavi regime in
> ing to madrasas deals with predictable problems of defining         Iran to control the madrasas failed, creating bitter opposition
> an adequate stipend, absentee professors, stipends for stu-        to the government among the ulema.
> dents who did not live at the madrasa, financial shortfalls, and
> responsibility for maintenance of the facilities. Madrasas as         The Islamic revival of the late twentieth century has
> institutions did not issue degrees or diplomas. The closest        resulted in the revival of madrasas in a number of countries.
> counterpart to the Western degree was the ijaza, the license       The Iranian revolution of 1978–1979 was organized by ulema,
> to teach a particular book or subject issued by an individual      so after the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran the
> teacher. Madrasas had several advantages for donors. First,        Iranian madrasas, especially in Qom, received a huge influx of
> whereas the founder of a mosque had very little control after      new students and financial support. Saudi Arabia, through
> its establishment, the founder of a madrasa had a good deal of     both its government and wealthy individuals, has subsidized
> discretion in the terms of the endowment, so that in practice      madrasas in many countries, thus increasing the influence of
> one could use the endowment of a madrasa to support one’s          Saudi-style Wahhabi literalist Islam at the expense of both
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                    419
> Madrasa
> 
> In Jammu, India, Muslim children read the Qur
an at a madrasa, a religious Islamic school. Hindu groups have criticized Indian madrasas for
> preaching Islamic fundamentalism. In Pakistan, poor families often send their sons to one of the the tens of thousands of madrasas established
> by Islamic groups, in part because room and board are free. AP/WIDE WORLD PHOTOS
> 
> rationalist and mystical approaches to Islam. In the subconti-           varies tremendously and is, in general, quite poor. Finally,
> nent the major Islamic revivalist movements have competed                immigrant Islamic communities in Europe and North Amerthrough their educational institutions since the nineteenth              ica have begun establishing their own religious schools,
> century. The most important of these was the Deoband                     usually on the model of Sunday schools but sometimes as
> movement. Its founders established a large educational com-              independent parochial schools. There are no schools training
> plex in Deoband, near Delhi, devoted to propagating a                    ulema outside of the Islamic world.
> revived, hadith-oriented Islam. The Deobandis thus opposed
> The madrasas have not kept their monopoly on training
> not only the new European-style education system of British
> ulema. Increasingly, advanced Islamic education is taking
> India and the modernist Islamic Aligarh Muslim University
> place in modern universities. In the late nineteenth century
> but also the traditional Islamic religious education of India
> the University of the Punjab in Lahore began granting
> associated with the Firingi-Mahall educational complex in
> Islamic clerical degrees. There are now faculties of theology
> Lucknow, which was strongly rationalist and also closely
> in many universities in Islamic countries producing Islamic
> associated with Sufism. Religious competition through
> legal scholars and religious leaders. Finally, it is not uncommadrasas has been particularly pronounced in Pakistan, where
> mon for more talented madrasa students to go on for graduvarious Islamic groups have established tens of thousands of
> ate degrees in secular universities in fields such as Arabic,
> madrasas on the elementary, secondary, and university level.
> Islamic studies, and philosophy.
> The Taliban (lit. “students”) movement in Afghanistan in the
> late twentieth century was an outgrowth of madrasa training              See also Aligarh; Azhar, al-; Deoband; Education.
> in Pakistan. These institutions are appealing to poor families,
> both because of the prestige of Islamic education and because,           BIBLIOGRAPHY
> unlike the usually inadequate government schools, the madrasas           Eccel, A. Chris. Egypt, Islam, and Social Change: Al-Azhar in
> provide room and board and charge no fees. Their quality                   Conflict and Accommodation. Berlin: K. Schwarz, 1984.
> 
> 420                                                                                                     Islam and the Muslim World
> Mahdi, Sadiq al-
> 
> Makdisi, George. The Rise of Colleges: Institutions of Learning in   of some seventy years, during which a series of four deputies
> Islam and the West. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University                was said to have consulted with him. After that time, the
> Press, 1981.                                                       Mahdi, or Hidden Imam, entered the greater occultation that
> Metcalf, Barbara D. Islamic Revival in British India: Deoband,       is still in force, remaining alive but not meeting with repre-
> 1860–1900. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University                   sentatives. The fact that Shi
ite religious scholars are believed
> Press, 1982.                                                       to continue to receive his blessings and guidance gives them a
> Mottahedeh, Roy P. The Mantle of the Prophet: Religion and           greater charisma and authority than their Sunni counterparts.
> Politics in Iran. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983.              Shi
ite political theory traditionally declared all temporal
> Sufi, G. M. D. Al-Minhaj, Being the Evolution of Curriculum in        power illegitimate in the absence of the imam, only recently
> the Muslim Educational Institutions of India. Lahore: Shaikh       allowing the concept of a caretaker government of religious
> Muhammad Ashraf, 1941.                                             authorities (wilayat al-faqih) that underlies today’s Islamic
> Tibawi, A. L. Islamic Education: Its Traditions and Moderniza-       republic in Iran.
> tion into the Arab National Systems. London: Luzac, 1972.
> Claimants to the role of the Mahdi have not been absent
> from Islamic history. The first was Muhammad al-Hanifiyya
> John Walbridge
> (d. 700), son of 
Ali from a wife other than Fatima, whose role
> as the Mahdi was promoted by al-Mukhtar (d. 687). Although
> al-Mukhtar was killed and his movement crushed, ideas that
> MAGHAZI See Military Raid                                            Muhammad al-Hanafiyya did not die and would one day
> return continued to circulate and later attached themselves to
> subsequent imams. More recent claimants have arisen in both
> Shi
a and Sunni contexts, including Muhammad Mahdi of
> Jaunpur in India (d. 1504), whose followers continue as a
> MAHDI                                                                separate Muslim sect, the Mahdavis, and the Sudanese Mahdi,
> Muhammad Ahmad (d. 1885), who rose against the British
> The Mahdi, meaning “the guided one,” is the honorary title           occupiers and was killed at the battle of Omdurman. Conof the expected deliverer or messianic figure in Islam. Although      temporary Islamist or Sufi movements may occasionally
> the term and concept is not found in the Quran, both Sunni          evoke the anticipated return of the Mahdi as a means of
> and Shi
a hadith collections mention it among the prophetic          encouraging millenarian expectations among their followers.
> traditions concerning crises (fitan). These traditions often          In Shi
a Islam, expectation and eager anticipation of the
> contain eschatological material, and frequently speak of a           Mahdi’s return is a central theme of piety and discourse.
> figure who will come at the end of time to combat the forces
> of evil led by the one-eyed Dajjal. This righteous individual is     See also Fitna; Hadith; Imam; Mahdist State, Mahdiyya;
> said to be one who “will fill the earth with justice after it has     Religious Beliefs; Shi
a: Early; Shi
a: Imami (Twelver).
> been filled with injustice and tyranny.” The Mahdi’s coming
> will lead the forces of good in a final apocalyptic battle, where     BIBLIOGRAPHY
> the good will triumph. Jesus will also return to earth at this       Blichfeldt, Jan-Olaf. Early Mahdism: Politics and Religion in the
> time, according to some reports, and fight alongside the                 Formative Period of Islam. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1985.
> Mahdi or rule after him. All of these events are predicted to        Sachedina Abdulaziz, Islamic Messianism. Albany: State Unitake place shortly before Judgment Day.                                 versity of New York, 1981.
> 
> In Twelver Shi
ite Islam, due to the community’s minority                                                    Marcia Hermansen
> status and continuing sense of persecution and injustice, the
> Mahdi symbol developed into a powerful and central religious idea and became combined with the figure of the last of
> the twelve Imams, Muhammad al-Mahdi, who is believed to              MAHDI, SADIQ AL- (1936–)
> have disappeared around 874. He was born in Samarra, son of
> Hasan al-Askari and the lady Nargis. He is also known as the         Sadiq al-Mahdi is a Sudanese political leader and intellectual,
> ruler of the time (sahib al-zaman), the one who will restore         and a descendant of the nineteenth-century Islamic revolujustice (qa
im), and the awaited one (al-muntazar).                  tionary known as “the Mahdi,” Muhammad Ahmad. Sadiq
> received a traditional Muslim education as well as a modern
> Lists of the qualities of the expected one were drawn up,        one, graduating from Oxford University in 1957. When his
> including his name being Muhammad, his descent from the              father, Siddiq al-Mahdi, died in 1961, Sadiq became the head
> Prophet, his appearance (zuhur) or rising, his rule (for either      of the Mahdist-supported Umma Party. He was prime minisseven, nine, or nineteen years), and his mission to restore          ter of Sudan from 1966 to 1967, and following the military
> justice on earth. After the last imam disappeared as a child,        coup by Ja
far Numayri in 1969, Sadiq went into exile. He
> Shi
ite sources identified a lesser occultation (disappearance)       returned to Sudan during a national reconciliation in 1977,
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                       421
> Mahdist State, Mahdiyya
> 
> but was jailed for his opposition to Numayri’s 1983 decrees       that a countrywide revolt would follow his calls was never
> imposing a form of Islamic law on the country. Following the      realized. This political failure was offset by success in the
> overthrow of Numayri, Sadiq al-Mahdi was again prime              sphere of religious influence. Much support for the Mahdi
> minister (1986–1989), and his government was overthrown           was based on the belief that he was a divinely inspired figure.
> by Islamist military officers in 1989. He was a leader in the      The religious dimension of his mission was perhaps more
> movements of opposition to the Islamist regime but, at the        significant than its political impact.
> beginning of the twenty-first century, Sadiq al-Mahdi engaged in efforts to reconcile government and opposition. He          The Mahdiyya was an indigenous northern Sudanese
> has written numerous books advocating effective ijtihad (in-      phenomenon, but the Mahdi modeled himself and his movedependent reasoning) in understanding Islam’s message in          ment on the early Islamic community of the Prophet of Islam
> the contemporary world. He is an advocate of democracy in         in the Arabian Peninsula. His followers were called ansar
> an Islamic context and has provided a contemporary under-         (helpers), just as the Prophet’s supporters in Medina were
> standing of what messianic leadership (the mission of the         named. The Mahdi preached jihad against the infidels, col-
> Mahdi) means in the modern world.                                 lected zakat (tax on wealth) instead of the range of colonial
> taxes, and strove to impose sharia prohibitions and punish-
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                      ments. His successor, who was appointed when the Mahdi
> Sidahmed, Abdel Salam. Politics and Islam in Contemporary         was on his deathbed, was given the title khalifa (caliph), as was
> Sudan. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996.                     the Prophet’s successor. Indeed, Khalifa 
Abdullahi was named
> khalifa al-Siddiq, the latter term usually associated with the
> John O. Voll     first caliph of Islam, Abu Bakr.
> 
> For the first two years of his mission, the Mahdi was
> confined to the province of Kordofan, but soon his forces
> MAHDIST STATE, MAHDIYYA                                           began to spread slowly to the north along the Nile River.
> Thereafter his supporters increased and brought large parts
> The Sudanese Mahdi became known in the eastern Sudan              of the west and east of the country under their control.
> (bilad al-Sudan) in June 1881 when he began to dispatch           Important towns such as El-Obeid, the main city of Kordofan,
> letters to local leaders proclaiming himself the Expected         fell in January 1883, and the defeat of the expedition of
> Mahdi. He was Muhammad Ahmad ibn 
Abdallah and about              Colonel William Hicks at Shaykan in September of the same
> forty years old. He had been a member of the Sammaniyya           year bolstered the movement tremendously.
> sufi tariqa in the north of the country, but due to dissatisfaction with one of his teachers he moved to the Nile River              The already weak government in Cairo was unable to do
> island of Aba, south of Khartoum. There he established            much to stem the tide of the Mahdi’s success, and the British,
> himself with a small band of followers, among whom was his        who had recently occupied Egypt (in 1882), were hesitant to
> future successor, 
Abdullahi ibn Muhammad.                        act. When General Charles Gordon was dispatched to the
> Sudan, he was sent with contradictory instructions: to restore
> The Sudan was then an Ottoman-Egyptian colony, and             “good government” and to evacuate the colony. When he
> the regime was known locally as the Turkiyya. By the 1870s,       reached Khartoum he wrote to the Mahdi, offering him the
> however, the colonial state was thoroughly neglected by the       sultanship of Kordofan. The Mahdi rejected the offer, for he
> rulers based in Egypt, creating opportunities for revolt. The     had much bigger ambitions that transcended mere political
> administration and significant sectors of the colonial econ-       authority, especially when that authority was confined to an
> omy had substantial European participation right up to the        isolated province.
> level of governor. A few Sudanese were part of the government but most of the indigenous peoples resented their               In October 1884 the Mahdi arrived on the banks of the
> foreign rulers. The exclusion of Muslim Sudanese from             Nile River opposite Khartoum and laid siege to the capital. In
> leading roles in the colony, but the inclusion of non-Muslim      January of the following year Khartoum fell to the Mahdists.
> Europeans, also disturbed pious Muslims such as the Mahdi.        Instead of installing himself there, the Mahdi established a
> Slavery was under attack by the British, and abolition threat-    new capital, called Omdurman, opposite the old one. There
> ened the livelihoods of many northern Sudanese slave traders.     he died in June 1885. His body was buried and a tomb was
> These slave-traders threw their weight behind the mahdist         built over his gravesite. But the Mahdi’s tomb was destroyed,
> movement.                                                         and his body disinterred in the reconquest of the Sudan by Sir
> Herbert Kitchener in 1898.
> The Mahdi came to address what he and his followers
> thought was an oppressive authority, and one that was contra-        The reign of the Mahdi’s successor, Khalifa 
Abdullahi,
> vening Islamic precepts. They challenged this situation and       opened with the new state’s armies engaged on multiple
> believed that a movement would emerge throughout the land         fronts: in the west to pacify the state of Dar Fur, on the
> to overthrow the regime. The Mahdi’s calculation, however,        Ethiopian marches against the Christian state, and on the
> 
> 422                                                                                           Islam and the Muslim World
> Mahdist State, Mahdiyya
> 
> The tomb of the Mahdi at Omdurman, Sudan. The original tomb, along with much of the city, was destroyed in 1898 when the Anglo-Egyptian
> forces of Lord Kitchener defeated the Khalifa and thus ended the Mahdist state in Sudan. GETTY IMAGES
> 
> Egyptian border. Against the Ethiopian fighters the Mahdists           killed or wounded, whereas the Anglo-Egyptian losses numwere successful, but elsewhere they met defeat. The Khalifa           bered fewer than fifty dead and four hundred wounded.
> also had to deal with a number of pretenders, “false mahdis”
> who sought to claim his position. Furthermore, internal                   This was the end of the Mahdiyya, but its influence did not
> schisms surfaced between various layers of supporters who             end there nor in the Sudan. Rather, it spread throughout the
> were dissatisfied with the Khalifa’s policies. The ashraf, from        Bilad al-Sudan. Right into the late 1920s the new colonial
> the Mahdi’s own kinsmen, were dissatisfied with the hegem-             state had to deal with smaller mahdist revivals undertaken by
> ony of the Ta
aisha, the Khalifa’s clan. There were also a            local spiritual leaders (called fekis in the Sudan), often done in
> series of ecological challenges, including bad harvests and           the name of 
Isa (Jesus). The religious idea in these uprisings
> epidemics that led to famine between 1889 and 1990. As a              was that nabi Isa (prophet Jesus) would appear after the death
> result, by the early 1890s the Khalifa’s armies were easily           of the Mahdi, to herald the end of time.
> beaten in numerous engagements. Their final defeat came at
> the hands of Lord Kitchener, beginning in August 1897 and                In its short history the Mahdist state was able to put in
> continuing until the last battle at Karari, outside Omdurman,         place the foundations of a coherent and workable administrain September 1898. Thousands of Sudanese fighters were                 tion. There was a judiciary, and judgments were based on the
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                         423
> Mahr
> 
> classical Islamic methods of juristic thought, although the        paid at the time of marriage, and the “deferred” portion,
> Mahdi also sometimes relied on his own intuition as the            which is payable only if the husband divorces his wife, or dies.
> Mahdi, a man with divinely inspired authority. There was a         If a man dies without paying his wife’s mahr, it is considered
> bayt al-mal (roughly, a Department of Finance or Treasury)         as a debt to be paid from his estate.
> which kept detailed records, taxed the subjects, and distributed wealth. The state minted its own coins for the local               There is a general and implicit agreement among the
> economy. In addition there was the military.                       different schools of Islamic law that mahr is a corollary of the
> exchange element of the marriage contract. Classical jurists
> Under the Khalifa, the administration that had been put in     often speak of it as a price/compensation (awad, sometimes
> place by the Mahdi lost its reputation and drifted into corrup-    iwad) that the man pays for the exclusive right to the sexual
> tion. The Khalifa, for instance, acquired a private army for       and productive faculties of a woman, analogous to the price
> himself and a separate share of the bayt al-mal. However, the      paid in the contract of sale. Modern writers, however, regard
> state under the Khalifa was not as wholly corrupt as it has        mahr as an expression of honor for a woman’s worth and as a
> sometimes been judged, although it did divert from the             means of providing her with economic security during and
> strictly puritanical path of the its founder. The Mahdist state    after marriage. The rules regulating mahr negate this view: It
> relied on local personnel and expertise and generated a huge       is linked merely to the act of consummation, not to any other
> body of correspondence, declarations, and other written            aspect of the marriage contract. For example, a woman
> material that has made it possible for historians to study this    becomes entitled to mahr only after the consummation of the
> rare example of an African Muslim millernarian movement            marriage; at the same time, she can refrain from sexual
> and state.                                                         submission unless she receives her mahr in full.
> 
> See also Africa, Islam in; Islam and Other Religions;                  Despite the uniformity among all schools of Islamic law
> Mahdi; Muhammad Ahmad ibn 
Abdullah; Zar.                          on the definition of mahr and the rules governing it, Muslim
> societies vary greatly as to its practice. In some countries, like
> Morocco, the bulk of the mahr is paid to the father of the
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> bride, who uses it to provide her with a trousseau for her
> Holt, P. M. The Mahdist State in the Sudan 1881–1898: A            wedding, and the deferred portion is nominal. In other
> Study of Its Origins, Development and Overthrow. Oxford,
> countries, like Iran, no transfer of wealth takes place at the
> U.K.: Clarendon Press, 1958.
> time of marriage and mahr becomes payable only if and when
> Holt, P. M.; and Daly, M. W. A History of the Sudan: From the      divorce occurs: It is seen as a safeguard, and a woman can
> Coming of Islam to the Present Day, 5th ed. Essex, U.K.:         effectively use her mahr as a negotiating card to obtain either
> Longman, 2000.
> a divorce or custody of her children in the event of the
> Trimingham, J. Spencer. Islam in the Sudan. London: Oxford         breakdown of the marriage. The value and practice of mahr
> University Press, 1949.                                         also varies with social class, and with the wealth of the
> families. As marriages are usually arranged by the parents of
> Shamil Jeppie     the spouses, they often agree on the amount of mahr. In many
> cases, a woman has no control over her mahr, as the entire
> amount is received by her father who might use it to secure
> brides for his sons. Throughout the Muslim world, more-
> MAHR                                                               over, there are a number of customary payments and exchanges made on the occasion of marriage, which bear little
> Mahr is a gift that the Muslim bridegroom offers the bride         or no relation to the formal legal requirement of mahr.
> upon marriage. It is also called sadaq, an Arabic term that
> implies “friendship.” In English, mahr has commonly been           See also Divorce; Law; Marriage.
> translated as “dower.” Mahr is an integral part of every
> Islamic marriage contract: there can be no marriage without        BIBLIOGRAPHY
> it. It becomes the exclusive property of the bride after           Maghniyyah, Muhammad Jawad. Marriage According to Five
> marriage, and she can dispose of it in whatever way she              Schools of Islamic Law. Tehran: Department of Translation
> wishes. The exact amount of mahr is often agreed upon prior          and Publication, Islamic Culture and Relations Organizato marriage and is specified in the contract—mahr al-musamma          tion, 1997.
> (definite mahr). If the amount is not specified, the bride is        Mir-Hosseini, Ziba. Marriage on Trial: A Study of Islamic
> entitled to mahr al-mithl (average mahr), which is determined        Family Law; Iran and Morocco Compared. London: I. B.
> on the basis of her personal qualities, her family position, and     Tauris, 1993.
> the prevailing mahr among her people. Mahr can also be
> divided into two portions, the “prompt” portion, which is                                                       Ziba Mir-Hosseini
> 
> 424                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Majlisi, Muhammad Baqir
> 
> 1962 declared the nation to be a monarchy. Ministerial
> MAITATSINE See Marwa, Muhammad                                     responsibility to parliament had been the main bone of
> contention between the executive branch of government and
> parliaments under constitutional monarchy, and parliaments
> had usually lost the contest. Securing meaningful accounta-
> MAJLIS                                                             bility of the executive became even more difficult under the
> republican constitutions of the postcolonial era, which weak-
> The term majlis (assembly) has been used for elected parlia-       ened the rights provisions by their commitment to the idements in the Near and Middle East since the 1860s. The first        ologies of socialism and nationalism and gave the presidents
> modern constitution in the Muslim world, proclaimed by the         emergency powers and the right to rule by decree.
> bey of Tunis in 1861, provided for a grand assembly, but it
> was to be selected by the king and was intended for the                The Gulf states other than Kuwait gained their indepensupervision of administration and adjudication. The first           dence from Britain in the 1970s with constitutional docuelected majlis, which was inaugurated in Egypt in 1866, was        ments, but usually without elected parliaments, except for
> purely consultative, but the Ottoman parliament was given          Bahrain and, more recently, Qatar. Oman promulgated a
> some legislative power a decade later. The Ottoman parlia-         constitution in 1991, and Saudi Arabia in 1992—sixty years
> ment was created by the Ottoman constitution of 1876 and           after it had first been promised. A Palestinian parliament was
> included representatives from the Balkan and Arab provinces,       set up in accordance with the 1993 Oslo Accords. With rare
> as well as the Turkish of the Ottoman Empire. It was               exceptions, Near and Middle Eastern parliaments have redissolved, however, in less than two years. The ruler of Egypt     mained weak institutions, and have not succeeded in taking
> was forced by constitutionalist parliamentarians to proclaim a     the initiative in legislation or in establishing enduring acmore liberal constitution than the Ottoman one in 1882, but        countability of the executive branch of their respective
> the effort came to naught with the British occupation of           governments.
> Egypt later that year.
> See also Modernization, Political: Constitutionalism;
> The next wave of constitutionalism in the Middle East
> Political Organization.
> began with the revolution of 1906 in Iran, which forced the
> shah to proclaim a constitution that included a parliament
> with full legislative power. The Iranian National Consulta-        BIBLIOGRAPHY
> tive Assembly (Majles-e Shura-ye Melli) was elected in the         Brown, Nathan J. Constitutions in a Nonconstitutionalist World.
> same year. After the Islamic revolution, Iran was declared an         Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002.
> Islamic Republic, but its new constitution of 1979 retained
> the majlis, and it was only after it met in 1980 that the majlis                                           Saïd Amir Arjomand
> changed its name to the Islamic Consultative Assembly.
> 
> In 1908, the Young Turks revolution forced the sultan to
> restore the Ottoman constitution. A year later, the constitution was amended to make ministers fully responsible to the
> MAJLISI, MUHAMMAD BAQIR
> parliament. After the Kemalist revolution, the last Ottoman        (1627–1698)
> parliament was dissolved by the sultan in 1920, and was
> replaced by the Grand National Assembly (Buyuk Millet              Muhammad Baqir b. Muhammad Taqi Majlisi, known as the
> Mejlisi) of Turkey, which passed the republican constitu-          second Majlisi or the author of the Bihar, was a renowned
> tion of 1924.                                                      Iranian Twelver Shi
ite jurist of the late seventeenth century.
> Acting as the prayer leader and shaykh al-Islam of Isfahan
> In the period between the two world wars, constitutional       under the Safavid monarchs, Shah Suleiman (r. 1666–1694)
> monarchies with elected parliaments were established in
> and Shah Sultan Husayn (r. 1694–1722), he suppressed phiindependent Egypt (1923) and in Iraq (1925) and Jordan
> losophy and Sufism and reestablished clerical authority under
> (1928) under the British mandate. In 1938, the emir of
> his leadership. He devoted great efforts to the collection and
> Kuwait proclaimed a five-article constitution. It included an
> translation of Shi
ite hadith from Arabic into Persian to
> assembly whose president was to have executive authorbenefit the laity. He opposed the conventional reliance on
> ity, but the assembly was soon dissolved and the experi-
> Arabic as the main medium of instruction and publication for
> ment abandoned. A new Kuwaiti constitution was promulreligious scholars and emphasized the need for doctrinal and
> gated in 1962.
> legal works in Persian, which could be accessible to the
> Republican constitutions came to force in Syria and             public. He fervently upheld the concepts of “enjoining the
> Lebanon in 1943, Egypt in 1956, Tunisia in 1959, and Algeria       good” and “prohibiting evil” and renewed the impetus for
> and Yemen in 1962, whereas the Moroccan constitution of            conversion from Sunnism to Shi
ism. His legal method drew
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                   425
> Makassar, Shaykh Yusuf
> 
> upon both the akhbari (traditionist) and usuli (rationalist)
> schools, as such accepting both the authority of Shi
ite
> MALCOLM X (1925–1965)
> traditions and the role of reason in arriving at a legal opinion.
> An extraordinary orator, a self-taught intellectual, and a
> He is mostly known for his monumental work, a Shi
ite
> deeply spiritual man, Malcolm X was one of the most promiencyclopedia of hadith, Bihar al-Anwar, completed in 1692.
> nent African American political and religious leaders of the
> civil rights era. After being released from prison in 1952,
> Rula Jurdi Abisaab      where he had become a follower of Nation of Islam leader
> Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm worked as a minister for the
> organization, most successfully in Harlem, New York. By the
> late 1950s, Malcolm had become Elijah Muhammad’s chief
> MAKASSAR, SHAYKH YUSUF                                              representative, helping to build the movement into black
> America’s most visible Muslim group. Famous for his fiery
> (C. 1626–1699)
> rhetoric, he was dubbed “America’s angriest Negro” as he
> sought to convert blacks to Elijah Muhammad’s separatist
> Traditional Makassarese sources report that 
Ali (Shaykh)
> Islam. Malcolm also gained national attention as a critic of
> Yusuf was born in 1626 to a princess of South Sulawesi and
> pro-integration civil rights leaders. In 1964, however, Malraised in the palace of the king of Tallo. He studied under
> colm left Elijah Muhammad’s movement and made the hajj,
> some of the most prominent Arab Muslim scholars in Sulawesi
> the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, an occasion during which he
> before traveling to continue his education in Banten, Gujarat,      publicly embraced Sunni Islam and distanced himself from
> the Yemen, Mecca, and Syria. In Damascus he was inducted            Elijah Muhammad’s teachings. He also visited West Africa
> into the Khalwatiyya order of Sufism, which he worked to             and became an advocate of pan-Africanism, the movement
> spread in Southeast Asia after returning from the Mid-              that called for the cultural and political unification of black
> dle East.                                                           persons around the world.
> 
> In 1664 he settled in Banten where he taught various                Until his brutal assassination in 1965, Malcolm worked as
> branches of the Islamic sciences. In 1682 the sultan’s son rose     both a Sunni Muslim missionary in the United States and as
> against his father’s authority with the backing of the Dutch        founder of the Organization for Afro-American Unity, which
> East India Company. Shaykh Yusuf took up an opposition              espoused black solidarity. The Autobiography of Malcolm X
> campaign that he pursued for over a year until his capture by       (1965), which was coauthored by Alex Haley, was published
> the Dutch. He was imprisoned in Batavia and later exiled to         shortly after his death. Today, Muslims continue to debate
> Sri Lanka, where he continued his role in advocating resist-        the meaning of Malcolm’s life, often disagreeing about whether
> ance against the Dutch via correspondence with the Muslim           Malcolm overemphasized the importance of racial identity in
> communities of Indonesia. In 1693 some of these communi-            his quest for black liberation.
> cations were intercepted, and he was thus re-exiled to the
> See also American Culture and Islam; Conversion;
> Cape of Good Hope. He arrived there on 2 April 1694 and
> Farrakhan, Louis; Muhammad, Elijah; Nation of Islam.
> became a founding figure of the Muslim community in South
> Africa, where he remained until his death. In 1705 the ruler of
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Makassar petitioned for the repatriation of Shaykh Yusuf’s
> DeCaro, Louis A., Jr. On the Side of My People: A Religious Life
> remains, and today his tombs in both Sulawesi and South
> of Malcolm X. New York: New York University Press, 1996.
> Africa remain active centers of pilgrimage. Since the 1980s
> Haley, Alex, and Malcolm X. The Autobiography of Malcolm X.
> Shaykh Yusuf has become an increasingly popular figure in
> Reprint. New York: Ballantine, 1987.
> both Indonesia and South Africa, where Nelson Mandela
> hailed him as a hero in the history of struggles against
> Edward E. Curtis IV
> oppression.
> 
> See also Africa, Islam in; Southeast Asia, Islam in;
> Tariqa.                                                             MALIK, IBN ANAS (C. 708–795)
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                        Malik Ibn Anas, who was born between 708 and 716 C.E., was
> the most famous jurist from Medina by the time of his death
> Feener, R. Michael. “Shaykh Yusuf and the Appreciation of
> in 795. Malik composed one of the first books of Islamic law,
> Muslim ‘Saints’ in Modern Indonesia.” Journal for Islamic
> Studies 18–19 (1999): 112–131.                                   the Muwatta
.
> 
> Malik studied with several experts on Islamic tradition
> R. Michael Feener      (hadith), some of whose parents knew the Prophet. He was
> 
> 426                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Ma
mun, al-
> 
> renowned for his knowledge of hadith, but his teachings were          led to a protracted and destructive civil war and eventually to
> unique for his championing of the practice (sunna) of the             the defeat and death of al-Amin. Al-Mamun stayed in
> inhabitants of Medina. Malik attracted students from all over         Khurasan for several more years after the civil war, before
> the Islamic world, and the Muwatta
 was taught in all medie-          moving back to the Abbasid capital, Baghdad, in 818. The
> val centers of learning, especially Egypt, Baghdad, North             civil war was an episode of major proportions: The long siege
> Africa, and Spain.                                                    of Baghdad and the unrest that followed its fall to al-Mamun’s
> troops left large parts of the city in ruins; and the killing of al-
> Under the caliph al-Mansur in 762 and 763 Malik was                Amin, the first time in Abbasid history that a caliph had been
> punished for his support of Muhammad b. 
Abdallah, an 
Alid           murdered, cast a long shadow over the victorious caliph’s
> pretender to the throne. But later in life the Abbasid caliph         legitimist claims.
> Harun al-Rashid tried to make the Muwatta
 the basis for a
> unified code of law. The sources agree, however, that these                Al-Mamun’s reign is also noted for the distinctly propolitical intrigues were aberrations, and that Malik lived a          
Alid policies he pursued. The 
Alids, the descendants of the
> simple life devoted to teaching, surrounded by a close group          Prophet’s cousin and son-in-law, 
Ali ibn Abi Talib (d. 661),
> of devotees who collected his opinions on every conceivable           considered themselves to be the rightful claimants to the
> subject.                                                              caliphate, and saw not just the Umayyads (661–750) but also
> the Abbasids as usurpers—claims viewed unfavorably by
> The Muwatta
 has survived in several versions and incaliphs from both houses. While still in Khurasan, al-Mamun,
> cludes hadith from the Prophet and his Companions as well
> in an unprecedented move that startled and dismayed many
> as legal opinions of Malik and other famous scholars from
> in his Abbasid clan, had in 817 nominated 
Ali b. Musa al-
> Medina. It is organized in chapters and covers all aspects of
> Rida (d. 818) as his successor. This was justified by the caliph
> ritual and social life. It is still part of the required curriculum
> on grounds that al-Rida—“the acceptable one,” whom the
> of many Islamic universities today, especially in North and
> later Twelver Shi
a reckon to be their eighth imam—was the
> West Africa where the Maliki school (one of the four madhhabs
> person most qualified for the political leadership of the
> of Sunni law) predominates. Several other books, some recommunity. The caliph also adopted the 
Alid green to
> cently uncovered, contain extensive collections of Malik’s
> replace black as the official color of the Abbasids. And later in
> opinions not found in the Muwatta
.
> his career, he had 
Ali ibn Abi Talib publicly declared “the
> See also Africa, Islam in; Law; Madhhab.                              best” person after the prophet Muhammad, thus denying the
> superiority of Muhammad’s first two successors, Abu Bakr
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                          and 
Umar, a point that was then evolving as a matter of
> dogma among the early Sunnis. 
Ali al-Rida mysteriously
> Goldziher, Ignaz. Muslim Studies. Edited by S. M. Stern and
> died before al-Mamun’s return to Baghdad, though the
> translated by S. M. Stern and C. R. Barber. Albany: State
> University of New York Press, 1972.                                 caliph continued his pro-
Alid stance until the end of his reign.
> Schacht, Joseph. “Malik b. Anas.” In Encyclopaedia of Islam.              The episode, however, which left the most lasting impres-
> New ed. Edited by H. A. R. Gibb, et al. Leiden: E. J.
> sion on subsequent generations was neither the civil war nor
> Brill, 1962.
> the caliph’s pro-
Alid sympathies. Nor was it even al-Mamun’s
> patronage of ancient Greek learning, which later came to be
> Jonathan E. Brockopp
> associated specifically with his name. Rather, what came to be
> remembered as the most famous, and controversial, facet of
> the caliph’s reign and of his legacy was the Mihna, an
> MAMUN, AL- (786–833)                                                 inquisition seeking to enforce the doctrine of the createdness
> of the Quran. This was a doctrine attributed in particular to
> Abu ’l-
Abbas 
Abdallah al-Mamun (r. 813–833) was the                two early theologians, Ja
d b. Dirham (d. 743) and Jahm b.
> seventh caliph of the Abbasid Dynasty (750–1258). He came             Safwan (d. 745), and to the latter’s putative followers, the
> to power in the wake of Islam’s fourth civil war and is best          Jahmiyya. The Mu
tazila—the most famous of Islam’s rationknown for his theological interests and for instituting an            alist theologians, who enjoyed unprecedented political influinquisition, the Mihna, on the doctrine of the createdness of         ence under al-Mamun and his two successors—espoused it as
> the Quran.                                                           well; they were also closely associated, during the years of the
> Mihna (833– c. 851), with the abortive caliphal effort to
> During the reign of his father, Harun al-Rashid (r. 786–809),      implement this doctrine as a matter of state policy.
> al-Mamun served as the governor of Khurasan, in northeastern Iran. He was appointed by al-Rashid as his second                     In 827, al-Mamun had publicly announced his support
> successor, after al-Mamun’s half-brother, Muhammad al-               for the createdness of the Quran. Five years later, and shortly
> Amin (r. 809–813). But the relations between the two broth-           before his death, he decreed that the judges and the scholars
> ers deteriorated rapidly after the death of al-Rashid, which          of hadith be made to publicly assent to it. A number of
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                           427
> Manar, Manara
> 
> explanations have been offered to explain this ultimately               In most times and places minarets were built only with
> abortive venture into state sponsorship of a theological doc-       mosques, but occasionally they were attached to other structrine, but it appears that the caliph’s interest in asserting his   tures, such as the Taj Mahal, a magnificent seventeenthposition as the arbiter of right belief, and in thereby checking    century tomb at Agra in India, which is surrounded by four
> the increasing influence in society of the populist scholars of      towers. Muslim architects have built minarets out of brick or
> hadith, had much to do with the institution of the Mihna.           stone or even wood; they have left them plain or covered
> them with tiles and carving bearing geometric, arabesque,
> The caliph lived for only about four months after he had        and epigraphic motifs. They have placed them either singly,
> begun the Inquisition. He died in Tarsus in 833, while on a         or in pairs, to flank a doorway or a facade, or in groups of four
> campaign against the Byzantines, and was succeeded by his
> or more to surround an important building, such as the
> brother al-Mu
tasim (r. 833–842). The Inquisition continued
> sanctuary around the Ka
ba in Mecca. The origins of the
> under him as well as under the latter’s successor, al-Wathiq
> minaret have been sought in the monumental columns and
> (r. 842–847), and was finally brought to an end—along with
> lighthouses of the late antique Mediterranean lands, the
> the political influence of the Mu
tazila—during the reign of
> ziggurats of ancient Mesopotamia, and the stupas and comal-Mutawakkil (r. 847–861). The debate on the theological
> memorative columns of India, but it seems most likely that
> controversies the Mihna had brought to the fore, as well as on
> the minaret was wholly an Islamic invention of the ninth
> the controversial caliph who had instituted it, continued for
> century, meant to draw attention to the mosque as a center of
> many centuries.
> religious life.
> See also Caliphate; Fitna; Mihna; Mu
tazilites, Mu
tazila;
> See also Adhan; Architecture; Masjid.
> Succession.
> 
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Bloom, Jonathan. Minaret: Symbol of Islam. Oxford, U.K.:
> Cooperson, Michael. Classical Arabic Biography: The Heirs of
> Oxford University Press, 1989.
> the Prophets in the Age of al-Mamun. Cambridge, U.K.:
> Cambridge University Press, 2000.
> Ess, Josef Van. Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. Und 3.                                                             Sheila S. Blair
> Jahrhundert Hidschra. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter,                                                            Jonathan M. Bloom
> 1991–1997.
> Gutas, Dimitri. Greek Thought, Arabic Culture: The Graeco-
> Arabic Translation Movement in Baghdad and Early Abbasid
> Society (2nd-4th/8th-10th Centuries). London: Routledge,
> MANICHEANISM
> 1998.
> Manicheanism was a gnostic religious movement founded by
> Hibri, Tayeb, el-. Reinterpreting Islamic Historiography: Harun
> Mani (c. 216–274 or 276), an Iranian religious figure who
> al-Rashid and the Narrative of the Abbasid Caliphate. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1999.                   believed that he had received divine instruction from a
> spiritual “Twin.” The Twin revealed to him “the mystery of
> Tabari, al-. The History of al-Tabari. Vols. 31–32. Albany:
> light and of darkness” and “the battle which darkness stirred
> State University of New York Press, 1987–1992.
> up” when its demons attempted to invade the kingdom of
> light and entrapped light particles in material bodies. In 240,
> Muhammad Qasim Zaman
> the Twin commanded him to become the apostle of a new
> religion and church. The Manichean community was composed of the Elect, whose rituals and strictly regulated behav-
> MANAR, MANARA                                                       ior helped liberate light particles, and the Auditors, who led
> less austere lives and provided the Elect with nourishment.
> At its simplest, a minaret (Ar. manar(a), mi
dhana, sawmaa) is     To this essentially dualistic religion, and in an attempt to
> a raised structure attached to a mosque from which a muezzin        create a truly universal faith, Mani and his followers delibergives the call to prayer, known in Arabic as the adhan.             ately added elements drawn from other religions they en-
> Minarets give a distinctive “Islamic” look to the skylines of       countered, including Mithraism, Christianity, and Buddhism.
> cities in the Muslim world and indicate from afar the presence      Mani won the support of the Sassanian ruler Shahpur I
> of a mosque below. Minarets are commonly tall and slender           (239–270) for his far-ranging missionary activities but aroused
> towers—sometimes polygonal or square but most often cy-             the enmity of the Zoroastrian clergy, led by the high-priest
> lindrical—supporting one or more balconies for the muezzin.         Kartir, who eventually persuaded Bahram I (271–274) to
> In some parts of the Muslim world, notably Upper Egypt,             imprison Mani. Mani either died in prison or was executed.
> East Africa, and Kashmir, minarets were either unknown or           Manicheanism was thereafter ruthlessly suppressed both in
> took a more modest form.                                            the Sasanian East and the Christian West.
> 
> 428                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Mansa Musa
> 
> The Muslim conquests temporarily ended persecution              and made much use of the imagery of light. There is,
> of Manicheanism in the land of its birth. The Umayyad               however, no direct evidence linking the revolt to Manicheans,
> governor of Iraq, al-Hajjaj b. Yusuf (d. 714), apparently           and the dietary and sexual practices attributed to the rebels
> sought to accord Manicheans protected (dhimmi) status and           were certainly non-Manichean.
> to regulate the affairs of their community through an archegos
> based in Ctesiphon (Madain). Efforts were also made to                 Mani and Manicheanism are mentioned in numerous
> heal the sectarian schism that had developed between the            Islamic historical and literary texts. They sometimes depict
> Mesopotamian Manicheans and those in the east (known as             Mani as a prototypical arch-heretic, but he is also often
> the Dinawariyya). The Abbasid caliphs, however, were in-            treated as a genuine religious leader and, especially in Persian
> creasingly intolerant of religious diversity, and al-Mahdi          works, remembered as an acclaimed artist (as he was in fact
> (775–785) and al-Hadi (785–786) carried out a systematic            the founder of the rich Manichean tradition of illustrated
> purge of individuals suspected of zandaqa. This term was            manuscripts and fresco paintings).
> virtually a synonym for Manicheanism, and it is claimed that        See also Islam and Other Religions.
> those accused of zandaqa had to prove their innocence by
> spitting on a portrait of Mani. Yet only one of the victims of      BIBLIOGRAPHY
> this campaign has been shown to have actually been a
> Decret, François. Mani et la tradition manichéenne. Paris:
> Manichean proper; the Abbasid repression was rather di-
> Seuil, 1974.
> rected against Manichean tendencies in Islam and more
> Flügel, Gustav. Mani, seine Lehre und seine Schriften. Leipzig:
> generally against nominal Muslims suspected of holding
> Brockhaus, 1862.
> Persianizing, dualistic, syncretistic, subversive, free-thinking,
> or atheistic ideas. It did make the practice of Manicheanism        Henning, Walter B. “Persian Poetical Manuscripts from the
> time of Rudaki.” In A Locust’s Leg: Studies in Honour of
> more difficult and led to a new migration of Manicheans from
> S. H. Taqizadeh. Edited by W. B. Henning and E. Yar-
> Iraq to Central Asia. According to al-Nadim, the last leader of
> shater. London: Percy Lund, Humphries, and Co., 1962
> the Manichean community in Iraq fled to Khurasan in the
> Klimkeit, Hans-Joachim. Gnosis on the Silk Road: Gnostic Texts
> time of al-Muqtadir (908–932). He further indicates that he
> from Central Asia. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1993.
> had personally known some three hundred “Zindiqs” in
> Baghdad during the time of the Buyid emir Mu
izz-al-Dawla           Lieu, Samuel N. C. Manichaeism in the Later Roman Empire
> and Medieval China: A Historical Survey. Manchester, U.K.:
> (946–967), but this number had dwindled to less than five a
> Manchester University Press, 1985.
> quarter-century later.
> Nadim, al-. The Fihrist of al-Nadim: A Tenth-Century Survey of
> Manicheanism was strongest in eastern Iran and Central            Muslim Culture. Edited and translated by Bayard Dodge.
> Asia, where Sogdian merchants served as able missionaries             New York: Columbia University Press, 1970.
> for the faith. Its position was strengthened when, in about         Vajda, Georges. “Les Zindiqs en pays d’Islam au début de
> 762, it became the official religion of the Uighur khaghanate.          la période abbaside.” Rivista degli Studi Orientali 17
> According to al-Nadim, the “ruler of Khurasan” (presumably             (1937–1938):173–229.
> one of the Samanids) wanted to follow the Abbasid lead and          Widengren, Geo. Mani and Manichaeism. Translated by
> exterminate the Manicheans in his kingdom but was re-                 Charles Kessler. New York: Holt, Rinehart and
> strained by the threats of the Uighur khaghan (“lord of the           Winston, 1965.
> Tughuzghuz”) to retaliate against the Muslims in his lands. A
> Manichean text in Parthian from this period shows that                                                             Elton L. Daniel
> Manicheans were attempting to assimilate the terminology
> and concepts of Islam, just as they had in the case of other
> religions. From the tenth century onward, Sufi missionaries,         MANSA MUSA (? –1337)
> including al-Hallaj, actively proselytized among the Manichean
> and Turkish communities. By Mongol times, Manicheanism              One of the most famous emperors of the medieval Western
> had been supplanted in Central Asia by either Islam or              Sudanic kingdom of Mali, Mansa Musa reigned from about
> Buddhism.                                                           1312 to 1337. He extended the kingdom of Mali by bringing
> under its suzerainty many non-Mandingo people of the
> An unresolved question is the extent to which Manicheans         Sahel. Many sources, including the Arabic author al-
Umari
> and Manichean tendencies (mixed with neo-Mazdakism) may             (1301–1394), described Mansa Musa as a pious Muslim, and
> have been involved in anti-Abbasid revolts in Central Asia. It      as one of the medieval rulers whose contribution to the spread
> is suggestive, for example, that the famous revolt of al-           of Islam in the Western Sudan was the most significant.
> Muqanna
 (c. 777–783) took place in Sogdia and was supported by the Turks; he and his followers were known as                 One of the most noted events of Mansa Musa’s reign was
> “wearers of white” (reminiscent of the traditional garb of the      his pilgrimage to Mecca in 1312. On his way, he visited Egypt
> Manichean Elect), believed in the transmigration of souls,          during the reign of the Mamluk sultan, Nasir b. Qala
un.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                     429
> Maqassari, Taanta Salmanka al-
> 
> Mansa Musa, it has been reported, was accompanied by              political affairs of the Shi
a. His success changed the instituthousands of peoples and camels laden with gold. He gave          tion of marja al-taqlid, politicizing it and making disobeying
> huge quantities of gold to the sultan of Egypt. His stay in       the orders of the supreme jurist similar to treason. After
> Egypt was one of the main events of the year 1312. He             Khomeini died in 1989, there were political and religious
> distributed so much gold that the price of this precious metal    disputes among the Shi
a over the role of the marja al-taqlid.
> dropped. Perhaps because of the notoriety he gained by this       This dispute contributed to the declaration by the Iranian
> pilgrimage, Mali started to appear in maps drawn by Euro-         government, in 1994, that Ayatollah Sayyed 
Ali Khamanei
> pean cartographers.                                               (a former close associate of Khomeini) was the single marja
> al-taqlid when the then undisputed marja Ayatollah Khui
> Mansa Musa’s reign supported a flowering in Malian              died. This move was undoubtedly linked to the need to
> scholarship and architecture. He commissioned al-Sahili, the      establish the position of “leader of the revolution” (rahbar) in
> Andalusian poet and man of letters, to design mosques and         Iran. Ayatollah Khamenei’s position as the Marja al-taqlid
> other buildings in Mali. Mansa Musa attracted scholars and        has, however, remained a matter of dispute.
> brought back books of Islamic jurisprudence to the libraries
> Mali. He also began sending students to Islamic universities      See also Shi
a: Imami (Twelver); Taqlid; Ulema.
> in North Africa. He built Quranic schools, and established
> the Friday congregational prayer in Mali.                         BIBLIOGRAPHY
> See also Africa, Islam in.                                        Amanat, A. “In Between the Madrasa and the Marketplace:
> The Designations of Clerical Leadership in Modern
> Shi
ism.” In Authority and Political Culture in Shiism.
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                        Edited by S. A. Arjomand. Albany: State University of
> Clark, P. West Africa and Islam: A Study of Religious Develop-      NewYork Press, 1988.
> ment from the 8th to the 20th Century. London: Edwards         Lambton, A. K. S. “A Reconsideration of the Position of the
> Arnold, 1982.                                                    Marja Taqlid and the Religious Institution.” Studia Islamica
> Hiskett, M. The Development of Islam in West Africa. London         20 (1964): 115–135.
> and New York: Longman, 1984.
> Robert Gleave
> Ousmane Kane
> 
> MARRIAGE
> MAQASSARI, TAANTA SALMANKA
> AL- See Makassar, Shaykh Yusuf                                    In Muslim societies marriage is a contract regulated by a code
> of law rooted in religious precepts—the sharia. The relations
> between the precepts and the law are complex, the interpretations of the law vary considerably, and the social practices of
> marriage constitute a major part of the rich cultural diversity
> MARJA
 AL-TAQLID                                                  of the Muslim world. Moreover, marriage rules and customs
> have been central to ongoing debates over issues of moder-
> Marja al-taqlid (Persian Marja-e taqlid) literally means “the   nity and women’s status in Islam, starting with the anticolonial
> source of imitation.” Marja al-taqlid is a title given to the    and nationalist movements of the early twentieth century.
> highest-ranking cleric within Twelver Shi
ism. The concep-        The codification and reform of sharia rules governing martion of a single leading scholar who both directs and leads the   riage in the first part of the century, and the more recent
> ulema was not absent in Shi
ism, but the marja institution did   emergence of Islamist movements and their demand for a
> not emerge until the nineteenth century. The first universally     return to sharia, have highlighted the ideological dimension
> recognized marja was the influential mujtahid Murtada al-         of the legal regulation of marriage.
> Ansari (d. 1864). He was followed by a series of scholars
> whose level of support as marja varied, and a number of             Marriage in Islamic law is based on a strong patriarchal
> scholars at the same time could be put forward as “sources”       ethos, imbued with religious ideals and values. It is one of the
> (maraji) simultaneously. There is no formal means whereby a      few contracts that straddles the boundary between the two
> marja is selected: it seems he emerges as the “most learned”     main categories: ibadat (spiritual/ritual acts) and muamalat
> (alamiyya). There is also much dispute of the level of his       (social/private acts). In spirit, marriage belongs to ibadat, in
> authority (as a spokesperson, or as an authority to be obeyed     that Muslim jurists define it as a religious duty. In form, it
> by other scholars and the community). In 1979, Ayatollah          comes under the category of muamalat, is defined as a civil
> Khomeini led a revolution in Iran arguing that a single           contract, and is patterned after the contract of sale, which has
> “supreme jurist” should control both the religious and the        served as a model for other contracts. In this respect, there is
> 
> 430                                                                                           Islam and the Muslim World
> Martyrdom
> 
> no difference among the various schools: all share the same        family, and the stigma usually attached to both polygamy and
> conception of marriage. If they differ, it is to the extent to     divorce.
> which they translate this conception into legal rules.
> With the emergence of modern nation-states and the
> In its legal structure, marriage (nikah) is a contract of      creation of modern legal systems in the early part of the
> exchange, with fixed terms and uniform legal effects. Its           twentieth century, the juristic rules of marriage were selecessential components are the offer (ijab), which is made by the    tively reformed, codified, and grafted onto a unified legal
> woman or her guardian (wali), the acceptance (qabul) by the        system (as in most Middle Eastern and Asian Muslim counman, and the payment of dower (mahr or sadaq), a sum of            tries) or were left intact to be applied by Islamic judges (as in
> money or any valuable that the husband pays or undertakes to       most African and Persian Gulf countries). Turkey was the
> pay to the bride before or after consummation. With the            only state in the Muslim world to introduce a Western code
> contract, a wife comes under her husband’s isma (dominion         to replace juristic rules, though these continued to govern
> and protection), entailing a set of defined rights and obliga-      marriages in rural areas and among religious groups. In most
> tions for each party—some supported by legal force, others         Muslim countries during the twentieth century, as women’s
> by moral sanction. Those with legal force revolve around the       access to education and work, and consequently their aspiratwin themes of sexual access and compensation, embodied in         tions for equality, increased, so did the gap between juristic
> the concepts of tamkin (submission) and nafaqa (mainte-            and social notions of marriage widen. On the whole, until the
> nance). Tamkin—defined as unhampered sexual access—is               rise of political Islam in the 1970s, marriage was acquiring a
> the husband’s right and thus the wife’s duty; whereas nafaqa—      more egalitarian legal structure in the Muslim world. More
> defined as shelter, food, and clothing—is the wife’s right and      recently, the patriarchal juristic model has been widely reasthe husband’s duty. A wife is entitled to nafaqa only after        serted. Despite wide-ranging variations and changes in pracconsummation of the marriage, and she loses her claim if she       tice, the jurists’ notions continue to dominate both the reality
> is in a state of nushuz (disobedience).                            of marriage in contemporary Muslim societies and debates
> about the issue. Not only do most Muslims believe the juristic
> The contract establishes neither a shared matrimonial          conception to be divinely ordained, but it informs the legal
> regime nor identical rights and obligations between the            rules in most Muslim countries.
> spouses: The husband is sole provider and owner of matrimo-
> An image of a young Muslim couple in traditional wedding
> nial resources and the wife is possessor of mahr and her own
> attire appears in the volume two color insert.
> wealth. The only shared space is that involving the procreation of children, and even here the wife is not legally com-       See also Divorce; Gender; Law; Mahr.
> pelled to suckle her child unless it is impossible to feed it
> otherwise. Likewise, only a man can enter more than one            BIBLIOGRAPHY
> marriage at a time (four permanent contracts in Sunni schools
> 
Abd Al 
Ati, Hammudah. The Family Structure in Islam.
> of law; and, in Shi
a law, as many temporary ones as he desires       Indianapolis: American Trust Publication, 1977.
> or can afford). Only the husband can terminate each contract
> El Alami, Dawoud. The Marriage Contract in Islamic Law.
> at will: He needs no grounds and neither the wife’s presence
> London, Dordrecht, and Boston: Graham & Trotman,
> nor her consent. Wives can, however, through the insertion            1992.
> of stipulations in the contract, modify some of its terms and
> Anderson, J. N. D. “The Eclipse of the Patriarchal Family in
> acquire, for example, the right to choose the place of resi-         Contemporary Islamic Law.” In his Family Law in Asia and
> dence or to work, or the delegated right to divorce if the           Africa. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1968.
> husband contracts another marriage.
> Mir-Hosseini, Ziba. Marriage on Trial: A Study of Islamic
> Family Law: Iran and Morocco Compared. London: I. B.
> Muslim jurists claim that this construction of marriage,
> Tauris, 1993.
> based on their readings of the sacred texts, is divinely or-
> Nasir, Jamal J. Islamic Law of Personal Status. 2d edition.
> dained. But marriage as lived and experienced by Muslims
> London: Graham & Trotman, 1990.
> involves a host of customary obligations and social relationships that have always gone far beyond juristic constructions.
> Ziba Mir-Hosseini
> Some of these are rooted in the ideals of the sharia and enjoy
> its moral support, though they are not reflected in legal
> rulings. In Muslim societies, marriage in practice not only
> creates a matrimonial regime but takes a wide range of forms,      MARTYRDOM
> varying according to customary practices, individual inclinations and characters, the social origins (rural/urban, class) of   The idea of martyrdom in Islam is rooted in the fact that from
> the partners, and their economic resources. Men’s uncondi-         the beginning of the religion, Muslims died in the struggle to
> tional legal rights to divorce and polygamy are often checked      establish and expand the Islamic state, and their deaths in the
> in practice by social mores, the pressures of the extended         course of this struggle were remembered and celebrated. The
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                     431
> Martyrdom
> 
> Quran encourages martyrdom by assuring believers that              the earliest ideas of martyrdom in Islam. Accounts of the
> death is illusory: “And say not of those slain in God’s way,        earliest Muslim martyrs reflect this context. The martyrs
> ‘They are dead’; rather they are living, but you are not aware”     most celebrated in biographies of the Prophet are those who
> (2:154).                                                            threw themselves into battle with courage and abandon. Ibn
> Ishaq’s account of the Muslim victory at Badr (623/624 C.E.),
> God also promises ample rewards to those who die fi sabil         for example, is peppered with accounts of martyrdom. In one
> Allah, “in the way of God”:                                         account, 
Umayr was eating some dates when he heard the
> Prophet promise Paradise to any who died in battle. At this he
> immediately flung the dates aside and threw himself into the
> Count not those who were slain in God’s way as dead,
> battle exclaiming, “Is there nothing between me and entering
> but rather living with their Lord, by Him provided,
> Paradise save to be killed by these men?” Another Muslim,
> rejoicing in the bounty God has given them, because
> no fear shall be on them, neither shall they sorrow,             
Asim, asked Muhammad, “What makes the Lord laugh with
> joyful in blessing and bounty from God, and that God             joy at His servant?” Muhammad answered, “When he plunges
> leaves not to waste the wage of the believers. (3:169–171)       into the midst of the enemy without mail.” At this 
Asim
> threw off his mail coat, plunged into the battle and was killed.
> 
> Other passages elevate death in the course of struggle for          Incentives for this kind of battlefield martyrdom are
> Islam (e.g. 3:157–158, 4:74; 9:20–22; 47:4–6; and 61:11).           colorfully elaborated in the tradition literature. Martyrs are
> first of all spared from the normal pain of death. They then
> Martyrdom in Early Islam                                            proceed directly to the highest station in Paradise, without
> While the idea of martyrdom is clearly rooted in the Quran,        waiting for the Day of Judgment, and without enduring
> the technical terms for martyr, shahid, and for martyrdom,          interrogation in the grave by the angels Munkar and Nakir.
> shahada, arise from a different context. When the term shahid       Once in Paradise they share the place closest to the throne of
> appears in the Quran, as it does frequently, it never means        God with the prophets, wear jeweled crowns, and are each
> martyr, but only “witness,” in the legal sense or in the            given seventy houris (virgins of paradise). Martyrs are purified
> ordinary sense of “eyewitness.” The extension of the meaning        of sin and do not require the Prophet’s intercession—indeed,
> of shahid to martyrdom was likely a borrowing from Syrian           according to some traditions, martyrs are themselves second
> Christians for whom the connection of martyrdom with an             only to the prophets as intercessors.
> act of witnessing was deep rooted and reflected in linguistic
> usage. The terms martys in Greek and sahda in Syriac both              While fighting unbelievers on the battlefield has recarried the dual meaning of witness and martyr, and A. J.           mained a basic and consistent emphasis in Muslim under-
> Wensinck and Ignaz Goldziher plausibly argued that the              standings of martyrdom, conflicts within the Muslim
> Arabic shahid is borrowed from the Syriac.                          community took the idea in new directions. Martyrdom was
> an especially potent ideal among some Kharijite Muslims
> This connection between martyrdom and witness made              who called themselves shurat, or vendors, in reference to
> sense to Christians, for the Christian martyrs were those who       Quranic praise for those who sell their earthly lives in
> witnessed by their manner of death to the reality of heaven         exchange for Paradise (4:74; 9:112). The idea of deliberately
> and the inevitable victory of God. But for Muslims the              seeking martyrdom (talab al-shahadat) by “selling” one’s life
> connection was a stretch for the simple reason that the             came to be especially associated with Kharijites. One Kharijite
> Quranic idea of death in the way of God required no act of         ideologue, for instance, exhorts his followers to strive against
> witnessing. Muslims were thus left with the uncomfortable           “the unjust leaders of error, and to go out (khuruj) from the
> problem of discovering a link between the two ideas, and they       Abode of Transience to the Abode of Eternity and join our
> came up with a variety of creative suggestions: Martyrs are         believing, convinced brothers who have sold (ba
u) this world
> called “witnesses” because their souls witness Paradise, their      for the next, and spent their wealth in quest of God’s good
> deaths are witnessed by angels, they will serve as witnesses        pleasure in the final reckoning” (Lewinstein, 2002, p. 85). As
> against those who rejected God’s prophets, Muhammad will            this exhortation makes clear, the conflicts that provided the
> be a witness on their behalf at the Day of Judgment, or their       Kharijites with opportunities for martyrdom were not strugwounds will testify to their exalted status in the afterlife. The   gles against unbelievers, but struggles for justice and purity in
> awkwardness of these suggestions, as Keith Lewinstein points        the Muslim community. More importantly, martyrdom was
> out, suggests that later Muslims had no idea why the two ideas      not merely an inconvenient by-product of struggle for which
> came together and that the connection had to be invented to         the martyr needs to be compensated, but a goal worth
> explain linguistic usage.                                           pursuing in its own right.
> 
> Early Islamic martyrdom, then, was an inevitable corol-          The Shi
a and Martyrdom
> lary not of witnessing to the truth but of struggling on its        Internal struggles within the umma also shaped the construcbehalf. Thus jihad, or struggle, provides the chief context for     tion of martyrdom among Shi
ite Muslims, for whom the
> 
> 432                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Martyrdom
> 
> death of the Prophet’s grandson Husayn became the defining         was to render the major benefits of martyrdom common
> event of their history as a community. Husayn was martyred        currency, readily available to any pious believer. Several
> in 680 at Karbala in Iraq when his small band, accompanied        characteristics of medieval Islam contributed to the trend: the
> by women and children, was attacked and massacred by the          pervasive influence of Sufism with its characteristic focus on
> army of the Umayyad ruler, Yazid. Shi
ite interpretations of      the spiritual value of an act rather than its externals, scholarly
> Karbala took Muslim ideas of martyrdom in completely new          quietism in reaction to the militancy of the Kharijites and
> directions. Husayn’s suffering and death came to be seen not      other Islamic rebels, and the simple fact that opportunities for
> just as an individual contribution to the struggle against        martyrdom in the struggle against unbelievers were severely
> injustice, meriting individual reward, but as a deliberate        diminished after the initial century of conquest.
> redemptive act of cosmic significance. By choosing martyrdom Husayn ensured the ultimate victory of his community              Outside the definitions of martyrdom discussed in the
> and earned the place of mediator for his people. Martyrdom        legal literature, an independent tradition of martyrdom was
> became such a central value for the Shi
a that all the Shi
ite    kept alive among Sufis. The paradigmatic Sufi martyr was Ibn
> imams were held to have been martyrs, and the major ritual        Mansur al-Hallaj (d. 922), who was crucified by Muslim
> and devotional expressions of Shi
ism are celebrations of         authorities in Baghdad on the charge of blasphemy. Almartyrdom.                                                        Hallaj, along with other Sufi martyr heroes like Suhrawardi
> (d. 1168), 
Ayn al-Qudat (d. 1131), and Ibn Sab
in (d. 1269),
> Types of Martyrdom                                                died the victim of his own inordinate love for the Divine, thus
> To celebrate martyrdom is not the same as to seek it,             exemplifying the Sufi ideal of extinction in the Divine and
> however. Shi
ite scholars were happy to revere Husayn but         acting out the tragedy of the mystic lover, caught between the
> they resisted the impulse to emulate him. In this they were       conflicting demands of love and law. This style of martyrdom
> part of a broader scholarly tendency to dilute the value of       belonged to the spiritual virtuosi, however. For the ordinary
> martyrdom. In the hands of mainstream scholars, both Sunni        Muslim, the benefits of martyrdom are only experienced
> and Shi
ite, the category of martyr was enlarged to include       secondhand, by visiting a martyr’s shrine, or mashhad, or for
> many kinds of death, including drowning, pleurisy, plague, or     Shi
a, by reenacting the passion of Husayn in taziya celebradiarrhea. According to other traditions martyrs also include      tions during the month of Muharram.
> those who die in childbirth, those who die defending their
> property, those who are eaten by lions, and those who die of      Militancy and Martyrdom
> seasickness. A special category of martyr is made up of those     The sublimation of the martyr ideal in pious devotion has
> who suffer the pangs of unexpressed and unrequited love,          continued in Muslim societies, but the modern experience
> patiently keeping their passions concealed to death. The          has also given some Muslims abundant reason to revive more
> trend culminated in the transference of the value of martyr-      militant ideas of martyrdom. Modern Muslim treatments of
> dom to other pious acts, so that death was no longer the most     martyrdom have been intertwined with changing attitudes
> important prerequisite. The band of martyrs came to include       toward jihad, and are shaped by reaction against the quietism
> anyone who conscientiously fulfills his or her religious obli-     of the medieval tradition. Whereas for medieval jurists both
> gations, those who engage in the “greater jihad” against their    jihad and martyrdom were spiritualized and internalized, the
> own evil tendencies, and, significantly, scholars who engage       colonial experience suddenly gave the idea of militant strugin the “jihad of the pen.” According to one well-known            gle new relevance. Thus a common early response to colonihadith, the ink of the scholars will outweigh the blood of the    alism was the emergence of anticolonial jihad movements like
> martyrs.                                                          that of Sayyid Ahmad in India. Nineteenth-century Muslim apologists and modernists like Sayyid Ahmad Khan
> The incongruity of equating battlefield martyrs with vic-      (1817–1898), Chiragh 
Ali (1844–1895), and Muhammad
> tims of unrequited love or those who died quietly in bed did      
Abduh (1849–1905) departed from the medieval tradition in
> not go unnoticed by legal scholars. Thus battlefield martyrs       a different way by reinterpreting jihad to accord with Westare put in a special category as “martyrs in this world and the   ern preconceptions. Jihad, the modernists argued, amounts
> next” and are honored with special burial rites. The martyr’s     to no more than the right of a state to defend itself against
> body, in most circumstances, is not washed; he is to be buried    attack. The effect was to encourage a secularization of marin the clothes in which he was killed. Some hold that no          tyrdom whereby any soldier who died for his country could
> prayers over the martyr are necessary since he is automati-       be counted a martyr.
> cally purified from sin. The lesser categories of martyrs are
> “martyrs of the next world” meaning, chiefly, that they are           Against both the quietism of medieval scholars and the
> not eligible for special burial rites but must be satisfied with   apologetics of modernists, revivalists have called for a return
> divine approbation and the rewards of Paradise.                   to militant jihad and a revival of the ideals of physical
> martyrdom. Hasan al-Banna (1906–1949), founder of the
> Even if battlefield martyrs retained a special status, how-     Muslim Brotherhood and a celebrated martyr in his own
> ever, the trend in medieval Muslim treatments of the subject      right, offers a stirring invitation to martyrdom:
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                     433
> Marwa, Muhammad
> 
> Brothers! God gives the umma that is skilled in the            See also Banna, Hasan al-; Expansion; Husayn; 
Ibadat;
> practice of death and that knows how to die a noble            Imamate; Jihad; Kharijites, Khawarij; Ta
ziya.
> death an exalted life in this world and eternal felicity in
> the next. What is the fantasy that has reduced us to           BIBLIOGRAPHY
> loving this world and hating death? If you gird yourselves for a lofty deed and yearn for death, life shall be     Ayoub, Mahmoud. Redemptive Suffering in Islam: A Study of
> given to you . . . . Know, then, that death is inevitable,       the Devotional Aspects of Ashura
 in Twelver Shiism. The
> and that it can only happen once. If you suffer in the           Hague: Mouton, 1978.
> way of God, it will profit you in this world and bring          Banna, Hasan al-. Five Tracts of Hasan al-Banna
 (1906–1949):
> you reward in the next. (Hasan al-Banna, 1978, p.156).            A Selection from the Majmu
at Rasa
il al-Imam al-Shahid
> Hasan al-Banna
. Translated by Charles Wendell. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978.
> For al-Banna and other revivalists, waging jihad is held to   Goldziher, Ignaz. Muslim Studies. Edited and translated by
> be an individual duty (fard ayn) of all Muslims. It is thus        C. R. Barber and S. M. Stern. London: Allen &
> incumbent on every Muslim to prepare him- or herself for            Unwin, 1971.
> martyrdom, and it is on the basis of this duty that al-Banna      Husted, W. R. “Karbala Made Immediate: The Martyr
> calls on Muslims to become skilled at dying and to master           as Model in Imami Shi
ism.” Muslim World 83
> “the art of death” (fann al-mawt). Since all must die, the wise     (1993): 263–278.
> will learn how to get the most benefit out of the exchange (Q.     Kohlberg, E. Medieval Muslim Views on Martyrdom. Amster-
> 4:74). Such advocacy of martyrdom echoes the ideology of            dam: Noord-Hollansche, 1997.
> the Kharijites and comes close to encouraging the seeking out     Lewinstein, Keith. “The Revaluation of Martyrdom in Early
> of martyrdom, talab al-shahada, a practice condemned in             Islam.” In Sacrificing the Self: Perspectives on Martyrdom and
> classical scholarship. The recent pattern of suicide bombings       Religion. Edited by Margaret Cormack. Oxford, U.K.:
> sponsored by militant Islamic movements, many of them               Oxford University Press, 2002.
> offshoots of the Muslim Brotherhood, fits comfortably into         Massignon, Louis. The Passion of al-Hallaj: Mystic and Martyr
> the framework of the call of Hasan al-Banna to be “skilled in       of Islam. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1982.
> the practice of death.”                                           Rosenthal, Franz. “On Suicide in Islam.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 66 (1946): 239–259.
> Modern Shi
ite treatments of martyrdom have tended to
> Shariati, Ali. Martyrdom: Arise and Bear Witness. Translated
> run along parallel lines, emphasizing the ideological value of      by Ali Asghar Ghassemy. Tehran: Ministry of Islamic
> martyrdom. When an individual gives his or her life for a           Guidance, 1981.
> cause, according to 
Ali Shari
ati (1933–1977), this life be-
> Smith, Jane I., and Haddad, Yvonne Yazbeck. The Islamic
> comes valuable in proportion to the value of the cause for          Understanding of Death and Resurrection. Albany: State
> which it is spent. A martyr expends his or her whole existence      University of New York Press, 1981.
> for an ideal, and that ideal is given life through martyrdom.
> Taleqani, Mahmud; Muttahhari, Murtaza; and Shariati, 
Ali.
> Martyrs thus exchange their lives for something greater and         Jihad and Shahadat: Struggle and Martyrdom in Islam.
> more lasting, leaving behind a permanent and valuable leg-          Edited by Mehdi Abedi and Gary Legenhausen. Houston:
> acy. Similarly, Ayatollah Taliqani (1910–1979) invokes the          Institute for Research and Islamic Studies, 1986.
> Sufi poet Jalaluddin Rumi (1207–1273) to argue that martyr-        Wensinck, A. J. “The Oriental Doctrine of the Martyrs.” In
> dom is part of a chain of sacrifice whereby the imperfect is         Semietische Studien uit de Nalatenschap. Leiden: A. W.
> perfected. Just as vegetation is eaten by a lamb and becomes        Sijthoff, 1941.
> flesh and blood, so a martyr loses his existence to partake in a
> higher cause.                                                                                                 Daniel W. Brown
> 
> These justifications for martyrdom are clearly modern in
> their emphasis on the ideological value of martyrdom. Such
> ideas have more than theoretical relevance. Modern conflicts       MARWA, MUHAMMAD (D. 1980)
> in Palestine, Afghanistan, Kashmir, Chechnya, Iraq, and Iran
> have produced a large crop of martyrs, along with a huge          Muhammad Marwa (Maitatsine) was a Quranic teacher from
> volume of popular literature celebrating their deeds. Conse-      Cameroon in West Africa who followed sharia (Islamic law).
> quently, activist and militant forms of martyrdom tend to be      After he moved to Nigeria, his teachings inspired a religious,
> the most visible and dramatic expressions of the idea in the      millennial revolt against the government in the northern
> modern Islamic world. The prominence of such militant             province of Kano in 1980. A mystic, he resembled the Mahdi
> forms should not, however, be allowed to obscure the contin-      of Sudan in that he claimed revelatory knowledge, which
> ued importance of other enduring expressions of martyrdom         supplemented, and even superseded, the teachings of the
> in popular devotion and especially in Shi
ite ritual.             prophet Muhammad. In 1979, he apparently declared himself
> 
> 434                                                                                           Islam and the Muslim World
> Marwan
> 
> a prophet greater than Muhammad. The movement, also              
Uthman, Marwan is believed to have written a letter orderknown as Yan Tatsine (the followers of Maitatsine), was          ing the execution of the Egyptians concerned. It was the
> nominally Muslim but unorthodox, rejecting established au-       discovery of this letter by the Egyptians that led to 
Uthman’s
> thorities, both religious and secular. It had a strong element   being besieged and murdered in his home in 656. This event
> of political protest in it, attracting mostly the urban poor,    is remembered as “the battle of the house,” or yawm al-dar.
> young men who had moved to the city and could not fit in          Marwan was wounded while trying to protect 
Uthman. He
> with established groups.                                         later fought in the Battle of the Camel with 
Aisha against
> 
Ali, for 
Ali would neither investigate nor punish the mur-
> Marwa recruited from Quranic schools, rejecting the          derers of 
Uthman. Later, Marwan swore allegiance to 
Ali,
> authority of all books aside from the Quran, including the      but joined the ranks of Mu
awiya when 
Ali was murdered.
> hadiths. Followers kept their own mosques and schools. The       He was appointed governor of Medina by the caliph Mu
awiyya
> movement was hostile to women, many of whom were kid-            b. Abi Sufyan (r. 661–680), and served in this capacity from
> napped and kept in Marwa’s compound for months. Tensions         661 to 668 and again from 674 to 677.
> with the government exploded in a series of riots, apparently
> instigated by attacks that Marwa’s followers made on mem-           Mu
awiyya was succeeded by his son, Yazid, who died in
> bers of the local Muslim community in December 1980 in           683, followed by Yazid’s son, Mu
awiya II, who died a few
> Kano (resulting in 4,177 deaths) and again in 1982 in Kaduna     months later. Meanwhile, the hostility provoked by Yazid
> and Maiduguri, after which the movement was suppressed. It       during his brief caliphate, which saw the death of Husayn b.
> was blamed for further uprisings in the early 1980s, which the   
Ali, the battle of the Harra (a stronghold in Medina), and the
> government used as an excuse to increase state control.          onslaught against Mecca, had brought 
Abdullah b. al-Zubayr
> Marwa was among those killed in the 1980 riots.                  great popularity. Al-Zubayr was acclaimed caliph of the
> region extending from the Hijaz (a region in western Saudi
> See also Africa, Islam in; Kano; Mahdi.                          Arabia) to Iraq. The Umayyads were thus forced to look
> beyond the Sufyanid family for a leader.
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> At this point, frustrated by inadequate leadership, tribal
> Callaway, Barbara, and Creevey, Lucy. The Heritage of Islam:     loyalties that had been submerged by the uniting forces of
> Women, Religion and Politics in West Africa. Boulder, Colo.:
> Islam emerged once again. The faction led by Ibn Bahdal,
> Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1994.
> chief of the Kalbi clan, proclaimed Marwan caliph, while the
> Kastfelt, Niels. “Rumours of Maitatsine: A Note on Political     faction led by al-Dahhaq b. Ways al-Fihri supported Ibn al-
> Culture in Northern Nigeria.” African Affairs 88, no. 350
> Zubayr. When the two factions met at the battle of Marj
> (1989): 83–90.
> Rahat it was Marwan who won the day
> 
> Paula Stiles      Marwan immediately consolidated his position: He married Fakhita bt. Abi Hashim, the widow of Yazid, vowing that
> the latter’s son, Khalid b. Yazid, would be his successor. Once
> appointed caliph, however, he first replaced Egypt’s Zubayrid
> MARWAN (623–685 C.E.)                                            governor with his son, 
Abd al-
Aziz. Then, reneging on his
> promise to Fakhita, he named his eldest son, 
Abd al-Malik,
> Marwan b. al-Hakam b. Abi al-
As, Abu 
Abd al-Malik, the         heir to the caliphate. Finally, having defeated Mus
ab b. aleponym of the Marwanid branch of the Umayyads, reigned           Zubayr, the brother of his rival caliph in Mecca, he sent his
> for several months in 684 and 685 C.E. He was one of the         general, 
Ubayd Allah b. Ziyad, to capture Iraq.
> Companions of Muhammad and the cousin of 
Uthman b.
> 
Affan (r. 644–656), the third caliph of Islam. Marwan was          Marwan died in 685, murdered by his wife, Fakhita, before
> appointed secretary to 
Uthman during his caliphate because      Iraq was taken. His son, 
Abd al-Malik (r. 685–705), sucof his knowledge of the Quran and became the caliph’s           cessfully consolidated the Umayyad caliphate under the
> closest advisor. He probably encouraged the caliph to com-       Marwanid banner.
> pile the Quran. Much of Marwan’s wealth came from the
> See also Caliphate; Succession.
> rich plunder he obtained during an expedition to North
> Africa, which he invested in properties in Medina. Despite
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> objection from many Medinans, Marwan influenced 
Uthman
> to appoint his brother, Harith b. Hakam, to oversee the          Dixon, A. A. The Umayyad Caliphate 65–86/684–705. London: Luzac, 1971.
> market of Medina.
> Hawting, Gerald. The First Dynasty of Islam. Carbondale:
> Marwan was viewed as an ambitious man and his influence           Southern Illinois University Press, 1987.
> on the caliph was generally regarded as negative. When           Madelund, Wilferd. The Succession to Muhammad. Cambridge,
> Egyptian malcontents negotiated a political settlement with        U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                 435
> Masculinities
> 
> Kennedy, Hugh. The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates.              Further research analyzes how maleness is inculcated
> London: Longman, 1986.                                           through rituals such as circumcision which, in certain Muslim
> societies such as Turkey, may be a prepuberty ritual accom-
> Rizwi Faizer     panied by public display and celebration, including dressing
> the boy in a military-type uniform. The cultural significance
> of male attributes such as beards and mustaches, which may
> also have a religious or political valence, is another dimension
> MASCULINITIES                                                      of the Muslim embodiment of maleness. Variations in conceptions of the ideal masculine have also merited attention in
> The academic study of masculinity has recently emerged as a        terms of homosexual identities, black Muslim male embodiparallel to feminist strategies of deconstructing historical,      ment, the effect of colonialism and the colonial gaze on
> cultural, class, religious, and other factors shaping notions of   Muslim constructions of the masculine, and so on.
> maleness. In the case of Islam and Muslim societies, elements      See also Body, Significance of; Feminism; Gender;
> contributing to masculinities are normative pronouncements         Homosexuality.
> of the religion, the models of the Prophet and his companions, as well as philosophical, ethical, and social discourses     BIBLIOGRAPHY
> and practices.
> Cornwall, Andrea, and Lindisfarne, Nancy, eds. Dislocating
> Masculinity: Comparative Ethnographies. London and New
> The Quran seems to privilege the male as being “a degree        York: Routledge, 1994.
> higher” and gives him responsibility over females. Nonethe-
> Ghoussoub, Mai, and Sinclair-Webb, Emma. Imagined
> less, feminist scholars such as Asma Barlas have been trying to
> Masculinities: Male Identity and Culture in the Modern Midrecover an underlying antipatriarchal ethos behind the sto-          dle East. London: Saqi Books, 2000.
> ries of the sacred text, for example, in Abraham’s breaking
> with traditional models of patriarchy through rejecting his                                                   Marcia Hermansen
> father’s gods. The Prophet himself embodied traits of strength
> and gentleness, and served both as a warrior and tender
> husband and father. 
Ali, the fourth caliph, as a heroic male
> figure embodies both military prowess and spiritual wisdom,         MASHHAD
> whereas 
Umar, the second caliph, projects the harsh and
> Mashhad is a major city of Iran, and the capital of Khorasan,
> uncompromising enforcement of social control while disthe country’s largest province with six million inhabitants. In
> pensing impartial justice.
> 1996, 2.25 million of the province’s population lived in
> Both pre- and post-Islamic Arabic cultures contain well-        Mashhad. It is the country’s most important pilgrimage site,
> developed concepts of muruwwa, or manliness, combining             visited annually by over thirteen million pilgrims from Iran
> moral notions of integrity, fidelity, valor, chastity, and honor.   and abroad. The shrine of 
Ali b. Musa al-Rida (Reza) (764–818
> C.E.), the eighth and the only imam buried in Iran, is in
> In medieval Muslim societies and Sufi spheres, the ethical
> Mashhad. The imam was buried in an orchard by the grave of
> code of futuwwa (Arabic) or jawanmardi (Persian) was enacted
> the Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid at Sinabad, a hamlet near
> by societies or guild-like alliances of young men bonded
> Nawghan, one of the districts of the city of Tus. The Mongol
> around ethics of honor and companionship. A sort of Persian
> assault in the early thirteenth century, followed by the attack
> cult of male strength and chivalry is still performed in the
> of the Timurid Miran Shah in 1385, were major blows that
> zurkhana, or “house of strength,” where gymnastic exercises
> led to the gradual extinction of Tus, so much so that we find
> are carried out to the background of the chanted national
> no mention of it in the sources since the middle of the
> epic, the Shahnameh.
> fifteenth century. While Tus gradually disappeared, the hamlet
> of Sinabad grew into a town, first called Mashhad-e Razavi
> Contemporary studies of film and literature from the
> and then Mashhad-e Tus, as large numbers of Shi
a settled
> Muslim world explore their themes of male competition,
> there because of the imam’s shrine, known for centuries as
> violence, and coming of age in a highly gendered social world.
> “Mashhad al-Razavi.”
> Certain tropes, such as the wily woman who deprives males of
> virility and the constant need to preserve and control female         The shrine and its upkeep received the attention of Samanid,
> honor, play on male anxieties. Some anthropological and            Ghaznawid, and Seljuk rulers who held the Alawid in reverliterary studies have highlighted the role of the wedding night    ence despite their Sunni creed. Mashhad received special
> in Arab societies, where in traditional contexts male sexual       royal attention during the reign of the Timurid ruler Shahrukh.
> performance and female virginity were expected and verified,        He visited the imam’s shrine for ziyara in 1406 and it was
> giving further clues into the psychological background of          during his reign that the famous Gawharshad Mosque, comasserting male potency as a quasi-sacrificial blood ritual.         pleted for his wife in 1418, and other buildings in the shrine
> 
> 436                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Masjid
> 
> complex were constructed. After establishing Safavid control           The Quran contains over twenty references to masjid, in
> of Khorasan, Shah 
Abbas showed a special reverence for             singular and plural, offering ample evidence for the impor-
> Mashhad and in 1601 made a pilgrimage on foot, having set           tance of this space in the life of Muslims from the time of the
> out from Isfahan, to fulfill a vow. The shrine received greater      Prophet, although its form and its significance have underpatronage during the reign of the Safavids and the Qajars, and      gone extensive elaboration as the Islamic civilization took
> most of the inscriptions pertaining to the repairs and new          shape and expanded. Thus a variety of related institutions
> construction are extant. A new plan for the extension of the        have emerged that are embraced by this same term, normally
> shrine complex was put into effect in the years before the          rendered as mosque in English.
> Islamic Revolution in the course of which bazaars and houses
> in a large surrounding area were demolished. New construc-              In the Quran, the word most frequently refers to the
> tion is still occurring in the open space around the shrine.        sanctuary at Mecca, al-masjid al-haram, indicating its uniqueness and centrality while several passages refer to the prac-
> In the past the shrine’s upkeep and administration of the       tices prescribed for it as a site of cult and pilgrimage (e.g.,
> enormous endowments pertaining to it lay with an adminis-           2:196, 9:28, 48:27).
> trator (mutawalli), traditionally a sayyid from the descendants
> of Imam Reza appointed by royal decree. Since the Islamic              The first masjid built by Muhammad consisted of the
> Revolution, the appointment of the administrator lies within        enclosed empty courtyard of his house at Medina. Not only
> the jurisdiction of the supreme jurist (valiye faqih). The shrine   did his followers gather there for collective prayer and preachas an architectural complex consists of the central building        ing, but for many other activities. As the effective seat of
> and its gilded dome, which houses the mausoleum and a one-          government, it served as the center of civil and military
> thousand-year-old mosque (Masjid Balasar), twenty-three             administration while also providing space for instruction,
> halls, several courtyards of different sizes, eight minarets, and   social gatherings, and hospitality to strangers. During the
> two towers, each with its own particular history. It also           Prophet’s lifetime the establishment of other masjids for local
> maintains a major library, one of the oldest in Iran and dating     use appears to have been infrequent as believers were encourfrom tenth century, with 26,400 manuscripts, 2,820 Quran           aged to regard everyplace as available for the conduct of
> manuscripts, and over 300,000 printed books now kept in a           prayer, although later, masjids began to arise quickly, starting
> newly built structure (inaugurated in 1995), as well as a           with those locales where it was remembered the Prophet
> museum and several subsidiary buildings housing various             had prayed.
> facilities. The Astan-e Quds (Holy Threshold), the establishment which manages the shrine complex and the related                  With the spread of Islam beyond the Arabian Peninsula,
> endowments, is a huge conglomerate that administers, in             new masjids arose, especially in the principal cities such as
> addition to a university, scores of academic, cultural, and         Kufa, Basra, Damascus, and Cairo, which sought to reproeconomic institutions that play an important role in the life of    duce the model of Medina. Thus the seat of government and
> the province.                                                       the space for collective prayer were closely conjoined. This
> architectural fusion of religious and secular functions, in
> Mashhad has a center of learning (hawzah ilmiyya) next          conformity with Islamic teachings, was also represented in
> only to that of the Qom in size and importance. Leading             the nature of leadership. In time, however, the caliphs and
> scholars of this hawzah have enjoyed a regional following as        their governors in the provinces ceased to preside at public
> “sources of emulation” (marja al-taqlid).                          prayer and to preach themselves, relegating these tasks to
> pious scholars instead, although these two realms of authority
> See also Pilgrimage: Hajj; Pilgrimage: Ziyara; Shi
a:               remained linked in Islamic theories of rule.
> Imami (Twelver).
> Hence, the preaching of the sermon (khutba) at the Friday
> Rasool Jafariyan     noon prayer—which was initially restricted to one large
> central masjid in the major cities (a masjid of the type that
> came to be known as a jami, or Friday Mosque)—always
> entailed the installation of a minbar, a raised platform or
> MASJID                                                              pulpit, which symbolically associated the preacher as the
> spokesman of the legitimate ruler. Later historical transfor-
> The term masjid refers to the customary place for performing        mations, with profound effects on political organization and
> the obligatory ritual prayer (salat) in the Muslim tradition.       social structure, redefined this relationship such that today a
> The Arabic verbal root s-j-d from which the noun derives,           gathering for the weekly congregational prayer and sermon
> denotes the action of bowing down or prostration. Its close         may occur in almost any masjid. Nevertheless, the classical
> cognates in other Semitic languages, meaning a place of             ideal envisaging a unity of sacred and civil order not only
> worship, predate Islam and allude to sacred venues belonging        continues to inspire many Muslims, but it is formalized as law
> to other religions.                                                 in most lands with a majority Muslim population.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                     437
> Masjid
> 
> A street near the Iman Reza shrine in Mashhad, Iran. Over thirteen million people per year make the pilgrimage to this shrine. © BRIAN
> VIKANDER/CORBIS
> 
> In addition to the paradigm of Medina, a second key               Islamic heartlands and its periphery, but in Europe and
> influence affecting the development of masjids derives from            America, often achieving a distinctive synthesis of modern
> the example of the sanctuary at Mecca. This affiliation ap-            and authentic form.
> pears symbolically in the directional orientation of a masjid,
> namely the qibla, and in the placement of the empty niche or              The rich history of Islamic intellectual life is also deeply
> mihrab, which believers face when praying. But it also resonates      rooted in masjids, which often served as schools in addition to
> in numerous ornamental motifs, such as Quranic calligraphy           their social, political, and religious functions. Frequently
> and in certain expressive patterns of devotion, including             under the tutelage of a teacher also fulfilling the role of the
> localized pilgrimage practices, that emphasize rituals of rev-        local imam or designated prayer leader, masjids not only
> erent recollection or dhikr, colorful festivals honoring saints,      provided training for children, with a curriculum concenand a variety of spiritual exercises associated with Sufi teachings.   trated on the memorization of the Quran and the acquisition
> of basic literacy skills, but less formally these same institu-
> The construction styles and, to some degree, the uses of           tions provided advanced instruction, legal counsel, and spirimasjids have been adapted creatively over the centuries to            tual guidance to members of the community at large.
> conditions prevailing in the many settings where Islam was
> implanted and flourished. In the earlier period, many churches,            A related development inseparable from masjids involves
> synagogues, and temples that were converted into masjids              their pivotal place in the establishment and the flourishing of
> contributed significant influences to aspects of subsequent             the great medieval centers of learning throughout the Islamic
> masjid design, helping give rise to highly distinct indigenous        world. This capacity to provide and to maintain fruitful
> idioms exhibited in the size, the shapes, and the lines of            settings for scholarship and inquiry owed much to the priviminarets, domes, facades, arcades, floor plans, portals, and           leges traditionally accorded to masjids, which included varithe internal furnishings characteristic of such particular styles     ous juridical protections of resources derived from donations,
> identified, for instance, as Arab, Andalusian, Persian, Mongol,        patronage, or endowments. Although modern schools in the
> Mamluk, or Ottoman. More recently, a variety of notable               Muslim world, including most universities, follow Western
> contemporary masjids have been erected, not only in the old           curricular models, masjids retain their distinctive impact in
> 
> 438                                                                                               Islam and the Muslim World
> Masjid
> 
> In New Delhi, thousands of Muslims pray at the Jami Masjid, also known as the Mosque of the Mogul emperor Shah Jahan, during Id al-Fitr
> (Festival of Breaking the Fast) at the end of Ramadan in 1999. The Mosque was built in 1650. AP/WIDE WORLD PHOTOS
> 
> the formation of religious professionals and others seeking to         featuring the establishment of privately funded masjids, some
> deepen their knowledge of the tradition.                               locally sponsored, others affiliated with larger regional groupings or transnational organizations that may share resources
> In today’s world, most masjids have substantially reduced          and provide important forms of assistance not readily otheror shed the wide range of practical involvements that once             wise available. Many such independent masjids, evincing
> integrated them on multiple levels into the whole fabric of            various ideological orientations and seeking to recover the
> society. Centralized bureaucracies under state authority have          active autonomy of masjids belonging to a prior era, have
> generally taken over the tasks of education, social welfare, the       come to play a dynamic part in efforts to forge new bases of
> administration of justice, or the maintenance of order, desig-         public participation, promote social improvement, religious
> nating specialized institutions and personnel as responsible           renewal, and political reform.
> for providing these services. In most cases, masjids have
> likewise tended to restrict their work to a more explicitly            See also 
Ibadat; Khutba; Manar, Manara; Mihrab;
> defined set of religious activities. This trend has been espe-          Minbar (Mimbar); Religious Institutions.
> cially evident in traditional Islamic lands, where their construction and supervision is typically funded and managed by
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> a government ministry that appoints those who hold positions in masjids and oversees their operations.                        Affes, Habib, et al. La Mosquée dans la Cité. Paris: Éditions La
> Medina, 2001.
> However, this widespread movement toward the incorpo-              Frishman, Martin, and Khan, Hasan-Uddin, eds. The Mosque:
> ration of masjids into national regulatory systems has been               History, Architectural Development and Regional Diversity.
> accompanied by an array of elite and popular responses                    London: Thames and Hudson, 1994.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                          439
> Maslaha
> 
> Joseph, Roger. “The Semiotics of the Islamic Mosque” Arab           social good of the Muslim umma (community), thus follow-
> Studies Quarterly 3, no. 3 (1981): 285–295.                      ing Ghazali and medieval jurists but for modernist purposes.
> Pedersen, Johannes. “Masdjid” In Encyclopaedia of Islam. 2d
> ed. Leiden: Brill, 1960.                                             For 
Abduh, maslaha took precedence over the sources of
> the law in cases of necessary social reform. He and other
> Patrick D. Gaffney      modernists took the concept of maslaha a step further by
> using it as an argument against prophetic traditions (hadith)
> and religious practices that were difficult to justify in modern
> times. Islamist critics of the modernists rejected the notion of
> MASLAHA                                                             permitting any principle other than those contained in the
> sharia to take precedence over the sources of the law. None-
> Maslaha is an Arabic term that, in law and social ethics, means     theless, the principle of maslaha remains of vital interest and
> “the common social good or welfare.” Medieval jurists and           discussion among Muslim jurists, theologians, and social
> theologians defined maslaha in contrast to its antonym, mafsada,     theorists in contemporary Islamic thought.
> which means “that which causes or constitutes a harm.”
> According to historical and legal texts, it was the second          See also 
Abduh, Muhammad; Ethics and Social Issues;
> caliph, 
Umar ibn al-Khattab (r. 634–644), who applied the          Ghazali, al-; Law; Shari
a.
> principle of pursuing public policies that contribute to the
> common good over those that do not, although he did not use         BIBLIOGRAPHY
> the term maslaha, as such. The issue arose over the booty           Kerr, Malcolm H. Islamic Reform: The Political and Legal
> taken by Muslim militias during the conquest of Iraq and              Theories of Muhammad Abduh and Rashid Rida. Berkeley:
> beyond during his reign: how should captured land be di-              University of California Press, 1966.
> vided? In many cases, material goods and property taken in
> battle were distributed among the warriors as payment for
> Richard C. Martin
> their actions on behalf of Islam. The caliph 
Umar ruled that,
> in the case of the rich alluvial land in southern Iraq between
> the two rivers Tigris and Euphrates, the land should remain
> under the control of the state, to serve as a source of tax
> MATERIAL CULTURE
> income. This would allow a land tax (kharaj) to be levied
> against owners, to be used for the general good (umum al-
> This article describes and discusses some aspects of the
> naf) of Muslim believers.
> material culture of Islam to underscore and appreciate the
> The medieval theologian and jurist, Abu Hamid al-Ghazali        diversities of Islamic societies and emphasize the ability of
> (d. 1111), argued that maslaha is the main intent of sharia, the   Islamic communities to use objects, artifacts, and forms of
> sacred law of Islam. It is the purpose of the law to offer          expression as media on and with which to express faith,
> guidance and governance in establishing a state in which the        identity, and status. The importance of sacred spaces, such as
> religious and material welfare of Muslim believers is main-         the mosque; aesthetic expressive forms like art and music; and
> tained and preserved. Ghazali and other medieval theorists          identity types including dresses, garbs, and regalia, are disheld that, while the general welfare of Muslims with respect        cussed with a clear vision that their importance in Islamic
> to needs and improvements should be linked to the sharia           societies emanates from their conformity with teachings on
> through legal reasoning, that which was deemed in context to        Islamic law, morality, theology, and mysticism.
> be necessary to the welfare of the community required no
> other justification for implementation.                                  The material culture of Islam includes objects, artifacts,
> and facets of Islamic arts created in diverse Islamic communi-
> The nineteenth-century Egyptian reformer and modern-            ties in the continents of Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Ameriist theologian, Muhammad 
Abduh (d. 1905), also found               cas. Comprising cultural products of spiritual reflections,
> great value in the legal conceit of maslaha. Like Ghazali eight     they are embedded in the Muslim ethos and worldview but
> centuries earlier, 
Abduh was a seminal thinker who gave            also function to facilitate learning and mediation of social
> clear articulation to the intellectual currents of his age. In      interactions and relations. Broadly, the utility derived from
> nineteenth-century Egypt and elsewhere, Western legal               such products and their performance is expected to conform
> thought and colonial rule was having an enormous influence           to acceptable Islamic symbolism and communicative functions.
> on Islamic laws and courts, in effect challenging their authority and relevance. 
Abduh argued that the demands on Mus-           Architecture
> lims to find religious guidance in the ever-changing social          The mosque or masjid is a center for community prayer
> circumstances of modern society necessitated giving prefer-         throughout Muslim society that communicates sacred space
> ence to those meanings which contributed to the common              or history as exemplified in the Ka
ba in Mecca. Mosques also
> 
> 440                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Material Culture
> 
> reveal a complexity of issues including the expressions of the      authority among male Muslims. A West African Muslim male
> diversity of faith and its practicality as manifest in the multi-   would hardly venture outside without his hula, and the
> ple identities in Muslim societies. Exemplifying Muslim aes-        Swahili man is incomplete if he does not have his kofia during
> thetics grounded in the religions, epistemology, the mosque         social occasions. Any Muslim may wear a cap but the position
> is situated and created not as an obsolete innovation but as the    attributed to the individual is also gathered from the expresproduct of the thoughts, experiences, and environments of its       sive importance of the quality of fabrics and the ornate
> interlocutors. As works of art, mosques are not created ex          designs of the kofia or hula. Those with intricate patterns like
> nihilo but their sophistication in form and image represents        jani la mbaazi (the green pea leaf), or chapa msikiti (the mosque
> the very essence and symbolism of Islamic cultures of sa-           design), are the most adorned in East African Islam. Among
> cred space.                                                         Hijaz Arabs the ghutra (white scarf) is a modern innovation of
> official dress when topped with the igal, or black rope crown,
> Clothing                                                            while men in Iraq, Jordan, and Palestine usually wear a white
> The religious symbolism expressed in sacred buildings also          or red- or black-checked kufiyya with the iqal. Historically,
> manifests in the material cultures exemplified and traced            among urban men the most common form of headcovering
> through clothing and adorned regalia. Muslim conventions            was the taqiyya, a small cap, covered by an imama, an
> of dress and garb form potent symbols of identification and          embroidered silk scarf that was larger than the ghutra, and
> lifestyles. Some historical apparel probably worn for special       was wrapped tightly around the head. This practice largely
> occasions was preserved in respectful memories of its genteel       died out as men started wearing fezzes in the twentieth
> or famous owners, usually rulers and their progenitors. Other       century, and now most male city dwellers in Arab cities leave
> garbs are worn for their ascribed powers, especially their          their heads bare.
> ability to protect the wearer and ward off evil. Famous in this
> category of protective regalia are the talismanic shirts worn       Decorative Arts, Writing, and Music
> by various sultans of the Ottoman Empire. Embroidered in            Islamic material culture also embraces varied facets of visual
> expensive silks and calligraphic verses of the Quran and           and decorative arts. These items have no ascribed tangible
> other paraphernalia, talismanic shirts were gowns and garbs         value but are useful in expressing and transmitting rememattributed with sacred qualities, but they also embodied the        bered emotions and have a role in evoking intense social
> very essence of mysticism and the magico-religious aspects of       reactions. For example, Turkish kilim (rugs) hanging on the
> Islam. Sacred garbs also include the khirqa, literally meaning      walls of living rooms have no tangible meanings, except for
> the memory of a glorious past visit to Istanbul. The expres-
> “a robe worn,” which are actually garments or specialized
> sion of wealth and power could be exhibited through panocloaks worn and revered by the ascetic class, the Sufi. In
> plies of objects and repertoires of gestures showing privileged
> Sufism aspirants in stages of spiritual pedagogy were beknowledge. The handheld staff, bakora, carried by members
> stowed with baraka (blessing) once they were given the khirqa
> of Swahili communities, is usually made of wood. It may be
> symbolizing that the wearer possesses special qualities from
> engraved in gold or laced with ivory, and functions to negotithe master. The felt is a woolen fabric of great social signifi-
> ate and symbolize masculine power just as the sword displays
> cance that appeared in regions dominated by the Ottoman
> authority in the process of negotiating for privileges and
> Empire; it played an important part in the lives of Turkomens,
> personal identity among Arab groups. In the spiritual realm,
> who traditionally lived in tents made of white and black felt
> the handheld tasbihi (prayer beads) are a symbol of piety.
> symbolizing wealth and poverty. The Kazakhs lived in felt
> tents known as kiyiz uy. Felt-making was widespread among               The material culture of Islam may include the written arts
> the Seljuk and Ottoman Turks and their craftsmen played an          represented by a variety of script forms. Writing developed in
> important role in the mystic trade organization known as ahi.       Islamic societies because of the need to record every syllable
> One of the most pronounced felt products is the stiff felt          of the revelation of the Quran. Thus, the written script was
> cloak, the kepenek, a distinctive garment worn by shepherds to      revered and its mastery became an accomplishment for any
> protect themselves from heat in summer and from cold and            Muslim. In its nascent development as a liturgical script form,
> wet in winter. The most famous felt garment of all is the tall      writing depended on Sufi expressions of piety as its calligraphic
> conical cap, sikke, made in the city of Konya in Turkey and         form became the manifestation of spirituality, that is, of
> worn by the Mevlevi dervishes.                                      inward perfection. Calligraphy attains levels of religious
> consecration because its production entails notions that pu-
> The long-sleeved white gown (thob) and headcoverings            rity of writing is purity of soul, thus making stern ascetic
> (taqiyya and khafiya) of the Arabian peninsula accompanied           demands on the master calligrapher. Works of Islamic callig-
> Islam as it spread and became almost hallmarks of Islamic           raphy are revered objects of material cultures, exhibited in
> identity. African Muslim communities have internalized and          museums, homes, and other places of historical preservation.
> indigenized some of these gowns, including the East African
> loose caftan top for men, the kanzu, and the cap, or kofia. The        Various musical genres have developed in Islamic comcap is the most visible communicator of identity and religious      munities and one type, the taarab, is popular among Muslims
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                      441
> Maturidi, al-
> 
> In Islamabad, Pakistan, traditional caps are displayed at a market. AP/WIDE WORLD PHOTOS
> 
> in East Africa. Taarob, which means “to be moved, or agitated          Stillman, Yedida Kalfon. Arab Dress: A Short History from the
> by the sound of music,” includes both vocal and instrumental               Dawn of Islam to Modern Times. Edited by Norman A.
> forms like the bashraf, which is played with a variety of                  Stillman. Leiden Boston: Brill, 2000.
> instruments, such as the nai, udi, and zeze.
> Hassan Mwakimako
> The material culture of Islam ranges widely and represents a cross-fertilization of common ideas and religious
> expressions in global Islamic communities, nevertheless displaying unity in diversity.
> MATURIDI, AL- (?–944)
> See also African Culture and Islam; American Culture
> and Islam; Architecture; Art; Calligraphy; Central                     Al-Maturidi, a major figure among Hanafite scholars of the
> Asian Culture and Islam; Clothing; European Culture                    Transoxiana (Mawara al-nahr) region of Central Asia, and
> and Islam; Music; South Asian Culture and Islam;                       the founder of the Maturidite school of kalam, was known as
> Southeast Asian Culture and Islam.                                     Abu Mansur Muhammad b. Muhammad. He was born in
> Maturid (or Maturit), a neighborhood close to Samarqand, in
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                           present-day Uzbekistan, in the second half of ninth century
> Dilley, R. “Tukolor Weaving Origin Myths: Islam and                    and died there in 944. Sources name Abu Bakr Ahmad al-
> Reinterpretation.” The Diversity of the Muslim Community:           Juzjani and Abu Nasr Ahmad b. al-
Abbas al-Iyadi among his
> Anthropological Essays in Memory of Peter Lienhardt. Edited         teachers.
> by Ahmed Al-Shahi. London: Ithaca Press, 1987.
> Hodder, Ian. The Meaning of Things: Material Culture and                  Al-Maturidi had an extensive knowledge of other beliefs
> Symbolic Expressions. London and Boston: Unwin                       and responded to views of Christians and Jews regarding the
> Hyman, 1989.                                                         doctrines of trinity and prophecy, as well as to Dualists,
> Miller, Daniel. Material Culture and Mass Consumption. Oxford,         Manichaeans, Zoroastrians, and other ancient Persian or
> U.K., and New York: Blackwell, 1989.                                 Indian religions. Moreover, al-Maturidi is a primary source
> 
> 442                                                                                               Islam and the Muslim World
> Maududi, Abu l-Ala

> 
> for modern researchers on some controversial thinkers in             bringing into existence (takwin) is a divine attribute, whether
> Islamic intellectual history such as Ibn al-Rawandi, Abu Isa         the actions of God are created, or whether good and bad are
> al-Warraq, and Muhammad b. Shabib.                                   rationally known, and so on. But these differences are not
> major and are usually regarded as methodological.
> He wrote many works, among which Kitab al-tawhid (On
> divine unity) is the main source of his theology. His Quranic       See also Ash
arites, Ash
aira; Central Asia, Islam in;
> commentary Ta
wilat al-Qur
an includes rational interpreta-          Kalam; Mu
tazilites, Mu
tazila.
> tions on theological and juridical verses. Among his lost
> books, Kitab al-maqalat was about early Muslim theological           BIBLIOGRAPHY
> groups, and Ma
Khadh al-Shar
i and Kitab al-Jadal were on
> Ceric, Mustafa. Roots of Synthetic Theology in Islam: A Study of
> Islamic legal methodology. Three of his other books in the
> the Theology of Abu Mansur al-Maturidi. Kuala Lumpur:
> list given by al-Nasafi are refutations of Abul-Qasim al-
> ISTAC, 1995.
> Balkhi’s works, who is known as al-Ka
bi; two are against the
> principles (usul) and derivations (furu) of al-Qaramita; one is      Frank, Richard M. “Notes and Remarks on the Tabai in the
> Teaching of al-Maturidi.” In Mélanges d’Islamologie. Edited
> against al-Bahili’s Usul al-khamsa; and another is against
> by Pierre Salmon. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1974.
> Mu
tazilism.
> Özervarli, M. Sait. “The Authenticity of the Manuscript of
> Al-Maturidi had a high standing among the Hanafite                  Maturidi’s Kitab al-Tawhid: A Re-examination.” Turkish
> jurists of his age in Central Asia and their followers. He took a      Journal of Islamic Studies 1 (1997): 19–29.
> middle position between the Mu
tazila and the Ash
ariyya in          Pessagno, J. Meric. “Intellect and Religious Assent.” The
> some controversial subjects, such as free will, the attributes of       Muslim World 69, no. 1 (1979): 18–27.
> God, and so on. His doctrine was in some cases more                  Watt, W. Montgomery. “The Problem of al-Maturidi.” In
> rationalist than Ash
ari’s and closer to Mu
tazilism. On the           Mélanges d’Islamologie. Edited by Pierre Salmon. Leiden:
> issue of predestination and human will, as the best examples           E. J. Brill, 1974.
> of his thought, Maturidi tried to preserve both human freedom and divine omniscience without resorting to fatalism or                                                      M. Sait Özervarli
> a deistic approach. According to al-Maturidi, since the Quran
> gives moral responsibility to each person, human beings
> possess free will. There is no imposition by God on human actions, but human beings cannot create their actions
> MAUDUDI, ABU L-A
LA
> or realize their potential without God’s will and permission, which is the difference between al-Maturidi and the
> (1903–1979)
> Mu
tazilites on this issue. Maturidi’s formula about human
> actions was formed of free intention (kasb) of an action by a        It was in the 1930s that Abu l-A
la Maududi from Aurangabad,
> human and creation (khalq) of this action by God if He wills.        India formulated his political ideas about state and govern-
> Human acts are thus acts of God in one respect, yet in another       ment, which had a great impact on the Muslim world.
> aspect (in reality not metaphorically) humans’ acts are by           Maududi was, like many Islamists of his time, an autodidact
> their free choice (ikhtiyar). A person’s power to act is valid for   and an intellectual. He started his career as a journalist
> opposite acts of right and wrong. God’s creation of human            working for the Deobandi-based political party Jam
iyat-e
> acts according to their own choice does not prevent human            
Ulama-e Hind (JUH), but soon distanced from the party and
> freedom, because human capacity (istitaa) is already limited.       in 1932 founded his own Urdu-language journal Tarjuman
> al-Qur
an in Hyderabad, India. In contrast to the JUH, which
> Al-Maturidi’s school begins with his immediate follower,          postulated composite nationalism (muttahida qaumiyyat), and
> associate and student Abu ’l-Hasan al-Rustughfeni (d. 956).          also in contrast to Muhammad Iqbal’s idea of a Muslim state
> Abu Nasr al-Iyazi’s two sons, Abu Ahmad Nasr and Abu Bakr            (territorial nationalism), Maududi postulated a third alterna-
> Muhammad, were both students of al-Maturidi’s and al-                tive when he began to Islamize the political discourse of the
> Rustughfeni. However, the outstanding followers of his school        nationalists and freedom fighters: An Islamic state must
> were from a later generation. Abu ’l-Yusr al-Pazdavi (d.             correspond to the Islamic ideology through which the divine
> 1099), a chief qadi of Samarkand at the end of the eleventh          order can be realized on earth. A Muslim should believe in the
> century and the author of Usul al-din, was the first among            sovereignty of God rather than in the idea of a government of
> them. Another follower, Abu ’l-Muin al-Nasafi (d. 1115), was          the people, through the people, and for the people. Hence,
> considered the second founder of Maturidism, and his role in         Muslims did not represent a nation, but the party of God,
> that school is compared to that of al-Baqillani among Ash
arites.    which acts as God’s agent on earth (khalifa). For this aim, he
> Maturidite scholars differ from Ash
arites, the other Sunni          considered self-purification a prerequisite. Toward the end
> kalam school, on a few theological questions such as whether         of the 1930s he was convinced that the creation of a Muslim
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                      443
> Mazalim
> 
> state would not be the right method of reform, because the           BIBLIOGRAPHY
> un-Islamic politicians were not able to create an Islamic state.     Ahmad, Khurshid, and Ansari, Zafar Ishaq, eds. Islamic Perspectives; studies in honour of Mawlana Sayyid Abul Ala
> To put his ideas into practice, in 1941 the Islamic classicist     Mawdadi. London: The Islamic Foundation, 1979.
> Maududi founded the Jama
at-e Islami (Islamic Commu-
> Nasr, Seyyed. Vali Reza: Mawdudi and the Making of Islamic
> nity)—which he led until 1972 as its president—and postu-              Revivalism. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
> lated the sovereignty of God on Earth (hakimiyat-e ilahi) in a
> universal, ideologically Islamic nation. After 1947, he tried to                                                        Jamal Malik
> materialize this idea of an imagined community in the constitution of Pakistan, where he, along with the majority of his
> community, eventually emigrated. Hence he accepted the
> idea of a nation-state, which he had rejected formerly. His          MAZALIM
> Jama
at won much influence, especially among young intellectuals and the middle class in the years to come.                  The word “mazalim” is the plural of mazlima, which means
> iniquity, act of injustice, or wrong doing. In terms of Islamic
> Maududi was the first to work toward an Islamic constitu-          judicial system, mazalim denotes a special type of court,
> tion, and his endeavors were partly incorporated in the              where sessions for hearing cases of injustices are held or
> Objectives Resolution of 1949, which was incorporated in             supervised by the supreme political authority, or by one of his
> turn into the constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan,      close deputies or other high-ranking authority.
> according to which Pakistan was to be an Islamic state. His
> rather state-apologetic interpretation of Islam, on which he            In the view of al-Mawardi (d. 1058), the institution of
> had elaborated in his Islamic Law and Constitution (1955),           mazalim existed in the pre-Islamic Arab community and also
> made him and his party collaborate with the government at            under the Sassanid regime. Mawardi mentions Caliph 
Umar
> several instances—for example, during the reign of Zia ul-           Ibn 
Abd al-
Aziz of the Umayyads, as well as caliphs al-
> Haq—though Maududi himself was imprisoned several times              Mahdi, al-Hadi, al-Rahsid, al-Mamun, and al-Muhtadi of
> on the charge of being disloyal to Pakistan.                         the Abbasids as important leaders who employed hearings in
> the mazalim to distribute justice.
> His argument was that the wrong interpretation of the
> A session of mazalim requires the presence of five types of
> Quran’s basic principles had led the people astray, which had
> assistants. These are the guards, the qadis, the faqihs, the
> resulted in the loss of religious and cultural identity, due to
> secretaries (to keep records), and the notaries (to witness).
> misguided mystics (Sufis) among others. It was important to
> The jurisdiction of this court extends to the adjudication of
> leave the jahiliyya (the pre-Islamic state of ignorance) behind
> abuse of power related cases involving both officials and nonand return to the righteous society here and now. The
> officials. It also deals with the issues of restitution of properreconstruction of an idealized pure Islamic society would
> ties taken by force, the supervision of waqf (pious endowguarantee the iteration of the original Muslim community
> ments), the enforcement of public order that exceeds ordinary
> (umma). This required Muslims to live according to the sunna
> internal security measures, the enforcement of judgments
> of the Prophet, based on a transnational view of the golden
> that exceed the authority of the ordinary judges, the enforceage of the Prophet and the first generations. It implied a
> ment of public duty issues such as Friday prayers, feasts,
> reinvention of tradition. With this argument Maududi crepilgrimage, jihad, and other extraordinary events. The mazalim
> ated a new normative and formative past, and an absence of           is also called to provide arbitration between conflicting parties.
> historical records allowed him to regard himself an exponent
> of the projected imagined Islamic society, or jamaat, as the           The main difference between the mazalim and the ordiavant-gardist, who considered himself authorized to establish        nary judicial courts is that the supervisor of mazalim (sahib alrenewal (tajdid). Ijtihad, for example, the maximum effort to        mazalim or nazir al-mazalim) has extra discretionary power.
> ascertain, in a given problem or issue, the injunction of Islam      The ordinary judge is bound by the limitations of convenand its real intent, was the proper channel for that process.        tional judicial system, whereas the supervisor of mazalim
> The concept of history informed by the notion of constant            enjoys greater procedural latitude. For instance, he may
> decay, already developed in his Muslims and the Present Politi-      obtain evidence in ways might be unacceptable to an ordinary
> cal Crisis (1937–1939), was the basic motivation for his activ-      court’s judge. The supervisor of the mazalim also is free to
> ism, which he wanted to implement through education.                 impose arbitrational settlements that are binding on the
> contesting parties. This option is unavailable to the judge in
> Maududi gained great fame throughout the Islamic world            an ordinary court. In other words, the uniqueness of the
> and became a member of several societies and a founding              mazalim lies in the breadth of its supervisors’ discretionary
> member of the Rabitat al-
Alam al-Islami in 1961.                    power and political authority.
> 
> See also Jama
at-e Islami; Political Islam.                          See also Caliphate; Law; Religious Institutions.
> 
> 444                                                                                              Islam and the Muslim World
> Medicine
> 
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                       Takaungu, never rendered tribute to the Busaidi, nor recog-
> Liebesny, Herbert, J. The Law of the Near and Middle East:         nized their sovereignty over East Africa, and Busaidi attempts
> Readings, Cases, and Materials. Albany: State University of     in the 1850s and the 1870s to force his submission were both
> New York Press, 1975.                                           failures. Active resistance ended when a final, pointless Mazrui
> Nielsen, J. S. “Mazalim.” In Vol. VI, The Enyclopaedia of Islam.   uprising was defeated by British forces in 1896, forcing
> Edited by C. E. Bosworth, et al. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1990.      Mbaruk to end his days exiled in another colonial possession,
> German East Africa.
> Osman Tastan
> Even before Mbaruk’s defeat, some Mazrui had discovered intellectual resistance to be effective. Originally Ibadi
> Muslims, like the Busaidi and their Omani allies, in the 1800s
> MAZRUI, MAZRU
I                                                    many Mazrui converted to the Shafi
i sect prevalent in East
> Africa. One in particular, 
Abdallah b. 
Ali, made the hajj and
> Although historically associated with the city of Mombasa,         converted soon after 1837. His descendants, including 
Ali b.
> Kenya, originally the Mazrui (Ar. Mazru
i) were native to the      
Abdallah and al-Amin bin Ali Mazrui, became some of the
> Rustaq region of Oman. By the early eighteenth century, they       most influential Shafi
i qadis in Kenya. More recently, scions
> began settling the coast of Kenya and Pemba Island until,          of this particular family have enjoyed considerable popularity
> altogether, fourteen Mazrui clans came to be represented in        in Africa and the United States as educators and modernizers
> East Africa. Mazrui accounts claim that the imam of Oman           of African institutions.
> sent Nasir bin 
Abdallah Mazrui as his representative (liwali)
> in Mombasa soon after capturing Fort Jesus from the Portu-
> See also Africa, Islam in; Zanzibar, Sa
idi Sultanate of.
> guese in 1698. However, other sources suggest Nasir arrived
> around 1727.                                                       BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Mazrui, Al-Amin bin Ali. A History of the Mazrui Dynasty of
> Beginning with Nasir, the Mazrui administered Mombasa             Mombasa. London: Oxford University Press, 1995.
> as its principal ruling family until the Busaidi sultan of         Nicholls, Christine. The Swahili Coast. New York: Africana,
> Zanzibar, Sayyid Sa
id bin Sultan, replaced them with his            1971.
> own representative in 1837. Altogether, the Mazrui provided        Pouwels, Randall L. Horn and Crescent: Cultural Change and
> Mombasa with a succession of eleven liwalis, which was               Traditional Islam on the East African Coast: 800–1900.
> terminated when Sa
id kidnapped and murdered Rashid bin              Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
> Salim and twenty-four tribal elders. In 1741, Liwali Muham-        Salim, Ahmad Idha. The Swahili-Speaking Peoples of Kenya’s
> mad bin 
Uthman Mazrui had refused to acknowledge the                 Coast, 1895–1965. Nairobi: East African Publishing
> Busaidi tribe as the new imams of Oman. Further acts of               House, 1973.
> Mazrui defiance damaged their already poor relations with
> the Busaidi, making a violent outcome inevitable.                                                             Randall L. Pouwels
> Much remains controversial about Mazrui rule in Mombasa.
> A Mazrui history claims they exercised a true mastery over
> Mombasa’s affairs, and that their dominion extended over           MECCA See Holy Cities
> “most of the Swahili country.” However, a careful reading of
> all available sources indicates that their rule was totally
> contingent on support and alliances with Mombasa’s Swahili
> citizens and their Mijikenda neighbors. Loss of this support
> in 1835 quickly led to the Mazrui downfall. Imperialist            MEDICINE
> ambitions to widen their influence through interference in
> the affairs of neighboring coastal states like Tanga, Wasin,       Medicine has been an integral part of Islamic intellectual life
> and Pate were resented and frequently resisted. Also, the          and social institutions from the time of the Prophet. This
> Mazrui not only allowed a considerable trade in slaves at          brief description will touch on the diverse origins of medical
> Mombasa, but most probably participated in it. In later years,     knowledge in Islam; the development of hospitals, medical
> like many coastal Muslims, they exploited slave labor in the       practice, and medical knowledge during the Islamic “Golden
> areas they settled around Mombasa and Takaungu.                    Age” (the latter half of the seventh century through the
> thirteenth century C.E.); the role of the Islamic world in
> Although they lost Mombasa, after 1837 the Mazrui               protecting, elaborating, and reintroducing Hellenic medicontinued to resist Omani and European imperialism and to          cine to Europe after the Dark Ages; and contemporary issues
> play a significant part in the history of Kenya. To avoid           including the development of Islamic medical organizations
> Busaidi predominance in Mombasa, many resettled in Pemba,          dedicated to the assertion and protection of the religious
> Gazi, and Takaungu after 1837. One, Mbaruk bin Rashid of           context of the practice of medicine.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                   445
> Medicine
> 
> Medicine in the Time of the Prophet                                  In 765 C.E., an eminent Christian physician who headed
> The tribes that inhabited what is now Saudi Arabia at the time    the medical school at Jund-e Shapur, Jurjis Bukhtishu, was
> of the prophet Muhammad had a great deal of traditional           invited to Baghdad by the caliph al-Mansur to treat him. He
> medicine. As medical thinking and knowledge became ex-            did this successfully, and was appointed to the court. Although
> planatory and inductive with the parallel development of          he returned to Jund-e Shapur, his son migrated to Baghdad
> scientific thought in general, much of this traditional knowl-     and set up a successful medical practice. Other prominent
> edge was preserved and some of it expressed in religious          medical men and their offspring soon joined an emigration to
> thinking. At the same time, distinct medical traditions were      Baghdad, which became a medical focal point with many
> well developed in India, Persia, China, and Greece. Early         hospitals and medical centers and a great deal of scientific and
> Islamic medicine drew upon all of these traditions. The           intellectual activity of all sorts, most of which drew on Greek
> Quran itself contains limited specific medical text, although     intellectual tradition. That the medical experts of Jund-e
> there is important guidance in prescribing breastfeeding as       Shapur and later of Baghdad were accomplished linguists
> the right of every child, in proscribing intoxicants and the      who opened the Islamic empire to knowledge from the rest of
> meat of certain animals, and in commentary on the beneficial       the world and made Arabic the primary language of the time
> health effects of some natural foods. However, the hadith         for documentation in medicine, science, philosophy, and
> (authenticated sayings and deeds of the Prophet) and its          many other fields.
> interpretations contain rich and detailed material on preventive and curative medicine, dietetics, and spiritual health.          During the several centuries that followed, hospitals and
> Early in the Islamic tradition these sources were collected and   medical schools were established and thrived throughout the
> eventually became known as al-Tibb al-Nabawi (Medicine of the     Islamic world, with the largest and most notable in Damas-
> Prophet, or Prophetic Medicine). These collections remained       cus, Cairo, and Cordoba. These facilities established tradidistinct from the Persian, Indian, and Greek sources that         tions of treatment free of charge to the patient and acceptance
> early Islamic physicians drew upon, although they interacted      of all in need of treatment without regard to means, religion,
> with these traditions through their work. The best-known          age, or gender. The development, enrichment, and encycloversion is that of Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, writing in Damas-      pedic documentation of medicine in the Islamic world of the
> cus in the late eleventh century C.E. Translated into many        time was led by a series of individuals, some of whom were
> languages and widely accessible to Muslims the world over,        true “Renaissance men” of their times. The guidance of
> the Medicine of the Prophet forms the rationale for many          several of these (al-Razi, al-Zaharwi, Ibn Sina) will be briefly
> aspects of everyday Muslim life in terms of health protection
> mentioned, but they are among many other eminent conand promotion—for example, injunctions against overeating;
> tributors to medicine from this period.
> prescriptions for the spiritual and psychological care of the
> bereaved and traumatized; encouragement of moderation in              Abu Bakr Mohammed ibn Zakariyya al-Razi (known as
> all things; and much specific instruction on everyday food,        Rhazes in the West) was born near what is now Tehran in
> drink, rest, and sexual behavior.                                 middle of the seventh century C.E. Al-Razi was accomplished
> in many spheres, and came to the study of medicine relatively
> The Development of Islamic Medicine
> late in life after a visit to Baghdad and a hospital there, which
> The schisms within European Christianity in the fourth and
> he later directed. There are many stories about al-Razi’s skill
> fifth centuries C.E. paved the way for a shift of focus outside
> Europe for development of the profession. When Nestorius,         as a practitioner. One famous account addresses his knack for
> the Patriarch of Byzantium, and his followers were forced out     environmental health. The story goes that he was asked at
> of Europe a large pool of intellectuals moved to the Middle       some time during his career to choose the location for a new
> East, many to Jund-e Shapur, a city in what is now southwest-     hospital in Baghdad. He did this by observing fresh meat
> ern Iran that was already home to a thriving intellectual         hanging in various parts of the city and choosing the area
> community including Syrians, Persians, and Jews and where a       based on where the meat took the longest to spoil. He was a
> medical school was well established. When Justinian I (527–565    diligent teacher, a skilled diagnostician, and a prolific writer.
> C.E.) expelled “heathen philosophers” from Athens, the Hel-       His written works number in the hundreds. The largest,
> lenic medical tradition based on Galen and others was trans-      which is a huge compilation of case studies and notes edited
> planted to the fertile soil of Jund-e Shapur where it thrived     and published by al-Razi’s students after his death, has been
> amid a community of scholars who translated the Greek             called al-Hawa (the Continent); a thirteenth-century Latin
> medical works into Arabic either directly or through transla-     translation was entitled Continens. This work summarized
> tions into Syriac. Manuscripts from other regions including       essentially all of the medical writings preceding al-Razi’s time
> India and China were also translated and when Islam ex-           as well as his own observations. His most famous piece was a
> panded into Egypt, Greek manuscripts from Alexandria also         much shorter monograph in which he distinguished smallbecame available. A short time before, the Persians had been      pox, chicken pox, and measles; this work translated to Latin
> conquered by Muslim armies under the first caliph, giving the      was called de Pestilentia and formed the basis for much future
> Muslims access to Jund-e Shapur.                                  work on these highly contagious diseases.
> 
> 446                                                                                           Islam and the Muslim World
> Medicine
> 
> Several centuries later, the dual influence of al-Zahrawi in    Medicine in Contemporary Islam
> the West and Ibn Sina in the East were pivotal. Abu ’l-Qasim      Today, the infrastructure and content of medicine as it is
> al-Zahrawi lived from about 930 to 1013 C.E. and was known        practiced in the Islamic world is compatible with and even
> as the “greatest surgeon of Islam.” Zahrawi lived in the          formed in the image of European and other Western models.
> western caliphate, near Cordoba, and attended the University      Ironically, the only part of the world in which the corpus of
> of Cordoba. He is most famous for his command of analgesia        (largely Greek) theory that constituted the medical knowland anesthesia, utilizing opium and other natural narcotics       edge of early Islamic history is still taught is in South Asia,
> and depressants, and the theory and practice of surgery. He       where there are schools and licensure for practitioners of
> invented many surgical instruments and wrote what is no           “Tibb Unani” (“Greek Medicine”). In most of the Muslim
> doubt the first textbook of surgery. Although ignored through-     world, however, medical education and practice is largely
> out most of the eastern part of the Islamic world at the time,    consistent with that in the West, with a structure of specialhis influence on Europe was very significant.                       ties, supervisory responsibility and liability, curricula, and
> requirements for continuing medical education for practi-
> Ibn Sina (known as Avicenna in the West) lived just a bit     tioners. However, the last several decades have seen a movelater (980–1037 C.E.). He was born in Persia in what is now       ment toward development of consciously Muslim perspectives
> Isfahan, Iran. Like many medical men of his time, he was an       in medicine.
> intellectual in a complete sense, writing on philosophy, music, military strategy, mathematics, and other subjects as well      A notable recent change has been the reentry of women
> as medicine. His greatest medical work was the Qanun fi al-        into medicine throughout the Muslim world. There has
> tibb, a five-volume treatise based on Greek knowledge and          never been a prohibition on female physicians, nor on the
> including Ayurvedic writings from India, some Chinese medi-       treatment of patients of either gender by a male or female
> cine, and other available sources. The Qanun included discus-     doctor. Aside from the doctrine that “necessity overrides
> sions of almost all ailments imaginable, as well as health        prohibition,” the hadith states clearly that treatment should
> promotion focusing on diet, the environment, and climate; it      depend solely on the needs of the patient and the capability of
> also included a huge materia medica including many medicinal      the doctor. Indeed, the precedent for female doctors was set
> plants and the drugs that could be derived from them. His         by the Prophet’s own entirely female medical corps that
> theory of infection by “traces,” together with the Prophet’s      accompanied his armies into battle. As medicine became an
> earlier injunction to avoid travel to or from places in which     intellectual pursuit requiring literacy and education, skills
> plague was present, led to the introduction of quarantine as a    that were the province of men in most Muslim societies, the
> means of limiting the spread of infectious diseases. Although     profession became almost entirely male. As education has
> he also wrote in his native Persian, Ibn Sina’s medical works     more recently included women, they have moved back into
> were penned in Arabic, which faciliated the reintroduction of     medicine without formal barriers and with enthusiasm.
> scientific medicine in Europe as the Dark Ages gave way to
> the European Renaissance. This process paralleled a period           Recently there has been particularly active dialogue and
> of decline in Islamic influence and hegemony.                      introspection around issues of bioethics and the conduct of
> the Muslim medical practitioner in the religious context.
> The Re-Introduction of Medical Science to Europe                  Noteable in this context is the Islamic Organization for
> The Arabic text of Ibn Sina’s Qanun was published in Rome in      Medical Sciences (IOMS) (<http://www.islamset.com>), es-
> 1593, and was one of the first Arabic books to be printed. The     tablished in 1984 in Kuwait with an objective of serving the
> entire text had been translated into Latin two centuries          entire Muslim world. In its brief history IOMS has held
> earlier. This encyclopedic work soon became the preeminent        multiple conferences on the heritage of Islam in medicine,
> medical text in Europe and was depended upon for four             established a World Health Organization Collaborating
> hundred years by the major medical schools on the continent.      Research Center focused on traditional medicinal plants, and
> It was published in no less than sixteen editions, in Milan,      published a number of works focusing on ethical issues
> Padua, and Venice throughout the 1400s and 1500s; the last
> including Muslim definitions of the beginning and end of life,
> edition for textbook use was published in 1658. Ibn Sina’s
> the use of newer reproductive technologies, care of the aged,
> writings, and the antecedent Islamic works on which he drew,
> and, recently, the impact of globalization on health and
> thus formed the route by which the Arabic repository of
> health care in the Islamic world. An Islamic Oath of the
> Hellenic medicine, greatly expanded and enriched, was
> Doctor was developed by an IOMS conference, and is now
> reintroduced to Europe. The subsequent major scientific
> widely published and used.
> advancements that came with Claude Bernard’s (quite compatible) theory of the internal milieu, van Leewenhoek’s          An early anatomical drawing appears in the volume two
> discovery of the microscope, and other advances quickly             color insert.
> pushed medicine to a secular, empirical basis and the importance of the contributions of the Arabic texts was largely        See also Body, Significance of; Ethics and Social Issues;
> forgotten.                                                        Falsafa; Science, Islam and.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                  447
> Medina
> 
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                          normative example, the hadith. As one entrusted with knowl-
> Bakar, Osman. The History and Philosophy of Islamic Science.          edge, and with the obligation to uphold “God’s right[s],” al-
> Cambridge, U.K.: Islamic Texts Society, 1999.                       Mamun wanted therefore to see to it that false beliefs about
> Hathout, Hassan. Islamic Perspectives in Obstetrics and Gyne-         the Quran were rectified.
> cology. Kuwait: Islamic Organization for Medical
> Most of those who were examined on the question of the
> Sciences, 1986.
> Quran’s createdness—by al-Mamun’s governor of Baghdad,
> Islamic Organization for Medical Sciences. Overview of the            by the caliph himself, or by his officials in the provinces—
> Islamic Organization for Medical Sciences. Kuwait:
> ended up declaring their adherence to the caliphal position.
> IOMS, 1987.
> The most famous dissenter, however, was the noted hadith
> Jawziyya, Ibn Quyyim al-. Medicine of the Prophet. Translated         scholar of Baghdad, Ahmad ibn Hanbal (d. 855). He, alongby Penelope Johnstone. Cambridge, U.K: Islamic Texts
> side another recalcitrant scholar, was sent to al-Mamun’s
> Society, 1998.
> military camp in Tarsus to be interrogated, but the caliph
> Rosenthal, Franz. Science and Medicine in Islam. Brookfield,           died before he could attend to the matter and Ibn Hanbal was
> Vt.: Gower Publishing Company, 1990.                                returned to Baghdad. This, however, was only the begin-
> Wright, David Lionel. The Legacy of Arabic Medicine during            ning of the Mihna, and of Ibn Hanbal’s long and muchthe Golden Age of Islam. Kuwait: Islamic Organization for           celebrated ordeal.
> Medical Sciences, 1996.
> In the history of Islamic theology, the doctrine of the
> Gail G. Harrison       uncreatedness of the Quran (khalq al-Qur
an) is associated
> Osman M. Galal         primarily with the rationalist Mu
tazila school. However,
> several other theologians also held this position. These theologians have often been characterized in Islamic heresiography
> as the “Jahmiyya,” for their putative association with doc-
> MEDINA See Holy Cities                                                trines held by an early and much-maligned figure named
> Jahm b. Safwan (d. 745). Al-Mamun himself was not a
> Mu
tazili, for he did not share the Mu
tazila’s characteristic
> doctrine of free will, but he agreed with them on the createdness
> of the Quran. Already in 827, the caliph had publicly de-
> MIHNA                                                                 clared his support for this doctrine, though it was only in 833
> that he went on to institute the Mihna.
> “Mihna” is the Arabic term for a test or a trial. In its most
> common historical usage, Mihna refers to the inquisition                  On his deathbed, al-Mamun left instructions that his
> launched by the seventh Abbasid caliph, al-Mamun (r.                 successor, Abu Ishaq al-Mu
tasim (r. 833–842), continue to
> 813–833) toward the end of his reign to enforce the doctrine          uphold his position on the Quran. During the latter’s reign,
> of the createdness of the Quran. The Mihna has loomed                Ibn Hanbal was interrogated and flogged for refusing to
> large in the way medieval historians represented the reign            accept the Quran’s createdness. A central figure during the
> and the legacy of al-Mamun, and modern scholars have often           Mihna years was the Mu
tazili chief judge, Ahmad Ibn Abi
> seen the Mihna and its eventual failure as a major episode in         Duad (d. 854), who is represented in Sunni historiography as
> the religious and political history of the first centuries of Islam.   being far more anxious to continue the Inquisition than the
> caliphal successors of al-Mamun themselves might have
> History                                                               been. Later historians also lay much of the responsibility for
> In 833, while at Raqqa in northern Mesopotamia, al-Mamun             the flogging of Ibn Hanbal on Ibn Abi Duad. For his part,
> wrote to his governor of Baghdad, ordering him to examine             Ibn Hanbal is reported to have remained steadfast despite the
> the views held by his judges and the scholars of hadith               flogging, after which he was released and left alone by the
> regarding the Quran. The caliph believed that, contrary to           prosecutors of the Mihna. His release is usually explained in
> what “ignorant” people thought, the Quran was not eter-              Sunni historiography as being due to fears of popular comnally existent—for this was an attribute that belonged only to        motion against his persecution, though some (largely unfa-
> God—but created by Him, and that this was how God                     vorable) sources claim the real reason for it to have been that
> Himself had spoken of it. Therefore, al-Mamun believed,              he too had eventually capitulated to the authorities. This,
> supposing the Quran to be uncreated and eternal threatened           however, seems unlikely, in view of the severity with which
> to compromise the unity (tawhid) of God, and thus to under-           Ibn Hanbal himself later treated many of those who had
> mine the very foundations of religion. As he lamented in his          acknowledged the doctrine of the Quran’s createdness durletters to his governor, most people were too ignorant of the         ing the Mihna.
> reality of religion to hold sound beliefs about it, and yet
> they—and the demagogues who aspired to their leadership—                 The Inquisition continued under al-Mu
tasim’s successor,
> claimed to be the most assiduous followers of Muhammad’s              al-Wathiq (r. 842–847), who appears to have pursued it
> 
> 448                                                                                               Islam and the Muslim World
> Mihna
> 
> rather more vigorously than had al-Mu
tasim. Indeed, he                 As the names of those questioned indicate, however,
> went so far as to interrogate Muslim prisoners in Byzantine         scholars of hadith were not alone in their tribulation. Some of
> captivity about their view of the Quran before deciding            those examined also had a record of political opposition to the
> whether or not they were to be ransomed. The harshness of           caliph, and this suggests that the Mihna’s uses extended
> the state’s inquisitorial policies led some people of Baghdad       beyond theological speculation and even beyond the caliph’s
> to attempt a revolt, but the plot failed and its leader, Ahmad      assertion of religious authority. For instance, several recent
> ibn Nasr al-Khuza
i, who was closely associated with the            authors have observed that Ibrahim b. al-Mahdi was among
> scholars of hadith, was executed (c. 845–846). Soon, however,       those interrogated during the Mihna. Ibrahim was not a
> with the accession of a new caliph—al-Mutawakkil (r.                religious scholar but, rather, a prominent member of the
> 847–861)—the Mihna itself began to unravel. In 849, this            Abbasid family and he had been declared caliph in Baghdad
> caliph forbade disputations about the Quran, and in the same       following the civil war between al-Amin and al-Mamun.
> year he ordered several leading scholars to narrate hadith to       Even some of the scholars who were questioned during the
> the people, refuting the doctrines of the Mu
tazila and the         Mihna were suspect on political grounds. For instance, the
> Jahmiyya. A more decisive demonstration of the shift in             widely respected scholar Abu Mushir al-Ghassani (d. 833) of
> caliphal policy came when, in 851, the Mu
tazili chief judge,       Damascus had sided with an anti-Abbasid revolt in Syria.
> Ibn Abi Duad, and his son (also a judge in the then-Abbasid        Ahmad b. Nasr al-Khuza
i’s execution during the reign of alcapital of Samarra) were removed from office and their               Wathiq owed more to his abortive revolt than to his views on
> property was confiscated. This, for practical purposes, sig-         the Quran, even though it was ostensibly for the latter that he
> naled the end of the Mihna, though the doctrine of the              was killed. In general, it seems fair to say that a variety of
> createdness of the Quran would continue to be debated in           factors were involved in the institution and continuation of
> theological circles for centuries.                                  the Mihna, as well as in the choice of those who were
> interrogated during its course.
> Interpretations of the Mihna
> Modern scholars have much debated the meaning and signifi-               Modern scholarly interpretations of the larger signifi-
> cance of the Mihna, and there is no consensus on why al-            cance of the Mihna are necessarily shaped by how it is seen in
> Mamun so insisted on the doctrine of the Quran’s createdness.     relation to Abbasid history, and to early Islamic history in
> Al-Mamun’s own explanation was that it was his calling, as         general. If early Abbasid history is viewed as a continuing
> caliph and imam, to provide guidance to his subjects and, in        contest over religious authority between “God’s caliph” and
> particular, to rectify their dangerously wayward beliefs about      the emerging ulema, then the Mihna assumes the character of
> the Quran. Yet modern scholars have often discerned mo-            a watershed event, the failure of which permanently divested
> tives behind the Mihna which go beyond a specific theologi-          the caliphs of any significant role in religious life and estabcal controversy. In God’s Caliph, Patricia Crone and Martin         lished a lasting “separation” between the political and the
> Hinds have argued that al-Mamun was really trying, through         religious authorities. However, there is little evidence for
> the Mihna, to make a last-ditch effort to reclaim a religious       such a contest between the caliphs and the ulema prior to alauthority that had belonged to earlier caliphs but which had        Mamun, just as there are many indications of caliphal particibeen eroded by the growing influence of the scholars of              pation in the community’s religious life after the Mihna.
> hadith and of the ulema in general. To these scholars,              Caliphs could still undertake the Quranic obligation of
> religious authority was enshrined, not in the will or verdicts      “commanding right and forbidding wrong.” The caliphs alof the caliphs, but rather in the hadith of the Prophet, and of     Qadir (r. 991–1031) and al-Qaim (r. 1031–1075) led efforts
> this the ulema claimed to be the sole interpreters. This            to devise a theological creed against the Mu
talzila and other
> position was unacceptable to al-Mamun, and the Mihna               unwelcome groups; and caliphs could still participate in the
> represented a vigorous if ultimately abortive effort to make        deliberations of the jurists. It is also worth noting that, in his
> the scholars subservient to the caliphs.                            influential treatise on constitutional theory, al-Mawardi (d.
> 1058) should have listed juridical expertise among the neces-
> It is not clear, however, if the Abbasid caliphs prior to al-   sary qualifications for the caliphate, for even if such a stipula-
> Mamun did claim the sort of overarching religious authority        tion was more wishful thinking than a realistic expectation, it
> that Crone and Hinds impute to them. The Mihna is perhaps           still reveals something about how jurists viewed the caliphate
> better interpreted not as the decisive culmination of a strug-      two centuries after the Mihna. It is true, of course, that as the
> gle over the form or locus of authoritative religious guidance      ulema’s scholarly specializations evolved—a process already
> but, instead, as a break with the evolving patterns of caliphal     unmistakably underway before al-Ma’mun—there was propatronage under the early Abbasids. Rather than co-opt or           gressively less space for caliphs to authoritatively shape religdraw close to the emerging scholars of hadith, al-Mamun            ious discourses in the community over which they presided.
> sought to rein in their influence and assert his own authority       Yet the constraining of that space is better analyzed not with
> as the arbiter of right belief. These scholars, best represented    reference to any decisive impact the Mihna itself may have
> by Ibn Hanbal, were the principal target of the caliph’s ire and    had on it, but rather in light of the long and complex history
> of his effort to assert his authority.                              of the ulema and, of course, that of the caliphate.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                       449
> Mihrab
> 
> If the failure of the Mihna did not remove the caliphs from       Madelung, Wilferd. “The Controversy on the Creation of
> religious life, the entire protracted episode and its aftermath         the Koran.” In Orientalia Hispanica sive studia F. M. Pareja
> did nevertheless contribute to the vigor and identity of the            octogenario dedicata. Edited by M. M. Barral. Leiden: E. J.
> emerging ulema. The end of the Mihna brought to a close the             Brill, 1974.
> political ascendancy of the Mu
tazili theologians, who were           Nawas, John A. “A Reexamination of Three Current Explareplaced in caliphal favor by the scholars of hadith. Ibn               nations for al-Mamun’s Introduction of the Mihna.”
> Hanbal was much sought after by Caliph al-Mutawakkil and                International Journal of Middle East Studies 26
> his officials; and though he is reported to have been much               (1994): 615–629.
> perturbed by what he saw as this unwanted attention, there            Patton, Walter M. Ahmad ibn Hanbal and the Mihna. Leiden:
> can be little doubt that royal patronage was one of the factors          E. J. Brill, 1997.
> contributing, in the succeeding generations, to the growing           Tabari, al-. The History of al-Tabari. Vol. 32: The Reunification
> prominence of Ibn Hanbal’s followers in the religious life of           of the Abbasid Caliphate. Translated by C. E. Bosworth.
> Baghdad. The scholars of hadith had already, during the                 Albany: State University of New York Press, 1987.
> Mihna, shown themselves to have considerable popular sup-             Zaman, Muhammad Qasim. Religion and Politics under the
> port. Indeed, such increasing prominence may, arguably,                 Early Abbasids. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1997.
> have provoked at least some of al-Mamun’s suspicions of
> them in the first place. The end of the Mihna further                                                     Muhammad Qasim Zaman
> deepened and extended the populist roots of early Sunnism
> and, in particular, of those adhering to the school of law that
> came to be identified with the name of Ahmad b. Hanbal.
> MIHRAB
> In theological terms, a major facet of the Mihna’s signifi-
> cance lies in its contribution to the articulation of the “ortho-     The semicircular niche in the wall of a mosque that faces
> dox” Sunni view on the nature of the Quran. Al-Mamun had            Mecca is known as the mihrab. Introduced in the Prophet’s
> accused his opponents of believing the Quran to be co-               mosque in Medina when it was rebuilt by the Umayyad caliph
> eternal with God but, as Madelung—following the medieval              al-Walid I (r. 705–715), the mihrab may have been originally
> Hanbali jurist and theologian Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328)—has              intended to commemorate the place of the Prophet, but it
> observed, early hadith scholars had usually been content to           soon became ubiquitous and is generally understood to indicharacterize the Quran as God’s speech and to leave the              cate the direction of prayer (qibla). The earliest complete
> matter there. In response to the doctrine al-Mamun wanted            example to survive is believed to be a monolithic marble
> to enforce, however, the traditionists came to hold that the          mihrab dated to the mid-eighth century and reused in the
> Quran was indeed uncreated. This dogma then became a                 Khassaki Mosque in Baghdad. Later examples were often
> defining feature of Sunni theology, though there continued             made of other precious materials, including stone or glass
> to be much disagreement, long after the Mihna, on its precise         mosaic, carved or joined wood, and glazed tile.
> meaning and implications.
> See also Architecture; Art; Devotional Life; Masjid.
> See also Caliphate; Disputation; Ibn Hanbal; Imamate;
> Ma
mum, al-; Mu
tazilites, Mu
tazila; Quran.                         BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Fehervar, G. “Mihrab.” In Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2d ed.
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                            Edited by H. A. R. Gibbs, et al. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2002.
> Abou El Fadl, Khaled. Rebellion and Violence in Islamic Law.
> Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2001.                                                                  Sheila S. Blair
> Jonathan M. Bloom
> Cooperson, Michael. Classical Arabic Biography: The Heirs of
> the Prophets in the Age of al-Ma
mun. Cambridge, U.K.:
> Cambridge University Press, 2000.
> Crone, Patricia, and Hinds, Martin. God’s Caliph: Religious           MILITARY RAID
> Authority in the First Centuries of Islam. Cambridge, U.K.:
> Cambridge University Press, 1986.                                   The raid, which is essentially a form of brigandage, was
> Ess, Josef van. Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert   viewed in the Bedouin pastoral milieu as one of the few manly
> Hidschra. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1991–1997.                    occupations. Termed ghazwa, (pl. maghazi), in Arabic, its
> Hinds, Martin. “Mihna.” In The Encyclopaedia of Islam. 2d ed.         purpose was plunder, not bloodshed, and it was not permitted
> Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1960.                                          during the sacred months: Dhu-l-Qa
da, Dhu-l-Hijja, and
> Lapidus, Ira M. “The Separation of State and Religion in the          Muharram (the last two and first months of the year), which
> Development of Early Islamic Society.” International Journal        were set aside for religious observances, and Rajab (the fourth
> of Middle East Studies 6 (1975): 363–385.                           month), which was set aside for trade.
> 
> 450                                                                                               Islam and the Muslim World
> Minorities
> 
> Islamic literature, however, when referring to the ghazwa         identical to, the place and function of the pulpit in Christian
> of the prophet Muhammad, makes no distinction between                churches. Not only is the Muslim Friday sermon (khutba)
> battle and raid. Before attacking a community, the Muslims           delivered from its base by the local preacher, but important
> would first proclaim a dawa or invitation, calling their oppo-       public pronouncements are also made from it. For instance,
> nents to accept Islam. Only those male polytheists who               in the past the Quranic prohibition on wine was delivered
> refused to convert were fought to the death; women and               from the minbar. Muslim rulers (caliphs), as well as provincial
> children were taken captive. “People of the book,” such as           governors or their representatives sat on it and delivered the
> Jews and Christians, were permitted to practice their faith, if      Friday sermon. In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries,
> they agreed to pay a poll tax, or jizya.                             preaching from the minbar has been used to oppose political
> authority as well as to support it. In Egypt and Saudi Arabia,
> The title Maghazi is given to compilations which tell of         minbar sermons in local mosques critiquing the government
> the numerous raids and battles that Muhammad undertook to            have been taped and widely distributed. In 1979, minbar
> establish Islam in Arabia. The term has thus come to repre-          sermons were instrumental in mobilizing revolutionary activsent the achievements of Muhammad, and become synony-                ity against the shah of Iran. However, the main function of
> mous with his life’s work. Maghazi and ghazwa therefore are          the minbar has always been ethical rather than political, with
> also used to signify events in the life of Muhammad. For             sermons providing guidance on worship, family life, educaexample, “Ghazwat al-Hudaybiyya” concerns the conclusion             tion, and cordial human relations.
> of a peace agreement between Muhammad and the Meccans.
> Sermons and announcements delivered from the minbar
> Muslim b. al-Hajjaj (d. 875), the famous compiler of
> assume greater consequence in part because the minbar is
> hadith (traditions concerning the Prophet), listed the battles
> located next to the prayer niche (mihrab) in the most sacred
> and raids of the Prophet under the title jihad, which literally
> part of the mosque. Minbars are composed of a platform with
> means to struggle or strive in the path of God. Incorrectly
> steps with a seat at the top and a balustrade, all usually made of
> translated as holy war, the term “jihad,” in fact, is best
> wood and sometimes, in urban mosques, they may be elabounderstood in a spiritual context and includes such activities
> rately carved and decorated.
> as fasting, charity, and meditation. The term Fath (pl. Futuh)
> is more appropriately used for wars of expansion such as the         See also Masjid; Mihrab.
> Arab conquests of Egypt, Syria, and Persia.
> 
> See also Conflict and Violence; Da
wa; Expansion; Jihad.              BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Borthwick, Bruce. “The Islamic Sermon as a Channel of
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                           Political Communication.” The Middle East Journal 21,
> Baladhuri, Ahmad b. Yahya. Futuh al-Buldan. Edited by M. J.            no. 3 (1967): 299–313.
> De Goeje. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1866.                              Gaffney, Patrick. The Prophet’s Pulpit: Islamic Preaching in
> Faizer, Rizwi. “Expeditions and Battles.” In Vol. 2, Encyclopaedia     Contemporary Egypt. Berkeley: University of California
> of the Qur
an. Edited by Jane McAuliffe. Leiden: E. J.              Press, 1994.
> Brill, 2002.
> Hitti, Philip K. History of the Arabs, 9th ed. London: Macmil-                                                    Richard T. Antoun
> lan, 1966.
> Jones, J. M. B. “The Maghazi Literature.” In Arabic Literature to the End of the Umayyad Period. Edited by A. F. L.
> Beeston. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University                    MINORITIES
> Press, 1983.
> DHIMMIS
> Rizwi Faizer          Patrick Franke
> 
> OFFSHOOTS OF ISLAM
> Robert Gleave
> MINARET See Manar, Manara
> DHIMMIS
> From the beginning of Islam up to present day, many Islamic
> societies have been characterized by the presence of more or
> MINBAR (MIMBAR)                                                      less numerous non-Muslim minorities. Whereas in practice
> the status and treatment of these minorities have varied
> The minbar is the elevated seat of honor in the mosque and it        greatly over time and space, Islamic law provides a certain
> represents religio-political authority. It is similar, but not       theoretical framework that has remained quite constant
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                        451
> Minorities
> 
> throughout the time: According to this all non-Muslim peo-         pledges allegedly given to the second “rightly-guided caliph,”
> ple are considered infidels (kuffar, sing. kafir). However there     
Umar ibn al-Khattab (634–644), by the Christians of the
> is a basic distinction between the polytheists (mushrikun, sing.   cities conquered by him.
> mushrik) on the one hand, with whom social intercourse is
> forbidden, and who were to be fought until they either                 In the classical centuries of Islam persecution of dhimmis
> converted or were killed or enslaved and the “people of the        was very rare: One single case has been recorded, that of the
> book” (ahl al-kitab) on the other, whose faith was founded on      Fatimid caliph al-Hakim (r. 996–1021) who in 1009 ordered
> revelation, who were to be granted protection, and with            the destruction of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. In the
> whom social intercourse was allowed. Originally only Jews          late Middle Ages, however, there was a general hardening of
> and Christians were conceived as ahl al-kitab; later, however,     attitudes against dhimmis in Muslim countries. In the West,
> this term was extended to a sect known as the Sabeans, the         the Almohads adopted an intolerant policy, while in the East
> Zoroastrians, and, in India, even to Hindus. Concerning the        the government of the Mamluk state could not resist the
> legal status of these “people of the book,” Islamic law makes      pressure of jurists, such as Ibn Taymiyya, who insisted on an
> another distinction between the dhimmi living as a protected       increasingly vexatious interpretation of the law regarding
> person in Islamic territory, the harbi who lives in non-Muslim     dhimmis. It was the legal system of the expanding Ottoman
> lands (dar al-harb), and the musta
min who as a foreigner is       Empire that in the sixteenth century restored the classical
> granted the temporary right of residence in an Islamic terri-      Islamo-dhimmi symbiosis. This lasted until the middle of the
> tory. The status of the dhimmis was secured by a legal             nineteenth century, when under strong European pressure
> institution called dhimma (“protection”), which guaranteed         the provisions of Islamic law were increasingly replaced by
> safety for their life, body, and property, as well as freedom of   new legislations that were intended to free the non-Muslims
> movement and religious practice on condition of their ac-          from their inferior status of “protected people” and to make
> knowledging the domination of Islam. This included the             them full citizens. Today most written constitutions of Muspayment of various taxes, the most important being the so-         lim states confirm the principle of equality of all citizens
> called jizya, a poll-tax levied on all able-bodied free adult      irrespective of religion, sex, and race. Certain militant Islamic
> dhimmi males of sufficient means.                                   groups, however, advocate the reimposition of the jizya and
> the dhimma regulations.
> It is the attitude of the prophet Muhammad who, after the
> expansion of his authority across Arabia, concluded agree-         See also Minorities: Offshoots of Islam.
> ments of submission and protection with Jews and Christians
> of other localities which serves as precedent for the dhimma       BIBLIOGRAPHY
> institution. In the course of the Arab conquests under the         Braude, Benjamin, and Lewis, Bernard. Christians and Jews in
> “rightly guided” caliphs similar agreements were reached              the Ottoman Empire: The Functioning of a Plural Society.
> with the non-Muslims of Mesopotamia, Syria, Persia, and               New York: Holmes & Meier, 1982.
> North Africa who surrendered their cities to the Arab armies.      Krämer, Gudrun. “Dhimmi or Citizen? Muslim-Christian
> Muslim jurists later compiled these individual treaties into a       Relations in Egypt.” In The Christian-Muslim Frontier.
> coherent, sophisticated legal system conceding to the dhimmi         Chaos Clash or Dialogue? Edited by Jorgen S. Nielsen.
> communities almost complete autonomy under their respec-             London and New York: Tauris, 1998.
> tive religious leaders. It has to be pointed out, however, that    Tritton, A. S. The Caliphs and their Non-Muslim Subjects: A
> the doctors of Islamic law tended to draw rather distinct             Critical Study of the Covenant of Umar. London: Oxford
> boundaries between Muslims and non-Muslims, and to inter-             University Press, 1930.
> pret the subjection of dhimmis to Islamic authority as a
> justification for discriminating and humiliating measures                                                           Patrick Franke
> imposed upon them. Thus, according to Islamic law, a Muslim could marry a dhimmi woman, but a dhimmi could not             OFFSHOOTS OF ISLAM
> marry a Muslim woman; a Muslim could own a dhimmi slave,           Defining where the boundaries of Islam can be drawn, and
> although the reverse was not allowed; at the frontier the          which groups can be placed outside of that boundary, is, of
> dhimmi merchant would pay double the tariff rate paid by the       course, a normative procedure. In the history of Islam, a
> Muslim (10% and 5%, respectively) and in criminal law it was       number of scholars and groups have been subjected to takfir—
> commonly considered that the blood-wit (diya) for a dhimmi         the declaration of unbelief—and hence might be classed as
> was less (one-half or two-thirds) than that for a Muslim;          offshoots of Islam. If one takes a strict definition of right
> finally, the dhimmi had to wear distinguishing clothing, in         belief, such as that proposed by Ibn 
Abd al-Wahhab, or in the
> particular the zunnar belt, and there were various limitations     more recent past, by Sayyid Qutb, many of those who call
> on the outward expressions of worship such as processions,         themselves Muslims do not deserve the term. Nonetheless,
> the use of bells, and the construction and repair of religious     these groups, religious at base and tracing their origins to
> buildings. A famous document authorizing many of these             Islam, consider themselves Muslim despite the majority comrestrictions is the so-called “Covenant of 
Umar,” a list of       munity refusing to accept them as such.
> 
> 452                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Minorities
> 
> The emergence of radical alternatives to the dominant          proceeded to establish a network of missionaries across Iran,
> Sunni expression of Islam is normally located (by Sunni            who hoped to persuade the mainly Twelver Shi
ite populascholars at least) in the first civil war (fitna), during the        tion to recognize the Bab. The Bab’s self-understanding
> caliphate of 
Ali (r. 656–661). Two alternative views of the       developed further, and in 1848 he declared the advent of a
> nature of the Muslim community emerged at this time. First         new religion, with a new code of practice (which he controwere the Shi
ites, who themselves later divided into a variety     versially termed a sharia) to replace that of the prophet
> of competing groups. The Shi
ites not only considered 
Ali as      Muhammad. It is clear he adopted the role of a prophetic
> the rightful caliph, but also defended the doctrine that only      figure, though he was careful not classify himself as a nabi.
> the descendants of 
Ali could be legitimate leaders of the
> The Babis instigated a number of uprisings in the late
> Muslim community. Second were the Kharijites, who with-
> 1840s, culminating in the Bab’s execution in 1850. The
> drew their support for 
Ali following his willingness to nego-
> Bahai faith emerged out of the collapse of Babism. Bahaallah
> tiate with his opponent Mu
awiya. The Kharijites (literally,
> Husayn 
Ali Nuri, one of Shirazi’s closest companions, pro-
> “those who withdrew”) developed an exclusive view of Islamic
> moted himself as a messianic figure who had been foretold by
> identity, declaring all sinners to be non-Muslims. The mainthe Bab. His message consisted of a bundle of doctrines,
> stream of Sunni Islam took a more forgiving attitude toward
> including the unity of all religions, the institution of a new
> those who failed to obey the law of Islam in every detail. The
> covenant which abrogated Islam, pacifism and the desire for
> strict Kharijite view undoubtedly contributed to the relaworld peace, and the role of himself and his descendants as
> tively small number of Kharijites in Muslim history. Eleconduits for revelation, blessed with spiritual insights which
> ments of Kharijite doctrine, however, survive today within
> were passed to the people through new revelatory texts.
> the Ibadi community, which is restricted to Oman and small
> Elements of early Bahai doctrine are clearly influenced by
> communities in North Africa. Both the Ibadis and the Shi
ites
> Shi
ite Muslim theology and law. However, the Bahais have
> have lived as minorities in Sunni-dominated milieux.
> incorporated Western notions of democracy and human
> Many offshoots of Islam are centered upon the charis-          rights into their belief system.
> matic authority of a particular individual teacher. This cha-          Bahais consider themselves to be quite distinct from their
> risma is at times successfully transferred to the leader’s         Muslim parent religion. The feeling is mutual, as Bahais are
> successor. Perhaps the most enduring of these offshoots is the     generally regarded as schismatic heretics by Shi
ite Muslims.
> Druze religion, which has its roots in the doctrines of Muham-     The success of Bahaism as an independent religion has, in
> mad al-Darazi (d. 1020) concerning the Fatimid (Shi
ite)           the main, rested upon its ability to gain converts in Western
> caliph of the time, al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah (d. 996). Darazi,        Europe and North America. Undoubtedly, Bahais and perwith other Ismaili Shi
ite scholars, made claims of divinity for   haps even some Babis (called Azalis) continue to exist as
> al-Hakim. This entailed an inevitable break with Islam,            minorities in Iran, although their numbers are difficult to
> which has been maintained ever since. The modern-day               estimate because open adherence brings inevitable discrimi-
> Druze form a separate, non-Muslim religious community in           nation and persecution.
> Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Israel.
> Smaller groups, such as the Ahl-e haqq and the Yazidis
> In the modern period, the Ahmadiyya, a community based         (sometimes called “Devil-worshippers”), both based in
> around the teachings of the Indian leader Hazrat Mirza             Kurdistan, might also be classified as offshoots of Islam.
> Ghulam Ahmad (d. 1908), provide an instructive example of          Their theologies show a certain syncretism of the various
> individual charisma within Islam. Ahmad made a number of           mystical elements of the Middle Eastern milieu. The various
> different claims regarding his theological status, including       Afro-American Muslim movements, such as the Nation of
> the assertion that he was the Promised Messiah of the Mus-         Islam, might also be considered as offshoots of Islam. These
> lims. Though the community did maintain its unity after his        various offshoots display a variety of attitudes toward Islam,
> death, it eventually divided in 1914 along theological lines.      some wishing to be considered Muslims, while others prefer
> The different groups, which still exist today, claimed differ-     to be regarded as a separate from, and superior to, Islam.
> ent levels of authority for Ahmad. Some viewed him as a
> prophet (nabi) while others tried to ameliorate the tension        See also Ahmadiyya; Ahmad, Babiyya; Bab, Sayyed 
Ali
> with mainstream Islam by calling Ahmad a mujaddid (renewer).       Muhammad; Bahaallah; Bahai Faith; Kharijites,
> The Ahmadiyya’s minority status as non-Muslims was con-            Khawarij; Minorities: Dhimmis; Mirza Ghulam.
> firmed in Pakistan by a 1984 decree that prevented them from
> using Islamic forms of worship and legalized their prosecution.    BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Amanat, Abbas. Resurrection and Renewal: The Making of the
> A similar pattern can be seen in Shi
ite offshoots such as        Babi Movement in Iran, 1844–1850. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell
> Babism and Bahaism. The former, led by 
Ali Muhammad                University Press, 1989.
> Shirazi (“the Bab,” executed in 1850), began in 1844, when         Betts, Michael. The Druze. New Haven, Conn.: Yale Univer-
> Shirazi proclaimed himself the Gate to the Hidden Imam. He            sity Press, 1988.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                   453
> Miracles
> 
> Calder, Norman. “The Limits of Islamic Orthodoxy.” In             that led to mass conversions on the frontiers of Islamic
> Intellectual Traditions in Islam. Edited by Farhad Daftary.     expansion. South Asian saints’ lives often consecrate chapters
> London: I. B. Tauris, 2000.                                     to waqiat or “events” of a paranormal nature including mind
> Cole, Juan R. I. Modernity and the Millennium: The Genesis of     reading and predicting future events.
> the Baha
i Faith in the Nineteenth-Century Middle East. New
> York: Columbia University Press, 1998.                              More recent reformists and some classical theologians,
> McCloud, Amina Beverly. African-American Islam. London:           such as the Mu
tazila, were more skeptical of miracle stories,
> Routledge, 1995.                                                given their rationalist proclivities, in some cases denying
> saintly miracles altogether. Debates over the physical reality
> Robert Gleave     of prophetic miracles such as the night journey or moon
> splitting still engage Muslim commentators.
> 
> A color plate of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus appears in the
> MIRACLES                                                             volume two color insert.
> 
> See also Mi
raj; Muhammad; Prophets.
> Miracles in the Islamic tradition play less of an evidentiary
> role than in some other religions since the prophet Muham-
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> mad’s humanity is stressed. The miracles of prophets mentioned in the Quran are known there as signs (ayat) and          Gramlich, Richard. Die Wunder der Freunde Gottes. Stuttgart:
> Steiner Verlag, 1987.
> include Abraham’s not being harmed by the fire he was
> thrown into (21:69), as well as Jesus’ speaking as a baby         Gril, Denis. “Le Miracle en islam, critère de la sainteté.” In
> (19:30–33), bringing birds made of clay to life (3:49, 5:110),      Saints Orientaux. Edited by Denise Aigle. Paris: de
> Boccard, 1995.
> and healing powers (3:49). The Quran itself is often said to
> be the main miracle of Muhammad since an untutored or
> Marcia Hermansen
> illiterate (ummi) person could not have been the source of this
> most compelling and eloquent message.
> 
> The sayings of the Prophet and his biography (sira), as
> they developed provide examples of various miraculous oc-
> MI
RAJ
> currences during the life of the Prophet including the child-     Early Islamic sources preserve references to Muhammad’s
> hood opening of his breast and cleansing of his internal          extraordinary journey from Mecca to Jerusalem and/or from
> organs by an angel, his night journey from Jerusalem through      the earth to the heavens. The narrative of the night journey
> the seven heavens, his splitting of the moon, multiplication of   (isra
) and ascension (miraj) developed its own unique form
> food, and bestowal of blessings generally.                        in the hadith reports of the eighth and ninth centuries.
> In later Muslim sources prophetic miracles were termed             The Quranic proof-text for the Mi
raj is the elliptic
> mujizat, or “things which render the detractors or opponents     opening verse of Sura 17: “Glorified be the one who caused
> incapable or overwhelmed.” In other words, acts incapable of      his servant to journey by night from the sacred prayer-site to
> being imitated as in the doctrine of the ijaz al-Qur
an—its      the furthest prayer-site whose precincts we have blessed in
> incomparable eloquence and content. In theological or philo-      order to show him some of our signs. . . .” Muslim consensus
> sophical discussions the term kharq al-ada—a break in God’s      reads the verse as a reference to Muhammad’s miraculous
> customary order of things—is used to indicate the miracu-         journey from the Ka
ba (“the sacred prayer-site”) to either
> lous. In the case of Sufi saints miracles are usually termed       the Temple in Jerusalem or a heavenly temple (“the furthest
> karamat (gifts or graces). They have the ambiguous role of        prayer-site”). The sound hadiths of Bukhari and Muslim
> both confirming spiritual attainments and potentially dis-         show that both the terrestrial and the celestial night journeys
> tracting from the ultimate goal of service of God. Classical      were considered potentially authentic by early traditionists.
> authors struggled to differentiate prophetic and saintly miracles, and those who were inclined toward Sufism saw the               Early exegetes such as Muqatil b. Sulayman al-Balkhi (d. c.
> saintly miracles as emerging and continuing the prophetic         767) and Muhammad b. Jarir al-Tabari (d. 923) collated the
> legacy. Al-Hakim al-Tirmidhi (d. 930) argued that the signs       “night journey verse” (17:1) with the visionary passage from
> of the prophets emanated from the divine power while the          the beginning of the Sura of the Star (53:1–18). The latter
> karamat of the saints emanated from the divine generosity.        passage describes a pair of visions, one at “a distance of two
> Other Sufi commentators differentiated the public nature of        bows or nearer,” the other at “the lote tree of the boundary.”
> prophetic miracles from the secretive aspects of saintly pow-     Exegetes disagree about whether these verses describe Muhamers. Later Sufis, however, did not hesitate to openly enumer-      mad’s vision of God or of Gabriel, but they generally agree in
> ate the graces they received as in the Lata
if al-minan of al-    placing the “lote tree of the boundary” in the heavens and
> Shar
ani or the many accounts of saints performing miracles       thus in relating the passage to the Mi
raj.
> 
> 454                                                                                           Islam and the Muslim World
> Miraj
> 
> At least some early Muslims considered the night journey      Farid al-Din 
Attar (d. c. 1220) made the Prophet’s journey
> and ascension to refer to two separate events. The biography      into a paradigm for their own journey toward mystical union.
> of the Prophet by Ibn Ishaq (d. c. 767) in the recension of Ibn   For philosopher Ibn Sina (d. 1037), the Mi
raj serves as a
> Hisham (d. 833) treats the two separately but in succession.      neoplatonic allegory. For the litterateur Abu 
Ala al-Ma
arri
> The biographer Ibn Sa
d (d. 845) goes even further by             (d. c. 1058) it stimulated an imaginative parody of contempoattaching two different dates to the events. While the date of    rary attitudes toward literature, linguistics, and morality.
> the journey(s) remained a source of controversy, the idea that
> the journey from Mecca to Jerusalem was immediately fol-             The Mi
raj also became a site of literary and cultural
> lowed by the ascension from Jerusalem through the seven           contestation and intercourse among different religious and
> heavens became the majority opinion in the centuries that         geographical worlds. The thirteenth-century Latin and old
> followed.                                                         French translations of the Liber Scale indicate the story’s
> influence among European intellectuals, including Dante. In
> The night journey and ascension narrative begins typi-        the East, it was translated into Persian and Turkish and
> cally with the Prophet asleep in Mecca and awakened by one        inspired numerous poetic works. A fifteenth-century eastern
> or more angels. In some versions, these angels open the           Turkish manuscript accompanied by stunning Persian minia-
> Prophet’s chest and cleanse his heart (94). Then the magical      tures illustrates the story’s influence on painting. At some
> beast Buraq bears Muhammad to Jerusalem where he per-             point Muslims began to commemorate the night of the
> forms the prayer at the Temple in the company of Abraham,         ascension during the month of Rajab, which has become an
> Moses, and Jesus. Muhammad is offered a choice of two or          important popular holiday. Some Islamic Mi
raj material
> three cups of different drinks. He proves his right guidance by   shows clear signs of engagement with other traditions. One
> avoiding the wine and selecting the milk.                         Mi
raj narrative attributed to al-Bistami draws upon material
> from Jewish Merkava and Hekhalot ascent narratives of the
> The angel Gabriel then takes Muhammad up through the
> Jewish mystics describing journeys through celestial palaces
> heavens. At each level an angelic gatekeeper interrogates
> to the divine throne. Christian apocalyptic writings such as
> Gabriel before allowing entrance. In each Muhammad enthe Apocalypse of Paul also contain important parallels, as do
> counters one or more Abrahamic prophets, offers his greetinter-testamental and apocryphal texts such as the Ethiopic
> ing, and then departs for the next level. The typical order of
> Book of Enoch. The initiatic features of the Mi
raj (e.g., ritual
> encounter, already present in Ibn Hisham’s account, consists
> dismemberment, meeting past elders, receiving a divine comof Adam in the first heaven, Jesus and John the Baptist in the
> mission) has led some to note similarities to patterns from
> second, Joseph in the third, Enoch (Idris) in the fourth, Aaron
> shamanic tradition.
> in the fifth, Moses in the sixth, and Abraham in the seventh.
> After meeting Abraham in the seventh heaven near the                  In general, the Mi
raj interpretation of the visions of
> celestial temple known as the frequented house (al-bayt al-       Quran 53 offers a paradigm of “ascent” by the Prophet
> mamur), Muhammad arrives at the lote tree, experiences a         toward revelation in contrast to the dominant Quranic motif
> revelation, and receives the ritual duty to pray fifty times a     of “descent” (tanazzul) of the revelation toward the Prophet,
> day. He descends to Moses, who sends him back to request          two contrasting paradigms that were in similar play throughthat the burden be reduced. God removes a portion of the          out late antiquity and the Middle Ages. One could read many
> duty, but Moses sends Muhammad back again and again until         Mi
raj traditions as expressions of a symbolic cosmology that
> the number of daily ritual prayers is reduced to five. Some        served as a common cultural language for religious, philoaccounts include Muhammad’s return and his efforts to prove       sophical, literary, and cultural contact and as a symbolic field
> his experience to a skeptical Meccan community.                   that differing cultural worlds attempted to appropriate as
> their own.
> By the ninth century this spare narrative was amplified by
> storytellers. Evidence for this popular tradition can be found
> An interpretation of Muhammad’s vision of ascension appears
> in the extended narratives preserved in the Quran commenin the volume two color plates.
> taries on the “night journey verse” by al-Tabari and the early
> Shi
ite exegete 
Ali b. Ibrahim al-Qummi (d. c. 919). The         See also Buraq; Holy Cities; 
Ibadat; Miracles.
> account of Muhammad’s young companion Ibn 
Abbas (d. c.
> 687) circulated widely and remains highly popular.                BIBLIOGRAPHY
> The Mi
raj tradition served to bring various modes of         Amir-Moezzi, Mohammad, ed. Le Voyage initiatique en Terre
> Islamic literature into conversation. The pivotal Sufi               d’Islam. Louvain-Paris: Peeters, 1996.
> traditionists Abu 
Abd al-Rahman al-Sulami (d. 1021) and          Asin Palacios, Miguel. La escatalogia musulmana en la Divina
> 
Abd al-Karim al-Qushayri (d. 1072) each composed impor-             Comedia. Madrid and Granada: Consejo Superior de
> tant works on the early mystical interpretations of Muham-           Investigaciones Cientificas, 1919.
> mad’s night journey and ascension. Mystics such as Abu Yazid      Bencheikh, Jamel Eddine. Le Voyage nocturne de Mahomet.
> al-Bistami (d. c. 850), Muhyi al-Din Ibn 
Arabi (d. 1240), and      Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1988.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                    455
> Mirza Husayn Ali Nuri
> 
> Ghayti, Najm al-Din al-. “The Story of the Night Journey         crisis, but also—in the view of the modernists—offered soluand the Ascension.” In A Reader on Islam. Edited and           tions to the crisis. Influential early figures included Sayyid
> translated by Arthur Jeffrey. The Hague, Netherlands:          Jamal al-Din al-Afghani (1838–1897), Muhammad 
Abduh
> Mouton and Co., 1962.                                          (1849–1905), and Sayyid Ahmad Khan (1817–1898). Islamic
> Heath, Peter. Allegory and Philosophy in Avicenna (Ibn Sina).    modernism generated a series of novel institutions, including
> Philadelphia: The University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992.      schools that combined Islamic education with modern sub-
> Hyatte, Richard. The Prophet of Islam in Old French: The         jects and pedagogies; newspapers that carried modernist
> Romance of Muhammad (1258) and The Book of Muham-              Islamic ideas across continents; theaters, museums, novels,
> mad’s Ladder (1264). Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1997.                and other cultural forms that were adapted from European
> Ibn Hisham, 
Abd al-Malik. “The Night Journey and Ascent         models; constitutions that sought to limit state power; and
> to Heaven.” In The Life of Muhammad. Edited and trans-        social welfare agencies that brought state power into ever
> lated by Alfred Guillame. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford Univer-        more sectors of social life.
> sity Press, 1955.
> Piemontese, Angelo. “Le Voyage de Mahomet au Paradis et             Islamic modernism justified each of these institutions as
> Enfer: une version persane du Mi
raj.” In Apocalypses et en   being more consistent with the original spirit of Islam than
> Voyages dans l’Au-delà. Edited by Claude Kappler. Paris:      were the existing institutions of the Islamic world. In some
> Les Editions du CERF, 1987.                                   regions Islamic modernism declined in the mid-twentieth
> Samarrai, Qassim. The Theme of Ascension in Mystical Writings.   century, losing popularity to revivalist and secularist move-
> Baghdad: National Printing Company, 1968.                      ments. Yet it appeared to have revived in the late twentieth
> Schimmel, Annemarie. “The Prophet’s Night Journey and            century, spurred in part by a dramatic global increase in
> Ascension.” In And Muhammad is His Messenger. Chapel          modern education.
> Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985.
> See also 
Abduh, Muhammad; Afghani, Jamal al-Din;
> Seguy, Marie-Rose. The Miraculous Journey of Mahomet. Trans-
> Ahmad Khan, (Sir) Sayyid; Iqbal, Muhammad; Liberlated by Richard Pevear. New York: George Braziller, 1977.
> alism, Islamic; Modern Thought; Rahman, Fazlur.
> Sells, Michael. Early Islamic Mysticism: Sufi, Qur
an, Miraj,
> Poetic and Theological Writings. New York: Paulist
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Press, 1996.
> Kurzman, Charles, ed. Modernist Islam: A Sourcebook,
> Tabari, Muhammad b. Jarir al-. “Muhammad’s Night Jour-
> 1840–1940. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
> ney and Ascension.” Translated by Rueven Firestone. In
> Windows on the House of Islam. Edited by John Renard.
> Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.                                                            Charles Kurzman
> Widengren, Geo. Muhammad, the Apostle of God, and his
> Ascension (King and Savior V). Uppsala: A. B. Lundequistska, 1955.                                                     MODERNITY
> Frederick Colby    The European penetration of the Near East and India and the
> Michael Sells    decline of Muslim ascendancy in these regions in the nineteenth century precipitated the crisis that defined the responses of Muslim intellectuals to European modernity. The
> MIRZA HUSAYN 
ALI NURI                                           key thinkers in the nineteenth century, who continue to
> influence contemporary attitudes in the Islamic world to
> See Bahaallah
> modernity, were the so-called Islamic modernists, such as
> Jamal al-Din Afghani (1839–1897), Muhammad 
Abduh
> (1849–1905), and Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan (1817–1898).
> Although there were some differences between these think-
> MODERNISM                                                        ers, their work was governed by the same project, which was
> to show that Islam was consistent with the rationality of the
> Modernism is a movement to reconcile Islamic faith with          European enlightenment and the development of modern
> modern values such as nationalism, democracy, rights, ra-        science. As such, they argued that there was no fundamental
> tionality, science, equality, and progress. Islamic modernism    incompatibility between modernity and its narrative of progis distinguished from secularism by its insistence on the        ress, and Islam as a religion. They tended toward a rationalist
> continuing importance of faith in public life; it is distin-     interpretation of the Quran, in which whatever appeared to
> guished from other Islamic movements by its enthusiasm for       be in contradiction to rationality could be interpreted symcontemporary European institutions. The movement emerged         bolically and allegorically. As a consequence of this they
> in the middle of the nineteenth century as a response to         argued that the meaning of the Quran was accessible to
> European imperialism, which pitched the Islamic world into       everyone. In other words, there was no need to rely on
> 
> 456                                                                                          Islam and the Muslim World
> Modernity
> 
> the technical and elaborate procedures of tafsir, in which
> the ulema trained in the traditional Islamic sciences were
> conversant.
> 
> These two tendencies in Islamic modernism also reflected
> in part the major impact of print on the Islamic world in the
> modern period. From the nineteenth century onward, the
> availability of the Quran in print, and its concurrent translation into local languages, struck at the very heart of the
> traditional system of the oral transmission of knowledge, in
> which the charisma of the teacher as a living embodiment of
> knowledge was crucial. The multiplication of texts through
> printing made unsupervised reading possible. This in turn
> meant that it was possible to engage with religious texts
> without the mediation of the formally trained ulema.
> 
> These tendencies in Islamic modernism, and the impact of
> print, lie behind the works of a number of important Muslim
> thinkers in the twentieth century, in which the engagement
> with European modernity was a key theme. It is particularly
> evident in the commentaries on the Quran by Sayyid Abu l-
> A
la Maududi, the founder of the fundamentalist Jama
at-e
> Islami. Maududi himself was not a formally trained alim, but
> it is precisely because of this that his ideas and thought played
> a crucial role in the development of what is called Islamic
> fundamentalism. These tendencies are similarly evident in
> Muhammad Iqbal’s (1893–1938) The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam (1934). This work exemplifies Islamic
> modernism’s response to European modernity both in its
> style and its content. It purports to show how the Quran is
> entirely consonant with the major discoveries of European
> science, and it is wide-ranging in its eclectic use of European     This Cairo bus ferries passengers past a billboard for director
> thinkers. Iqbal’s engagment with the Quran is singular and         Magdi Ahmed Ali’s 2001 Girls’ Secrets, a film in which a middleclass family faces its teenage daughter’s pregnancy. The film has
> unmediated by any sense of tafsir in the traditional sense of       been acclaimed for its portrayal of contemporary Egypt’s struggle
> the word.                                                           to balance tradition and religion with modernity and science. AP/
> WIDE WORLD PHOTOS
> Islam’s relationship with modernity has been the defining
> theme of the work of major Muslim thinkers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The strategies of interpreting
> the Quran, and its relocation as a sacred text in the act of       Islamic thought to European thought is mimetic; that is to
> individual and unmediated reading, are in fact among the            say, in the work of Afghani, 
Abduh, Iqbal, and others, such as
> major consequences of the impact of modernity on Islam.             the poet Altaf Husayn Hali (1837–1914), Islam is refashioned
> However, the role of modernist thinkers as spokesmen for            into a mirror of European modernity. At the same time,
> Islam vis-à-vis European modernity also points to some other        though, Islamic modernism also teases out, generally unselffeatures of the impact of modernity on the Islamic world.           consciously, the contradictions in European modernity itself.
> Islamic engagements with modernity are at times ambivalent,
> First, it is clear that there are a multiplicity of Islamic      rather than mimetic alone. As such, these engagements can be
> voices engaging with European modernity. This in part is            read alongside the works of European philosophers, such as
> also a consequence of the abolition of the caliphate in 1924 by     those of the Frankfurt School and Michel Foucault, who have
> Ataturk, so that even symbolically there is no single figure-        explored the tensions in modernity, arguing that it is less a
> head in the Islamic world. This, together with the undermin-        narrative of progress than one of repression.
> ing of the authority of the formally trained ulema, has meant
> that there are competing voices for Islam with no clear                Thirdly, nowhere is this ambivalence to modernity more
> procedures or authorities to adjudicate between them.               evident than in the attitude to the nation-state demonstrated
> by the thinkers mentioned above. There is an obvious tension
> Secondly, Islamic engagements with modernity can be              between the modernist attempts to define a pan-Islamic,
> read in two overlapping ways. In part, the relationship of          worldwide community, theoretically made possible through
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                      457
> Modernization, Political
> 
> innovations in technologies of communication, and the fun-             CONSTITUTIONALISM
> damental reality of the nation-state, some with Muslim popu-            Sohail H. Hashmi
> lations that are hostile to each other. The very attempts by           PARTICIPATION, POLITICAL MOVEMENTS, AND PARTIES
> Afghani, 
Abduh, Iqbal, and others to reinterpret Islamic law           Quintan Wiktorowicz
> as a legal system in keeping with a modern state is indicative
> of the powerful reality of the nation-state as the organizing
> principle of the world in the twentieth century. Furthermore,       ADMINISTRATIVE, MILITARY, AND
> given the fact that the nation-state tends toward monopoliz-        JUDICIAL REFORM
> The modern states of the Middle East are remnants of the
> ing all sources of authority, as long as it remains in existence,
> Ottoman (Turkish) and Safavid (Persian) dominions, the last
> it is unlikely that the ulema will recover the authority they
> of the great Muslim empires. These countries not only share
> enjoyed in the pre-modern Islamic world.
> common religious and historical legacies but have also expe-
> The engagement of Islam with modernity remains open-            rienced very similar colonial and postcolonial influences. The
> ended and multivocal. Having said that, it is important to          term “Middle East” in fact alludes to the colonial encounter
> note that no Muslim thinker has argued for rejecting Euro-          and was coined by the Allied forces (the British, Free French,
> pean modernity in toto in the way that the famous Indian            and Americans) during the Second World War to indicate a
> nationalist leader, Mohandas Gandhi (1869–1948), tried to           single military theater for operational and supply purposes.
> do in his life’s work. Although there may be problems               The area in question thus encompasses the Arab world as well
> regarding the feasibility of Gandhi’s position, the fact that the   as the non-Arab countries of Turkey and Iran. To fully
> possibility of any alternatives to European modernity has not       appreciate developments in the post-independence period—
> been explored in any depth in Muslim thought is powerful            after 1945—events that led to the modern state system must
> testimony to the sway that European modernity has held over         be briefly charted.
> the Islamic world since the early nineteenth century.
> World War I resulted in the collapse of the Ottoman
> See also 
Abduh, Muhammad; Afghani, Jamal al-Din;                   Empire and the creation of mandate territories run as colo-
> Ahmad Khan, (Sir) Sayyid; Iqbal, Muhammad; Liber-                   nies. This gave rise to strong anti-colonial, nationalist movealism, Islamic; Maududi, Abu l-A
la; Modern Thought.               ments, especially in Turkey and Iran, which emerged as
> independent states in 1923 and 1921, respectively. Egypt
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                        gained independence in 1922, when the British withdrew
> from direct control, and Saudi Arabia attained sovereignty in
> Ahmad, Aziz. Islamic Modernism in India and Pakistan
> 1857–1964. London: Oxford University Press, 1967.                 1926. The period after World War II was characterized by
> rapid independence, and between 1945 and 1946 Syria,
> Azmeh, Aziz, al-. Islams and Modernities. London and New
> Lebanon, and Jordan all witnessed the disappearance of the
> York: Verso, 1993.
> European presence. However, the authority of the West still
> Cooper, John; Nettler, Ronald; and Mahmoud, Mohamed,                weighed burdensomely upon the region and determined the
> eds. Islam and Modernity. Muslim Intellectuals Respond. Lonmanner in which these countries reconstituted themselves in
> don: I. B. Tauris, 1998.
> light of modern developments. This influence continues to
> Hourani, Albert. Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 1798–1939.      the present day.
> Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1983.
> Robinson, Francis. “Technology and Religious Change: Islam              Three of the most significant factors challenging reform
> and the Impact of Print.” Modern Asian Studies 27, no. 1          and growth in the region have been the discovery of oil, the
> (1993): 229–251.                                                  strengthening of the United States’ position after World War
> Shackle, Christopher, and Majeed, Javed. Hali’s Musaddas.           II, and the creation of the state of Israel. These factors had,
> The Flow and Ebb of Islam. Delhi: Oxford University               and continue to have, a direct impact upon reform initiatives,
> Press, 1997.                                                      manifesting themselves differently depending upon the social
> and cultural conditions of the individual countries of the region,
> Javed Majeed
> Iran
> Reza Shah Pahlevi (1925–1941) was able to create a strongly
> centralized state by using the army, thereby leaving an endur-
> MODERNIZATION, POLITICAL                                            ing legacy of military intervention in Iranian politics right up
> to the Islamic revolution in 1979. Muhammad Reza, who
> ADMINISTRATIVE, MILITARY, AND JUDICIAL REFORM                    succeeded his father in 1941, initially indulged party politics,
> Aslam Farouk-Alli                                               but soon followed his father’s example and used his control
> over the army to re-establish royal authority. Prior to this
> AUTHORITARIANISM AND DEMOCRATIZATION
> Claudia Stodte                                                  however, Iranian politics (between 1945 and 1953) was ex-
> Anne-Sophie Froehlich                                           tremely turbulent, due to both internal and external factors.
> 
> 458                                                                                              Islam and the Muslim World
> Modernization, Political
> 
> Throughout the 1940s, the political scene was driven by        century, Iran’s president, Mohammad Khatami, has even
> British, Soviet, and American interests competing for influ-        called for increased powers of the elected assembly over the
> ence. The United States was able to forge close ties with the      ulema’s Council of Guardians, and he appears to be trying to
> Iranian army, while Britain sought a privileged position for its   reconcile a deeply religious political ethos with the principles
> oil interests. The placing of Iran’s economic and military         of representative government.
> development in the hands of foreigners created growing
> consternation among Iranian nationalists, and in 1950 a            Turkey
> group of politicians led by Mohammed Mosaddeq were able            After independence in 1923, Turkish politics was dominated
> to obtain sufficient support in the Majlis (parliament) to act      by the single-party rule of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s authoriagainst the Anglo-Iranian oil company, nationalizing its Ira-      tarian Republican People’s Party (RPP). His successor, who
> nian assets. In 1951 the Majlis nationalized the oil industry      assumed office in 1938, departed from Ataturk’s economic
> altogether, and also elected Mosaddeq as prime minister.           policies and lessened government sponsorship of industrial
> However, his reform efforts were short-lived and he was            development. This was largely in response to pressure from
> overthrown in a U.S.–assisted coup in 1953, largely due to         the Turkish business sector, which sought more freedom for
> American fears of Soviet influence over Iran. Mosaddeq’s            private entrepreneurial activity, and pressure from the peasoverthrow enabled the shah to create his royal dictatorship,       antry, which was displeased with the government’s bias in
> and with the assistance of U.S. and Israeli advisors he formed     favor of industrialization over agricultural development. Gov-
> SAVAK, his notorious secret police service.                        ernment also responded to pressure from intellectuals and
> politicians critical of the single-party dispensation by allow-
> From 1953 to 1979 there was absolutely no political            ing greater political freedom. As a result, four members of the
> freedom in Iran. In 1963 the shah was severely criticized by a     national assembly defected from the RPP in 1946 and formed
> then still-obscure member of the religious establishment,          a new party, called the Democratic Party (DP).
> Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Khomeini was arrested by
> SAVAK in June 1963 and deported to Turkey in 1964. In the             Although the democrats were only able to win sixty-five
> following year he was deported to Iraq, where he stayed,           seats in the 1946 elections, they were able to extend their
> preaching and writing. In 1978 he was forced to go to France.      influence tremendously over the next four years and won 396
> However, Khomeini returned to Iran in triumph in 1979, as          of the 465 seats in the national assembly in 1950. The DP
> leader of one of the most spectacular and unexpected revolu-       showed greater sensitivity to religious sentiments and retions in modern history.                                           stored the public call to prayer in Arabic (which had previously been banned), maintained and developed mosques, and
> The shah’s dictatorial policies robbed Khomeini of all         offered religious instruction to all Muslim students in pripolitical legitimacy and were ultimately responsible for his       mary schools on a voluntary basis. It still, however, strongly
> downfall. Most of his 1961 to 1963 White Revolution re-            upheld the principal of secularism.
> forms centered on huge military spending and benefits offered to appease the officer corps. By 1976 Iran had the fifth          Economic policies instituted by the democrats were geared
> largest military force in the world. Khomeini’s efforts at         towards agricultural reform in order to appease their supporteconomic and social development were miserable failures,           base among the peasantry, but when the economy began to
> with the exception of the literacy drive, which enjoyed meas-      suffer they came under severe public criticism. The governurable success. In 1975 he scrapped the two-party system and       ment responded harshly by introducing extremely repressive
> introduced the single National Resurgence Party. It was            restrictions against the press, and even brought in the army to
> ultimately the shah’s brutal response to unarmed protests in       quell violent protests. They further exploited ruling-party
> 1978 that ignited the revolution. The clergy were able to          privilege by using the army to disrupt RPP campaign rallies.
> effect large-scale uprisings, and emerged as the representa-       Such irresponsibility met with a severe backlash, and on 27
> tives of the masses.                                               May 1960 the military stepped in to institute the first
> coup d’état.
> The new government, under the leadership of Ruhollah
> Khomeini, initially made efforts to include secular elements.         Military intervention became commonplace in Turkish
> Mehdi Bazargan, the secular reformist, was made the first           politics, but remains unique in that power was always handed
> prime minister of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Ultimately,        back to civilian politicians. The military establishment was
> however, the idea that social, political, and economic change      primarily concerned with upholding the principle of Kemalcould only be achieved by the renewal of an Islamic order          ism, but equally committed to the system of multi-party
> prevailed, ushering in the Khomeini era, in which Iran was         politics. The 1960 intervention lasted for only eighteen
> transformed into a theocracy ruled by the clergy.                  months, in which time the constitution was revised to protect
> the rights of individuals and assert the principle of secularism.
> Khomeini died in 1989, and the post-Khomeini period
> has once again surprised analysts with the emergence of               The period between 1961 and 1983 witnessed the prolifliberal-minded reformists. At the turn of the twenty-first          eration of political parties, with attendant political upheaval
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                     459
> Modernization, Political
> 
> and instability. The military instituted two more coups, in         states like Egypt, Syria, and Jordan, which were able to
> 1971 and 1980, and further constitutional amendments were           benefit from the new wealth through workers’ remittances
> introduced. In addition to the rise and fall of various coalition   and financial aid. In the 1950s and 1960s, the military was
> governments, civil order was also threatened by Kurdish             seen as an instrument of modernization and change, but by
> separatist aspirations and by the rise of Islamic revivalism, led   the 1970s this image was severely damaged largely due to
> by the National Salvation Party. Islamist parties have had to       defeats on the battlefield and failed agrarian and industrialiconstantly re-invent themselves under different guises due to       zation reform policies.
> the military’s censure of “anti-secular” politics. This trend
> has set contemporary Turkish politics to sway between two              The two major home-grown ideologies up to this point
> poles: that of a re-emergent Islamist ideal versus a secular-       were Nasserism and Ba
thism, impacting most significantly
> liberal ideal seemingly on the wane. Just below the surface,        upon Egypt, Syria, and Iraq. Egypt under Nasser embodied
> however, lies the powerful military, which keeps the powers-        the aspirations of the Arab world, facing a future freed of the
> that-be decisively in check.                                        imperial past, newly independent and equally assertive. From
> the time of the Free Officers’ coup in 1952 up until the Arab-
> In 1997 the Islamist Refah (Welfare) Party’s leader was         Israeli War in June of 1967, Nasser was seen as a dynamic
> forced to step down due to pressure from the National               president who had set in motion a positive process of national
> Security Council, and the party itself was closed down the          transformation. As a result Egypt exercised profound refollowing year on charges of anti-secular activities. Refah re-     gional influence in this period.
> constituted as the Fazilat Party, which was also banned in
> 2001. In spite of this, the 2002 elections were won by the              However, Nasserism as a doctrine tried to satisfy too
> Justice and Development Party, which emerged from the               many conflicting aspirations. As such, it was able to position
> modernizing wing of the Fazilat Party. Although enjoying            itself neither as religious nor secular, democratic nor authorioverwhelming support from the masses, the Justice and               tarian, socialist nor capitalist. It contained aspects of all but
> Development Party will have to constrain its constituency’s         faltered in privileging any one of these as the most important.
> aspirations or face the fate of all its Islamist predecessors.      The defeat in 1967 marked the true end of Nasserism.
> Hereafter, Nasser allowed the Soviet Union to acquire domi-
> The Arab States                                                     nant influence in the military. He dropped the quest for Arab
> In contrast to the relatively effective constitutional regimes of   unity and the hopes he had raised were finally shattered with
> Iran and Turkey, the Arab States of the Middle East are ruled       his death in 1970. His successor, Anwar Sadat (1918–1981),
> by either monarchies or military dictators. It is important to      was left to fill the void.
> note that the regions’ dictatorships are a result of the social
> and political processes of the twentieth century. The Arab              Although lacking the charisma of Nasser, Sadat was able
> defeat at the hands of Israel in the 1967 war and the changing      to reorient Egyptian domestic and foreign policy in ways that
> structure of global politics due to Cold War competition            were every bit as profound as Nasser’s. He realigned Egypt
> were the main factors responsible for the polarization of the       with the superpowers in favor of the United States by expel-
> Arab states and the tempering of Arab Nationalist sentiments        ling Soviet military advisors and by courting peace with
> that were so strongly evoked by the Egyptian leader Jamal           Israel, not before redeeming Egyptian honor by defeating the
> 
Abd al-Nasser, especially between 1953 and 1967.                   Israelis in the October 1973 war. Sadat’s U.S.–brokered
> treaty with Israel earned him the discontent of militant
> By 1945 the massive influx of wealth into the Arab states,       Islamic groups in Egypt. His clampdown on these groups
> primarily due to oil revenues, served as the single impetus for     ultimately led to his assassination on 6 October 1981.
> development, especially in terms of infrastructure and nationbuilding. However, progress was undermined by defeat in the             Ba
thism, in contrast to Nasserism, was characterized by
> first Arab-Israeli war from 1948 to 1949, as well the failure to     a more sharply defined set of principles. Michel 
Aflaq
> cope with internal political, economic and social pressures.        (1910–1989), the cofounder of the Ba
th Party, defined its
> The resultant backlash brought about a series of military           role in stirring and romantic language. The party was concoups: in Syria in 1949, Egypt in 1952, Sudan and Iraq in           ceived of as an instrument of social justice and was supposed
> 1958, North Yemen in 1962, and Libya in 1969. The remain-           to be at the vanguard of Arab unity. It attracted young Arabs
> ing countries, including Morocco, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and         of the post-independence era eager to restore Arab dignity,
> the Gulf States, were all monarchies and effectively one-party      especially in Syria and Iraq.
> states. The only exception was Lebanon, where the existence
> of parliamentary or party politics has been essential in order         Aflaq was, however, in no way comparable to Nasser in
> to balance the interests of both Christians and Muslims.            terms of leadership qualities. Lacking a politician of ability to
> implement its vision, the party’s plans were thwarted as it
> The sharp rise in oil prices in the early 1970s led to           divided into regional groupings and quarreling factions. Ambiambitious programs of social and economic development,              tious men like Syria’s Hafiz al-Asad (1930–2000) and Iraq’s
> and even had a positive impact upon the non-oil producing           Saddam Husayn (1937–) used the party’s apparatus and
> 
> 460                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Modernization, Political
> 
> ideology to serve their own ends. In the hands of al-Asad and      British models. The immediate effect of these measures was
> Husayn the Ba
th became a means of survival their respective       the reduction of the scope of Islamic law or sharia, jurisdiction.
> regimes and they utilized it as an effective instrument of
> control and indoctrination.                                            With the dismantling of the Ottoman Empire and the
> rise of the modern republic of Turkey, a fairly complete
> As such, the party lost its pan-Arab mission and developed     secularization of the law code was effected in that country,
> rival Syrian and Iraqi branches. Common to both, however,          even in matters of personal status. The sharia was effectively
> was severe political repression, although social reforms were      purged from the new statute books. However, developments
> in some instances significant. Syria still remains an authori-      in the neighboring regions were far more gradual.
> tarian dictatorship under Bashar al-Asad (b. 1965), Hafiz al-
> Asad’s son and heir, whereas the political future of Iraq after       Iran, under Reza Shah Pahlevi, adopted a version the
> the U.S.-led overthrow of Saddam Husayn in April of 2003 is        Swiss family law code that remained in effect until after the
> uncertain.                                                         revolution. The shah’s obsession with Western models of
> development drove his reform initiatives, and some of the
> In the 1980s, the biggest challenge that faced the Arab
> family protection laws instituted between 1967 and 1975
> regimes was the re-emergence of Islamic reformism, which
> granted women greater legal equality within marriage. Unlike
> was greatly influenced by the Islamic revolution in Iran. The
> the case of Turkey and Tunisia, however, the shah did not
> Islamic reform movements were largely unsuccessful due to
> abolish polygamy. However, the husband was required to
> the foreign support offered to the various regimes in order to
> take the consent of his current wife in order to marry another.
> protect their own interests. A striking example is the overthrow of the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) in Algeria by the          The most significant reform initiative in the Arab states
> military after a landslide victory in the first round of parlia-    was the introduction of the new Egyptian civil code, framed
> mentary elections held in December 1991. Voters had reby 
Abd al-Razzaq al-Sanhuri in 1949. Al-Sanhuri drew upon
> jected the National Liberation Front that had ruled the
> existing legislation, contemporary Western codes, and the
> country as a single party for thirty years. The Islamic Salvasharia in formulating the code, although its final shape was
> tion Front was poised to gain a decisive parliamentary majormore French than Islamic. Other Arab states also amended
> ity, but the military intervened, declaring the elections null
> their codes and continued to increase the centralization of
> and void. A notable exception, however, was the successful
> their courts. The Egyptian model inspired many of these
> establishment of an Islamic regime in Sudan in 1989.
> efforts. Al-Sanhuri was also called upon to formulate the Iraqi
> The United States in the early twenty-first century exer-       and Kuwaiti codes later on.
> cises undisputed influence over the Middle East, and it is
> difficult to envisage the flourishing of any popular movement           A notable exception to the reform trend is seen in Saudi
> representative of the political aspirations and ambitions of the   Arabia and Yemen. Neither of these countries came under
> civilian populations in these countries. This is borne out by      British protection and the early Ottoman reforms were not
> the United States’ heavy-handed policies towards countries         that far-reaching. As such, the pre-existing sharia system was
> with well-established systems of representative government,        never restricted. In more recent times Yemen has made
> like Sudan and Iran, and its tolerance and open allegiance to      efforts to centralize and codify its legal system, whereas in
> repressive regimes like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Tunisia,          Saudi Arabia the sharia courts still retain general jurisdiction.
> which are notorious for their gross violations of human
> The period of malaise in the Middle East after 1967
> rights. American support for Israel in terms of massive finanprompted militants and ordinary citizens alike to express
> cial assistance and the turning of a blind eye to the occupation
> of Palestine also leaves little hope for resolving conflict and     desire for the re-establishment of the sharia. Muslim inteldiffusing tensions in the region as a whole. The U.S.–led          lectuals have generally favored the idea that rulers are subject
> invasion of Iraq in April of 2003 only signals the perpetuation    to and must therefore enforce laws that are not entirely of
> of the old colonial paradigm of political, military, and eco-      their own making. This is but one strong inclination that
> nomic domination and exposes the divide between the vested         ensures the continuing appeal for calls to re-introduce the
> interests of a powerful center and ultimate regional self          sharia and its role in future legal reforms cannot be easily
> determination on the periphery. These are but some of the          dismissed or discounted.
> major factors that hinder positive reform and progress in the
> See also 
Abd al-Nasser, Jamal; 
Abd al-Razzaq al-
> Middle East.
> Sanhuri; Ataturk, Mustafa Kemal; Iran, Islamic Repub-
> Judicial Reform                                                    lic of; Islamic Salvation Front; Khomeini, Ruhollah;
> The process of judicial reform in the Middle East had already      Modernization, Political: Participation, Political Movebegun in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when        ments, and Parties; Mosaddeq, Mohammad; Muhamthe Ottoman Empire and Egypt began appropriating West-             mad Reza Shah Pahlevi; Revolution: Islamic Revolution
> ern legal codes that were mostly derived from French and           in Iran.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                       461
> Modernization, Political
> 
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                             The political landscape since the 1970s has been domi-
> Brown, Leon Carl, ed. Imperial Legacy – The Ottoman Imprint          nated by two forms of governance: conservative monarchies
> on the Balkans and Middle East. New York: Columbia                and military or single-party republics. Even countries that
> University Press, 1996.                                           established an ideologically founded republic (e.g., Algeria,
> Brown, Nathan J. The Rule of Law in the Arab World – Courts in       Tunisia, and the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen, or
> Egypt and the Gulf. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge Univer-            South Yemen) or abolished monarchy through military coups
> sity Press, 1997.                                                 d’état (e.g., Egypt, Iraq, and Libya), later developed a highly
> Brumberg, Daniel. Reinventing Khomeini: The Struggle for             authoritarian, personalized leadership. If presidential elec-
> Reform in Iran. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001.       tions are held, people do not really have a choice between
> Cleveland, William L. A History of the Modern Middle East.           different candidates; the “presidential monarch” is usually
> Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1994.                             reelected with close to 100 percent of the votes (e.g., in 1999:
> Edge, Ian, ed. Islamic Law and Legal Theory. New York: New           Yemen 96%, Egypt 94%, Tunisia 99%). Nowhere else do
> York University Press, 1996.                                       governors stay in power so long: The average reigning time
> Hourani, Albert; Khoury, Philip S.; and Wilson, Mary C.,             for rulers in the Arab world was twenty-one years in 1998.
> eds. The Modern Middle East. London: I. B. Tauris, 1993.
> With many Arab societies still divided into tribes (most
> Humphreys, R. Stephen. Between Memory and Desire: The                notably in Yemen) or sects (Lebanon), it is hard to establish
> Middle East in Troubled Age. Cairo: The American Univerpolitical parties at all. Moreover, members of minority facsity in Cairo Press, 2000.
> tions often prefer authoritarian regimes that protect their
> Owen, Roger. State, Power, and Politics in the Making of the
> existing freedoms.
> Modern Middle East. London: Routledge, 1992.
> A possible exception to the failure of democracy is Tur-
> Aslam Farouk-Alli       key, defined as a secular republic in 1923—by the patriarchal
> rule of Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk). Since the end of the single-
> AUTHORITARIANISM AND DEMOCRATIZATION                                 party system in 1945, there has been a wide range of political
> In the Middle East, liberal democracy is a rarity. There is no       parties, and governments have been changed by elections.
> democracy in the Western sense, that is, characterized by the        The democratic character of the republic is limited, however,
> right to form political parties; the possibility of changing
> by the strong position of the military, which took over power
> government by election; the freedoms of the press, belief, and
> three times between 1960 and 1980. Its influence as well as
> association; the protection of individual rights; the separation
> the continuing violation of human rights are obstacles to
> of powers; and secularism.
> Turkey’s bid for membership in the European Union.
> One reason for the lack of democratic structures lies in the
> Other countries in the region are, at least to some extent,
> experience of colonialism and neocolonialism. Most Arab
> free and democratic. Since 1989 Jordan has developed a
> countries achieved independence only after World War II,
> relatively unfettered press and has installed an elected parliaand the borders were in many cases fixed by the colonial
> ment with real opposition parties, while remaining a heredipowers; therefore, the people in the new political entities did
> tary monarchy. Morocco also established a parliament,
> not necessarily share a national identity. For some decades
> although the real political power still lies with the king. In
> there was a strong movement toward “Arab unity” or panstates like Egypt, Tunisia, and the reunited Yemen, there are
> Arabism. However, actual attempts to form a greater nation,
> like that of Egypt, Syria, and Yemen (1958–1961), came to            parliaments and elections, but the presidents—relying on a
> nothing.                                                             strong secret service or military—determine most developments and still refuse to grant rights to political movements,
> Even in countries that never were colonies, like Iran and         parties, or groups.
> Afghanistan, Western and Soviet interference, respectively,
> prevented democratic development. The success of the Ira-               Syria and Iraq, where branches of the socialist Ba
ath
> nian revolution of 1978 and 1979 is partly due to the repeated       (Rebirth) party came to power in the 1960s, soon became
> defeat of attempts at democratization. The ongoing Israeli-          extremely autocratic states with quasi-hereditary presiden-
> Arab conflict stymies liberalization, and plays into the hands        cies. The same thing happened to the political system created
> of extremist groups.                                                 by Mu
ammar al-Qadhafi in Libya in 1969, combining elements of grassroots democracy and socialist ideas with a
> Another reason for the lack of democratic structures lies        totally autocratic style of governance.
> within the extremely patriarchal Middle Eastern societies
> themselves and their tradition of authoritarianism. The latter          The oil-rich Arab kingdoms and emirates of the Persian
> has its roots in the patronage system of the tribal Arab             Gulf combined economic modernization with strict autosocieties as well as in the Islamic theory of power with its ideal   cratic governance. As if in compliance with the principle “no
> of the just sovereign.                                               taxation without representation,” these wealthier states could
> 
> 462                                                                                              Islam and the Muslim World
> Modernization, Political
> 
> afford to keep their population calm without granting demo-           East and North Africa; Reform: Iran; Revolution,
> cratic rights. The United Arab Emirates have no parliamen-            Modern.
> tary structures at all; Saudi Arabia suppresses all opposition
> by force.                                                             BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Throughout the Middle East, the 1980s were character-             Brynen, Rex; Korany, Bahgat; and Noble, Paul, eds. Political
> Liberalization and Democratization in the Arab World. Vol.
> ized by the rise of political Islam. It evolved primarily according
> 1, Theoretical Perspectives. Vol. 2, Comparative Experito domestic factors, often as a reaction against authoritarianences. Boulder, Colo.: Rienner, 1995, 1998.
> ism and corruption. Some states are trying to include the
> Gerner, Deborah J., and Schrodt, Philip A. “Middle East
> Islamists in their democratization efforts: In Jordan and
> Politics.” In Understanding the Contemporary Middle East.
> Yemen the major opposition parties in parliament are Islamist.
> Edited by Deborah J. Gerner. Boulder, Colo.:
> But most states consider them a fundamental threat to the               Rienner, 2000.
> political system. In Algeria the democratization process ended
> with the annulment of the relatively free elections in Decem-
> Claudia Stodte
> ber 1991, when it became evident that the Islamist Front
> Anne-Sophie Froehlich
> Islamique du Salut (FIS) was going to win most parliamentary
> seats. The army took over with international approval and a
> CONSTITUTIONALISM
> decade of savage civil strife ensued.
> Virtually all the Arab countries, as well as Turkey and Iran,
> Other states made concessions to political Islam. They             have promulgated formal, written constitutions. As they and
> revived, for example, the principle of consultation (shura),          other Muslim nations have learned, however, a constitutional
> which in reference to Quran passages 3:159 and 42:38                 document does not always reflect or ensure constitutionalism,
> provides some kind of participation. Even Saudi Arabia has            just as constitutionalism does not always require a written
> had a shura council since 1993; every four years its 120              constitution. Constitutionalism is the idea that political order
> members are appointed by the king. If broadly applied (as in          ought to be subject to a higher authority beyond the arbitrary
> Jordan), this principle of consultation can be helpful in             human will expressed through an autocrat, a minority faction,
> achieving political participation and pluralization.                  or a democratic mob. Although constitutionalism is commonly identified with liberal democracy, any regime that
> The Islamic Republic of Iran (1979) is an interesting case.       provides for limited and accountable government, adherence
> Although an Islamic state, governed by the principle of               to the rule of law, and the protection of fundamental rights to
> velayat-e faqih (i.e., the absolute authority of the religious        all its citizens may be said to be constitutionalist. Defined in
> jurist), it has republican structures—a constitution, a parlia-       this way, constitutionalism has had a troubled history in the
> ment, and elections. Since 1997 the results of the elections,         countries of the Middle East, and no country has to date fully
> though still controlled, show a great demand for democracy,           implemented constitutionalist principles.
> especially among women and young voters.
> The earliest constitutionalist experiments in Arab states
> With the deaths of three veteran rulers in 1999 (the kings         occurred in Tunisia and Egypt. In 1857, under pressure from
> of Jordan and Morocco, and the emir of Bahrain) and of                European governments, Muhammad Bey issued the Ahd al-
> Syria’s Hafiz al-Asad in 2000, a new generation of Arab                Aman, or Fundamental Pact, under which all residents of
> leaders gained power, and more such changes will follow.              Tunisia were granted equal rights of security, legal redress,
> These new rulers were partly educated in the West, and the            and employment. In 1861, Tunisia promulgated the first
> aspirations for more democracy under their governance are             constitution in the Muslim world, under which the legislative
> high. They will probably not change the political systems             and judicial powers of the bey and his ministers were limited
> completely, but they are taking steps to open their countries,        by the establishment of a Grand Assembly. The assembly
> economically and otherwise. Shaykh Hamad bin Khalifa al-              consisted of sixty members, appointed by the bey for five-year
> Thani, who came to power in 1995, not only decreed that               terms, and all drawn from the country’s elite. The constitu-
> Qatar was to become a democracy, but also abolished censor-           tional experiment lasted but three years, collapsing in 1864 in
> ship and launched al-Jazeera, the freest television channel in        the wake of popular demonstrations in the provinces.
> the Arab world. As one of its moderators put it, “the main
> obstacle to progress in the Middle East is the lack of free               Constitutional reforms would not resume until 1955, as
> media. In our society, the rubbish has been swept under the           the French protectorate over Tunisia was nearing an end.
> carpet far too long.”                                                 The constitution promulgated in June 1959 declared Tunisia
> a republic, with executive power vested in a president and
> See also Ataturk, Mustafa Kemal; Modernization, Politi-               legislative power in a National Assembly, both elected by
> cal: Administrative, Military, and Judicial Reform;                   universal suffrage. The judiciary was declared to be indepen-
> Modernization, Political: Constitutionalism; Political                dent. The constitution was significantly amended in 1988 to
> Islam; Qadhafi, Mu
ammar al-; Reform: Arab Middle                      strengthen executive control over the legislature, and to
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                       463
> Modernization, Political
> 
> specify that the prime minister succeeds the president in case
> of death or disability.
> 
> Egyptian constitutionalism gained ground during the reign
> of the Khedive Isma
il, fueled mainly by the notables’ growing concern with Egyptian indebtedness to European powers. In 1866, Isma
il agreed to create the Consultative Assembly
> of Deputies, comprised of Egyptian notables, and in 1878 he
> formed the Council of Ministers, to which he transferred a
> great deal of executive authority. In 1882, when Isma
il’s
> successor, Tawfiq, attempted to reverse his predecessor’s
> concessions, the Assembly of Deputies pressured the khedive
> to approve their draft constitution. Under this document, the
> Assembly was to be an elective body whose members served
> five-year terms. Both it and the Council of Ministers could
> initiate legislation, subject to the final approval of the khedive.
> Most importantly, the prime minister could be summoned
> and questioned by the Assembly, and if a conflict arose
> between the two, the Assembly’s will was to prevail.
> 
> The 1882 constitution was never fully implemented, and
> when the British occupied Egypt the same year, it was
> suspended. Shortly after independence, Egypt promulgated a
> new constitution in April 1923, which established the supremacy of the king over the cabinet and the parliament.
> Following the Free Officers’ overthrow of the monarchy in
> 1952, a new constitutional charter was enacted in January            Abd al-Hamid II (1842–1918) was the Ottoman sultan from 1876
> to 1909. He was responsible for building schools, roads, railroad
> 1956 that declared Egypt a republic, with most powers vested
> lines, and other public works during a time of Ottoman decline.
> in the president. A new constitution was drafted in 1971, soon       Though he accepted the first constitution in 1876, he suspended
> after Anwar Sadat’s assumption of the presidency. This docu-         it from 1878 until 1908 and enforced his autocratic rule through
> ment retains a strong presidency but adds provisions for an          secret police. The Armenian massacres of 1894–1896 were
> perpetrated during his reign. THE ART ARCHIVE/TOPKAPI MUSEUM
> expanded role for the judiciary, including the creation of a
> ISTANBUL/DAGLI ORTI
> Supreme Constitutional Court. The courts’ powers have
> effectively been curtailed, however, by the invocation of
> Emergency Laws by Hosni Mubarak, ostensibly to combat
> mandate, the 1943 National Covenant established a
> terrorism within the country.
> consociational democracy. Seats in the Chamber of Deputies
> Iraq’s constitution was drafted and promulgated in 1925,         were divided according to a 6:5 formula, giving the Christian
> while the country was still under a British mandate. It created      population a permanent majority in the legislature over the
> a constitutional monarchy, with a strong king and a bicameral        Muslims. The president had to be a Maronite Christian, the
> legislature. Once the British mandate ended, the king’s au-          prime minister a Sunni Muslim, and the speaker of the
> thority over the cabinet was enhanced through constitutional         parliament a Shi
ite Muslim. This “elite cartel” continued to
> amendments in 1943. The July 1958 revolution that ended              function until the outbreak of the civil war in 1975. Under the
> monarchical rule effectively ended constitutionalism as well.        Ta
if Agreement of 1989 that ended the civil war, the sectar-
> From 1958 to 2003, the country was run by the Revolutionary          ian apportionment of high offices was retained, but the
> Command Council (RCC). The RCC’s authoritarian rule                  Christian-Muslim allocation of seats in the legislature was
> was formalized in the 1970 “interim” constitution adopted by         brought to parity and the powers of the prime minister
> the Ba
thists, which continued in place until it officially           relative to those of the president were substantially increased.
> became Iraq’s constitution in 1990. Amendments in 1995
> made the election of the president subject to national plebi-           All of the extant Arab monarchies, including Morocco,
> scite, but in effect bolstered the authoritarian rule of Saddam      Jordan, Kuwait, and the other emirates of the Persian Gulf,
> Husayn by eliminating the RCC’s ability to dismiss the               have adopted constitutional instruments that make token
> president.                                                           attempts at creating popularly elected legislatures, but which
> retain effective powers in the hands of the monarch. Kuwait is
> The Lebanese constitution is among the most intriguing           a notable, but qualified, exception; the emir has battled
> of all the Arab republics. Given the deep sectarian cleavages        parliaments demanding a greater role since the 1960s. The
> in the Greater Lebanon that was created under the French             parliament’s authority was enhanced following the liberation
> 
> 464                                                                                              Islam and the Muslim World
> Modernization, Political
> 
> of Kuwait from Iraqi control in 1991. As for Saudi Arabia, no      alleviate the fundamental tension built into the 1979 constireal constitutional document was enacted until 1992, when          tution, namely, the rivalry between two executive authorities,
> the Basic Laws codified the complete dominance of the Saudi         the president and the supreme religious guide.
> ruling house in the country’s administration. The king appoints the Consultative Council and heads the Council of           See also Majlis; Modernization, Political: Administra-
> Ministers.                                                         tive, Military, and Judicial Reform.
> 
> Turkey’s experience with constitutionalism began with           BIBLIOGRAPHY
> the Ottoman constitution of 1876, which formalized the             Arjomand, Saïd Amir. “Constitutions and the Struggle for
> central place of the sultan in the government of the empire,          Political Order: A Study in the Modernization of Politibut created a bicameral parliament to share the sultan’s              cal Traditions.” Archives Européennes de Sociologie 33
> legislative functions. Sultan 
Abd al-Hamid II suspended this         (1992): 39–82.
> constitution within months of its enactment. It was revived,       Brown, Nathan J. Constitutions in a Nonconstitutional World:
> with modifications that enhanced executive powers, follow-             Arab Basic Laws and the Prospects for Accountable Governing the Young Turks revolt in 1908. Turkey’s transformation           ment. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002.
> to a secular republic began with constitutional enactments         Brown, Nathan J. Dustur: A Survey of the Constitutions of the
> passed by the Grand National Assembly following the em-               Arab and Muslim States. Leiden: Brill, 1966.
> pire’s defeat in the First World War. In January 1921, the
> Law of Fundamental Organizations vested legislative author-
> Sohail H. Hashmi
> ity in the Grand National Assembly. Another decree in
> November 1922 abolished the sultanate. Finally, on 20 April
> PARTICIPATION, POLITICAL MOVEMENTS,
> 1924, following the abolition of the Ottoman caliphate, the        AND PARTIES
> constitution of the Turkish republic was announced.                A profound tension has plagued attempts at political modernization and reform in the Middle East. On the one hand,
> By the 1950s, Turkey had evolved firm republican and
> leaders face enormous pressures to democratize. During the
> what seemed to be strengthening democratic institutions,
> 1970s and 1980s, economic crises eroded regime legitimacy,
> going so far as to see the triumph of an opposition party in the
> creating grassroots demands for political rights and civil
> 1950 general elections. Increasing paralysis in the parliament
> liberties. These local pressures coincided with growing intercaused by party differences led to the first military intervennational norms of democracy and human rights, supported by
> tion in 1960. The military seized power again in 1971 and
> the United Nations and nongovernmental organizations.
> 1980, leading to the proclamation of a constitution that
> Accustomed to political control, however, leaders in the
> legitimated the military’s political role in 1982. In 1995, with
> region feared that democracy would unleash hostile political
> Turkey attempting to join the European Union, constitumovements and sweep the ruling elite from power. Pressures
> tional amendments attempted to lessen the political profile of
> for democratization were thus pitted against a desire to
> the military.
> remain in power.
> Iran’s constitutional revolution of 1906 launched that
> country’s attempt at constitutional monarchy. In 1925, the            In the first few decades after World War II, most regimes
> constitution was amended to effectuate the transfer of mo-         in the region were concerned with building new governnarchical authority from the Qajar dynasty to the new Pahlevi      ments, asserting independence from Western countries, and
> dynasty that was founded by the erstwhile minister of war,         securing hegemony over fractious societies. In an effort to
> Reza Khan. The only period during the Pahlevi era when             establish control, a number of leaders asserted populist ideconstitutional practices were even partially implemented was       ologies tied to socialist principles and Arab nationalism,
> from 1941 to 1953, when the young Muhammad Reza Shah               which emphasizes the unity of Arabs irrespective of their
> was not strong enough to exert his will against the Majlis, the    country of residence. Perhaps the most central figure in the
> national parliament. Through the late 1960s and early 1970s,       Arab nationalist camp was Jamal 
Abd al-Nasser (d. 1970) of
> the shah’s rule became increasingly despotic.                      Egypt, who created the Arab Socialist Union in 1962 as a
> vehicle to mobilize the masses. Nasser’s charisma and power-
> In January 1979, the monarchy was overthrown in the            ful leadership inspired movements that threatened regime
> Islamic revolution led by Ayatollah Khomeini. The constitu-        power in other countries. The fusion of Arab nationalism and
> tion of the Islamic Republic of Iran was enacted in December       socialism manifested itself in Syria and Iraq as well. Both
> 1979. Its most notable feature was the implementation of           countries spawned movements rooted in Ba
th ideology,
> direct rule by the Shi
ite religious scholars, chiefly in the       which combines socialism and its emphasis on income
> institution of the vali-ye faqih, or the supreme religious guide   redistribution and nationalization with visions about the
> of the nation. Significant amendments were made in 1989 to          glory of historical Arab unity. Ba
th parties in Syria and Iraq
> allow for a transfer of supreme authority after Khomeini’s         had to contend with strong communist movements but manimpending death. The changes did nothing, however, to              aged to consolidate power and gain control of government.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                   465
> Modernization, Political
> 
> The influence of Arab nationalism waned during the               forged alliances with other parties and successfully won seats
> 1970s and was replaced by the rapid ascendance of Islamic           in parliament (eight seats in the 360-member parliament in
> movements, which became a central force of opposition in            1984 and thirty-six in 1987). Under Hosni Mubarak in the
> the Middle East. The most spectacular Islamic challenge             mid-1990s, however, the regime initiated a crackdown against
> emerged in Iran in the late 1970s. Muhammad Reza Shah               the movement and imprisoned fifty-four of its leading mem-
> Pahlevi’s repression and failed modernization program               bers, including many candidates who ran in the 1995 elecprompted opposition from a wide consortium of social groups,        tions. Activists from more radical Islamic groups, such as the
> which mobilized demonstrations under the leadership of the          Gama
a Islamiyya (Islamic Group) and Islamic Jihad, at-
> Islamic clergy in the late 1970s. The protest movement              tempted to form political parties in the late 1990s, but were
> overthrew the shah, and an Islamic state was established in 1979.   denied permits.
> 
> The Iranian Revolution sent shock waves throughout the               Other regimes fluctuated between inclusionary and exclu-
> Middle East, and regimes became increasingly concerned              sionary responses to democratizing pressures and political
> about the rising power of Islamic movements. Because the            movements. For example, following austerity riots in 1988,
> growth of Islamic activism coincided with external and inter-       the Algerian regime initiated political reforms, including a
> nal pressures for democratization, incumbent elites faced a         number of policies that seemed to support the Islamic moveconundrum—how to release some of the building societal              ment. A variety of Islamic factions reacted by forming the
> pressure for political reform while preventing Islamic move-        Islamic Salvation Front (Front Islamique du Salut, or FIS),
> ments from taking power.                                            which was legally recognized in 1989. In 1990, the FIS won
> stunning victories in municipal and regional races; and al-
> Two responses to this dilemma predominated. First, a            though the regime subsequently repressed the movement,
> number of regimes implemented an inclusionary model of              the FIS still dominated the 1991 parliamentary elections and
> controlled political liberalization. In this strategy, opposition   was poised to control parliament with a comfortable majority.
> movements, including Islamic groups, were allowed to par-           The regime quickly shifted to draconian exclusionary policies
> ticipate in national elections, but the regime retained ultimate    and canceled election results in early 1992, banned the FIS,
> power and executive authority. In 1989, for example, King           and imprisoned Islamic leaders. The repression incited an
> Hussein (d. 1999) of Jordan held elections to the Chamber of        Islamic rebellion that led to more than 150,000 deaths during
> Deputies (the lower house of parliament) for the first time          the 1990s. A similar shift from inclusionary to exclusionary
> since 1966. Although several political movements partici-           strategies can be seen in Turkey, where the Islamic-oriented
> pated, the Islamic movement dominated the campaign and              Welfare Party installed its leader, Necmeddin Erbakan, as
> won thirty-four of the eighty seats, creating the single largest    the prime minister in a coalition government in 1996. While
> bloc in parliament. The movement later joined the govern-           this initially indicated an inclusionary strategy, the military
> ment cabinet during the Persian Gulf War in 1991, formed a          eventually intervened and the coalition collapsed. The Welpolitical party (the Islamic Action Front) in 1993, and sup-        fare Party was subsequently closed and Erbakan was banned
> ported democratic principles (even while boycotting elec-           from politics for life. The Welfare Party and its successor, the
> tions in 1997). The monarch, however, remained the ultimate         Virtue Party, were banned. Yet a third reconstructed Islamic
> authority. A similar response occurred in Kuwait after the          party, Justice and Development, won the largest number of
> Gulf War in 1991. Because of considerable pressure from the         seats in the Turkish parliament and formed a government in
> international community and former Kuwaiti exiles, Shaykh           2002. Such examples point to variation in strategies as leaders
> Jaber al-Ahmed al-Sabah held parliamentary elections in             calculate the risks of political movement participation.
> October 1992, the first since parliament was dissolved in
> 1986. Opposition movements openly contested the elections,          See also Communism; Erbakan, Necmeddin; Ikhwan
> and various Islamic factions won nineteen of the fifty seats in      al-Muslimin; Modernization, Political: Authoritari-
> 1992, seventeen seats in 1996, and twenty in 1999. Despite          anism and Democratization; Nationalism: Arab;
> this participation, the emir retained executive power.              Nationalism: Iranian; Nationalism: Turkish; Pan-Islam;
> Political Islam; Socialism.
> But not all regimes gambled their political survival on the
> incorporation of Islamic groups through parties, elections,         BIBLIOGRAPHY
> and political participation. Instead, they opted for an alterna-    Batatu, Hanna. The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary
> tive exclusionary model. In this response, regimes enacted             Movements of Iraq. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
> limited political liberalization measures and elections, but           Press, 1978.
> Islamic groups and other powerful political movements were          Langhor, Vickie. “Of Islamists and Ballot Boxes: Rethinking
> excluded and repressed. This was the strategy in Egypt.               the Relationship between Islamisms and Electoral Poli-
> Although the mainstream Muslim Brotherhood movement                   tics.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 33, no. 4
> had long been prevented from forming a political party, it            (2001): 591–610.
> 
> 466                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Modern Thought
> 
> Norton, Augustus Richard. “The Challenge of Inclusion in             into the global economy. While some guilds were able to
> the Middle East.” Current History 94 (1995): 1–6.                  survive in their traditional forms, many peasants were forced
> from their lands and deposited in the modern capitalist
> Quintan Wiktorowicz        workforce. Fortunes accumulated in the hands of Muslim
> industrialists, such as the Azerbaijani businessmen who collaborated and competed with European investors in the
> Islamic world’s first oil boom, in the 1870s in Baku.
> MODERN THOUGHT
> These modern institutions sponsored, sometimes unin-
> A complex of ideologies that emerged unevenly in the ninetentionally, the creation of the new class of intellectuals
> teenth and twentieth centuries—including revivalism, raassociated with modern Islamic thought. Muhammad 
Ali of
> tionalism, empiricism, pluralism, constitutionalism, and
> Egypt, for example, sent students to study in France; the
> egalitarianism—drawing heavily on European inspirations
> religious guide appointed for the group, Rifa
a Rafi
 aland seeking to anchor itself in Islamic precedent.
> Tahtawi (Egypt, 1801–1873), returned after five years to
> Origins                                                              write an influential book extolling the virtues of French
> Modern Islamic thought emerged during the period of Euro-            technology, society, and politics. State-run secular schools in
> pean colonial expansion. Beginning in the eighteenth cen-            the Ottoman Empire and elsewhere generated moderntury, and accelerating in the nineteenth century, the Islamic        oriented graduates such as Ali Suavi (Turkey, 1839–1878),
> world began to bear the brunt of this expansion. The Otto-           who incorporated Western concepts such as “democracy”
> man Empire and the Qajar dynasty in Iran lost territory and          and “constitutionalism” into the Islamic lexicon. Industrialwere forced to sign humiliating treaties of “capitulation” that      ists in Baku and throughout the Islamic world funded modern
> granted extraterritorial and monopoly rights to Europeans.           schools, newspapers, and cultural institutions that provided
> Other Islamic lands, from West Africa to Southeast Asia,             cadres, jobs, and audiences for the new breed of intellectuals.
> were colonized outright. By the early twentieth century,
> virtually the entire Islamic world was in the grip of Europe.            Yet modernist thinkers, for all their novelty, also considered themselves to be authentic representatives of Islamic
> Europe’s self-understanding at this time, notwithstanding         heritage. Modern Islamic thought appealed to aspects of this
> variations and contradictions, involved the ideology of mo-          heritage that it viewed retroactively as precursors to moderdernity. Indeed, this ideology had developed in part as an           nity. In particular, modern movements framed their ideals as
> attempt to distance Christians from Muslims: Early modern            the recovery of the lost piety and glory of the early years
> political theorists contrasted the emerging constitutionalism        of Islam.
> in Europe with the “Oriental despotism” of the Islamic
> world; Enlightenment thinkers contrasted European religiosity        Revivalism
> with Muslim “fanaticism”; Orientalist scholars contrasted            The theme of revival—also termed renewal, rebirth, and
> European science with Muslim “irrationality.”                        reform—permeates much of modern Islamic thought. “There
> is no doubt that in the present age distress, misfortunate, and
> In response to the threat posed by Europe, many Muslims
> weakness besiege all classes of Muslims from every side,”
> sought to adopt aspects of modernity, to make modernity
> wrote Sayyid Jamal al-Din al-Afghani (Iran, 1838–1897),
> serve their interests rather than the interests of the colonizers.
> perhaps the most influential activist of the modernist Islamic
> This process was not specific to the Islamic world—in Europe
> movement.The Islamic world awaits a “sage and renewer” to
> and elsewhere, interstate competition also spurred the development of modern institutions. The first institutions to              “reform the minds and souls of the Muslims, repel the
> be modernized were the militaries, whose reorganization,             unforeseen corruption, and again educate them with a virtureoutfitting, and retraining—along European lines, often              ous education. Perhaps through that good education they
> with European instructors—were ordered by rulers such as             may return to their former joyful condition” (pp. 123–129).
> Muhammad 
Ali of Egypt (r.1805–1849), Mahmud II of the               This joyful condition existed in the early years of Islam,
> Ottoman Empire (r.1808–1839), and Ahmad Bey of Tunisia               before “complete intellectual confusion beset the Muslims,”
> (r.1837–1855). A second wave of modernization involved the           according to Muhammad 
Abduh (Egypt, 1849–1905), the
> bureaucratization of other state institutions under reformist        most prominent student and collaborator of al-Afghani’s.
> ministers such as Amir Kabir in Iran (1848–1851), Midhat             Confusion can only be cured by returning to “the essential
> Pasha in the Ottoman Empire (1860s–1870s), Khayr al-Din              nature” of Islam, as “interpreted according to the underin Tunisia (1873–1877), and Abu Bakar of Johore in Malaya            standing of those among whom it was sent down [from
> (1862–1895). Some of these reformers did not last long in            heaven] and to the way they put it into practice” (pp. 39,
> office, but their project of state-building continued after their     153–154) “Truly, we are in a dire need for renewal and
> departure. A further wave of modernization involved eco-             renewers,” wrote Rashid Rida (Syria-Egypt, 1865–1935),
> nomic institutions, which were transformed by their entry            
Abduh’s most prominent student and collaborator, citing the
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                     467
> Modern Thought
> 
> saying of the Prophet, “God sends to this nation at the           can be drawn between Islamic ideologies that approach mobeginning of every century someone who renews its religion”       dernity as a means toward revivalism, and those that approach
> (Kurzman et al., p. 78).                                          revivalism as a means toward modernity.
> 
> The most important precedent for the earliest modern         Rationalism
> renewers was Ibn Taymiyya (Syria, 1263–1328), who along           Debates within modern Islamic thought take place on the
> with his student Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyya (Syria, 1292–1350)     ground of rationalism. Even thinkers who disagree with one
> railed against the corrupt practices of Muslims of their era.     another share the underlying premise that educated, in-
> While these figures remain important for modern revivalism,        formed Muslims should devise reasoned justifications for
> they have been eclipsed somewhat by the example of Muham-         their positions, and may the best argument win. This premise
> mad Ibn 
Abd al-Wahhab (Arabia, 1703–1787), the religious         differs from premodern limits on rationality (as opposed to
> leader of a movement to purify Muslim practices—demolish-         faith), suspicion of novelty (vulnerable to accusations of
> ing shrines, for example, which they took to represent false      heresy), and reliance on authority (particularly the genealogy
> idols. Other Islamic movements of purification and renewal         of one’s spiritual teacher). The distinction is not absolute:
> emerged about the same time in West Africa, South Asia,           Certainly novel arguments were developed in premodern
> Southeast Asia, and China. Hostile observers often label          times, and some modern thought denies that it does anything
> revivalists “Wahhabis” to emphasize their premodern roots,        more than revive the insights of its predecessors. But in
> while contemporary followers of such movements generally          general, the distinction holds, demarcated symbolically by
> identify themselves as Muwahiddun (Unitarians, or believers       the concept of ijtihad.
> in divine unity) or Salafiyyun (imitators of the ancestors, that
> The concept of ijtihad, derived from an Arabic root
> is, the early generations of Muslims).
> meaning “effort” or “struggle,” was for centuries limited to a
> fairly technical meaning, referring to the intellectual effort of
> Yet modern revivalism differs significantly from its
> trained Islamic scholars to arrive at legal rulings on matters
> premodern predecessors. It emerged most often in regions
> not covered in the sacred sources. The modernist Islamic
> that are highly modernized, including the Muslim diaspora in
> movement of the nineteenth century adopted the term as a
> western Europe and North America. Its leaders frequently
> rallying cry, transforming its meaning into the more general
> have modern educations—for example, Hasan al-Banna (Egypt,
> task of “rational interpretation” that they held to be incum-
> 1906–1949), the most prominent follower of Rida and founder
> bent upon all educated Muslims. The opposite of ijtihad, in
> of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, was trained as an
> this view, was taqlid, literally “following,” which modernists
> educator, as was Sayyid Qutb (Egypt, 1902–1966), the Mustook to mean “blind obedience to authority.” Al-Afghani, for
> lim Brotherhood’s most influential theoretician of radical
> example, urged Muslims to “shun submission to conjectures
> revival. Usama bin Ladin (Saudi Arabia, born 1957), the most
> and not be content with mere taqlid of their ancestors. For if
> notorious revivalist of the present time, was trained in civil
> man believes in things without proof or reason, makes a
> engineering. Al-Afghani and Abu l-A
la Maududi (Indiapractice of following unproven opinions, and is satisfied to
> Pakistan, 1903–1979), the leading South Asian revivalist of       imitate and follow his ancestors, his mind inevitably desists
> the twentieth century, had seminary training but hid their        from intellectual movement, and little by little stupidity and
> traditional backgrounds, not wishing to be identified with         imbecility overcome him—until his mind becomes comsuch institutions (in al-Afghani’s case, because he attended      pletely idle and he becomes unable to perceive his own good
> Shi
a seminaries and later passed as a Sunni). In addition,       and evil; and adversity and misfortune overtake him from all
> modern revivalism presented itself as an ideology, compara-       sides” (p. 171). 
Abduh sought “to liberate thought from the
> ble to other ideologies in the modern world (though prefer-       shackles of taqlid to return, in the acquisition of religious
> able to them, according to its supporters). Revivalist slogans    knowledge, to its first sources, and to weigh them in the scales
> like “Neither East (that is, communism) nor West” and             of human reason, which God has created in order to prevent
> “Islam is the solution” placed Islamic revival within the field    excess or adulteration in religion” (Hourani, 140–141). Sayyid
> of global ideological debates, in a way that premodern reviv-     Ahmad Khan (India, 1817–1898), the chief organizer of the
> alism did not. Finally, many revivalists also adopted other       modernist Islamic movement in South Asia in the nineteenth
> strands of modern thought, such as the ones discussed in the      century, argued that Islam is “in full correspondence with
> following sections.                                               reason” (Troll, 257).
> 
> In the first generations of modern Islamic thought, reviv-         Modernists cited premodern precedents for this view.
> alism and these other strands were seamlessly woven to-           Ahmad Khan, for example, praised the broadened use of
> gether. By the 1930s, however, the seams had begun to             ijtihad by Shah Wali Allah (India, 1703–1762). Muhammad
> show. Revivalism remains central in modern Islamic thought,       Iqbal (India, 1877–1938), the great poet and philosopher,
> but some revivalists downplay modern ideals, while some           relied on Shah Wali Allah, Muhammad b. 
Ali al-Shawkani
> modernists downplay revivalist ideals. Today a distinction        (Yemen, circa 1760–1839), and other, older theorists of
> 
> 468                                                                                           Islam and the Muslim World
> Modern Thought
> 
> ijtihad. Fazlur Rahman (Pakistan-United States, 1919–1988),       Empire to encourage the teaching of empirical subjects:
> the most prominent Islamic modernist of late twentieth            natural sciences, particularly physics and chemistry; human
> century South Asia, cited a long-standing legacy running          sciences, particularly history and geography; and language
> through Wali Allah and Iqbal. Many modernists trace ration-       arts, particularly literacy in Arabic and local languages. By the
> alism back to a saying of the prophet Muhammad: When              time the Russian Empire collapsed in 1917, there were
> Muhammad appointed Mu
adh b. Jabal as ruler of Yemen, he          hundreds of such schools, only to be destroyed through
> asked Mu
adh how he planned to make decisions. “I will            the economic disasters, political purges, and civil conflicts
> judge matters according to the Book of God,” said Mu
adh.         of the early Soviet era. In other regions, however, similar
> “But if the Book of God contains nothing to guide you?”           school reform movements survived. Ahmad Khan’s Anglo-
> Muhammad asked. “Then I will act on the precedents of the         Muhammadan College in Aligarh, India, was one of several
> Prophet of God.” “But if the precedents fail?” “Then I will       new institutions that trained generations of modernist Musexercise my own ijtihad.” Muhammad praised Mu
adh for his         lims in South Asia. The Muhammadiyya movement in Southresponse.                                                         east Asia established a network of new schools that exist to
> this day. Postcolonial states throughout the Islamic world
> Modern Islamic rationalism universalized such prece-          have frequently required traditional schools to introduce
> dents. Whereas premodern thought had generally limited the        scientific subjects, while also incorporating religious educause of ijtihad to qualified scholars, modernists consider all      tion as a subject in the new state-run educational systems.
> Muslims—or, in some theories, all educated Muslims—to be          Empiricism has become widely entrenched both as a worldview
> capable of rational interpretation. Modern thinkers nonethe-      and as a pedagogy.
> less differ as to the matters to which rationalism may legitimately be applied, with some exempting matters whose                  The Islamic justification for empiricism cites both scriptreatment in the Quran and the precedent of the prophet          tural and historical grounds, as well as the pragmatic grounds
> Muhammad they consider to be unambiguous. Other think-            of progress and survival. Modernists describe in glowing
> ers, such as 
Abd al-Karim Sorush (Iran, b. 1945), hold that      terms the scientific advances of the early centuries of Islam,
> even seemingly unambiguous revelation is subject to human—        including such figures as Abu Ja
far al-Khwarazmi (Baghdad,
> and thus variable and fallible—interpretation, and therefore      c. 800–847), who invented algebra; Ulugh Beg (Central Asia,
> that rational analysis is required on all matters.                1394–1449), whose astronomical observations were used
> throughout the world for centuries; and Ibn Khaldun (Tuni-
> Empiricism                                                        sia, 1332–1406), widely considered a precursor to modern
> In modern Islamic thought, rationalism is not limited to          historiography and social science. The relative lack of compatextual exegesis, but operates also on the empirical world.       rable paragons in later years poses the central problem for
> Scientific observation is required of Muslims, in this view,       modern Islamic empiricism. Modernists have also collected
> both for its own sake and for the benefits it can bestow upon      numerous verses of the Quran and sayings of Muhammad in
> the welfare of the Islamic world. Isma
il Bey Gasprinskii         support of empirical study, including the saying, “Seek knowl-
> (Crimea, 1851–1914), one of the founders of modern Islamic        edge, even though it be in China.” Indeed, one strand of
> thought in the Russian Empire, considered science to be           Islamic empiricism argues that all significant scientific discrucial to the survival of Islam, which had fallen hundreds of    coveries were prefigured in the Quran—not only is scientific
> years behind Europe, he argued, because of its failure to         knowledge fully consistent with Islam, in this view, but Islam
> keep up with Western scientific advances. Rizaeddin bin            had it first.
> Fakhreddin (Ar. Rida al-din bin Fakr al-din) (Tatarstan,
> 1858–1936), one of the chief seminary-trained collaborators       Egalitarianism
> of the Russian-educated Gasprinskii, likened the sciences in      Empirical claims, according to modern Islamic thought, are
> the Islamic world to “a factory standing idle,” and argued that   to be judged by their content, not by the social position of the
> “it is futile to resist machines and struggle against nature”     speaker. In the words of 
Abd al-Qadir al-Jazairi (Algeria-
> (Kurzman, 239). Abdalrauf Fitrat (Ar. 
Abad al-Ra
uf Fitrat)      Syria, c. 1807–1883), an anticolonial military leader who
> (Bukhara-Soviet Union, 1886–1938), who helped to bring            turned to a modernist form of Sufism during his decades of
> Ottoman and Tatar modernism to Central Asia, urged Mus-           retirement: “People should be measured according to the
> lim schools to abandon “the nonsense of studying obscure          truth, not the truth according to [the reputation of] people”
> points of Arabic grammar” in favor of “the new sciences,          (Kurzman, 135).
> which produce rapid results and great benefits, [and which]
> the Christians possessed to make them victorious over you”           Other modernists extended this egalitarian sentiment to
> (Kurzman, 245).                                                   many arenas of social life, for example, ethnicity. 
Abd al-
> Rahman al-Kawakibi (Syria, 1854–1902) and others criti-
> These figures and their colleagues were instrumental in         cized Ottoman Turkish discrimination against Arabs in govreforming and founding Islamic schools—known as “New              ernmental and social affairs; Syeikh Ahmad Surkati (Sudan-
> Method” (Usul-e Jadid) schools—throughout the Russian             Java, 1872–1943) and others objected to Arab discrimination
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                    469
> Modern Thought
> 
> against Southeast Asians; Chandra Muzaffar (Malaysia, b.          counter-movement set in, with leftist sentiments ceding to
> 1947) and others protested against Southeast Asians’ dis-         dreams of individual and national capital accumulation.
> crimination against non-Muslim communities in the region,
> such as the Chinese. In these and similar cases, egalitarianism   Constitutionalism
> sought to replace traditional forms of hierarchy with a new       A special case of egalitarianism involves political rights, civil
> form of community, sometimes defined in religious terms            liberties, and the rule of law, all of which were bundled in the
> (the umma, or Islamic community as a whole), but more             movement for constitutional government—mashrutiyat, a
> frequently in national terms. Arab, Southeast Asian, and          nineteenth-century neologism derived from the Arabic root
> other nationalisms cast individuals as citizens with equal        shart (conditionality) and the French term charte (constiturights and responsibilities.                                      tion). Namik Kemal (Ottoman Turkey, 1840–1888), one of
> the leading activists in the constitutionalist movement of the
> One of the most contentious aspects of egalitarianism         1860s and 1870s, quoted Quranic injunction such as, “And
> involved the extension of this ideology to gender. At the turn    seek their council in the matter” (3:159), and concluded that
> of the twentieth century, feminists—both male and female—         “the salvation of the state today is dependent upon the
> began to argue that patriarchal practices offended Islamic        adoption of the method of consultation” (Kurzman, 140). 
Ali
> faith. Qasim Amin (Egypt, 1863–1908), the Islamic world’s         
Abd al-Raziq (Egypt, 1888–1966), a scholar at al-Azhar
> most famous male feminist, argued that Islamic law originally     University in Cairo, took another tack, arguing that the
> treated men and women equally, with the exception of polygsacred sources do not require democratic government, but
> amy, granting women rights still not achieved by many
> rather permit it. The Quran and the precedent of the
> Western women. Halide Edib Adivar (Turkey, 1882–1964),
> Prophet leave the form of government to human devising,
> arguably the Islamic world’s most famous female feminist,
> “for the trusteeship of Muhammad, peace be upon him, over
> argued the reverse, suggesting that Islamic family law was
> the believers is the trusteeship of the Message, untainted by
> inherently anti-egalitarian on gender matters and had to be
> anything that has to do with government” (Kurzman, 36).
> replaced with Western laws. The debate between these posi-
> These novel arguments for constitutionalism were controtions continues, with men and women on both sides of the
> versial in their day. Namik Kemal served on the Council of
> fence. However, feminists have won near unanimity on sev-
> State that prepared the short-lived Ottoman constitution of
> eral crucial points: that women have historically been op-
> 1876, but suffered banishments before and after that time.
> pressed by men; that this oppression has often been defended
> 
Abd al-Raziq was fired from al-Azhar for his controverwith misguided interpretations of Islam; that such justifications must be countered, either by the reform or removal of       sial views.
> traditional laws and practices; and that women deserve, at the
> Yet constitutionalism gradually became the norm in Islamic
> very least, equal access to education.
> lands. Egypt promulgated a constitutionalist document in
> Another controversial extension of egalitarianism involves    1860, and a fuller constitution in 1882; Tunisia briefly in
> economic rights, especially those associated with the socialist   1861 and then, after the colonial interlude, in 1959; Iran
> movements that emerged in the Islamic world in the early          briefly in 1906, then again in 1909; and so on. Upon
> twentieth century. In the Dutch East Indies—later Indonesia—      decolonization, almost all countries in the Islamic world drew
> the Islamic Union Party combined nationalist goals with           up constitutions, the last one to do so being Saudi Arabia,
> redistributive ones, using an Islamic discourse of zakat, or      whose monarch announced a Basic Law modeled on Western
> tithing. To the left of this movement was an Islamic Commu-       constitutions in 1992. Some of these documents, including
> nist Party, which criticized the Islamic Union Party and          Saudi Arabia’s, provide far fewer rights and limits on state
> others on Islamic grounds, as in the comments of Hadji            power than is common in Western constitutions of the same
> Mohammad Misbach (Java, circa 1876–1940): “To be sure,            period. But it is indicative of the spread of modern thought
> they perform the precepts of the religion of Islam, but they      that even traditional monarchs have felt the need to draw up a
> pick and choose those precepts that suit their desire. Those      codified statement of rights and obligations. At the same
> that do not suit them they throw away. Put bluntly, they          time, states in the Islamic world often disregard the constituoppose or defy the commands of God—and rather fear and            tions that are nominally in force. Many such regimes are
> love the will of Satan—that Satan whose evil influence is          secular in orientation, not Islamic, but a correlation persists
> apparent in this present age in [the system of] Capitalism”       between Muslim population and low levels of democracy.
> (Shiraishi, 285). Socialist thought, drawing on Islamic and
> non-Islamic discourses, was embedded in the independence              In the face of ongoing repression, even some radical
> movement in Indonesia, as in Pakistan and several others          Islamic movements have adopted the discourse of
> around the Islamic world. In parts of the Middle East, Islamic    constitutionalism. In Turkey, the Welfare Party—banned
> socialism became particularly popular in the 1960s, express-      and reconstituted under several different names—portrayed
> ing itself in both pro-Soviet and nonaligned manifestations.      itself as an “Islamic-Democrat” movement analogous to the
> Soon thereafter—in the Islamic world as in the West—a             Christian-Democrat parties in several western European
> 
> 470                                                                                           Islam and the Muslim World
> Modern Thought
> 
> countries. In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood began to mobi-         Africa, b. 1959) cited the words of 
Ali b. Abi Talib, Muhamlize on behalf of civil liberties in the 1980s, as did the         mad’s son-in-law and fourth successor: “this is the Quran,
> Islamic Salvation Front in Algeria, the Renaissance move-          written in straight lines, between two boards [of its binding];
> ment in Tunisia, and the Justice and Charity movement in           it does not speak with a tongue; it needs interpreters and
> Morocco. Uncharitable observers have expressed skepticism          interpreters are people.” Esack translates this into contempoabout the sincerity of this discourse, but these movements         rary terms: “Every interpreter enters the process of interprehave generated a substantial written record elaborating their      tation with some preunderstanding of the questions addressed
> constitutionalist ideologies in Islamic terms. These writings      by the text—even of its silences—and brings with him or her
> brought the radicals closer in some ways to Islamic liberalism.    certain conceptions as presuppositions of his or her exegesis”
> (p. 50). Leading pluralists have suffered threats and worse, as
> Pluralism                                                          their arguments pose a challenge to other modern trends in
> Alongside political pluralism stands religious pluralism, the      Islamic thought that believe a single correct interpretation of
> notion that multiple interpretations of the sacred are possible    Islam is achievable and ought to be enforced.
> and legitimate. In the last quarter of the twentieth century,
> proponents of this approach emerged around the Islamic             Conclusion
> world. Among the most influential is the philosopher 
Abd al-       The contrast between pluralists and revivalists reminds one
> Karim Sorush (Iran, born 1945): “Religion is divine, but its       that modern thought is frequently self-contradictory.
> interpretation is thoroughly human and this-worldly,” Soroush      Constitutionalism is consistent with both authoritarianism
> wrote. “The text does not stand alone, it does not carry its       and democracy. Empiricism breeds competing analyses. Socialown meaning on its shoulders, it needs to be situated in a         ism and capitalism are both modern phenomena, as are “third
> context, it is theory-laden, its interpretation is in flux, and     way” ideologies. Indeed, the label modern is sometimes used
> presuppositions are as actively at work here as elsewhere in       so elastically that virtually all ideas expressed in the past two
> the field of understanding. Religious texts are no exception”       centuries fall under this rubric. Other definitions, such as the
> (Kurzman, 245). Similarly, the philosopher Hassan Hanafi            one presented here, are more restrictive. Others leave the
> (Egypt, b. 1935) argued, “There is no one interpretation of a      definition open, considering an idea as modern only if its
> text, but there are many interpretations given the difference      authors consider it so.
> in understanding between different interpreters. An interpretation of a text is essentially pluralistic. The text is only a        Similar definitional dilemmas are associated with the term
> vehicle for human interests and even passions” (Kurzman,           Islamic. Some of the writings quoted in this piece are not
> 26). Fazlur Rahman, cited above, suggested that “To insist on      considered Islamic by other Muslims, even if their authors
> absolute uniformity of interpretation is neither possible nor      consider them so. A further body of thought is self-consciously
> desirable” (144). Amina Wadud-Muhsin (United States, b.            non-Islamic, though its authors are Muslims.
> 1952) wrote that “when one individual reader with a particular world-view and specific prior text [the language and               At stake in these definitional disputes is the frame of
> cultural context in which the text is read] asserts that his or    reference for any given analysis. Calling something “modher reading is the only possible or permissible one, it prevents   ern” associates it with the entire package of modern institureaders in different contexts from coming to terms with their      tions, an association that some Muslims desire and others
> own relationship to the text” (Kurzman, 130). 
Abdullahi An-       abhor. Calling something “Islamic” associates it with the
> Na
im (Sudan, b. 1946) wrote that “there is no such thing as       divine revelation and generations of followers of Islam, an
> the only possible or valid understanding of the Quran, or         association that some Muslims would like to monopolize.
> conception of Islam, since each is informed by the individual      Bringing the two terms together, as in “modern Islamic
> and collective orientation of Muslims.” (An-Na
im, 233).           thought,” suggests that the two frames overlap, and that
> Few if any of these authors had read one another’s work;           Muslims have contributed to the construction of modernity.
> pluralism sprouted independently in multiple locations.
> See also 
Abd al-Karim Sorush; Afghani, Jamal al-Din;
> Some writers consider the millennium of coexistence of          Ahmad Khan, (Sir) Sayyid; Capitalism; Communism;
> multiple schools of thought in Islamic jurisprudence to be         Feminism; Gender; Iqbal, Muhammad; Liberalism,
> precedent for contemporary pluralism. Others go back fur-          Islamic; Modernism; Pluralism: Legal and Ethnother, to the earliest years of Islam. Mohamed Talbi (Tunisia,      Religious; Pluralism: Political; Qutb, Sayyid; Rahman,
> born 1921) quoted Sura 5, Verse 51 of the Quran: “To each         Fazlur; Science, Islam and; Secularization; Shari
ati,
> among you, have We prescribed a Law and an Open Way.               
Ali; Wali Allah, Shah.
> And if God had enforced His Will, He would have made of
> you all one people.” Muhammad Asad (Austria-Pakistan,              BIBLIOGRAPHY
> 1900–1992) quoted the saying of the prophet Muhammad,              
Abduh, Muhammad. The Theology of Unity (Risalat al-tawhid).
> “The differences of opinion among the learned within my               Translated by Ishaq Masaad and Kenneth Cragg. Loncommunity are [a sign of] God’s grace.” Farid Esack (South            don: Allen & Unwin, 1966.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                     471
> Mojahedin-e Khalq
> 
> Afghani, Sayyid Jamal ad-Din al-. An Islamic Response to
> Imperialism: Political and Religious Writings of Sayyid Jamal   MOJAHEDIN-E KHALQ
> ad-Din al-Afghani. Translated by Nikki R. Keddie. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968.                      Mojahedin-e Khalq (Ar. Mujahidin; The People’s Warriors)
> is a popular name for the Sazman-e Mojahedin-e Khalq-e
> Ahmad, Aziz. Islamic Modernism in India and Pakistan,
> Iran (Organization of the Iranian People’s Religious Warri-
> 1857–1964. London: Oxford University Press, 1967.
> ors), a group of Shi
ite Islamic-Marxist revolutionaries that
> Ahmed, Leila. Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a     formed in Iran during the 1960s in opposition to the regime
> Modern Debate. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University                 of Muhammad Reza Shah (r. 1953–1979).
> Press, 1992.
> An-Na
im, Abdullahi. “Toward an Islamic Hermeneutics for              The Mojahedin constituted one of several opposition
> Human Rights.” In Human Rights and Religious Values: An          movements, ranging from the Marxist left to the liberal
> Uneasy Relationship? Edited by Abdullahi A. An-Na
im,            center to the religious right, that led popular support against
> Jerald D. Gort, Henry Jansen, and Hendrik M. Vroom.              the transparent authoritarianism of the shah’s regime and its
> Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing              dependency on the United States, particularly after the shah’s
> Company, 1995.                                                   violent repression of demonstrations against his program of
> Azmeh, Aziz al-. Islams and Modernities. 2d ed. London:            economic and social modernization, known as the White
> Verso, 1996.                                                     Revolution, in June 1963. The Mojahedin drew its member-
> Berkes, Niyazi. The Development of Secularism in Turkey. 2d        ship from the urban intelligentsia, mostly middle-class, collegeed. London: Hurst & Co., 1998.                                  educated young men with degrees in engineering. During the
> 1970s, it conducted a guerrilla war against the monarchy, but
> Brown, Daniel W. Rethinking Tradition in Modern Islamic
> gradually declined in the face of internal divisions and exter-
> Thought. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University
> Press, 1996.                                                    nal force. They experienced a resurgence, however, under the
> leadership of Mas
ud Rajavi (b. 1947) after the 1978 and 1979
> Esack, Farid. Qur
an, Liberation, and Pluralism. Oxford, U.K.:
> revolution, when they attacked Ayatollah Khomeini and his
> Oneworld, 1997.
> cadre of Shi
ite mullahs who were consolidating their control
> Esposito, John L., and Voll, John O. Makers of Contemporary        of the country. Nearly ten thousand Mojahedin members
> Islam. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.                 were exterminated by the Khomeini regime between 1981
> Göle, Nilüfer. The Forbidden Modern: Civilization and Veiling.     and 1985. Saddam Husayn allowed surviving members to
> Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996.                   organize an armed Iranian opposition movement in Iraq,
> Hourani, Albert. Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 1798–1939.     which subsequently fell under the control of American occu-
> London: Oxford University Press, 1962.                           pation forces there in April 2003.
> Keddie, Nikki R. Sayyid Jamal ad-Din “al-Afghani”: A Political
> Their ideology is based on a radical reinterpretation of
> Biography. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972.
> traditional Shi
ite concepts in light of Marxist sociology and
> Khalid, Adeeb.The Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform: Jadidism     anticolonial rhetoric. Ervand Abrahamian notes that they
> in Central Asia. Berkeley: University of California              transformed terms like jihad, mujahid, shahid (martyr), tawhid
> Press, 1998.                                                     (monotheism), and umma (community of believers) to mean
> Kurzman, Charles, ed. Liberal Islam: A Source-Book. New            “liberation struggle,” “freedom fighter,” “revolutionary hero,”
> York: Oxford University Press, 1998.                             “egalitarianism,” and “dynamic classless society,” respec-
> Kurzman, Charles, et al., eds. Modernist Islam, circa 1840–1940:   tively (1989, p. 96). They echoed many of the ideas of 
Ali
> A Source-Book. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.          Shari
ati, widely considered the chief ideologue of the Iranian
> Martin, Richard C., and Woodward, Mark R., with Atmaja,            revolution after Khomeini.
> Dwi S. Defenders of Reason in Islam: Mu
tazilism from
> See also Iran, Islamic Republic of; Khomeini, Ruhollah;
> Medieval School to Modern Symbol. Oxford, U.K.:
> Oneworld, 1997.
> Political Islam; Shari
ati, 
Ali.
> 
> Rahman, Fazlur. Islam and Modernity: Transformation of an
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Intellectual Tradition. Chicago: University of Chicago
> Press, 1982.                                                     Abrahamian, Ervand. The Iranian Mojahedin. New Haven,
> Conn.: Yale University Press, 1989.
> Shiraishi, Takashi. An Age in Motion: Popular Radicalism
> in Java, 1912–1926. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University            Keddie, Nikki R., and Monian, Farah. “Militancy and Relig-
> Press, 1990.                                                      ion in Contemporary Iran.” In Fundamentalisms and the
> State: Remaking Polities, Economies, and Militance. Edited by
> Troll, Christian W. Sayyid Ahmad Khan: A Reinterpretation of         Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby. Chicago: Univer-
> Muslim Theology. New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House, 1978.          sity of Chicago Press, 1993.
> 
> Charles Kurzman                                                Juan Eduardo Campo
> 
> 472                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Mollabashi
> 
> scholars, or ulema, who serve various clerical functions. It is
> MOJAHIDIN See Mujahidin                                          used as a generic term for a Muslim cleric. The term akhund is
> a synonym for it in Persian and related languages. Mollas
> receive a religious education as a child in a maktab (Ar. kuttab).
> They study the Quran, hadith (sayings of the prophet Mu-
> MOJTAHED-SHABESTARI,                                             hammad), and basic aspects of belief and practice. At the
> highest level of training mollas receive the equivalent of a
> MOHAMMAD (1937– )
> doctorate in theology from a theological seminary, called a
> Born in 1937, Mohammad Mojtahed-Shabestari attended              madrasa or howzah ilmiyya. Mollas serve a series of social and
> Qom Seminary at the age of fourteen. During his eighteen         religious functions: prayer leader in a mosque, reciter of the
> years of study in Qom, he was influenced by the new philo-        Quran, religious teacher for children or a professor, jurist or
> sophical and theological currents that were gaining popularity   judge, administrator of religious endowments and sites, comamong the younger generation of theologians. Subsequently,       munity leader, politician, scholar of religion, and sometimes
> he expanded his learning to the conventional secular curricu-    as scribes or even bookkeepers. They also preside over
> lum and independently studied contemporary Western phi-          various rituals including marriage contracts, and other religlosophies and languages. In 1970, he moved to Germany            ious rituals. Not all mollas are employed full-time in this
> where he later succeeded Ayatollah Beheshti as the director of   profession. Many of them have other occupations along with
> the Hamburg Islamic Center, a post he held until the 1979        their religious duties. It is not uncommon, especially in the
> Iranian Revolution. After the revolution, he was elected to      past and in rural areas, for the term molla to be applied to a
> the first Islamic Consultative Assembly and is a faculty mem-     cleric with far more limited education, perhaps limited to
> ber of the School of Theology and Islamic Studies at the         some basic knowledge of the Quran and hadith.
> University of Tehran.
> See also Ulema.
> Mojtahed-Shabestari is one of the leading Iranian advocates of the hermeneutic approach to Islamic theology. In his
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> book, Hermenutik, Ketab Va Sunnat (Hermeneutics, the Book
> and Tradition), he advances a theology largely extricated from   Meir, Litvak. Shii Scholars of Nineteenth-Century Iraq: The
> “Ulama” of Najaf and Karbala. New York: Cambridge
> earlier apologetic Islamic modernism. Influenced by the
> University Press, 1998.
> German theologian Paul Tillich and German phenomenology
> of religion, he argues that theological innovations emerge       Momen, Moojan. An Introduction to Shii Islam. New Haven,
> from the religious experiences of each generation of believers     Conn.: Yale University Press, 1985.
> rather than from doctrinal debates. The interpretation of the    Waldbridge, Linda S., ed. The Most Learned of the Shia: The
> divine text is mediated by history, society, body, and lan-        Institution of the Marja Taqlid. New York: Oxford Univerguage. While a hermeneutic approach acknowledges these             sity Press, 2001.
> contingencies, it also endeavors to transcend them. However,
> this transcendence can never be total and, accordingly, truth-                                                   Kamran Aghaie
> claims may never be absolute. Truth belongs to God and
> remains inaccessible to human faculties.
> 
> See also Reform: Iran.
> MOLLABASHI
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> The Mollabashi was the head of the religious institution in
> Farzin Vahdat, “Postrevolutionary Discourses of Moham-           Iran under the late Safavid rule. It is a synthetic title from the
> mad Mojtahed Shabestari and Mohsen Kadivar: Reconcil-
> Arabic word, mawla, meaning “lord,” and the Turkish, bashi,
> ing the Terms of Mediated Subjectivity,” Critique, no. 16
> or “head.” The title of Molla refers to any Muslim scholar
> (Spring 2000): 31–54.
> who has acquired a certain degree of religious education.
> During the last years of the Safavid rule, the Mollabashi was
> Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi
> the head of the religious institution and a leading member of
> the Safavid administration system. In the earlier period of the
> Safavid kings, this title belonged to the most learned scholar
> MOLLA                                                            of the time, who was considered as the Mollabashi.
> 
> Molla comes from the Arabic term mawla, which is most often         The office of Mollabashi was created by the Safavid shah
> used to mean religious leader. The term molla is used prima-     Sultan Hosayn, who ascended the throne as king of Persia in
> rily in Iran and parts of Asia to refer to Muslim religious      1694. He instituted the office during the last years of his
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                    473
> Monarchy
> 
> rule.The Mollabashi was nominated by the king himself and           palaces housing the caliph’s central administration. In the
> held held the post at the king’s will.                              latter part of the ninth century, independent royal dynasties
> were established in Iran and in Egypt and chose to remain
> As the chief of the Mollas, during the royal assembly the       under the suzerainty of the caliphs. In this period, we find the
> Mollabashi had a definite place near the king, closer than that      term sultan first used to refer to a specific person: the caliph’s
> of any other religious scholar.The Mollabashi did not inter-        brother, who was the commander of a special army. This
> fere in any state affairs except for soliciting pensions for        haphazard use of the term to refer to a person became
> religious students and scholars. The Mollabashi also pleaded        systematic when the Buyids (Buwayhids), Shi
ite mercenaries
> to the king directly on behalf of the aggrieved and oppressed,      from the Caspian region, captured Baghdad in the mid-tenth
> and for individuals convicted of crimes.                            century, without, however, overthrowing the Abbasid caliphate.
> The Buyids became the first of a series of secular independent
> After the collapse of the Safavid state and during the reign    rulers to assume the title of sultan. The bifurcation of soverof the Afsharid dynasty, the prerogatives of the Mollabashi         eignty into caliphate and sultanate became permanent, howoffice increased because the Mollabashi was the most power-          ever, and underscored the new autonomy of monarchy from
> ful figure in the court. But by the fall of the Afsharid state and   the caliphate.
> during the reign of the Qajar dynasty, the role of the Mollabashi
> was limited to that of tutor of the royal princes.                      In Iran, where the Buyids ruled independently of the
> caliph, they assumed the pre-Islamic Persian titles of shah
> See also Empires: Safavid and Qajar; Molla; Nader Shah              (king), and even the imperial shahanshah (king of kings). The
> Afshar; Ulema.                                                      Turkish Seljuks, who replaced the Buyids in Baghdad in 1055
> and proceeded to defeat the Byzantine emperor and create a
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                        vast empire from the Oxus to the Mediterranean, assumed
> the titles of both sultan and shahanshah. The subsequent
> Arjomand, S. A. “The Office of Mullabashi in Shi
ite Iran.”
> Studia Islamica 57 (1989): 135–146.                              Turkish dynasties, including the Ottomans, attached the title
> of sultan to their names, also using additional Persian terms
> such shah and its variant, padshah. Local rulers in Iran used the
> Mansur Sefatgol
> title of shah, and those in the Arab countries, the equivalent
> term malik (king). Turkish dynasties established a Muslim
> monarchy in northern Indian in the thirteenth century, with
> Delhi as its capital. The Dehli Sultanate lasted for some three
> MONARCHY                                                            centuries, until the Mogul conquest in 1526, which established a larger Muslim empire in India. The sultanate spread
> Neither the Quran nor Muhammad made any specific provieastward into Asia, and survives to this day in the federal
> sions for the organization of government for the Islamic
> states of Malaysia and in Brunei. With the spread of Islam
> community. Muhammad’s successors, who ruled Arabia and a
> into sub-Saharan Africa, some of the Muslim local rulers
> vast empire conquered by the Muslims during the quarter of
> assumed the title of sultan, and in 1841, the sultan of Oman
> century after the Prophet’s death, were called caliph (khalifa)
> transferred his court to Zanzibar across the Indian Ocean.
> and assumed the title of “Commander of the Faithful”: (amir
> al-mu
 minin). After a civil war that ended the period of the           Monarchy (saltana[t], padshahi, mulk) was legitimated infour “rightly-guided” caliphs in 661, the caliphate became          dependently of the caliphate, and primarily on the basis of
> hereditary in the Umayyad Dynasty until 750, and in the             justice. The function of monarchy was the maintenance of
> Abbasid Dynasty from 750 until 1258. The administrative             order and ruling with justice. As such, monarchy was comand fiscal systems of the Byzantine (Roman) and Sassanian            pared to prophecy, the function of which was the salvation of
> (Persian) empires were taken over by the caliphate. The             humankind. Kings were thus required by the divine constitubureaucratic class that carried out the fiscal and administra-       tion of cosmic order, just as were the prophets. As stated in a
> tive tasks for the caliphs were eventually ordered to use           tradition (hadith) attributed to Muhammad, “the ruler (sul-
> Arabic instead of Persian and Greek in the closing decade of        tan) is the shadow of God on earth.” A distinct literary genre
> the seventh century, and some decades thereafter also began         on political ethic and statecraft grew, grounding the legitito translate Persian works on statecraft into Arabic. Through       macy of monarchy in its justice. This literature absorbed a
> these translations, the idea of monarchy was absorbed into          philosophical strand that idealized monarchy on the Platonic
> the public law and Arabic literature on statecraft, as can be       model of the philosopher-king. A major synthesis of the
> seen in the Book of Sovereignty (Kitab al-sultan) by the            Persian and the philosophical traditions, written in the thirfamous ninth-century author, Ibn Qutayba.                           teenth century by Nasir al-Din Tusi, Akhlaq-e Naseri, had
> many imitators and became the standard work on political
> This term first occurs as a substantive, meaning “author-        ethic and statecraft in the great modern empires of the early
> ity” in the Quran, and came into usage with reference to the       modern period: the Ottoman, the Safavid, and the Mogul.
> 
> 474                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Moravids
> 
> Barthold, W. “Caliph and Sultan.” Islamic Quarterly 7
> (1963): 117–135.
> Lambton, A. K. S. “Justice in the Medieval Persian Theory of
> Kingship.” Studia Islamica 17 (1962): 91–119.
> 
> Saïd Amir Arjomand
> 
> MORAVIDS
> This movement, which was to make Muslims in the Sahara
> and Spain more conscious of the distinctiveness of their
> religion, and which began a tradition of the Muslim scholar as
> militant reformer. The Moravid movement had its origins in
> the western Sahara in the 1030s when several tribes of camel
> breeding Sanhaja nomads broke their return journey from
> the pilgrimage (hajj) to Mecca to study in Cairouan—then the
> intellectual center of North Africa outside of Egypt. Greatly
> inspired by the teachings of the Sufi (mystic) and Maliki
> jurist, Abdullah b. Yasin, and by those of a former pupil of his,
> 
Abdallah Ibn Yasin al-Jazuli (henceforth: Ibn Yasin), they
> decided, once back in the western Sahara, to establish a house
> of retreat (Ar. al-Murabitun) where they studied and trained
> to become scholars and efficient warriors in the name of Islam.
> King Hussein of Jordan (1935–1999) represented the Hashimite
> monarchy in Jordan, which was established in 1921. Upon                By the mid-1050s a militant Almoravid movement swear-
> Hussein’s death he was succeeded by his son Abdallah II. The       ing allegiance to the caliphs of Baghdad, and under the
> Hashimites claim legitimacy as sharifs—descendants of the prophet
> leadership of Abu Bakr ibn 
Umar, who took the title of emir
> Muhammad. AP/WIDE WORLD PHOTOS
> (supreme leader, c. 1055–1108), rapidly extended its control
> outward from its new capital Marrakesh, over much of Morocco
> and modern Algeria. Sections of the movement pushed fur-
> After the overthrow of the Abbasid caliphate by the
> ther southward across the Sahara and waged jihad, possibly
> Mongols in 1258, the rulers of Muslim lands typically added
> unsuccessfully, against the Soninke of the kingdom of Ancient
> caliph to sultan as their titles, except in Mamluk Egypt
> Ghana. Some historians believe that these incursions laid the
> (1260–1517), when a shadow Abbasid caliph was maintained
> foundations of a tradition of jihad that was to become a
> by the Mamluk sultans. The Ottomans claimed the last
> marked feature of Senagambian Islam in centuries to come
> Abbasid (shadow) caliph gave them the mantle of the Prophet
> and particularly from the late seventeenth century to the
> and transferred the caliphate to them when they conquered
> present. The Almoravid movement is also thought to have
> Cairo in 1517.
> made its way eastward across the Sahel to Aier.
> 
> The idea of constitutional monarchy was introduced into              Invited to Spain in 1086 by the Muslim rulers of althe Islamic world in the process of political modernization,        Andalus, the Almoravids, led by Yusuf ibn Tashufin, dewith the Ottoman constitution of 1876 and the Iranian               feated the army of Alphonso VI at Zalaqa. Yusuf returned to
> constitution of 1906. With the creation of the modern state of      Spain in 1090 and took control of al-Andalus before extend-
> Turkey, the Ottoman sultanate was abolished in 1922, and            ing Muslim rule further north over the important Christhe caliphate in 1924. In Iran, the monarchy was overthrown         tian strongholds of Badajoz (1094), Valencia (1102), and
> with the Islamic revolution of 1979. A number of Muslim             Saragossa (1112).
> monarchies have survived to the present, notably in Morocco,
> Saudi Arabia, and Jordan.                                              Almoravid success in Spain was short-lived. By 1118
> Saragossa had been retaken by Alfonso I of Aragon and this
> See also Caliphate; Political Organization.                         was followed by successful excursions further south. Popular
> rebellions in 1144 and 1145 ended Almoravid rule in Spain.
> 
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                        See also Andalus, al-.
> Arjomand, Saïd Amir. “Medieval Persianate Political Ethic.”
> Studies on Persianate Societies. 1 (2003): 7–33.                                                                 Peter B. Clarke
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                      475
> Mosaddeq, Mohammad
> 
> Katouzian, Homa. Musaddiq and the Struggle for Power in Iran.
> MOSADDEQ, MOHAMMAD                                                     London: I. B. Tauris & Co., Ltd., 1990.
> (1882–1967)
> Fakhreddin Azimi
> Mohammad Mosaddeq was an Iranian liberal-nationalist
> prime minister (1951–1953) overthrown by an Anglo-
> American-sponsored coup d’état. Born into a prominent                MOSQUE See Adhan; Architecture; Jami
;
> family of notables and educated in Tehran, France, and               Manar, Manara; Masjid; Minbar (Mimbar);
> Switzerland, where he gained a doctorate in law, Mosaddeq            Religious Institutions
> returned to Iran in 1914 where he taught, occupied various
> ministerial and other high-ranking posts, and achieved national prominence as a nationalist and constitutionalist parliamentarian. His opposition to the autocracy of Reza Khan
> (later shah) resulted in his exclusion from political life and       MOTAHHARI, MORTAZA
> virtual house arrest from 1936 onward.                               (1920–1979)
> 
> Following Reza Shah’s abdication in 1941, Mosaddeq                Born in Iran in 1920, Mortaza Motahhari was assassinated on
> 1 May 1979 by members of Forqan, a radical Muslim
> returned to the political scene to represent Tehran twice in
> anticlerical group. He attended the prestigious Mashhad
> the parliament, receiving the highest number of votes cast in
> seminary and in 1936 moved to Qom to pursue his interest in
> the capitol. The failure of negotiations to revise the British oil
> Islamic philosophy. However, philosophical issues were selconcession eventually resulted in the nationalization of the
> dom discussed in Shi
ite seminaries. Both philosophy and
> Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. The leadership of Mosaddeq
> mysticism were subjects marginalized in favor of jurispruand the National Front, formed by him in this process, led to
> dence. In 1944, he studied jurisprudence with Ayatollah
> his premiership in late April 1951.                                  Borujerdi; one year later he embarked on studying seminal
> philosophical texts with Ayatollah Khomeini; and finally he
> Vehemently opposed to Mosaddeq and his oil policy, the            attended 
Allama Tabatabai’s seminars on the philosophies
> British concentrated on destabilizing his government, while          of Mulla Sadra and Ibn Sina.
> the shah refused to accept the role of constitutional monarch
> as defined by the premier. The relentless opposition of pro-              Motahhari is considered to be one of the most influential
> British and royalist elements and the shah’s refusal to transfer     modernist clerics in contemporary Iran. Although Motahhari
> the War Ministry to the prime minister resulted in Mosaddeq’s        was a disciple of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and one of his
> resignation in July 1952, but a popular uprising returned him        closest aides during the first months of the Islamic revolution,
> to power a few days later. The intractable oil question              he remained critical of Khomeini’s juridical conception of
> continued, however, to aggravate the government’s prob-              velayat-e faqih. He emphasized the role of reason in the
> comprehension and practice of religion, and admonished
> lems. Some of its supporters joined the opposition, while the
> traditional jurists for their promotion of a blind imitative
> activities of the pro-Soviet Tudeh Party enabled the governfaith. Motahhari believed that the orthodoxy that dominated
> ment’s opponents, including the religious forces, to claim
> Shi
ite seminaries alienated pensive youth from religion and
> that a communist takeover was imminent. The British and
> created a fertile soil for the growth of Marxism. Accordingly,
> American secret services, aided by Mosaddeq’s domestic
> he intended to advance a Shi
ite philosophical rationalism,
> opponents, eventually engineered his downfall in August 1953.        which engaged contemporary issues and was accessible to
> modern intellectuals.
> Following three years of imprisonment, Mosaddeq was
> confined for the rest of his life to his country home away from       See also Khomeini, Ruholla; Reform: Iran; Revolution:
> the capital. While cognizant of the place of Islam in the            Islamic Revolution in Iran; Velayat-e Faqih.
> inherited culture of Iran, Mosaddeq was primarily a secular
> democrat and a civic nationalist, dedicated to promoting             BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Iranian national sovereignty.                                        Dabashi, Hamid. Theology of Discontent: The Ideological Foundations of the Iranian Revolution. New York: New York
> See also Nationalism: Iranian.                                         University Press, 1993.
> Motahhari, Mortaza. Fundamentals of Islamic Thought: God,
> Man, and the Universe. Translated by R. Campbell. Berke-
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                           ley, Calif.: Mizan Press, 1985.
> Azimi, Fakhreddin. Iran: The Crisis of Democracy, 1941–53.
> New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1989.                                                                  Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi
> 
> 476                                                                                              Islam and the Muslim World
> Muawiya
> 
> In the meanwhile, Mu
awiya had succeeded in gaining the
> MSA See Muslim Student Association of                             support of the Syrians. In 658 he dispatched 
Amr ibn al-
As
> North America
> to conquer Egypt on his behalf. While Mu
awiya’s position
> was strengthened by the conquest of Egypt, 
Ali’s position in
> Iraq (where his capital was based) was considerably weakened.
> 
> After 
Ali was assassinated by a Kharijite dissident in 661,
> MU
AWIYA (?–680)
> he was briefly succeeded by his son Hasan. Soon Mu
awiya
> Mu
awiya ibn Abi Sufyan was the first Umayyad caliph               convinced him to accept compensation for abdicating in his
> (661–680 C.E.). Mu
awiya’s father, Sakhr ibn Harb ibn             favor; thereby inaugurating Umayyad rule in 661. The seat of
> Umayyah—popularly known as Abu Sufyan—led the Quraysh             the caliphate was transferred to Damascus.
> army against the Prophet in the battles of Uhud and Khandaq.
> Mu
awiya’s rule, according to most historians, was charac-
> He later embraced Islam. His mother, Hind, the daughter of
> terized by peace and justice. Governors were granted full civil
> a prominent Quraysh chief, 
Utbah ibn Rabi
a, was also
> and military authority. However, toward the end of his life, he
> hostile to Muhammad before her conversion to Islam.
> nominated his son Yazid to succeed him. This move met with
> Some sources suggest that Mu
awiya accepted Islam be-          a great deal of opposition, especially from 
Abdallah ibn
> fore the conquest of Mecca in 630 but concealed it until later;   Zubayr and 
Ali’s son, Husayn ibn 
Ali.
> the general view is that he accepted Islam after the conquest.
> This explains why he is included among the tulaqa (those            Mu
awiya was accused of turning the caliphate into a
> who were pardoned by the Prophet after the conquest).             kingship. The legitimacy of Yazid’s succession was debated
> and contested by many, including Husayn ibn 
Ali. Husayn’s
> Mu
awiya and his father, Abu Sufyan, were also included        march with his followers to challenge Yazid met a tragic end
> among what Quran refers to as the mu
allafat al-qulub (those     at Karbala, an event that is commemorated to this day by the
> to whom the Prophet gave alms as a way of reconciling their       Shi
a as well as many Sunni Muslims.
> hearts to Islam).The fact that Mu
awiya was literate ensured
> his appointment by the Prophet as his scribe.                         Mu
awiya has been held responsible for the emergence of
> the first schisms in Islam. His refusal to acknowledge 
Ali’s
> In 634 the first caliph of Islam, Abu Bakr, sent Mu
awiya      caliphate and his appointment of Yazid as heir not only
> to Syria, where he was appointed as a commander of one            resulted in the introduction of hereditary succession in Musdivision of the army led by his brother, Yazid, against the       lim polity, but also in the emergence of the Khawarij and
> Byzantines. On Yazid’s death in 639, the second caliph,           consolidation of the Shi
a.
> 
Umar, appointed him as commander of the army, collector
> of taxes, and governor of Damascus.                                   While Mu
awiya has been vilified by Shi
a throughout
> Muslim history, Sunni Muslims respect his political sagacity,
> The third caliph, 
Uthman, confirmed Mu
awiya’s apjustice, impartiality, forbearance, and resolution of character.
> pointment as governor of Syria, which became an important
> It is said that he granted his subjects free access to him as well
> front for the defense of the caliphate against the Byzantines.
> as freedom of expression. He was reputed for his oratory and
> Mu
awiya established garrisons all along the coast and for the
> his ability to turn adversaries into allies.
> first time Muslims engaged in naval warfare.
> 
> When 
Uthman was besieged in Medina by dissidents who         See also Caliphate; Karbala; Kharijites, Khawarij;
> demanded the instatement of 
Ali as caliph, he requested          Succession.
> assistance from Mu
awiya. As soon as he assumed the caliphate
> after the assassination of 
Uthman, 
Ali sought to dismiss        BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Mu
awiya, who refused to pay allegiance to him until 
Uthman’s    Hawting, G. R. The First Dynasty of Islam: The Umayyad
> murderers had been punished.                                        Caliphate AD 661–750. London and New York:
> Routledge, 2000.
> The deadlock between 
Ali and Mu
awiya led to the Battle
> Ibn Hisham, Abd al-Malik. The Life of Muhammad: A Translaof Siffin in 657 C.E. The battle was brought to an end when
> tion of Ishaq’s Sirat Rasul Allah. Introduction and notes by
> Mu
awiya, whose army was on the verge of defeat, proposed
> A. Guillaume. Karachi, Pakistan, and New York: Oxford
> that the conflict be resolved through negotiation. The two            University Press, 1997.
> parties agreed to arbitration (tahkim).
> Tabari, al-. Between Civil Wars: The Caliphate of Muawiyah.
> The decision of the arbiters that both 
Ali and Mu
awiya         Translated and annotated by Michael G. Morony. Albany:
> be relieved of their posts did not resolve the conflict. 
Ali’s      State University of New York Press, 1987.
> supporters, in particular, rejected the outcome of the
> arbitration.                                                                                                     Suleman Dangor
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                     477
> Mufti
> 
> MUFTI                                                                                                                     0                50            100 mi.
> 
> 0         50          100 km
> 
> H≥
> ij
> The mufti, or jurisconsult, stands between man and God, and                                                               Yathrib (Medina)
> 
> az
> issues opinions (fatwa, pl. fatawa or fatwas) to a petitioner                                             Quba
> 
> M
> (mustafti) either with regard to the laws of God or the deeds of           Red
> 
> o
> u
> man. In early Islam the mufti operated as a privately funded,              Sea
> 
> nt
> Thaniyya al-^Arj
> 
> ai
> free agent who was independent of state control. As successor                                                                 Al-^Arj
> 
> \jah
> ns
> l Fa
> to Muhammad in his role as jurist, the mufti was to exemplify            Muhammad’s
> 
> Wa\dê a
> Al-Abwa&
> sound juridical wisdom and moral rectitude. His knowledge                 Migration to
> of the Arabic language, the Quranic sciences, and hadith               Yathrib (Medina)                                        Kharrar
> traditions had to be thorough, as did his grasp of legal                      City    Peak                                    Qadid
> reasoning. Such idealized standards eventually yielded to
> societal needs, until, by the turn of the tenth century, the                                                                   Amaj
> N
> 
> office of the mufti required that he be thoroughly grounded                                                                     ^Asfan
> in no more than juridical precedent within a given school of law.
> Mecca
> 
> A mufti is distinct from a judge (qadi) in several ways. The                                                                         Thawr Mountain
> judge’s authority is generally delegated by the state, whereas
> the mufti’s is delegated by his peers; the judge’s ruling is final,
> Muhammad’s migration to Yathrib. XNR PRODUCTIONS/GALE
> or subject to limited appeal, whereas that of a mufti is but one
> of many competing juridical opinions; and the mufti rules
> most often on questions of law, whereas the qadi rules on fact.
> (hadiths) that were later written down. Though not always in
> A mufti must always appear dignified and neatly dressed,           agreement, these traditions come together to tell us about an
> for he serves as a model of good behavior in public. He must         Arab who was born around the end of the sixth century in the
> avoid delivering opinions when angry, ill, or weary, and also        oasis of Mecca, a sanctuary town built around a cubical
> when there appears to be a conflict of interests.                     “house of God,” the Ka
ba. He was nursed in his infancy by
> Halima, a Bedouin woman of the Banu Sa
d, as was customary
> See also Fatwa; Qadi (Kadi, Kazi).
> among the Quraysh. Muhammad lost his mother, Amina bint
> (henceforth bt. meaning daughter of) Wahb, a few years after
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                         he was reunited with her at the age of six. He was then cared
> Masud, Muhammad Khalid; Messick, Brinkley; and Pow-                  for by his grandfather 
Abd al-Muttalib and, then by his uncle
> ers, David S., eds. Islamic Legal Interpretation: Muftis and       Abu Talib, who granted him protection and stood by him in
> their Fatwas, Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University                troubled times. Interestingly, Abu Talib never converted
> Press, 1996.
> to Islam.
> 
> Muneer Goolam Fareed             It was Abu Talib who introduced Muhammad to the
> camel-caravan trade, which became his occupation. This, in
> turn, led him to employment by a wealthy widow Khadija bt.
> Khuwaylid, who, though older than him, was impressed by
> MUHAMMAD (570–632 C.E.)                                              his personality and subsequently married him. She bore him
> Abu al-Qasim Muhammad ibn (henceforth b. meaning the                 two sons who died in infancy, and four daughters: Zaynab,
> son of ) 
Abdullah b. 
Abd al-Muttalib, of the clan of Hashim,       Ruqayya, Fatima (who alone survived her father), and Umm
> of the tribe of Quraysh, is acknowledged by more than one            Kulthum.
> billion Muslims as the last messenger of God. It was through
> Around age forty (610 C.E.), increasingly troubled by the
> him that the Quranic passages, which his followers believe
> social conditions of his fellow Meccans, Muhammad began to
> present the word of God, had been revealed to guide the
> make regular trips to Mount Hira for prayer and meditation.
> nascent community through its predicaments. The religion
> On one such occasion, he claimed the angel Gabriel came to
> that Muhammad preached is called Islam, meaning submishim with words written upon a banner of brocade. “Recite!”
> sion to God; its creed asserts that there is but one God and
> commanded the angel, and Muhammad, feeling an enormous
> that Muhammad is the Messenger of God.
> pressure upon his chest, finally pronounced the words:
> The Life of Muhammad
> Recognized before his prophethood as al-Amin (the trust-                Recite in the name of the Lord who created
> worthy), the Prophet of Islam is largely known to us through
> the lore of the early Muslim community from oral traditions             Man from blood coagulated.
> 
> 478                                                                                                  Islam and the Muslim World
> Muhammad
> 
> Recite! Thy Lord is wondrous kind                                Muhajirun, and the Medinans who welcomed and helped
> them as the Ansar.
> Who by the pen has taught mankind
> Muhammad was encouraged in his immigration to Medina
> Things they knew not. (96)                                       by the presence of Jews, who, he hoped, as monotheists would
> approve of his teachings. Even before arriving in Medina,
> Muhammad explained that he too worshipped the God of
> When Muhammad awoke from this vision, the words
> Moses and Jesus, and turned to face Jerusalem in prayer. Such
> seemed to be etched in his heart and he feared he was
> was his reverence for Jerusalem that he had a mystical experipossessed. For a brief moment he contemplated suicide, but
> ence that had led him there. When the Jews of Medina
> then a voice came to him from the skies, hailing him as the
> rejected his teachings, however, Muhammad decided to disapostle of God. Returning home, Muhammad informed
> tinguish his community from theirs, and changed the direc-
> Khadija of what had happened. With the help of her Christion of prayer towards the Meccan Ka
ba. Then he fought a
> tian cousin, Waraqa b. Nawfal, who interpreted Muhamseries of battles against the Meccans and as well as the
> mad’s vision as a spiritual experience, Khadija persuaded
> Medinan Jews, until finally Islam was secure in Medina.
> Muhammad to have faith in himself.
> At the same time, Muhammad established Medina as his
> At first Muhammad communicated his message only to
> home. He married as many as fourteen wives, and Muhamthose very close to him: Khadija; his young cousin, 
Ali b. Abi
> mad’s situation was more complex than the number suggests.
> Talib; his adopted son, Zayd; and Abu Bakr b. Abi Quhafa, a
> Among his wives were 
Aisha, daughter of Abu Bakr, the only
> merchant and friend. They are believed to have been the first
> virgin he ever married; Hafsa, the widowed daughter of
> Muslims. A few years later, Muhammad took his message to
> 
Umar (an early Meccan companion); and Zaynab, bt. Jahsh, a
> the people of Mecca informing them of a life after death and
> divorcee, previously married to his adopted son, Zayd. Tradiof a just and fair God who would reward humans according to
> tion also mentions a concubine, Maria the copt, who bore
> their deeds in this world. 
Umar b. al-Khattab and 
Uthman
> him a son who died in infancy. It is worth noting that while
> b. 
Affan were two important Meccans who accepted his
> the Quran permits four wives to every man—provided he
> teachings at this time, though generally it was the less welltreats them all equally—it also informs us that the Prophet
> to-do youth who were attracted to his call. Most Meccans,
> was permitted more wives because of his special circumhowever, resented the deprecation of their gods, the gods of
> stances. Yet, we are told that Muhammad asked 
Ali, husband
> their forefathers, and the rejection of their beliefs by the
> to his daughter, Fatima, to refrain from taking a second wife.
> youth that Muhammad’s teachings encouraged. Moreover,
> Polygamy had complex meaning and was not established as a
> the Meccans depended on the income derived from worship
> pattern based on the Prophet’s example.
> at the Ka
ba and feared that Muhammad would destroy the
> numerous idols that brought the pilgrims there. They op-                Muhammad decided to venture back to Mecca on pilgrimposed Muhammad, and made plans to kill him. Muhammad                age to the Ka
ba, which he believed had originally been
> knew he had to leave Mecca when, in approximately 619 C.E.,         consecrated by Abraham. At first, Meccan resistance led
> Abu Talib and Khadija passed away within a year of each             Muhammad to secure a peace treaty at al-Hudaybiyya (628
> other and there was no one left who was willing to grant him        C.E.) for a period of ten years. By the terms of this treaty
> the protection and moral support he required.                       Muhammad agreed to let the Meccans trade freely, while the
> Meccans consented to let him make the lesser pilgrimage to
> Meanwhile, the people of Yathrib, unable to reconcile           Mecca (
umrah) in the following year. The peace enabled
> their differences and learning of Muhammad’s fair and hon-          Muhammad to conquer the Jewish fortresses of Khaybar and
> est ways, decided to invite him to live among them as their         to conclude a treaty whereby the surrendering Jews handed
> judge and arbitrator. Muhammad immediately seized the               over all their property in exchange for their lives. They were
> opportunity to leave Mecca, and after sending his followers         permitted to continue farming the land in return for half of
> ahead, secretly followed them with Abu Bakr as his compan-          their produce. The Quranic verse 9:29 corroborates Muhamion. This event, known as the hijra, is believed to have taken      mad’s decision; it commands that monotheist ahl al-kitab
> place in 622 C.E., a date that was later adopted as the beginning   (people of the book) be permitted to practice their faith in
> of the Muslim calendar. For Muslims, it marks the dawn of           Islamic lands, on payment of a poll tax.
> the “Age of Islam,” as distinct from pre-Islamic times, which
> were termed the “Age of Ignorance,” or jahiliyya. Muhammad              The following year, Muhammad, learning that Bedouin
> now asserted leadership over a community based, not on              allies of the Meccans had attacked some of his followers,
> tribal ties, but on its shared faith in One God. Jews, too, were    determined to lead an army against Mecca. Because the Jews
> included in this community. Soon, Yathrib came to be known          were no longer available as allies, the Meccans decided to
> as Medinat al-nabi (the city of the Prophet) or Medina. The         surrender, and Abu Sufyan, the Qurayshi leader of the Meccans,
> Meccans who emigrated with Muhammad became known as                 and his wife Hind, finally acknowledged that Muhammad was
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                   479
> Muhammad
> 
> God’s prophet. A few weeks later, when several tribes led by       Just as troubling is the permission given to men to reprimand
> the Hawazin decided to challenge Muhammad at Hunayn,               their wives, affirming their dominance.
> the newly converted Meccans joined with Muhammad to
> defeat them.                                                           Islam’s paternalistic attitude towards women is an issue of
> contention, particularly in the context of today’s feminism.
> Around 632 C.E., Muhammad, having established his au-          Nevertheless, the consideration granted by Islam to women,
> thority over the Arabian Peninsula, made the hajj pilgrimage       in the context of seventh century Arabia, was significant:
> to Mecca, circumambulating the Ka
ba, and established the          Islam permitted women to keep control of their property
> ritual according to which Muslims to this day perform the          even after marriage and inheritance rights were granted to
> hajj. It is recognized as the Farewell Pilgrimage. Muhammad        wives, daughters, mothers, and aunts. Women were not only
> died a few days later in Medina, in the house of 
Aisha, where    given a say in their marriages, but their sexual needs and
> he was buried. Muslims suffered a great loss when Muham-           desires were acknowledged. It is perhaps surprising to find
> mad died. Their deep love and gratitude are reflected in the        listed among the inadequacies of men, for instance, the act of
> blessings (tasliya) they ask God to shower upon him whenever       having intercourse with one’s wife “before talking to her and
> they mention his name.                                             gaining her intimacy, and satisfying his need from her before
> she satisfied her need from him” (Daylami, Musnad al-firdaws).
> Religious and Political Influence of Muhammad
> The religion that Muhammad taught was called Islam, mean-              Muhammad’s influence on subsequent religious and poing submission to God. Asserting that “there is no God but         litical life was significant. He had brought monotheism to the
> Allah, and Muhammad is His prophet,” it commanded that             Arab world. Both Judaism and Christianity had already visevery believer pray five times daily; fast during the month of      ited the Arabian Peninsula, but neither had ever quite cap-
> Ramadan; contribute an annual tithe, or zakat, for the benefit      tured it. Neither the Old nor the New Testament was in
> of the poor; and, if possible, make the hajj pilgrimage at least   Arabic, nor had they yet been translated into Arabic. Moreoonce in a lifetime. Mindful of the ethical purpose of mono-        ver, Orthodox, Byzantine Christianity rejected the Arab
> theism, it also denied believers the addictive pleasures of        Monophysites and Nestorians as heretics, and as for Judaism,
> alcohol and gambling that had such disastrous effects on           there is no evidence of any communication between the
> family life. Traditions also convey Muhammad’s respect for         rabbinical schools and the Jews of Arabia.
> the ease of the larger community. For example, he wore                In contrast, the Quran brought by Muhammad was in
> perfume when he went to the mosque and refrained from              Arabic; it delivered a message that the people of the region
> taking garlic before attending a gathering.                        could understand, through a prophet who was one of them. It
> united the fractious tribes of Arabia, providing them with the
> Muhammad preached that Islam was the original religion
> political will to go far beyond their boundaries, to travel into
> brought by Moses and Jesus, but that it had become cor-
> North Africa and Spain in the west, and through Syria, Iraq,
> rupted by the people. He taught that Jews should recognize
> Persia, and into India, in the east. In a sense, Muhammad had
> Jesus as a prophet, and that Christians should understand that
> provided the Arabs with inspiration for the making of an Arab
> Jesus was neither God, nor His son but, rather, a prophet.
> empire, within which, for several centuries, Jews, Christians,
> Nevertheless, Muhammad held that all monotheists must be
> and Muslims would make Arab culture their own.
> permitted to practice their faith, as long as they paid a tax in
> acknowledgment of Islam’s political dominance. The activ-          Muhammad’s Succession
> ism of Islam that was demonstrated by Muhammad in both             There was, however, a problem. The Prophet had never
> words and deeds requires a careful investigation as to when        overtly proclaimed his heir. There were two choices. One
> aggression might be justified. Importantly, the justification        possibility was Muhammad’s young cousin, 
Ali, roughly
> for holy war (often identified with jihad, which means to           thirty years of age, who had lived with the Prophet ever since
> strive), is usually understood to be defensive. The Quranic       
Ali’s father, Abu Talib, had fallen into financial difficulties.
> declaration, “There is no compulsion in religion” (2:256)          
Ali had fought bravely at the Prophet’s side and, as husband
> suggests an attitude of tolerance.                                 to Fatima, was also father to Muhammad’s beloved grandsons, Hasan and Husayn. Significantly, Muhammad chose
> By acknowledging God’s unique otherness, Muhammad
> 
Ali to pronounce the Quran verses of Baraa, at the concluclaimed that all humankind, of whatever race, ethnicity, tribe,    sion of the pilgrimage in 631 C.E., which put an end to
> or color was equal before the Lord, and that each would be         polytheist pilgrimages to the Ka
ba. Unfortunately, 
Ali, who
> judged justly according to his or her deeds at the end of time.    had spent most of his adult years in Medina, had little
> While slavery and concubinage were recognized, it was              recognition from the Meccan Quraysh.
> recommended that such persons be set free. Nevertheless,
> women were not considered equal to men. This is exempli-               The alternative was Muhammad’s dear friend and father-
> fied through the Quranic requirement that the testimony of         in-law, Abu Bakr, roughly two years his junior, whom Muhamtwo women is required to challenge that of one man (2:282).        mad had sought to lead the prayers during his last illness. The
> 
> 480                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Muhammad
> 
> tradition of Ghadir Khumm, cited in the Musnad of Sunni             the community, descend. The imams alone can interpret the
> scholar Ibn Hanbal, has the Prophet declare, “Of whomso-            Quran with any degree of certitude. Moreover, special powever I am lord, then 
Ali is also his lord.” The Shi
ites claim     ers of infallibility, sinlessness, and wisdom are believed to
> that this indicates Muhammad’s appointment of 
Ali as his           have been inherited from, or granted by, God to 
Ali and the
> successor. The Sunnis insist, however, that it was merely the       imams who succeeded him. Importantly, the Shi
ite tradi-
> Prophet’s way of reconciling 
Ali, who was extremely un-            tions usually rely only on the words or actions of one of their
> popular at the time, with the community.                            imams (Momen, 1985, p. 173).
> 
> At Muhammad’s death (632 C.E.), Abu Bakr, with the                   Finally, the Sufis, or mystics, claim that God is an intimate
> support of 
Umar, went forward to be selected as successor to       presence in all of His creation. While Sufism is not incompatthe Prophet (khalifat rasul Allah). The appointment had             ible with being either Sunni or Shi
ite, the mindset of the Sufi
> political ramifications and family ties were rejected as a basis
> is quite different—more tolerant, and less legalistic. Sufis
> for succession. The precedent that the caliph should be a
> believe that humans have an innate knowledge of God within
> companion of the Prophet, of the tribe of the Quraysh, and
> and that the Divine may be experienced through jihad (spiriapproved by them, was established at that time. Thus, Abu
> tual striving), such as meditation or by the ritual repetition of
> Bakr appointed 
Umar as his successor, and 
Umar designated
> God’s names and attributes (dhikr). One who has achieved
> a group of twelve to select one among themselves as his
> this goal is known as wali-Allah (friend of God), and through
> successor.
> him or her the ordinary believer might hope to negotiate with
> More serious, however, was Abu Bakr’s insistence that           God. This has led to prayers of intercession at the graves of
> Muhammad had stated that he left no heirs and his rejection         significant Sufis, including the Prophet, an activity that is
> of Fatima’s claims to her father’s property. The act effectively    condemned by non-Sufis as polytheistic. Like the Sunnis, the
> isolated Fatima and led her husband, 
Ali, to refuse his            Sufis acknowledge the caliphates of the Rashidun (the Rightly
> consent to Abu Bakr’s authority until after Fatima’ death six       Guided), i.e., Abu Bakr, 
Umar, 
Uthman, and 
Ali. The first
> months later. This is probably what led to the formation of         three of these were rejected and even cursed by the Imami
> the Shiat Ali, the partisans of 
Ali, a significant minority who   Shi
ites. But like the Shi
ites, the Sufis believe that the Quran
> asserted that Abu Bakr’s leadership was illegitimate. It was the    has both an exoteric and an esoteric message.
> cause of a rent so deep in the Muslim community that even
> today mediation between the two communities is difficult.            Biographical Literature and the Changing Image
> of Muhammad
> The Denominations of Islam and Their Images                         During his lifetime, Muhammad probably did not exaggerate
> of Muhammad                                                         the significance of his person. Certainly, he claimed to be a
> On the basis of Muhammad’s teachings, three broad denomi-           prophet, indeed, he claimed to be the last of the prophets of
> nations emerged after his death. The largest group call             God: Khatam al-anbiya
. But there was a fear that his followers
> themselves the ahl al-sunnah wa al-jamaa (also called “Sunni”).    might deify him. Thus, theologians emphasized that Muham-
> They accept the legitimacy of the succession from the Prophet
> mad was but a man and that his only miracle was the Quran.
> as it developed historically and thus believe in the legitimacy
> To establish the miraculous nature of this achievement the
> of the prophetic legacy, as preserved by those who succeeded
> Quranic description of Muhammad as “ummi” (7:157; 7:158;
> him, as a source for knowing God. The common Sunni
> 62:2) was explained by exegetes as meaning that he was
> position that has evolved regarding Muhammad is that prophets
> illiterate. Moreover, the fallibility of the Prophet is suggested
> are free from the sins that provoke repugnance and error in
> by the Quranic verses that insinuate that he had faltered, as
> the transmission of divine revelation. (Prophets are considwhen he turned away from the blind man (80). Another
> ered to be susceptible to error in matters unrelated to revelaexample cited to show his fallibility is more controversial and
> tion, however.) Most Sunnis believe that Muhammad did not
> comes from the tradition narrated by al-Tabari. According to
> appoint a successor before his death and they do not give
> this tradition, Muhammad agreed, for just a brief moment, to
> recognition to a priesthood. An imam, for the Sunni, may be a
> political leader, but he is generally someone who merely leads      acknowledge the goddesses of the Meccans, al-Manat, al-Lat,
> the community in prayer. The position of Abu Bakr as                and al-
Uzza, as subordinate deities.
> successor to Muhammad was, importantly, not vested with
> There is also the tradition that recalls 
Umar’s words
> religious authority.
> denying that Muhammad had died, although he was immedi-
> For the Shi
ites, Muhammad’s position came to be closely         ately corrected by Abu Bakr. Many early traditions convey
> linked to that of 
Ali. According to the Imami Shi
ites of Iran,    the miraculous happenings that punctuated the Prophet’s
> for instance, “Two thousand years before creation, Muham-           life. Although the Quran points to Muhammad’s fallibility, it
> mad and 
Ali were one light before God.” 
Ali is significant         also includes signs that God interfered on his behalf quite
> not only as successor to the Prophet, but also as the one from      readily. Incidents supporting this view include the splitting of
> whom the Shi
ite imams, who provide religious guidance to           the moon (54:1), the journey to the farthest place of prayer
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                      481
> Muhammad
> 
> (17:1), and Muhammad’s victory at Badr (3:123–24). The                  said to have had the “seal” of prophethood on his back, and to
> very act of being selected prophet can be viewed as a miracle.          have been followed by clouds that sheltered him from the
> burning sun. Indicating Muhammad’s place in the larger
> As time passed, veneration for the Prophet gradually                scheme of monotheism, Ibn Ishaq establishes Muhammad’s
> increased. This is reflected in the several steps taken by those         connection to the family of Abraham through Abraham’s son,
> in authority to preserve his memory. During the reign of                Isma
il, and demonstrates similarities between the families of
> 
Uthman (r. 644–656 C.E.), the Quran was compiled; during              Abraham and Muhammad. Thus, 
Abd al-Muttalib (Muhamthe reign of 
Umar II (r. 717–720 C.E.) traditions (hadiths)            mad’s grandfather), like Abraham before him, was released
> concerning the Prophet and the early Muslim community,                  from his vow (made when he faced opposition from the
> which had thus far been communicated orally, were also                  Quraysh to his reclaiming of the well named Zamzam) to
> written down and compiled. By the time of al-Shafi
i (d. 820             sacrifice his son. Instead he sacrificed several camels. Muham-
> C.E.), the practices of the Prophet (conveyed by traditions)
> mad, like Jacob, “dreamed” he ascended a ladder (miraj) to
> were being considered as significant a source as the Quran
> the heavens where he met with God. Like the biblical prophfor the making of Islamic law.
> ets, Muhammad also performed miracles such turning a
> While private collections of traditions from and about the          handful of dates into a quantity sufficient to feed several
> Prophet were probably made during his lifetime, many ap-                companions and healing the foot of one and the eye of
> pear to have been put together according to subject rather              another.
> than chronology. With the rise of the Abbasids (750 C.E.),
> One of Ibn Ishaq’s significant contributions is the inforwho encouraged polemical exchanges with Jews, Christians,
> mation concerning a “Constitution of Medina,” according to
> and Zoroastrians, the Muslims had become acutely aware of
> which the Muslims of Mecca and Medina, along with their
> the lacuna that existed in the recorded life of their prophet.
> Jewish allies in Medina, agreed to support Muhammad and
> Al-Mansur (r. 755–775 C.E.) therefore commanded Ibn Ishaq
> help him against the Meccan polytheists who opposed him.
> (d. c. 773 C.E.) to establish a biography of the Prophet, which
> When the Jews broke their agreement, Muhammad not only
> in the recension of Ibn Hisham (d. 833 C.E.), under the title
> fought the Meccans, but also considerably reduced the Jewish
> Sirat rasul Allah, is the only version that is extant in its entirety
> presence in Medina. The tale regarding the Jews of the Banu
> today. Ibn Ishaq compiled a narrative that informs us of the
> Qurayza, whose adult men were executed after their surrenlife of Muhammad as it unfolded, from his birth until his
> der (while their wives and children were sold into slavery), is
> death. He soon became the most recognized biographer of
> notorious in this regard. For Ibn Ishaq, the narrative follows
> the Prophet throughout the empire. Selecting traditions that
> the biblical pattern establishing God’s destruction of those
> would endorse a prophetic career, Ibn Ishaq shaped a narrawho oppose His prophets.
> tive that presented Muhammad as the last and best of Quranic
> prophets. Placing Muhammad’s birth in the Year of the
> Ibn Ishaq is careful, however. Much of the information on
> Elephant (570 C.E.) the compiler affirmed his early life in sixth
> miraculous occurrences is qualified by phrases such as “it is
> century Arabia. Intertwining moments of revelation throughalleged,” or “God only knows.” In the case of Muhammad’s
> out the Prophet’s career, Ibn Ishaq endorses the community’s
> miraculous journey from Mecca to Jerusalem, Ibn Ishaq
> view that it was through Muhammad alone that the Quran
> directs the reader to a tradition from 
Aisha in which it was
> was revealed. According to Ibn Ishaq, an important aspect of
> said that only Muhammad’s spirit had journeyed to “the
> his prophetic personality was his performance of miracles.
> distant place of prayer.” With the passage of time, however,
> Ibn Ishaq had to take political factors into consideration as       these miracles were revisited without such caution, as in the
> well. Al-Mansur, who was of the Sunni denomination, had                 compilations of al-Tabari (d. 923 C.E.) and Ibn Kathir (d. 1387
> come to power through a revolution. He therefore desired                C.E.), which indicated an increasing veneration of the Prophet.
> 
> legitimation of his authority among Muslims, for whom
> association with the family of the Prophet was required, but               A growing devotion could also be seen in the activity of the
> also among the numerous Jews and Christians whose One                   Muslims. Around 780 C.E. for instance, Kahyzuran, the Queen
> God, the Muslims claimed, had chosen Muhammad as His                    of al-Mahdi (775–785 C.E.), consecrated the birthplace of
> last prophet. Ibn Ishaq tackled the problem by presenting al-           Muhammad as a mosque. A few years later Quranic scholar
> 
Abbas, the eponym of the Abbasids and an uncle of Muham-               al-Naqqas (d. 962 C.E.) mentioned it as a place where a
> mad, as one for whom the Prophet had a deep affection and by            personal prayer of request would be satisfactorily answered
> including hagiographic traditions on Muhammad that paral-               by noon each Monday. (Monday was the day of the week on
> leled the representation of prophets and patriarchs in the Bible.       which the Prophet is supposed to have been born, received
> the first revelation, and emigrated to Medina.) The tomb of
> Although Muhammad had his first revelation when he was                the Prophet was visited with similar intent. It compared with
> around forty years of age (610 C.E.), we are told that even at his      the Sufi practice of prayer at tombs of saints or “friends of
> birth there were signs of his prophetic mission. Muhammad is            God,” who were solicited for such benefits as a recovery from
> 
> 482                                                                                                 Islam and the Muslim World
> Muhammad
> 
> illness or the birth of a son. Muhammad’s role as intercessor      be included in an evaluation of his leadership. Moreover, the
> was clearly seen to be an active one.                              battles of Medina against the polytheists and Jews were
> necessary, for Islam would not have emerged as it did from
> The timely protest of Ibn Taymiyya, who recognized in           Medina if Muhammad had remained the visionary that he
> such negotiations a contamination of monotheism, was fol-          was in Mecca. The portrait Dashti paints of Muhammad in
> lowed several centuries later by the more radical approach of      Twenty Three Years is one of an extraordinary man concerned
> Muhammad b. 
Abd al-Wahhab (d. 1791), who feared a                 for his fellow men.
> “regression into unbelief.” His cause was taken up by Sa
ud b.
> 
Abd al-
Aziz. Such activity did not affect the rest of the            According to Fatima Mernissi, “being a prophet means
> Muslim world (Egypt, India, Turkey, and the like). In those        pushing people to the utmost, toward an ideal society.” In The
> places, Sufi practices and the celebration of the maulid con-       Veil and the Male Elite she recognizes that the Prophet,
> tinue to take place to this day. The oil revenues that accrued     despite his endeavors, held back from granting women equalin Saudi Arabia in the twentieth century have, however,            ity with men by recommending that women hide their sexualenabled the export of Wahhabism to the developing world,           ity when going out into the streets and by giving husbands
> gradually eroding the latter’s more Sufi-istic heritage.            authority over them. These decrees are explained, however,
> as the consequence of the warring milieu and the chauvinistic
> Biographical literature on Muhammad in the twentieth           attitude of the Prophet’s companions.
> century has been more concerned with issues of science
> and modernization. The representations of Muhammad by                 Displaying a keen understanding of hadith criticism,
> three biographers who belong to different nations and gen-         Mernissi examines the misogynistic opinions reflected in the
> erations—Haykal (1888–1956) an Egyptian journalist; Dashti         Sahih of al-Bukhari, and explains that these were not the
> (1896–1982) an Iranian engineer; and Mernissi (b. 1940) a          opinions of the Prophet, but of al-Bukhari. According to
> Moroccan sociologist—exemplify a variety of appreciations          Mernissi, the Prophet, despite his “weakness,” respected
> of the Prophet’s life.                                             women and consulted them in moments of crisis.
> 
> In The Life of Muhammad, Haykal’s concern is to combat              Finally, it is important to recognize that Muhammad is
> nineteenth-century western critics of Islam who portray the        not merely the quest of believers, but of historians as well. In
> Prophet sometimes as an epileptic and at others as a fraud.        this regard a word of caution must be offered concerning the
> Haykal insists that the Quran is God’s word, not Muham-           nature of the sources. The hijra (Muslim calendar) was
> mad’s, and justifies his belief by claiming that Muhammad           established only during the caliphate of 
Umar b. al-Khattab
> was illiterate. Asserting that the Prophet performed no mira-      (r. 634–644 C.E.). Before the hijra, events in Arab life were
> cles, he explains Muhammad’s journey to Jerusalem, and             remembered in relation to more significant happenings of the
> from there to the heavens, as an experience of the mind rather     recent past, such as raids and battles or through the mnethan the body. As for the story concerning the “satanic            monic of numbers. Traditions in biographical literature that
> verses,” Haykal rejects it, explaining that Muhammad was, as       provide a chronology and sequence to the events that constia prophet of God, “infallible,” and therefore not prone to         tute the life of Muhammad are therefore suspect. Moreover
> such error.                                                        the Quran, which is not compiled in the sequence in which it
> was revealed, mentions Muhammad only four times. It gives
> Regarding the Prophet’s marriages, Haykal is apologetic        no information regarding his place of birth or death or the
> and unrealistic. He insists that these were not inspired by love   names of his parents, wives, and children. As for archeological
> but, rather, required by political and social circumstances.       remains, the Ka
ba and the Mosque of Medina were com-
> Muhammad’s marriage to Zaynab, who was previously mar-             pletely rebuilt within a hundred years of the Prophet’s death;
> ried to Zayd, his adopted son, is justified on the grounds that     and, tragically, all buildings consecrated to the memory of the
> the marriage was conducted to make the point that an               Prophet in Mecca were destroyed by Sa
ud b. 
Abd al-
Aziz (r.
> “adopted” son is not a blood relative, and to establish an         1803–1814).
> inclusive approach to divorcees. More interesting is Haykal’s
> rejection of polygamy on the basis of Quran (4:123), which            Scholarship has moved on, nevertheless. Where once the
> requires that a man treat all his wives with equality. For         challenge had been to query the divine authorship of the
> Haykal this was impossible and clearly meant that monogamy         Quran, today it has shifted to a recognition of its various
> is what the Quran advocates.                                      threads that apparently indicate a composite structure. Where
> once the Quran seemed to be the inspiration of Muhammad,
> For Dashti, Muhammad is inexorably human. To him, the           it is now believed by some to have been the inspiration for
> Quran is Muhammad’s creation. His interpretation of the           Muhammad. Many centuries ago, the bewildered believer
> satanic verses and his weakness for women are simply the           came to terms with Muhammad’s death by emphasizing his
> marks of human frailty. According to Dashti, Muhammad’s            faith in God. This could well be his response even today.
> relations with his wives are a private concern, and should not     Perhaps more documentation will come to light in the future.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                    483
> Muhammad
> 
> The Tribe of Quraysh (5th–8 th centuries, C.E.)
> 
> Qusayy (founder of Quraysh)
> 
> 
Abd-Manaf
> 
> Hashim (clan)                          Muttalib                           
Abd-Shams (clan)              Nawfal (clan)
> (clan associated
> with Hashim)
> 
Abd al-Muttalib                                                                   Umayya
> 
> Abu Talib                 Abu Lahab               
Abdallah⫽Amina                  
Abbas                   Hamza               Abu ’l-
As                        Harb
> 
> Muhammad ⴝKhadjah b. Khuwaylid                        
Abdallah                            
Affan            al-Hakam
> 
> ⴝ
Aisha b. Abu-Bakr b. Abu Quhafa of Taym clan                                                        Abu SufyanⴝHind
> ⫽Hafsa b. 
Umar b. al-Khattab of 
Adi clan
> ⫽Umm Habiba b. Abu Sufyan
> 
> Ja
far al-Tayyar            
Aliⴝ Fatima                       Zaynab                Umm-Kulthum and Ruqayyah⫽ 
Uthman                    Marwan             Mu
 awiya
> 
> Hasan                   Husayn                                                                                      
Abd al-Malik              Yazid
> 
> People influential in Muhammad's life, or who later became influential figures, are set in boldfaced type. Most of the men in the geneology had sons not
> mentioned here due to space considerations.
> 
> SOURCE: Hodgson, Marshall G. S. The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a World Civilization. Vol. 1. Chicago: University of Chicago
> Press, 1974.
> 
> Muhammad’s lineage.
> 
> See also Arabia, Pre-Islamic; Biography and                                             Kathir, Ibn. The Life of the Prophet Muhammad. Translated by
> Hagiography; Caliphate; Hadith; Holy Cities; Mi
raj;                                      Trevor Le Gassick. Reading, U. K.: Garnet Publish-
> Quran; Shi
a: Early; Succession; Sunna; Tasawwuf.                                        ing, 1998.
> Mernissi, Fatima. The Veil and the Male Elite. Translated by
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                                              Mary-Jo Lakeland. New York: Addison Wesley, 1987.
> Cook, Michael. Muhammad. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford Univer-                                   Momen, Moojan. An Introduction to Shii Islam. New Haven,
> sity Press, 1983.                                                                       Conn.: Yale University Press, 1985.
> Dashti, 
Ali. Twenty Three Years. Translated by F. R. C.                                Newby, Gordon. The Making of the Last Prophet. Columbia:
> Bagley. Costa Mesa, Calif.: Mazda Publishers, 1994.                                     University of South Carolina Press, 1989.
> Guillaume, Alfred. Islam. Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1954.                               Rippin, Andrew. Muslims: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices.
> Guillaume, Alfred. The Life of Muhammad: A Translation of                                  2d ed. London: Routledge, 2001.
> Ishaq’s Sirat Rasul Allah. Karachi: Oxford University                                 Schimmel, Annemarie. And Muhammad Is His Messenger.
> Press, 1955.                                                                             Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985.
> Hallaq, Wael b. A History of Islamic Legal Theories: An Intro-                          Sellheim, Rudolf. “Prophet, Chalif und Geschichte. Die
> duction to Sunni Usul al-Fiqh. Cambridge, U.K.: Cam-                                     Muhammed-Biographie des Ibn Ishaq.” Oriens 18–19
> bridge University Press, 1997.                                                           (1967): 3–91.
> Haykal, Muhammad Husayn. The Life of Muhammad. Qum,                                     Stowasser, Barbara. Women in the Qur
an, Traditions, and
> Iran: Center of Islamic Studies, 1976.                                                   Interpretation. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 1994.
> Jarrar, Maher. “Sirat ahl al-Kisa.” In The Biography of Muham-                          Tabari, Muhammad b. Jarir, al-. The History of al-Tabari, vols.
> mad. Edited by Harald Motzki. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2000.                               6–9. Edited by S. A. Arjomand. Albany: State University
> Kaptein, Nico. “Materials for the History of the Prophet                                  of New York Press, 1988.
> Muhammad’s Birthday Celebration in Mecca.” Der Islam                                  Watt, W. M. Muhammad: Prophet and Statesman. Oxford,
> 69, no. 2 (1992): 193–203.                                                              U.K.: Oxford University Press, 1961.
> 
> 484                                                                                                                          Islam and the Muslim World
> Muhammad Ali, Dynasty of
> 
> Watt, W. Montgomery. Muhammad’s Mecca. Edinburgh:                    Holt, P. M. The Mahdist State in the Sudan, 1881–1898.
> Edinburgh University Press, 1988.                                    Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon Press, 1970.
> Welch, A. T. “Muhammad’s Understanding of Himself: The               Shaked, Haim. The Life of the Sudanese Mahdi. New Brunswick,
> Koranic Data.” In Islam’s Understanding of Itself. Edited by          N.J.: Transaction Books, 1978.
> R. G. Hovannisian, and S. Vryonis, Jr. Malibu, Calif.:
> Undena Publications, 1983.                                                                                   Mohamed Mahmoud
> 
> Rizwi Faizer
> 
> MUHAMMAD 
ALI, DYNASTY OF
> 
> MUHAMMAD AHMAD IBN                                                   Founded by an adventurous Turkish cotton merchant who
> created an autonomous Egyptian state within the Ottoman
> 
ABDULLAH (1844–1885)                                                Empire, the Muhammad 
Ali dynasty lasted into the midtwentieth century, when it was abolished by revolutionary
> Muhammad Ahmad b. 
Abdullah, known as al-Mahdi, was
> Free Officers led by Jamal 
Abd al-Nasser.
> born in 1844 in northern Sudan and died on 22 June 1885 in
> Omdurman. He did not follow his family’s profession of boat             The dynasty is named after Muhammad 
Ali (r. 1805–1849),
> building, embarking instead on a religious and political ca-         a commander of the Ottoman force dispatched to oust Naporeer. He studied Quranic and other religious sciences and           leon Bonaparte’s army in 1801. Playing local politics shrewdly,
> joined the Sammaniyya mystical brotherhood. Besides his              he secured appointment as governor of Egypt in 1805. He
> religious and ascetic fervor, he was imbued with a strong            served his sultan as loyal vassal, sending troops to re-conquer
> sense of social justice and reform-mindedness that filled him         the Hijaz and to repress the Greek rebellion. At the same
> with a firm commitment to eradicate the colonial Turco-               time, he consolidated authority over Egypt, destroying the
> Egyptian regime and establish an Islamic state (1820–1885).          bases of Mamluk military and economic power and seizing
> control of a vast amount of state land. By the 1820s he
> The regime’s oppression and injustices, the loss of the           embarked on economic, military, and educational reforms,
> class of religious shaykhs (masters) of the privileged status they   many of which presaged similar impulses in Istanbul. In 1831
> had hitherto enjoyed, and the discontent of the influential           Egypt invaded Syria; only European intervention prevented a
> northern merchant class, all contributed to the creation             drive into Anatolia. A treaty in 1840 cut back his military
> of a revolutionary situation. Furthermore, there was an              might and proscribed his protectionist economic policies. He
> eschatological expectation among many people of the immi-            did, however, retain dynastic rights to Egypt.
> nent coming of a mahdi (the guided one).
> 
Abbas (r.1848–1854) undid most of the dynast’s reforms,
> Muhammad Ahmad’s declaration of his Mahdism in June               halting conscriptions of peasants for works projects and
> 1881 sparked off a relentless series of battles against the          military service. Sa
id (r. 1854–1863) sought to emulate
> Turco-Egyptian regime that culminated in the fall of Khartoum        Muhammad 
Ali, reinstituting Western-modeled educational
> in January 1885. Shortly afterward, al-Mahdi died before             reform and embarking upon infrastructure development,
> realizing his dream of carrying his Mahdist revolution be-           most notably granting the Suez Canal concession. Isma
il (r.
> yond Sudan.                                                          1863–1879), the first “khedive” (a special Ottoman designation for governor), inherited an enormous public debt, but
> Muhammad Ahmad legitimized his Mahdism by a claim of
> continued Sa
id’s reformist thrust. The debt crisis of the late
> a prophetic sanction based on a vision of the Prophet in a           1860s led Isma
il to sell Egypt’s Suez shares, institute a
> colloquy (hadra). He perceived his career as corresponding to        consultative assembly, and accept imposition of “dual conthat of the Prophet’s and his mission as a universal one. He         trol”—French and British officials to monitor Egypt’s fi-
> asserted that his Mahdism entailed the abolition of all juristic     nances. His resistance to European authority, fueled by a
> schools and mystical orders. His movement did not succeed            rising nationalist movement, led to his deposition by the
> in uprooting these expressions of Islam but instead led to the       sultan. Tawfiq (r. 1879–1892) confronted the nationalist
> birth of a new politico-religious brotherhood—the Ansar              
Urabi revolt that culminated, in 1882, in British occupation.
> (the followers of the Mahdi).                                        His successors, 
Abbas Hilmi (r. 1892–1914) and Husayn
> Kamil (r. 1914–1917), ruled primarily at British behest, the
> See also Mahdi.
> latter, after Britain declared a protectorate in 1914, as sultan.
> 
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                            Following the 1919 nationalist revolution, Britain granted
> Abu Salim, Muhammad Ibrahim. Al-Haraka l-Fikriyya fi l-               Egypt conditional independence under a constitutional mon-
> Mahdiyya (The intellectual movement under the Mahdiyya).           archy. King Fuad (Fuad) (r. 1917–1936) retained enormous
> Khartoum: Khartoum University Press, 1989.                         constitutional power over the newly endowed parliament, but
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                       485
> Muhammad Al-Nafs al-Zakiyya
> 
> still needed to answer to British superiors. Caught between        grandson, al-Hasan), many, including the famous jurist Malik
> the vise of British authority and the king’s unassailable right    b. Anas and the 
Alids, supported his cause. Muhammad
> to dissolve parliament, the “liberal experiment” quickly soured.   began his revolt against the caliph al-Mansur (d. 775) in
> Farouk (Faruq) (r. 1936–1952) acceded to the throne with           Medina, where he had considerable support, while his brother
> great fanfare, a charismatic, seemingly pious, socially con-       Ibrahim began his revolt in Basra later on. Due to his political
> scious youth who, many hoped, might stabilize the discred-         activism, many Zaydi Shi
ites supported Muhammad’s moveited order. But he quickly disappointed, becoming ultimately       ment. At one point Muhammad took over Mecca, anchora caricature: the obese gambler and sordid playboy, a modern       ing his claims on descent from Fatima, daughter of the
> Nero. His second wife, a commoner, bore him a son, Ahmad           Prophet. With only three hundred men, Muhammad was
> Fuad, who inherited the throne under a regency when               killed in Medina by al-Mansur’s greater forces, who were
> Farouk abdicated and left Egypt at the insistence of the           led by 
Isa b. Musa in 762. Extremist groups such as the
> military in July 1952. However, in June 1953 the Nasser            Mughiriyya refused to accept his death, believing him to be
> regime abolished the monarchy, proclaiming a republic.             the eschatological messiah.
> Farouk, ever the butt of popular satire, died abroad in 1965;
> the officers allowed him to be buried in Egypt, although not        See also Ahl al-Bayt; Imamate; Mahdi; Succession.
> alongside his predecessors.
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> See also 
Abd al-Nasser, Jamal; Modernization, Politi-
> Buhl, F. “Muhammad b. 
Abd Allah al-Nafs al-Zakiyya.” In
> cal: Authoritarianism and Democratization; Nation-                   Encyclopedia of Islam, 2d ed. Edited by H. A. R. Gibb, et al.
> alism: Arab; Reform: Arab Middle East and North                      Leiden: Brill, 1960–.
> Africa; Revolution: Modern.
> Kennedy, Hugh. The Early Abbasid Caliphate. London: Croom
> Helm, 1981.
> BIBLIOGRAPHYY
> Berque, Jacques. Egypt: Imperialism and Revolution. Trans-                                                      Liyakatali Takim
> lated by Jean Stewart. New York: Praeger, 1972.
> Sayyid-Marsot, Afaf Lutfi al-. Egypt in the Reign of Muhammad
> Ali. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University
> Press, 1984.                                                    MUHAMMAD, ELIJAH (1897–1975)
> Joel Gordon     From the 1930s until his death, Elijah Muhammad was the
> leader of the Nation of Islam, the most prominent African-
> American Muslim organization of the post–World War II
> era. A black migrant from Georgia who settled in Detroit and
> MUHAMMAD AL-NAFS AL-ZAKIYYA                                        then Chicago, Muhammad became known among thousands
> (D. 762 C.E.)                                                      of followers as the “Messenger of God.” He spread his ideas
> through popular public lectures, the widely distributed Mu-
> Muhammad b. 
Abdallah b. al-Hasan al-Muthanna died in              hammad Speaks newspaper, and works like The Supreme Wis-
> 762 C.E. Due to his gentle disposition, he was known as al-        dom (1957) and Message to the Blackman in America (1965). His
> Nafs al-Zakiyya, which means “the pure soul.” At a gathering       teachings combined Sunni Islamic elements with traditions
> of the Hashimites held at al-Abwa during the Umayyad              of black self-determination and black closeness (the idea that
> dynasty, Muhammad’s father, 
Abdallah, urged those present         blacks, like the ancient Israelites, were God’s chosen people).
> to accept his son as a claimant to the caliphate and the Mahdi     Elijah Muhammad encouraged African Americans to convert
> (messiah). With the exception of Ja
far al-Sadiq, the sixth        to Islam, follow a strict moral and ethical code, and work for
> Shi’ite Imam, most of those present agreed. When the Abbasids      economic and political self-sufficiency. He also taught that
> came to power they installed Abu l-
Abbas (known as al-           blacks were the earth’s original inhabitants who had become
> Saffah) as the new ruler, but Muhammad refused to acknowl-         enslaved by a devilish race of white men. God, he said, had
> edge his authority.                                                chosen him to “mentally resurrect” black people and prepare
> them for Judgment Day, when God would dispense with
> With his brother Ibrahim, Muhammad instigated a revolt          whites and reestablish a golden age of black splendor. This
> by seeking popular support against the new regime. The two         doctrine, called the Myth of Yacub by some outside the
> brothers traveled extensively in Islamic lands, enlisting fol-     movement, drew criticism from many black civil rights leadlowers. In a desperate attempt at capturing these two rene-        ers and Muslims, who deemed it un-Islamic. Elijah Muhamgades, al-Saffah’s successor, al-Mansur, imprisoned their          mad’s separatist Islam nevertheless found a sympathetic ear
> aged father and other family members. Since Muhammad               among members of the urban black working class, especially
> was a descendant of the Prophet (through the Prophet’s             black men in prison. His emphasis on black self-determination
> 
> 486                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlevi
> 
> and pride during the postwar period foreshadowed and in-         its independence. Although still solidly middle class,
> spired the black power movement of the 1960s and 1970s.          Muhammadiyah today is more intellectually diverse than at
> any point in history. In recent years the organization has
> After his death in 1975, his son, Wallace D. (or Warith       experienced heated debates over Islamic law, women’s rights,
> Deen) Muhammad, took over the Nation of Islam, leading           and religious tolerance.
> the movement toward a more Sunni interpretation of Islam.
> But in the late 1970s, Minister Louis Farrakhan, a former aide   See also Reform: Southeast Asia.
> to Elijah Muhammad, broke with the younger Muhammad,
> reconstituting a Nation of Islam that continued to rely on       BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Elijah Muhammad’s original teachings.
> Peacock, James L. Muslim Puritans: Reformist Psychology in
> Southeast Asian Islam. Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univer-
> See also American Culture and Islam; Americas, Islam
> sity of California Press, 1978.
> in the; Farrakhan, Louis; Malcolm X; Muhammad,
> Warith Deen; Nation of Islam.
> Robert W. Hefner
> 
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Clegg, Claude Andrew, III. An Original Man: The Life and
> Times of Elijah Muhammad. New York: St. Martin’s              MUHAMMAD REZA SHAH PAHLEVI
> Press, 1997.
> (1919–1980)
> Muhammad, Elijah. Message to the Blackman in America.
> Reprint. Newport News, Va.: United Brothers Commu-             Muhammad Reza, son of Reza Khan, was born on 26 October
> nications Systems, 1992.
> 1919 and was the second and last shah of the Pahlevi dynasty.
> He died in exile in Cairo on 27 July 1980.
> Edward E. Curtis IV
> At the coronation of his father, on 25 April 1926, Muhammad Reza was invested as crown prince. On 16 September
> 1941, Reza Shah abdicated following the Allied invasion of
> MUHAMMADIYYA                                                     Iran, and Muhammad Reza Shah succeeded to the throne.
> (MUHAMMADIYAH)                                                   The first twelve years of his reign, between 1941 and 1953,
> were marked by a continuing struggle for power between the
> The second largest of Indonesia’s Muslim social associations,    monarch and a variety of other political forces. This peaked
> the Muhammadiyah was founded in 1912 in Yogyakarta, Java,        in 1951 when opponents of the shah, led by prime minister
> by Ahmad Dahlan, a cloth merchant and minor court official        Muhammad Mosaddeq, nationalized the oil industry. Folwho had studied in Mecca. The organization quickly gained        lowing two years of political crisis and radicalization, the shah
> additional followers among Sumatran traders. With its            fled to Rome. He returned on 19 August, however, after a
> multiethnic urban base, the movement spread rapidly, reach-      coup. Muhammad Reza Shah then embarked on the consoliing even remote towns in eastern Indonesia by the late 1920s.    dation of a royal dictatorship, crushing all opposition. Between
> 1961 and 1963 he promulgated by decree a series of reforms
> The Muhammadiyah eschewed formal politics, concen-           known as the White Revolution, which included land reform
> trating on social welfare and religious education. In con-       and female enfranchisement. The land reform liquidated the
> trast to traditional Quranic schools (pesantren), Muhamma-      large absentee landlords and thus had a major impact on the
> diyah madrasas had age grades, modeled directly on mission       social structure of Iran. However, the lack of democratic
> schools. Curricula included science, mathematics, and geog-      freedoms continued to provoke opposition and major unrest
> raphy, in addition to religious study. These emphases showed     broke out in 1963. After his exile from Iran in 1964, Ayatollah
> the organization’s twin ambitions of urging Muslims to           Ruhollah Khomeini assumed the leadership of the Islamic
> respond to the scientific and political challenge of the West     opposition to the shah.
> while encouraging individual responsibility in devotion.
> Muhammadiyah also stressed women’s education. Its women’s           From the time of the 1953 coup, Muhammad Reza Shah
> branch, Aisyiyah, remains the largest organization of its kind   had become increasingly reliant on American support. The
> in the world.                                                    quadrupling of oil prices after 1973 allowed the shah to
> embark on a program of rapid industrialization as well as on a
> Muhammadiyah has based its success on steering clear         massive weapons’ purchasing program.
> of formal politics. The regime of Indonesian president Suharto
> (1966–1998) sought to nurture a conservative faction in             Both secular and religious opposition burgeoned during
> the organization, but the mainstream leadership guarded          the 1970s. Massive political demonstrations forced the shah
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                   487
> Muhammad, Warith Deen
> 
> to leave Iran on 16 January 1979; on 1 February 1979               Mamiya, Lawrence H. “From Black Muslim to Bilalian: The
> Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Iran.                                 Evolution of a Movement.” Journal for the Social Scientific
> Study of Religion 23 (1982): 138–152.
> See also Khomeini, Ruhollah; Modernization, Political:
> Authoritarianism and Democratization; Revolution:
> Edward E. Curtis IV
> Islamic Revolution in Iran.
> 
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Abrahamian, Ervand. Iran Between Two Revolutions. Prince-          MUHARRAM
> ton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1982.
> The first month of the Islamic year, Muharram, is the focus of
> Stephanie Cronin      annual lamentation rituals performed especially by Shi
a
> Muslims in honor of Husayn b. 
Ali, the prophet Muhammad’s grandson, who died in battle in 680 C.E. at Karbala
> (Iraq). Besieged by soldiers loyal to the caliph Yazid b.
> MUHAMMAD, WARITH
> Mu
awiya, who sought to prevent Husayn from gaining
> DEEN (1933– )                                                      political power, Husayn died on 
Ashura, the tenth day of
> Muharram. Family members accompanying him were killed
> Arguably the most important black Sunni Muslim leader in
> or subjected to imprisonment and humiliation. Commemothe history of African American Islam, Warith Deen Muhamration of the Karbala martyrs’ sufferings during the yearly
> mad (b. 1933) was brought up as a member of Elijah Muhammourning season (from the first of Muharram to the twentimad’s “royal family.” From the 1950s through the 1970s,
> eth of the month of Safar, with 
Ashura comprising the focal
> Warith Deen served on and off as a minister in his father’s
> date) serves to help define Shi
a communal identity.
> Nation of Islam (NOI), but was constantly in trouble as he
> questioned the Islamic legitimacy of his father’s teachings.
> Muharram observances vary throughout the Islamic world.
> Even so, when Elijah Muhammad died in 1975, Warith Deen
> Iran is famous for the taziya, a dramatic enactment of the
> emerged as movement leader. In the course of a few short
> Karbala battle. Localities in Pakistan and India stage 
Ashura
> years, he radically altered the official religious doctrines of
> processions featuring a stallion caparisoned as Zuljenah, the
> the NOI, instructing members to observe the traditional five
> horse ridden into combat by Husayn. In Hyderabad, India,
> pillars of Islamic practice.
> matami guruhan (Shi
a lamentation associations) sponsor the
> During this period, Warith Deen Muhammad led more               group performance of matam (gestures of grief ranging from
> African Americans toward Sunni Islam than any other person         rhythmic chestbeating to self-flagellation with razors and
> in history, before or after. He also reorganized the NOI,          chains). Matam is performed in time to the chanting of nauhas
> eventually disbanding it in favor of a decentralized national      (poems commemorating the Karbala martyrs).
> network of mosques. As Warith Deen led his followers
> toward Sunni Islam and away from his father’s black religious          In 1994 a fatwa by Sayyed 
Ali Khamenei, spiritual leader
> separatism, however, he also insisted that African American        of Iran, forbade the public performance of self-flagellation or
> Muslims continue to take pride in their ethnic heritage, work      other forms of bloody matam. This decree continues a policy
> for improvement in the quality of black life, and interpret        promulgated by Khamenei’s predecessor, the Ayatollah
> Sunni Islam in light of African-American historical circum-        Ruhollah Khomeini, who advocated taqrib or Sunni-Shi
a
> stances. In 1992, Warith Deen became the first Muslim to            rapprochement for the sake of pan-Islamic cooperation in
> offer the opening prayer before a session of the U.S. Senate.      international affairs. Sunnis have frequently condemned as
> Now addressed as imam (leader) by thousands of followers           un-Islamic the bloodier forms of Muharram mourning.
> across the country, he actively participates in interfaith dialogue and maintains strong ties to Muslim leaders both in the         The most common form of Muharram ritual, however, is
> United States and abroad.                                          the majlis al-aza or “lamentation gathering,” where a preacher
> recounts the Karbala martyrs’ sufferings to stimulate grief
> See also American Culture and Islam; Farrakhan, Louis;             among congregants. While lamentation rituals for Husayn
> Malcolm X; Muhammad, Elijah; Nation of Islam;                      have been documented as early as tenth-century Baghdad,
> United States, Islam in the.                                       Shi
a authorities trace the history of the majlis al-aza to
> Zaynab bint 
Ali, Husayn’s sister, who was present at Karbala
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                       and who is believed to have held the first majlis to mourn
> Curtis, Edward E., IV. Islam in Black America: Identity, Libera-   Husayn while a captive in Yazid’s palace. Traditional Shi
a
> tion, and Difference in African-American Islamic Thought.        belief holds that weeping for the Karbala martyrs gains
> Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002.                mourners access to Husayn’s intercession for the forgiveness
> 
> 488                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Muhtasib
> 
> Pinault, David. Horse of Karbala: Muslim Devotional Life in
> India. New York: Palgrave, 2001.
> 
> David Pinault
> 
> MUHASIBI, AL- (781–857)
> Harith ibn Asad al-Muhasibi of Baghdad was a master of Sufi
> ethics and the father of Sufi psychology. He is most famous
> for his theory of the three-part nature of the human soul. His
> nickname, “al-Muhasibi,” refers to his practice of muhasaba,
> the critical examination of actions, motives, and spiritual
> states. He was an exemplar of ethical conduct and refused to
> allow any form of self-deception. He taught his disciples to
> follow reason and avoid emotionalism. His major opponent
> was Ahmad ibn Hanbal (d. 855). Ibn Hanbal criticized al-
> Muhasibi for his rationalism and his use of dialectical reasoning. He incited his followers in Baghdad to intimidate al-
> Muhasibi and prevent people from attending his lessons.
> 
> Al-Muhasibi’s theory of the soul is contained in al-Riaya
> li-huquq Allah wa al-qiyam biha (How to observe and abide by
> the rights of God). He called his theory the “science of
> hearts.” The “heart” is a metaphor for the soul. It includes the
> Shiites in Kabul, Afghanistan, in 2002 perform a ritual of selfconscience (sirr), which is the spiritual center of the soul, and
> flagellation with knives attached to chains on Ashura, the Shiite
> community’s holiest day, to atone the death of Imam Husayn, the     the nafs, which is the “psyche,” “self,” or “ego.” Although the
> grandson of Muhammad. During the rule of the Taliban, such          nafs is necessary for human existence, its desire for selfpublic celebrations of Ashura were prohibited in Afghanistan. AP/   gratification undermines the spiritual nature of the soul.
> WIDE WORLD PHOTOS
> Using a term from the Quran, al-Muhasibi calls the egocentered soul the “commanding nafs” (al-nafs al-ammara).
> The key to taming the “commanding nafs” is self-examination
> of sins. But recent Shi
a thinking emphasizes the political
> (muhasaba). Through self-examination, the “commanding
> dimension of Muharram ritual as a form of communal assernafs” is transformed into the “self-blaming nafs” (al-nafs altiveness and revolutionary activism.
> lawwama). At this stage, one becomes aware of the damage
> Muharram rituals are not limited to the Shi
a. In Ladakh        that has been done to oneself and others by allowing the nafs
> (Jammu and Kashmir, India), where Muslims are a minority            to control one’s life. But the “self-blaming nafs” is still egoin a predominantly Buddhist region, Sunnis cooperate with           obsessed. Its overly critical attitude can lead to self-hatred and
> the Shi
a in staging Zuljenah processions to demonstrate            even suicide. Only by transcending the ego entirely is it
> Islamic solidarity. In Andhra Pradesh (India), Hindus visit         possible to attain the third and final stage of self-awareness,
> Shi
a shrines during Muharram. And in Darjeeling (West              the “nafs at peace” (al-nafs al-mutmainna). In this final stage,
> the soul is at peace because it has transcended the human ego
> Bengal), where most Muslims are Sunnis, 
Ashura takes on an
> and is now controlled by God. This is the meaning of alair of carnival, with competitions involving drumming and
> Muhasibi’s aphorism, “Be God’s or be nothing.”
> stickfighting.
> See also Ibn Hanbal; Tasawwuf.
> See also Husayn; Karbala; Ritual; Shi
a: Early; Ta
ziya
> (Ta
ziye).
> Rkia E. Cornell
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Halm, Heinz. Shia Islam: From Religion to Revolution. Princeton, N.J.: Markus Wiener Publishers, 1997.                        MUHTASIB
> Hegland, Mary Elaine. “The Power Paradox in Muslim
> Women’s Majales: North-West Pakistani Mourning Ritu-              The term muhtasib has primarily been used to designate a
> als.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 23           person who has been appointed by the political power (sultan
> (1998): 391–428.                                                  or imam) to police the enforcement of Islamic law in a
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                       489
> Mujahidin
> 
> particular area. In works of law, the muhtasib is described as    Movement), Hizb-e Islami (Party of Islam) led by Gulbuddin
> being responsible for ensuring that the activities of the         Hikmatyar, Hizb-e Islami led by Muhammad Yunus Khalis.
> Muslims in an area conform with the sharia. This is particu-     Hikmatyar and Khalis initially jointly led the Hizb-e Islami,
> larly the case with regard to commerce and supervision of the     but later split the party, both retaining the same name. Itihadmarketplace. In later times (after 1500 C.E.), the muhatsib was   e Islami (Islamic Union), Jam
iyat-e Islami (Islamic Society),
> almost exclusively responsible for ensuring that the weights      Jabha-e Nijat-e Milli-ye Afghanistan (National Liberation
> and measures used in the market were fair and consistent. He      Front of Afghanistan), and Mahaz-e Milli-ye Islami-ye Afghanialerted the judge (qadi) of cases of infringement, though he      stan (National Islamic Front of Afghanistan).
> had the power to act without the judge’s express permission.
> One finds the official position of muhtasib for towns men-              In 1988, the Afghan Interim Government (AIG)—a loose
> tioned in sources from most periods of classical Islam (from      alliance of the seven groups listed above—was achieved
> the Abbasids through the Ottomans, Safavids, and Mughals).        through pressure by Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United
> The position appears to have disappeared in the nineteenth        States. However, various attempts to unite these and other
> century, as law enforcement across the Muslim world under-        smaller Pakistan-based mujahidin groups ultimately resulted
> went modernization. It can be argued that all Muslims should,     in failure. In Iran, there were a multitude of mujahidin groups
> in a sense, be muhtasibs, since a muhtasib is one who enforces    until 1989, when, owing to Iranian pressure, they united into
> “public order” (hisba), and because all Muslims have this         a single party, Hizb-e Wahdat-e Islam-ye Afghanistan (Isresponsibility under the general obligation to “command           lamic Unity Party of Afghanistan).
> what is approved and forbid what is reprehensible” (for
> example Q 3:104), and the law books allow for “voluntary”             In February 1989, the Soviet troops withdrew from Afghanimuhtasibs to enforce public morals.                               stan and on 28 April 1992, the Afghan mujahidin finally
> achieved their main objective by capturing the capital, Kabul.
> See also Hisba; Political Organization.                           Sibghatallah Mujaddidi, leader of Jabha-e Nijat-e Milli, was
> proclaimed president of the Islamic State of Afghanistan for a
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                      two-month period, to be followed by a four-month presi-
> Buckley, R. P. “The Muhtasib.” Arabica 34 (1992): 59–117.         dency of Burhan al-Din Rabbani, the leader of Jam
iyat-e
> Islami. Thereafter, elections were to be held. However,
> Rabbani refused to leave office, barred elections, and ruled in
> Robert Gleave
> Kabul until 27 September 1996, when a splinter mujahidin
> group, the Taliban, captured the city.
> 
> MUJAHIDIN                                                             From 1992 to 1996, various mujahidin groups battled each
> other in every corner of Afghanistan. In the ever-shifting
> Mujahidin (mojahidin) is the plural form of the Arabic term       alliances and frontlines, the country was transformed into
> mujahid, who is a person who wages jihad. According to            decentralized fiefdoms ruled with increasing brutality by
> doctrinal and historical applications of Islamic law, jihad       warlords. Moreover, with the absence of a common enemy,
> indicates military action for the defense or expansion of         the jihad gave way to an ethno-sectarian war. Another legacy
> Islam. While in the course of Islamic history the term            of the Afghan mujahidin was the influx of foreign fighters,
> mujahidin has been used by different groups to identify their     mainly from Pakistan and Arab states. After the mujahidin
> struggles to defend Islam, the term gained global currency in     victory in 1992, most of these groups reorganized and bethe latter decades of the twentieth century after the leftist     came involved in places such as Algeria, Bosnia-Herzegovina,
> coup d’état in Afghanistan on 27 April 1978. The resistance       Chechnya, and Kashmir.
> groups first opposed the Afghan communist regime, declar-
> Beginning in 1989, Pakistan supported and organized the
> ing it atheist. They then turned their attention to the Soviet
> transfer of Afghan and Pakistani mujahidin groups to Kashmir,
> Union when it invaded Afghanistan on 27 December 1979.
> in order to have more direct control over the militants that
> Fighting the Soviet Red Army, they collectively referred to
> were fighting for either the valley’s independence from India
> themselves as mujahidin waging jihad against a communist
> power occupying an Islamic land.                                  or for union with Pakistan. The largest of these groups
> were Harakat al-Ansar (Movement of the Ansar—Helpers of
> The Afghan mujahidin were divided into two main groups:        prophet Muhammad in Medina), Hizb al-Mojahidin (Party
> (1) those based in and backed by Pakistan with substantial        of Mojahidin), and Lashkar-e Taiba (Army of Pure). The
> financial and military assistance from Saudi Arabia and the        involvement of these and other mujahidin heightened the
> United States, who mainly represented the Sunni majority;         religious dimension of the Kashmiri conflict. By 1993, the
> and (2) those based in and supported by Iran, representing the    largest and most popular Kashmiri insurgent group, the
> Shi
ite minority. The Pakistan-based group of mujahidin           Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, which advocated
> included Harakat-e Inqilab-e Islami (Islamic Revolutionary        independence and secularism for Kashmir, lost its military
> 
> 490                                                                                           Islam and the Muslim World
> Mulla Sadra
> 
> With the White Mountains in the background, a mujahid stands guard in the graveyard of Achin, an Afghan village in the Nangarhar province.
> AP/WIDE WORLD PHOTOS
> 
> edge to the Hizb al-Mojahidin, which advocated either the
> establishment of an Islamic Kashmiri republic or union with
> MUJAHIDUN See Mujahidin
> Pakistan.
> 
> In the case of the Afghan resistance in the 1978–1992
> period, the term mujahidin gained popularity, as did the
> groups themselves, not only in Islamic countries but also in           MULLA SADRA (C. 1572–1640)
> the West. In the Islamic context, the Afghans waged a true
> jihad; and in Western minds, they were a liberation army               Sadr al-Din Muhammad b. Ibrahim Shirazi, commonly known
> fighting Soviet expansionism. Since 1992, however, the term             as Mulla Sadra and also given the honorific title Sadr almujahidin lost its religious and political currency internation-       mutaallihin, was born around 1572 in Shiraz, Persia, to a
> ally, as the Afghan mujahidin became associated with interna-          politically powerful and wealthy family, and he died in Basra
> tional terrorist figures who had once fought in their ranks,            in 1640. The most famous of the later Islamic philosophers of
> such as Usama bin Ladin. In the Kashmiri case, the groups              Persia, he carried out his early studies in Shiraz and then went
> claiming the title of mujahidin did not enjoy support in most          to Esfahān for more advanced studies especially in the field of
> Muslim countries, with the exception of Pakistan, and were             philosophy. There he became a student of Baha al-Din alseen in the West as either terrorist or rebel organizations.           Amili and Mir Muhammad Baqir Damad, the founder of the
> School of Esfahan. Mulla Sadra soon became a celebrated
> See also Political Islam; Taliban.                                     philosopher himself but because of the opposition of some
> religious scholars decided to leave Esfahān. He spent many
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                           years in Kahak, a village near Qom, in meditation and
> Roy, Olivier. Islam and Resistance in Afghanistan. Cambridge,          spiritual seclusion but finally returned to public life when the
> U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1986.                              Khan School was built in Shiraz for him. He spent some three
> decades of the last part of his life in that city where he trained
> Amin Tarzi        many students and wrote most of his works.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                           491
> Murji
ites, Murji
a
> 
> Mulla Sadra composed more than forty books, all but one       attempt to rebel against legitimate leadership is therefore
> in Arabic, concerning both the religious sciences and philoso-    unacceptable. Murjiites also hold the view that a (grave)
> phy, his most famous work being al-Asfar al-arbaa (The four      sinner should be punished but should not be excluded from
> journeys). He was deeply rooted in the teachings of Ibn Sina,     the community, since punishment by exclusion can mean loss
> Suhrawardi, and Ibn al-
Arabi as well as being well-versed in     of security, life, or property. Another point of difference
> the study of Quranic commentaries, the hadith and tradi-         concerns the eternity of punishment. While the Kharijites
> tions of Shi’ite imams and Islamic theology. He created a         strongly hold that a grave sinner is doomed in Hell forever,
> synthesis between the purely religious thought of Islam in        the Murjiites gives the possibility of forgiveness by God’s
> general, Islamic peripatetic (mashsha’i) philosophy, the School   will and grace.
> of Illumination (ishraq), and doctrinal Sufism of the School of
> Ibn ’Arabi. He believed that authentic hikma or philosophy/           The Murjiite interpretation does not belong specifically
> theosophy could only be attained by combing revealed knowl-       to the Shi
a or the Sunnis. Some Shi
is followed the Murjiites
> edge, inner illumination, and ratiocination and he called this    in postponing their judgment of 
Uthman’s and his adversarintegral hikma “The transcendent philosophy/theosophy”            ies’ affairs while Sunnis adopt the Murjiite view that no sin,
> (al-hikma al-mutaaliyya). His teachings soon spread through-     other than shirk (idolatry or God’s partnership with other
> out Persia and Muslim India and he has been without doubt         than Himself) and kufr (infidelity), can make one an unbeliever.
> the most influential Islamic philosopher of the past few
> centuries. He is the figure around whom the revival of Islamic     See also Kharijites, Khawarij.
> philosophy has taken place during the second half of the
> twentieth century, especially in Persia itself.                   BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Watt, W. Montgomery. The Formative Period of Islamic Thought.
> See also Falsafa; Ibn 
Arabi; Ibn Sina; Ishraqi School.             Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1973.
> 
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Shalahudin Kafrawi
> Nasr, Seyyed Hossein. Sadr al-Dīn Shīrazī and his Transcendent Theosophy. Tehran: Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies 1997.
> Rahman, Fazhur. The Philosophy of Mulla Sadra. Albany: State      MUSIC
> University Press of New York, 1976.
> While the history of music in Islam covers at least fifteen
> Seyyed Hossein Nasr
> centuries, with orally transmitted repertoire and no signifi-
> cant notation system, its geography and distinct musical
> cultures include many diverse regions in the world. By neces-
> MURJIITES, MURJIA                                               sity, this article excludes many folk musical traditions, popular musics, and other local styles; instead, it focuses on some
> The participle murji
 derives from irja
, the most profound       of the universal aspects of music within the Islamic world.
> meanings of which are “giving hope” and “postponing.” The
> first meaning indicates that there is a hope for salvation when    The Concept of Music
> someone dies with faith albeit he or she has done grave sins.     While a word of Greek origin, musiki, was used in many
> The second and perhaps the earliest meaning of this religio-      theoretical works, an Arabic term, ghina (song), has been used
> political label was that the judgment about those involved in     also for music in secular contexts. Other terms, as well, are
> the conflict between 
Uthman, 
Ali, and al-Zubayr is “post-        used for what a Westerner might call music in folk and sacred
> poned” until the Last Day.                                        contexts—for example, kü is used for song or music in the
> Kazakh epic tradition and ir is used for both song and poetry
> Historically, the Murjiite sect, which is considered an       in certain Turkic languages.The terms qawwal (one who
> extreme contrast to the Kharijite, was founded by 
Ali’s          says), and ashiq (lover), are used in Pakistan and Azerbaijan,
> grandson al-Hasan b. Muhammad b. al-Hanafiyya as a re-             respectively, for certain types of musicians. “Singing” is never
> sponse to the fanatical Kharijite and Shi
ite sects. While        used in describing Quranic cantillation; instead, the term
> Kharijites hold the view that the third caliph, 
Uthman, was a    “reading” is used in both Arabic and other main languages
> grave sinner and hence an unbeliever, and Muslims are not         spoken in Islam.
> bound to his leadership, the Murjiites were very much
> interested in the preservation of the unity of Muslim commu-         An article by Lois Ibsen al-Faruqi, based on a modern
> nity rather than pronouncing judgment on whether or not           interpretation of historical sources, includes an illustration of
> 
Uthman and 
Ali were believers. As a consequence, Murjiites     a hierarchy of “sound architecture” (handasat al-sawt). In this
> postpone their judgment and give 
Uthman and 
Ali a tempo-        hierarchy, genres are placed on continua between music and
> rary status of believers and accept their leadership. Any         nonmusic, and legitimate and illegitimate. Consequently,
> 
> 492                                                                                           Islam and the Muslim World
> Music
> 
> “sensuous music associated with unacceptable contexts” is
> considered illegitimate (haram), and is labeled as music.
> Quranic chant (qira
a), other religious chants, such as the
> adhan, chanted poetry with noble themes (shir), family and
> celebration music (lullabies, women’s songs, wedding songs,
> etc.), “occupational” music (caravan chants, shepherd’s tunes,
> work songs, etc.), and military music are all considered
> legitimate (halal), and labeled as nonmusic. Then again, while
> vocal and instrumental improvisations, serious metered songs,
> instrumental music, and music related to pre-Islamic or non-
> Islamic origins are considered music, their legitimacy remains controversial, either forbidden or discouraged in Islamic
> law (al-Faruqi, 1985). Based mostly on al-Ghazali’s (d. 1111)
> Ihya
 ulum al-din (Revivification of the religious sciences),
> Al-Faruqi makes the case that the status of any handasat alsawt genre depends on its context. Nonetheless, attitudes for
> this kind of labeling change in different countries. Two
> contrasting views may be observed in Turkey and Egypt.
> 
> In Turkey, Quranic recitation is considered to be music
> and imams, or leaders of religious services in mosques, are
> formally educated in music theory and practice at special state
> high schools and universities. As recently as 2002 the State
> Directorship of Religious Affairs organized a mandatory
> camp of intensive courses in musical theory and practice for
> mosque employees. However, Turkish scholars distinguish
> between mosque music (cami musikisi) and Sufi music (Tasavvuf
> musikisi) and, as in the rest of the Islamic world, musical         On the streets of Malaka, Malaysia, a Muslim musician plays a
> Malaysian flute. © DAVE BARTRUFF/CORBIS
> instruments are not permitted in mosques. Many performers
> operate in both domains. Furthermore, some Turkish performers of Quranic recitation function in both religious and
> secular contexts. For example, Kani Karaca (b. 1930), a             Quranic Recitation
> celebrated singer of the sacred Ayin of the Mevlevi (Sufi            Two equally complex systems with specific sets of rules
> order), the Mevlid, and a Quranic reciter, is also recognized      control most aspects of the Quranic recitation throughout
> as an exceptional artist in the secular Ottoman classical           the Islamic world. While a melodic modal system (maqam)
> tradition.                                                          helps to shape the melodic progression of a recitation (see
> below), the tajwid determines the exact pronunciation of
> In Egypt, on the other hand, an ideal Quranic recitation is     the text.
> considered nonmusic. While Egyptians expect the reciter to
> demonstrate tasteful aesthetic skills, they also consider that         The rules of tajwid have been transmitted orally generathe act of listening to the Quran (sama) should not engage a      tion after generation throughout the centuries. Properties of
> musical perception because of music’s association with worldly      sound and rhythm are clearly articulated in the rules of tajwid.
> and even blasphemous irreligious contexts. Hence, in the            Some of the specific performance instructions include, for
> context of Quranic recitation, the practice of “musical”           example, appropriate places for taking a breath, when to
> composition is learned not through straightforward melodic          repeat a word or section, relative length of a syllable or
> exercises, but through providing a learning environment for         phoneme, and so on. The degree of tajwid’s effect over the
> individuals where there is no direct teaching of musical            recitation varies in the two main styles: murattal and mujawwad.
> melodies.
> Murattal (also known as tartil) is plainer and it emphasizes
> National and local competitions of Quranic recitation for       the meaning of the text itself. The pitch material of a maqam
> men, women, and children, like the Musabaqah Tilawatil              used in this style is often limited—usually within a fourth or a
> Qur
an in Indonesia, and instructional and commercial re-           fifth—and elaborate melismatic contours where there is more
> cordings (especially in Egypt, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Tur-        than one musical pitch per syllable are considered inapprokey) help to perpetuate certain styles, and a net of artistic and   priate in that they obscure the meaning. Accordingly, there
> spiritual critics protects the balance between the music as an      are no maqam modulations. Similar to the European recitaenhancer of spirituality and the meaning in the text.               tive style, the tempo of murattal is relatively fast.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                     493
> Music
> 
> Since it does not demand any musical training, many             in a number of recordings by eminent musicians from the
> practitioners of murattal are nonprofessionals and include         Middle East and a significant six-volume publication on
> both women and children. Professional woman reciters,              music theory in French by Baron Rodolphe d’Erlanger, La
> whether they perform for a mixed audience or only females,         musique arabe (1930–1959).
> often perform in the less ostentatious murattal. They are
> especially encouraged to recite in murattal since a woman’s        Melody
> voice with elaborate melodic creations is believed to distract     Theory, in general, provides a shared vocabulary of concepts
> male listeners from the meaning of the text. On the other          and technical aspects of music for communication. Therehand, professionals of the more elaborate mujawwad style are       fore, knowledge of maqam (melodic mode) theory has been
> almost always men.                                                 essential for musicians’ education in the art of both composition and improvisation. A maqam articulates a number of
> The mujawwad style—also known as tilawa (and more              rules in a musical composition regardless of whether the piece
> problematically as tartil and tajwid)—came out of Egypt            is composed or improvised, the most important of which are:
> during the first half of the twentieth century through recordings of such reciters as Shaykh Mustafa Isma
il and more              pitch material (scale);
> notably Shaykh 
Abd al-Basit 
Abd al-Samad. Many reciters             melodic progression (shape and direction);
> outside of Egypt emulated the mujawwad style from these               modulations (to other maqams);
> recordings and other performances from the powerful Egypand stereotypical melodic cells.
> tian radio broadcasts. The mujawwad style gives more importance to musical composition and the emotional intensity of
> There are many maqams and each maqam has its own set of
> the melody.
> rules. These rules are deduced from a large body of existing
> Call to Prayer                                                     compositions. The number of maqams used (Ar. maqamat,
> Perhaps, the most familiar sound in the world of Islam is the      Turkish, makamlar, Moroccan Ar. tubu) varies from country
> voice of a muezzin (Ar., mu
adhdhin) reciting the adhan, or call   to country and from one period to another; also, they may go
> to prayer. Wherever there is a mosque one may hear the             in and out of fashion. Understanding the intricacies of maqam
> adhan regularly five times a day from a minaret or a loud-          might secure a high status among musicians; in the same way,
> speaker attached to the main building. People may also             inappropriate use of a maqam in an improvisation, for examexperience the adhan in other contexts: broadcast on radio or      ple, could lower a musician’s status significantly.
> television, or from a recording on an alarm clock.
> Even in the twenty-first century, musicians continue to
> Each adhan is semi-improvised within a maqam (melodic          invent new maqams and compose new pieces in these complex
> mode) in a rather plain style. Unlike murattal style, certain      modal entities.
> syllables of the fixed text of the adhan may incite a melodic
> Rhythm
> melisma within a particular maqam. Muezzins are often pro-
> Most early Islamic treatises included sections on the rhythfessionals employed by a mosque. However, they may have
> mic modes (usul or iqa). An usul, the counterpart of maqam, is
> additional duties in the mosque. During the Ottoman Empire
> a fixed rhythmic pattern and used to measure individual
> (1299–1918) palace muezzins were among the highest-paid
> compositions. There may be one or more usuls in a given
> employees.
> number of beats; for example, there are four known nine-beat
> Theory                                                             usuls. Similar to the Indian rhythmic modal system tala,
> Music, along with mathematics, astronomy, and philosophy,          special nonlexical syllables like dumm, takk, or tek-ka are used
> was one of the main scientific fields studied by the early           to articulate usuls. There is often a direct correlation between
> Islamic scholars and today it remains one of the most studied      usul and form. For example, the nine-beat usul Evfer is always
> art forms in the Islamic world. A number of scientific and          used for the second section (selam) in a Mevlevi ayin composiphilosophical treatises by ancient Greek scholars like Pythago-    tion; and the ten-beat Georgina (Turk. Aksak Semai) is used
> ras, Plato, Aristotle, and Archimedes were translated into         for the instrumental Samai (Turk. Saz Semaisi). Rhythmic
> Arabic starting with the second and third centuries of Islam       modulation is an important compositional tool used by the
> (700–800 B.C.E.). These works provided a model for later           composers.
> studies by Islamic scholars with their contents on cosmological associations of music, the healing affects of music, instru-   Form and Genre
> ments, and other technical specifics such as tuning systems         The suite form appears to be a significant genre in many
> and melodic (maqam) and rhythmic modes (iqa).                      religious, classical, and military musical traditions of the
> Middle East and Central Asia. The cyclical structure of these
> An international congress on Arab music held in Cairo in       musical traditions goes back to the early centuries of Islam,
> 1932 renewed attention to many theoretical issues within the       and descriptions of early suite forms may be found in the
> Islamic world—including Turkish and Persian—and resulted           writings of Islamic scholars such as Isfahani and Meraghi as
> 
> 494                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Music
> 
> early as the tenth century. A suite tradition often has a fixed            Mevlevis typically use a compound musical form (ayin)
> body of repertoire, and shorter individual compositions are           during their rituals (sema), mixing the fixed Rast na
at-e
> selected for performances. A specific order of pieces is deter-        Mevlana, several taqsims, a pesrev, a four-section vocal compomined by their rhythmic patterns (usul) and form.                     sition with a text chosen from Jalaluddin Rumi’s poems,
> instrumental interludes, various hymns, and Quranic recita-
> An unmeasured solo instrumental improvisation, like Turk-         tion. A sequence of Son pesrev and Son yuruk semai is the last
> ish and Arab taqsim or Persian daramad, appears in most suite         instrumental section played by the Mevlevi ensemble (mutrip).
> traditions. A taqsim may be played at several points in a             Turkish classical musicians frequently perform this particular
> performance, for example, as an introduction to a suite in a          form and certain other instrumental selections from the ayin
> given maqam, or as a transition between pieces. Although it is        form in secular concerts.
> improvised, a taqsim follows the rules of the maqam and has a
> definable form. A Turkish taksim usually falls into three                 Dhikr (remembrance) is one of the most common forms
> sections. The introduction shows the main pitches and other           performed by worshippers at Sufi gatherings of different
> characteristics of the mode, and demonstrates the performer’s         sects. It is performed through formulized repetitions of
> mastery of a particular makam. The next section shows the             words or short phrases in highly rhythmic specific patterns—
> performer’s ability to modulate to other makams within the            “Allah” (God) or “la ilaha illallah” (There is no God but
> rigid aesthetic rules of the tradition. Finally, the performer        Allah), for example. Specialists or volunteers from the conrecapitulates and summarizes the original makam.                      gregation may perform on frame drums or other percussion
> instruments during dhikr. Quranic recitation, hymns, and
> Arab layali and qasida,Turkish gazel, and Persian avaz are
> vocal improvisations with religious texts are often included
> some of the vocal counterparts of taqsim that are often set to a
> into the ritual.
> secular poetry with additional words and other nonlexical
> syllables, for example, aman, of, yar, yalel, and so on.              Education
> Starting in the nineteenth century, the adoption of the
> The Moroccan Andalusian tradition also includes a quasi-
> Western system of musical notation in certain parts of the
> improvised orchestral taqsim, known as bughia. While they
> Islamic world changed the nature of music education in the
> follow a slow-moving specific main melody in a highly
> classical genres, and, consequently, sheet music replaced
> heterophonic texture, performance of bughia usually accommemory for many in the younger generation of musicians.
> modates individual performers with some freedom to impro-
> Conservatories and other music schools in countries like
> vise. The origins of bughia possibly go back to a solo
> Morocco, Egypt, Turkey, and Iraq produced literate musiimprovisation.
> cians with high technical skills during the twentieth century.
> Na
at and durak may be shown as examples of unmeasured            The famous Iraqi oud virtuoso Munir Bashir may be given as
> pre-composed genres whose text praises the prophet Mo-                an example.
> hammed. The best-known na
at is the Rast Na
at-e Mevlana,
> In most Islamic countries oral transmission between the
> which is fixed as part of the ayin suite performed during the
> master and pupil was broadened with the advancement of the
> rituals of the Mevlevis, also known in the West as the
> recording technologies during the twentieth century, and
> Whirling Dervishes.
> recordings of masters on radio, television, cassettes, compact
> Some of the main Islamic suite traditions begin with a            discs, videos, and even CD-ROMs became virtual teachers
> composed instrumental form performed by the entire ensem-             for young performers. Consequently, regardless of whether it
> ble. The pesrev, for example, appears in Turkish Mevlevi ayin,        is sacred or secular, listening to the great performers remains
> fasil, and military mehter performances. Measured in large            the principal way to reach the level of mastery.
> rhythmic patterns, pesrevs (Ar. bashraf) consist of four independent sections (hane) and a refrain (teslim) following each
> Instruments
> section. The Arab bashraf, Moroccan Andalusian tushia, and            In most locations, musical instruments are not allowed in
> Persian pishdaramad similarly occur at the beginning of each          mosques. A certain kind of inclusiveness and tolerance, on the
> respective suite.                                                     other hand, makes it possible for a variety of musical instruments and dance to be incorporated into Sufi rituals. Most
> A samai, on the other hand, is the last instrumental              notably, the Mevlevi order, both in Turkey and Syria, feacomposition of the traditional Egyptian and Syrian suite              tures a large orchestra with classical instruments like oud, ney,
> wasla. The basic structure of the sama
i is identical to the          and rebab, to name a few. The most commonly used instrubashraf, that is, four sections (hane) with a refrain (teslim). The   ment among Sufis is the drum. While the shapes and names of
> standard rhythmic pattern (usul) of this genre, however, is a         drums may change from one culture to another, the most
> short one, Georgina (3+2+2+3). In the final hane the meter             common Sufi drum is a frame drum. Some peripheral countypically modulates to Darij (3+3). The Turkish fasil and             tries with Muslim populations (e.g., Indonesia, Ghana), fur-
> Mevlevi ayin also include an instrumental semai at the end.           thermore, use indigenous instruments in their Islamic rituals.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                        495
> Muslim Brotherhood
> 
> See also Arabic Literature; Persian Language and Lit-                isnads (“chain of transmission”) for the hadiths he recorded,
> erature; Quran; Umm Kulthum; Urdu Language,                         listing all the variant isnads known to him for a particular
> Literature, and Poetry.                                              tradition, before listing their common matn or text. These
> different isnads are indicated by the Arabic letter h which
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                         stood for tahwil or hawala, Arabic for change. On account of
> And, Metin, and Halman, Talat Sait. Mevlana Celaleddin               this arrangement, he has been justly praised by both medieval
> Rumi and the Whirling Dervishes. Istanbul: Dost Publica-           and modern scholars; the latter in particular have found these
> tions, 1983.                                                       “clusters” of matns produced in this manner especially useful
> Denny, Walter. “Music and Musicians in Islamic Art.” Asian           for the analysis of hadiths and their dating. Another impor-
> Music 17, no. 1 (1985): 37–68.                                     tant feature of Muslim’s al-Sahih is its introduction, which
> d’Erlanger, Baron Rodolphe. La Musique Arabe. Paris:                 deals with the subject of ilm al-hadith (“the science of tradi-
> Geuthner, 1930–1959.                                              tion”). The medieval sources list other works by Muslim on
> fiqh (jurisprudence) and hadith transmitters, none of which
> Faruqi, Lois Ibsen al-. “Music, Musicians and Muslim Law.”
> Asian Music 17, no. 1 (1985): 3–36.                               appears to be extant.
> Feldman, Walter Z. Music of the Ottoman Court. Berlin:               See also Bukhari, al-; Hadith.
> VWB-Verlag für Wissenschaft und Bildung, 1996.
> Nettl, Bruno, and Foltin, Bela. Daramad of Chahargah: A              BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Study in the Performance Practice of Persian Music. Detroit:
> Juynboll, G. H. A. “Muslim b. al-Hadjdjadj.” In The
> Detroit Monographs in Musicology, Number 2, 1972.
> Encyclopaedia of Islam. New edition. Edited by H. Gibb, et
> Pacholczyk, Jozef. Sufyana Muziqi: The Classical Music of               al. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1960.
> Kashmir. Berlin: VWB-Verlag für Wissenschaft und
> Rauf, Muhammad Abdul. “Hadith Literature: The Develop-
> Bildung, 1966.
> ment of the Science of Hadith.” In Vol. 1, Arabic Literature
> Signell, Karl. Makam Modal Practice in Turkish Art Music.              to the End of the Umayyad Period. Edited by A. F. L.
> New York: Da Capo Press, 1986.                                      Beeston, et al. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University
> Touma, Habib Hassan. Maqam Bayati in the Arabian Taqsim.               Press, 1983.
> Berlin: International Monograph Publishers, 1975.
> Wright, Owen. The Modal System of Arab and Persian Music                                                          Asma Afsaruddin
> A. D. 1250–1300. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press.
> London Oriental Series, 1978.
> 
> Munir Beken
> MUSLIM STUDENT ASSOCIATION OF
> NORTH AMERICA
> Muslim students in universities across the United States
> MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD See Ikhwan                                        formally inaugurated the Muslim Student Association in a
> al-Muslimin                                                          national conference held in Urbana, Illinois, on 1 January
> 1963. The participants in this first conference represented
> immigrant students from all over the Muslim world. On
> almost every major college campus where there were Muslim
> students (about two hundred in all), a MSA was established as
> MUSLIM IBN AL-HAJJAJ                                                 part of a network of local chapters with regional and zonal
> (C. 817–875)                                                         structures. The central organization was run by an executive
> committee, as was each local chapter, and a general national
> Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj, compiler of the second most important          meeting was held every year in a different city.
> collection of sound hadiths, was born in Neyshabur, Persia,
> between 817 and 821 and died there in 875 C.E.. In order to              In September 1975, the MSA established a general secrecollect hadiths (traditions), he traveled at an early age to Iraq,   tariat and a headquarters in Plainfield, Indiana. Accordingly,
> Egypt, the Arabian Peninsula, and Syria, where he heard              departments were created to oversee the dissemination of
> traditions from well-known authorities, such as the jurist           Islamic education and publications, training, public relations,
> Ahmad b. Hanbal (d. 855) and Harmala, a student of the               finance, and administration. As members graduated, they
> earlier legal scholar al-Shafi
i (d. 820). Of the 300,000 tradi-      remained active and some made the organization their life’s
> tions that he is said to have amassed, only four thousand (or        work. By February 1977 the MSA had become the largest,
> three thousand if one does not count the repetitions) were           best-organized, most active, financially stable, and influential
> included in his collection, which was entitled al-Jami al-sahih     American Muslim organization. It had also come to be
> (The sound compendium), al-Sahih for short. Compared                 dominated in leadership and membership by Muslim stuwith al-Bukhari, Muslim pays meticulous attention to the             dents from Southeast Asia. Since 1977 the numbers of MSAs
> 
> 496                                                                                              Islam and the Muslim World
> Muthanna, Muhammad ibn Abdallah, al-
> 
> has grown and although immigrant Muslim students from all         methods of arguments with Islamic principles have contribover participate, South Asians predominate in the leader-         uted to a great extent to the development and flourishing of
> ship roles.                                                       rationalism in early Islamic thought.
> 
> One immediate result of the organization and influence of           The seeds of Mu
tazilite views disseminated by its early
> this group was criticism for expanding that influence to           figures such as Wasil b. al-
Atta, 
Amr b. 
Ubayd, and Abu l-
> Hudhayl eventually got formulated and adopted as five
> community affairs. Though students were naturally members
> Mu
tazilite principles. The principle of unity (tawhid) sugof various communities, they had competition in the leadergests God’s unity against any resemblance to Him. Under
> ship of community affairs. This tension caused the emerthis principle, Mu
tazilites deny the eternity of the Quran,
> gence of the Muslim Community Association. The two
> God’s attributes, and any form of anthromorphism. The
> groups were then organized in 1981 under an umbrella
> principle of justice (adl) is associated with the theory of
> organization, The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA).
> determination (qadar), in which it is maintained that God is
> Today, almost everywhere there are Muslim students there
> just and that human beings are free to choose and to act. The
> continues to exist an MSA to serve their needs on campus.         principle of promise and threats holds that God is truthful
> and bound in keeping His promise of heavenly reward and
> See also Islamic Society of North America; United
> threat of hellfire. As He promised, for example, a great sinner
> States, Islam in the; Youth Movements.
> will forever be in hell unless s/he repents. The principle of
> intermediate position (manzila bayn al-mazilatayn) indicates
> Aminah Beverly McCloud        that a Muslim who does great sin is regarded as neither a
> believer (mu
min) nor an unbeliever (kafir). The principle of
> commanding the right and forbidding the wrong (al-amr bi
> al-maruf wa al-nahy an al-munkar) instructs every Mu
tazilite
> MU
TAZILITES, MU
TAZILA                                           to apply this principle to the social world when he or she has
> the power to do it.
> The most prevalent tradition has it that the name Mu
tazila
> See also 
Abd al-Jabbar; Mamun, al-; Mihna.
> was used to refer to someone or a group of people who
> withdrew (itazala, from which the term Mu
tazila derives)
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> from an eighth-century circle of majority on whether a grave
> Hourani, George F. Islamic Rationalism: The Ethics of Abd alsinner was a believer or unbeliever. Later on, the term
> Jabbar.Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon Press, 1971.
> Mu
tazila was used to designate a school of Islamic theology
> Martin, Richard C., and Woodward, Mark. Defenders of
> that follows certain rules known as the five principles (al-usul
> Reason in Islam: Mutazilism from Early School to Modern
> al-khamsa).                                                         Symbol. Oxford, U.K.: Oneworld, 1997.
> 
> This theological school is one of the most progressive
> Shalahudin Kafrawi
> schools in the history of Islamic theology and has to a high
> degree contributed to the development of Islamic thought.
> This school is theological due to its starting point that God
> is unquestionably regarded as the ultimate source of its          MUTHANNA, MUHAMMAD IBN
> worldview. However, its emphasis on the use of reason in its      
ABDALLAH, AL- See Muhammad al-Nafs
> theological quest and its assimilation of some Greek ideas and    al-Zakiyya
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                  497
> N
> NADER SHAH AFSHAR (1688–1747)                                             See also Abbas I, Shah; Madhhab.
> 
> Nader Shah Afshar was the ruler of Iran from 1736 until                   BIBLIOGRAPHY
> 1747. Born Nader-qoli Beg of the Afshar Turkmen in north-                 Lockhart, Laurence. Nadir Shah: A Critical Study Based Mainly
> eastern Iran in 1688, he rose to power by espousing the cause               Upon Contemporary Sources. London: Luzac, 1938.
> of Tahmasb Mirza, scion of the Safavid dynasty who had
> Tucker, Ernest S. “Nadir Shah and the Ja’fari Madhhab
> escaped from the invading Afghans. Under the name of
> Reconsidered.” Iranian Studies 27 (1994): 163–179.
> Tahmasb-qoli Khan, Nader led an Iranian army to victory
> over the Afghans in 1729. In 1732 he had Tahmasb deposed
> and replaced by his infant son 
Abbas, with himself as regent.                                                             John R. Perry
> Having recovered the border territories occupied by Ottoman Turkey and Russia, in 1736 he engineered his own
> election as king, under the name of Nader Shah.
> NAHDLATUL ULAMA (NU)
> Nader signed a treaty with the Ottomans, proposing that
> the Iranians renounce Shi
ism (a major cause of enmity with               The organization of the Nahdlatul Ulama (Revival of the
> the Turks, as champions of Sunni Islam) if the Turks agreed               Religious Scholars), or NU, was founded on 31 January 1926
> to recognize their Ja
fari madhhab (school of religious law) as a         as a countermovement to the increasingly successful re-
> fifth rite of Sunni law. This compromise was likely seen by                formist Muhammadiyah organization. NU is a mass-based
> Nader as a stepping-stone to a larger Asiatic empire, as his              socioreligious Islamic organization under the leadership of
> enrichment of the Shi
ite shrine in his capital of Mashhad was            ulema, and it is the largest in Indonesia with around thirtycalculated to win support at home. The Turks were uncon-                  five million members. NU activities include the religious,
> vinced, and the religious clauses were never ratified. In 1739             social, educational, economic, and political. Its founders were
> Nader invaded India, defeated the Mughal army, and sacked                 ulema (called kiyai in Indonesia) who led rural Islamic board-
> Delhi; he returned by way of Central Asia, subduing Bukhara               ing schools, pesantren. They represented traditionalist Musand Khiva. His son Reza-qoli Mirza, viceroy in Iran during                lims, those who practice Islamic mysticism (tasawuf; Ar.
> the Indian campaign, was accused of ordering a failed assassi-            tasawwuf), and are not against indigenous rituals and beliefs as
> nation of his father, and blinded.                                        long as they do not contradict the normative teachings of
> Islam. The two most prominent founding ulema were Hasyim
> Exorbitant requisitions for his renewed campaigns pro-                Asy
ari, and Abdul Wahab Chasbullah.
> voked widespread rebellions. Nader became increasingly
> paranoid and cruelly punished all opposition, erecting towers                NU members refer to themselves as Aswaja: “ahlus sunnah
> of severed heads in his wake. His reliance on (Sunni) Afghan              wal jama
a,” (Ar., ahl al-sunna wal-jama
a) people of sunna
> and Uzbek troops alienated his own (Shi
ite) Afshar and                   and community, who base their religious reference on the
> Qajar officers, who in 1747 assassinated him in his camp in                hadith, the sunna, and the adat (local practices, Ar., 
ada).
> Khorasan. His army disintegrated; he was succeeded briefly                 They follow the Shafi
i school of jurisprudence and in their
> by a nephew, 
Adel Shah, then by his grandson Shahrokh                    interpretation of religious texts include the opinions of the
> Shah (1748–1796), but their rule did not extend much beyond               great ulema in unbroken chains that reach back to the
> Mashhad.                                                                  prophet Muhammad. Pesantren are considered the heart of
> 
> Na
ini, Mohammad Hosayn
> 
> NU tradition. Here students learn the essentials of tradition-      BIBLIOGRAPHY
> alist Islam in order to maintain and spread this interpretation.    Barton, Greg, and Fealy, Greg, eds. Nahdlatul Ulama, Traditional Islam and Modernity in Indonesia. Clayton, Australia:
> NU’s history can be divided into four phases:                       Monash Asia Institute, 1996.
> 
> 1. The initial years NU served as a socioreligious            Dhofier, Zamakhashari. The Pesantren Tradition. The Role of
> the Kiyai in the Maintenance of Traditional Islam in Java.
> organization.
> Tempe, Ariz.: Program for Southeast Asian Studies,
> 2. From the late 1930s until 1984 it became involved            ASU, 1999.
> in political activities. From 1952–1971 it had its
> Oepen, Manfred, and Karcher, Wolfgang, eds. The Impact of
> own political party and participated in the national
> Pesantren in Education and Community Development in Indocabinet.                                                     nesia. Jakarta: P3M, 1988.
> 3. When the Suharto government rendered all po-               Sciortino, Rosalia; Marcoes Natsir, Lies; and Mas
udi, Masdar.
> litical parties ineffective with its suppressive regu-        “Learning from Islam: Advocacy of Reproductive Rights
> lations NU decided to leave politics. This was                in Indonesian Pesantren.” Reproductive Health Matters no.
> expressed in the 1984 watershed event called kembali          8 (November 1996): 86–93.
> ke khittah, a return to the original charter of 1926.
> 4. In 1998, after the fall of Suharto, NU again be-                                                Nelly van Doorn-Harder
> came involved in national politics. It initiated the
> National Awakening Party (PKB) while its national chair, Abdurrahman Wahid, was elected
> Indonesia’s fourth president for a brief period
> NA
INI, MOHAMMAD HOSAYN
> (1999–2001).
> (1860–1936)
> The return to its socioreligious activities in 1984 not only
> meant withdrawal from politics, but a total refocus on educa-       Mohammad Hosayn Naini was a leading Shi
ite scholar,
> tion, community welfare, mission, social, and economic de-          theoretician of constitutionalism, and a precursor of Islamic
> velopment. Through its new role, NU became active in                modernism in Iran. Born into a family of scholars, Naini first
> guiding large numbers of Indonesian Muslims in adapting to          studied with Mohammad Baqer Esfahani and Mohammad
> social change and modernity. Various institutions related to        Taqi (Aqa Najafi). Then he went to Iraq where he studied
> NU started multilevel dialogue about issues of social justice,      with Mohammad Hasan Shirazi and Mohammad Kazim
> human rights, democracy, and the rights of women and                Khorasani. In Iraq, Naini became actively involved in the
> children. This made NU an active codeveloper of a model for         anti-British independence movement after World War I. He
> civil society, suitable for the Indonesian context.                 was arrested and expelled from Karbala and returned to
> Tehran in 1923. He joined the anti-Qajar forces, supported
> Over the years, several divisions were founded within the       Reza Khan’s accession to the throne, and maintained cordial
> NU structure. Among others, there are divisions for youth           relationship with him until his death in Najaf in 1936.
> (Ansor), women (Muslimat NU), young women (Fatayat
> NU), and male and female students (IPNU and IPPNU).                    Naini wrote the most important treatise in support of
> Apart from these divisions, NU comprises institutions for           constitutional government from a Shi
ite viewpoint; in it he
> education, family affairs, agriculture, economic development,       presented an Islamic justification for a secular and Western
> and Islamic banking. The membership of ulema and lay                model constitutional government. In Tanbih al-umma wa
> people is reflected in a two-tiered structure of councils that       tanzih al-milla dar Asas Usul-i Mashrutiyyat (An admonishreach from the national to the local level: the syuriah (Ar.        ment to the [community of] believers and an exposition to the
> shura), the religious council, which has only ulema as mem-         nation concerning the principles of constitutional governbers who develop and monitor the NU activities; and the             ment), Naini attempted to reconcile the need for an efficient
> Tanfidziah, which is the executive council where ulema and           government in Iran that would respect certain tenets of a
> lay members supervise the daily affairs. It is characteristic for   democratic system of government with the need to recognize
> NU that decisions taken at the highest level are not binding        the legitimacy of the rule of the Hidden Imam, and defend
> for the lower levels. This is based on a tradition of the           the precepts of Shi
ite Islam. It is said that when Naini
> Prophet’s saying that “disagreement among the ulema is a            became disillusioned with the constitutional revolution, he
> blessing from God for humanity.”                                    withdrew his book and threw it into the Tigris River.
> 
> See also Southeast Asian Culture and Islam; Southeast               See also Modernization, Political: Constitutionalism;
> Asia, Islam in.                                                     Nationalism: Iranian.
> 
> 500                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Nar
> 
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                          of the governments. In the twentieth century, Najaf regained
> Hairi, A. H. Shi
ism and Constitutionalism. Leiden: Brill, 1977.      prominence when one of its ulema, Ayatollah Tabatabai
> Yazdi (d. 1919), wrote al-Urwa al-wuthqa, a major work in
> Mohammad H. Faghfoory           applied Shi
ite law which reflected the contemporary social
> and political condition and, with Qom, once again became an
> important center of Shi
ite scholarship during the period
> from 1900 through 1979.
> NAJAF
> When the shah of Iran exiled Ayatollah Khomeini to
> Najaf is one of several shrine cities and a major learning            Najaf in 1964, the city became an important political center
> center for Shi
a Muslims. Located south of Baghdad, Iraq, on          as well. Najaf and Qom, however, were rivals for importance,
> a trade route between Basra and Baghdad, Najaf has existed            as Khomeini praised Qom for being more active in the social
> since the reign of Harun al-Rashid. Imam 
Ali was buried              life of the Shi
a, and chided Najaf for its relative passivity.
> here, and a shrine was built around 
Ali’s tomb in 979.               Violent repression by Saddam Hussein during and after the
> Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988) forced many of the Shi
ite ulema
> The city of Najaf began as a learning center in 1056, when        to leave Najaf and has resulted in its eclipse as a center of
> Shaykh al-Taifa al-Tusi moved here after the Seljuks took            Shi
ite learning.
> over Baghdad. He advanced the work of his predecessors in
> the emerging rationalist school of Shi
ite thought. During            See also Holy Cities; Karbala; Mashhad.
> the Ilkhanid period (thirteenth to fifteenth centuries) its
> prominence was reduced with the emergence of Hilla and                BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Aleppo as centers of Shi
ite learning. In sixteenth and seven-        Kazemi Moussavi, Ahmad. Religious Authority in Shi
ite Islam:
> teenth centuries, Najaf, Isfahan, and Mashhad were compet-              From the Office of Mufti to the Instituion of Marja. Kuala
> ing over prominence as shrine cities. The rise of the Safavids          Lumpur, Malaysia: ISTAC, 1996.
> in the sixteenth century and their rivalry with the Ottoman
> Litvak, Meir. Shi
i Scholars of Nineteenth-century Iraq: The
> Empire for hegemony over the shrine cities escalated. Safavids           Ulama of Najaf and Karbala. Cambridge: Cambridge Uniruled over the shrine cities in 1508–1533 and 1622–1638, but             versity Press, 1998.
> for political reasons maintained Isfahan and Mashhad as the
> most important shrine centers.
> Mazyar Lotfalian
> The eighteenth century was a turning point in the history
> of the shrine cities. First, the fall of the Safavids in Iran drove
> many ulema to Najaf. Secondly, the shrine cities became
> economically more independent of the Ottomans and the
> NAMES, ISLAMIC See Genealogy
> subsequent rulers of Iran, and the number of pilgrims increased. Najaf, in particular, was positively affected by the
> pan-Islamic policies of Sultan 
Abd al-Hamid after he came to
> power in 1876. Migrant Islamic scholars in Najaf gained
> prominence.
> NAR
> Around this same period, the Qajars of Iran were giving in        Nar (from al-nar, Ar. “the fire”) is the common designation
> to British and Russian colonial powers. While the Iranian             for hell in Islam—a blazing abode where God punishes
> religious centers were actively involved in everyday politics,        unbelievers and wrongdoers. Muslims use nar synonymously
> centers in Iraq, such as Najaf, were not. During the late             with jahannam, and they juxtapose both terms to janna (“garnineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Najaf was drawn             den”), the blissful home of the righteous in the hereafter. The
> into anticolonial opposition by the ulema, who responded              idea of a place of punishment and suffering in the afterlife is
> positively to a decree by Mirza Hasan Shirazi that banned             found in many religions, but the Islamic concept is actually an
> tobacco in 1891 in protest to the shah’s Tobacco Concession           outgrowth of centuries of religious reflection about the afterto the British and the 1905 Constitutional Revolution in Iran         life rooted in the cultures of the ancient Near East, rabbinic
> which limited the power of the Qajar monarchs.                        Judaism, early Christianity, and Zoroastrianism. Early Arabian poetic imagery contributed to its assimilation into Is-
> By the end of the nineteenth century, Najaf had grown to a        lamic eschatological discourse. Nar is also the element from
> city of 30,000 inhabitants, with a large community of learned         which Satan was fashioned, in juxtaposition to God’s light
> people who came from all over the Islamic world. The                  (nur), and the clay used in Adam’s creation (Q. 38:76–77).
> formation of a patronage system, which consisted of a network of students and funding sources across political bounda-             According to Islamic eschatological doctrine, al-nar is not
> ries, increased the flow of funds, making it more independent          just a natural element, but also a real place where humans
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                      501
> Nasa
i, al-
> 
> experience horrendous bodily torments at the hands of angels        Smith, Jane Idleman, and Yazbeck Haddad, Yvonne. The
> and demonic creatures. In the Quran, it is described as an evil      Islamic Understanding of Death and Resurrection. Albany:
> “home” or “dwelling,” where wrongdoers don garments of                State University of New York Press, 1981.
> fire, drink boiling water, eat the fruit of an infernal tree, and
> are dragged about by iron hooks (37:62–68, 22:19–21). This                                                        Juan E. Campo
> imagery complements Quranic discourses about the bliss of
> the righteous in paradise, and it was elaborated with gruesome detail in the hadith, theological tracts, and visionary
> literature during the Middle Ages. Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (d.
> NASA
I, AL- (830–915)
> 1111) wrote that in hell the damned “are thrust down upon
> Al-Nasai, Abu 
Abd al-Rahman Ahmad b. 
Ali b. Shu
ayb, a
> their faces, chained and fettered, with hellfire (nar) above
> compiler of one of the six authoritative Sunni hadith collecthem, hellfire beneath them, hellfire on their right and
> tions, lived between 830 and 915. Unfortunately, very little is
> hellfire on their left so that they drown in a sea of fire” (alknown of his early life, but like the other compilers, he was
> Ghazali, The Remembrance of Death and the Afterlife, p. 221).
> known to have traveled extensively “in search of knowledge”
> Hell was also conceived as a hierarchy of seven levels, each
> (Ar. talab al-
ilm) in order to hear traditions from the promiassigned a different name derived from the Quran (for
> nent traditionists of his time. He settled for a while in Egypt
> example, “abyss,” “blaze,” and “furnace”), to which different
> and then later made his way to Damascus, where he was
> classes of unbelievers and wrongdoers will be consigned in
> reportedly ill-treated on account of his pro-
Alid and antithe afterlife. The angel Malik and his deputies, the Zabaniyya,
> Umayyad sentiments. Some sources suggest that the venue
> will help administer their punishments. In some accounts,
> was instead Ramla, in Palestine. Because of his untimely
> hell was portrayed as a monstrous creature with thousands of
> death, he has been regarded as a martyr. His collection, Kitab
> heads and mouths. Theologians debated whether the damned
> al-Sunan, contains over five thousand hadiths. Unlike the
> would suffer there for eternity, but many invoked the Quran
> other five collections, al-Nasai’s Sunan does not include a
> (11:107, 78:23) in favor of the opinion that its torments were
> chapter on the excellences of the Quran (Ar. fadail alpurgatorial, and that eventually many would be admitted to
> Quran), although he composed an independent treatise on
> paradise.
> the topic. Also lacking in his Sunan are eschatological traditions. Al-Nasai is credited with nine other works, among
> Pious Muslims have invoked hell to promote mindfulness
> which are a compilation of hadiths on the virtues of 
Ali and a
> of God and the life of the hereafter, against the distractions of
> rijal work that assessed the reliability of various hadith
> mundane existence. Sufis, however, taught that both the fear
> transmitters.
> of hell and desire for paradise were distractions for wayfarers
> seeking intimate union with God. Some, like Jalaluddin Rumi         See also Hadith.
> (d. 1273), used hellfire as a metaphor for the evil inclinations
> of the self that can only be quelled by divine light or the water                                               Asma Asfaruddin
> of mercy that flows from the virtuous heart. Others equated it
> to the burning passion of the lover that leads to annihilation
> of the self in God the beloved, or to the torment experienced
> in separation from God. Since the twentieth century, Muslim         NASSER, JAMAL See Abd al-Nasser, Jamal
> modernists have posited that both hell and paradise are
> psychological or spiritual states of being rather than actual
> places in the hereafter. Today, however, traditional understandings continue to have a compelling influence on Muslim
> beliefs and practices, often with politicized overtones. The        NATIONALISM
> Jama
at-e Islami of Bangladesh, for example, has threatened
> that Muslim women who fail to support this radical organiza-           ARAB
> tion will be condemned to hell.                                         Nancy L. Stockdale
> 
> IRANIAN
> See also Death; Ghazali, al-; Jahannam; Janna; Muham-                    Fakhreddin Azimi
> mad; Qur
an; Tafsir.
> TURKISH
> A. Uner Turgay
> BIBILIOGRAPHY
> Ghazali, Abu Hamid al-. The Remembrance of Death and the
> Afterlife (Kitab dhikr al-mawt wa-ma ba
dahu): Book XL of         ARAB
> the Revival of the Religious Sciences (Ihya 
ulum al-din).       Ideals of Arab nationalism were extremely influential in the
> Translated by T. J. Winter. Cambridge, U.K.: Islamic              Middle East in the twentieth century. Emerging from
> Texts Society, 1995.                                              nineteenth-century debates about the role of Islam in the
> 
> 502                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Nationalism
> 
> modern world and crystallized by anti-imperialist move-             overthrow foreign oppression and implement social justice.
> ments after the First World War, Arab nationalists shaped           Two major events concurrent with the establishment of the
> the political ideologies of newly independent nations as they       Ba
th movement—the creation of Israel and the subsequent
> struggled to forge a postcolonial identity for the Middle East.     displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, and
> the emergence of a fully independent Egypt in the 1950s—
> Pan-Islamic thinkers such as Jamal al-Din al-Afghani            catapulted the ideals of Arab nationalism into political reality.
> (1839–1897) and Muhammad 
Abduh (1849–1905) were early
> inspirations for the emergent Arab nationalist ideology. Al-            Devastated by the losses of the Arab forces to Israel and
> Afghani despaired at the increased dominance of European            the massive crisis of Palestinian refugees, members of the
> empires in the Muslim world, but believed that Islamic              Arab League (founded in 1945) looked to Egypt to lead the
> governments could counteract Western influence if it was             Arab world to greatness. With the successful 1952 revolution
> stripped of corruption and instilled with the values of Muslim      against the monarchy led by Jamal 
Abd al-Nasser (1918–1970),
> unity, using the early caliphate as a model of success. 
Abduh,     Egypt did become the center of Arab nationalist rhetoric and
> al-Afghani’s most famous student, furthered his mentor’s            action. Nasser’s leadership in the nonalignment movement
> ideas with his book Risalah al-tawhid (A treatise on the            against the Baghdad Pact of 1954 and his successful nationalioneness of God), asserting the compatibility of Islam with the      zation of the Suez Canal in 1956 made the world take notice
> modern world. By founding the Salifiyya movement and                 of the ideals of Arab strength and national unity. In the 1960s,
> reopening the doors of ijtihad, 
Abduh challenged Muslims to        the Ba
th movement came to power and ruled in Syria and
> stand up to their governments if they believed the values of        Iraq through Revolutionary Command Councils.
> Islam were being crushed. At the same time, modern tech-
> However, the failed union between Egypt and Syria as the
> nologies and Western-style reforms were acceptable if inter-
> United Arab Republic (1958–1961), the humiliating defeat of
> preted as benefiting Muslim society.
> the Arab armies against the Israelis in the war of 1967, and the
> These pan-Islamic thinkers inspired others to think in           split between the Ba
th regimes in Syria and Iraq underscored
> more local terms. 
Abd al-Rahman al-Kawakibi (1854–1902),           the real difficulties of creating a gigantic Arab super-state.
> the author of The Nature of Despotism and The Mother of Cities,     Although leaders in the 1970s and 1980s tried to rally their
> Mecca, was a Syrian journalist and student of 
Abduh who            populations behind Arab nationalist rhetoric, the Gulf War
> believed that the decline of the Middle East to the West was        of 1991, which pitted Arab nations against each other, dedue to the Ottoman Empire and the fact that non-Arabs had           stroyed the dreams of Arab nationalists. This left the people
> taken control of the region. Because Islam was reveled to the       of the Arab world searching for viable alternatives to the
> Arabs in the Arabic language, al-Kawakibi saw the Middle            ideals that had seemed so promising earlier in the century.
> East as being at its zenith when Arabs ruled. He promoted the
> See also Abd al-Nasser, Jamal; Abd al-Rahman
> idea that Arab leadership was perfect and argued that, if it
> Kawakibi; Abduh, Muhammad; Afghani, Jamal alwere to be restored, the region would revive morally and
> Din; Arab League; Bath Party; Nationalism: Iranian;
> politically. This became the basis of several independence
> Nationalism: Turkish; Pan-Arabism; Pan-Islam;
> movements, especially after the collapse of the Ottoman
> Reform: Arab Middle East and North Africa.
> Empire at the end of the First World War.
> 
> Faced with the end of Turkish rule but the continuance of       BIBLIOGRAPHY
> French and British rule in the Arab world, many Arab                Cleveland, William L. A History of the Modern Middle East.
> thinkers formulated programs for nationalist liberation based          Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1994.
> on ethnic identity. One of the most important was the Syrian        Khalidi, Rashid; Anderson, Lisa; and Simon, Reeva, eds. The
> Sati
 al-Husri (1880–1968). Al-Husri wrote three influential           Origins of Arab Nationalism. New York: Columbia Univertracts: Arabism First, On Arab Nationalism, and What is National-     sity Press, 1993.
> ism? These pamphlets asked all Arabs—both Muslim and
> Christian—to unite under one state, privileging shared lan-                                                     Nancy L. Stockdale
> guage and culture as the bond between them all. Al-Husri
> hoped that by focusing on the great past of the Arab world          IRANIAN
> rather than only Islam, Christian and Muslim Arabs would            Despite the existence of various forms of primordial loyalties,
> join together to fight against foreign imperialism.                  a persistent sense of national consciousness or cultural distinctness was by no means absent from premodern Iran. It
> Fellow Syrians Michel 
Aflaq (1912–1989) and Salah al-            was sustained by a shared cultural heritage, and above all by
> Din al-Bitar (1911–1980) followed al-Husri’s lead by merg-          the Persian language. From the sixteenth century it was
> ing socialist anti-imperialist thought with pan-Arabist ideals.     reinforced by Shi
ism. In the nineteenth century, Iran be-
> Founders of the Ba
th (“resurrection”) movement in the              came an arena of rivalry between imperial Russia and the
> 1940s, 
Aflaq and al-Bitar drew on the past of the Arabs as          British Empire and lost territory, particularly to the Russians,
> leaders of the Islamic world and called for a revival of unity to   in two humiliating wars. The ruling Qajar dynasty tried to
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                      503
> Nationalism
> 
> maintain the county’s precarious independence by exploiting        alliance. Seeking to refute the charges of dependence on
> Anglo-Russian rivalry. The growing influence and presence           Anglo-American support, the shah, Muhammad Reza Pahlevi,
> of Europeans in the country created resentment, while Euro-        advocated “positive” nationalism, in contrast to what he
> pean ideas enabled the Iranian intelligentsia to articulate        characterized as the “negative” nationalism of Mosaddeq.
> their diagnosis of the country’s ills in nationalist terms. They   However, in 1964 the issue of granting immunities to the
> came to view meaningful national self-determination as the         American forces stationed in Iran was seen by the opponents
> prerequisite of national regeneration. The burgeoning na-          of the regime as a clear affront to Iranian national dignity and
> tionalism manifested itself in the Constitutional Revolution       sovereignty.
> from 1905 to 1911, which signaled a crucial stage in the
> transformation of the country into a nation-state and sought          Like his father, Muhammad Reza Shah promoted a culto create a modern state structure and establish institutions      tural nationalism that tended to glorify Iran’s pre-Islamic
> that embodied the will and sovereignty of the nation.              past. A notable instance of this was the replacement, in March
> 1976, of the Islamic calendar by an imperial one. This and
> Following the coup of 1921, which eventually established       similar measures antagonized the religious establishment and
> the Pahlevi dynasty, nationalism became the guiding ideol-         the pious middle classes, contributing to the revolution of
> ogy of the centralizing state and grew as a result its educa-      1978 and 1979 and the overthrow of the monarchy.
> tional and other modernizing policies. Manifestations of the
> prevailing nationalism ranged from the architecture of state           Following the revolution, despite the declared ecumenical
> buildings to the attempted purification of the Persian lan-         objectives of the emerging Islamic regime, nationalism conguage. In the vein of its nineteenth-century predecessors, the     tinued to be a major force in Iran’s social, political, and
> nationalism of the era of Reza Shah Pahlevi invoked the pre-       cultural life, as well as its foreign policy. The Iran-Iraq war of
> Islamic period of Iranian history as the locus of an authentic     1980 to 1988 saw the rekindling of strong nationalist senti-
> Iranian national identity and pride.                               ments, and the regime was gradually forced to come to terms
> with or even embrace the Iranian cultural nationalism that it
> The outbreak of the Second World War and the Allied            had tried to suppress. Similarly, civic nationalist aspirations
> occupation of Iran in 1941 again underlined national vulnera-      for popular sovereignty, political equality, and meaningful
> bility and enhanced foreign influence. Toward the end of the        citizenship continued to grow.
> war, Iranian resistance to the Soviet demand for an oil
> concession in northern Iran resulted in the refusal of the         See also Iran, Islamic Republic of; Mosaddeq, Moham-
> Soviet government to withdraw its forces from the country          mad; Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlevi; Nationalism:
> and its encouragement of autonomy movements in Iranian             Arab; Nationalism: Turkish; Revolution: Islamic Revo-
> Azarbaijan and Kurdistan. Iranian efforts and international        lution in Iran.
> pressure eventually resulted in the Soviet evacuation and the
> collapse of the autonomy movements.                                BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Cottam, Richard. Nationalism in Iran; Updated through 1978.
> Public attention then turned to the British oil concession
> Pittsburgh, Penn.: University of Pittsburgh, 1979.
> in Iran and the preponderant position of the Anglo-Iranian
> Kashani-Sabet, Firoozeh. Frontier Fictions: Shaping the Ira-
> Oil Company (AIOC). The failure of negotiations to extract
> nian Nation, 1884–1946. Princeton, N. J.: Princeton Unifrom the company a greater share of the oil revenues for Iran
> versity Press, 1999.
> strengthened a nationalist movement, led by the veteran
> parliamentarian Mohammad Mosaddeq, who had spearheaded             Vaziri, Mostafa, Iran as Imagined Nation: The Construction of
> National Identity. New York: Paragon House, 1993.
> the Iranian refusal to grant an oil concession to the Soviets.
> The movement resulted in the nationalization of the AIOC
> and the premiership of Mosaddeq. Mosaddeq pursued an                                                            Fakhreddin Azimi
> anti-imperialist, civic nationalism that embraced liberal democratic values and was inclusive of all Iranians, regardless of     TURKISH
> ethnicity, language, or religion. He saw the nationalization of    During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the
> the oil industry as a legitimate move that expressed and           multiethnic, multireligious Ottoman Empire was transformed
> strengthened Iranian national sovereignty, facilitated popu-       into a collection of nation-states in the Balkans and the
> lar self-determination, and provided the needed resources for      Middle East. This was the result of social and economic
> national regeneration and modernization.                           developments and cultural changes brought about by internal
> and external forces at work in the empire. Although the
> The overthrow of Mosaddeq’s government through the              reforms of the Tanzimat era (1839–1876) streamlined the
> Anglo-American sponsored coup of August 1953 dealt a               empire’s administrative and financial institutions and estabsevere blow to Iranian civic nationalism. Iran abandoned her       lished new ones, it also inadvertently helped advance ethnic
> neutralism and, in 1955, formally joined a pro-Western             awareness.
> 
> 504                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Nation of Islam
> 
> The policies of Ottomanism pursued during the 1870s              See also Ataturk, Mustafa Kemal; Balkans, Islam in the;
> and 1880s, with the concept of citizenship replacing an             Empires: Ottoman; Nur Movement; Nursi, Said; Panindividual’s status as subject of the sultan, were unable to        Islam; Young Ottomans; Young Turks.
> retain the loyalty of the various ethnic groups in the European provinces of the empire. After the loss of most of the         BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Balkan territories and increasing European political and            Lewis, Bernard. The Emergence of Modern Turkey. 2d ed.
> financial control of the Ottoman government’s affairs, Sultan          London: Oxford University Press, 1968.
> 
Abd al-Hamid II’s (1876–1909) policies were affected ac-           Zurcher, Erik J. Turkey, A Modern History. London and New
> cordingly. With the influx of Muslims into the empire,                 York: I. B. Tauris, 1993.
> mostly from the Caucasus, and the influence of Muslim
> intellectuals both at home and abroad, pan-Islam replaced                                                        A. Uner Turgay
> Ottomanism. Islam became the social and political basis of
> the empire, and the Sultan emphasized his role as caliph,
> identifying with the anti-imperialist tendencies of Islam.
> NATION OF ISLAM
> The Young Turk Revolution of 1908 brought about
> fundamental changes. The Union and Progress Party, in               The Nation of Islam in concept was founded in the teachings
> charge of the newly established parliament and controlled by        of Master Fard Muhammad in 1930 with the lectures of this
> the Young Turks, pursued secular and—in some important              urban trader to the “so-called Negro” community in Detroit,
> areas, such as education—pro-Turkish policies. The Arab             Michigan. At the center of these lectures was the teaching
> Revolt in 1916 against the Istanbul government during the           that a large number of Africans enslaved in the Americas were
> First World War clearly directed the course of nationalism in       Muslims and that Islam was the “true religion” of these
> the Middle East. The nationalist movements of non-Turkish           people. With knowledge of their Islamic heritage, clean
> Muslims, Albanians, and Arabs gave impetus to Turkish               living, and a demand for freedom, justice, and equality, these
> nationalism. They influenced the emergence of a Turkish              Muslims would regain their humanity that had been lost in
> nationalism with secular tendencies, which received intellec-       slavery. In practice, the Nation of Islam was cemented as a
> tual nourishment from its chief ideologue, Ziya Gokalp              religious community under the leadership and guidance of
> (1876–1924). Gokalp took a deep interest in the history of the      the Honorable Elijah Muhammad by 1934.
> ancient Turks and argued that the basis of nationality was
> Members of the Nation of Islam believe in “the One God
> culture (hars). This included all feelings, judgments, and
> whose proper name is Allah, in the Holy Quran and in the
> ideals, as distinct from civilization (medeniyet) which encom-
> Scriptures of all the Prophets of God,” according to Elijah
> passed rational and scientific knowledge and technology.
> Muhammad (Message of the Blackman, 1965). Initially there
> Through his poems and essays, Gokalp sought a national
> was a belief in a mental resurrection of the dead to which has
> revival of Turkish history and language. This, along with his
> been added the Islamic belief in the Day of Judgment.
> search for new values, led to his movement of Turkism
> Concurrent with these beliefs the leadership aims at the
> (Turkculuk). Thus, he in effect underwrote the ideals of
> reformation of the character of the African-American com-
> Turkish nationalism.
> munity. As with all Muslims, members refrain from drinking
> alcohol, gambling, and eating pork. Additionally, they avoid
> During the War of Independence (1919–1922), the
> narcotics, cigarettes, slang, and profanity and use language
> National Pact (1919), with its territorial definitions and
> that encourages courtesy and good manners.
> populist expressions, set the agenda for the formation in 1923
> of the Republic of Turkey. The first two decades of the                  Malcolm X was a member of the Nation of Islam from
> Turkish Republic were a period of political and cultural            1952 until his ouster in 1964. Malcolm X was known as a
> consolidation under its first president, Mustafa Kemal               charismatic national spokesman for the Nation of Islam. His
> (Ataturk). The government relied heavily on Turkey’s past to        unauthorized comments on the assassination of President
> bolster national pride and integration. Kemal blamed the            John F. Kennedy precipitated his ouster. Pilgrimage to Mecca,
> religious leaders for opposing the spirit of Islam, and effec-      Saudi Arabia, inspired him to permanently leave the Nation
> tively reinterpreted religion and its role in the society accord-   of Islam to become an orthodox Sunni Muslim. Warith Deen
> ing to nationalist ideas. Being aware of the symbolic powers        Muhammad inherited the leadership of the Nation of Islam
> of organized institutions, the government methodically              upon the death of his father, the Honorable Elijah Muhamdisestablished the then-existing political, legal, and educa-       mad, in 1975. He moved the majority of the community from
> tional institutions of Islam, replacing them with adaptations       a black nationalist philosophy into orthodox Sunni Islam.
> of Western models. Turkish nationalism substituted itself for       Since that time he has become a well-respected leader in
> all loyalties and values earlier expressed through religion, and    American Islam. In the 1990s Louis Farrakhan led the Nation
> thus became the ideology of the Republic.                           of Islam toward stricter observance of Islamic rituals and
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                   505
> Nawruz
> 
> practice. In the twenty-first century this development com-            Boyce, Mary. “Iranian Festivals.” In Cambridge History of Iran.
> plements a continuing focus on the plight of African Americans.         Edited by Ehsan Yarshater. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.
> See also Farrakhan, Louis; Malcolm X; Muhammad,
> Elijah; Muhammad, Warith Deen; United States, Islam                                                               Anne H. Betteridge
> in the.
> 
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Muhammad, Elijah. The Message to the Blackman. Chicago:               NAZZAM, AL- (782–C. 840)
> Muhammad’s Temple No. 2, 1965.
> Muhammad, Elijah. How to Eat to Live. Chicago: Muham-                 Abu Ishaq Ibrahim b. Sayyar al-Nazzam was an early
> mad’s Temple No. 2, 1972.                                           Mu
tazilite thinker. He was born in 782 C.E. and grew up in
> Essien-Udom, E. U. Black Nationalism. Chicago: University             Basra, was trained by his maternal uncle Abu ’l-Hudhayl alof Chicago Press, 1962.                                            
Allaf, and took part in scholarly debates there in his early
> youth. He moved to Baghdad in the early 820s, where he
> Aminah Beverly McCloud          received the support of the Abbasid caliphs until his death
> sometime between 835 and 845. He taught many Mu
tazilite
> scholars of the ninth century, among whom was his follower
> al-Jahiz.
> NAWRUZ
> In addition to his skills as a poet, Nazzam was interested in
> Nawruz, literally “new day,” is the Iranian holiday that              Greek philosophy and ancient Iranian culture. Though he
> celebrates the beginning of spring. Nawruz was observed in            had various discussions with Muslim scholars, most of his
> Zoroastrian Persia and has long been celebrated in areas              work was directed against Christians, Jews, dualists, and
> influenced by Persian culture. Nawruz begins at the vernal             naturalists. He wrote many books (estimated at thirty-nine),
> equinox on the first day of Farvardin, the first month of the           all of which are lost with the exception of some fragments,
> Iranian solar calendar, and lasts thirteen days. Renewal of           mostly relating to scientific or philosophical issues, including
> home and of social ties are evident in the housecleaning that         a refutation of Aristotelian logic.
> precedes Nawruz and in the visits paid to relatives and
> friends, in order of seniority, throughout the holiday. People            Nazzam disagreed with Abu ’l-Hudayl’s atomist theory of
> wear new clothes at Nawruz, and children receive presents             physics by rejecting the existence of isolated particles within
> of money.                                                             the created bodies, and their change through accidents.
> Changes occur in bodies, according to Nazzam, with the
> Central to the Nawruz celebration in Iran is the sofreh-e         appearance of hidden (kumun) interior components by a leap
> haft sin, or “cloth of the seven s’s”—a decorative arrangement        of motions (tafra). Acting bodies are subjected to infinite
> of seven objects whose names in Persian begin with the letter         divisions by their created nature (khilqa), though not all
> s. These are usually sumac (somaq), hyacinth (sonbol), garlic         motions are perceptible. Nazzam did not focus on the attrib-
> (sir), vinegar (serkeh), apple (sib), sorb tree berry (senjed), and   utes of God in his theological system. Regarding the protecsprouted wheat or other greens (sabzi), all of which are              tion of Quranic revelation, he developed the theory of its
> displayed together with a mirror, candles, colored eggs, a            being prevented (sarfa) from challenges of unbelievers by
> goldfish in a bowl, and the holy book of the family that is            God rather than earlier theories about the linguistic impossicelebrating the holiday.                                              bility (i
jaz) of its being imitated. He also recommended a
> critical approach toward the acceptance of transmitted re-
> Nawruz is a national Iranian holiday, celebrated by memports and traditions (akhbar). The original views of Nazzam
> bers of all religious groups, and a marker of ethnic identity
> gained support and elicited reactions both inside and outside
> among groups associated with Persian culture outside Iran.
> of his school. Thus, he created an intellectual liveliness in the
> Nawruz ends with a picnic (sizdah beh dar—“thirteenth out-
> Muslim scholarship of that era.
> side”), at which each family’s sabzi is tossed away, preferably
> into running water, to take with it any lingering unhappiness
> See also Kalam; Mutazilites; Mutazila.
> of the past year.
> 
> See also Ibadat; Ritual; Vernacular Islam.                           BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Dhanani, Alnoor. The Physical Theory of Kalam: Atoms, Space,
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                            and Void in Basrian Mu
tazili Theology. Leiden: E. J.
> Attar, Ali. “Nawruz in Tajikistan: Ritual or Politics?” In Post-        Brill, 1994.
> Soviet Central Asia. Edited by Touraj Atabaki and John             Ess, Josef van. Theology and Science: The Case of Abu Ishaq al-
> O’Kane. London: Tauris Academic Studies, 1998.                        Nazzam. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan, 1978.
> 
> 506                                                                                               Islam and the Muslim World
> Networks, Muslim
> 
> Frank, Richard M. Being and Their Attributes: The Teachings of        presided over a vast system of constant exchange and negotia-
> Basrian School of the Mu
tazila in the Classical Period. Albany:   tion. The sultan was a Muslim networker par excellence. The
> State University of New York Press, 1978.                          wealth of his tiny court depended on tribute levied from
> neighboring regions, but also from the ships that used the
> M. Sait Özervarli       harbor at Acheh. Later, in the sixteenth century, the sultan of
> Acheh fought, with initial success, against the invading Portuguese, who were using the Indian Ocean to establish their
> own trading network. However, he was never able to consoli-
> NETWORKS, MUSLIM                                                      date his own regional power beyond Acheh, due in part to the
> emergence of other like-minded Muslim sultanates in neigh-
> Muslim networks, like all networks, are decentralized circuits        boring port-city states that were strewn along the vast Malay
> of communication and exchange that depend on mutual trust             archipelago.
> and reciprocal need. Muslim networks are very old, dating back to the seventh century. They embrace the pre-                    Later sultans of Acheh were able to benefit from expanded
> Muslim networks of pagan Arabia, trading networks that                networks that linked them to powerful overseas Muslim
> linked a merchant named Muhammad to the citied world of               allies, both in India (the Moguls) and Turkey (the Ottomans).
> Mesopotamia and beyond.                                               Because he served as the common overlord of others, the
> prince carried the title of sultan. This was so even though the
> Early History
> sultans never subdued the interior of the island, and even
> Trading networks include travel in search of knowledge,
> though Acheh itself was divided into many smaller districts,
> pilgrimage on behalf of faith, and proselytizing networks to
> each governed by hereditary chiefs.
> spread the faith. The fourteenth-century network of the
> famous traveler Ibn Battuta reveals a vast Islamic world that             The office of sultan marks both the power and limits of
> extended from the Mediterranean Sea to the Malay Penin-               Muslim networks. Its persistence from India to Indonesia
> sula. It included Muslim polities and communities set within          demonstrates the cultural diffusion of a major Islamic politilarge clusters of non-Muslim cultures and populations, each           cal institution. Even the seal of the sultan of Acheh was ninelinked to one another through port cities upon which they             fold, paralleling that of the Mogul emperors, and like his
> depended for sea trade and the transportation of both people          Mogul counterpart, the sultan of Acheh claimed to be the
> and goods. The annual pilgrimage, or hajj, presupposed                shadow of God on Earth. Yet the two seals applied to very
> overland and sea connections to the Hijaz region on the Red           different polities. While the shadow of God on earth pro-
> Sea in western Arabia, even as pilgrimage, in turn, expanded          jected the great Mogul as the semi-divine lord of a vast realm,
> and reinforced these same networks.                                   the sultan of Acheh ruled a domain no bigger than Goa, the
> Portugese enclave of western India. At the same time, the
> Proselytizing often occurred through Sufi orders, organninefold Mogul seal competed with another local emblem,
> ized male brotherhoods that traced their roots back to the
> the fivefold seal used by the hereditary chiefs of Acheh. The
> period of the prophet Muhammad and expressed Islamic
> latter signified the hand as a symbol of power, and meant the
> loyalty through devotion to saintly persons and pursuit of
> ability not only to project power over others, but also to
> inner purity. The role of Sufi orders was as inextricable from
> protect one’s own possessions and territory. By retaining
> local politics as it was from transregional commerce, and
> both seals, the Achenese sultan sought to proclaim both his
> nowhere is that role more evident than in the expansion of
> Malay and his Mogul identity as equally authoritative, yet he
> Islam from South Asia to Southeast Asia through Indian
> remained a local ruler with aspirations that far exceeded his
> Ocean networks of trade, travel, and proselytization.
> practical resources and actual options.
> The Case of Acheh
> Acheh, a port city situated at the northern tip of Sumatra                The greater force of Indian Ocean networks may have
> astride the Strait of Malacca, exemplifies the ways in which           been in the religious rather than the political realm. In the
> major nodes in the various networks of the early Muslim               sultanate of Acheh, as in Mogul India, Islamic devotion was
> empires worked. Acheh was the first area of modern-day                 often linked to the mediating power of Muslim saints. Just as
> Indonesia in which a Muslim kingdom was established. Marco            Muslim traders came to the Malay Peninsula seeking ex-
> Polo observed a Muslim king on the north coast of Sumatra in          panded markets, spiritual leaders who were identified with
> 1292, over a half-century before the oceanic voyage of Ibn            institutional Sufi brotherhoods came with them, but seeking
> Battuta landed him further to the south on the same island.           different markets. These Sufi masters exemplified the appeal
> of the Muhammadan Way, and Islamic loyalty is often
> Ibn Battuta had traveled throughout the Muslim world               identified with them—specifically with the tomb cults that
> from port cities in the Mediterranean to Arabia to India              pervade Acheh. While the actual Achenese tombs are less
> before finally arriving at Acheh in the Malay Peninsula. He            grand than those of their precursors in Mughal India, both
> found the sultan of Acheh to be an orthodox Muslim who                reflect the persistent tradition of visiting saintly tombs. And
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                      507
> Networks, Muslim
> 
> the purpose of such local pilgrimages is functionally similar in      state. In effect, the Muslim networks of modern-day Indone-
> India, Indonesia, and throughout the Indian Ocean. What-              sia mirror the politically centrist power of the colonial, then
> ever their background or status, pilgrims came to these tombs         postcolonial state. The nodes were not equivalent; but all of
> with gifts and vows, seeking the spiritual favor of saints for        the separate provinces, from Acheh to Timor, came to reflect
> material or medical relief.                                           the pre-eminence of Java, and its capital city, Jakarta.
> 
> Two other features of all Muslim networks are evident in              Beyond Southeast Asia, networks of colonization and
> the case of Acheh: internal difference and external limits. The       migration proliferated throughout the Muslim world, from
> relation of formal religious authorities (ulema) to representa-       the Indian Ocean to the shores of the Atlantic. Though
> tives of indigenous traditions was marked by tension, nego-           decentralized, they were marked by the same transregional
> tiation, and compromise. An oft-repeated dyad pits pre-               logic of mutual trust and reciprocal need. A notable example
> conversionary (pre-Muhammad) disbelief (jahiliyya) against            is the new strand of Shi
ite loyalty that emerged during the
> divinely revealed faith (iman/Islam). It evokes a radical experi-     eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, at the same time as the
> ential break between the old and the new, the impure and the          Mogul and Safavid empires were experiencing internal revolt
> pure, the false and the true. In Southeast Asian Islam the dyad       and foreign invasion. From Karbala and Najaf, shrine cities in
> is framed as adat (Ar. 
ada) and hukum (Ar. hukm), where adat         the Shi
ite heartland of Iraq, to commercial centers in Iran, to
> refers to all that stands outside juridical Islam, and hukum          princely courts in northern India, there emerged a Shi
ite
> means “laws,” or the announced guidelines of Islamic collec-          network of scholarly and also familial connections. The
> tive life. Yet the distinction is less observed in practice than it   traffic was two-way, providing material as well as spiritual
> is proclaimed in theory. For Achenese Muslims, the two polar          benefit to all nodes on this extensive transregional circuit.
> extremes of social identity can, and did, merge. Social rela-         While juridical scholars of Iraq and Iran received large sums
> tions between so-called representatives of adat, the hereditary       from their wealthy Indian coreligionists, the scholars of India
> chiefs, and and the champions of hukum, the ulema, were               benefited from the prestige of their northern neighbors. Each
> more often marked by at least tacit politeness, and often             of them found that the pursuit of rational sciences, along with
> mutual respect. Muslim networks in Acheh, as elsewhere,               the traditional religious sciences, not only enforced their own
> inscribed difference even when they celebrated transnational          sense of academic prominence but also allowed them to
> solidarity.                                                           engage European science.
> 
> Colonial History                                                          Though wary of rational sciences, the Sunni world also
> From the seventeenth century on a major challenge to Mus-             expanded its networks of learning, through the travel and
> lim networks came through the imposition of colonial rule.            exchange of reform-minded scholars. From the Arabian Pen-
> Dutch and Portuguese, then British and French commercial              insula, whether the ritual heartland of the Hijaz or the
> empires not only expanded overseas by oceanic routes, they            strategic port cities of Yemen, to the east coast of Africa and
> also incorporated and then transformed the preexisting Mus-           to the Asian archipelago, Muslim reformers responded to the
> lim networks. As Kenneth McPherson has observed, in his               European colonial incursions by forming their own scholarly
> essay “Port Cities as Nodal Points of Change,” throughout             networks, committed to reviving and expanding the textual
> the Indian Ocean region some ports became centers of                  core of Islamic subjects. More than a few of these Sunni
> European political, economic, and military power, while               networks were motivated by loyalty to institutional Sufism,
> others declined or vanished. “The great European-controlled           and to one of the most socially active of Sufi orders, the
> ports such as Karachi, Bombay, Madras, Calcutta, Rangoon,             Naqshbandiyya. They promoted Islamic revitalization at all
> Penang, Singapore, and Jakarta grew at the expense of other           levels, and they also advocated a double jihad, militarily
> ports in Gujarat, Bengal, southern India, the Malay Penin-            against European imperialism and intellectually against imisula, and Java, which either declined or refocused their              tative Westernization.
> economies to become feeder points for these great ports or
> enclaves of local maritime activity.”                                 Muslim Networks in the Information Age
> The revolution in communications that marked the late
> The fate of Acheh was poignant. During the last decades            twentieth-century global economy also transformed the naof the nineteenth century, the harbor king, the sultan of             ture of Muslim networks. Cassette tapes helped foster the
> Acheh, was able to keep his maritime polity cohesive by               Iranian Revolution. Satellite TV overrides governmental
> subsuming hereditary chiefs under his authority, at the same          controls on local TV stations to beam alternative Muslim
> time as he waged war against the Dutch. When the Dutch                messages, including cleric talk shows, fatwa workshops, and a
> finally subdued the Achenese, after more than thirty-five               variety of Islamic entertainment to Arabic-speaking audiyears of warfare, they shifted the reins of political power to        ences. Since 1997, a major alternative to CNN-style global
> Java. A bloody guerilla campaign against Indonesian forces            news has been provided through the Gulf based Al-Jazeera.
> persisted until 1956, when Acheh was recognized as an                 CD-ROMs, too, have become popular, circulating both literautonomous province yet made subservient to the Javanese              ary texts and visual artifacts to broad Muslim audiences.
> 
> 508                                                                                               Islam and the Muslim World
> Networks, Muslim
> 
> 60°N
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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> "#
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> 45°N                 Genoa                                                                              S il k R o ad
> 
> 
> Ravenna
> 
> 
> Constantinople
> Naples Salonika                          Trapezus
> 
>  
> 
> Carthage                                   Antioch                                   Silk R
> oad Kashgar
> Nisibis                            Samarkand
>                          Ctesiphon
> Tyre               Seleucia
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> 30°N                                     Alexandria          Jerusalem
> Siraf
> 
> Yathrib                                  Daybul
>                                                                          Canton
>         Mecca      Muscat
> 
> Adulis                                                            
> 
>                               
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> 
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> the 7th and 8th Centuries                                                                                           0       500    1,000 mi.
> Trade route                                        45°E
> 15°S                                 0   500 1,000 km
> City                                                                                                                                          120°E
> 60°E                75°E             90°E               105°E
> 
> Seventh- and eighth-century trade routes. XNR PRODUCTIONS/GALE
> 
> Finally, there is the Internet, which offers many networking                                  the Taliban in Afghanistan. The administration of President
> options, from chat groups to websites, and, of course, e-mail.                                George W. Bush marked terrorism as, above all, Muslim
> All these options for expanded exchange and alternative                                       inspired, even while proclaiming that Islam itself was not to
> authorities rely on access and speed but, even more, on the                                   blame, just certain Muslims. Many news groups have referred
> need for new criteria of trust.                                                               to al-Qa
ida, the guerrilla organization linked to the Saudi
> dissident Usama bin Ladin and cofounded by the Egyptian
> These new conditions for the exchange of information                                       doctor Ayman al-Zawahiri, as a terrorist network. It is terrorhave generated new kinds of networks, most notably                                            ist because it intends to destroy Western, specifically Ameritransnational alliances of women who are working for con-                                     can, targets wherever it can find them. And it is a network
> flict resolution, human security, and justice at the local and                                 precisely because it is structured around nodes that commuglobal levels. Since the 1980s, and particularly since the 1985                               nicate with one another in nonlinear space, relying on neither
> United Nations conference on women in Nairobi, networks                                       a hierarchical chain of command nor conventional rules of
> of Muslim women have been fighting for their rights in a                                       engagement. Al-Qa
ida might be best defined as a coalition of
> newly Islamizing political context where women’s rights and                                   dispersed network nodes intent on waging asymmetrical
> roles are highly contested. Some of these women’s networks                                    warfare. Like Colombian and Mexican drug cartels, they
> are local, like the ones that have appeared in Pakistan, Sudan,                               feature small, nimble, and dispersed units capable of peneand Algeria; others have a global reach, like the Women                                       trating and disrupting, with the intent to destroy, massive
> Living Under Muslim Laws (WLUML), whose Islamic femi-                                         structures. Often they elude pursuit and evade capture, alnist agenda is to empower women to seek their rights as                                       though in the case of al-Qa
ida, its operatives kill themselves,
> observant Muslims, and it includes the exchange of informa-                                   or are killed by others, in each nodal attack on a fixed target
> tion about ways to deal with gender discrimination and also                                   or group.
> transnational collaboration to reform Muslim Personal Law
> to make it more friendly to women.                                                                While the case of al-Qa
ida has become compelling in the
> aftermath of 11 September 2001, there is another case that
> In the current era, as in preceding phases of rapid change,                                demonstrates the long-term organizational power of modernnetworks remain pivotal yet ambivalent. The war that inau-                                    day Islamic networking. The women of Afghanistan became a
> gurated the twenty-first century was the U.S.–led attack on                                    subject of intense scrutiny after the U.S.–led invasion in
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                                                                  509
> Nikah
> 
> October 2001. Much media footage was devoted to the
> oppression of veiled, secluded, and often brutalized Afghan        NIKAH
> women, yet decades before 11 September 2001 a network of
> Afghan women had mobilized, and also projected themselves,         Literally the act of sexual intercourse, nikah is the term by
> their history, and their cause, via the Internet. RAWA, or the     which marriage is referred to in the Quran. Islamic law
> Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan,             defines nikah as a civil contract whose main function is to
> predated the Internet. It was founded in 1977, even before the     render sexual relations between a man and woman licit. Any
> Soviet invasion, and it worked to defeat the Soviets but also to   sexual relations outside the nikah contract constitute the
> provide help for Afghan refugees in Pakistan. It was a network     crime of zina (illicit sexual relations) and are subject to
> of transnational cooperation and multitiered resistance            punishment. In practice, nikah is enacted in a ceremony
> throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Now its pivotal role on            intertwined with religious symbolism and rituals such as the
> behalf of Afghan women has been dramatized through its             recitation of al-Fatiha, the first verse of the Quran, usually
> website at www.rawa.org, where RAWA advocates strive to            performed by religious functionaries, although Islamic law
> maintain a distance both from the Taliban and their would-be       does not positively prescribe any service.
> successors, the Northern Alliance. RAWA, even more than
> al-Qa
ida, demonstrates not just the persistence but the           See also Marriage.
> resilience of Muslim networks as a major form of social and
> political organization.                                            BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Muslim networks are no longer primarily male-dominated          Bousquet, Georges Henry. “La Conception du Nikah selon
> structures. They include women and others who resist op-             les Docteurs de la Loi Muslamane.” Revue Algèrienne.
> pression and who participate in horizontal alliances that            (1948): 63–74.
> project Muslim values of justice. Above all, they seek to build    El Alami, Dawoud. Marriage Contract in Islamic Law. London:
> structures that are at once democratic and capitalist, yet not        Graham & Trotman, 1992.
> coeval with Euro-American imperialism. While it is too early       Maghniyyah, Muhammad Jawad. Marriage According to Five
> to gauge their impact, it is impossible to ignore either their       Schools of Islamic Law. Tehran: Department of Transliteranovelty or their determination.                                      tion and Publication, Islamic Culture and Relations Organization, 1997.
> See also Globalization; Ibn Battuta; Internet; Qaida,
> al-; Travel and Travelers.
> Ziba Mir-Hosseini
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Abu-Lughod, Janet L. Before European Hegemony: The World
> System A.D. 1250–1350. New York: Oxford University
> Press, 1991.                                                    NIMATOLLAHI SUFI ORDER
> Andaya, Barbara Watson, and Andaya, Leonard Y. A History           See Tasawwuf
> of Malaysia. London: Macmillan, 1982.
> Arquilla, John, and Ronfeldt, David. “The New Rules of
> Engagement.” WIRED (December, 2001): 149–151.
> Dunn, Ross E. The Adventures of Ibn Battuta. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989.                              NIYABAT-E AMMA
> McPherson, Kenneth. “Port Cities as Nodal Points of Change:
> The Indian Ocean, 1890s–1920s.” In Modernity and Cul-           Niyabat-e 
amma (Ar., niyabat al-
amma) is a term most
> ture: From the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean. Edited by     commonly used in Imami jurisprudence to refer to the “gen-
> Leila Taraza Fawaz and C. A. Bayly. New York: Columbia          eral delegation” of religious authorities and to the Imami
> University Press, 2002.
> ulema in the absence of the imam. In early Shi
ism, there was
> Moghadam, Val M. “Organizing Women: The New Women’s                an acceptance that the imams, when present, designated a
> Movement in Algeria.” Cultural Dynamics 13, no. 2
> particular individual (naib) to perform particular tasks on
> (2001): 131–154
> behalf of the imam. With the imam’s absence (ghayba), a
> Moghadam, Val M. “Women, the Taleban, and the Politics
> notion that the scholars (and more specifically the jurists)
> of Public Space in Afghanistan.” Women’s Studies International Forum 25, no. 1 (2002): 1–13.                            were delegated (niyaba), as a class, to perform certain functions normally reserved for the imam developed in the juristic
> Robinson, Francis. “Ottomans-Safavids-Mughals: Shared
> Knowledge and Connective Systems.” Journal of Islamic           writings of scholars such as al-Muhaqqiq al-Hilli (d. 1277)
> Studies 8, no. 2 (1997): 151–184.                               and his influential pupil al-
Allama al-Hilli (d. 1325). The
> delegation was eventually extended, through a series of
> Bruce B. Lawrence      reinterpretations of the imams’ words, to refer to a “general
> Miriam Cooke        delegation” of the scholarly class to take the place of the imam
> 
> 510                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Nizari
> 
> in those areas of the law where his presence is normally            BIBLIOGRAPHY
> essential. The work of 
Ali al-Karaki (d. 1533) and al-Shahid       Nizam al-Mulk. The Book of Government or Rules for Kings: The
> al-Thani (d. 1588) in this area represent the earliest expres-        Siyasat-nama or Siyar al-Muluk of Nizam al-Mulk. Transsions of this doctrine. These areas of law included duties such       lated by Hubert Darke. London: Routledge and Kegan
> as the distribution of the religious levies, zakat and khums, the     Paul, 1960.
> leading of Friday prayer and, eventually, the waging of the
> jihad. The “general delegation” theory provided the basis for                                                  Warren C. Schultz
> the more directly political theory of wilayat al-faqih (Ar.,
> velayat-e faqih) developed by Ayatollah Khomeini in the
> 1960s and 1970s.
> NIZARI
> See also Hilli, Allama al-; Hilli, Muhhaqqiq al-; Shia:
> Imami (Twelver); Ulema; Velayat-e Faqih.                            The Nizari, or more properly the Nizari Isma
ili Muslims,
> like other Shi
i communities, acknowledge 
Ali as imam after
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                        the Prophet. The Nizari Isma
ilis have continued to give
> Arjomand, Saïd Amir. The Shadow of God and the Hidden               allegiance to imams descended from 
Ali, on the basis of the
> Imam. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1984.          principle of designation (nass) by the imam of the time. As of
> Calder, Norman. “Legitimacy and Accommodation in Safavid            2002, His Highness the Aga Khan, Shah Karim al-Husayni, is
> Iran: The Juristic Theory of Muhammad Baqir al-                  the forty-ninth hereditary imam.
> Sabzavari.” Iran 25 (1987): 91–105.
> Following the decline of the Fatimid Isma
ili dynasty and
> Robert Gleave     the death of Imam al-Mustansir Billah in 1094, one group of
> Isma
ilis continued to give allegiance to the previously designated imam, al-Nizar (hence their name), and moved their
> headquarters to Iran and Syria, where they established inde-
> NIZAM AL-MULK (C.1018–1092)                                         pendent principalities. Though under constant threat, their
> centers flourished under the imams as important places of
> Nizam al-Mulk (“good order of the kingdom”) is the title by         learning, international trade, and diplomacy for almost two
> which the Seljuk wazir Hasan b. 
Ali b. Ishaq al-Tusi is most       hundred years, before being destroyed during the Mongol
> commonly known. Nizam al-Mulk rose to prominence serv-              invasion of the thirteenth century.
> ing Sultan Alp Arslan (1063–1072), and for much of the reign
> of Sultan Malik Shah (1072–1092) he was ruler in all but               Faced by new challenges of reorganization, often in the
> name. Nizam al-Mulk was an individual of many talents:              face of hostile opposition, the Nizaris gained control of
> administrator, patron, military man, and author, as well as a       several strategically located mountain centers in Iran and
> skilled and occasionally ruthless competitor in court in-           Syria led, respectively, by Hasan-e-Sabbah and Rashid al-din
> trigues. An ardent supporter of the Sunni ulema, he con-            Sinan, two leading da
is (representatives of the imam) of the
> structed and endowed a number of madrasas (centers for the          time. These provided defensible centers from where to orstudy of Islamic law) in Iran and Iraq, which were called           ganize a decentralized and scattered community. They were
> Nizamiyyas after him, the most famous being the Nizamiyya           continually attacked by successive Seljuk rulers but were able
> in Baghdad, which opened in 1067. His reasons for doing this        to offer a strong defense from their inaccessible castles. One
> are not explicitly known, but these institutions certainly          legend that labeled them “assassins,” which was developed by
> contributed to the subsequent intellectual and political re-        their enemies and embellished by Marco Polo, became curvival seen in Sunnism. In the last years of his life, Nizam al-     rent in popular writings. However, modern scholarship has
> Mulk wrote a model for princes known alternatively as the           shown these stories to be largely fabrications that owed more
> Siyasat-nama or Siyar al-moluk. This Persian-language work          to religious bigotry, prejudice, and sheer invention than
> is noteworthy for its frank discussion of the steps necessary       historical reality.
> for an absolute ruler to administer his realm, and is sprinkled
> with references to philosophers and pre-Islamic kings as well          During the next five centuries after the destruction of the
> as to Islamic concepts. The reforms it urged were never             centers in Iran in 1258, the Nizaris, though scattered and
> implemented, no doubt due to the deaths of the author and           often persecuted, sustained their religious, intellectual, and
> shortly thereafter its immediate intended reader, Malik Shah.       community traditions in Iran, Syria, Central Asia, and the
> Nizam al-Mulk’s assassination in 1092 was linked by contem-         Indian subcontinent. They maintained contacts with the
> poraries (and near-contemporaries) to either the Assassins,         imam of the time living in Iran, and they further developed
> the sultan Malik Shah, or both.                                     the Isma
ili intellectual heritage in Arabic, Persian, and the
> vernacular Central Asian and Indian languages that has sur-
> See also Assassins; Education; Madrasa.                             vived in written as well as oral forms.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                    511
> Nurcu
> 
> In the nineteenth century, the Nizari Isma
ili imamat         manifests itself in its vision of the ideal society, one that is a
> moved from Iran to India and then to Europe. Many follow-         moral yet educated and scientifically competitive collectivity.
> ers migrated in the later part of the twentieth century to        The message is disseminated by its followers through an
> Africa, Europe, America, and Canada, where they have also         increasing use of modern technologies of mass communicabeen joined by a small number of Nizari Isma
ilis migrating       tion. However, adherents of the Nur movement are selective
> from Afghanistan, Iran, and Syria. In the early twenty-first       in their openness to modernity. The movement is also a
> century, this community of diverse backgrounds is found in        critique of several characteristics of modernity. Nursi’s teachall five continents and some thirty countries.                     ings challenge individualism. As Serif Mardin points out, Said
> Nursi’s primary aim was always to “repersonalize Turkish
> The imamat (office of the imam) and the heritage of Islam,
> society through the personalized stamp of the Risale-i Nur”
> as expressed within Nizari Isma
ili Shi
ism, continues to be at
> (p. 12). This was an attempt to preserve strong communal ties
> the heart of the modern emergence of the community. It is
> against the individualistic tendencies of modernization.
> guided in the respective national contexts by constitutions
> that bring a common pattern of practice and governance, and
> The movement has been largely a product of the tension
> a strong ethos of voluntarism and development in social,
> between Islamization and secularization, which originated in
> educational, and economic spheres. Spiritual and devotional
> the late nineteenth century when the Young Ottomans tried
> life is maintained in the Jamaatkhana, spaces of gathering, in
> to reconcile Islam and Western constitutionalism during the
> each major place of Isma
ili settlement, which in some cases
> late Ottoman period. Said Nursi suggested compromises in
> are buildings of outstanding Muslim design and architecture.
> order to deal with this tension under the rule of the Ottoman
> See also Aga Khan; Khojas; Shia: Ismaili.                       Empire. He challenged the division of education into three
> separate streams: medrese (Ar., madrasa, religious school),
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                      tekke (Sufi hospice), and secular education. His suggestion
> Azim, Nanji. The Nizari Ismaili Tradition in the Indo-Pakistan    was the reintroduction of religious studies to secular schools.
> Subcontinent. New York: Caravan Books, 1978.                   His aim was to incorporate competent ulema into the tekke.
> Jamal, Nadia Eboo. Surviving the Mongols: Nizari Quhistani        After the fall of the empire, Said Nursi visited the new
> and the Continuity of Ismaili Tradition in Persia. London:     parliament in Ankara once in 1922. Being frustrated by the
> I. B. Tauris, 2002.                                            cold reception and tension, he withdrew from politics for
> good. After the consolidation of the secular Turkish Republic
> Azim Nanji      in 1923, the tension between secularizing and Islamizing
> forces never ceased. Aiming at a radical break from the
> Ottoman Empire, the founding father, Ataturk, initiated a
> series of secularizing reforms that relegated Islam to the
> NURCU See Nur Movement                                            private sphere and de-Islamized the public sphere, (for example, the ban of the fez and veil). When the sects were banned
> in 1926, the Nur movement continued to expand rapidly and
> soon after was seen as a threat to the secular state. The
> pendulum swung from repression to tolerance for Islam,
> NUR MOVEMENT
> when a multiparty system was inititated in the 1950s.
> The Nur Movement (Nurçuluk) is a Turkish Islamic move-
> The Nur movement remained suspicious of politics. Some
> ment inspired by a modern reintepretetion of the Quran in
> followers became close to certain parties and state bureauthe volumes Risale-i Nur (Epistle of light). The risales (episcrats. The movement was known for its sympathy for and
> tles) of the leader of the movement, Bediuzzaman Said Nursi
> strong ties to the Democrat Party in the 1950s. Later, some
> (1876–1960), were first published in 1926. The Nur is not a
> sect but a social movement mainly because it does not have a      Nur followers were associated with Necmeddin Erbakan and
> formal structure and procedures for membership. Like a            his religious party, National Salvation (1973–1981). Howschool, Nur has students. The followers of Nur constitute an      ever, the strong faith and national feelings mobilized by the
> Islamic community movement that can be seen as a set of           movement did not become a part of a separate political party.
> effective personal networks.
> In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the political disagree-
> The primary goal of the movement is to revitalize faith       ments and economic differences among the followers of Nur
> under the conditions of modernization. The movement as-           led to fragmentation. The largest and most effective group
> pires to reconcile several apparent contradictions such as        that emerged out of Nur is the Gulen Community movethose between modernity and tradition, religion and ration-       ment, led by Fethullah Guler. Beginning in the early 1990s, it
> ality, faith and science, belief and doubt, and the West and      became organized and institutionalized not only in Turkey
> Islam. This middle ground positioning of the movement             but also internationally, particularly in the new states of
> 
> 512                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Nursi, Said
> 
> Central Asia. Although the Gulen movement inherited the               A. Arjomand. Translated by Hamid Dabashi. Albany:
> nationalist and modernist orientation of Nur, it deviated             State University of New York Press, 1988.
> from its forefathers by the engagements with the secular
> state, and its expansion to the international realm.                                                   Mohammad H. Faghfoory
> See also Erbakan, Necmeddin;                  Nursi,     Said;
> Secularization; Young Ottomans.
> 
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> NURSI, SAID (1876–1960)
> Mardin, Şerif. Social Change and Religion in Modern Turkey.
> Said Nursi (also known as Bediuzzaman, or Light of the
> Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989.
> Times) was born in Bitlis in eastern Turkey. He received his
> early education at various religious schools in the region,
> Berna Turam
> mostly under the direction of the teachers who belonged to
> the Naqshbandi order (an orthodox Sufi order). In 1907 and
> 1908 in Istanbul and Salonica, he advocated the establishment of a university in Erzurum where physical sciences
> NURI, FAZLALLAH (1843–1909)
> would be taught alongside religious topics, and supported the
> Hajj Shaykh Fazlallah b. Mulla 
Abbas Mazandarani Tehrani,         Young Turks’s constitutional revolution.
> commonly known as Fazlallah Nuri, was born in the village of
> Although he supported Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk) during
> Nur in Mazandaran. He was a prominent Iranian Shi
ite
> the Turkish War of Independence (1919–1922), he was
> scholar and the marja
-e taqlid (source of emulation) of
> arrested in 1925 and exiled to Barla in the province of Isparta
> Tehran at the turn of the twentieth century. He studied in
> for his alleged participation in the Shaikh Said (Ar., Shaykh
> Najaf with Mohammad Hasan Shirazi and reached the rank
> of mujtahid at a young age.                                        Sa
id) revolt in eastern Turkey. Here he began writing his
> Risale-i Nur (Epistle of light), the basis for the religious-
> Nuri actively participated in the constitutional revolution    intellectual movement known as Nurculuk.
> of 1905–1906. He played a controversial role in the events of
> the revolution, first supporting and then turning against               Distrusted and opposed for his religious views by the
> constitutional government. Nuri agreed with his opponents          Kemalist state, Said Nursi was arrested, imprisoned, and
> on the necessity of the rule of law and restrictions on the        exiled to various Anatolian cities, although the accusations
> tyrannical power of the king. Being cognizant of the dangers       were never proved. During the elections of the 1950s he
> of a secular constitution to Islam and the Shi
ite ulema,          supported the newly formed Democratic Party. It was at this
> however, he declared constitutionalism incompatible with           time that his major works were published in Latin script.
> Islam. Instead, he advocated the mashrutah-ye mashru
ah, that      After a brief illness he died in Urfa in southeastern Turkey.
> is, a constitution based on the laws of Islam.                     Later in the same year his grave was moved to an unknown
> location in Isparta.
> Nuri published his argument against constitutional government in several treatises including Nizam nameh-ye islami          Through his writings Said Nursi argued that religion
> (Islamic constitution), Tadhkirat al-ghafil wa irshad al-jahil (A   reflects the social and human environment and that Islam
> reminder to the negligent and guidance for the ignorant), and      could be interpreted according to the current needs of soci-
> Lawayih (Letters) in which he argued that mashrutah (consti-       ety. His Risale-i Nur, a commentary on the Quran, explains
> tution) was against the precepts of Shi
ite Islam. He became       and expounds the “truth” in the Holy Book. There he also
> the most outspoken critic of the constitution of 1906–1907         argues that materialistic philosophy challenges Islamic ethics
> and the most ardent opponent of the constitutionalists. Nuri’s     and the concepts of social and economic justice.
> agitation against constitutionalist forces brought him into
> conflict with them, who captured and finally hanged him in           See also Nur Movement; Young Ottomans; Young
> Tehran in July 1909.                                               Turks.
> 
> See also Reform: Iran; Revolution: Islamic Revolution
> in Iran.                                                           BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Mardin, Şerif. Religion and Social Change in Modern Turkey.
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                         Albany: State University of New York, 1989.
> 
> Nuri, Fazlallah. “Two Clerical Tracts on Constitutionalism.”
> In Authority and Political Culture in Shi
ism. Edited by Said                                                  A. Uner Turgay
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                   513
> O
> ORGANIZATION OF THE                                                      Mashet, Abdel Monem al-. The Organization of the Islamic
> Conference in a Changing World. Cairo: Friedrich-Ebert-
> ISLAMIC CONFERENCE                                                         Stiftung, 1994.
> Since the nineteenth century, Muslim thinkers have pro-
> Qamar-ul Huda
> posed pan-Islamic ideas of uniting the Islamic community
> with common political, economic, and social goals. After the
> creation of modern independent states in the Muslim world,
> which were primarily governed by secularist, nationalists, and           ORIENTALISM
> socialist ideologies, King Faysal of Saudi Arabia desired to
> counteract the trend of secularization by cooperating with               Orientalism as a field of scholarship that first emerged in the
> other Muslim leaders to create the Organization of Islamic               eighteenth century, when European scholars of the Enlight-
> Conference (OIC). The formation of the OIC coincided with                enment period consciously studied Asian languages and culthe successive military defeats in the Arab-Israeli wars and the         tures to gain a richer understanding of the Middle Eastern
> loss of holy sites in Jerusalem like the Al-Aqsa Mosque. As a            literary and historical environment in which Judaism and,
> result, leaders of Islamic nations were compelled to meet in             ultimately, Christianity, emerged. Some of the major French,
> Rabat to establish the OIC in May 1971.                                  English, and German scholars engaged in this endeavor were
> Armand-Pierre Caussin de Perceval (1795–1871), Ernest
> According to the OIC charter, the organization seeks to               Renan (1823–1892), Edward W. Lane (1801–1876), Franz
> preserve Islamic social and economic values; promote soli-               Bopp (1791–1867), Heinrich L. Fleischer (1801–1888), and
> darity among member states; increase cooperation in social,              Julian Wellhausen (1844–1918). Immediately following World
> economic, cultural, scientific, and political areas; support              War II, academic interest in Orientalism underwent a transinternational peace and security; and advance education,                 formation, ultimately splitting out into specialized area studparticularly in the fields of science and technology. In recent           ies across a variety of disciplines, including philology, literature,
> years the OIC evolved from a sectarian group solely focused              economics, political science, sociology, anthropology, genon issues related to Muslim nations to an organization in-               der studies, history, and religious studies. The field of
> volved with global politics and U.N. global security issues,             Orientalism was no longer based in any one department or
> such as the Iraq-Iran war, the Persian Gulf war, the U.N.’s              discipline, and this is credited to such illustrious scholars as
> peacekeeping mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and the recon-               Phillip Hitti, Gustave von Grunebaum, and Hamilton Gibb,
> struction of Afghanistan.                                                who developed Orientalism curricula and divisions in major
> universities in the United States.
> See also Pan-Islam.
> Edward Said’s Orientalism (1978) was a powerful critique
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                             of the of the field, and its origins. In this volume, Said sought
> Ahsan, Abdullah al-. OIC: The Organization of the Islamic                to illustrate how the study of Asian and Islamic cultures was
> Conference. Herndon, Va.: International Institute of Islamic           connected to European imperialism and its goal of maintain-
> Thought, 1988.                                                         ing power and hegemony over non-Europeans. He argued
> Khan, Saad S. Reasserting International Islam: A Focus on the            that the Orient has historically served as a symbolic marker of
> Organization of the Islamic Conference and Other Islamic               European superiority and modern cultural identity. For Said,
> Institutions. Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2001.                  historical Orientalist literature was never interested in Islam
> 
> Orientalism
> 
> as it is viewed and practiced by Muslims. Rather, it was an              Critics of Edward Said’s work often come from the field of
> exercise in self-identity created by means of defining the            Middle Eastern and South Asian studies. They assert that he
> “other.” In other words, Said suggested that Orientalists            is unaware of contemporary methodologies and trends in
> treated others—in this case, Muslims and Asians—as objects           scholarship. For instance, one of the major arguments against
> defined not in terms of their own discourses, but solely in           Said’s Orientalism is that current scholars in the field are not
> terms of standards and definitions imposed on them from               involved with any imperialistic agenda; that they are not
> outside. Among the influences underlying these definitions             interested in proving the superiority of the Western culture
> was, in Said’s view, a long-standing Western concern with            over non-Western cultures or in enhancing the self-identity
> presenting Islam as opposed to Christianity.                         of Western culture. According to many of these critics, Said
> may have contributed to a historical analysis of Orientalist
> In exploring the relationship of knowledge, power, and
> literature, but he is unaware of the astonishingly creative ways
> colonialism, Said is in agreement with Jean-Paul Sartre and
> in which cultures and religious traditions are explored within
> Franz Fannon that from the time of pre-Crusader rallies,
> current scholarship. They argue that he has erroneously
> Christian writers were consumed with attacking Islam and
> juxtaposed a disturbing past of scholarship with the works of
> the prophet Muhammad in order to earn legitimacy with
> modern scholars, without considering the immense achievefellow Christians. Polemical literature against Islam, like
> ments that were accomplished in the field.
> John of Damascus, concentrated on how the Prophet falsified
> revelation, had multiple marriages, had used violence in his             “Orientalism” is rarely used in the academy today, except
> lifetime, and experienced self-delusional spiritual visions.         for a few centers and journals that have retained the title.
> The polemical literature created a cycle of hate and promoted        Instead, the field is identified by its component areas of study,
> Islam as an evil religion with a demonically possessed prophet.      such as Middle Eastern Studies, North African Studies,
> According to Said, Renaissance scholars like John Gagnier        Iranian Studies, or South Asian Studies. In each area study,
> (d.1740) and Edward Pocock (c.1650) began translating Islamic        scholars employ a wide variety of interdisciplinary approaches
> sources into European languages not to enhance opportuni-            and methodologies. For example, scholars who are trained in
> ties for crosscultural dialogue, but rather to assess the value of   literature find it acceptable to incorporate gender studies,
> knowledge production in Islam. Notable scholars like Tho-            history, comparative studies, and other related forms of
> mas Carlyle, Immanuel Kant, and Liebnitz viewed Islam as a           knowledge as part of their work. Most recently, theoretical
> rational and reasonable religion, but were more interested in        approaches such as post-colonial theory or subaltern studies
> pursuing the psychological makeup of the Muslims and                 have played an important role in scholarly research.
> learning how they went about constructing and sustaining a
> See also Colonialism.
> religious tradition. Said argued that Orientalists of the Renaissance were driven to understand Muslims only to prove
> that Islam was a false religion and stood in the way of truth. By    BIBLIOGRAPHY
> targeting the deficiencies of the Prophet and of Islam,               Little, Douglas. American Orientalism: Tthe United States and
> Orientalist literature was connected to evangelical purposes,           the Middle East since 1945. Chapel Hill: University of
> used to create a sense of Christian superiority and to ulti-            North Carolina Press, 2002.
> mately delegitimize the tradition of “the other”: Islam.             Said, Edward. Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books, 1978.
> Said, Edward. Culture and Imperialism. New York: Knopf, 1993.
> For Said, the field of Orientalism is thus the net result of a
> historical vision of Islam rooted in the Christian European          Waardenberg, Jean-Jacques. Islam dans le miroir de l’Occident.
> imagination. In the terms of this imagination, Islam could             Paris: Mouton, 1963.
> only be viewed as monolithic, scornful of human life, unchanging, uncreative, authoritarian, and intrinsically factitious.                                                 Qamar-ul Huda
> 
> 516                                                                                              Islam and the Muslim World
> P
> PAKISTAN, ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF                                             over the state of Jammu and Kashmir, and Pakistan’s entry
> into American-sponsored defense alliances: the Southeast
> Pakistan secured independence on 14 August 1947 with the                  Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) and the Baghdad Pact
> breakup of the British Indian Empire into two countries,                  (later the Central Treaty Organization, or CENTRO). After
> India and Pakistan. The idea behind the creation of Pakistan              playing political games behind the scene for years, the miliwas to provide a separate homeland for India’s Muslims, who               tary took direct power by declaring martial law in October
> were concentrated in the eastern and western parts of the                 1958. General Ayub Khan introduced basic democracy, a
> empire. The new country consisted of two parts, separated                 form of local government, and a presidential constitution.
> from each other by the Indian landmass; these became known                His idea was that democratic participation must be guided
> as East Pakistan and West Pakistan, respectively. The two                 and controlled, and that national energies must be concenwings had different languages, cultures, and social structures.           trated on economic development.
> The only binding force between them was Islam and political
> aspirations to seek independence from Britain and separate-                   Under the first military regime (1958–1969), Pakistan
> ness from the Hindu majority in India. Founders of the new                made substantial economic progress and achieved a high
> states were sanguine about their ability to create common                 degree of modernization. During the cold war, Pakistan
> political and economic networks that would further strengthen             followed a foreign policy of alliance with the West and
> the idea of Muslim state and nationhood.                                  benefited greatly in economic and military assistance. In
> 1965, however, the country went to war with India over the
> Constitutional and democratic processes that could have                disputed territory of Kashmir, a move which destabilized it
> formed the foundations on which the two wings might                       politically and undermined its economic growth. Popular
> base solidarity suffered immediately after the founder of the             discontent and nationwide agitation against president Ayub
> country, Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad 
Ali Jinnah, died on 11                    led to a second imposition of martial law in 1969. The new
> September 1948. His successors and the Muslim League, the                 military leader, General Yahya Khan, abrogated Ayub’s 1962
> party that he led, failed to pursue of his vision of a lib-               constitution and decided to hold the first general elections on
> eral, moderate, progressive democratic Pakistan. With re-                 the basis of one man one vote in 1970. The mandate of this
> peated failure to develop understanding between East and                  election was split between the West Pakistan and East Paki-
> West Pakistan on the questions of provincial autonomy and                 stan. The Awami League party from East Pakistan swept the
> representation in the federal legislature and bureaucracy,                elections and obtained a clear majority in the federal governconstitution-making was delayed. It was only after nine years             ment. Denying the party its right to dominate led to a civil
> that, in 1956, the first constitution was promulgated. By that             war. Military intervention by India resulted in the military
> time much harm had been done to the tradition of parliamen-               defeat of Pakistan and creation of Bangladesh out of what was
> tary democracy, which Pakistan had inherited from the Brit-               East Pakistan.
> ish colonial rule in India.
> With this military debacle, Pakistan returned to civilian
> With the decline of political discipline in the political             rule under Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, a populist and charismatic
> parties, their shifting alliances, and the failure to hold elec-          leader (1971–1977). He introduced socialist reforms and gave
> tions for the national legislature, the political influence of the         the country its first constitution to be drafted by elected
> civilian bureaucracy and the military increased. The military             representatives of the people. He faced agitation by the
> gained further influence because of the dispute with India                 opposition parties in 1977 over disputed election results and
> 
> Pan-Arabism
> 
> was overthrown by the army chief of staff, General Zia ul           stripped the president of the power to dismiss future elected
> Haq. General Zia promised fresh elections within ninety             governments.
> days, as stipulated by the 1973 constitution, and put the
> country back on the road to democracy. It took him eight                This collaboration between the government of Nawaz
> years to do so. In the meantime, he used a controversial            Sharif and the opposition parties didn’t last very long. Sharif
> murder conviction to order the execution of former prime            had a two-thirds majority in the parliament and was equipped
> minister Bhutto. His rule for eleven years (1977–1988) was          with tremendous executive powers, and he began to act in an
> further marred by the bitter legacy of the Soviet war in            arbitrary manner. The opposition dubbed him as a civilian
> Afghanistan: rising religious extremism, Islamic militancy,         dictator. He forced a sitting president, a chief justice of the
> Supreme Court of Pakistan, and an army chief of staff to
> and political confrontation. Pakistan became an ally of the
> resign. When he removed General Pervez Musharraf from
> Western powers as a front-line state against Moscow’s Afghan
> office in October 1999, the military took over power for a
> misadventure. It did better economically under Zia and
> fourth time, through a bloodless coup. General Musharraf
> developed nuclear capability during the Afghan war years.
> designated himself as the chief executive of the country,
> Zia was the first ruler of Pakistan who tried zealously to       suspended the constitution, dismissed the central and provin-
> Islamize the state and society, although the nation had taken       cial governments, and promised social and national reforms
> the designation of “Islamic Republic” under its first constitu-      to return the country to a workable democracy. His coup, like
> tion, in 1956. It is debatable whether this was the result of his   previous ones, was endorsed by Pakistan’s Supreme Court,
> personal religious beliefs, or if he was using religion as a        but with the injunction that he would hold elections and hand
> source of political legitimation. Whatever the reason, Zia          over power to the elected assemblies within three years.
> interpreted the movement for the creation of Pakistan in            National elections were set to be held on 10 October 2002,
> but Musharraf held a national referendum in April 2002 and
> purely Islamic terms and asserted that Islamization was the
> got himself elected as president for a five-year term.
> best way to secure and stabilize Pakistani society. He took
> drastic measures for building Pakistan as an Islamic society.
> An image of the Badshadi mosque in Lahore, Pakistan, appears
> He introduced Islamic taxes like zakat and 
ushr, and replaced        in the volume two color insert.
> centuries-old British laws relating with Islamic penalties for
> offenses such as theft, robbery, adultery, and false accusation     See also Awami League; Jinnah, Muhammad 
Ali; South
> of adultery. He made the drinking of alcohol by Muslims an          Asia, Islam in.
> offence punishable by six months’ imprisonment and fine of
> 5,000 rupees. He established a separate federal Shari
at (Is-       BIBLIOGRAPHY
> lamic law) Court to hear appeals against convictions under
> Afzal, M. Rafique. Pakistan: History and Politics 1947–1971.
> the Islamic laws. Most of these laws and the Islamization              Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2002.
> process of the Zia regime have been controversial, but Zia’s
> legacy in this regard lingers on.
> Rasul Bakhsh Rais
> The death of Zia in a plane crash returned the country to
> democracy in 1988. The elections in October of that year
> resulted in a divided mandate between the Pakistan Peoples
> Party of Benazir Bhutto and the Muslim League. Benazir
> PAN-ARABISM
> became the first women prime minister of Pakistan and the
> Also known as Arab nationalism, pan-Arabism is the ideology
> first to head up a democratic government in eleven years. The
> that calls for the political unity of Arab peoples and states. By
> Punjab, the largest province in the Pakistani federation, had a
> consensus, Arabness is defined not by religion or geographic
> Muslim League government headed by Mian Mohammad
> origin, but, as Sati
 al-Husri proposed, by language. Arabs are
> Nawaz Sharif, a former political ally of Zia. The political
> those whose mother tongue is Arabic and who identify with
> confrontation between the rival political parties, and the
> the history and culture associated with it.
> president’s willingness to use her powers to dismiss elected
> members of parliament, provincial assemblies, and govern-               Although some scholars trace its origins to nineteenthments at the center and in the provinces kept the country           century state builders such as Muhammad 
Ali of Egypt, or
> unstable. Four elected governments, two of the Pakistan             religious reform movements such as the Wahhabiyya, or
> Peoples Party and two of the Muslim League, were dismissed          intellectuals such as 
Abdallah al-Nadim and 
Abd al-Rahman
> between 1988 and 1996, followed, each time, by new elec-            al-Kawakibi, pan-Arabism developed as a coherent ideology
> tions. The military continued to play a role in these dismissals    and political movement at the time of the First World War. It
> from behind the scenes. Ultimately, the various political           arose as a response to both European imperialism and to the
> parties in the parliament closed their ranks and, in 1997,          mismanagement and pan-Turkic ideology associated with
> passed the thirteenth amendment to the constitution, which          the Young Turk movement in the Ottoman Empire.
> 
> 518                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Pan-Islam
> 
> When the Hashemite-led revolt against Ottoman rule               during the 1991 Gulf War and in the months leading to the
> began in 1915, Sharif Husayn and his sons had managed to            2003 Iraq war that ousted him from power. More imporgain support not only in the Hijaz where they were based, but       tantly, perhaps, Arab nationalism today finds institutional
> also in Syria. Husayn thought he had assurances from the            expression in the continued existence of the Arab League,
> British government, represented by the high commissioner            formed in 1945, and now consisting of twenty-two members,
> in Cairo, Sir Henry McMahon, that he and his sons would             as well as in continuing efforts to create subregional organizagovern all Arab territories freed from Turkish control. Yet,        tions, the most successful being the Gulf Cooperation Coundespite the efforts of Husayn’s son Faysal and T. E. Lawrence       cil (GCC), formed in 1981 and comprising the six Arab states
> at the Versailles conference, the postwar mandate system            that border the Persian Gulf.
> awarded Lebanon and Syria to France and Iraq and Palestine
> to Britain. The future of Palestine was particularly uncertain      See also 
Abd al-Nasser, Jamal; Arabic Language; Arab
> because in November 1917 the British had issued the Balfour         League; Ba
th Party; Ikhwan al-Muslimin; National-
> Declaration promising favorable consideration for the crea-         ism: Arab; Pan-Islam; Pan-Turanism; Revolution:
> tion of a Jewish homeland there. The Hashemite project for          Modern.
> Arab unity was dealt a final blow when the Hijaz was conquered by 
Abd al-
Aziz ibn Sa
ud in 1924 and Husayn was            BIBLIOGRAPHY
> sent into exile in Cyprus, leaving only two of his sons as rulers   Ajami, Fouad. The Arab Predicament: Arab Political Thought
> of British-backed monarchies: 
Abdallah in Transjordan and             and Practice Since 1967. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge
> Faysal in Iraq.                                                        University Press, 1981.
> Haim, Sylvia G., ed. Arab Nationalism: An Anthology. Berke-
> Following the Second World War, Arab nationalism                  ley: University of California Press, 1962.
> found two, initially cooperative, but later conflicting, expres-     Kerr, Malcolm. The Arab Cold War: Gamal Abd al-Nasir
> sions. The first was religious, as articulated by the Muslim           and His Rivals, 1958–1970. London: Oxford University
> Brotherhood (Ikhwan al-Muslimin), which saw the unity of              Press, 1971.
> the Arabs as the first step in pan-Islamic solidarity. The
> second was secular, as articulated by the Ba
th Party led by                                                    Sohail H. Hashmi
> Michel 
Aflaq and later by the Nasserists. The common
> enemy for both was the lingering legacy of British and French
> imperialism in the Arab world, signified by compliant Arab
> elites, military bases, economic concessions, and the state
> PAN-ISLAM
> of Israel.
> Pan-Islam is the ideology that calls for the unity and coopera-
> Soon after coming to power in Egypt in July 1952, Jamal          tion of Muslims worldwide on the basis of their shared
> 
Abd al-Nasser began transforming Egypt into a revolution-          Islamic identity. Apart from this general description, the idea
> ary nucleus around which Arab unity would progress. He first         of pan-Islam has been formulated in myriad ways and used for
> crushed the religious groups that had supported the Free            various political ends during the nineteenth and twentieth
> Officer revolt against the Egyptian monarchy and had quickly         centuries.
> become disillusioned with his secularism. He then turned his
> The term “pan-Islam” is of nineteenth-century European
> attention to the conservative Arab monarchies.
> origin and was used primarily to describe Ottoman attempts
> The zenith of secular pan-Arabism came in 1958 when              at promoting Muslim unity to counter European imperial-
> Egypt and Syria merged to form the United Arab Republic             ism. Yet, the central premise of pan-Islam, that all Muslims
> (UAR). Syria withdrew from the union in 1961, however,              form a single community of believers (umma) that ideally
> because of growing dissatisfaction with Nasser’s repressive         should be united politically as well as spiritually, may be
> and pro-Egyptian policies. Subsequent efforts in 1963 to            traced to the very origins of Islam itself. Several Quranic
> revive the UAR, this time with Iraqi participation following a      verses refer to the Muslims as constituting a single commu-
> Ba
thist coup there, proved unsuccessful.                           nity (e.g., 2:143, 3:110). Others warn against the dangers of
> fragmentation and internal strife (e.g., 3:103, 105). The
> Since the abortive UAR experiment, a number of events            prophet Muhammad clearly tried to forge a sense of Muslim
> have allegedly marked the demise of pan-Arabism, including          communal solidarity that transcended the traditional tribal
> the crushing Israeli defeat of Arab forces in the 1967 war,         loyalties of the Arabs, as in the famous example of the
> Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel in 1979, and Iraq’s invasion of    “Constitution of Medina,” in which the migrants from Mecca
> Kuwait in 1990. Yet, Arab nationalism is still very much alive      and the newly converted tribes of Medina are described as “a
> rhetorically, now once again tinged with strong religious           single umma apart from all other men.” Although the political
> overtones, as in the manifestos of fundamentalist groups and        unity of the umma was shattered soon after the Prophet’s
> even in the propaganda of secular dictators like Saddam             death, the ideal continued to linger for several centuries
> Husayn, who repeatedly invoked religion to rally Arabs              afterwards, as best demonstrated in the reluctance of political
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                     519
> Pan-Islam
> 
> theorists to accept the legitimacy of multiple, simultaneous      the leadership of their own rulers. By the 1870s, Afghani’s
> caliphs.                                                          activism had assumed a decidedly pan-Islamic emphasis. He
> suggested that the only way to ameliorate the weakness of
> Numerous attempts to unite Muslims through a revival of       individual Muslim states was to form a bloc of semi-
> Islamic faith may be found in Islamic history. But given the      autonomous states, all recognizing the suzerainty of the
> far expanse of Islamic civilization, all of these were confined    Ottoman caliph. Afghani thus sought to combine nationalism
> geographically. Many factors converged in the nineteenth          and pan-Islam, apparently seeing no contradictions becentury to allow a far more universal scope for attempts to       tween the two.
> unite Muslims: the steady loss of Ottoman territories in
> Europe, the advance of European colonialism into Muslim               Afghani proposed to 
Abd al-Hamid as early as the late
> states in Africa and Asia, and the spread of mass communica-      1870s that he be sent as an emissary to Afghanistan to rally
> tion media. Pan-Islam developed primarily as a defense mecha-     support for the sultan’s claims to the caliphate. The sultan,
> nism to counter the military and political advance of European    suspicious of Afghani’s motivations, responded by encouragpowers, primarily Britain, France, and Russia. The Ottoman        ing him to continue his agitation from abroad but doing little
> Empire, the largest and most centrally located Sunni state,       to assist him. In 1892, 
Abd al-Hamid invited Afghani to settle
> and the guardian of the holy sites of Mecca, Medina, and          in Istanbul. Afghani would die there four years later, disillu-
> Jerusalem, was best suited to exploit rising concerns with        sioned and complaining that he was a prisoner of the sultan.
> European imperialism and to initiate pan-Islamic responses.
> Pan-Islamic appeals continued to be heard in the period
> Two men, more than any others, shaped the development         before and immediately after the First World War, as in the
> of pan-Islam during the late nineteenth century: the Ottoman      Ottoman jihad proclamation of 1914, but increasingly they
> sultan 
Abd al-Hamid II (1842–1918) and Jamal al-Din al-          were made in the service of Turkish, Arab, or Indian Muslim
> Afghani (1839–1897). 
Abd al-Hamid cultivated the pan-            nationalism. The issue that most stirred pan-Islamic loyalties
> Islamic sentiments that had emerged during the 1860s and          was the fate of the Ottoman caliphate, particularly among the
> 1870s under the impact of German and Italian unification           Muslims of British India. Ulema of the Deoband school led
> during the reign of his predecessor, 
Abd al-
Aziz (1830–1876),   Indian Muslim opposition to the Arab revolt against the
> and gave them the status of an official ideology. As it did for    Ottomans, seeing in it a British ploy to seize control of the
> 
Abd al-
Aziz, pan-Islam provided 
Abd al-Hamid a rallying        central Islamic lands. When Constantinople was occupied by
> cry against both European powers and internal modernizers         the Allies at the end of the war, Indian nationalist leaders,
> and critics of the sultanate.                                     chief among them the journalist Muhammad 
Ali, launched
> the Khilafat Movement to lobby the British government for
> Central to 
Abd al-Hamid’s pan-Islam was the claim that
> the Ottoman caliph’s retention of sovereignty over the Arathe Ottoman sultan was the caliph of Islam, or at least of
> bian Peninsula, Syria, Iraq, and Anatolia, the “spiritual
> Sunni Islam. The Ottoman claim to the caliphate dated back
> heartland” of Islam. Meanwhile, in 1919, groups of Indian
> centuries, but under 
Abd al-Hamid the title was asserted
> ulema organized the hijra (migration) of Muslims from the
> with far greater vigor than it had been before within the
> subcontinent to Afghanistan, arguing that Muslims could no
> empire, and for the first time serious attempts were made to
> longer remain in a territory ruled by Great Britain while it
> win the loyalty of Muslims beyond the Ottoman realm. Inside
> was attempting to destroy the caliphate. Approximately 18,000,
> the empire, the sultan’s pan-Islam meant the cultivation of
> mostly poor, Muslims trekked to the Afghan border, only to
> Muslim interests over those of Christian and other nonbe denied entry by the Afghan government. Thousands lost
> Muslim minorities as well as increased state support for
> their lives to disease and hunger in the process. By the time
> Islamic courts, schools, and religious orders. Outside the
> the Turkish Grand National Assembly abolished the Ottoempire, a propaganda campaign was launched, using print
> man caliphate in 1924, the Khilafat agitation had already
> media and emissaries or spies, to spread an image of the sultan
> diminished because of disillusionment and internal squabas a pious Muslim ruler, the only one capable of effectively
> bles. Hopes that a reconstituted caliphate might reinvigorate
> uniting Muslims against Christian colonizers.
> pan-Islamic sentiments died when two conferences held in
> 
Abd al-Hamid’s claims to the caliphate were challenged        1926, one in Cairo, the other in Mecca, ended in bitter
> immediately, and the general failure of his pan-Islamic cam-      disagreements over who should assume the title. A third
> paign partly contributed to his deposition following the          conference held in 1931 in Jerusalem called only for solidarity
> Young Turk revolt of 1908. Still, the fruits of 
Abd al-          and cooperation among Muslim peoples.
> Hamid’s propaganda may be seen in the Indian Muslim
> agitation over the fate of the Ottoman caliphate following the        Muslim solidarity and international cooperation, rather
> First World War.                                                  than any supranational unity, is the way pan-Islam has generally been articulated in the years since the Second World
> Jamal al-Din al-Afghani’s early career emphasized the          War. Even those Muslim intellectuals who challenge the
> need for reform within particular Muslim countries, under         legitimacy of separate Muslim nation-states according to
> 
> 520                                                                                           Islam and the Muslim World
> Pan-Turanism
> 
> Islamic values do not propose any meaningful political union     the true religion, namely the people who did not accept
> of Muslim states and in fact generally focus their activism on   Zoroastrianism. However, later the term Turan commonly
> gaining control of a particular state.                           referred to the land north of the Amu Darya River (the Oxus
> River of antiquity), where the non-Iranians of Central Asia
> The most prominent manifestation of pan-Islam today is       and chiefly the nomadic Turkic peoples lived.
> in the host of transnational nongovernmental and intergovernmental Islamic organizations. During the 1950s, Pakistan          In the late nineteenth century the tsarist empire, by
> initiated the creation of the Mutamar al-
Alam al-Islami, but   invading the Caucasus and Central Asia, incorporated a vast
> disagreements with secular Arab governments over the or-         number of Turkic peoples into its realm. The Russification
> ganization’s purpose led to its failure. During the 1960s, the   policy adopted by tsarist Russia in this region caused a
> campaign to create pan-Islamic organizations was revived         number of local elites to promote an alternative to Russian
> by King Faysal of Saudi Arabia. With his backing, the            pan-Slavism. However, their activities prior to the First
> Rabitat al-
Alam al-Islami was created in 1962 to provide a      World War were mainly confined to organizing all of Rusnongovernmental forum for the discussion and dissemination       sia’s Muslim congresses and the publication of certain periof Islamic viewpoints on issues facing Muslims around the        odicals such as Yeni Fuyuzat (New abundance) and Shelale
> world. In 1969, following Israel’s capture of Jerusalem in the   (Cascade) in Baku or Turan in Tashkent.
> Six Day War, twenty-four Muslim states voted to form the
> The growing solidarity among Russia’s Turkic peoples
> Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). In 2003 the
> was welcomed in the Ottoman Empire, which was suffering
> OIC consisted of fifty-seven members, and though it is
> from a long-lasting and humiliating decline. Among the
> frequently criticized for its ineffectiveness, it remains the
> leaders of the ruling Committee of Union and Progress in the
> most important and universal expression of pan-Islamic po-
> Ottoman Empire were personalities such as Enver Pasha,
> litical aspirations since the abolition of the caliphate.
> who aspired to forge a Turanian empire that would bring
> Turkic peoples together and result in gains in the Caucasus
> See also Afghani, Jamal al-Din; Caliphate; Empires:
> and Central Asia. The entry of the Ottoman Empire into the
> Ottoman; Khilafat Movement; Organization of the
> First World War was partly motivated by such a desire. The
> Islamic Conference; Pan-Arabism; Pan-Turanism;
> Ottoman propaganda campaign in the First World War was
> Young Turks.
> dominated by two distinctive trends of pan-Islamism and
> pan-Turanism. While pan-Turanism aimed at the Turkic
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                     peoples of the Balkan peninsula, the Caucasus, northern Iran,
> Khan, Saad S. Reasserting International Islam: A Focus on the    and Central Asia, the pan-Islamist propaganda was still largely
> Organization of the Islamic Conference and other Islamic       directed at the peoples of the Near and Middle East, and even
> Institutions. Karachi and New York: Oxford University          as far as the Indian subcontinent. In Iran and Central Asia,
> Press, 2001.
> with their diverse ethnic composition, the Ottomans em-
> Kramer, Martin. Islam Assembled: The Advent of the Muslim        ployed a combination of pan-Turanism and pan-Islamism
> Congresses. New York: Columbia University Press, 1986.         resulted.
> Landau, Jacob. The Politics of Pan-Islam. Oxford, U.K.:
> Clarendon Press, 1990.                                            With the end of the First World War and the fall of the
> Ottoman Empire, there were only a handful of political
> adventurers that still pursued pan-Turanism, among them
> Sohail H. Hashmi
> Enver Pasha, who was killed in 1922 while fighting the
> Bolsheviks in Central Asia.
> 
> In the Republic of Turkey, while local nationalism with
> PAN-TURANISM                                                     pan-Turkish allusions was tolerated and even encouraged,
> pan-Turanism never became a significant political trend. It
> Pan-Turanism is an ideology that originated in the late
> was only with the disintegration of the Soviet Union in the
> nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and propagated a
> late 1980s and early 1990s that the call for unity among the
> strong cultural attachment among all Turkic peoples. Although
> Turkic peoples was once more heard. Although this call was
> pan-Turanism is correlated to pan-Turkism, its adherents
> promoted by the cooperation pacts realized among the new
> differ. While historically pan-Turkism was chiefly confined
> independent Turkic republics of the Caucasus, Central Asia,
> to the Turks living in the Ottoman Empire and its border-        and Turkey, the profound rivalries both on the regional as
> lands, pan-Turanism had broader pretensions. Pan-Turanism        well as the international level nevertheless hampered any
> aimed at joining all Turkic peoples that claimed descent from    noteworthy achievements.
> Turan, including the Mongols. The name Turan is connected to a mythological plateau in Central Asia. In Avesta      See also Balkans, Islam in the; Central Asia, Islam in;
> the people called Tura were represented as the enemies of        Empires: Ottoman; Pan-Arabism; Pan-Islam.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                 521
> Pasdaran
> 
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                      and battle to quell civil disorder. The Basij allegedly also
> Atabaki, T. “Recasting Oneself, Rejecting the Others: Pan-        monitor the activities of citizens, and harass or arrest women
> Turkism and Iranian Nationalism.” In Identity Politics in      and men who violate the dress code.
> Central Asia and the Muslim World. Edited by E. J. Zurcher,
> and W. van Schendel. London: I. B. Tauris, 2001.                   The Pasdaran have maintained an intelligence branch to
> monitor the regime’s domestic adversaries and to participate
> Landau, J. M. Pan-Turkism: From Irredentism to Cooperation.
> London: Hurst, 1995.                                            in their arrests and trials. Khomeini demonstrated his acceptance of the Revolutionary Guards’ involvement in intelli-
> Touraj Atabaki     gence when he congratulated them on the arrest of Iranian
> Communist (Tudeh) leaders. Not only did the Pasardan
> function as an intelligence organization, both within and
> outside the country, but they also exerted considerable influ-
> PASDARAN                                                          ence on government policies.
> 
> The Pasdaran (Sepah-e Pasdaran-e Enghelab-e Eslami, or               The Pasdaran have been quite active in Lebanon. By the
> Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps) was established under a       summer of 1982, shortly after the second Israeli invasion of
> decree issued by the Ayatollah Khomeini, as leader of the         Lebanon, the Pasdaran had nearly one thousand personnel
> Islamic revolution, on 5 May 1979. The corps of Revolution-       deployed in the predominantly Shi
ite Biqa
 Valley. From
> ary Guards were intended to guard the revolution and to           their headquarters near Baalbek, the Pasdaran have provided
> assist the ruling clerics in the day-to-day enforcement of the    consistent support to Islamic Amal, a breakaway faction of the
> government’s Islamic codes and morality. The Pasdaran, as         mainstream Amal organization, and then Hizb Allah, which
> the guardians of the revolution, would counter the threat         contemplate the establishment of an Islamic state in Lebanon.
> posed by either the leftist guerrillas or the officers suspected
> of continued loyalty to the shah. The revolution also needed      See also Iran, Islamic Republic of; Revolution: Islamic
> to rely on a force of its own rather than borrowing the           Revolution in Iran.
> monarchic regime’s tainted forces, however disorganized and
> undertrained such a force might be in the first years of           BIBLIOGRAPHY
> establishment. The Pasdaran, along with its political coun-       Katzman, Kenneth. The Warriors of Islam: Iran’s Revolutionary
> terpart, Crusade for Reconstruction, brought a new order to         Guard. Oxford, U.K.: Westview Press, 1993.
> Iran. The Pasdaran and Crusade for Reconstruction had their
> own separate ministries in the first decade after revolution,                                                Majid Mohammadi
> but then they were merged with other ministries.
> 
> In time, the Pasdaran came to duplicate the police and the
> judiciary in terms of its functions. It even challenged the       PERSIAN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
> performance of the regular armed forces on the battlefield.
> The Pasdaran was designed as an organization that would be        Persian has historically been, after Arabic, the most prestidirectly subordinate to the ruling clerics. The constitution of   gious literary language in the Muslim world and a vehicle of
> the Islamic Republic of Iran entrusted the regular army with      cultural expression in Ottoman Turkey, Central Asia, Mogul
> guarding Iran’s territorial integrity and political indepen-      India and, of course, Persia (greater Iran). The influence of
> dence. Thus the Revolutionary Guards could only have the          Persian literature and Persicate culture therefore covered a
> responsibility of guarding the revolution. Involvement in         wide region, from the Balkans to Bangladesh, and from the
> politics is a part of the Revolutionary Guards’ mission to        Persian Gulf to north of the Jaxartes River in Central Asia.
> defend Islamic authority. Despite differences, the Pasdaran       Today Persian is the official language of Iran and Tajikistan,
> and the regular armed forces have cooperated on military          and one of the two official languages of Afghanistan (along
> matters.                                                          with Pashto). Persian is also spoken by small residual communities in neighboring countries, such as Turkmenistan,
> By the end of the war between Iran and Iraq in 1986,          Uzbekistan, Pakistan, the Persian Gulf states, and Iraq, as
> the Pasdaran consisted of 400,000 personnel organized in          well as in newly established enclaves abroad: Persian-speaking
> battalion-size units that operated either independently or        Jewish immigrants to Israel, and the diaspora to North
> with units of the regular armed forces. In 1984 the Pasdaran      America, Europe, and Australia that resulted from the politiacquired a small navy and elements of an air force. Until         cal upheavals and wars in Iran and Afghanistan during the
> 1988, up to three million volunteers were organized under         1970s and the 1980s.
> the control of the Revolutionary Guards as the Mobilization
> (Basij) Corps. Since the end of the war this number has              Note that in recent decades the term “Farsi” has erronedecreased, as those units are used to control the internal        ously gained currency in English in place of Persian. Linguissituation or to strengthen one political faction above another    tically speaking, the nomenclatures “Farsi,” “Dari,” and
> 
> 522                                                                                          Islam and the Muslim World
> Persian Language and Literature
> 
> “Tajiki” denote varieties of Persian spoken in Iran, Afghani-        write new works or compilations of a religious nature until
> stan, and Tajikistan, respectively, just as one might describe       the ninth century C.E. The larger part of surviving Middle
> English as consisting of American, Australian, and British           Persian literature consists of translations or glosses on Avestanvarieties. Though distinctive regional accents and some dif-         language Zoroastrian texts, along with other Zoroastrian
> ferences in vocabulary or even grammar exist, the spoken             literature. It also includes “books of counsel” (pand namak), or
> varieties of Persian are united by a common literary and             wisdom literature providing moral or ethical precepts and
> cultural heritage and are mutually understood by speakers            advice, as in the “Wise Maxims of Bozorgmehr.” Other texts
> across the Persian linguistic continuum. Nevertheless, Per-          include a few poems, the versification principles of which
> sian literature has been developing in distinctive and even          have been disputed, and “royal songs” (srot-i khusravanik) that
> divergent directions in modern Iran, Afghanistan, and                were reportedly performed with musical accompaniment by
> Tajikistan since each country became a centralized nation-           well-known minstrels at the Sassanian court.
> state. This is especially true of Tajikistan, where the written
> form of Persian was radically altered in the Soviet period by            The cultural exchange with India was quite strong, as
> the adoption first of the Roman (1928) and shortly thereafter         evidenced by a Middle Persian treatise on chess and a number
> the Cyrillic (1940) script in place of the traditional Arabic        of translations of works of Indian origin, including Kalila wa
> Dimna (from the tales of Bidpai), Barlaam and Josaphat, and
> script, used in Afghanistan and Iran. Tajikistan was therefore
> the Sindbad nameh.The frametale structure is thus borrowed
> oriented toward Russian, as well as Turkic Central Asia, in its
> from India, but the bulk of the Middle Persian Hazar Afsanak
> recent cultural and linguistic development, whereas Afghani-
> (“Thousand tales”), the main source of stories for the Arabic
> stan has been in the cultural orbit of Pakistan and India, as
> “Thousand and One Nights” cycle (Alf Layla wa layla), seem
> well as the Soviet Union. The collapse of the Soviet Union in
> to be of Persian origin.
> the last decade of the twentieth century, and of the Taliban in
> the first years of the twenty-first, along with technological              Although spoken Persian continued to evolve grammatiinnovations (such as Persian-language programs broadcast by          cally into something like what we now recognize as new
> Internet radio and satellite television across the region) have,     Persian, Zoroastrian works continued to be composed in
> however, brought increased opportunities for cultural inter-         Middle Persian until at least the ninth century, by which time
> change across the Persian speaking countries, and begun to           the majority of Iranians had become Muslim. Many religious,
> reverse the isolation of previous decades.                           literary, and scientific works written in Arabic at the same
> time were penned by men of Iranian, or half-Iranian parent-
> Language History
> age, including Ibn al-Muqaffa
 (d. 760), translator of Kalila wa
> Persian is classified as a member of the Iranian branch of the
> Dimna from Middle Persian to Arabic; the poet Abu Nuwas
> Indo-European family of languages. Indeed, it was partly
> (d. 810), who includes a few words of Persian in his poetry;
> from his knowledge of Persian and its similarity to Latin,
> the historian and Quran commentator, Tabari (d. 923); and
> Greek, and Sanskrit that Sir William Jones (1746–1794)
> the physician Rhazes (Zakariyya al-Razi, d. 925). Indeed,
> postulated the existence of an Indo-European proto-language
> many authors of the tenth through twelfth centuries who
> from which the modern languages of Europe, India, and Iran
> lived in Persian-speaking milieus and would have had the
> devolved. As such, many modern Persian words (for example,
> option to write in Persian nevertheless chose to write their
> madar, baradar) share a common root with their modern
> most important works in Arabic. This was the case for, among
> German (mutter, brüder) or English (mother, brother) equivaothers, al-Biruni, who was born in Khwarazm in 973 and died
> lents, and the verbal systems exhibit similar features. Howin 1051 in Ghazna; Ibn Sina (Avicenna), born near Bukhara in
> ever, the neighboring Semitic languages, especially Aramaic
> 980, died in Hamadan in 1037; and Mohammad al-Ghazali,
> and Arabic, which functioned in different eras as lingua
> of Tus, who lived from 1058 to 1111.
> francas of the Near and Middle East, have made an enormous
> impact on Persian, in terms not only of vocabulary and script,           By the tenth century, however, some three hundred years
> but also of literary forms.                                          after the Arab conquest of Persia, the spoken Persian language had re-emerged as a language of literary standing in its
> The Persian language is divided into three historical            own right, suitable for use in discussion of science, philosostages: Old Persian, Middle Persian, and Persian. Old Persian        phy, and religion, as well. It was now written in the Arabic
> survives chiefly in cuneiform inscriptions of the Achaemenid          alphabet, which was easier to read than the Middle Persian
> kings, written in the sixth to fourth centuries B.C.E., but it has   script, and which also derived from a Semitic alphabet,
> bequeathed few if any direct literary traces to the modern           Aramaic.
> language. On the other hand, a large body of literature
> survives in Middle Persian, much of it subsequently trans-           Persian Poetry
> lated or adapted into Arabic or Persian during the Islamic           The earliest Persian poetry of the Islamic period is in dialect
> period. Most of this was written in the Sassanian period             form (fahlaviyat), probably based on accentual or syllable-
> (226–652 C.E.), though Zoroastrians continued to use it to           count meters. Evidence of some prosodic experimentation
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                        523
> Persian Language and Literature
> 
> and variation is discernible in the earliest recorded specimens     admired, so that rhetorical ornamentation could become a
> of Persian verse, though it seems that the Persian poetry of        justification in and of itself. Metaphors, tropes, and symbols
> the ninth century was already following quite different prin-       (for instance, the rose and nightingale, the bow of the beciples of versification from Middle Persian poetry, notably          loved’s eyebrow firing the arrows of his or her eyelashes, the
> rhyme and quantitative metrics. Some Persian meters are             ringlets of the beloved’s hair as polo sticks sending the lover’s
> borrowed from Arabic, or at least they are explained accord-        heart skittering over the ground, and the like) were repeated
> ing to Arabic models by the Persian manuals of prosody and          from generation to generation, though subtle variation and
> rhetoric written in the twelfth century. However, Persian           innovations applied to the conventions have always been
> poets rarely employed some very common Arabic meters                greatly admired. The stylistic trends have been described as
> (such as tawil and basit), whereas some of the frequently           evolving from heavy rhythms, rhetorical directness, and sparse
> occurring meters in Persian poetry (such as motaqareb and the       use of Arabic in the tenth-century poetry, to the more
> roba
i meter) seem quite uncommon in Arabic poetry of the           mellifluous and rhetorically ornamented poetry (internal
> same period. Persian poetry is furthermore fond of including        rhyme, play on words, display of Arabic erudition) associated
> a refrain (radif, which can be several syllables in length) after   with the flowering of the ghazal, and the era of the great
> the rhyming syllable. We may conclude, therefore, that in           classical poets such as Sa
di (d. 1292), Rumi (d. 1273), Hafez
> addition to the influence of Arabic, native Persian phonology        (d. 1390), and Jami (d. 1492). Poetry of the “Indian style”
> and prosody also played a distinctive role in shaping the new       (sixteenth through eighteenth centuries) continued the focus
> system of versification.                                             on the ghazal, which became conceptually more abstract and
> philosophical, even recherché, with a distinctive taste for the
> The privileged literary mode in Persian was poetry, or           subtle conceit and imagism. The neo-classical “return” of the
> rhymed and metered “speech.” It was composed and per-               eighteenth and nineteenth centuries rejected this trend in
> formed in a variety of milieus for various social functions,        favor of a simpler more direct prose style, and an imitation of
> acquiring the greatest prestige and widest publicity through        the past masters. This gradually gave way to the influence of
> the patronage of the royal court, including sultans/shahs but       European letters in the twentieth century and led to the
> also wazirs or other men of state, army commanders, and             development of a significantly new, modernist poetic.
> regional governors. It might also be commissioned by the
> Quatrains (Roba
iyyat)
> landed gentry, or alternatively, circulated through Sufi
> The quatrain (do-bayti, taraneh, and later roba
i), rhyming
> networks.
> according to the pattern a-a-b-a and conforming to a special
> meter of its own, emerged from a popular milieu to become a
> Most dynasties of the Persian-speaking world considered
> literary genre unto its own, the roba
iyyat. Roba
is can treat
> it the duty of a civilized ruler to cultivate science and literaamorous themes or commemorate a historical occasion (such
> ture, and doing so increased the ruler’s prestige. Some rulers
> as the death of a famous person), but most famously deliver a
> even dabbled in composing poetry of their own, as a literate
> mystical or philosophical apothegm. The eleventh-century
> person was expected to be able to compose some amount of
> “naked” hermit, Baba Taher, sang quatrains of human love
> formal verse, lines of which were used as proof texts to
> and devotion to God in impromptu quatrains, some of which
> illustrate points and conclude arguments in letters, homilies,
> are preserved in their original Hamadani dialect form. Anand in conversation. Not only aspiring poets, but also secreother poet known exclusively for roba
is is Mahsati of Ganja
> taries and men of letters, were expected to have a huge
> (fl. 12th century), one of the few classical poets with a
> repertoire of poetry at the tip of their tongues, and were
> uniquely feminine voice, and a far from chaste perspecsometimes called upon to compose extemporaneously at
> tive on love.
> court. The work of successful professional poets was circulated in albums dedicated to particular patrons or particular           The most famous practitioner of this genre is the mathethemes. These albums would later be collected into divans,          matician and astronomer 
Omar Khayyam of Nishapur (d.
> though often not by the poet himself. Early poetry divans           1121), thanks in no small part to Edward FitzGerald’s imwere organized thematically, but from the sixteenth century         mensely successful 1859 English translation/adaptation, The
> onward they were usually divided into sections according to         Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Khayyam acquired a posthumous
> verse form (qasideh, ghazal, qet
eh, strophic poems, and roba
i)    reputation as a composer of roba
iyyat of a materialist or
> and then further organized alphabetically according to the          agnostic temperament, some of them quite blasphemous,
> final letter of the rhyme or refrain.                                although the actual evidence for him as author is rather
> flimsy. What is clear is that over the centuries, the corpus of
> Themes were largely conventional, and the poets usually          quatrains attributed to Khayyam grew suspiciously, so that
> presented a persona rather than a personal biography, though        scholars in the twentieth century sought text-critical princithis in no way deterred critics from reading biographical data      ples, to separate the forgeries from the real Khayyam. The
> into the poems. The imagery grew in hyperbole and com-              divans of most subsequent poets include numerous roba
is;
> plexity over the centuries, and technical virtuosity was greatly    Rumi’s, for example, has nearly 2000.
> 
> 524                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Persian Language and Literature
> 
> Court Poetry                                                         Mo
ezzi was accidentally shot and seriously wounded by
> Panegyrics in Arabic by the great poets had conveyed prestige        prince Sanjar’s arrow; and Adib-e Saber was drowned by the
> and authority on the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphs, so that            Khwarazm shah as a spy of Sanjar.
> Persian princes on the eastern edges of Persia naturally
> Courts in the west of Iran also cultivated Persian poetry.
> gravitated toward the practice as they began realizing their
> In Azerbaijan, Qatran (d. 1072) wrote for numerous patrons,
> practical independence from the Abbasids. In cities like
> including a poem on the major earthquake in Tabriz in 1042,
> Nishapur (near modern Mashhad), Balkh (in modern Afghaniand many strophic poems. When Naser Khosrow, a poet
> stan), Samarkand, and Bukhara (in modern Uzbekistan),
> from eastern Persia, came to Tabriz in 1046, he wrote in his
> panegyrics in Persian were presented to the ruler or men of
> fascinating travelog that Qatran was a good poet, who,
> state on ceremonial occasions: Iranian seasonal festivals like
> however, did not fully understand Persian. This shows that,
> Nawruz or Mehregan, Islamic holy days, royal investitures,
> though dialectical variation must have existed, Persian was
> victory celebrations, wine drinking parties, and the like.
> widely spoken and written by the mid-eleventh century.
> Poems for such occasions typically took the form of a qasideh,
> Khaqani of Shirvan (d. 1199) wrote ghazals and panegyrics,
> a long mono-rhyme (a-a-b-a-c-a-d-a), usually between 40 and
> but is best known for his elegies on the death of his son and on
> 100 lines, typically beginning with an encomium on the
> the ruins of a Sassanian palace. Although a declared follower
> arrival of spring, on the beloved, or on wine. This would then       of Sanai of Ghazna in the religious/didactic themes of his
> segue into an enumeration of the virtues and glories of the          verse, he incorporated Christian themes in his poetry. His
> ruler, encouraging him in the process to uphold principles of        mother was a convert from Nestorian Christianity, and his
> generosity, forbearance and just governance.                         travels brought him into close contact with Christians in
> Georgia and Constantinople.
> The greatest of the early Persian poets, Rudaki (d. 940),
> who was also a musician, composed many narrative poems, of           Epic Poetry
> which precious little has survived. Many examples of his fine,        Ferdausi of Tus (near modern Mashhad) has often been
> thoughtful lyric poems (not yet clearly differentiated in form       credited with rescuing the Persian language from virtual
> as ghazals or qasidehs), in a clear and unornamented style           extinction with his monumental work, the Shah nameh, or
> characteristic of early Persian prose and verse, must have           “Book of kings,” begun about 975 and, dedicated in its final
> been performed at the court in Bukhara, for the Samanid              form to Mahmud of Ghazna, in about 1010. This hyperbolic
> prince Amir Nasr II (r. 914–943). In these poems, Rudaki             view ignores the half-century of court poetry that preceded
> praised the ruler and his capital, rhapsodized on the process        Ferdausi’s work, including some earlier treatments of epiof making wine, or meditated on the decrepitude brought by           sodes from the national epic. Ferdausi himself incorporated a
> age. This latter, rather melancholy, idea afforded early poets       thousand lines from the story of Zoroaster as versified by
> the occasion to draw the moral that life is short, so live right.    Daqiqi (d. 981 or before) in his own work. Nevertheless,
> This is then interpreted in either ethical terms, to do good         Ferdausi’s Shah nameh would play a central role not only in
> works (since your name, good or ill, is all that will live on), or   Iranian national consciousness, but even in the self-identity
> in epicurean terms, to live happy and well (for the opportuni-       of non-Iranian rulers, especially Turks and Mongols, who
> ties for pleasure are limited). The lack of appeal to the Quran     adopted Persianate culture and traditions of kingship.
> and outwardly religious sentiment may reflect the survival of
> Ferdausi alludes to various sources for his account of
> Persian religion and philosophy.
> events, including a learned Zoroastrian priest and a member
> The classical form of the Persian qasideh was created at the     of the Persian landed gentry. The existence of a tradition of
> professional reciters orally recounting stories from the Iracourt of Sultan Mahmud of Ghazna (in modern Afghanistan),
> nian national epic in a popular (sub-literary) context has led to
> who gathered a number of great poets to his court in the first
> heated scholarly debate about possible oral sources for Ferdausi.
> half of the eleventh century. Among these were the poet
> However, Ferdausi did have an established written tradition
> laureate 
Onsori (d. 1040); Farrokhi (d. 1038), who delighted
> to draw from, and appears to have studied the matter and
> in the description of spring and the celebration of musical
> carefully crafted his tale. Various versions of the Persian
> wine soirees; and Manuchehri (d. 1041), famous for his
> “Book of kings” (Khoday nameh) were already written down in
> adaptation of classical Arabic qasidehs. The rival Seljuk court
> Middle Persian in the sixth and seventh centuries, and several
> to the north and west also supported its poets, among them
> of these had been translated into Arabic in the eighth and
> Amir Mo
ezzi (d. 1127), “prince of poets” to sultans Malik
> ninth centuries, as part of the discourse of shu
ubiyya, or
> Shah and Sanjar, and Anvari (1126–c.1189), generally acethnic pride among non-Arabs, especially Iranians. At the
> knowledged as the ultimate qasideh poet for his erudite,
> initiative of Abu Mansur, a committee had translated the
> ornamented yet fluid style. Panegyrical poets were richly
> work from Middle Persian to Persian prose in 957.
> rewarded and got to travel with the court, yet the profession
> could be a hazardous one. Mas
ud Sa
d Salman (d. 1121) was              The poem covers the mythical era of kingship in Iran,
> imprisoned for long periods on suspicion of treason; Emir            during which the rites and ceremonies of kingship were
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                       525
> Persian Language and Literature
> 
> established, the demons were subdued, cooking and clothing         leaders of the Ahl-e Haqq sect in Kurdistan. All of these,
> were introduced, cultivation of the soil begun, fire was            however, remained quite tangential to the main canon of
> discovered, metal worked, the social castes created, and the       Persian literature, in contrast to Ferdausi’s Shah nameh, for
> celebration of Nawruz (the spring equinox and Iranian new          which the creation of large, sumptuously illustrated manuyear) initiated. Death enters this idyllic realm due to the        scripts in royal ateliers became common during the Mongol
> hubris of the king, Jamshid, and Zahhak comes to tyrannize         period and later. In fact it was almost de rigueur for each
> the land. Accursed by Satan’s kiss, Zahhak has a snake             successive Safavid monarch to commission such a royal copy,
> growing from each of his shoulders, each of which must feed        the most famous of which was the copy made for Shah
> daily on the brain of an Iranian youth. Feridun eventually         Tahmasp (r. 1524–1576), which was subsequently given as a
> snatches the throne from Zahhak and restores justice, divid-       gift of state to the Ottomans, and eventually found its way to
> ing his realm between his three sons before he dies. The two       Europe and the art dealer Houghton, but has now been
> sons who inherit the lands to the east and west of Iran grow       repatriated (at least the surviving illustrated folios) to Iran.
> jealous of their brother, who has inherited the realm of Iran.
> They conspire to murder him, and this engenders genera-            Romance Literature
> tions of internecine conflict between Iran and her eastern          Also spun-off from the Shah nameh are a number of roneighbor, Turan.                                                   mances, although the Persian narrative verse tradition is also
> fed by other sources. To have an authoritative or popular
> This sets the stage for many sagas and adventures, which       source seems to have been an important prerequisite to
> revolve thematically around the question of fate and free will,    undertaking a narrative poem of several thousand lines (inand the tragic forces that impel kings to conflict with their       variably in the rhyming couplet form of the mathnavi), which
> enemies, their sons and the champion warriors to whom they         might either be commissioned by a patron, or presented to
> owe their throne. The father-son conflict usually ends poorly       one with a dedication in the introduction in hopes of a
> for the son (Rostam and Sohrab, Kay Kavus and Siyavash,            reward. Trying one’s hand at an original imaginative story
> Goshtasp and Esfandiyar), and the king is far less frequently      could be somewhat risky under these circumstances; in any
> wise and just (as in the tale of Kei Khosrau, in which the king    case, there were many classical stories reflecting the glorious
> abdicates and disappears) than tragically flawed or impetuous       culture of pre-Islamic Iran from which to draw inspiration.
> (as in the case of Kay Kavus).                                     These include a poem of Parthian origins, Vis and Ramin,
> versified by Fakhr al-Din Gorgani circa 1054 for the gover-
> The Shah nameh is not aware of the great Achaemenid             nor of Isfahan from a Middle Persian version. It tells the story
> kings Cyrus, Darius, and Xerxes, as it takes notice of the         of Vis, promised in marriage before her birth to King Mobad.
> historical era only as Iran is about to be conquered by            The latter’s younger brother, Ramin, falls in love at the first
> Alexander. It mostly ignores the successors of Alexander, fast-    sight of her, and eventually wins her over. Through the help
> forwarding to the Sassanian rulers, whom it covers in some         of Vis’s nurse, the pair escapes from Mobad and are eventudetail, both historical and legendary. The 50,000-line epic        ally united as king and queen, in a saga not without similaricomes to a close with the Arab conquest of Persia, a sad fate      ties to that of Tristan.
> indeed, even though Ferdausi writes as a Muslim with Shi
i
> loyalties.                                                            Other tales of stymied love include “Varqa and Golshah,”
> based upon an Arabic story, and versified in Persian in the
> The tremendous success of the Shah nameh led other             motaqareb meter during the first decades of the eleventh
> authors to elaborate on portions of the epic cycle (transmitted    century by 
Ayyuqi. This pair never unites, except through a
> in oral renditions by popular professional reciters) which         chaste ideal love that they take with them to the grave. A
> Ferdausi either passed over in silence or did not fully develop.   similar story, both in its outcome and in its Arab origins, is
> These focused on elaborating and embellishing the story of         Nezami’s version of the star-crossed lovers Layli and Majnun,
> various champions, as in the “Book of Garshasp,” written in        in a poem of 4,000 lines written in 1188. This tale was told
> 1066 by Asadi of Tus (also the author of an important early        and retold by subsequent Persian poets (most successfully by
> dictionary of Persian), about a hero even more outlandishly        Maktabi of Shiraz in 1490), as well as by imitators writing in
> strong than Rostam; or the legendary history of the Iranian        Turkish and Urdu. The retellings usually resolve the powerprophet Zoroaster, told by the Zoroastrian priest Zartosht         ful psychological ambiguity in Nezami’s work and rarely
> Bahram Pazhdu in 1278. The influence of Ferdausi is appar-          match his masterful ability with language. In addition to a
> ent even in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, in works       very fine divan of shorter poems, Nezami (d. 1209) also
> like the Shahanshah nameh (The king of king’s book) by Saba        authored four other long narrative mathnavis, including an
> (1765–1823), describing a victory by the Qajar king, Fath-
Ali     ethico-didactic poem modeled on Sanai, a Persian version of
> Shah (r. 1797–1834) over the Russians in the same archaic          the Alexander romance (Sikandar Nama), and two poems set
> terms found in the Shah nameh; or in the verse history             in the Sassanian period. The first of these is Khosrau and
> Shahnameh ye haqiqat, written by Mojrem (1871–1920) of the         Shirin, a legend about King Khosrau Parviz (r. 590–628) and
> 
> 526                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Persian Language and Literature
> 
> his Armenian bride, Shirin, who is loved devotedly by Farhad,      having been studied and taught throughout the Ottoman
> who moves a mountain to attain her, but is tricked by              domains, across Iran, and into the Indian subcontinent.
> Khosrau into thinking she is dead. The other is Haft Paykar,
> about Bahram (r. 421–439) and the seven beautiful princesses           The love imagery of the ghazal, beginning with Sanai, was
> from the seven climes with whom he enjoys a variety of             also turned into a vehicle of mystical expression. Rumi conadventures. The five narrative poems by Nezami were often           tinued the project of the mystical ghazal, conceiving his
> bound together in one volume and frequently illustrated.           spiritual mentor Shams (d. after 1247) as the object of love,
> Such was Nezami’s achievement that many later poets tried          indeed adopting the voice of his absent master in a huge body
> of ghazals that almost always point to transcendent signifi-
> their hand at composing a similar quintet, following his
> cance. Other poets, such as Sa
di of Shiraz (d. 1292), continmodel. This tended to limit the initiative of later poets in
> ued to address ghazals to both amorous and mystical objects
> creating new material, but Jami (d. 1492) introduced two new
> of love. This creates room for much ambiguity in the ghazals
> stories to the traditional subjects of romance: the mystical
> of Hafez of Shiraz (d. 1390), who intertwined mystical and
> reworking of the Joseph and Zoleikha story (very loosely
> physical love in a sublime fashion that is difficult to unravel,
> based on Quran, sura 12), and the story of Salaman and
> and is generally regarded as the ultimate achievement in
> Absal, about a Greek king who has a magician genetically
> Persian lyrical poetry, though this often fails to come through
> engineer him a perfect son, who, however, is seduced by his
> in English translation, as the translators typically try to
> beautiful nurse.
> reduce him to one thing or the other. Goethe and the
> Religious and Mystical poetry                                      German Romantic poets derived much inspiration from Hafez.
> The extensive literature of imaginative poetry and prose, as
> Prose Genres
> well as commentaries that address various aspects of religion
> Continuing the Sassanian tradition of advice books, the Qabus
> and spirituality is immense. All long poems, from the Shah         nameh, written in 1082 by Kay Kavus b. Voshmgir, a local
> nameh to romances, inevitably begin with a doxology and            prince on the Caspian shore of Iran, provides instruction to
> lines in praise of the prophet Muhammad, as well as fre-           his son in the arts of government, social graces, and the
> quently a description of his journey to heaven. Though the         enjoyment of life. About the same time Nezam al-Molk (Ar.
> majority of classical Persian poets were Sunnis of the Hanafi       Nizam al-Mulk; d. 1092), after whom the first university in
> or Shafi
i school, there are some vociferously Shi
ite poets in     the Muslim world is named, composed his Siyasat nameh to
> the early period, notably Naser Khosrow (1003–1060), an            instruct the Seljuk Turks, to whom he served as wazir, in the
> Isma
ili poet, and Qavami of Rayy (fl. 12th century).               proper ways of Iranian kingship. Both of these charming
> books are written in a straightforward prose, whereas Nasr
> It was the mystics, however, who created the most success-
> Allah Monshi’s version of Kalilah wa Dimna (written between
> ful poetry of religious expression, reaching its pinnacle in the
> 1143 and 1145), which set the prose standard for later authors
> mystico-didactic poetry of the mathnavi form. Sanai (d.
> to match, used animal characters to convey its lessons. This
> 1135) initiated the genre with his Hadiqat al-haqiqat, a comvolume requires more work to grasp because of its erudition
> pendium of tales, some humorous, that were used to illustrate      and its taste for the rhetorical artifices made possible by
> homilies and moral injunctions, and which focus chiefly upon        Arabic morphology. These tales, derived ultimately (via Aracontrol of the baser passions and correctly understanding the      bic, via Middle Persian) from the Panchatantra, were brought
> interior meaning of the Quran. Farid al-Din 
Attar (d. 1221)      to then-contemporary style in 1505 by Hosein Va
ez-e Kashefi
> perfected the story-telling element of the mystical mathnavi       (d. 1505) as Anvar-e Soheili.
> genre, juxtaposing within a frame-tale structure various unrelated anecdotes and vignettes of an entertaining or inspiring          Along with many other such collections of tales in prose or
> nature to illustrate an overarching theme (as was also com-        verse, a huge body of prose literature, including the serial
> mon in the European literature of the period). The best            adventures of picaresque heroes, manuals for writers, lives of
> known of these include the Elahi nameh, in which a king and        the poets, local and world histories, as well as literary anfather passes life wisdom to his sons, and the Manteq al-Tayr,     thologies, mystical disquisitions, and philosophical texts, exa poem of mystical psychology about a band of birds in search      ists in Persian, much of it delightful to read. The prose work
> of their spiritual king, the mythical Simorgh, which was           with which Persian literature is preeminently associated is,
> completed in 1177.                                                 however, the Golestan of Sa
di, written in 1258 and loosely
> organized in eight chapters by theme (kingship, dervishes,
> Modeled on these, but less thematically structured, is the      youth, contentment, and so on). Throughout it one encoun-
> “Spiritual Couplets” of Jalaluddin Rumi (1207–1273), com-          ters entertaining anecdotes, wittily expressed, that advocate a
> posed piecemeal in six books through the 1260s. Its opening        practical, situational ethics. It weaves together simple, unaplaint of the reed pipe, severed from its spiritual home,          dorned prose with rhymed prose and verse to create a new,
> remains the single most influential expression of mystical          unified literary idiom that set the future standard of emulatheology in Persian, perhaps in the entire Islamic world,          tion. Frequently imitated, the Golestan became a textbook of
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                   527
> Persian Language and Literature
> 
> Persian language and Islamic ethics for Turkish speakers, as           In Afghanistan, Mahmud Tarzi helped to introduce transthe many Turkish commentaries and translations of the              lations of European literature and radically new modern
> sixteenth and subsequent centuries attest. It was also used as a   literary forms in his journal Seraj al-Akhbar (1911–1918).
> textbook for Persian instruction in India, where Persian, and      The Iranian poet-singer 
Aref (1882–1934) turned his back
> then Urdu, commentaries were written on it. It was also used       on a court career to compose populist political ballads,
> for British students of Persian to study the language in the       ghazals, and song lyrics, which reached a mass audience when
> eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. European translations         he sang them in concert. Reform was urged also from within
> of the work had been circulating since the mid-seventeenth         the aristocratic class, many of whom learned foreign lancentury and caught the attention of La Fontaine and Voltaire,      guages or studied abroad, such as Iraj Mirza (1874–1926),
> among others.                                                      who held a post in the Qajar government but was noted for his
> biting satirical indictment of the custom of veiling of women.
> Persian in India
> It was under the Ghaznavids and their aggressive policy of             Political agitation did not always turn out well. The poet
> conquest in South Asia that the first wave of Persian poets         Mirzadeh 
Eshqi was assassinated after satirically caricaturing
> moved toward the sub-continent. Mas
ud Sa
d Salman (d.             Reza Shah in 1924. Abu ’l-Qasem Lahuti was obliged to flee
> 1121) lived in Lahore, and his contemporary, Abu al-Faraj          from Tabriz in 1922, after leading an unsuccessful revolt
> Runi, was born there. Of Indo-Turkic parentage, Emir               there. He settled in Dushanbe, in the Soviet Union, where he
> Khusrow of Delhi (1253–1325) was a competent imitator of           wrote Persian poetry for a Tajiki audience, modernizing
> the quintet of Nezami and of well-received ghazals. He             classical themes and celebrating the socialist enterprise. The
> popularized Persian poetry at the Muslim courts in India, and      fiction writer Bozorg 
Alavi also fled Iran for East Germany,
> also among the Sufis. The poetry of Rumi and 
Eraqi (d.             as a result of his Communist Party membership. In Tajikistan,
> 1289) was also popular among South Asian Sufis. Timur               authors managed to champion the Central Asian peasants and
> enjoyed Persian books and Babur composed Persian poetry of         collectives, as well as the creation of a new society, in
> his own. The Moguls made Persian the language of govern-           artistically successful ways, especially Mirza Torsonzadeh
> ment in 1582, commissioning their court histories in Persian.      (1911–1977) in poetry and Sadriddin Aini (1878–1954) in
> Akbar (1556–1605) actively enticed a whole series of the best      fiction.
> Persian poets of the era to come to Delhi from Iran and also
> encouraged translations of Hindu works to Persian. Dara                Poets continued to compose in the traditional forms, but
> Shokuh (1615–1659), son of Shahjahan, and Zib al-Nesa              introduced modern themes and imagery, including descrip-
> Makhfi (1639–1703), daughter of Aurangzib, both composed            tions of modern inventions, as in some of the poems of the
> excellent Persian poems of mystical and ecumenical bent.           literary scholar and parliamentarian, Mohammad Taqi Bahar
> Bidel of Patna (d. 1720) was the last major representative of      (1880–1951). The monazerat (debate poems) of Parvin E
tesami
> the Indian style, and he remains more appreciated in Afghani-      (1910–1941), the first of three important women poets of the
> stan and India than in Iran.                                       century, championed the cause of the poor and downtrodden.
> In Afghanistan, Khalil Allah Khalili (b. Kabul, 1909, d.
> Urdu eventually replaced Persian as the primary literary        Pakistan, 1987) carried on the classical tradition in a convinclanguage of South Asian Muslims, but some Urdu poets, such         ing modern voice.
> as Ghalib (1796–1869), also wrote in Persian, while Sir
> Muhammad Iqbal (1877–1938), the intellectual father of                 The ghazal retained its thematics of love, but became
> Pakistan, wrote major poems, such as his Javid Nama, in            slightly more personal and more modern in its sentiments,
> Persian, a more widely understood language in the Mus-             tinged with European romanticism, but developing toward a
> lim world.                                                         contemporary idiom, as in the poems of Simin Behbehani,
> who headed the Iranian Writer’s Congress. Poets, however,
> Modern Literature                                                  also began to separate poetry from traditional verse. First
> The twentieth century saw a sea-change in Persian language         came an effort to break down the classical meters into their
> and literature, as modernization, revolution, centralization       constituent feet and combine these feet in new patterns. The
> and Marxist-Leninism greatly altered Tajikistan and Iran, in       first experiment in this direction came in the early 1920s with
> particular. First of all, with the advent of lithography and       Afsaneh (Romance) by Nima Yushij (1895–1960), who develprinting in the nineteenth century, books became more              oped toward free verse in the following decade. Though some
> affordable, and more importantly, the appearance of newspa-        poets, such as Mehdi Akhavan-e Sales (1928–1990), continpers created a different and wider audience for literature. For    ued to compose in both free verse and traditional meters, the
> various short periods of time, the press became relatively free,   most outstanding achievements in the post–World War II era
> and there were a number of journals published in Persian           were by poets working in free verse, foremost among whom
> outside Iran, which made it possible to openly advocate            stands Ahmad Shamlu (1926–2001), whose work demonreform or political opposition to the crown.                       strates a commitment and capability to uphold political and
> 
> 528                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Pilgrimage
> 
> artistic values simultaneously in his best poems. Forugh         Browne, Edward G. A Literary History of Persia. Cambridge,
> Farrokhzad (1935–1967) pushed poetry toward inner au-               U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1951.
> thenticity by infusing it with personal experience and focus-    Canfield, Robert, ed. Turko-Persia in Historical Perspective.
> ing on everyday topics, such as sexuality, sometimes from an       Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
> explicitly female point of view. She was rewarded for her        France, Peter, ed. The Oxford Guide to Literature in English
> sincerity with public condemnation as an “immoral” woman.           Translation. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 2000.
> Her poetry, however, speaks eloquently and profoundly for
> Hanaway, William. “The Iranian Epics.” In Heroic Epic and
> itself. Meanwhile, painter and nature poet, Sohrab Sepehri
> Saga: an Introduction and Handbook to the World’s Great Folk
> (1928–1981) beautifully adapted the mystical perspective of        Epics. Edited by Felix J. Oinas. Bloomington: Indiana
> Persian poetry to modern modes of expression.                      University Press, 1978.
> The modernist literary idiom was entirely secular, and       Kamshad, Hassan. Modern Persian Literature. Cambridge,
> often political, yet allusive enough to elude the censors.         U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1966.
> Poetry played an important role in creating political symbols    Karl, Jahn, ed. History of Iranian Literature. Dordrecht, Holof freedom (dawn, day) as opposed to those of oppression           land: D. Reidel, 1968.
> (night, winter), and in inspiring revolutionary sentiment        Levy, Reuben. An Introduction to Persian Literature. New
> against the shah of Iran in the 1970s. Part of this process        York: Columbia University Press, 1969.
> involved purging Persian poetry from its classical themes and    Meisami, Julie. Medieval Persian Court Poetry. Princeton, N.J.:
> dynamics, and creating believable characters. In prose litera-     Princeton University Press, 1987.
> ture, Mohammad-
Ali Jamalzadih (1892–1997) forged a new
> Morrison, George; Baldick, Julian; and Shafi’i-Kadkani,
> idiom for imaginative prose literature with his short stories,
> Muhammad-Riza. History of Persian Literature: From the
> as did Sadeq Hedayat (1903–1951), whose novel The Blind            Beginning of the Islamic Period to the Present Day. Leiden:
> Owl (1969) remains the best known modern Persian work              E. J. Brill, 1981.
> abroad, in part because of the author’s connections with
> Schimmel, Annemarie. A Two-Colored Brocade: The Imagery of
> expressionist and existentialist writers in Europe, and his
> Persian Poetry. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina
> suicide in Paris. Jalal Al-e Ahmad (1923–1969, husband of           Press, 1992.
> Simin Daneshvar) wrote short stories and novels, The School
> Yarshater, Ehsan, ed. Persian Literature. Albany, N.Y.:
> Principal (1974) being the most interesting, but he is best
> Bibliotheca Persica, 1988.
> known in the Muslim world for his 1962 attack on the
> hegemony of Western culture, Gharbzadegi. Several historical novels also deal with the theme of Western, especially                                                     Franklin D. Lewis
> British, imperialism in Iran: Sadeq Chubak’s Tangsir (1963),
> based on a true event in southern Iran; Simin Daneshvar’s
> Savushun (1990), a political love story told from the woman’s
> point of view; and the ten-volume novel Kelidar (1978–1983)      PHILOSOPHY See Ethics and Social Issues;
> by Mahmoud Dowlatabadi. In the 1970s and the post-               Kalam; Knowledge; Science, Islam and
> Revolution period, female prose writers have achieved popular and critical success (among them, Mahshid Amirshahi,
> Goli Taraqqi, and Fattaneh Hajj Sayyed Javadi). Others, like
> Shahrnush Parsipur and Moniru Ravanipur, succeeded in
> introducing magical realism to Iran.                             PILGRIMAGE
> An image of a 1650 Persian manuscript appears in the volume
> HAJJ
> two color insert.
> Kathryn Kueny
> See also Arabic Language; Arabic Literature; Biog-                  ZIYARA
> raphy and Hagiography; Biruni, al-; Ghazali, al-; Gram-              Richard C. Martin
> mar and Lexicography; Hadith; Historical Writing;
> Ibn Sina; Iqbal, Muhammad; Libraries; Rumi,
> Jalaluddin; Tabari, al-; Urdu Language, Literature,              HAJJ
> and Poetry; Vernacular Islam.                                    The Islamic hajj refers specifically to the annual pilgrimage to
> Mecca, Arafat, and Mina during the second week of the Dhu
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                     l-Hijja, the final month of the Islamic lunar calendar. Called a
> Arberry, Arthur J. “Islamic Literature: Persia.” In Near East-   duty of humankind to Allah in the Quran (3:97), and the fifth
> ern Culture and Society. Edited by T. Cuyler Young.           of the five pillars of Islam, in recent years the hajj has attracted
> Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1951.            about two million Muslims annually from approximately 160
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                     529
> Pilgrimage
> 
> countries. All adult Muslims with proper intentions (niya),         proved to me the power of the One God.” In reality, distincadequate resources, good health, and sound mind are re-             tions among pilgrims exist, as illustrated by the vastly differquired to perform this duty once during their lifetimes. Other      ent services and accommodations enjoyed by those of diverse
> pilgrimages exist in Islam, including visitations to saints’        nationalities and classes. In perception, the community reshrines (ziyara), but these are not officially sanctioned.           flects unchallenged unity and equality.
> 
> The Ka
ba, the focal point of the hajj with its heavenly            Individually, pilgrimage acts as a rite of passage for Musblack stone, was a pilgrimage site long before the time of          lims who confront major transitions in their lives, including
> Muhammad. Shortly before his death, Muhammad claimed                marriage, retirement, illness, or death. As a rite of passage, it
> this site for Islam, and determined a sequence of symbolic          also functions as a symbolic affirmation of faith for converts
> rituals to be performed around it by all Muslims. These             or those who are returning to or renewing their beliefs. In
> rituals reenact events in the lives of Ibrahim (Abraham), the       some societies, the hajj transforms ordinary individuals into
> archetype for Islam as founder of monotheism (hanifiyya) and         extraordinary pious exemplars, or social elites. In parts of
> builder of the Ka
ba, his wife Hagar, and their son Isma
il         Egypt, those who have completed the hajj receive an elevated
> (Ishmael). Collective and individual rites at this site not only    status close to that of a saint. As possessors of blessings
> replicate the actions of Muhammad, but also recall the sacred       (baraka) extracted from the holy land, returning pilgrims
> movements of pious biblical prophets who predate Islam.             become saintly individuals reborn free of sin, deserving of
> paradise. Having successfully navigated the difficult journey
> Prior to the hajj, pilgrims undergo a ritual cleansing that     to Mecca and back, pilgrims are likened to Muhammad who
> separates them from their profane individual and cultural           also made the tough trek to Jerusalem and paradise in the
> identities, and allows them to enter sacred space and time as a     middle of the night. Hausa Nigerians use the pilgrimage to
> unified group of believers before God. Men wear a simple             export local healing practices (involving spirits) into orthowhite garment to symbolize their unity as Muslims; women            dox Saudi culture, for which they are greatly but clandestinely
> wear customary dress, which demonstrates the meeting of             compensated. These healers return home to enjoy loftier
> diverse cultures on the common holy ground of Mecca. The            social and economic positions as a result of their craft. In both
> initial rite of the hajj (tawaf), which includes a sevenfold        Egyptian and Nigerian examples, the hajj accentuates local
> circumambulation of the Ka
ba, is followed by the “running”         Muslim practices that challenge the orthodoxy and sense of
> (sa
y) of pilgrims between two hills. This action recalls Hagar’s   monolithic communal unity asserted through collective ritual.
> frantic search for water. The apex of the hajj is the “standing”
> of all pilgrims on Mount Arafat from noon until sunset as they          The hajj serves both as a spiritual and political arena.
> pray individually and collectively to their one God. After          Nineteenth-century Muslim anti-imperialist movements were
> sundown, all spend the night at Muzdalifa before the next           inspired by the hajj. In 1822 and 1823, Sayyid Ahmad perday’s ritual performances of the “stoning” and the “sacrifice”       formed the pilgrimage, and then launched a jihad against
> at Mina. Both actions reenact the sacred drama of Ibrahim’s         British influence in Egypt. Imam Shamil of Daghestan and
> attempted sacrifice of Isma
il. Pilgrims throw seven stones at       Shaykh 
Abd al-Qadir of Algeria met during the hajj to
> a pillar representing Satan who tried to divert Ibrahim from        discuss the French presence in North Africa and the Russians
> God’s command to sacrifice his son; they sacrifice to cele-           in the Causasus. Recent global controversies are played out
> brate God’s substitution of a ram for Isma
il. This sacrificial      on the pilgrimage stage, since control of the hajj is directly
> rite is embraced simultaneously by pilgrims and Muslims all         associated with leadership in the Islamic world. In 1935, an
> over the world in gratitude for God’s mercy. After the              attempt was made to assassinate Ibn Sa
ud during the hajj, in
> sacrifice, pilgrims may perform another tawaf and sa
y, and          protest of Wahhabi control of the shrines. Recent Saudi
> then gradually reenter profane space by cutting or shaving          control over the hajj has bred resentment and favoritism
> their hair and assuming regular dress.                              among those billion Muslims who now have access to the hajj
> through the rapid air, land, and sea travel of the modern age.
> The Islamic pilgrimage preserves, elevates, and reinforces      In 1986, when King Fahd of Saudi Arabia declared himself to
> collective and individual Muslim identities in a constantly         be custodian of the holy sites, Iran challenged his authority by
> changing world. Collectively, pilgrims confirm the basic             delivering sets of revolutionary sermons condemning Amertenets of Islam, including the affirmation of God’s oneness,         ica, Israel, and other enemies of Islam (including the Saudi
> obedience to God, the necessity for a global Muslim commu-          government). The Libyan leader Mu
ammar al-Qaddafi bynity, and the importance of their prophetic past. Many              passed Saudi authority when he invoked independent judgpilgrims return to their homes with the sense they are              ment (ijtihad) to deny the hajj as an essential pillar of Islam. In
> connected to a greater, transcendent whole, a seamless relig-       2002, the Iraqi government provoked the Saudis to take
> ious community that surpasses economic, racial, and cultural        action when they sent civilian planes to transport pilgrims to
> differences. As Malcolm X pronounced in his autobiography           the holy land without prior notification of the United Na-
> (1990, p. 338), “The brotherhood! The people of all races,          tions Security Council, a direct violation of a 1999 agreecolors, from all over the world coming together as one! It has      ment. Through increased media coverage of the hajj, along
> 
> 530                                                                                              Islam and the Muslim World
> Pilgrimage
> 
> Hajj: Pilgrimage to Mecca
> One day is measured from sunset to sunset.
> 
> Medina
> 
> Jeddah
> 
> MECCA
> The 3 Jamarat
> 3 Stone Pillars
> al-Khayf Mosque
> MINA
> 
> MUZDALIFA
> Al-Mash’ar
> al haram
> 
> N                PLAIN OF ‘ARAFAT
> DAY 1: 8TH DHU-1-HIJJA
> Yaum at-Tarwiyah (Day of Deliberation)                                                       Site of the Prophet's Farewell Sermon
> Jabal al-Rahma
> TAWAF al-QUDUM: The initial circumambula-                                                                                            Mount of Mercy
> tion of the Ka
bah is performed                                                                                                    Namira Mosque
> Personal prayer is made (du
a
)                                                                                            Ta’if
> Prayer is made at the station of Abraham                                                       2        4     6km
> (MAQAM IBRAHIM)                                                                       0
> The pilgrim drinks the water of ZAMZAM
> The pilgrim perfoms the SA
Y or courses
> between SAFA and MARWA
> The pilgrim spends the night at MINA
> 
> DAY 2: 9TH DHU-1-HIJJA                                   DAY 3: 10TH DHU-1-HIJJA                             DAYS 4, 5, 6: 11TH, 12TH, 13TH DHU-1-HIJJA
> i
> Yaum Arafat (Day of Arafat)                              Yaum an-Nahr (Day of Sacrifice)                     Ayyam at-Tashriq (Days of Drying Meat, that
> WUQUF (a presence, like the multitudes on                The pilgrim prays the dawn prayer (SUBH) and        is, taking provision)
> the Day of Judgement, between noon and                   visits the MASH
AR al-HARAM                         The pilgrims stay at MINA, and each day
> sunset on the plain of 
Arafat or on the “Mount          The pilgrims gather 49 or 70 pebbles at             between sunset and sunrise throw seven
> of Mercy” (JABAL RAHMA)                                  Muzdalifa to stone the JAMARAT                      stones at each of the 3 JAMARAT
> Frequent recitation of the Abrahamic TALBIYA             They go to MINA via WADI MUHASSAR                   It is permissible to terminate the Pilgrimage
> (“Here I am, O Lord…”)                                                                                       on the 12th if depature takes place by sunset
> They cast seven stones (RAMI-I-JIMAR) at the
> After sunset the IFADAH (“overflowing”) or               JAMRAT al-
AQABA                                    A new covering (kiswa) is put on the Ka
ba
> NAFRA (“rush”) takes place; this is a rapid                                                                  Upon departure, a final circumambulation of
> The animal sacrifice is made between now
> departure for MUZDALIFA
> and day 6                                           the Ka
ba is made: TAWAF al-WADA
> Night prayers (
ISHA) are combined with the                                                                 (“circumambulation of farewell”)
> A lock of hair can be clipped terminating
> delayed sunset prayer (MAGHRIB) and
> most of the conditions of consecration
> performed near the MASH
AR al-HARAM, a
> (IHRAM) between now and the final day
> station of the pilgrimage in Muzdalifah
> The pilgrims spend the night at MUZDALIFA                The pilgrims return to Mecca and circumambulate the Kaba (TAWAF al-IFADA)
> 
> SOURCE: Glassé, Cyril. The Consice Encyclopedia of Islam. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1989.
> 
> Illustration of the pilgrim’s trek to Mecca.
> 
> with computer access to the virtual hajj, these tensions among                        An image of pilgrims praying at Mount of Mercy appears in the
> the many conflicting faces of Islam will only increase, as will                          volume two color insert.
> efforts to make the hajj a venue for common Muslim religious
> identity around the world.                                                            See also 
Ibadat; Pilgrimage: Ziyara; Ritual.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                                                       531
> Pilgrimage
> 
> Grand Mosque floorplan                                                                                               N
> 
> 1   The well of Zamzam
> 2   The Maqam (station of) Ibrahim
> 3   The Hatim, or semi-circular wall round the Hijr Isma
il where
> Isma
il and Hajar 
Hagra are buried
> 4   The Mataf, or open circumambulation area round the Ka
ba
> 5   The Ka
ba
> 6   The door to the Ka
ba. The Multazam (“the place of holding”)
> is the area between the door and the Black Stone                                                           8
> 7   The Black Stone
> 8   The Mas
a (the place of running back and forth) between
> Safa and Marwa
> 9   Steps down to Zamzam faucets
> 10   The portion of the Sa
y which is run, not walked
> 11   Safa (the hill is enclosed in the Mosque)
> 12   King 
Abd al-
Aziz Gate
> 13   Marwa (the hill is enclosed in the Mosque)
> 14   Gate of the 
Umra
> 15   Salam Gate
> 
> Note: Mutawwifs (Guides) can be found near the Maqam Ibrahim and near Safa. Wheelchairs and litters can also be found near Safa.
> SOURCE: Glassé, Cyril. The Concise Encyclopedia of Islam. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1989.
> 
> Floorplan of the Grand Mosque.
> 
> 532                                                                                                                     Islam and the Muslim World
> Pluralism
> 
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                       live among or near the Muslims who visit the shrines, thus
> Campo, Juan Eduardo. The Other Sides of Paradise: Explora-         making the ziyara a ritual negotiation of communal inclusivetions into the Religious Meanings of Domestic Space in Islam.    ness in areas where Muslims and non-Muslims live with soft
> Columbia: The University of South Carolina Press, 1991.          boundaries between their communities. This differentiates
> Firestone, Reuven. Journeys into Holy Lands: The Evolution of      the practice of ziyara from the religious duty of hajj. Yet for
> the Abraham-Ishmael Legends in Islamic Exegesis. Albany:        many Muslims over the centuries, both forms of pilgrimage
> State University of New York Press, 1990.                       have been practiced. For example, in premodern times of
> Long, D. The Hajj Today: A Survey of Contemporary Pilgrim-         overland travel, pilgrims from Spain and North Africa on
> age to Mekkah. Albany: State University of New York              their way to Mecca to perform the hajj would often plan a stop
> Press, 1979.                                                     in Tanta, in the Egyptian Delta, to visit the shrine of Ahmad
> Peters, F. E. The Hajj: The Muslim Pilgrimage to Mecca and         al-Badawi (1199–1276). Although such rituals are traditional
> the Holy Places. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University          and premodern in their origins, modern urban Muslims in
> Press, 1994.                                                    regions where ziyara pilgrimage is customary and deeply
> Rubin, Uri. “The Great Pilgrimage of Muhammad: Some                rooted in local practice are often seen among the pilgrims
> Notes on Sura IX.” Journal of Semitic Studies 27                 celebrating the anniversaries of these saints.
> (1982): 241–260.
> See also Ibn Hanbal; Pilgrimage; Hajj; Saint; Tasawwuf.
> Wolfe, Michael. One Thousand Roads to Mecca: Ten Centuries of
> Travelers Writing about the Muslim Pilgrimage. New York:
> Richard C. Martin
> Grove Press, 1997.
> Young, William C. “The Ka
ba, Gender, and the Rites of
> Pilgrimage.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 25
> (1993): 285–300.                                                 PLURALISM
> Kathryn Kueny          LEGAL AND ETHNO-RELIGIOUS
> Irene Schneider
> ZIYARA                                                                POLITICAL
> In and Shi
ite Islam, the concept of ziyara is found in many           Gudrun Krämer
> diverse parts of the Muslim world, especially those parts for
> which Sufism was the main agency for the spread of Islam.
> The chief exception to the tolerance of ziyara historically is     LEGAL AND ETHNO-RELIGIOUS
> found in those regions where the Hanbali school of law has         Several Quranic verses as well as hadiths seem to confirm the
> predominated. Since the eighteenth century this has been           acceptance of ethnic and religious diversity or pluralism. One
> primarily in the Arabian Peninsula under the influence of           such example is found at 49:13, which reads: “O people! We
> Wahhabi and Salafi forms of Islamic Puritanism, which shuns         have created you from a male and female; and we have made
> all innovations in worship that were not clearly sanctioned by     you in confederacies and tribes so that you might come to
> the Prophet.                                                       know one another. The noblest among you in the eyes of God
> is the most pious, for God is omniscient and well-informed.”
> Nonetheless, throughout most of Africa, Anatolia, as well      This verse offers no prejudice, but rather expresses a conas West, Central, South and Southeast Asia, pilgrims have          sciousness of difference and emphasizes that piety is more
> visited shrines for centuries, with many local variations in       important than the birth. Ethnic pluralism, that is the existarchitecture and ritual performance. The mazars are visited        ence of groups defined primarily by race, language, or other
> by pilgrims throughout the year, to seek blessing (baraka)         cultural, historical, and in some sense geographical criteria
> from the saint buried at the shrine tomb. Often, one or two        was thus accepted from the beginning in Islam. However, the
> “deputies” or respected followers of the saint will be buried in   unity of the Islamic umma (community of believers) was
> the same complex. The anniversary of the death of the saint        emphasized and was thought of as a kind of superstructure
> (
urs, which also means “wedding”), is the occasion of a major     upon which other identities, whether tribal or ethnic,
> visitation and celebration by his devotees. For major saints       were hung.
> 
urs was an occasion for a ziyara marked by joyous celebration, dancing, and ritual orations.                                The Spread of Islam to Other Cultures
> From the time of the first conquests, Muslims spread out
> Although many reform-minded local religious elites (ulema)      from the Arabian Peninsula to people who neither spoke
> have argued that visitation to Sufi shrines was an un-Islamic       Arabic nor could claim Arab descent. Different ethnic groups,
> innovation (bid
a) and thus forbidden, many others have            as well as different religions, were incorporated into the new
> accepted such practices as local expressions of Muslim piety.      empire. The integration of people from other races and
> Ziyara rituals and performances often attract Christians,          cultures did not pose great legal or religious problems,
> Hindus, and members of other religious communities who             although in the first two centuries, the institution of wala
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                   533
> Pluralism
> 
> (clienthood) was used to affiliate non-Arab Muslims to the           Legal Pluralism
> developing Muslim society. This reflects the struggle be-            Islamic law can also be called pluralistic. It derives its norms,
> tween the pure-Arab, conquering aristocracy, who claimed            rules, and judgements from the holy texts (Quran, sunna),
> ethnic and social superiority, and the Muslim converts among        but in cases where these sources provide no clear rules, they
> the conquered, who could claim neither ethnic nor familial          are derived through the method of analogy (qiyas). Rules and
> advantage. Thus, the cohabitation of different ethnicities and      judgements derived in this way were then gradually accepted
> races was never without problems. The idea of racial inno-          through the consensus of the jurists (ijma
), which, however,
> cence and total racial (and ethnic) harmony in Islam is, in         was not institutionalized. Thus, from the beginning, there
> other words, a Western creation, as Bernard Lewis argues in         existed a wide range of acceptable legal resolutions to probhis 1990 volume, Race and Slavery in the Middle East.               lems. Over time these were derived from the texts by the
> jurists (fuqaha) and laid down in the legal literature. This
> Accommodating Other Religious Practices                             process of derivation was based on the independent juristic
> Religious pluralism, on the other hand, must be dealt with on       interpretation of the texts, called ijtihad. Codification of law
> several levels. Whereas the acceptance of the “people of the        only began in modern times, starting in the Ottoman Empire
> book” (comprising Muslims, Christians, and Jews) was stated         with the mecelle in 1877. The methodological tool of ijtihad
> from the beginning, and whereas Christians and Jews had an          and the pluralism of different legal norms and rules have
> acknowledged (but not equal) position in the Muslim society,        always supplied Islamic Law with a certain flexibility.
> people belonging to other, “non-book” religions were required to convert to Islam. However, even within Islam,                Four major legal schools have emerged over time. These
> belief itself is not and cannot be considered monolithic.           are the Maliki, Hanafi, the Shafi
, and the Hanbali. In
> Pluralism existed in Islamic formal theology as well as in          addition there are the Shi
ite schools of law, the most imporpopular belief.                                                     tant of which being the school of the Twelver Shi
a. On the
> institutional level, this pluralism led the rulers of the Mamluk
> The common belief in Islam is based on the acknowledg-          Empire, in Egypt in the thirteenth century, to create the
> ment of the unity of God, and Muhammad being the prophet            offices of the four judges, each associated with one of the four
> of God. It also requires the acknowledgment of the other four       Sunni schools of law.
> pillars of faith: prayer, fasting, pilgrimage, and the payment of
> alms. Those who did not accept these basic tenets were                  Nonetheless, the application of Islamic law has always
> considered to be unbelievers. On the other hand, within this        been restricted to the Muslim community, and the legal
> framework, a wide range of different forms of religiosity           independence of the Jewish and Christian communities was
> developed, as evidenced by the rise of the mystic orders,           accepted to a certain degree. Thus, Islamic law could be
> especially since the fifteenth century.                              defined as a personal law and not as the law of a territory. In
> the Ottoman Empire, the millet system began as a coexistence
> Theological controversies centered around several differ-        of religious communities, each with its own administrative
> ent issues, including the analysis of the concept of God, the       autonomy and jurisdiction. This system finally led to a
> ontological and cosmological proofs, and the politics of the        change whereby the personal law became more territorial,
> application of divine rule to the community. Different theo-        ultimately becoming a law applicable to all subjects of the
> logical schools came into existence, such as the Murji
a, the       Ottoman Empire and not only to the Muslim community.
> Qadiriyya, and the Mu
tazila. These have been complemented by diverse approaches to mystical and philosophical              Legal pluralism describes the (legal) situation observed in
> theology and, more recently, by a theology that reflected the        the Islamic countries today, but it is by no means exclusive to
> confrontation with Western colonial powers.                         them. From the lawyer’s point of view, legal pluralism denotes a state’s recognition of the existence of a multiplicity of
> Religious pluralism on both the normative and the social        legal sources that constitute its legislation: international treaties,
> level must be looked at in a historical perspective, taking into    customary law, religious law, and the like. From the socioconsideration Islam’s adaptation to the manifold political,         logical point of view, legal pluralism can be defined more
> economical, regional, and social conditions, and the different      broadly, to acknowledge that a plurality of sometimes intercultural backgrounds and separate historical developments           active social fields produce norms of legitimate behavior. For
> that prevailed in the vast areas into which it spread. There is,    Islam, the term not only recognizes the coexistence of modhowever, a limitation to tolerance, a turning point where           ern, secular modern laws alongside shari
a norms, but also the
> different beliefs must be judged as unbelief (kufr). Just where     existence of customary practice beside, or even in opposition
> this turning point occurs is still under discussion today, and      to state law.
> transgressions are still prosecuted. An example is the case of
> Nasr Abu Zaid (b. 1943), who was considered an unbeliever              Throughout its history, the legal structures of Islamic
> for his interpretation of the Quran. As punishment, he was         society have made room not only for the coexistence of shari
a
> forced to divorce his wife in 1995 (although the marriage was       and qanun (that is, religious and secular law), but also for
> later reinstated).                                                  customary practice (
urf). An example of this is the so-called
> 
> 534                                                                                                Islam and the Muslim World
> Pluralism
> 
> “secular justice” of the mazalim, an institution dealing with        Lewis, Bernard. Race and Slavery in the Middle East. Oxford,
> grievances that not only is rooted deeply in the theory of             U.K.: Oxford University Press, 1990.
> Islamic constitution but which has also been practiced through
> centuries. The problem of accommodating multiple sources                                                              Irene Schneider
> of the law, however, gained special importance under the
> influence of modern, secular Western law in nineteenth and            POLITICAL
> twentieth centuries. In response to the growing importance           Contemporary positions as formulated by Islamic thinkers
> of Western law in Muslim societies, a powerful political Islam       and activists can be roughly divided into two opposing views:
> arose in the 1970s that was rooted in the belief of the              one deeply suspicious of pluralism as menacing Muslim
> necessary implementation of Islamic law. Thus, Islamic law           power and unity, the other supporting pluralism as contributwas rediscovered as a national legal tradition, and was held up      ing to Muslim strength and creativity. In a kind of political
> in opposition to the influence of the Western law.                    tawhid (the theological doctrine of the oneness of God), the
> first gives priority to the unity of the community, which
> Kilian Bälz, a turn of the twenty-first-century legal scholar     figures so prominently in the Quran and sunna of the
> whose work has focused on the problem of the legal pluralism         Prophet. This corresponds to the concept of ijma
, that is, the
> in Muslim society, has argued that the coexistence and               consensus of the Muslim community as expressed by its
> relation between the modern Western law and the shari
a has          religious scholars in juridical theory (usul al-fiqh) to which
> always been discussed in this context of influence. He has            modern authors frequently refer when trying to ground their
> shown that in Egypt, as in many other Islamic countries, the         notions in the Islamic tradition. Taken to its extremes, the
> constitution holds the principles of shari
a to be the primary       emphasis on unity can imply the rejection of all divergence of
> source of legislation. In 1994, however, Egypt’s highest court       opinions, or any kind of criticism or opposition to the
> defended the autonomy of the secular legal order by taking           dominant doctrines and practices, which are denounced as
> control of the interpretation of Islamic law. As Bälz reports,       fitna, that is, a menace to, and sin against, not just the given
> the court reserves to itself the right to interpret Islamic rules,   sociopolitical system but the divinely ordained order at large.
> and it reconstructs Islamic law on the basis of secular para-        If there is only one truth, and if it can be identified without
> digms. This is, however, nothing new. The interpretation of          doubt or mistake, there is no room for free debate, political
> shari
a has historically been flexible, as can be seen in the         competition and institutionalized pluralism, for there are
> existence of several different schools of law (ikhtilaf) and         only two “parties” (or rather groups or communities): the
> through the practice of ijtihad, which is the legal interpreta-      party of God (hizb allah) and the party of the devil (hizb altion of the Quran and other textual sources by jurists. Thus,       shaytan). Political parties represent particularistic interests at
> Islamic legal pluralism refers not only to multiple sources of       the expense of the common good (al-maslaha al-
amma),
> the law (religious or secular), but also to multiple interpreta-     dividing and thereby weakening the community.
> tions of any given law.
> Quoting a well-known Quranic verse (Sura 49:13) and an
> Also important to the analysis of Islamic legal pluralism is      equally famous Prophetic saying (hadith) according to which
> an examination of rules, other than those enacted by the state,      the “diversity of opinion [ikhtilaf] among my community is a
> which govern and shape social conduct. Social norms and              blessing,” advocates of the alternative view point to the
> customary practices can in no way be considered uniform              elements of diversity and pluralism in the religious, legal, and
> through out the lands of Islam, yet they operate within or           historical heritage of the Muslim community (including most
> alongside of formal legal structures. An important example of        notably the different Sunni and Shi
ite schools of law, sing.,
> this is the haqq al-
arab, a form of conflict resolution in           madhhab) as one of the very sources of its flowering, resilmodern Egypt (and other Muslim countries), that operates             ience, and attractiveness. Even though there is only one truth,
> outside of both religious and formal secular law, yet enjoys at      there is no guarantee that humans will be able to find it with
> least partial official recognition.                                   infallible certainty. Free debate is therefore both legitimate
> and necessary, and given the conditions of modern mass
> See also 
Ada; Hadith; Law; Quran; Shari
a; Sunna.
> society, political pluralism may have to be institutionalized in
> political parties and associations to become effective.
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Aslan, Adnan. Religious Pluralism in Christian and Islamic               However, there are clear limits to legitimate diversity and
> Philosophy. Richmond, U.K.: Curzon, 1998.                         pluralism from the Islamic viewpoint: they are defined by
> Bälz, Kilian. “Shari
a and Qanun in Egyptian Law. A Systems          God’s law and revelation. Debate must fall short of any
> Theory Approach to Legal Pluralism.” In Yearbook of               radical critique of religion, or its dominant interpretations,
> Islamic and Middle Eastern Law, Volume 2 (1995): 37.              which is readily denounced as blasphemy, heresy (kufr), or
> Dupret, Baudoin; Berger, Maurits; and al-Zwaini, Laila.              apostasy (ridda). The crucial issues of religious authority and
> Legal Pluralism in the Arab World. The Hague: Kluwer               effective power of definition are largely left unaddressed. As
> Law International, 1999.                                           long as the religious categories of truth and falsehood, right
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                        535
> Poetry, Literature
> 
> and wrong, licit and illicit are used to evaluate political         shari
a, or about the precise nature of the Islamic state or
> opinions and decisions, political pluralism remains confined         system they wish to establish. While the term is mostly
> to what the powers-that-be define as consistent with the             applied to groups and associations, including political parties,
> public order, which in its turn can be identified with prevalent     individuals can also be labeled Islamists. To the extent that
> understandings of religion, custom and morals.                      Islamists engage in politics, they are part of political Islam. An
> alternative term, “integralism,” is derived from the French,
> See also Pluralism: Legal and Ethno-Religious.                      where it is more commonly used than Islamism. Both terms
> are, by and large, synonymous.
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Krämer, Gudrun. “Islam and Pluralism.” In Political                     On the other hand, “fundamentalism” generally carries
> Liberalization and Democratization in the Arab World.Vol.         highly negative connotations, reflecting a whole set of traits
> 1, Theoretical Perspectives. Edited by Rex Brynen, Bahgat         and attitudes. Chief among these is a literalist, or scripturalist,
> Korany, and Paul Noble. Boulder. London: Lynne                    reading of the normative texts (scripture or revelation; in the
> Riener, 1995.                                                     present case, the Quran and sunna) that tends to reject all
> Moussalli, Ahmad S. “Modern Islamic Fundamentalist Dis-             kinds of allegorical, mythical, mystical, or modernist exegesis
> courses on Civil Society, Pluralism and Democracy.” In            as fundamentally wrong and illegitimate. The term also
> Vol. 1, Civil Society in the Middle East. Edited by Augustus      implies a common assumption that not only is there only one
> Richard Norton. Leiden: Brill, 1995.                              truth, but that the fundamentalists have a monopoly of this
> truth; a lack of tolerance of different opinions and interpreta-
> Gudrun Krämer        tions flowing from this conviction; and a propensity to resort
> to violence if their reading of scripture and, more generally,
> their understanding of the faith, is challenged or threatened,
> be it from within the community or from without. In view of
> POETRY, LITERATURE See Arabic                                       this cluster of negative attributes, it should be emphasized
> Literature; Persian Language and Literature; Urdu                   that a fundamentalist understanding of the faith need not be
> Language, Literature, and Poetry                                    accompanied by militancy, nor does it necessarily entail
> political activism. In other words, fundamentalists can be
> either activist or quietist. If reserved for those Islamists who
> advocate a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam, irrespective of their stand on politics in general and violence in
> POLITICAL ISLAM                                                     particular, “fundamentalism” can serve as a meaningful analytical term in an Islamic as well as in any other context.
> Political Islam is the phrase used to denote a wide range of
> individuals and associations dedicated to the transformation            “Political Islam” designates that particular segment of the
> of state and society so as to make them “Islamic.” The term         broader Islamist trend (Ar. al-tayyar al-islami) that is active in
> also refers to Islam conceived as a set of beliefs, a code of       the political sphere. Political Islam is not synonymous with
> conduct, or a repertory of images and metaphors relevant to         violent, radical, or extremist Islamism, and it is not restricted
> politics, as well as to various attempts to define an “Islamic       to opposition groups. The spectrum ranges from advocates of
> state” or “Islamic order.”                                          an Islamic republic to sympathizers of an Islamic monarchy
> or a resuscitated caliphate, and from self-declared liberals to
> The “Islamic Trend”                                                 uncompromising conservatives. Some Islamists are com-
> Like any other term that is used to define the broad and             monly classified as moderate or pragmatic, others as radical,
> heterogeneous “Islamic trend,” such as Islamism, integralism,       militant, or extremist. For practical reasons, the term is best
> and even more so, fundamentalism, the term “political Islam”        used for organized groups, movements, and parties, keeping
> is problematic and contested. “Islamism,” as the most com-          in mind that there may be considerable numbers of individuprehensive term, has the benefit of being largely value-free. It     als who share the basic objectives and assumptions of political
> describes the fact that “Islamists” advocate the establishment      Islam without being affiliated to any particular group or party.
> of an “Islamic order” (nizam Islami) that is usually defined by
> the “application of the shari
a, ” that is, the implementation of   Intellectual Origins: The Salafiyya
> Islam’s divinely ordained moral and legal code regulating all       Political Islam is one of the most conspicuous, and at the same
> human activity, including the organization of state and soci-       time most controversial, phenomena of modern Muslim
> ety. It does not indicate how they intend to establish such an      societies. It builds on earlier reform movements of the late
> order. For example, it does not specify whether they consider       nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, which in their turn
> the use of force to be legitimate, nor does it say whether they     took up core concerns of major reformers of the eighteenth
> would use, or even privilege, the political sphere in their         and early nineteenth centuries. The reformers included Shah
> activities. It also says nothing specific about their concept of     Wali Allah (1703–1762), Muhammad b. 
Abd al-Wahhab
> 
> 536                                                                                              Islam and the Muslim World
> Political Islam
> 
> (1703–1792), 
Uthman Dan Fodio (c. 1754–1817), Muham-               displaced by a triumphant West only because of its superior
> mad al-Shawkani (1760–1839), and Muhammad b. 
Ali al-               material power.
> Sanusi (1787–1859), all of whom possessed very different
> assumptions, approaches, and activities. Political Islam today         As an intellectual force, the Salafiyya exerted considerable
> builds on the call to invigorate Islam through ijtihad (inde-       influence on (Sunni) Muslim reformers from Morocco to
> pendent reasoning), while departing from the earlier reform-        Hadhramaut, India, Turkestan, and Java. Organizationally
> ers in several important ways. Among the reform movements           speaking, however, it was a weak, loosely connected group of
> of the turn of the twentieth century, the Salafiyya stands out       urban scholars and intellectuals based in the major cities of
> as having had the most important intellectual influence on           Egypt, Syria, and Iraq, as well as their colleagues, friends, and
> later generations of Islamists.                                     family. Major figures in the movement included Jamal al-Din
> al-Afghani (1839–1897), Muhammad 
Abduh (1849–1905),
> The Salafiyya movement was named after its objective to          and Rashid Rida (1865–1935). The Salafiyya made systematic
> revive the spirit of the first generations of Muslims (Ar. al-       use of the newly emerging press and book market, dissemisalaf al-salih). It sought to accomplish this by recreating a       nating their writings over much of the Islamic world within a
> vibrant Muslim society in the modern era, thereby bringing          relatively short period of time. However, they were not
> about the rebirth, or renaissance, of Islam (al-nahda) after        linked to any formal association or party, and consequently
> centuries of weakness and decadence. The Salafiyya defined a          there was no mass support for the ideas and ideals that they
> number of themes that are still relevant to many Islamists          espoused.
> today: that Islam constitutes the essence of Muslim identity;
> Ideologues of Political Islam: al-Banna,
> that it is more than the belief in God and the prophet
> Maududi, and Qutb
> Muhammad; that it provides for a specific way of life; and
> Political Islam proper came into existence after the First
> that, if properly understood, it is entirely compatible with
> World War, with the emergence of organized movements
> modernity, notably modern science and the spirit of rational
> that reached beyond the limited circles of Muslim scholars,
> inquiry. However, the Salafiyya also believed that, in order
> writers, and journalists. The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood
> for Islam to serve as the principal source of inspiration and
> was among the most influential of these movements, and its
> guidance to Muslims in the modern age, it first had to be freed
> leader, Hasan al-Banna (1906–1949), became one of the bestfrom the many misunderstandings and distortions that had
> known representatives of political Islam. Founded in 1928 in
> been accumulated over the centuries.
> the Egyptian provincial town of Ismailiyya, the Muslim
> Brotherhood (jama
at al-ikhwan al-muslimin) grew from a
> For the Salafiyya, Islamic reform consisted of cleansing
> rather insignificant association dedicated to moral reform
> Islam of these misunderstandings and distortions. Only thus
> into a broad-based mass movement that made a considerable
> could the creative spirit of the early Muslim community be
> impact on Egyptian society and politics. Over a period of
> restored. This required not only dedication but also the
> several decades, it also expanded into several Arab countries,
> systematic use of reason. Faith and reason do not contradict
> from Sudan to Palestine, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. Hasan aleach other, but on the contrary, are mutually reinforcing.
> Banna excelled as the charismatic leader of his organization,
> Ijtihad, meaning the effort to “discover” the spirit of divine
> but he was not an innovative thinker, and is mostly rememlaw rather than blindly following the letter of traditional
> bered for his activism, not for his contribution to Islamic
> Islamic jurisprudence (so-called imitation, taqlid), provides
> thought.
> the chief instrument of reform. Muslim jurisprudence, along
> with its rules and regulations, is not identical with divine law,      The opposite could be said of two of the most prominent
> for although God’s law is infallible and unchangeable,              figures of political Islam of the interwar and the post-World
> humans—and the systems of jurisprudence that they may               War II period: Abu l-A
la Maududi (1903–1979) and Sayyid
> devise—are prone to error. Thus, the Salafiyya held that the         Qutb (1906–1966). Both of these men were prolific writers,
> jurists’ law had to be critically revised in order to make it       journalists, and to a lesser extent also political activists, the
> wholly suitable for modern life. This revision could be done        former in his native India and Pakistan, the latter in Egypt.
> by distinguishing between shari
a and fiqh.                          Their major works continue to be read all over the Islamic
> world. Living under very different circumstances, in societies
> Shari
a comprises the eternal laws and general principles       that had little in common except for having been under
> that had been set down by the divine lawgiver in the Quran         British colonial rule, these men nevertheless shared certain
> and exemplified by his prophet in the sunna. Fiqh, on the            convictions concerning modern society, and they introduced
> other hand, although based on scripture, refers to the detailed     certain key terms that have since become part and parcel of
> rules and regulations that were later elaborated by Muslim          the Islamist vocabulary.
> jurists. For the Salafiyya, the shari
a provides the best guidance for Muslims in the modern age, allowing them to regain            Perhaps foremost of these terms was their conception
> the position of strength and confidence that they so glori-          of sovereignty, which they attributed exclusively to God
> ously occupied in earlier times, and from which they had been       (hakimiyya). From His sovereign authority flows the moral
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                      537
> Political Islam
> 
> and legal code that regulates human affairs. This is the shari
a,      Under Jamal 
Abd al-Nasser’s regime (1952–1970), the
> as it is contained in the Quran and sunna. Every Muslim            Muslim Brotherhood was severely suppressed inside Egypt.
> believer is, thus, able to discover God’s law by studying           In Syria, Iraq, and Jordan, by contrast, sister organizations
> revelation, and is obligated to apply this law to his or her own    were mostly able to function within the given political framelife. From this perspective, it follows that all human attempts     work. In the 1970s, Egyptian president Anwar al-Sadat
> to create rules and laws of their own design are not only futile,   (1918–1981) revised Nasser’s course in favor of a more open
> but are also illegitimate. Such attempts constitute a heinous       Egyptian political economy. After rapprochement with the
> sin, for they manifest the human will to set oneself up as          United States and ultimately peace with Israel, the Muslim
> God’s equal, if not as God’s rival. Making and following laws       Brothers were able to reorganize, though they were never
> other than the shari
a is therefore a sign of heresy and            granted official recognition. Their past experience of violent
> polytheism (shirk) and must be dealt with as such. For both         confrontations with the government had resulted in terrible
> Maududi and Qutb, contemporary Muslims had neglected                losses, and the majority of activists opted for a return to a
> their religious duties to such an extent that they had fallen       reformist strategy. The new focus was to be on spreading the
> back into a state of (religious) ignorance (jahiliyya). If this     message of Islam (da
wa) by all possible means and in all
> ignorance could be excused at the time before revelation, it is     possible arenas. The Brotherhood began to use the media and
> no longer forgivable, for all men and women are now capable         the educational system more effectively, and to engage in
> of hearing the truth and obeying the Lord. Contemporary             social and charitable work, in professional syndicates, trade
> Muslims therefore are Muslims by name only. In reality, they        unions, and other associations of “civil society.” Muslim
> have renounced Islam and have reverted to unbelief (kufr).          Brothers also participated in local and national elections, and
> for that purpose even entered into coalitions with legally
> Both Maududi and Qutb spoke of the possibility to prac-         recognized political parties. They did not attempt to found a
> tice takfir, that is, to exclude (“nominal”) Muslims from            political party of their own, however, even though Islamists in
> the community of believers (often described as                      other parts of the Muslim world—from Morocco, Algeria,
> “excommunication”). Yet they were much more reluctant               and Tunisia to Turkey, Pakistan, and Malaysia—were willing
> than many of their followers to call for violent measures           and able to do so.
> against these defective Muslims, and were similarly reluctant
> to propagate takfir and jihad against society as a whole. They       The Islamic Revolution and Its Aftermath
> did, however, declare un-Islamic any government that im-            The Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979 had an enormous
> posed laws and practices not exclusively based on the shari
a       impact on the Muslim world, and on Islamist activists more
> and insisted on the duty of all true Muslims to fight with all       particularly. It seemed to prove that in spite of the Egyptian
> their might for the establishment of an Islamic order based on      experience, a system as powerful and repressive as the Iranian
> the shari
a.                                                        monarchy could be overthrown and replaced by an Islamic
> republic, provided that the Islamist movement had strong
> The radical stand taken by Sayyid Qutb in the late 1950s        leadership, an effective organization, and the support of the
> and early 1960s is often explained by the ruthless suppression      masses. For accomplishing this feat, the revolutionaries led
> that the Muslim Brotherhood in general, and Qutb in par-            by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (1902–1989) were admired
> ticular, suffered at the hands of the Free Officer regime. The       well beyond Islamist circles. Still, Khomeini’s theory of the
> Free Officer movement came to power in Egypt in July 1952            “guardianship of the jurisconsultant” (velayat-e faqih) that
> and quickly turned against all potential critics and rivals,        vested the most qualified Shi
ite cleric with political power,
> including the Muslim Brothers who had initially supported           remained controversial among the highest-ranking Shi
ite
> their coup. The Brotherhood likened its experience of perse-        scholars, and entirely unacceptable to their Sunni countercution, torture, and exile to the trial and tribulations (mihna)    parts. Islamists drew inspiration from the initial success of the
> suffered by such venerated figures as Ahmad b. Hanbal                Iranian revolution, hoping to follow its example in their own
> (780–855) at the hands of Muslim rulers in earlier times, and       countries. However, with the exception of certain Shi
ite
> they left a lasting imprint on both the collective memory and       organizations like Hizb Allah in Lebanon, which initially
> the individuals concerned. Qutb’s vastly influential book,           propagated velayat-e faqih but later adopted different models
> Ma
alim fi l-tariq (Signposts), was written in prison, and Qutb      of an “Islamic order,” most Islamists generally avoided comhimself was executed in 1966, becoming a martyr to his cause.       ment on the Iranian model of government, declaring it to be
> Maududi, from whom Qutb had adopted and adapted the                 suited to Shi
ite traditions perhaps, but not to Sunni Islam.
> notions of hakimiyya, jahiliyya, and takfir had been fortunate
> enough to work under much more auspicious circumstances,                In the wake of the Iranian revolution, Islamist opposition
> for he endured no such hardships. State persecution can             groups and movements grew more active even in those parts
> thus help to explain the attractiveness of militant Islamism        of the Muslim world where previously they had not been very
> to certain parts of the public, as evidenced by Qutb’s              prominent or visible. They arose or became stronger in the
> radicalization, but Maududi’s example shows that radical            Maghrib, Lebanon and Palestine, Saudi Arabia, and different
> positions cannot be reduced to the effects of persecution.          parts of Central and Southeast Asia. If previously there had
> 
> 538                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Political Islam
> 
> been individuals and associations advocating an “Islamic               outside of it. Its links to existing Islamist leaders and organisolution” to the ills of state, culture, and society in all of these   zations have yet to be systematically explored. What can be
> areas, they had not engaged in the same kind of organized,             said is that, within the Muslim world, and not just among
> and often militant, activity that became the hallmark of the           Islamists, the attacks on the World Trade Center in New
> 1980s. Yet even after 1979, political Islam remained highly            York City and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., were
> diversified in terms of ideology, strategy, and organization.           admired by many for their sheer boldness and unprecedented
> At no point did there emerge an Islamist “International”               effectiveness. At the same time, even radical Islamists were
> capable of coordinating Islamist activities around the globe.          appalled by the loss of life, condemning the indiscriminate
> While there clearly existed cross-links between various groups         use of violence against innocent men and women as utterly
> and individuals, individual groups mostly continued to oper-           un-Islamic.
> ate within a regional order that was defined by the existing
> The Islamic Alternative: Visions of an “Islamic Order”
> state boundaries.
> Political Islam draws much of its strength and support from
> In the 1980s, militant Islam was on the rise and receiving         its critique of the existing power relations, blatant injustices,
> much attention. The assassination of Egyptian president                and rampant corruption both within the various Muslim
> Anwar al-Sadat in 1981; the abortive Islamic uprising in Syria         states and societies and globally. More particularly, Islamists
> in 1982; violent clashes between Islamist activists and the            present Islam as the only alternative to the world’s existing
> powers and ideologies, from capitalism to communism, and
> state authorities in Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Pakistan, and
> from liberalism to fascism. Since the fall of the Soviet Union,
> other parts of the Islamic world; the formation of Hizb Allah
> the United States and the West more generally have been
> and HAMAS in Lebanon and Palestine, respectively, all
> identified as the most powerful external enemy of Islam.
> contributed to the impression that the Islamic world might be
> Within the Muslim world, secularism is singled out as the
> swept by a revolutionary tide originating in Iran. It did not
> most dangerous internal threat to Muslim identity and auhappen. Even in the 1980s, militant Islamism constituted
> thenticity, notions that have high priority on the Islamist
> only one segment of the ever-broadening “Islamic trend.”
> agenda. Most of the themes and slogans put forth by Islamists
> The majority of Islamists continued to follow a pragmatic
> have to be judged within the framework of this competition
> path, combining energetic activities in the public sphere
> with other powers and ideologies, both within the Muslim
> (da
wa) with grassroots social work as well as economic and
> world and beyond. With the spread and intensification of
> political activities of various kinds, including local and naglobalization, however, distinctions between internal and
> tional politics. The Islamic Salvation Front in Algeria, the
> external trends and elements have become increasingly diffi-
> Islamic Tendency Movement in Tunisia, the National Is-                 cult to make.
> lamic Front in Sudan, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, the
> Reform Movement in Yemen, the Salvation Party in Turkey,                   With the exception of Iran and Afghanistan, Islamist
> the Jama
at-i Islami in Pakistan, the Pan-Malayan Islamic              opposition movements have not been able to overthrow the
> Party (PAS) in Malaysia, and numerous other organizations              ruling regimes under which they have arisen, nor to replace
> advocated a pragmatic strategy of nonviolence without com-             such regimes with Islamic republics. The 1989 military coup
> pletely excluding the use of force where and when it was               in Sudan may have been staged with the help of the National
> deemed necessary.                                                      Islamic Front led by Hasan al-Turabi (b.1932), but the
> resultant government was not controlled by the Islamists.
> These organizations did not necessarily shrink from using           The kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which in several respects
> pressure or even intimidation in order to implement their              conforms to Islamist ideas, was founded as a result of dynastic
> ideas of proper conduct. Such measures were mostly directed            conquest, not of an Islamic revolution. In most other states
> against women, artists, and intellectuals. At the same time,           with significant Muslim populations, or a Muslim majority,
> they condemned takfir of Muslims and armed jihad against                Islamist groups and parties have been kept under close state
> the government. Despite serious setbacks in the 1990s, when            control and restrained as much as possible as autonomous
> Algeria’s Islamic Salvation Front was prevented from win-              political actors. In national elections Islamists in several
> ning an electoral majority in 1992, and Turkey’s Salvation             instances have been able to win as much as twelve to twenty
> Party was forced by the military establishment to dissolve and         percent of the vote, but as a rule they have not been allowed to
> reorganize under a different name, the pragmatic or “moder-            play an independent role in parliament, let alone to join the
> ate” strategy was upheld by most Islamists throughout the              government. Turkey, Morocco, Kuwait, Yemen, and Lebanon
> final two decades of the twentieth century.                             are among the few exceptions here. The fact that Islamists
> outside of Iran have proved unable to stage a revolution and
> The same seemed to hold true for the aftermath of 11               to capture power in the aftermath of 1979, combined with the
> September 2001. The terrorist attack revealed the existence            fact that in both Iran and Afghanistan their performance fell
> of a new kind of transnational Islamist network that was able          well short of expectations, has led a number of observers to
> to recruit and operate within the Islamic world as well as             declare the “failure of political Islam.”
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                         539
> Political Organization
> 
> Political Islam may well have failed, at least when politics     social fields. Foreign policy and security affairs have been less
> is narrowly defined, but such a judgement completely ignores          affected by Islamist concerns, which tend to focus on Islamic
> the very deep impact Islamist themes, demands, and activities        solidarity, a vociferous critique of the West, and hostility to
> have had on public debates, social behavior and legal practices      Israel. It is in domestic politics that the Islamist impact has
> all over the Muslim world and among expatriate Muslim                been most deeply felt. It remains to be seen to what extent the
> communities. Islamist activists may have been prevented              failure of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, and the unimfrom playing an independent political role in most of their          pressive economic and social record of the Islamic Republic
> home countries, but their concerns have been adapted in              of Iran will reduce the appeal of political Islam in other parts
> various ways by the ruling elites, whether as consciously            of the world.
> employed “Islamic” language, symbols, and imagery (using
> Islamic formula in their public speeches, building mosques           See also Banna, Hasan al-; Fundamentalism; Ikhwan aland Islamic schools, restoring Islamic monuments, and so             Muslimin; Islam and Islamic Law; Maududi, Abu lon), or as acts of ostentatious piety (praying in front of TV        A
la; Qutb, Sayyid; Revolution: Islamic Revolution in
> cameras, going on pilgrimage, or giving up trivial pursuits          Iran; Salafiyya; Secularization; Shari
a.
> and “immoral” entertainment or alcohol) to present themselves as devout Muslims.                                            BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Ayubi, Nazih N. Political Islam. Religion and Politics in the Arab
> In a significant number of states (including Pakistan,              World. London and New York: Routledge,1991.
> Egypt, and Sudan, as well as individual member states of             Binder, Leonard. Islamic Liberalism. A Critique of Development
> Malaysia and Nigeria), the shari
a, or rather legal codes               Ideologies. Chicago and London: University of Chicago
> presented as such, were introduced in the course of the 1980s           Press, 1998.
> and 1990s. Women protesting the introduction of discrimi-            Burgat, François, and Dowell, William. The Islamic Movement
> nating “Islamic” legislation in the sphere of family law were          in North Africa, 2d ed. Austin: Center for Middle Eastern
> threatened by radical Islamists, including conservative ulema,         Studies, University of Texas, 1997.
> and insufficiently protected by their governments. Critical           Enayat, Hamid. Modern Islamic Political Thought. Austin:
> intellectuals and academics were silenced and their works              University of Texas Press, 1982.
> were either censored or banned by governments fearing                Guazzone, Laura, ed. The Islamist Dilemma. The Political Role
> Islamist challenges to their Islamic credentials. The adoption         of Islamist Movements in the Contemporary Arab World.
> of so-called Islamic dress spread widely, even against deliber-        Reading, U.K.: Ithaca Press, 1995.
> ate government attempts to ban its use in schools, universi-         Mitchell, Richard P. The Society of the Muslim Brothers (1969).
> ties, and public administration. Religious practices from              New York and Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University
> fasting to prayer and the hajj intensified in many areas and            Press, 1993.
> social milieus. In light of these developments, which affected       Nasr, Seyyed Vali Reza. The Vanguard of the Islamic Revoluthe public as much as the private domains, Islamism in                 tion. The Jama
at-i Islami of Pakistan. Berkeley: University
> general and political Islam in particular have been tremen-            of California Press, 1994.
> dously successful.                                                   Roy, Olivier. The Failure of Political Islam. Cambridge, Mass.:
> Harvard University Press, 1996.
> This was possible because, contrary to widespread perceptions, Islamist ideas have not been restricted to militant
> Gudrun Krämer
> opposition movements, but have been shared by a considerable portion of the broader Muslim public. With its combination of catchy slogans (“Islam is the solution,” “application of
> the shari
a,” “the Quran is our constitution,” and the like), its   POLITICAL ORGANIZATION
> commitment to social and charitable work, and its occasional
> application of pressure and intimidation, Islamism has ap-           The primary model for Muslim political organization has
> pealed not just to the young, the desperate, and the unedu-          been the early Muslim community in Medina, ruled by the
> cated, but also to many members of the urban middle class. It        prophet Muhammad, whose foundation in 622 C.E. marks the
> has found a sympathetic hearing from government officials as          year 1 of the Muslim calendar. Rather than maintaining the
> well as the well-educated, affluent, and widely traveled pro-         segmentary system of tribal organization, it demanded that
> fessionals, academics, and businesspeople, including active          all residents submit to the authority of the Apostle of the
> representatives of civil society. The term “political Islam” is,     Faith and accorded second-class status to non-Muslims. Musfor practical reasons, mostly applied to organized move-             lims tend to evaluate all further political developments acments, which as a rule have to work in opposition to the             cording to how closely they replicate Muhammad’s precepts,
> regimes in power, but the ideas and demands implicit in the          example, and the life of the early community. Many political
> phrase have permeated large sections of society, and have            changes have occurred since then, but they have been legitieven influenced government policies, at least in the legal and        mized by their congruity with Medinan precedents.
> 
> 540                                                                                               Islam and the Muslim World
> Political Organization
> 
> The enormous conquests of the first Muslim century              first century; and the revelation of Islam, which trumped all
> created two new problems: the nature of leadership in the          the rest.
> absence of the Prophet, and the relationship between the few
> Muslims and the vastly more numerous and sophisticated                The cultural assimilation of Arabs to non-Arab civilizaconquered peoples. The first problem was solved rather              tion, accompanied by resistance from purists, became an
> simply, by the institution of a monarchy (khalifa: “caliphate”),   entrenched cultural pattern in Muslim society from the first.
> initially elective and subsequently hereditary. Disputes over      This conflict shaped the atmosphere in which political develqualifications and selection processes generated divisions in       opment took place. Since the purists held the high moral
> the community: Kharijites wanted to select on merit, choos-        ground, every step toward the adoption of sophisticated
> ing the best Muslim as leader; Shi
ites demanded a ruler from      governmental techniques that had not been practiced in
> Medina was disguised, awkwardly over-justified, and incesthe Prophet’s family who shared his charisma; while the
> santly challenged.
> majority Sunnis settled for whoever could maintain order in
> the community, by force if necessary.
> Medieval Islamic Government
> Initially, convinced Muslims were few. To achieve his con-
> The caliphs adopted many characteristics of non-Muslim
> quests, the caliph 
Umar (634–644) recruited nominal conmonarchs but were legitimated by their claims to relationship
> verts and Christian Arabs into the army, but rewarded Muslim
> with Muhammad and by their enforcement of the law of God.
> fighters by establishing a salary register (diwan) that listed
> Over time the caliphs were weakened and finally eliminated
> combatants (plus dependents and the Prophet’s relatives) in
> (1258), but at first they were assisted, then dominated, by
> order of conversion with the earliest Muslim converts receivwarlords who used the titles emir and sultan. These warlords
> ing the most pay. When the caliph 
Uthman (644–656)
> eventually took the title of caliph for themselves. The elimireversed this order in favor of members of the Quraysh tribe
> nation of the caliphate caused political unity to disappear, but
> because of their administrative expertise, Islam’s great civil
> cultural relations continued to unite the Muslim world. In the
> war was ignited, leading to the split between the Sunni and
> twentieth century some sultans became kings, while others
> Shi
ite factions. Greater administrative development was the
> were replaced by presidents and premiers. Ideologically,           work of the Umayyads (661–750). They adopted the Byzansome Muslims see only the caliphs as legitimate political          tine and Sasanian bureaucracies and their land and tax recsuccessors to Muhammad, but most believe that the politics         ords, which were translated into in Arabic beginning in 697
> of the community that arose immediately after Muhammad’s           C.E. They developed an Islamic coinage, replacing images of
> death were not binding on future generations. Substitutes for      kings with sacred texts. They created a standing army whose
> Muhammad’s religious leadership are found in the Quran            commanders became provincial governors responsible for
> and the Prophet’s example (sunna) and their interpreters,          political, military, fiscal, and religious duties. As their conthe ulema.                                                         quests grew more extensive, they raised the caliph from tribal
> chief to emperor and adopted imperial court protocol and
> The second problem, the relationship with non-Muslims,
> organization. The main palace official, the chamberlain or
> was less tractable. Political subjugation of non-Muslims was       hajib was responsible for guarding the curtain separating the
> accomplished through disarmament, discriminatory taxation          caliph from his subjects, thus regulating access to the ruler.
> (jizya, kharaj), and the imposition of civil disabilities. Non-
> Muslims were afforded a legitimate, if secondary, status in            The revolution ushering in the Abbasid dynasty (750–945)
> Islamic administration; they could serve as government bu-         was based in part on religious resistance to the adoption of
> reaucrats, tax farmers (private contractors for tax collection),   “foreign” political practices, but such practices nevertheless
> or auxiliary troops, but could not hold primary power. If they     continued. The Abbasids were famed for their pomp and
> bore arms, they were excused from jizya. Since most non-           splendor, based on the wealth of Iraq, which they made their
> Muslims were accustomed to subject status in imperial sys-         capital region. They presided over the development of Islamic
> tems, this was not a difficult transition for them.                 law and court systems, co-opting the ulema into the bureaucracy and imposing upon them responsibilities for urban
> Culturally, however, this order of subordination was re-        administration and taxation, despite the ulema’s own misgivversed. Non-Arabs and non-Muslims, having been fully liter-        ings about serving secular rulers. A second governmental
> ate for centuries, even millennia, surpassed their conquerors      element, the scribes, were organized in bureaus (also called
> in most fields: agricultural and craft techniques; urbanization     diwans ) headed by the wazir (prime minister). The scribes
> and social stratification; cooking and building; literature, art,   were often non-Arab and were influenced by non-Muslim
> music, and dance; theological and legal argumentation; ad-         culture. Pre-Islamic political thought provided models for
> ministration and record-keeping; royal governance; and court       imperial governance, and provincial scribes employed preprotocol. Three Arab achievements drew general admiration,         Islamic forms of taxation and reporting. A scribal culture of
> however. These were poetry, which became the model for             encyclopedic knowledge and cosmopolitan politesse develnon-Arabic poetry as well; military prowess, at least in the       oped at court, conveyed in the literature of adab, which
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                   541
> Political Organization
> 
> blended Islamic and non-Islamic influences. The third ad-             held the actual power. They multiplied their followers by
> ministrative element was the military. Military commanders           broadening the iqta
 system. The military bureaus of the
> held provincial governorships and ministerial posts, while           administration expanded to manage iqta
s, and provincial
> their subordinates governed local areas.                             bureaucracies developed.
> 
> Imperial organization, court protocol, and standardized          The Impact of Nomad Invasions
> taxation were justified in Islamic terms with quotations from         The replacement of the Buyids by a series of nomadic
> the Quran and from the Muslim tradition as embodied in the          Turkish and Mongol dynasties was facilitated by their adop-
> Kitab al-kharaj (Book of taxation) of Abu Yusuf (d. 798).            tion of Buyid-style iqta
s and Abbasid-style bureaucratic gov-
> Conversion and settlement altered the early system, in which         ernment. Speaking no Arabic and little Persian, the invaders
> conquered non-Muslims paid taxes to the ruling Arab Mus-             replaced local iqta
 holders with their own men, but they
> lims. As more people converted to Islam, political distinctions      depended on indigenous administrators, shari
a courts, and
> between Arab and non-Arab Muslims were eliminated. All               local authorities to govern the realm. This pattern lasted
> Muslims, regardless of origin, paid tithe (
ushr) unless they        through numerous invasions and replacements of governing
> acquired non-Muslims’ lands. In that case, they paid the non-        regimes until the modern period.
> Muslims’ higher land tax (kharaj). Jizya, initially a communal
> Politics at the center became a matter of competition for
> tribute, became a poll tax paid by military-age non-Muslim
> the throne among members of the royal house and jostling
> males in lieu of service. Non-Muslim groups retained their
> for power and wealth among the dynasty’s supporters. As the
> communal structure and personal law (administered by the
> historian Ibn Khaldun observed, during and immediately
> clergy) but used Islamic courts for state-related purposes,
> after the initial takeover the ruling group was united in
> although their testimony was supposedly invalid. Islamic law
> pursuit of conquest and control, but over time fragmentation
> (shari
a) in its various schools (madhhab) systematized the
> of power and competition from other interests weakened
> interpretation of Quran and sunna and was administered in
> group cohesion, permitting conquest from outside or inter-
> Islamic courts under Muslim judges (qadis). Royal courts
> nal takeovers. In the tug-of-war between cohesion and disso-
> (mazalim), administered by the ruler, adjudicated problems
> lution, centrifugal forces included hereditary devolution of
> outside Islamic law, such as treason and governmental coroffice or iqta
, tribal disaffection, unjust treatment and conseruption, carrying on an ancient tradition of justice based on
> quent loss of loyalty, and neglect of irrigation or blockage of
> custom and rulers’ edicts (
urf).
> trade routes, leading to decreases in revenue. Conversely,
> rulers exercised control by building up revenue in their own
> In the Abbasid period the Arab military force united by
> treasuries, rewarding their followers generously, maintaining
> religious and tribal ties was replaced by a standing army of
> the infrastructure, putting down crime and rebellion, ensur-
> Khurasanian troops and a caliphal bodyguard of slave (mamluk,
> ing the proper functioning of administrative and legal sysghulam) soldiers, mainly of Turkish origin. At the same time,
> tems, and supporting the symbols of religion: the caliph (until
> taxation became politicized, that is, the right to collect certain
> 1258), the ulema, and Islamic law. Equally important was the
> taxes became a political reward. This system, called iqta

> relationship between the regime’s officials and local authori-
> (“division,” apportionment of revenues), was soon used to
> ties who were respected by the common people.
> reward the military forces, allowing the new military groups
> access to money and land and creating a new aristocracy (not            Peasants, tribesmen, and city-dwellers were insulated from
> quite feudal, as the new “aristocrats” had no responsibility for     dynastic and court politics by a layer of local notables (a
yan).
> the lands or people from which their revenues came). Iqta
           These men—large landholders, rich merchants, ulema, memholders lived in the cities, patronizing culture and religion.       bers of old elites superseded by new conquerors—acted as
> They collected revenue in the countryside but left peasant           intermediaries between the government and the people,
> producers to their own devices, widening the gap between             presenting the people’s needs to the new rulers, providing
> urban and rural cultures.                                            information on local conditions and revenues, and interpreting royal decrees locally. The a
yan were connected by family,
> Members of this aristocracy became provincial governors          educational and sectarian commonalities, marriage relations,
> uncontrollable by Abbasid civil administration, and indepen-         and patronage. Patronage also built vertical hierarchies with
> dent emirates soon emerged, such as the Samanids in                  the people of town and village, and with members of the
> Transoxiana (874–999). These local dynasties sent no reve-           ruling elite.
> nues to the caliph, even if they acknowledged his nominal
> authority, but they copied the Abbasids’ administration and              Provincial politics was largely based upon patron-client
> slave army. In 945 C.E., even the capital, Baghdad, was              relations passed down through generations, within which
> captured by Shi
ite warlords, the Buyid emirs (945–1055);            marital politics had an important part. Although women
> nearly simultaneously Cairo was taken by rival Isma
ili ca-          possessed no political rights in medieval Muslim society, they
> liphs, the Fatimids (969–1171). The Abbasid caliph became a          played a significant political role through creating family
> figurehead, dispensing legitimation for the warlords, who             alliances, transmitting information, and preserving property
> 
> 542                                                                                              Islam and the Muslim World
> Political Organization
> 
> within the family. In rural areas these relations were com-        The Seljuks abolished the barid, but probably later reinstated
> pounded by debt patronage, as large landholders and urban          it. Both the Abbasids and Samanids also had a bureau for the
> tax farmers loaned money, seed, and draft animals to peasant       “crown lands” that went under various names (diya, khass).
> farmers, using the future crop as collateral. Tribal clientage,    The Samanids had separate bureaus for the market inspector
> ever-shifting and based on power and wealth, determined            (muhtasib) and pious foundations (awqaf); the Seljuks develnomadic politics. These relations, and the local power strug-      oped separate bureaus for iqta
s (muqaa
at) and confiscations
> gles to which they gave rise, continued independently of           (mufradat).
> whoever held the capital or sat on the throne. Since they were
> inseparable from the revenue-producing system, they were                The central government’s administrative bureaus included a
> only disturbed from above when the revenue stream was              diwan al-a
la, bureau of the wazir; diwan al-kharaj or diwan alistifa, finance bureau; diwan al-insha or diwan al-ughra,
> interrupted by oppression or diverted by corruption, or when
> correspondence bureau; diwan al-ishraf, bureau of inspection;
> the fortunes of war brought battling armies to a particular
> and diwan al-
ard, bureau of the army. The Ghaznavids had a
> location.
> bureau for the royal household (wikala). The Abbasids and
> The Seljuk Turks, who conquered Baghdad in 1055, ruled         Samanids had a bureau for the post system (barid), which also
> Iraq, Iran, and Syria for a century and dominated Asia Minor       encompassed a system of spies, whose job was to notify the
> for two. Despite their origin as Central Asian tribal nomads       ruler if the powerful were oppressing the weak. The chief
> (considered rude and barbarous by contemporaries), they            officials besides the wazir were the treasurer (mustawfi) and
> wove all these disparate political elements into a single          the chamberlain, keeper of the royal household (wakil or emir
> system. As Sunni Muslims, they supported the caliph and the        al-hajib); civil bureau heads were paralleled by the heads of
> religious establishment, unlike the Buyids and Fatimids,           military contingents and guard corps. Some provinces were
> whose Shi
ism ran counter to the dominant religious trend.         bureaucratically governed; others remained under their own
> local dynasties. The offices of provincial governor and treas-
> The Seljuks also employed a professional scribal staff,        urer were sometimes combined, but more often they were
> which expanded as the regime split into several autonomous         separated for firmer central control. The few civil officials in
> kingdoms. The scribal cadre’s ideas on governance, derived         the province were outnumbered by the military, which was
> from Abbasid and even pre-Islamic precedents, harnessed            dispersed throughout the province both for security purposes
> imperial and tribal ideologies and practices to an Islamic         and for pasturage for their horses.
> vision of governance and the creation of a just Muslim
> The administration of the Seljuks was admired and imisociety. These ideas were expressed in the wazir Nizam altated by all their successor states, from the Ayyubids of
> Mulk’s Siyasat-nama (The Book of Governance) and the teacher
> Egypt (1171–1250) to the Khwarazmshahs of Transoxiana
> al-Ghazali’s Nasihat al-Muluk (Counsel for Kings), and were
> (1150–1220). The most important imitators were the Ilkhanids
> made the basis of administration at all levels through dissemi-
> (1258–1335) and the Mamluks (1250–1517).
> nation to governors and officials in royal edicts. An official
> called emir-e dad presided over the mazalim court, dispensing         The Mongol Ilkhanids ruled the northern Middle East
> justice on issues outside Islamic law. The Seljuks replaced        from Anatolia to Iran and Central Asia. They initially extheir tribal military forces with a salaried slave bodyguard and   ploited this territory as a reservoir of resources, but under
> a standing army supported by iqta
s, giving iqta
 holders          several great Persian wazirs they adopted an organization like
> greater responsibility for security and prosperity on their        that of the Seljuks. Originally all officials had Mongol superiqta
s and granting military commanders important positions        visors and all taxes were sent to Mongolia, but later the region
> as governors and tutors of royal princes. They also presided       became administratively independent from the Mongol homeover a restoration of agriculture through irrigation works,        land. Since its terrain would not support the Mongols’ nomadic
> reversing temporarily the economic decline of the central          economy, iqta
s were assigned to the military forces. Persian,
> Islamic lands. They recruited Sunni ulema to serve as admin-       Mongol, Chinese, Armenian, and Jewish administrators kept
> istrators and judges, and their construction of mosques and        records in Persian and drew up manuals for government
> Islamic colleges (madrasas) and expansion of pious founda-         secretaries that became models of bureaucratic procedure for
> tions (waqf) gave the ulema employment and financial security.      future generations.
> 
> A letter attributed to the wazir Nizam al-Mulk recom-              Although the Mongol Empire soon fragmented, the sucmended care for irrigation systems and water sources so that       cessor states preserved Ilkhanid organization on a smaller
> blessing and abundance would not depart from the world.            scale; Jalayirid and Akkoyunlu copies of Ilkhanid secretarial
> The wazir under the Seljuks advanced from head finance              and finance manuals still exist in Turkish libraries. As for the
> officer and bureaucrat to become a kind of co-ruler, the            Mamluks, their fiscal administration was unique due to the
> highest ranking of the non-Turks. He headed an administra-         peculiarities of Nile Valley agriculture, but their secretarial
> tion modeled on that of the Abbasids and their successors, the     and judicial organizations show Seljuk influences. They too
> Samanids and the Ghaznavids of Afghanistan (976–1186).             produced influential correspondence and finance manuals,
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                    543
> Political Organization
> 
> compiling traditions of the past and changes introduced by            Urban areas were also surveyed, but their revenues were
> the Mamluk regime.                                                usually assigned to provincial governors (beylerbey) or district
> governors (sanjakbey), who supported their retinues from
> The Early Modern Period                                           these larger allocations (khass). The retinues performed po-
> Beginning in the sixteenth century, Ilkhanid and Mamluk           lice and guard duties. Governors also commanded provincial
> administrative traditions were combined in the three ma-          or district troops on campaign. Subordinate officers received
> jor empires of the early modern Middle East: Ottoman              medium-sized timars called zeamets. The sultan’s khass until
> (1299–1923), Safavid (1501–1732), and Mogul (1526–1857).          the mid-sixteenth century comprised half of the empire’s
> The sixteenth century was a time of population growth,            revenues and paid the expenses of the palace, harem, and
> urbanization, monetarization of the economy, and techno-          janissaries and other elements of the standing army and
> logical advancement; it was also a time of political and          palace guard. Collection of urban revenues such as market
> commercial expansion and increased governmental stability.        taxes, tolls, customs dues, and manufacturing taxes was man-
> Like contemporary European countries, the Ottomans,               aged by agents or farmed out to wealthy merchants or
> Safavids, and Moguls expanded through conquest and trade,         moneylenders. Timar records show that the military forces
> creating stable empires that lasted centuries rather than         and administrative cadres were diverse in origin, with memdecades. Long-lived ruling families traded the charisma of        bers from many religions and ethnicities. All were united by a
> military prowess for dynastic legitimacy, proclaiming abso-       common culture called “the Ottoman way,” comprising relute rule but actually sharing power with family members and      ligion, language, and etiquette, acquired through decadestop administrators. The palace and harem replaced the mili-       long training in the palace, administration, or military service.
> tary camp as centers of power. Women became political
> Besides organizing the timars, qanuns regulated the palace
> actors in their roles as rulers’ wives and mothers, and as
> organization from at least the era of Mehmed the Conqueror.
> guardians of minor heirs. Administrators and courtiers grew
> These qanuns and those regarding timars were updated by
> in influence, and rebels and rivals were co-opted and incorposubsequent rulers. Suleyman the Magnificent was called
> rated through power-sharing. Court politics became not just
> “The Lawgiver” because in his reign the qanuns were recona struggle for power but a contest over policies.
> ciled with Islamic law and issued throughout the empire.
> Modifications continued into the seventeenth and eighteenth
> The greatest development of bureaucratic administration
> centuries, legitimized by reference to Mehmed and Suleyman.
> came under the Ottoman timar system. In the late fourteenth
> The judges administering them had a hierarchy of posts; top
> century, timars succeeded iqta
s as economic support for the
> posts were reserved for those who had attended and taught at
> cavalry forces. Timars were individual land revenue assignthe best madrasas. The highest religious official (shaykh alments whose sizes reflected the ranks of the holders and were
> Islam), who oversaw the legal and educational hierarchies,
> determined by a revenue survey held once every generation.
> also advised the sultan on the religious legitimacy of his
> Sultanic agents recorded all revenue sources—crops, herds,
> decisions. He appointed preachers and guided the empire’s
> mills, fisheries, mines, manufactories, jizya and extraordinary
> Sunni Muslim orientation.
> levies, commercial taxes—and the names and obligations of
> all taxpayers. Survey results were recorded in registers of           In the late sixteenth century, gunpowder weapons inititaxes assessed (mufassal defters) and timars allocated (ijmal     ated a military transformation from a cavalry aristocracy to an
> defters), and timar holders were authorized to collect only the   infantry recruited from the lower classes. Recruits were paid
> amounts recorded in the registers, plus some fees and fines.       in cash rather than land grants, and increasingly taxes were
> They were also responsible for police duties in their timars      collected in cash rather than kind. They could therefore be
> and could be mustered for military service during the cam-        collected by government agents or private contractors rather
> paigning season.                                                  than cavalry members, and administration gradually became
> demilitarized. In other strata, too, changing recruitment
> Timars were reassigned regularly to prevent formation of      patterns altered traditional relationships. Troops recruited
> local ties and could be revoked for transgressing the registers   for the campaigning season and then discharged staged a
> or local regulations (qanun). Qanuns were compilations of         series of rebellions, the “Jalali revolts,” and were defeated and
> sultanic decrees and local customs or conditions (especially      co-opted only with difficulty. Janissaries stationed in the
> tax rates) in force when an area was conquered; over time they    empire’s cities engaged in commerce, and urban merchants
> were modified to accord with Islamic law. They were admin-         were recruited into the corps. Palace cavalrymen became tax
> istered locally by qadis (officially appointed judges), working    farmers, commoners and slaves became scribes, and Muslim
> together with provincial governors whose soldiers enforced        children entered the palace school for slaves. Simultaneously,
> the judges’ decisions. Qanun and defter thus governed the         economic distress struck the empire; rapid inflation and
> state’s relationship with both timar holders and peasants, and    currency devaluation played havoc with state budgets and
> their imposition marked an area’s incorporation into the          salaries. Old ways had to change, but traditional practices still
> Ottoman system.                                                   legitimated the ruler and maintained the elite. Attempting to
> 
> 544                                                                                           Islam and the Muslim World
> Political Thought
> 
> alter too much too fast, as Osman II (1618–1622) did, risked      with non-Islamic village, caste, and clan councils. Imperial
> violent resistance and deposition. Instead, devolution of power   politics was overwhelmingly a politics of the nobility, a
> created political factions around statesmen satisfying the        competition among the religious, ethnic, and factional deneeds of elite groups, while sultans were reduced to arbitrat-    mands of the state’s powerful servants. Some rulers’ unwilling between these factions.                                       ingness to incorporate non-Muslim elites and/or their inability
> to provide care and protection to productive groups alienated
> The dominance of the Köprülü faction after 1656 permit-        their loyalties and contributed to state fragmentation and
> ted administrative reform but led directly to war in 1683.        British takeover. Apparently, only the Ottoman state was
> Fiscal reforms in the 1690s instituted new jizya allotments       both powerful enough and close enough to Islamic political
> and lifetime tax farms. These innovations improved govern-        norms to receive the caliphal title in the nineteenth century.
> ment finances, but war revealed the empire’s military inadequacy. Eighteenth-century sultans adopted policies of reform,     See also Caliphate; Empires: Abbasid; Empires: Byzbecoming in the process leaders of their own pro-change           antine; Empires: Mongol and Il-Khanid; Empires:
> factions. Reform, however, came in Western dress, and anti-       Mogul; Empires: Ottoman; Empires: Safavid and Qajar;
> reform factions clung to traditionalism and Ottoman patriot-      Empires: Sassanian; Empires: Timurid; Empires:
> ism. Reforms were often more successful in the provinces, as      Umayyad; Qanun; Sultanates: Delhi; Sultanates:
> governors far from Istanbul modernized their military forces      Ghaznavid; Sultanates: Mamluk; Sultanates: Seljuk.
> and engaged in capitalist agriculture outside imperial oversight. This conflict of interests contributed to the provinces’    BIBLIOGRAPHY
> growing autonomy, as did an accumulation of wealth in the         Bailey, Harold et al., eds. The Cambridge History of Iran.
> provinces.                                                           Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1968–91.
> 
> The Safavid state, based on Shi
ite Islam, consisted of       Black, Antony. The History of Islamic Political Thought: From
> the Prophet to the Present. Edinburgh: Edinburgh Univer-
> Turkish warriors, Persian administrators, and a bureaucratized
> sity Press, 2001.
> religious hierarchy under a ruler (shah) who was also a
> spiritual master. The warriors, called Qizilbash, were follow-    Ghazali, Abu Hamid Muhammad al-. Ghazali’s Book of Couners of the Safavid Sufi order that conquered Iran and insti-         sel for Kings (Nasihat al-Muluk).Translated by F. R. C.
> Bagley. London: Oxford University Press, 1971.
> tuted the Shi
ite state. Defeat by the Ottomans at Chaldiran
> in 1514 shattered the myth of Safavid invincibility and world     Hodgson, Marshall G. S. The Venture of Islam: Conscience and
> conquest. Over time, the shah’s charismatic authority and the       Faith in a World Civilization. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974.
> Qizilbash’s political influence decreased, while the palace
> personnel and a slave army of Georgians, Circassians, and         Ibn Khaldun. The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History.
> Armenians gained power. A council of officials conducted              Edited by N. J. Dawood. Translated by Franz Rosenthal.
> government business; law was administered by religious judges.       London: Princeton/Bollingen, 1969.
> Royal workshops produced goods for sale as well as artistic       Inalcik, Halil. The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age,
> products, augmenting royal income. Provincial taxation fol-          1300–1600. Translated by Norman Itzkowitz and Colin
> lowed traditional norms, but in provinces under direct royal         Imber. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1973. Reprint.
> Orion Books/Phoenix, 1994.
> control (whose number grew in the seventeenth century), the
> farming out of taxes to nongovernmental collectors led to         Mawardi, al-. The Ordinances of Government. Translated by
> overextraction and impoverishment. By the eighteenth cen-           Wafaa H. Wahba. Reading, U.K.: Garnet Publishing
> tury, military weakness permitted conquest by Afghan tribes-        Ltd, 1996.
> men who made themselves heirs of the Safavid system.              Mulk, Nizam al-. The Book of Government or Rules for Kings:
> The Siyar al-Muluk or Siyasat-nama. Translated by Hubert
> The Mughal dynasty of India was perhaps least affected by        Darke. 2d ed. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1978.
> these trends. Muslims, though the rulers, were always a
> minority in the state, forcing emperors to balance imposition                                                 Linda T. Darling
> of Islamic governance against the need to conciliate Hindu
> officials and officers. By the 1570s Islamic-style bureaucratic
> administration gained prominence, but it administered less of
> the country’s revenue than elsewhere (about 60%), and that        POLITICAL THOUGHT
> indirectly. In the mansabdari system, counterpart of the timar
> system, military administrators collected land revenues to        During the premodern period, Islamic political thought found
> cover their expenses, but between them and the peasants           expression in a diverse group of writings such as legal comstood a layer of zamindars (large landholders and former          pendia, theological treatises, philosophical writings, liternobility), who administered the land itself. Islamic law courts   ary works on the subject of statecraft, wisdom literature,
> were provided by the state, but they shared legal jurisdiction    historiography, and even poetry. In the modern period,
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                  545
> Political Thought
> 
> political thought may be found in some of these branches of         Islamic tradition, into the modern period. The most freliterature, but also in separate works directly concerned           quently invoked Quranic passage, in discussions of political
> with political topics, such as the nation state, government,        matters, is 4:59: “Obey God, obey the Prophet, and those in
> constitutionalism, law, human rights, and the Islamic state.        authority among you.” This verse has been interpreted in
> some quarters as an injunction to obey rulers even if they are
> The diffusion that characterizes the wide range of              unjust, while other commentators have regarded the phrase
> premodern political thinking results from many factors, two         “those in authority among you” as a reference only to holders
> of which deserve particular mention. First, writers in the          of religious or religio-political authority. For a number of
> premodern period often treated aspects of politics and gov-         Sunni scholars, the Qur’anic phrase refers to religious scholernment not in isolation from other topics but in the context       ars or ulema; in Shi
ite tradition, it refers to the imams. On
> of larger subjects and a variety of intellectual disciplines.       the earthly plane, kingship is depicted as a great but some-
> Second, the early Muslim community rapidly found itself             times treacherous boon that human beings are often predisdispersed among a culturally diverse set of peoples, and            posed to covet. Satan seeks to tempt Adam with the prospect
> Muslims became heirs to the variegated political cultures of
> of imperishable sovereignty (20:120); the Children of Israel
> the larger Middle East; these cultures contributed to the
> were sometimes favored with both prophethood and kingship
> shaping and expression of the range of Islamic political ideas.
> (for example, 5:20; 38:20); and Solomon prays for kingship
> In the wake of the conquests, and with the formation of an
> (38:35). For those whom God leads astray, however, kingship
> Islamic imperial order, Muslim polities had at their disposal,
> is associated with overweening pride; Nimrod argues with
> as Aziz al-Azmeh has put it, a “floating repertoire of im-
> Abraham over it (2:258), and Pharaoh boasts of his claim to
> mensely ancient and awesomely persistent institutions, metathe kingdom of Egypt (43:51).
> phors, iconographies, and propositions concerning power,
> and most particularly concerning power in relation to the           Early Political Developments
> sacred, which they welded into distinctive forms.” (al-Azmeh        Islamic political thought, as expressed in Quranic exegesis
> 1997, p. 10)                                                        and elsewhere, evolved in conjunction with Muslims’ historical experiences. The history of the early Muslim community
> The close association between religion and politics in
> is one of extraordinary political success. After facing initial
> much of the Islamic tradition, and the diversity of ways in
> adversity, the prophet Muhammad went on to unify Arabia
> which this association has been interpreted in Islamic history
> and to create a state based largely on ties of common religious
> are also worthy of note. Much political thinking in the Islamic
> allegiance. Muhammad was the leader of this early commutradition takes as its point of departure the view that all
> nity (the umma), and hence his role as God’s messenger was
> sovereignty belongs to God, who alone governs the universe.
> (His is the “sovereignty over the heavens and the earth,” as        integrally linked with his role as political head of state. The
> the Quran states repeatedly.) Many Muslim thinkers came to         early Islamic polity, moreover, continued to grow in the
> agree that the role of human government was to ensure that          decades following the Prophet’s death in 632. It rapidly
> God’s will, as expressed in the divine law, was enacted on          expanded to comprise the regions of the northern Middle
> earth. The ideal earthly ruler, called an imam, was a leader        East (Syria-Palestine, Egypt, Iraq, and Iran), and from there
> who ruled according to God’s laws and who was consequently          it spread across North Africa and into Spain, and eastwards
> entitled to the loyalty and obedience of his community.             into northern India. Although the pace of the expansion did
> While these ideals have been widely expressed, Muslims have         not remain constant, Islamic political thought, like other
> naturally differed in their understandings of the implications      branches of the Islamic tradition, was inevitably shaped by the
> of the relationship between the religious and political realms.     experience of a success which seemed to validate the new
> In fact, the historical experience of Muslim societies has          dispensation and to attest divine favor towards the Muslim
> generated a large repertoire of political ideas, many of which      community. The construction on the Temple Mount in
> assume or accommodate themselves to certain premises or             Jerusalem of the Dome of the Rock, completed under the
> coalesce around certain themes, but which collectively con-         Umayyad caliph 
Abd al-Malik in 691, suggests a striking
> stitute a wide-ranging body of thought.                             confidence on the part of the city’s rulers in the stability and
> endurance of the Islamic polity.
> The Qur
an
> While the Quran, like other scriptures, does not treat politi-         In the period immediately following the death of the
> cal topics in a comprehensive way, it refers in several places to   Prophet in 632, issues such as the nature of political leaderpower and those who exercise it. The Quran presents sover-         ship and the identity of the rightful holder of political authoreignty as a divine prerogative, and all forms of earthly author-    ity were much disputed. The leaders who succeeded the
> ity (prophetic or political) are wholly dependent on God’s          Prophet were addressed as Commander of the Faithful (amir
> dispensation (see, for example, 3:26). This emphasis on the         al-muminin) and bore the title of caliph (khalifa), a term
> relativity of human forms of authority in relation to the divine    which came to be understood as meaning deputy of, or
> reality is one that has left an imprint on many areas of the        successor to, the Prophet of God. The Prophet himself had
> 
> 546                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Political Thought
> 
> exercised both religious and political authority, the continu-       ruler, as well as action taken by one Muslim against another
> ing conjoining of which formed the basis of the religio-             without any involvement on the part of the state.
> political ideals of the Shi
ites. The early debates and struggles
> over leadership eventually crystalized in the emergence of               A related area of ambivalence towards the role of the state
> distinct sectarian communities (generally grouped as Kharijites,     concerns the extent of the duty of obedience. Many medieval
> Shi
ites, and, eventually, Sunnis).                                  Sunni thinkers held that obedience was incumbent on Muslims, regardless of whether the ruler was just or tyrannical,
> The Role of the Ulema                                                pious or irreligious, as long as such obedience did not involve
> The institution that emerged most successfully from, or in           the subject in transgression of the shari
a. In this connection,
> the face of, these disagreements was that of the caliphate,          it is important to note that many scholars held themselves
> exercised first by a series of respected individuals who had          aloof from political power. While some of the most influensurrounded the Prophet, and, following the conclusion of the         tial political thinkers served the state as judges and in other
> first civil war in 661, by dynastic families: the Umayyads            capacities (for example, Abu Yusuf, Ibn al-Murtada, al-
> (661–750) and, after a revolution, the 
Abbasids (750–1258).         Mawardi), the refusal to serve the holders of political power
> It has been suggested that the early caliphs, including the          retained prestige and was widely regarded as morally prefer-
> Umayyads and early 
Abbasids, may have expected to wield             able, as numerous historical incidents, anecdotes and folk
> not only political authority but also some degree of religious       tales demonstrate.
> authority as part of their office. The caliphs’ claims to
> religious authority encountered resistance, however, with the        The Formation of Shiite, Kharijite, and Sunni Views
> emergence of numbers of religious specialists, who came to           of Political Leadership
> be known collectively as the ulema (scholars) or “those              The mainstream Shi
ite view of political leadership, subpossessed of religious learning” (
ilm). As the Islamic polity       sumed in the doctrine of the imamate, regards certain Quranic
> grew in extent and in the diversity of its population, the claim     texts and acts of the Prophet recorded in hadiths as proofs
> of this new intellectual elite to religious leadership and           that the Prophet, contrary to most Sunni opinions, nomiauthority among the Muslims of the empire was itself con-            nated as his successor his cousin and son-in-law, 
Ali. 
Ali,
> tested by some individuals who held that such authority              however, had, according to Shi
ites, been wrongfully deshould be centralized and held by the ruler, rather than by a        prived of the position that was his due, with the result that the
> number of loosely associated specialists over whom the ruler         community had fallen into error. Following 
Ali’s death in
> had little control. An argument for limiting the power of the        661, Shi
ites held that only descendants of 
Ali could claim the
> ulema in favor of the caliph was advanced by the Persian             imamate. (Partly in order to distinguish between the rightful
> convert Ibn al-Muqaffa
 (d. c. 756), whose apparently                holders of authority and the actual ruling powers, Shi
ites
> unsolicited warnings to the caliph al-Mansur (754–775) went          refer to the persons whom they regard as their leaders as
> unheeded and were rarely repeated so plainly in later periods.       imams rather than as caliphs.) During the first two centuries
> One last attempt to wrest religious authority from the ulema         of Islamic history, many Shi
ite groups attempted to seize
> was made under successive caliphs in the first half of the ninth      power for their imams. Their efforts were largely unsuccesscentury, in the course of the mihna, an inquisition during           ful (as was the case, most famously, with the challenge to
> which prominent religious scholars were interrogated in              Umayyad rule mounted by Husayn, a grandson of the Prophet,
> order to establish their adherence or lack thereof to a particu-     who was killed in 680), and Shi
ites were often ruthlessly
> lar theological doctrine; this attempt too failed, and its failure   suppressed.
> marked the voluntary or involuntary ceding of religious
> authority to the ulema.                                                  In the course of the eighth century, most Shi
ites adopted
> a politically quietist stance, and they abandoned the attempt
> The scholars formulated the religious law, the shari
a,          to establish general leadership for their imams, whom they
> with only incidental reference to the state, and it was chiefly       continued to follow as leaders within their own communities.
> when the political power located in the institution of the           Shi
ites gradually developed a distinctive body of political
> caliphate could no longer be taken for granted that jurists          ideas based on the concept of the imamate, which they came
> began to address larger political questions concerning the           to regard as comprising both religious and political authority.
> state and government. The collectivity of the Muslim com-            Most Shi
ites belong to the Imami community, and believe
> munity was invested with certain duties and responsibilities         that the last of their imams is now hidden, and therefore
> that could, under certain conditions or in times of political        inaccessible to the vast majority of his followers. Even during
> crisis, operate regardless of, or even in opposition to, the         the period of the presence of the imams, however, there
> workings of the state. One such collective (and occasionally,        appears to have been some dispute among Imami Shi
ites as
> individual) duty is that of “commanding right and forbidding         to the extent of the imams’ authority. As the work of Hossein
> wrong” (al-amr bil-ma
ruf wal-nahy 
an al-munkar), a duty            Modarressi suggests, the power of the imams was limited not
> that in the view of many Muslims fell, ideally, to the imam,         only by the adverse conditions that confronted them and
> but which could also require or justify rebellion against a          their followers, but also by the view held by some of their
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                       547
> Political Thought
> 
> prominent supporters that the scope of their powers should             Sunni thinkers distinguished between the caliphate of
> be limited in theory as well as in practice.                       these first four “rightly guided” caliphs and later holders of
> the office, many of whom degraded it to kingship (mulk) and
> Gradually, however, Imami Shi
ites reached a consensus,        were sometimes oppressive. Yet while later Islamic leadership
> agreeing that the role of the imamate was to provide compre-       may not have been perfect, it remained legitimate, and the
> hensive leadership over religious and worldly matters. Thus,       community, as a result, remained within the confines of the
> under the leadership of the imam, the realms of religion and       law. In the gradual emergence of this consensus, Sunni
> state were indistinguishable. The imam was not only the            thinkers adopted the principles of certain earlier groups,
> rightful political leader of the community, but he also pos-       whose first priority had been the preservation of the unity of
> sessed immunity from sin and error (
isma). Accordingly, he        the community; accordingly, it was preferable to accept
> was the rightful collector and distributor of religious taxes      shortcomings in the political life of the community than to
> and the only legitimate leader of jihad, and, as heir to the       risk further schism and discord.
> knowledge of the Prophet, he possessed a complete and
> perfect knowledge of the religious law. After the onset of the     The Political Thought of the Classical Sunni and
> occultation in the late ninth century (when the imam became        Shii Jurists
> hidden), however, Imami Shi
ites could no longer turn to           Most famously among Sunni jurists, al-Mawardi (d. 1058)
> their imam directly, and they, like Sunnis, turned increasingly    formulated what came to be regarded as the classical Sunni
> to their religious scholars for guidance in religious matters.     position on the caliphate. By the eleventh century, the caliphate
> had been weakened by its subservience to a succession of
> The Kharijites were hostile to both the Umayyad (and,          military leaders who had taken over some of its territories and
> later, to the 
Abbasid) and the Shi
ite positions, and held that   established polities of their own. When al-Mawardi came to
> leadership belonged to the most excellent member of the            write his treatise, al-Ahkam al-sultaniyya (The ordinances of
> community, regardless of his genealogy or background. A few        government), however, the caliphate was for the moment
> believed that the office of the imamate could be held by a          enjoying a certain reascendancy, which the jurist sought to
> woman. Most Kharijites held that the imamate was obliga-           enhance through his exposition of the legal status of the
> tory, although some, most notably the Najdiyya, did not            office. Al-Mawardi asserted that the imamate is obligatory by
> consider an imam necessary if the community were able to           revelation, not by reason, and he listed seven necessary
> function in accordance with justice without one. (Some             qualities for the imam: descent from Quraysh; possession of
> Mu
tazilis and other thinkers similarly denied the obligatory      religious knowledge; probity; soundness and maturity of
> nature of the imamate.) If the imam violated the divine law,       body and mind; and the capacity to execute the political and
> most Kharijites held that he forfeited his legitimacy and had      military duties of the office.
> even lapsed into unbelief. The Kharijites continued to challenge the power of the Umayyads and the 
Abbasids for at               Of al-Mawardi’s stipulated qualities, descent from Quraysh
> least two centuries before those groups that survived re-          may be the most significant, since it allows for the legitimacy
> treated to remote areas and lived as separate, but generally       of all the Sunni caliphs, while it does not limit legitimacy to
> quietist, communities.                                             descent from the Prophet himself; but the same criterion
> excludes most other rulers, such as the Buyids, who con-
> The mainstream Sunni conception of the caliphate, con-         trolled Baghdad during al-Mawardi’s lifetime. At the same
> sensus on which emerged gradually over the first four centu-        time, al-Mawardi argued that rule by military emirs was
> ries of Islamic history, held that the Quran provided no          legitimate as long as such rulers acknowledged the authority
> specific injunctions regarding the leadership of the commu-         of the caliphs and implemented Islamic law. The caliph
> nity after the Prophet’s death, and (although some prominent       himself was responsible for the performance of specific du-
> Sunni thinkers dissented from this position) that the Prophet      ties, such as the protection of religion against heterodoxy,
> had left no precise instructions on the matter. According to       enforcing the law and dispensing justice, executing the statuthe mainstream view, the first Muslims responded to the             tory penalties (hudud), ensuring peace in the territory of Islam
> Prophet’s death by recognizing one of their own members,           and defending the realm against external enemies, the prose-
> Abu Bakr (d. 634), as the first caliph. He was to assume the        cution of jihad, receipt of the legal alms, and a fifth of all
> functions of leading the Muslim community, but he was in no        booty gained in combat on behalf of the community, distribusense an heir to the Prophet’s religious authority; he was         tion of revenue according to the law, and the appointment of
> acclaimed by the bay
a, an act by which his fellow Muslims         reliable and trustworthy men in delegating authority.
> acknowledged his leadership and pledged their allegiance.
> Abu Bakr was followed by three further individuals who had             Al-Mawardi’s book, together with the identically titled
> enjoyed close personal ties to the Prophet, after the last of      work of his contemporary, Abu Ya
la b. al-Farra (d. 1066),
> whom, 
Ali, a dynastic principle was adopted with the estab-       contributed to a gradual change in the perception of the
> lishment of the Umayyad caliphate.                                 caliphate. From the early ninth century onwards, the caliph’s
> 
> 548                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Political Thought
> 
> authority had coexisted with the reality of political fragmen-       conclusions in legal matters. As this practice of ijtihad became
> tation, and the office ceased to connote supreme political            accepted among Shi
ites, it contributed to an increase in the
> power. Instead, it came to assume a more symbolic role,              authority of the Shi
ite ulema. Despite this gradual enhancewhereby the caliphate came to represent the unity of the             ment in the stature of the Imami scholars, most of them
> Muslim community regardless of the division of political power.      continued to emphasize the qualitative difference between
> the authority enjoyed by imams and prophets, to whom, on
> Almost three centuries later, following the execution in         account of their immunity from sin and error, unconditional
> 1258 by the Mongol conqueror Hulegu of the Abbasid caliph            obedience was due, and that of any other leader to whom
> and the establishment of the Mongol empire over much of              certain functions may have been delegated.
> the eastern Islamic world, the Syrian Hanbali scholar Ibn
> Taymiyya (d. 1328) asserted with vigor the supremacy of the              Some Imami scholars of the Usuli school, which develshari
a as the means to ensure the exercise of divine sover-         oped in the mid-eighteenth century and became dominant by
> eignty on Earth. By extension, Ibn Taymiyya declared the             the middle of the nineteenth century, claimed that the Shi
ite
> illegitimacy of any ruler who failed to uphold the law. In the       scholars had in fact assumed the position of general vicecontext of the demise of the 
Abbasid caliphate and against          regent (naib 
amm) of the absent imam. In the Usuli view, the
> the loss of even the symbolism of political unity, Ibn Taymiyya      right to interpret Islamic law rested solely with mujtahids,
> emphasized the ideological unity that he believed could be           scholars who were recognized as qualified to exercise their
> achieved through proper observance of the shari
a. His politi-       independent judgment, or ijtihad. Ordinary Muslims were
> cal perspective, often referred to after the title of one of his     obliged to follow one eminent mujtahid as a model of emulabooks as al-siyasa al-shar
iyya (government according to the         tion (marja
 al-taqlid). Some scholars asserted further that the
> religious law), has been influential among some modern                office of marja
 represented the imam’s authority not only in
> thinkers.                                                            matters of religion, but also in worldly affairs. This idea was
> developed most notably by Ruhollah Khomeini (1902–1989)
> Ibn Taymiyya sought to elevate the condition of both the
> in the latter half of the twentieth century.
> state and society through upholding the law, and held that a
> leader who promoted increased observance of the law was
> Sultans and Kings
> owed obedience by his subjects. Ibn Taymiyya and his con-
> While the classical juristic literature deals with political
> temporary, Ibn Jama
a (d. 1333), who likewise spent his life in
> thought within the context of the topics of imamate and
> Syria and Egypt, emphasized the role of the religious scholars
> caliphate, and refers to the sultanate primarily in connection
> as counselors to the holders of political power. Furthermore,
> with these institutions, other branches of literary expression
> Ibn Jama‘a recognized two kinds of imamate, arrived at
> treat the institution of the sultanate, or kingship, in its own
> through election and force respectively. He noted that the
> right. Sultans and other dynastic rulers whose power was
> latter form of imamate, based on the exercise of might, was
> sometimes local but sometimes very far-reaching were often
> the only form that existed in his own time.
> the recipients of literary gifts, such as works offering advice
> After the beginning of the imam’s occultation in the late         (nasiha[t]) on the art of government, or “mirrors for princes,”
> ninth century, Shi
ite jurists gradually developed a political       in which the ruler’s duties and his subjects’ needs were
> theory in which Shi
ite scholars might assume some of the            discussed, and the monarch’s own justice was invariably
> imam’s responsibilities. In all likelihood, the historical imams     praised. Occasionally, such books were commissioned by a
> themselves allowed some of their followers to participate in         ruler, as seems to have been the case with the famous Siyasatthe performance of certain functions, or delegated certain           nameh (Book of government) composed by the wazir Nizam
> tasks to individuals. The idea of deputyship to the imam was         al-Mulk (d. 1092) and presented to the Seljuq monarch,
> developed further in the writings of leading Imami thinkers,         Malik-Shah (1073–1092).
> such as al-Shaykh al-Mufid (d. 1022), who indicated that
> In such books of advice for Muslim rulers, as indeed in
> throughout his occultation the imam remained God’s proof
> many other cultural contexts, the king (or caliph) is often
> (hujja) on earth, but that, during his absence, the imam could
> likened to a physician healing a body, or a shepherd guarding
> appoint a deputy or deputies.
> his flock. He is also, as in ancient Middle Eastern traditions,
> Like many Imami jurists, al-Muhaqqiq al-Hilli (d. 1277)          described as “the Shadow of God on earth.” Some authors
> noted that, in the imam’s absence, Shi
ites should fulfill their      adopt the old Iranian concept of farr, the aura or nimbus that
> religious obligation of charity (zakat) by delivering it to a        signifies the charisma of kingship. Most directly, these ideas
> reliable jurist (faqih), since the latter was in possession of the   and many others reached Islamic culture through the translanecessary knowledge to ensure its proper disbursement. The           tion into Arabic of literary works composed in Middle Persame jurist, and still more notably his pupil Ibn al-Mutahhar        sian (Pahlavi) under the Sassanians (226–651). In Islamic
> al-Hilli (d. 1325), adopted the principle of ijtihad, according      times, authors adapted and developed many of these ancient
> to which each Shi
ite jurist was obliged to undertake an             Middle Eastern notions according to the regions and condiinvestigation of the legal sources in order to reach his own         tions in which they lived.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                      549
> Political Thought
> 
> The understanding of kingship articulated in most works         imperfect and incomplete. Happiness was best attained by
> of nasiha rests on the premise of royal absolutism, which is        living in a “virtuous polity” (al-madina al-fadila), which alclosely associated with the concept of justice (
adl), the main-    Farabi defined as one led by learned and excellent men, and
> tenance of which is presented as the ruler’s foremost respon-       one in which the inhabitants co-operated in striving for
> sibility. This set of concepts is expressed clearly in the widely   ultimate happiness. Human beings were connected by a chain
> recorded “circle of justice,” according to which the king’s rule    of authority, which was based on their degree of knowledge
> is dependent on the army, which in turn depends on wealth,          and understanding. In this chain, each individual was in a
> which is generated through agriculture (and sometimes trade),       position of both learning from and governance by those
> which in turn flourishes under the king’s effective exercise of      above him, and of instructing and exercising authority over
> his royal authority. The ruler is thus depicted as central to the   those below him, down to the level of those who were fit only
> preservation of the natural and social orders. The fertility and    for service. The man who had nothing to learn from anyone
> productivity of the land, and the well-being of the peasants        was the person best suited to perform the duties of the
> who worked it, depended directly on the king’s justice.             supreme leader (al-rais al-awwal), whose purpose, according
> Furthermore, royal justice was necessary to prevent the             to al-Farabi, was to promote the attainment of happiness by
> various groups within society from coalescing in such a way         his community.
> that any particular set of interests outweighed others. If such
> a process were allowed to occur, it would cause a social                Several of the political ideas of al-Farabi were shared and
> imbalance that was considered contrary to justice and tanta-        further developed by Ibn Sina (d. 1037), who himself had
> mount to injustice (zulm).                                          extensive experience in the practical workings of government
> and had served on several occasions as a wazir. Ibn Sina
> In order to prevent such disequilibrium, it was the ruler’s     emphasized the roles of law and justice, and the need for their
> task, by virtue of his own position above and outside any of        enforcement by a legislator and preserver of justice, as the
> the social categories, to ensure that each individual remained      basis for the necessary social transactions among people. In
> in the place appropriate to his station. Among writers belong-      al-Andalus, Ibn Bajja (d. 1138) held that it was the ruler’s
> ing to this intellectual tradition, society was often visualized    responsibility to assign tasks to the inhabitants of the city, and
> in terms of a quadripartite hierarchy consisting of men of the      to ensure that each man undertook the most excellent task of
> pen, men of the sword, men of transactions, and men of              which he was capable. He argued furthermore that, if no
> agriculture, as described, for example, in the famous formula-      virtuous polity to which a philosopher might immigrate
> tion of Nasir al-Din Tusi, 1201–1274. This model was                existed, the philosopher should seclude himself from society
> adopted by numerous later writers, and was especially impor-        as far as possible.
> tant to many Ottoman thinkers.
> Nasir al-Din Tusi, who adopted many of the political
> Such traditions of kingship came to be widely dissemi-          views of al-Farabi, held that although it was the diversity
> nated and formed a base for many kinds of courtly literature        among people that rendered co-operation among them posacross the linguistic and cultural range of the medieval            sible, this co-operation could only be achieved through firm
> Islamic world. As this dissemination occurred, the view of          administration, without the restraining force of which, men
> royal justice expressed in this courtly literature was often        might destroy one another. Government was necessary to
> linked to the upholding of the shari
a, and, with the establish-    ensure that each man was content with the station appropriment of Turkish and Turko-Mongol dynasties in much of the           ate to him, that he received his due, and that others did not
> Islamic world, many of these Perso-Islamic concepts of gov-         violate his rights. One of the main purposes of government,
> ernment also became fused with Central Asian concepts.              then, was to maintain order in society and to ensure the
> harmonious functioning of its component groups.
> Political Philosophy
> Another important branch of premodern political thought is             One of the most remarkable political theoreticians of the
> found in the works of the Muslim philosophers, among whom           medieval Islamic world was Ibn Khaldun (d. 1332), who spent
> the most influential was al-Farabi (d. 950). Al-Farabi’s thought     most of his life in North Africa and Egypt, and whose writings
> was based on the common premise that it was natural for             describe his perceptions of the historical workings of power.
> human beings to live in association with others, since on the       Ibn Khaldun shares many of the premises of earlier philosoone hand they were incapable of supplying all of their own          phers, and reaches the conclusion that kingship (mulk) is a
> needs and were therefore obliged to co-operate with one             natural and necessary human phenomenon for the regulation
> another, and, on the other hand, humankind was, in Aris-            and restraint of human conduct. As part of his analysis of
> totle’s phrase, a political animal, disposed by nature to com-      societies, Ibn Khaldun argues that ruling families whose ties
> munal living. The goal of human existence, moreover, was            of solidarity (
asabiyya) are strongest are best situated to
> happiness (sa
ada), which could only be achieved through            impose their dominion over others in a process that gives rise
> living in a community. Communities differed in size and in          to conquest and expansion. In order to create stable polities,
> type, some being “perfect” or complete, and others being            however, it is necessary for such strength of communal ties to
> 
> 550                                                                                              Islam and the Muslim World
> Political Thought
> 
> be conjoined with religious law, which provides a more              political power. Al-Afghani, for whom the period of the
> lasting focus of communal solidarity than kinship and affilia-       Rashidun was the period of perfected Muslim government,
> tion alone. Ibn Khaldun goes on to describe the stages              seems to have regarded regional nationalisms as possible
> through which a polity comes into existence, consolidates its       steps towards the reconstitution of the Islamic umma. Many
> power, reaches maturity, and eventually declines.                   of the political ideas of al-Afghani were further developed in
> the Arab world by Muhammad 
Abduh (1849–1905).
> Modern Developments
> Reconsiderations of the nature and responsibilities of the              Among the thinkers whose ideas have been most influenstate have a continuous history in the Islamic world. The           tial in the twentieth-century Arab world are Muhammad
> historical context for such reconsiderations has evolved par-       Rashid Rida (1865–1935), who regarded al-Mawardi’s work
> ticularly rapidly, however, over the course of the past two         as formative to the Islamic tradition, and 
Ali 
Abd al-Raziq
> centuries. The vast transformations of the modern period            (d. 1966). The twentieth-century concept of the Islamic state
> have seen the creation in the Islamic world, as elsewhere, of       emerged in the context of the dismemberment of the Ottomodern states, in which the relationships between individuals       man Empire and the abandonment of the Ottoman caliphate,
> and governments have changed dramatically from those charac-        which followed the formation of the modern Turkish nationteristic of premodern times, and the integration of much of         state. The final abolition of the Ottoman caliphate was briefly
> the Islamic world into a global economic system. Like much          preceded by an interim period during which the Turkish
> of the rest of the world, Muslim countries have, over the past      authorities reduced the office to a purely spiritual one. Rashid
> two centuries or longer, been forced to accommodate them-           Rida opposed this reduction in the role of the caliphate, and
> selves to the disproportionate power (economic, military,           argued instead for a caliphate that combined religious and
> political, cultural) enjoyed by Western countries: the Euro-        political authority and that was “a caliphate of necessity,” to
> pean colonial powers, the former Soviet Union, and, begin-          be situated in the Arab world. In the same era, some Indian
> ning in the latter half of the twentieth century, the United        Muslims formed the Khilafat Movement, and, along with
> States of America.                                                  other groups, the Khilafats took up the assertion that Islam is
> both a religion and a state (al-Islam din wa dawla). This idea
> Modern Islamic political thought thus represents the             shapes much of the discourse of contemporary Islamists. 
Abd
> continuation of a long-standing discourse, but in circum-           al-Raziq, on the other hand, faced strong opposition to his
> stances that compel reckoning with the actual and theoretical       explicit rejection of the view that Islam necessarily combined
> aspects of Western politics. Among the many responses               the realms of religion and state, and argued that the institumanifested in modern political thought, we may refer to the         tion of the caliphate was not required by religion.
> ideas of certain thinkers whose vision included both preservation of a redefined Muslim identity and the adoption of                  The separation of state and religion, while supported by
> certain foreign institutions, such as the nation-state, demo-       
Abd al-Raziq and other secularists, is rejected by Islamists,
> cratic representation, constitutionalism, and so on; and to the     for whom Muslims’ primary allegiance should be to the
> ideas of thinkers who assert an Islamic form of politics that, in   religious community (the umma) and for whom an Islamic
> theory at least, is independent of Western models. The              order necessarily embraces the political as well as the perspectrum between these two poles, and the variety within            sonal religious realms. Hasan al-Banna (1906–1949), founder
> them, are naturally extensive.                                      in 1928 of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, emphasized
> the all-encompassing nature of Islam in human affairs. His
> In the modern era, the word dawla, which in premodern           intellectual successors, such as Sayyid Qutb (1906–1966),
> times tended to denote a period of dynastic rule, has come to       Abu l-A
la Maududi (1903–1979) and Ruhollah Khomeini
> signify a state, in the sense that this concept had acquired in     (1902–1989), have argued that the prophet Muhammad him-
> Europe between the sixteenth and the twentieth centuries.           self combined religion and state, and that this combination
> The term, and its referent, have come to play a central role in     established a lasting model. Sayyid Qutb, a prominent memmodern political discourse. Rifa
a Rafi
 al-Tahtawi (1801–1873)      ber of the Muslim Brotherhood, composed many of his most
> employed the term watan (corresponding to the French                influential works while imprisoned under Jamal 
Abd alpatrie) to denote the territorial aspect of the concept of the      Nasser. Central to Sayyid Qutb’s thought was the concept of
> state; but he did not reject the concept of the pan-Islamic         neo-Jahiliyya, according to which contemporary societies,
> umma. Jamal al-Din al-Afghani (1839–1897), a highly influ-           including those that were nominally Muslim, had fallen into
> ential commentator on political matters throughout much of          pagan ignorance, a lapse that could only be rectified by
> the Islamic world during the nineteenth century, insisted that      struggle (jihad) to overturn the secular state and install in its
> the Islamic religion was compatible with the exercise of            place an Islamic order, in which human laws would give way
> human reason, and was thus compatible with the kind of              to God-given laws. In practice, as the case of postrevolutionary
> scientific inquiry and technological development that had            Iran demonstrates, such ideas need not preclude the adoption
> flourished in modern Europe. At the same time, al-Afghani            of such principles as constitutionalism, the separation of
> absolutely rejected Muslim rulers’ subservience to Western          powers, and popular sovereignty.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                      551
> Polygamy
> 
> As India struggled for its independence from Great Brit-       Azmeh, Aziz al-. Muslim Kingship. Power and the Sacred in
> ain, Maududi, founder in 1941 of the Jama
at-e Islami,               Muslim, Christian, and Pagan Polities. London and New
> opposed the forms of nationalism represented by the Indian           York: I. B. Tauris, 1997.
> National Congress on the one hand and by the Muslim                Cook, Michael. Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in
> League on the other. Instead, he argued in favor of the              Islamic Thought. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University
> restoration of an Islamic order in India. Despite his opposi-        Press, 2000.
> tion to the Muslim League, however, Maududi moved to the           Crone, Patricia, and Hinds, Martin. God’s Caliph. Cambridge,
> new state of Pakistan following its creation in 1947. Maududi        U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
> asserted strongly the idea that Pakistan should be not merely      Enayat, Hamid. Modern Islamic Political Thought. Austin:
> a state for Muslims but an Islamic state. For Maududi, an            University of Texas Press, 1982.
> Islamic state was one in which all areas of public and private     Lambton, A. K. S. State and Government in Medieval Islam.
> life were regulated in accordance with the unchanging shari
a.       Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 1980.
> His idea of the Islamic state was based on neither national-       Lewis, Bernard. The Political Language of Islam. Chicago and
> ism nor democracy. Although highly controversial in Paki-            London: University of Chicago Press, 1988.
> stan, Maududi’s books and pamphlets have been translated           Madelung, Wilferd. The Succession to Muhammad. A Study of
> into many languages and are widely read throughout the               the Early Caliphate. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge Univer-
> Islamic world.                                                       sity Press.
> Modarressi, Hossein. Crisis and Consolidation in the Formative
> In the Shi
ite world, Khomeini contributed significantly          Period of Shi‘ite Islam. Princeton, N.J.: The Darwin
> to the increased emphasis on political activism in modern            Press, 1993.
> times through his reinterpretations of several important fea-      Mottahedeh, Roy P. Loyalty and Leadership in an Early Islamic
> tures of earlier Imami Shi
ite thought. For example, Shi
ites        Society. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1980.
> had traditionally looked to the hidden imam to establish           Sivan, Emmanuel. Radical Islam. Medieval Theology and Modjustice on earth at the time of his eventual return; this belief      ern Politics. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1980.
> had long been conducive to political quietism. Khomeini,           Soroush, 
Abdolkarim. Reason, Freedom, and Democracy in
> however, took the view that Muslims need wait no longer.              Islam: Essential Writings of 
Abdolkarim Soroush. Trans-
> Instead, they could hasten the return of the imam by acting           lated by Mahmoud Sadri and Ahmad Sadri. New York:
> themselves to resist injustice and to establish an Islamic            Oxford University Press, 2000.
> political order in the here and now. Furthermore, Khomeini
> expressed the view that the mujtahids were responsible for the                                                      Louise Marlow
> execution of all the religious and worldly duties that the
> Prophet himself had performed. These responsibilities should
> be exercised not through the collective body of qualified
> scholars but through a single jurist. This doctrine, known as
> POLYGAMY
> “the guardianship of the jurist” (velayat-e faqih), remains a
> Islamic law allows only men to enter more than one marriage
> subject of debate among Imami scholars. In the decades since
> at a time, justifying it by reference to the Quran (4:3, 24, 25)
> the Islamic Revolution of 1979, as a result of which Iran
> and the marriages of the prophet Mohammad. Although
> successfully extricated itself from Western intervention and
> polygamy (strictly, “polygyny”) has never been common in
> rejected a politics conditioned by the interests of the West, a    Muslim societies, in many areas it was always rare, and
> number of Iranian thinkers, such as 
Abd al-Karim Sorush,          incidence has diminished in modern times. In the twentieth
> have been among the most notable contributors to a contem-         century, men’s right to contract plural marriages became one
> porary renewal and broadening of Islamic political thought         of the contentious issues in debates over women’s rights in
> along lines that emphasize individual rights and freedoms,         Islam. Not only did the practice become stigmatized but its
> and democracy.                                                     religious legitimacy began to be challenged by new readings
> of Islamic sacred texts and the introduction of notions of
> See also Caliphate; Imamate; Iran, Islamic Republic of;
> equity and justice in gender rights. In contrast to classical
> Law; Modernization, Political: Constitutionalism;
> Muslim jurists, modern jurists tend to argue that interdiction
> Monarchy; Pakistan, Islamic Republic of; Political
> of the practice, rather than its sanction, can be deduced from
> Islam; Reform: Arab Middle East and North Africa;
> the Quran verses, and that polygamy should be allowed only
> Reform: Iran; Shi
a: Imami (Twelver); Shari
a; Suc-                in exceptional circumstances and under limited conditions.
> cession; Ulema.                                                    Likewise, in some Muslim countries plural marriages are
> either outlawed (as in Turkey and Tunisia), or the registra-
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                       tion of such marriages is allowed only by means of a court
> Arjomand, Saïd. The Shadow of God and the Hidden Imam.             order that either requires the first wife’s consent or grants her
> Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1984.          the right to divorce (as in Jordan, Malaysia, Iran, Iraq, and
> 
> 552                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Property
> 
> Syria). Elsewhere, especially in the Persian Gulf countries,       of private ownership. In keeping with this implication, from
> men face no legal restrictions in contracting plural marriages.    the early caliphs to monarchs of the nineteenth century,
> Because of social sanctions, plural marriages all over the         successive Muslim rulers routinely confiscated uncultivated
> Muslim world are often contracted in secret.                       lands. Though frequently defended in Islamic terms, these
> expropriations also accorded with Hellenic and Persian tradi-
> See also Gender; Marriage.                                         tions that treated the state as the ultimate owner of all land.
> 
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                           Like rulers everywhere, premodern Muslim rulers gener-
> Asghar, Ali. The Rights of Women in Islam. London: Hurst and       ally understood that threats to the material security of indi-
> Company, 1992.                                                  viduals, including confiscations and arbitrary taxation, reduced
> Maghniyyah, Muhammad Jawad. Marriage According to Five             government revenue by harming incentives to produce. So
> Schools of Islamic Law. Tehran: Department of Translation        Islamic history offers many examples of rulers alleviating the
> and Publication, Islamic Culture and Relations Organiza-         tax burden of a region or class of subjects with the express
> tion, 1997.                                                      purpose of stimulating economic activity. However, not until
> modern times have there existed effective legal safeguards
> Ziba Mir-Hosseini      against state-initiated or condoned predation. A ruler urgently in need of resources to run a military campaign or
> overcome a political challenge could generally prey on his
> subjects without legal hindrance. Muslim writers of the me-
> PRAYER, CALL TO See 
Ibadat
> dieval Middle East, including Maqrizi and Ibn Khaldun,
> observe that distressed rulers made it a habit of grabbing the
> visible possessions of the wealthy, including estates of the
> deceased. Such expropriations were often carried out under
> PREACHING See Khutba                                               the pretext that the seized assets had been acquired illegally.
> 
> From the fact that rulers felt a need to justify their
> predatory acts, one may infer that subjects expected them to
> respect established use rights. This expectation was based
> PROPERTY                                                           partly on the principle that individuals are entitled to private
> ownership (milk). Though at odds with the principle of divine
> A source of conflict in the pre-Islamic Middle East, the            ownership, private ownership thus remained a concept recconcept of property remained controversial after the rise of       ognized by Islamic law. Moreover, even as Muslim rulers
> Islam. From the seventh century to the modern era, Islamic         pursued policies harmful to material security, Islamic courts
> rulings, opinions, and institutions designed to broaden pri-       routinely enforced individual property rights.
> vate ownership rights coexisted with policies that undermined them. Initially, the consequent material insecurity was          Another mechanism through which Islam weakened prinothing unusual by the prevailing global standards. However,       vate ownership rights was grounded in zakat, an institution
> the gradual strengthening of private property rights in west-      designed to prevent opportunistic taxation. Mentioned in the
> ern Europe caused the Islamic world to sink below the              Quran and implemented by the Prophet, the zakat system
> standards of the day.                                              imposed fixed tax rates that varied across income and wealth
> categories. For example, the rate on agricultural income was
> In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries European trav-
> 10 percent in naturally irrigated areas but 5 percent in areas
> elers to the Middle East found signs of weak property rights,
> irrigated artificially. During the Prophet’s lifetime, this fixity
> such as residential styles designed to conceal wealth. For their
> served to block attempts at radical redistribution. At the same
> part, eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Middle Eastern
> time, it precluded the establishment of general principles
> visitors to the West were favorably impressed by the material
> for amending zakat rates and broadening the system’s covsecurity afforded to individual Europeans. Significantly, the
> erage. Consequently, the zakat system soon became out-
> Middle East’s magnificent architectural heritage consists
> dated, allowing later rulers to impose taxes arbitrarily and
> almost exclusively of communal structures. Had the region
> opportunistically. The rate schedule of the agricultural tax
> made early progress in broadening the scope of property
> known as 
ushr, though patterned after the zakat requirerights, its surviving premodern structures would have included many private residences, as in western Europe.              ments on land, has varied greatly across time and space. In any
> case, this tax has often been accompanied by sundry other
> Islam has influenced the evolution of ownership rights          taxes without any basis in Islam’s traditional sources of
> through several mechanisms, some of which operated at              authority. In facilitating the variability of taxation, the zakat
> cross-purposes. Verse 7:128 of the Quran, which holds that        system unintentionally contributed to the precariousness of
> all property belongs to God, would seem to rule out all forms      individual property rights.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                     553
> Prophets
> 
> A creative and effective response to the weakness of these   and later Muslim traditions attach great importance to cerrights was the waqf system. A waqf is an unincorporated trust    tain beliefs and practices associated with all the prophets.
> established under Islamic law by an individual for the provision of a designated service in perpetuity. Its assets are           The Quran itself (2:136, 3:84, 4:136, 42:13) and later
> considered sacred. From the eighth century onward, it served     Muslim creeds stipulate belief in all the prophets and the
> as an increasingly popular device to protect personal wealth     books revealed to them without making distinctions among
> by diminishing the likelihood of confiscation. Right up to        them. The Fiqh al-akbar (art. 8), traditionally attributed to the
> modern times, Muslim rulers were much less likely to seize       jurist Abu Hanifa, states that Muslims should believe that
> waqf-owned assets than they were to confiscate private prop-      Moses and Jesus were prophets, perhaps in reference to 2:285
> erty, for they sought to avoid developing a reputation for       and 4:152. The so-called Fiqh al-akbar II (art. 20), the Wasiyat
> impiety.                                                         Abi Hanifa (art. 25) and the 
Aqida of Ahmad b. Ja
far al-
> Tahawi (art. 5) all state the belief in the intercession of the
> Although establishing a waqf usually required a commit-       prophets for their followers on the Day of Judgment.
> ment to provide social services, it came with the privilege of
> appointing oneself as its mutawalli (trustee and manager). At       Some Muslim scholars distinguish between a generic
> some cost, therefore, a waqf founder was able to secure a        “prophet” (nabi) and a “messenger” or “apostle” (rasul),
> portion of his wealth for his own and his family’s benefit. If    maintaining that only a select few of the many prophets were
> the waqf system became much more important to the                messengers, supposed to have brought a revealed book to
> premodern Middle Eastern economy than trusts were to the         their people. Within the Quran, other terms are used to refer
> economies of western Europe, the reason is that in the           to prophets, including “messiah” or “Christ” (masih) with
> Middle East private property rights were clearly weaker and,     reference exclusively to Jesus. Ibn Sa
d (d. 230) reports that
> hence, the need for wealthy shelters measurably greater.         the number of rasul including the prophet Muhammad is 315,
> and the total number of prophets is one thousand. Other
> A salient characteristic of Middle Eastern history is the     Muslim sources list the total number of prophets as 224,000.
> absence of broad movements to strengthen private property
> rights. It offers nothing akin to the protracted European            The stories of the prophets make up a significant portion
> movements that limited the economic powers of kings and          of the Quran, but the Quran does not mention the names of
> queens. The very availability of the waqf option helps to        all the prophets claimed by some Muslim scholars. By name
> explain this difference. It dampened collective action on the    there are twenty-five prophets mentioned in the Quran,
> part of wealth holders likely to benefit from stronger prop-      though there are some disagreements concerning the indierty rights. Formal property rights arrived in the Middle East   vidual identities of all these. Among those mentioned by
> in the nineteenth century through sweeping economic re-          name are: Adam (mentioned 25 times by name), Idris (1), Nah
> forms based largely on European models. Property rights are      (Noah; 43), Hud (7), Salih (10), Ibrahim (Abraham; 69),
> broadly recognized in the modern civil codes of Middle           Isma
il (Ishmael; 12), Ishaq (Isaac; 17), Ya
qub (Jacob; 16),
> Eastern countries.                                               Lut (Lot; 27), Yusuf (Joseph; 27), Shu
ayb (11), Ayyub (Job;
> 4), Dhu-l-Kifl (2), Musa (Moses; 137), Harun (Aaron; 20),
> See also Economy and Economic Institutions; Waqf.                Dawud (David; 16), Sulayman (Solomon; 17), Ilyas (Elijah;
> 1), Alisa (Elisha; 2), Yunus (Jonah; 4), Zakariyya (Zechariah;
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                     7), Yahya (John; 5), 
Issa (Jesus; 25), and Muhammad (4).
> Kuran, Timur. “The Provision of Public Goods under Islamic
> Law: Origins, Impact, and Limitations of the Waqf Sys-            Other passages in the Quran refer to prophets without
> tem.” Law and Society Review 35 (2001): 301–357.               mentioning names, but Muslim tradition identifies the prophets
> Mayer, A. E., ed. Property, Social Structure, and Law in the     by name such as: Khidr, Ezekiel, Samuel, Jeremiah, and
> Modern Middle East. Albany: State University of New York       Daniel. In some cases, such as the case of the prophet sent to
> Press, 1985.                                                   the People of the Well (25:38, 50:12) and to the People of the
> City mentioned in Sura Ya-Sin (36:13–29), the prophets are
> Timur Kuran       not identified by name in the Quran, and the names given to
> the prophets are not well known outside of Muslim exegesis.
> There are also important characters, mentioned by name in
> the Quran, such as Luqman and Dhu al-Qarnayn, who are
> PROPHETS                                                         not considered prophets but whose stories are nevertheless
> included in the later Muslim stories of the prophets.
> According to Muslim interpretation of the Quran, the prophet
> Muhammad is considered to be the “seal of the prophets,” the        The Quran mentions scriptures revealed to Abraham
> culmination of a line of prophets stretching back through        (53:36–37, 87:18–19), and specifies the Torah and Gospel
> Jesus, Moses, and Abraham to Adam. Many but not all of the       (3:3, 3:48, 3:60, 5:43–46, 5:66), Psalms of David (4:163,
> prophets preceding Muhammad are mentioned in the Quran,         17:55), and Quran (12:1–3, 20:2, 27:19, 56:77–80, 76:23) as
> 
> 554                                                                                          Islam and the Muslim World
> Purdah
> 
> revealed books. A hadith report given on the authority of Abu    their revealed scriptures, and largely embrace the diversity of
> Dharr states that scriptures were revealed to Adam, Seth,        the various “versions” of different stories focusing on the
> Idris, and Abraham in addition to the revelation of the Torah    common veneration of certain recognized figures such as
> to Moses, the Psalms to David, the Gospel to Jesus, and the      Abraham, Moses, and Jesus.
> Quran to Muhammad. According to al-Tabari, the “first
> scriptures” mentioned in Q 20:133 and 87:18 are the scrip-       See also Islam and Other Religions; Muhammad; Quran.
> tures revealed to Seth and Idris.
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Muslim tradition also mentions the relics of prophets,       Firestone, Reuven. Journeys in the Holy Lands: The Evolution of
> some of which are venerated in shrines and are the focus of         the Abraham-Ishmael Story in Islamic Exegesis. Albany: State
> seasonal rituals. Muslims perform pilgrimages to the tombs          University of New York Press, 1990.
> of certain prophets such as that of Hud in the Hadramawt and     Lassner, Jacob. Demonizing the Queen of Sheba: Boundaries of
> Shu
ayb in Yemen. According to the Arab geographer Yaqut,           Gender and Culture in Postbiblical Judaism and Medieval
> the tomb of Adam is said to be in Mecca, and Muslim                 Islam. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993
> pilgrimages visit the tomb of Muhammad in Medina. Arti-          Newby, Gordon. The Making of the Last Prophet: A Reconstrucfacts of the prophets are also attested such as the Ark of the     tion of the Earliest Biography of Muhammad. Columbia:
> Covenant, a mirror and ring that belonged to Solomon, the          University of South Carolina Press, 1989.
> ring and book of Daniel, and a number of items closely           Schöck, Cornellia. Adam im Islam: Ein Beitrag zur Ideengeschichte
> associated with Muhammad including his hair and finger-              der Sunna. Berlin: Klaus Schwarz, 1993.
> nails. The footprints of prophets, including Abraham, Moses,     Schwarzbaum, Haim. Biblical and Extra-Biblical Legends in
> and Muhammad, are also preserved in religious institutions          Islamic Folk-Literature. Waldorf-Hessen: Beiträge zur
> and museums along with articles of clothing and weapons.            Sprach- und Kulturgeschichte des Orients 30, 1982.
> Tabari. The History of al-Tabari. Vol. 1: From Creation to the
> In addition to the standard Quran commentaries that
> Flood. Translated by Franz Rosenthal. Albany: State Uniwere written according to the order of the suras and verses in     versity of New York Press, 1989. Vol. 2: Prophets and
> the Quran, Muslim scholars also compiled “stories of the          Patriarchs. Translated by William Brinner (1987). Vol. 3:
> prophets,” which excerpted and commented on the large              The Children of Israel. Translated by William Brinner
> parts of the Quran concerned with the prophets leading up         (1991). Vol. 4: The Ancient Kingdoms. Translated by Moshe
> to Muhammad. These works organized the Quran passages             Perlmann (1987).
> in narrative order beginning with Adam and ending with           Thackston, Wheeler. The Tales of the Prophets of al-Kisai.
> Muhammad, roughly paralleling the biblical chronology of           Boston: Twayne, 1978.
> these same figures. Best known for their stories of the proph-    Wensinck, Arent Jan. The Muslim Creed: Its Genesis and
> ets were Tha
labi and Ibn Kathir, and stories of the prophets      Historical Development. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge Unimade up significant parts of universal histories such as those      versity Press, 1932.
> compiled by Tabari, Ya
qubi, Ibn al-Athir, and in the biogra-    Wheeler, Brannon. Moses in the Quran and Islamic Exegesis.
> phy of the prophet Muhammad by Ibn Ishaq.                         London and New York.: RoutledgeCurzon, 2002.
> 
> The prophet-by-prophet and overall chronological struc-       Wheeler, Brannon. Prophets in the Quran: An Introduction to
> the Quran and Muslim Exegesis. London: Continuum, 2002.
> ture of these story collections contributed to a more accessible and less piecemeal interpretation of the Quran. The
> Brannon M. Wheeler
> genre of “stories of the prophets” has been more closely
> associated with sermons and popular Quran interpretation,
> and it is likely that some of the earliest Quran interpretations, like those attributed to Wahb b. Munabbih, Ka
b al-       PULPIT See Minbar (Mimbar)
> Ahbar, and Ibn 
Abbas, originated as sermons or stories of the
> prophets. Later works devoted to the stories of the prophets,
> especially in Persian, were richly illustrated, picturing the
> prophets in certain well-known scenes from the popular
> stories. In the Muslim world today, one of the most popular      PURDAH
> formats for presentation of the Quran to children is through
> books and videos illustrating the stories of the prophets.       Purdah, from the Persian word for curtain, pardah, refers to
> the custom of veiling and secluding women in Islamic socie-
> Most of the prophets in the Quran as well as those          ties. The Arabic term is hijab. The custom derives from
> mentioned by name in later Muslim interpretation parallel        references in the Quran to speaking with women from
> characters from the Bible and its interpretation in Jewish and   behind a curtain (33:53) and to hadith enjoining modest
> Christian traditions. Muslim scholars have seen these paral-     behavior for Muslims of both sexes. Purdah is observed in a
> lels as evidence of the shared origins of these religions and    variety of ways, all of them involving some form of sexual
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                   555
> Purdah
> 
> segregation. In its most extreme form, women are confined to       stole that adorns the shoulders, but can be put over the hair
> their homes; alternatively, it involves male social interaction   when necessary.
> and schooling with other males and similarly segregated
> social activities and schooling for females. Usually, purdah          Controversy exists over the meaning of renewed purdah
> involves various forms of modest dress in order to keep           observance in recent times. It can be seen as the oppressive
> women from being seen by unrelated males. These range             imposition of social segregation upon women, or as a matter
> from all-enveloping garments to scarves that cover the hair.      of choice, in which the use of the veil expresses a woman’s
> faith and cultural identity. Indicative of this latter phenome-
> While the custom is associated with the religion of Islam,     non is the fact that wearing a head scarf is becoming more
> purdah is also a form of cultural and political symbolism.        common as Muslims migrate to non-Muslim countries.
> During the period of rapid modernization in the early twentieth century, many middle-class, urban Muslim women gave           See also Gender; Harem; Veiling.
> up the veil. In more recent times, movements of cultural pride
> and religious reassertion have prompted many Muslim women         BIBLIOGRAPHY
> to don it again. Purdah observation varies according to           Papanek, Hanna. “Purdah: Separate Worlds and Symbolic
> region, culture, and class. In Iran, the chador became the          Shelter.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 15, no.
> emblem of the Islamic revolution, symbolic of the rejection of      3 (1973): 289–325.
> the West and of westernization. In Afghanistan, the all-          Shirazi, Faegheh. The Veil Unveiled: Hijab in Modern Culture.
> enveloping burqa was required by the Taliban government,             Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2001.
> though it also provided symbolic protection for women in          Zuhur, Sherifa. Revealing Reveiling: Islamist Gender Ideology in
> politically unstable situations. In Pakistan and India, Muslim      Contemporary Egypt. Albany: State University of New
> women wear a variety of veil forms: the chaddar—a large             York Press, 1992.
> shawl that hides the feminine form, the burqa—a coatlike
> garment with an adjustable head piece, the dupatta—a sheer                                                         Gail Minault
> 
> 556                                                                                           Islam and the Muslim World
> Q
> QADHDHAFI, MU
MAR AL- (1943– )                                              Qadhdhafi’s leadership of Libya during the first decade
> after 1969 brought many changes to ordinary Libyans such as
> providing free medical care, building the infrastructure of the
> Mu
mar al-Qadhdhafi was the most dominant Libyan leader
> country, and expanding education especially for Libyan
> in the second half of the twentieth century. His childhood
> women. However, secular and Islamic opposition were reand political ideology were influenced by his family’s tribal
> pressed. Since the early 1980s, the Libyan economy has
> values, anticolonial Islam, and Arab nationalism during the
> grown more dependent on oil for its revenues than it was
> upheavals of the Egyptian revolution (1952) and the Algerian
> under the old regime, and agriculture continues to decline
> anticolonial revolution (1954–1965). As the sole leader of              despite large and expensive projects. Despite these mixed
> Libya since 1969, he has changed the socioeconomic and                  legacies, the Libyan revolution under Qadhdhafi’s leadership
> political structures of that nation. He created and led a self-         is a turning point in the making of modern Libya in the
> declared revolutionary state governed by an organization of             twentieth century.
> popular committees and congresses with a rich oil-based
> rentier economy.                                                        See also Modernization, Political: Authoritarianism and
> Democratization.
> Qadhdhafi was born in 1943 (other sources say he was
> born earlier) in a tent to a poor itinerant Bedouin family that         BIBLIOGRAPHY
> belonged to the Qadhafa tribe. In 1965, Qadhdhafi and some               Ahmida, Ali Abdullatif. The Making of Modern Libya: State
> of his friends entered the military academy and began to                  Formation, Colonialization, and Resistance, 1830–1932.
> recruit other officers in his revolutionary organization, the              Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994.
> Free Unionist Officers Movement.                                         Ayoub, Mahmoud M. Islam and the Third Universal Theory:
> The Religious Thought of Mu
ammar al-Qadhdhafi. London:
> Qadhdhafi’s ideology stresses Arab nationalism, Islam,                 KPI Limited, 1987.
> self-determination, social justice, and denounced the corruption of the old regime. He theorizes that historical change is                                                 Ali Abdullatif Ahmida
> caused by religion and nationalism. Qadhdhafi advocates
> opening the gates of ijtihad (free reason of Islamic law ) and
> hence accepts only the Quran as the main basis of Islamic
> law. Such views place him on the side of reformist Islamic              QADI (KADI, KAZI)
> traditions. He was also anticommunist, which brought him
> A qadi is the term for a Muslim judge who issues definitive
> international recognition from the Nixon administration in
> rulings in cases brought by disputants for resolution. The
> the United States. After consolidating his power and crushed
> word qadi is derived from the root word q-d-y, meaning “to
> the opposition in 1975, Qadhdhafi began to apply his ideas,
> resolve,” “to settle,” “to decide.”
> which were presented in his Green Book (1976, 1980). He
> advocated what he called the Third Universal Theory, a                     Judicial practice is seen as an extension of the function of
> third way between capitalism and Marxism based on the                   the ruler and is thus indirectly linked to orderly governance.
> direct democracy of popular organization of congresses and              Muslim political theory advocates the appointment of an
> committees.                                                             executive ruler (caliph/imam) as a moral obligation (fard)
> 
> Qadi
> 
> premised on religious authority. The appointment of judges          prophetic tradition that prevents women from holding the
> is thus in keeping with the fulfillment of an obligation             office of a qadi, the early juristic viewpoint on this matter
> according to the classical Sunni legal authorities. Early Shi
ite   reflects the social conditions of patriarchy, where the religauthorities argue that the implementation of the rules of the       ious norm is colored by social context.
> revealed law (shari
a) is an obligation not subject to rational
> scrutiny (ta
abbud) and can only be fulfilled by the designated          The situation in modern Muslim nation-states from the
> hereditary religious leader (imam) or his delegated appoint-        twentieth century onward is somewhat different. In many
> ees. Only those judges appointed by the legitimate political        societies where a version of Islamic law is still practiced, such
> leader can be deemed to have worthy credentials as appoint-         as family law, women do perform the role of qadis. However,
> ees to the office of judgeship.                                      the advancement of women to high levels in the profession of
> judgeship still remains an ongoing struggle.
> According to the Sunni scholar al-Ghazali, the role of the
> judiciary (qada) is similar to the process of issuing juridical         According to the classical authorities, non-Muslim qadis
> responsa (fatwa, pl. fatawa), where academic jurists offer          can only have jurisdiction over fellow non-Muslims, but do
> learned opinions to questions about the moral status of             not have jurisdiction over Muslim petitioners. Sunni and
> practices. There is of course a crucial difference between a        Shi
ite authorities do not accept the testimony of non-Muslims
> jurisconsult (mufti) and a judge (qadi). The former only            against Muslims. Given the parallels between judgeship and
> provides information to the questioner as to what the juridical-    testimony, non-Muslim qadis are not viewed as qualified to
> moral status or value (hukm) of a specific act is, while the         give verdicts over Muslims. While these practices stem from
> primary purpose of the latter is to apply and enforce the           assumptions of Islamic power and empire, this rule is often
> established rules by means of the coercive authority held by        ignored in modern multireligious and multiethnic societies
> the ruler, or later devolved upon the modern state.                 that include significant Muslim populations such as India,
> Malaysia, and Nigeria. Irrespective of Muslim majority or
> Across the spectrum of Muslim law schools treatises             minority contexts, non-Muslim judges do issue binding ruldetailing the ethics of judgeship are in abundance. A high bar      ings on Muslim petitioners with little objection from the
> is set for qualification as a qadi, requiring candidates to meet     traditional religious scholars (ulema).
> an extensive list of prerequisites. The most important of these
> pre-requisites are that qadis should be knowledgeable of the            In the premodern period qadis had jurisdiction over an
> law and its cognitive disciplines, as well as display moral         entire gamut of laws ranging from administrative law, torts,
> rectitude as individiuals with impeccable credentials within        and commercial law to criminal law. In several places, espetheir society. Classical Muslim authorities see an intimate         cially in North Africa, there were also courts of appeals.
> link between qualification as a judge and possessing the             However, with the displacement of Islamic law by secular and
> credentials of being a reliable witness (shahada). Those who        Western legal codes in the nineteenth and twentieth centupass the test to serve as credible witnesses, also in theory        ries, the jurisdiction of the qadi is in many instances limited to
> qualify as having the credentials to serve as qadis.                family law matters; in many places the office has been abolished. On the other hand, in some countries where Islamic
> Among the earliest judges delegated by the prophet Mu-          law has been reintroduced as the main source of law in the
> hammad to serve in certain regions were the companions              twentieth century, the office of the qadi has been revived.
> Mu
adh ibn Jabal, who was sent to Yemen, and 
Itab b. Usayd,
> who was sent to Mecca. Later successors, notably 
Umar b.           See also Fatwa; Law; Mufti; Religious Institutions.
> Al-Khattab, gave particular attention to the development of a
> proto-judicial system. He appointed the famous Shurayh b.           BIBLIOGRAPHY
> al-Harith al-Kindi (d. c. 699/700) as qadi of Kufa. Shurayh
> Powers, David. “On Judicial Review in Islamic Law.” Law &
> was affirmed by the caliph/imam 
Ali who held him in high
> Society Review 26, no. 2 (1992): 315–341.
> esteem, provided him with a monthly stipend, even though he
> fired him for issuing a wrong judgment, but 
Ali also later          Tyser, C. R., et al., trans. “About a Judge and the Duties of a
> Judge.” In The Mejelle. Kuala Kumpur, Malaysia: The
> reinstated him. 
Umar’s famous letter to Abu Musa al-Ash
ari
> Other Press, 2001.
> is held out as a model document that enshrines the ideals of
> judgeship in Islam in which he pleads for equity for all people,    
Umar al-Khassaf, Ahmad ibn, and Sadr al-Shahid, 
Abd al-
> 
Aziz, trans. Munir Ahmad Mughal, Adab al-Qadi: Islamic
> rich or poor, and warns against the miscarriage of justice.
> Legal and Judicial System. Lahore: Kazi Publications, 1999.
> Historically, the profession has been dominated by males.        Yaacob, Abdul Monir. “Duties of Qadis in Islamic Law.”
> Most of the law schools make maleness a prerequisite for               Journal Undang-Undang IKIM, Institute of Islamic Underbeing a judge. However, in theory at least, some of the                standing Malaysia Law Journal 4, no. 1 (January–June
> classical schools permit women to be judges, while barring             2000): 39–52.
> them from deciding cases involving criminal penalties (hudud).
> However, since there is no explicit directive in the Quran or                                                      Ebrahim Moosa
> 
> 558                                                                                              Islam and the Muslim World
> Qa
ida, al-
> 
> soon thereafter M.A.K. began to recruit, indoctrinate, and
> QA
IDA, AL-                                                         train its volunteers in effective resistance methods, including
> terrorist tactics. 
Azzam held a particularly hard-line doctrine
> The name of the radical organization al-Qa
ida (also spelled        of jihad, which, according to his understanding of the Quran
> al-Qaeda) has the literal meaning of “the foundation” or “the       and sunna of the prophet Muhammad, required militant
> base.” The organization arose in the last quarter of the            opposition to Islam’s perceived enemies. This view was adopted
> twentieth century to oppose the military and economic inter-        by Usama bin Ladin, although at what point is not clear.
> vention of non-Muslim states in predominantly Muslim lands.         Another important influence in the al-Qa
ida network of
> It came to the attention of the public in the United States and     organizations is Ayman al-Zawahiri (1951– ), an Egyptian
> around the world on 11 September 2001, immediately fol-             physician who joined the radical al-Jama
a al-Islamiyya (Islowing the deadly attacks on the World Trade Center in New          lamic Group) and affiliated with bin Ladin during the late
> York City and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., that killed         twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.
> more than three thousand people and terrified those who
> witnessed the well-covered event on television. The broader             During the Afghan war against the Soviet military, the
> association of al-Qa
ida and its leader, Usama bin Ladin, with      organized resistance efforts of M.A.K. also became known as
> terrorism was immediate and pervasive in media coverage             al-Qa
ida. Other names were adopted by Usama bin Ladin,
> and political discourse in America and elsewhere.                   such as “The Islamic Global Front for Combating Jews and
> Crusaders [Christians].” Indeed, such names, including al-
> Al-Qa
ida was the first of the militant Islamist organiza-        Qa
ida, do not refer to a single organization with a single
> tions to operate on a global scale. It did so in part by adopting   central command headquartered in a known place, but rather
> many of the technologies and communications methods of              to a cluster or complex of organizations and movements
> the very global organization whose famous twin-tower build-         whose affiliations and organizational structure are not yet
> ings in New York it allegedly destroyed on 11 September             well known or understood. In the 1980s al-Qa
ida functioned
> 2001. Although a considerable amount of data on al-Qa
ida           as an ally of United States against the Soviet Union, receiving
> and its operatives has been gathered and published by gov-          covert funds through the C.I.A. When the war wound down
> ernmental security agencies and investigative reporters, as of      with the defeat of the Soviets in 1988, the organization’s
> 2003 a thorough academic study of the organization or, more         interests expanded globally, to include other Muslim fronts
> properly speaking, of the cluster of radical Muslim organiza-       that suffered non-Muslim interventions, including Chechnya,
> tions going by the name of al-Qa
ida, had yet to be under-          the Balkans, Central Asia, Africa, and Indonesia. This new,
> taken by specialists on Islam.                                      more global involvement included an attempt to blow up one
> of the towers of the World Trade center in New York (23
> The ideological founder of al-Qa
ida (sometimes al-Qa
ida       February 1993), simultaneous lethal bomb blasts at two U.S.
> al-sulba: “the solid foundations”) was 
Abdallah 
Azzam, a          embassies in east Africa (1998), an attack on the U.S.S. Cole as
> Palestinian born in 1941. 
Azzam grew up under Israeli              it came into port in the Yemen (2000), and suicidal attacks
> occupation of his homeland. He earned a doctorate in shari
a        using commandeered airplanes against the World Trade
> studies at al-Azhar University in Cairo, after which he taught      Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.,
> in various Middle Eastern universities. He was dismissed            on 11 September 2001.
> from his teaching post at King 
Abd al-
Aziz University in
> Saudi Arabia in 1979 for engaging in Islamist activism. He              Many well-meaning Muslims and non-Muslims have rethen went to Pakistan on the eve of the invasion of Afghani-        garded al-Qa
ida, its leaders and operatives, as beyond the
> stan by armed forces of the Soviet Union. There he met and          pale of the Islamic faith because of the extreme and violent
> became a religious mentor to Usama bin Ladin, who brought           methods they advocate using against moderate Muslim govto the growing anti-Soviet effort (jihad) considerable financ-       ernments and non-Muslim states. Yet it is clear that 
Abdallah
> ing and experience in building the kind of infrastructure           
Azzam, Usama bin Ladin and other leaders and mentors of
> needed to conduct effective counterattacks.                         al-Qa
ida regarded themselves as good Muslims, as being
> among the vanguard of reformers who aim to restore the true
> In 1984 
Azzam and bin Ladin established the Afghan             faith of the founding generations of Islam (the salaf), and as
> Service Bureau Front, known by its Arabic acronym M.A.K.            followers of a legitimate Sunni school of interpretation in
> (maktab al-khidma li-l-mujahin al-
arab, literally, office for       Islam, the Wahhabi-Hanbali school that predominates in
> services for Arab freedom fighters). Among the services they         Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the Gulf states. They proposed
> provided was keeping track of young Muslim males who                a radical Islamic response to modernism and to the constrainjoined the cause from countries around the world, particu-          ing military and political forces of non-Muslim states and
> larly from Arab countries like Saudi Arabia and Egypt, and          their secular agendas, basing that response on interpretations
> they apparently provided relief services to those who were          of Islam that were already circulating in the mid-twentieth
> wounded and to the families of those killed in battle. Very         century.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                     559
> Qanun
> 
> Chief among these interpretations are the writings of          mathematics). All of these books were written between the
> Sayyid Qutb (1906–1966), whose books and pamphlets con-             tenth and fifteenth centuries, indicating that the word had
> tinue to be widely read and appreciated throughout the              passed into common Arabic usage, and was taken to mean the
> Muslim world, even by moderate Muslims who regard their             rules or principles of something.
> faith as greatly misunderstood by non-Muslims and under
> assault by secular modernity. Thus, while willful, murderous            From the earliest centuries of Islam and onward, the word
> acts against innocent victims is regarded as morally reprehen-      was used in a more specialized context to refer to tax registers
> sible by most Muslims and non-Muslims alike, many scholars          and lists, especially of land taxes, as in qanun al-kharaj, and the
> believe that the Islamic self-understanding promoted by the         regulations and assessments of land taxes, as in al-qawanin alleadership and ranks of al-Qa
ida members must also be              muqarrara. In addition, a large number of texts written on the
> analyzed without the attempt to classify them as authentic or       rules of public administration or the administration of the
> inauthentic religious beliefs. Other scholars see al-Qa
ida as a    ruler’s office were titled qanun al-rasail and qanun al-diwan.
> forceful response to Western imperialism during the colonial        In the sixteenth century, Ghiyath al-Din Khwand 
Amir
> and post-colonial periods and to the rapid globalization of         wrote Qanun-e-Humayuni, which recorded the rules and
> market capitalism and secularism since the collapse of the          ordinances established by the emperor Humayun, and some
> Soviet Union in 1989. Most scholars of Islam warn against an        of the building erected by his order.
> ill-founded tendency on the part of some religious leaders
> and media commentators to equate al-Qa
ida with Islam, that            From the Umayyad period, and especially during the
> is, to define and grasp Islam in terms of the public manifesta-      Ottoman era, the word qanun also referred to state regulations of al-Qa
ida and similar radical groups.                      tions, imperial decrees, or edicts that were based on public
> interest and executive discretion, instead of the jurist-based
> See also Bin Ladin, Usama; Fundamentalism; Qutb,                    shari
a law. Such regulations were considered temporal in
> Sayyid; Terrorism.                                                  nature, and therefore, they remained in effect as long as they
> were decreed by a ruler. Upon the death or removal of a ruler,
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                        such regulations had to be confirmed or continued by a
> Gunaratna, Rohan. Inside Al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror.        successor. These regulations were not limited to the field of
> New York: Columbia University Press, 2002.                        taxation, but often covered matters related to court procedure, commercial law, and criminal law as well. They also
> Richard C. Martin       canonized customary practices especially for professional
> guilds and merchants. As far as Muslim jurists were concerned, these regulations were described as executory laws
> (qawanin 
urfiyya) that could be mandated by public interests,
> QANUN                                                               but such regulations were not considered part of the divinely
> based shari
a law. Therefore, such decrees and regulations
> Qanun (pl. qawanin) is a word that apparently entered into          were documented, publicized, and enforced by state func-
> Arabic from Greek, although according to some reports it            tionaries, including judges, but they were not memorialized
> might have been borrowed from Persian or Latin or have              in the books of classical Islamic jurisprudence. From the
> meant the “way to something” or its measurement in old              perspective of Muslim jurists, the legitimacy of such regula-
> Arabic. The word, however, has come to have broad mean-             tions depended on the extent to which they served the public
> ings including a particular musical instrument, known simply        interest, and the interests of justice, and also to the extent they
> as al-qanun, tax assessments, state taxes and tariffs, registers    did not conflict with the jurist-made shari
a law.
> and lists, land measurements, and also rules and regulations.
> In modern times, qanun generally refers to state law, although          The degree to which consecutive Muslim governments
> the word is often used to signify guiding rules, customs, and       relied on qanun, as executive regulations, at the expense of the
> principles. In both premodern and modern times, qanun               jurist-based shari
a law varied widely. Muslim jurists did not
> often referred to secular laws and administrative rules, as         always oppose the imposition of administrative laws or reguopposed to religious laws or shari
a . The word was often used      lations by the state, and, in fact, in tracts written on politics,
> in the titles of books written as early as the tenth century. The   jurists often acknowledged that such regulations are a functitles of some of these books included: al-Qawanin al-shar
iyya     tional necessity. However, since the Umayyad period, there
> (The principles of shari
a), Qawanin al-ahkam al-shar’iyya          was a pronounced tension between state functionaries and
> (The principles of Islamic law), Tashrih al-qanun (The expla-       bureaucrats, and the juristic class. The jurists, as the shari
a
> nation of the law), Qawanin al-siyasa (The rules of govern-         experts, were suspicious, and often defensive, toward atance), Qanun al-sa
ada (Rules of conduct and principles of          tempts by bureaucrats to systematize and centralize the law
> happiness), Qanun al-adab (Rules of good character), Qanun          by limiting the discretionary powers of the jurists. Nonetheal-balagha (Rules of eloquence), Qanun fi al-tibb (Avicenna’s        less, in the period following the Mongol invasions, various
> book on medicine), and Qawanin al-riyada (Principles of             dynasties resorted to increased executive lawmaking, often
> 
> 560                                                                                              Islam and the Muslim World
> Qom
> 
> resulting in aggravating the tensions between the juristic class
> and the state.
> QIBLA
> The usage of the term qanun, in the sense of secular            The place toward which Muslim worshippers direct themlaws, became particularly pronounced in the Ottoman era             selves for prayer, the qibla, has always been an important
> (1218–1924). The Ottoman caliph Mehmed II “the Con-                 Islamic identity marker. The Ka
ba and the Holy City of
> queror” (r. 1451–1481) promulgated his famous qanun-nama            Mecca play a very important role as symbolic center in several
> as a systematic codified set of laws covering various aspects of     kinds of religious behavior. The salat (prayer) is performed
> administrative law, commercial law, and criminal law. Jurists       with the face in the direction of Mecca; the deceased is buried
> at the time were not always supportive of such attempts at          lying on his right side, facing Mecca, and it is also advised to
> centralization and codification of the laws, and often per-          take the qibla into account in a positive or negative way in
> ceived it as an infringement on the integrity of the Islamic        various other activities. Discourse about the qibla is often
> common law, as interpreted and developed by jurists. The            embedded in notions of power and tradition. For example,
> opposition of jurists of centralized state-based laws reached a     the divide among the Javanese communities in present-day
> point that in 1696 Mustafa II (r. 1695–1703), by decree,            Surinam and the Netherlands between East-keblat people and
> forbade the use of the word qanun in conjunction with the           West-keblat are closely related to reformist versus traditionword shari
a . This was induced by the efforts of the jurists to    alist ideas, respectively. The traditionalist West qeblat people
> make clear that state-issued qanun be separate and apart from       keep to their pre-diaspora Javanese customs, identity, and
> shari
a law.                                                        their original Indonesian prayer direction to the West. Reformists argue that it should be altered. Similar discussions take
> With the age of colonialism, the jurisdiction of shari
a law    place elsewhere.
> in most Muslim countries had become progressively restricted and, eventually, confined mostly to personal laws               Recent historical research by Uri Rubin indicates that the
> dealing with marriage, divorce, and inheritance. Most Mus-          first qibla the Muslims used in Mecca was the Ka
ba, in
> lim countries adopted a code-based system of law modeled            agreement with the local hunafa (monotheists), who saw the
> after the French civil law system. In that respect, most            Ka
ba as the qibla of Ibrahim and his son Isma
il. Shortly
> Muslim countries adopted civil and criminal law codes, titled       before the hijra to Medina, and possibly associated with the
> “the qanun of such and such.” For instance, in most Arabic-         revelation of the isra (Muhammad’s night journey, from
> speaking countries one will find the following: al-qanun al-         Mecca to Jerusalem), the qibla was altered toward Jerusalem.
> madani (the civil law code), al-qanun al-jinai (the criminal law   The Meccan sanctuary became the qibla again in 624 C.E. (cf.
> code), qanun al-ijraat (code of legal procedures), and al-         Q. 2: 136ff) when an important change in Muhammad’s
> qanun al-tujari (the commercial code). In such countries, even      attitude toward the Jews occurred.
> in the field of personal law, where shari
a still enjoys the         See also Devotional Life; Law; Science, Islam and.
> dominant influence, matters relating to marriage, divorce,
> and inheritance have been codified in codes known as qanun
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> al-ahwal al-shakhsiyya (the personal law code). In the modern
> Bashear, Sulayman. “Qibla Musharriqa and Early Muslim
> age, state regulations or executive decrees, as opposed to
> Prayer in Churches.” The Muslim World 81, nos. 3–4
> codes, are often referred to as qararat, bayanat, lawaih, or
> (1991): 267–282.
> marasim. Some Muslim countries, such as Saudi Arabia, have
> Ichwan, Moch. Nur. “Continuing Discourse on Keblat:
> not adopted a civil law system, and, instead, rely on the shari
a
> Diasporic Experiences of the Surinamese Javanese Muscommon law, and on executive decrees issued on specific
> lims in the Netherlands.” Sharqiyyāt 11 (1999): 101–119.
> matters such as banking, foreign investments, and labor and
> King, David A., and Wensinck, Arend Jan. “Kibla.” In The
> employment regulations. Although the word qanun today is
> Encyclopaedia of Islam. 2d ed. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1960–.
> used in a technical sense to refer to enacted codes of law, it is
> still used in the more expansive sense of law in general,           Rubin, Uri. “Hanifiyya and Ka
ba: An Inquiry into the
> Arabian Pre-Islamic Background of Dîn Ibrâhîm.” Jerusaincluding Islamic law.
> lem Studies in Arabic and Islam 13 (1990): 94–112.
> See also Law; Modernization, Political: Administrative,
> Military, and Judicial Reform; Political Organization;                                                             Gerard Wiegers
> Shari
a.
> 
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                        QOM
> Inalcik, Halil. “Sulayman the Lawgiver and Ottoman Law.”
> Archivum Ottomanicum1 (1971).                                    A provincial capital since June 1996, 140 kilometers south of
> Tehran, Qom is the biggest center of Shi
ite religious studies
> Khaled Abou El-Fadl       and a pilgrimage site next only to Mashhad in importance. A
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                     561
> Quran
> 
> village before it was settled in the seventh and eighth decades    visited for pilgrimage (ziyara) are the graves of numerous
> of the seventh century by the Ash
aris, a Shi
ite Yemenite         Alavite personages in and around Qom (about 400 imamzadahs,
> tribe that had migrated from Iraq due to differences with          or descendents of the imams, are said to be buried in the city
> Sunni Umayyad rulers, it became, in contrast to the predomi-       and surrounding hamlets). A third major attraction is the
> nantly Sunni towns of the region, a major Shi
ite academic         Jamkaran Mosque, located five kilometers from the city.
> center in the following centuries. Many of the names of            Visited by more than an estimated ten million people annuauthors in al-Najashi’s eleventh-century list of Shi
ite com-      ally, it is believed to have been built at the order of the
> pilers, as well as those of many narrators of traditions in        Twelfth Imam. These shrines in conjunction with numerous
> Shi
ite compendia of hadith, pertain to the Ash
aris of Qom        traditions related from the imams concerning the station of
> (not to be confused with the Ash
ari theological school).          Qom as a Shi
ite sanctuary and stronghold make it Iran’s
> second holiest city after Mashhad.
> Qom’s fame as an academy seems to have disappeared
> after the eleventh century, as the center of Shi
ite learning in   See also Mashhad; Pilgrimage: Ziyara; Revolution:
> Iran shifted to Rey and other northern towns. Although such        Islamic Revolution in Iran.
> figures as Fayz Kashani (d. 1681) and Molla Mohammad
> Tahir Qommi (d. 1686) lived here during the Safavid era,                                                         Rasool Ja
fariyan
> Qom’s partial reemergence as an academy was due to the
> patronage of the Qajars. The presence of Mirza-ye Qommi
> (d. 1816), who enjoyed the patronage of Fath 
Ali Shah
> (1797–1834), is considered a point of departure in the history
> QURAN
> of Qom as an academy. However, a new era began with the
> Muslim housewives commence cooking by reciting a verse
> arrival of Ayatollah Haeri (1859–1936) in 1921. He estabfrom the Quran in order to ensure that more people are able
> lished the present center of learning (hawza-ye 
ilmiyya) durto enjoy the meal. On spotting an approaching dog, Muslims
> ing a period when the Qajar regime was passing away and the
> will hastily read any memorized verse to deflect its possible
> Pahalvi regime was taking shape. From the times of Ayatollah
> ill-intentions. The die-hard Marxists of the Baluchistan Com-
> Borujerdi (d. 1961) onward, the hawza began its rapid growth.
> munist Party in Pakistan commenced their annual conference
> At the end of Reza Shah’s reign the number of seminary
> with a recitation from the Quran. In Cape Town, the local
> students was about 500. It was above 6,000 in 1975, and above
> rugby club will organize a cover-to-cover recitation of it to
> 23,000 in 1991, and presently students from Iran and abroad
> celebrate its fiftieth jubilee. In California, the international
> make up more than 36,000. Under the leadership of Ayatol-
> Muslim homosexual organization takes its name, Al-Fatiha,
> lah Khomeini, a pupil of Ayatollah Haeri, Qom played a key
> from the name of the Quran’s first chapter.
> role in leading the opposition to the Pahlavi regime in the
> events of 1964. It was here that on 9 January 1978 the                The Quran is memorized in small parts by virtually all
> confrontation with the Shah’s security forces occurred, an         Muslims, recited in the daily prayers, or rehearsed at funerals
> event that triggered off the Islamic Revolution of 1979.           and memorial rituals, chanted at the side of the newly born,
> Qom’s political importance as a spiritual and academic center      the sick, or the dying. After death it is recited to ease the
> of the Shi
ite clergy has grown enormously following the           passage of the departed soul into the next and to provide
> Islamic Revolution. From being a small town with a popula-         comfort for those left behind; as if to say “Whatever, be
> tion of 96,499 in 1956, Qom itself has grown rapidly to            assured God is here; just listen to His speech!” Any inmate of
> become one of the major cities of Iran, with a population of       a Dubai prison who memorizes it entirely can get complete
> 825,627 in 2000.                                                   remission from his or her sentence, and a memorization of
> each thirtieth part is rewarded by an equivalent amount off
> Qom’s fame as a pilgrimage spot visited by millions from       one’s sentence.
> Iran and abroad is mainly due to the shrine of Fatimah the
> Infallible (ma
sumah) (d. 816), daughter of Musa b. Ja
far, the        An immediate end can be brought to many an argument
> seventh imam. On the way to visiting her brother, Imam 
Ali        by resorting to: “But God says . . .!” Virtually every Muslim
> b. Musa al-Reza, who was at Marv at the time, she died after a     home is adorned with some verse from it in various forms of
> brief illness at Qom. Since then her shrine has been a             calligraphy, as a means of both beautifying one’s home and
> pilgrimage spot, whose sacred precincts have served as a site      protecting it (with the inhabitants seldom knowing the meanfor royal and noble mausoleums as well as a favored burial         ing of the framed piece of calligraphy). Passages from it are
> ground of the faithful since the Safavid and Qajar periods.        used as amulets to protect from illness or the evil eye. A few
> Although the city and the shrine received some royal atten-        verses containing the prayer that the Quran suggests Noah
> tion during the rule of the Buwayhid (tenth century), Seljuk       offered when he entered the ark are stuck on the windscreens
> (eleventh century), Qara Qoyunlu and Aq Qoyunlu (six-              of vehicles from Chicago to Jakarta to provide protection for
> teenth century) regimes, the present structure dates partly        the driver and passengers. Palatial mansions in many Muslim
> from the Safavid and largely from the Qajar era. Other sites       countries have the verse “This is [an outcome] of my Sustainer’s
> 
> 562                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Quran
> 
> bounty” (27:40) stuck on the gates or walls to ward off any evil     The Quran also describes itself as “a guide for humankind”
> intention. As for its inhabitants, they believe that protection      and “a clear exposition of guidance,” “a distinguisher” (25:1),
> is offered by pasting a few verses, known as the Verses of the       “a reminder” (15:9), “ordinance in the Arabic tongue” (13:37),
> Throne (Ayat al-Kursi), behind the front door. Written texts         “a healer” (10:57), “the admonition” (10:57), “the light”
> conform to or deviate from a language and its rules; in the          (7:157), and “the truth” (17:81). From this literal meaning, it
> case of this text, the development of the language is based on       refers to a revealed oral discourse that unfolded over a period
> it and its rules are rooted primarily in the text.                   of twenty-three years as seemingly a part of God’s response to
> the requirements of society. Only toward the end of this
> This is the Quran. It fulfills many of the same functions in      process is the Quran presented as scripture rather than a
> the lives of Muslims as the Bible does for Christians, but most      recitation or discourse. The word quran is thus used in two
> importantly, it represents to Muslims what Jesus Christ              distinct senses: first, as the designation of a portion or
> represents for devout Christians or the Torah, the eternal law       portions of revelation; and, second, as the name of the entire
> of God, for Jews. Similarly, the history of theological contro-      collection of revelations to Muhammad. This twin meaning
> versy about the nature of the Quran, which flourished from
> of quran, as both a collection and as a book, makes for
> the early days of Islam until orthodoxy finally settled the issue
> fascinating questions about the nature of revelation. Is it a
> of the “true dogma,” is not unlike the early controversies
> collection of divine responses to earthly events or is it a preabout the nature of Jesus Christ and his relationship to the
> existing canon according to which events must play out in
> Father, which was finally settled for the Christian world by
> order that its narratives, injunctions, and exhortations can
> the Council of Nicaea in 325. In the same manner that small
> acquire flesh and blood?
> remnants of the dissident opinions on the nature of Christ
> have survived and reawakened under the impact of critical            The Quran as Written Word
> modern and postmodern thinking in Christianity, so have              For outsiders, the Quran exists primarily as a literary text (alsuch opinions about the nature of the Quran survived in Islam.      kitab); for Muslims, however, it continues to function as both
> a written text (mushaf) and an oral one (al-quran), with an
> For Muslims the Quran is alive and has a quasi-human
> organic relationship existing between these two modes. Most
> personality. Muslims believe that it watches over them and
> of critical scholarship has focused on the written dimensions
> will intercede with God on the Day of Judgment. The Quran
> of the text without reflecting too carefully on its message, and
> is possessed of enormous power; “Had We bestowed this
> has failed to appreciate that its centrality to Muslims tran-
> Quran from on high upon a mountain, you would indeed see
> scends this textual form. Thus, questions are raised by critical
> it [the mountain] humbling itself, breaking asunder for awe of
> scholars about, for example, the identity of Mary, whom the
> God” (59:21).
> Quran describes as the sister of Aaron, and the seeming
> The Quran as Oral Discourse                                         discrepancy between this description and one in which Mary
> The oral dimensions of the Quran were important in a                is credited with being the mother of Jesus.
> society where poetry and the spoken or recited word were
> highly valued. It is also evident that the activity of committing        Such questions generally fail to appreciate that the Quran
> the Quran or sections thereof to memory and reciting it were        is essentially evocative to Muslims and that it is often inimportant parts of the religious life of the earliest Muslims,       formative through its being evocative. While exegetes would
> and regarded as acts of great spiritual merit. The Prophet           go to great lengths to resolve the difficulties presented by the
> himself would often recite from the Quran and at times ask          portrayal of Mary as both the mother of Jesus and the sister of
> others to read for him. 
Abdallah b. Mas
ud (d. 652) reported        Aaron, the “fact” of God having stated this remains unshaken.
> that the Prophet told him: “‘Read [from] the Quran for me.’ I       Thus while it may not make any cognitive sense, the response
> [b. Mas
ud] said: ‘Shall I read it for you when it was revealed      of the believer downplays cognition, and comprehension, and
> unto you?’ He said: ‘I love listening to it from someone else.’”     ignores the question of which Mary is being referred to. This
> The overwhelming importance of the Quran as recited                 understanding as devotion rather than as cognition is how the
> speech in contrast with it as written or read text is found in the   believer approaches the Quran. In other words, comprehenmeaning of the word Quran itself, in the way the earliest           sion can follow from the emotive and intuitive response that
> Muslims viewed the text, and in several verses of the Quran.        is evoked in the hearer and reciter rather than a study of its
> The proper-noun sense of the term quran, as used in refer-          contents.
> ence to the scripture, is that of a fundamentally oral and
> certainly an active ongoing reality, rather than that of a           The Structure of the Quran
> written and closed codex such as it later came to be, repre-         Modern editions of the Quran include a heading that prosented by the masahif (written copies, sing. mushaf).                vides some basic information at the beginning of each sura
> (chapter) such as its name, the number of ayat (verses) it
> From the Arabic root qaraa (to read), or qarana (to gather       contains, and whether it is regarded as having been revealed
> or collect), the word quran is used in the Quran in the sense      in Mecca or Medina. The Egyptian print version, the one
> of reading (17:93), recital (75:18) and a collection (75:17).        most widely used in the Muslim world today, also suggests
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                        563
> Quran
> 
> which verses are exceptions; that is, which verses occurring in    confessional and traditional scholarship. With the exception
> a Medinan text were actually revealed in Mecca and vice            of the second and third suras, they occur exclusively in suras
> versa. There are two major divisions in the Quran, suras          belonging to the later Meccan period. There are fourteen of
> (chapters) and ajza (parts), and each sura contains a number      these disjointed letters in all, and the suras that contain them
> of verses (ayat).                                                  may have anywhere from a single letter to a cluster of five.
> 
> From the singular aya (lit. signs, indications, or wonders),       Another fascinating element of the Quran is its division
> ayat are the shortest divisions of the Quran and the term is      into thirty equal parts, each called a juz (pl. ajza). These
> usually rendered as “verses,” although it may also be under-       divisions are intended to facilitate the recitation of the Quran in
> stood as phrases or passages. A collection of ayat, usually        a month, particularly the month of Ramadan. The ajza are
> distinguishable from one another by the occurrence of rhythm,      further divided into four neatly divided sections that are
> rhyme, or assonance, comprise a sura. However, this techni-        marked along the edges of the text. For reading on a daily
> cal meaning of the word aya (or ayat) is not the only, or even     basis, each juz is divided into seven parts, called manazil
> the primary, meaning with which it is used in the Quran. It       (sing. manzil, lit. stage). It is significant that none of these
> frequently occurs in the sense of the signs of God’s presence      divisions, pivotal to Muslim usage of the Quran, bears any
> in the universe. Muslims, however, believe that, given its         relation to the meaning of the text.
> miraculous and inimitable nature, the Quran and all of its
> The current arrangement of the Quran is neither chronoconstituent parts are signs of the presence of God in the world.
> logical nor thematic. To those accustomed to reading in a
> The Quran comprises 114 suras, each of which is divided       linear or sequential fashion, this can prove tedious and frusinto ayat. The word sura literally means row or fence, and         trating. With the exception of story of Joseph, the Quran
> seems to denote both a section or chapter and revelation           also does not have a clear narrative pattern within which its
> stories neatly unfold. While there is unanimity around the
> itself. Muslims believe that the contents of the Quran were
> placement of the ayat within a sura, traditional scholars have
> arranged by the Prophet in his lifetime, and that this was done
> differed as to whether the sequence of all, or only some, of the
> annually under the guidance of the angel Gabriel. After alsuras were divinely ordained. Most Muslims have accepted
> Fatiha (“The Opening”) the chapters are arranged roughly in
> this arrangement although there have been a number of
> order of descending size, beginning with al-Baqarah (“The
> attempts to offer structural explanations for the way that the
> Cow”) and concluding with al-Nas (“Humankind”). These
> suras are laid out.
> suras are of unequal length, the shortest, “The Fountain,”
> consisting of three ayat, the longest, “The Cow,” containing       Language
> 286. With one exception, al-Tawba (“The Repentance”), all          Both Muslim and critical scholarship hold that the Quran
> suras commence with “In the name of God, the Gracious, the         first appeared in the Arabic language. Traditional Muslim
> Dispenser of Grace.” This formula is known as the basmala          scholarship holds that the Quran was written in the dialect of
> and was initially used to denote the boundaries between two        the Quraysh, the tribe of the Prophet, for it was also the
> suras. Muslims suggest that the omission of the basmala at the     classical language known to and understood by all the Arabs.
> head of the surat al-Tawba was intentional because this sura       Some Western scholars have argued that the Arabic of the
> commences with God’s disavowal of the rejecters and a              Quran was not peculiar to any tribe, but was a kind of
> declaration of war on them. Others, however, suggest that          hochsprache (high speech) that was understood by all the
> because this sura was revealed toward the end of the Prophet’s     peoples of Hijaz. Christoph Luxenberg, in his Die Syroearthly life, he simply did not have the time to insert the        Aramaische Lesart des Koran—Ein Beitrag zur Entschlusselung
> basmala.                                                           der Koransprache (2000), argues that a Syraic rendition of
> numerous words that would normally be rendered in Arabic
> All suras have names, and some are known by more than
> can provide linguistic insights on texts that scholars have had
> one. These names are based on diverse criteria with no             difficulty trying to understand. Through a careful process of
> obvious pattern to their naming. A number of hadith refer to       alternately replacing obscure Quranic Arabic words or phrases
> specific suras by name, thus indicating that they were named        with Syraic homonyms, changing the diacritical marks (on
> by the Prophet. Given that this is a matter directly relating to   the assumption that they were possibly misplaced by the
> the Quran, Muslims believe that it was a case where “He does      editors), or retranslating portions of text into Syriac, Luxenberg
> not speak of his own whim,” (53:3) that is, Muhammad was           discovers radically different meanings for a number of texts.
> guided by God in this. Some have, however, suggested that          This method differs greatly from the established reading of
> these names do not belong to the Quran proper, but rather         the Quran, which is premised on the idea that it is essentially
> have been introduced by later scholars and editors for con-        an Arabic text.
> venience of reference. Twenty-nine of the suras have a
> sequence of Arabic letters that follow immediately after the       Content
> basmala. Known as the disjointed letters, these are meaning-       The Quran describes its contents as an “exposition of everyless in the literal sense, and their presence has intrigued both   thing, a guidance, a blessing and glad tidings for those who
> 
> 564                                                                                              Islam and the Muslim World
> Quran
> 
> submit” (16:89) and declares that “no single thing have We           having originated with God are in a continuous state of
> neglected in the Book” (6:38). The Quran places an extraor-         purposeful reversion to a just and merciful Creator, Sustainer,
> dinary emphasis on the binding relationship between faith            and Judge. Physical death is thus not the end of life but
> and practice.                                                        merely evolution into another form. Human beings are
> placed on the earth for a predetermined period before they
> God. Belief in the existence of one transcendent creator and         enter the akhira (hereafter).
> the struggle to live alongside all the implications of that belief
> may be said to be at the core of the Quran’s message, and that          The terms dunya (“the world”) and akhira (lit. next, or last)
> Creator is arguably the single most important subject of the         are related both to time and space and to two moral alterna-
> Quran. The Quran uses the word Allah approximately 2,500           tives. Dunya is the geographical space and the present where
> to refer to the Transcendent. God remains free from not only         humankind is meant to prepare for akhira, yet this abode of
> the confines of biology and paternity, but also from the              preparation can also be good and fulfilling by itself. From the
> confines of human language. “No vision can encompass Him,             Quran, it would appear that there is a particular moment in
> whereas He encompasses all vision, for He alone is unfath-           time when the resurrection and judgment will begin, and that
> omable, all-aware” (6:103). The Quran portrays God as a             hour will commence with the sounding of the heavenly
> deity who stands above the religious community that serves           trumpet. When the resurrection begins, bodies will be reu-
> Him and who is greater than the law. God exists in and by            nited with their spirits and brought into the presence of God
> Himself, and any association with Him is rejected by the             for the ultimate reckoning.
> Quran. Ascribing paternity to God is abominable, as is any
> notion of a shared divinity. Much of the Quran is devoted to            The Quran suggests that this resurrection is a bodily one,
> the praise of God; the Quran holds that the entire universe is      yet it is also a day when the earth shall be changed into nonengaged in extolling the praises of God.                             earth (14:48). The Quran is explicit about two alternatives
> for each person in the hereafter—janna (paradise), or jahannam
> Prophethood. The second fundamental doctrine of the                  (hell)—and spells out the deeds that will earn one a place in
> Quran is that of the historical continuity of revelation,           the one or the other. In Islamic Understanding of Death and
> whereby God sent a series of messengers to every nation in           Resurrection (1981), Yvonne Haddad and Jane Smith point out
> order to guide them to the path of righteousness. All of these       that “Many of the details of the Fire, as of the Garden, are
> messengers came with an identical message (41:43)—that of            reminiscent of the New Testament; others reflect on occasubmission to the will of God—and all of humankind is                sions the tone of early Arabic poetry. On the whole, however,
> required to believe in the veracity of each one of them. The         the picture afforded by the Quran is uniquely its own,
> Quran uses two terms to denote prophethood: rasul (pl.              articulated in a generally consistent and always awe-inspiring
> rusul) and nabiyy (pl. anbiya). Rasul seems to denote a messen-     fashion.”
> ger who received revelations and who actually headed his
> community, whereas nabiyy seems to denote an apostle who                The Quran, at various junctures, indicates the sins that
> did not necessarily come with a new revelation or law:               will earn a person consignment to hell. These include lying,
> “. . .God elects whomsoever He will from among his Apos-             dishonesty, corruption, ignoring God or God’s revelations,
> tles. . .” (3:179). Anbiya derive their authority solely from       denying the resurrection, refusing to feed the poor, indul-
> God; they cannot “bring forth a miracle other than by God’s          gence in opulence and ostentation, the economic exploitation
> leave.” Prophets are always chosen from among their own              of others, and social oppression. The fires of hell, however,
> communities (7:35, 10:74 and 39:17) and are responsible only         are not the only consequence that wrongdoers will face on the
> for conveying God’s messages (16:35).                                Day of Judgment: “And those who earned evil, the punishment of evil is the like thereof, and abasement will cover
> The Quran contains a number of narratives involving             them—they will have none to protect them from God—as if
> prophets, often told with the intention of consoling Muham-          their faces had been covered with slices of dense darkness of
> mad in the face of rejection by the Quraysh and recipients of        night” (10:27). Denial of water (7:50) and of light (57:13) are
> earlier revelation. The Quran presents these narratives as          also spoken of as forms of punishment for the inhabimoral lessons for humankind on the consequences of diso-             tants of hell.
> beying God. All of the prophets referred to in the Quran are
> men. While Mary was the recipient of revelation, nowhere is          Righteous conduct. The bulk of the Quranic message
> there any indication that she was expected to play the socio-        contains exhortations dealing with righteous conduct, and
> religious role of warner or the bearer of good tidings, or that      the consequences of following or ignoring them. These are
> she ever did so.                                                     framed within the backdrop of the all-pervading presence of
> God and humankind’s ultimate accountability to Him. The
> The resurrection and ultimate accountability. The Quran             Quran regards the human being as a carrier of the spirit of
> speaks repeatedly about the ultimate accountability of all           God and a sacred trust from Him, and that all humans are in a
> human beings to God. It insists that all of life and its affairs,    continuous state of journeying toward Him. This sanctity
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                       565
> Quran
> 
> comes from humankind being the recipients of God’s own             Social and economic relations. Notwithstanding the scripspirit from the moments of humankind’s creation. Returning         tural requirement that believers must disturb the peace whento God entails a ceaseless struggle to prepare for the ultimate    ever their silence would conceal the demons of injustice and
> encounter. The Quran, while demanding that Muslims strive         oppression, the Quran also asks believers to lead lives free of
> to fulfil all the requirements of virtuous behavior, neverthe-      pointless argumentation and quarreling (25:63). In the face of
> less acknowledges that living up to such a commitment is           the all-pervading grace of God, the Quran requires believers
> exceptionally difficult.                                            to remain hopeful and never to despair. In fact, it describes
> deep pessimism as a sign of kufr (rejection) (12:87). A good
> The most important obligation that the Quran places on        Muslim upholds the truth and justice “and is not afraid of the
> the believer is probably that of pursuing the pleasure of God      reproaches of those who find fault” (5:54). The Quran
> and of desiring the ultimate encounter with Him. This is           encourages and even commands believers to lead an austere
> attained by cultivating a direct relationship of love with and     life. It is contemptuous of those who are attached to wealth
> adoration of God, as well as by leading one’s life in such a way   beyond the requirements of one’s daily subsistence. Such
> as to fulfil His commandments. In addition to setting forth         attachment distracts one from following the path that leads to
> the appropriate rituals, the Quran often speaks of the adora-     God and provides one with an illusionary sense of eternity.
> tion of God as an important part of a Muslim’s ideal life and      The notion of sustenance being properly earned is key to the
> persona. The emphasis that the Quran places on God as the         Quran’s approach to wealth. It singles out for denunciation a
> focus and objective of a believer’s life has led many a contem-    number of unlawful means of acquiring money or property,
> plative Muslim to regard the law as merely a means of              including priests and monks devouring the property of peofacilitating closeness to God in the same way that railings may    ple (9:34), gambling (5:90), and theft (60:12).
> help one to climb up a flight of stairs.
> The Quran rejects all forms of sexual immodesty and
> Although the Quran cautions against excess and wasteful       speaks approvingly of only two kinds of relationship for
> consumption, it nevertheless encourages a sense of joyful          sexual fulfillment: heterosexual marriage, or concubinage.
> living. It asks believers not to impose unwarranted burdens        The Quran also praises “… those [believers] who shun all
> upon themselves (5:87). The Quran also refers to physical         vain activity” (23:3), and applauds those who, “when they pass
> cleanliness and sexual pleasure as two other dimensions of         by some vain activity, they pass it by with dignified [avoidpersonal well-being (2:222, 30:21).                                ance]” (25:72).
> 
> The Quran places great emphasis on knowledge, and the             All of human life is sacred, for “verily We [God] have
> pursuit thereof, as valuable (49:9), but links the intellectual    honored the Children of Adam” (17:70), and no one is
> well-being of people to a profound awareness of God and            allowed to take anyone else’s life “except in truth” (6:151).
> justice, and emphasizes the compatibility of knowledge with        This is usually interpreted to mean that killing is permissible
> faith (35:28, 58:11). The Quran often gives the impression        only during a just war, in self-defense, or in retribution after
> that there is a certain essential body of truth, “the knowledge”   due legal process within a just social system. The Quran
> (al-
ilm), that is to be acquired. In numerous other verses,       holds that all of humankind is diminished by the murder of a
> though, humankind is challenged to reflect, ponder, and             single person (5:32). While infanticide (more specifically,
> female infanticide) is condemned, the Quran is silent on the
> meditate—all qualities more closely associated to heurism
> rights of the fetus. In accordance with the social practices of
> and tentativeness than to certainty. Nonetheless, these qualipre-Islamic Arabia, the Quran sanctions retaliation in the
> ties are usually regarded as the basis of wisdom (2:269). The
> case of murder and physical injury. However, it emphasizes
> Quranic assumption seems to be that knowledge and reflecthat this must be done justly, and that the remission of the
> tion will invariably and inevitably lead to God (39:9).
> death sentence is a source of “mercy from God” (2:178).
> Truth. Postmodernist notions of tentativeness as a value have
> Overt theft is condemned (60:12), as are other, more
> little place in the Quran, which moves from the premise that
> covert forms of depriving others of their property, such as
> there is an absolute, single, and knowable Truth. The Quran
> depriving someone of his or her inheritance, failing to return
> speaks about the light in the singular and darknesses in the
> something entrusted to one for safekeeping (4:58), and cheatplural, making it convenient for traditional or fundamentalist
> ing when weighing goods for sale (17:35). The Quran is
> scholars to claim that there is only one truth. Believers are
> particularly vehement in its denunciation of usury. The
> called upon to uphold the spirit of truthfulness by staying in
> Quran sanctions notions of personal property with individuthe company of other truthful people (9:19), and to speak the
> als being the rightful owners thereof, but condemns individutruth in the face of falsehood. Concealing the truth is prohib-    als who seek to keep secret the extent of their wealth and to be
> ited (2:42) as is distorting it with falsehood (2:42). Hypocrisy   sole arbiters of how to dispense with it.
> is condemned in the strongest terms, and believers are enjoined to ensure that their deeds correspond to their words           All wealth is regarded as a trust from God. Greed is
> (61:2–3).                                                          condemned and those who live their lives free from greed are
> 
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> 
> regarded as “the successful ones.” In contrast to those who        (49:6), backbiting, and slander (49:12), hypocrisy (2:8–19),
> hoard, Muslims who “spend of their wealth by night and by          and exploiting the vulnerability of others (2:275–276).
> day, in secret and in public” are promised that they “shall have
> their reward with their Lord; on them shall be no fear, nor            The Quran also condemns more subtle forms of injury to
> shall they grieve” (2:274). The Quran takes the position that     others, for they also detract from the humanity of the perpe-
> “in the possessions of the wealthy there is a right due to the     trator. These injuries include suspicion (49:12), mocking
> others or the objects of their worship (49:11), and using
> poor” (51:19, 70:24–15) and places great merit on giving
> derogatory nicknames (49:11). These injunctions apply to
> beyond the mandatory, institutionalized wealth tax known as
> everyone who participates in a society founded upon Quranic
> zakat. Such giving will purify one’s soul, particularly if one
> principles, but the Quran recognizes that such a society may
> gives away those things that are particularly dear (3:92), and
> contain religiously diverse communities within it. The Quran
> does one’s giving quietly (2:71). Giving to the poor can be
> is explicit about the importance of maintaining harmonious
> done “day and night, in secret or in public,” but it must not be
> relationships with all those who are not engaged in warfare
> followed by words of injury that make the recipient feel a
> against the Muslims (60:8), the permissibility of the food
> sense of obligation to the benefactor.
> slaughtered by the people of the book, and of marriage by
> Muslim males to their women (5:5).
> Justice and human rights. The Quran takes the position
> that everyone is equal in the eyes of God and of the law. No           The Quran encourages such generally recognized virtues
> human being has any inherent claim to superiority over             as expressing gratitude (22:38), showing compassion (90:17),
> another on the basis of lineage or race. It does, however,         and speaking gently (2:83). It is also explicit about the means
> recognize and condone distinction, differentiation, or dis-        by which Muslims can “go the extra mile,” recommending
> crimination on the basis of gender, religion, knowledge, and       that they share their wealth, care for orphans, and free their
> piety. It is questionable whether one can really use the Quran    slaves. The Quran treats orphans, in particular, with an
> as the standard to justify contemporary Islamic understand-        enormous amount of compassion. Muslims are instructed
> ings of social equality or universal human rights. However, in     honor them (99:17–18), to treat them gently (93:9 and 4:36),
> the context of seventh-century Arabia, it can be viewed as         to set aside wealth for the care of orphans (4:8), and to deal
> having encouraged a sense of gender justice, as well as            justly with their property (4:3). The Quran regards those
> compassion toward victims of all kinds of oppression. There        who reject orphans as people who have rejected the faith itself
> is a strong egalitarian trend in the Quran’s handling of          (107:1–3).
> ethico-religious responsibilities, but there is an undeniable
> discriminatory treatment of the social and legal obligations          There is no direct reference in the Quran to any notion of
> that have to do with women. Still, on this subject the Quran      an Islamic state, but there are a few injunctions regarding
> is somewhat contradictory. Gender statements can be found          obedience to authority. The Quran contains several referthat affirm gender equality, and others can be found that deny      ences to the sovereignty of God, and this has been interpreted
> it. However, when specific injunctions are mentioned, these         by Islamist ideologues to refer to an Islamic theocracy. The
> duties of the Muslim leadership include waging jihad in
> are generally discriminatory to women.
> defense of the faith or in response to aggression, collecting
> Justice assumes such prominence in the Quran that it is        and distributing zakat, and enacting punishment for a very
> regarded as one of the reasons why God created the earth.          limited array of sins or crimes, of which the following are
> The demands that the Quran makes upon individuals to              mentioned: slander (24:4–9), adultery (24:2–3, 15:16), theft
> uphold justice is extraordinary, transcending all social bonds.    (5:41), robbery, treason, and armed insurrection (5:36–37),
> While justice is something that one demands for oneself,           and murder and bodily mutilation (2:178–179).
> more importantly, it is something to be fulfilled for others,
> Religious practices. Only three formal religious rituals or
> regardless of the cost to oneself and one’s own community.         institutionalized practices receive any significant attention in
> the Quran: the formal prayers (salat), fasting in the month of
> The Quran provides two notions that are said to govern
> Ramadan, and the pilgrimage to Mecca (hajj).
> social relations. The first is huquq (rights), which are defined
> as the obligations one owes to society, and which must be              There are, on the other hand, numerous references in the
> defended. The other is ihsan, understood to mean “generosity       Quran to prayers and its importance. Its significance can be
> beyond obligation.” The basic principle of rights and duties is    gauged from the fact that the Quran outlines ways of deviatcontained in the verse “Do not wrong and be not wronged”           ing from the normal pattern of the ritual during a state of fear
> (2:279). In social conduct this covers the need for one to be      (2:238) or in the midst of actual physical combat during jihad
> reliable and trustworthy in one’s undertakings or promises         (4:101). Other than in the case of illness, menstruation, or
> (4:105, 8:27, 16:91) and economic dealings (93:1–3); to pres-      frailty, prayer is an obligation that can never be shirked. The
> ent truthful evidence in any matter or dispute (25:72); to         Quran leaves the exact times of the prayers somewhat unrefrain from concealing evidence (2:283), defaming others          clear; their times are rather fixed by interpretation of some
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                    567
> Qutb, Sayyid
> 
> ambiguous verses. As for the manner in which the prayer is to       Gatje, Helmut. The Quran and its Exegesis, Selected Texts with
> be conducted, the Quran refers only to bowing (ruku
) and            Classical and Modern Muslim Interpretations. Translated
> prostration (sujud), and says that one should quietly recite          and edited by Alford T. Welch. London: Routledge and
> “whatever of the Quran has been made easy for one” (73:20).          Kegan Paul, 1976.
> A commitment of the mind and the heart is, of course,               Graham, A. William. Divine Word and Prophetic Word in Early
> indispensable for prayer, and those who pray in a slothful and        Islam. The Hague and Paris: Mouton, 1977.
> lazy fashion are regarded as being among the hypocrites             Izutsu, Toshihiko. Ethico-Religious Concepts in the Quran.
> (4:142, 9:54).                                                         Montreal: McGill University Press, 1966.
> Jeffrey, Arthur. The Foreign Vocabulary of the Quran. Baroda,
> The Quran refers to fasting in two distinct contexts. One          India: Oriental Institute, 1938.
> is the month of Ramadan, when fasting is performed as an act
> Khui, 
Abul Qasim al-Musawu, al-. The Prolegomena to the
> of worship. The other context, which is not linked to any             Quran. Translated by A. A. Sachedina. Oxford, U.K.:
> special time or place, is when a believer feels the need to           Oxford University Press, 1998.
> expiate a sin of or a lapse in a specific religious duty. The only
> Labib, Sa
id. The Recited Quran. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
> objective of fasting stipulated in the Quran is that of acquir-      University Press, 1975.
> ing taqwa—self-restraint arising from the awareness that one
> Luxenberg, Christoph. Die Syro-Aramaische Lesart des Koran.
> is always in the presence of God and ultimately accountable
> Berlin: Verlag: Das Arabische Buch, 2000.
> to Him. Fasting requires abstention from all food, drink, and
> Rahman, Fazlur. Major Themes of the Quran. Minneapolis:
> sexual intercourse from the first sign that night is ending until
> Bibliotheca Islamica, 1989.
> just after sunset.
> Sells, Michael. Approaching the Quran. Ashland, Ore.: White
> The hajj is obligatory for all of those of the Muslim faith         Cloud Press, 1999.
> who are capable of finding their way to Mecca (3:96). It             Smith, Jane I., and Haddad, Yvonne Y. Islamic Understanding
> occurs in the first ten days of the month of Dhu-l-Hijjah (the         of Death and Resurrection. Albany: State University of New
> month of Hajj, which is twelfth month of the Hijri calendar).         York Press, 1981.
> The time is specified in the Quran (2:189). As for the rites        Smith, Wilfred Cantwell. “The True Meaning of Scripture:
> associated with the hajj, the Quran goes into somewhat               An Empirical Historian’s Non-Reductionist Interpretagreater detail for these than it does for any of the other formal     tion of the Quran.” International Journal of Middle Eastern
> acts of devotions.                                                    Studies (1980): 487–505.
> Wansbrough, J. Quranic Studies: Sources and Methods of Scrip-
> Two samples of Quranic calligraphy appear in the volume two          tural Interpretation. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University
> color insert.                                                       Press, 1977.
> Watt, W. Montgomery. “Early Discussions About the
> See also Allah; Calligraphy; Devotional Life; Ethics and             Quran.” Muslim World 60, 61 (1950): 20–39, 97–105.
> Social Issues; Human Rights; 
Ibadat; Jahannam; Janna;
> Yusuf Ali, Abdullah. The Holy Quran: Text, Translation, and
> Law; Mihna; Muhammad; Pilgrimage: Hajj; Prophets;
> Commentary. New and revised ed. Washington, D.C.:
> Ritual.                                                               Amanah Corporation, 1989.
> 
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> a B.A. in education in 1933 from Dar al-
Ulum. The founder
> Cragg, Kenneth. The Event of the Quran: Islam and Its Scrip-       of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hasan al-Banna, had graduated
> ture. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1971.                       from the same institution six years earlier and had moved the
> Crone, Patricia, and Cook, Michael. Hagarism: The Making of         Brotherhood’s headquarters to Cairo just before Qutb’s
> the Islamic World. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge Univer-             graduation.
> sity Press, 1977.
> Denffer, Ahmad von. 
Ulum al-Quran: An Introduction to the            In the early part of his career, Qutb demonstrated little
> Sciences of the Quran. Leicester, U.K.: Islamic Founda-          interest in religious activism. He focused primarily upon his
> tion, 1983.                                                       work with the Ministry of Education, where he was employed
> 
> 568                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Qutb, Sayyid
> 
> from 1933 to 1951, and his literary pursuits. His early               In January 1954, the government banned the Brotherwritings, consisting primarily of literary criticism and works    hood and imprisoned many of its key figures, including Qutb,
> of fiction and poetry, brought him to the attention of Egypt’s     because of their increasing criticism of the regime’s domestic
> cultural elite, including Taha Husayn. Later, Qutb would          and foreign policies. The decree was rescinded three months
> renounce much of his modernist views from this period.            later. In October 1954, following an assassination attempt on
> Nasser by a member of the Brotherhood, Qutb was again
> By the late 1930s Qutb’s interests were turning increas-       arrested and severely tortured, despite his frail health. In July
> ingly toward political and social concerns. He associated with    1955 he was sentenced to fifteen years’ imprisonment.
> a number of nationalist political parties opposed to the
> Egyptian monarchy and British colonialism. His first major            Qutb wrote the two works for which he is best known
> essay along religious lines, al-
Adala al-ijtima
iyya fi’l-Islam   while in prison. He began his voluminous Quranic commen-
> (Social justice in Islam), was published in 1949.                 tary, Fi zilal al-Quran (In the shade of the Quran), in 1962.
> In 1964 his supporters published a collection of his letters
> In 1948, perhaps to mollify his criticism, the education
> under the name Ma
alim fi’l-tariq (Milestones), in which he
> ministry sent Qutb to study Western methods of education,
> argues that jihad, entailing armed struggle, not just peaceful
> first in Washington, D.C., then in Colorado, and finally in
> preaching, is necessary to overturn the corrupted state of
> California. He left the United States in 1950 and traveled
> Muslim societies (the new ignorance or neo-jahiliyya) and
> through England, Switzerland, and Italy before returning to
> establish a true Islamic order based on God’s laws (shari
a).
> Egypt in 1951. Far from dissuading him from his growing activism, Qutb’s sojourn in the United States and Europe only           Qutb was released from prison in December 1964, probintensified and radicalized it. He was appalled by what he saw     ably due to ill health. But as Milestones’ circulation spread
> as the dominant features of Western (especially American)         rapidly, he was rearrested in August 1965 and sentenced to
> culture: materialism, racism, and sexual permissiveness. He       death for sedition. Despite international appeals to spare his
> also became convinced that both the United States and the         life, he was hanged on 29 August 1966. Since his death, his
> Soviet Union, despite their cold war posturing, were equally      influence has steadily grown through the translation and
> unconcerned with the aspirations of Arab and Islamic coun-        proliferation of his work.
> tries, and prepared to exploit them for their own gains. The
> fact that both superpowers had supported the creation of          See also Banna, Hasan al-; Ikhwan al-Muslimin.
> Israel in Palestine was, for Qutb, the strongest possible
> confirmation of their imperialistic aims.                          BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Qutb became actively involved with the Muslim Brother-         Abu Rabi
, Ibrahim M. Intellectual Origins of Islamic Resurgence
> hood immediately upon his return, although he may not have          in the Modern Arab World. Albany: State University of New
> formally joined until 1953. He served as a liaison between the      York Press, 1996.
> Brotherhood and the Free Officers who overthrew the mon-           Haddad, Yvonne Y. “Sayyid Qutb: Ideologue of Islamic
> archy in July 1952, perhaps expecting cooperation between           Revival.” In Voices of Resurgent Islam. Edited by John L.
> the military leadership and the Brotherhood in establishing         Esposito. New York: Oxford University Press, 1983.
> an Islamic state. When it became clear that Jamal 
Abd al-        Qutb, Sayyid. Milestones. Indianapolis, Ind.: American Trust
> Nasser and the military leadership intended to create a             Publications, 1993.
> secular state, Qutb and the Brotherhood distanced themselves from the new government.                                                                                Sohail H. Hashmi
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                    569
> R
> RABI
A OF BASRA (C. 714–801)                                            Smith, Margaret. Rabia: The Life and Work of Rabia and Other
> Women Mystics in Islam. Oxford, U.K.: One World, 1994.
> Rabi
a of Basra, also known as Rabi
a al-
Adawiyya, is regarded as a paradigm for Sufi women. An ascetic whose life                                                               Rkia E. Cornell
> spanned the late Umayyad and early Abbasid periods, her
> biographical image is a mosaic created by later writers. There
> are as many versions of Rabi
a’s hagiographic persona as there
> are accounts of her. She has been portrayed as a second Mary,
> RAFSANJANI, 
ALI-AKBAR
> a miracle worker, and the originator of the concept of divine           HASHEMI- See Hashemi-Rafsanjani,
> love. Hanbali writers respect her extreme asceticism and                
Ali-Akbar
> otherworldliness, and modern historians consider her the
> quintessential saint of Islam.
> 
> Little objective information is known about Rabi
a. She
> was a client of the Arab tribe of Banu 
Adi. Popular accounts           RAHMAN, FAZLUR (1919–1988)
> state that she was sold into slavery during a drought, but her
> sanctity secured her freedom and she retired to a life of               Fazlur Rahman was a notable scholar of Islamic philosophy
> seclusion and celibacy, first in the desert and then on the              and an important liberal Muslim thinker of the twentieth
> outskirts of Basra, where she taught both male and female               century. Born into a scholarly family in what is now Pakistan,
> disciples. One of her male disciples was the jurist Sufyan al-          he first studied Arabic at Punjab University in Lahore. He
> Thawri (d. 777). Rabi
a was the culminating figure in a series           then won a scholarship that permitted him to attend Oxford
> of Basran female ascetics, starting with Mu
adha al-
Adawiyya           University, where he received his Ph.D. in Islamic philoso-
> (d. 719). Her teacher may have been named Hayyuna. Many                 phy in 1949. His area of specialization was the work of Ibn
> stories and poems attributed to Rabi
a actually belong to her           Sina (Avicenna).
> students or to other Sufi women with similar names, such as
> After spending some years teaching in the West, Rahman
> her contemporary Rabi
a al-Azdiyya of Basra, and Rabi
a bint
> returned to Pakistan at the request of then–prime minister
> Isma
il of Damascus (d. before 850). The Sufi biographer al-
> Ayyub Khan to direct the new Institute of Islamic Research.
> Sulami (d. 1021) portrays Rabi
a as a contemplative and
> He provoked the ire of conservative Islamist movements
> rational thinker. Later writers portray her as a more emoduring this volatile period, particularly with his progrestional and legendary figure.
> sive fatwas and two important interpretive studies, Islamic
> Metholodology in History (1965) and Islam (1966), in which he
> See also Saint; Tasawwuf.
> tackled some of the difficult issues of historical critical understandings of revelation. In the face of such opposition, Rahman
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                            left Pakistan for the United States. He settled into a distin-
> Sells, Michael A. Early Islamic Mysticism: Sufi, Qur
an, Miraj,         guished career at the University of Chicago, where he served
> Poetic and Theological Writings. Mahweh, N.J.: Paulist               on the faculty from 1969 until his death. He contributed
> Press, 1996.                                                         further important studies, including his Major Themes of the
> 
> Rashid, Harun al-
> 
> Qur
an (1980) and works on modernist thought and classical        Guide”). After their father died, al-Hadi became ruler, but he
> Islamic philosophy.                                               died mysteriously after only one year in power. Al-Hadi’s son
> was forced at the point of a sword to renounce the caliphate;
> Overall, Fazlur Rahman’s thought may be characterized         Harun—still in his early twenties—received the ring of the
> as Islamic modernism in the tradition of Shah Wali Allah and      caliphate and was proclaimed caliph. Following the advice
> Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan. He preferred an approach that              of his mother, he entrusted the administration to his Irasought to recover the spirit behind Quranic injunctions          nian tutor, Yahya al-Barmaki, and the latter’s family. The
> while contextualizing the tradition as it developed histori-      Barmakides assisted Harun in controlling his political rivals
> cally. He encouraged a renewal of Islamic educational institu-    and Shi
ite opponents, and in defeating major uprisings in the
> tions, as can be seen in his volume titled Islam and Modernity:   provinces: in Syria (796), Egypt (788, 794–795), northwest
> Transformation of an Intellectual Tradition (1982), and was       Africa (786, 794–795, 797), and the Yemen (795–804). Howcritical of irrational or morally inconsistent elements within    ever, the administrative body formed by the Barmakides soon
> the Islamic tradition. He was also a critic of contemporary       became a state within the state, promoting the “Iranization”
> Muslim “neo-fundamentalisms,” which he considered to be           of the, until then, Arab-Islamic caliphate.
> defensive and ultimately destined to wither away.
> Throughout his reign, Harun personally led many mili-
> See also Ahmad Khan, (Sir) Sayyid; Ibn Sina; Modern               tary campaigns against the Byzantines and established a
> Thought; Wali Allah, Shah.                                        Muslim naval power (with raids on Cyprus in 805 and Rhodes
> in 807). He granted the request of the Roman emperor,
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                      Charles the Great (Charlemagne; r. 800–814), to ameliorate
> Rahman, Fazlur. Revival and Reform in Islam: A Study of Islamic   the conditions for European Christian visitors to Jerusalem
> Fundamentalism. Edited by Ebrahim Moosa. Oxford, U.K.:          and the Holy Land and exchanged embassies and precious
> Oneworld Press, 2000.                                           gifts with him: For example, Harun sent Charles an elephant
> Waugh, Earle H., and Denny, Frederick M. The Shaping of an        and a water-clock of curious design. In the last periods of his
> American Islamic Discourse: A Memorial to Fazlur Rahman.        reign, Harun seems to have lacked the competence and
> Atlanta, Ga.: Scholars Press, 1998.                             energy he showed in earlier years. Deteriorated in health,
> Harun al-Rashid died on 24 March 809.
> Marcia Hermansen
> The picture that medieval Arabic scholarship presents of
> Harun is somewhat contradictory: pious, statesmanlike, and
> of remarkably mild countenances, on the one hand; and
> RASHID, HARUN AL- (C. 763                                         dissolute, incompetent, and lacking modesty in enjoying wine
> OR 766–809)                                                       and other privileges claimed by the upper class, on the other.
> Nevertheless, the development of Islamic society benefited
> Harun al-Rashid (Aaron “The Rightly-Guided”) was the fifth         from Harun’s enlightenment: He promoted commercial ac-
> Abbasid caliph, who ruled the great Islamic empire from 786       tivities (as far as China), fine arts, poetry, literature, music,
> to 809 during its zenith. A patron of learning and culture, he    architecture, and the natural sciences. He reinforced law and
> is known to the world through the tales of The Arabian Nights,    order, secured state finances, and conducted major public
> which portray his court in Baghdad as a place of wealth and       construction projects. Yet, his reign marked a turning point
> splendor.                                                         for the Abbasid caliphate because the efficiency of administration began to decline and the political unity of the empire
> Harun al-Rashid was born in 763 (or 766) in the city of al-    to disintegrate: Harun’s diplomacy eventually failed to neu-
> Rayy, south of today’s Tehran, the third son of the caliph        tralize provincial dynasties and local rulers, and his decision
> Muhammad al-Mahdi (“the Well-Guided”). Harun’s mother,            to apportion the empire among three of his sons virtually
> al-Khayzuran, and his wife, Zubayda, played influential roles      precipitated its political decline.
> during his reign. Harun had eleven sons and twelve daughters; his sons al-Amin, al-Mamun, and al-Mu
tasim each in        See also Caliphate; Empires: Abbasid.
> his turn became caliph.
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Already as a teenager, Harun had led two military expedi-      Abbott, Nabia. Two Queens of Baghdad. Mother and Wife of
> tions against the Byzantines. For his success on the battle-        Harun al-Rashid. Chicago: The University of Chicago
> field, he was appointed governor of the provinces of northwest       Press, 1974.
> Africa (Ifriqiya), Egypt, Syria, Armenia, and Azerbaijan, al-     Bosworth, C. E., trans. The Abbasid Caliphate in Equilibrium.
> though his tutor Yahya al-Barmaki was actually administra-          The Caliphates of Musa al-Hadi and Harun al-Rashid.
> tor. Harun then faced serious intrigues by his older half-          A.D. 785–809 / A.H. 169–193. Vol. 30 of The History of al-
> 
> brother and rival for the throne, Musa al-Hadi (Moses “the          Tabari. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989.
> 
> 572                                                                                           Islam and the Muslim World
> Rashidun
> 
> Clot, André. Harun al-Rashid and the World of the Thou-                 The events of the latter half of 
Uthman’s reign and the
> sand and One Nights. Trans. by J. Howe. London: Saqi            entirety of 
Ali’s disputed caliphate—known to modern schol-
> Books, 1989.                                                    ars as the First Civil War—are remembered in Islamic relig-
> El-Hibri, Tayeb. Reinterpreting Islamic Historiography: Harun      ious and political history as “the Fitna”—a time of chaos,
> al-Rashid and the Narrative of the Abbasid Caliphate. Cam-      dissension, and tribulation. No other period in the history of
> bridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1999.                 Islam has been the subject of greater debate than the events of
> Omar, Farid. “Harun al-Rashid.” In Encyclopaedia of Islam.         the Fitna. For the Sunnis, the Companions are second only to
> Edited by B. Lewis, et al. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1971.            the Prophet as sources of religious guidance, and yet during
> the civil war they were ranged on opposite sides and bitterly
> Sebastian Günther      fought each other. Which of the parties to the conflict was in
> the right, whether 
Uthman and 
Ali were legitimate caliphs,
> and whether someone who was a grave sinner continued to be
> a member of the Muslim community were questions that
> RASHIDUN                                                           were to divide the Muslim community for centuries. Indeed,
> it is to the events of the First Civil War that the origins of the
> The Rashidun, or al-khulafa
 al-rashidun, the “rightly guided”
> major religio-political schisms in Islam are datable.
> caliphs, is the designation in Sunni Islam for the first four
> successors of the prophet Muhammad (d. 632). In their order            A distinctive doctrine of those who, in the ninth century,
> of succession to Muhammad, these caliphs are: Abu Bakr (r.         emerged as the Sunnis was that all four of the Prophet’s
> 632–634), 
Umar ibn al-Khattab (r. 634–644), 
Uthman ibn           immediate successors were equally righteous, and that the
> 
Affan (r. 644–656), and 
Ali ibn Abi Talib (r. 656–661).          historical sequence of their succession was also the order of
> their religious ranking. Agreement on this position did not
> According to the Sunni view of Islam’s earliest history, the
> come about easily. While the Khawarij did not recognize
> prophet Muhammad did not designate anyone to succeed
> either 
Uthman or 
Ali as legitimate, and most of the Shi
a
> him. Muhammad having been the last of God’s prophets, the
> considered none but 
Ali as a true caliph and imam, many of
> question, in any case, was of succession to the polity he had
> founded in Medina, not to his prophetical office. It was            the ahl al-sunna of the late eighth century, who together with
> therefore left to the community to decide on his succession,       the ashab al-hadith later emerged as the first Sunnis, themand after some discussion and uncertainty a number of the          selves had reservations about the legitimacy of 
Ali’s caliphate.
> Prophet’s Companions elected Abu Bakr, a leading member            By the time of the hadith scholar Ahmad ibn Hanbal (d. 855),
> of the community and Muhammad’s father-in-law, as the first         many of those recognizable as early Sunnis had come to
> caliph. Before his death two years later (634 C.E.), Abu Bakr      acknowledge all four of the Prophet’s successors as equally
> nominated 
Umar as his successor, a choice which, like Abu         righteous. It was also in the late eighth and early ninth
> Bakr’s own, was accepted by the Muslim community. For his          centuries that a tradition of the Prophet, according to which
> part, 
Umar, when mortally wounded by an assassin after a          the “caliphate” would last only thirty years after his death—
> reign of twelve years, left the choice of caliph to a committee    that is, only for the duration of the reigns of his first four
> of six leading figures. This committee chose 
Uthman after he       successors—became widely current. Though the Umayyads
> pledged to follow the example of his two immediate pred-           and the Abbasids claimed, of course, to be caliphs and were
> ecessors—a guarantee that the other major contender, 
Ali,         recognized as such by the Sunni religious scholars, a position
> was not willing to give. The latter half of 
Uthman’s reign saw    such as that enshrined in the “thirty years” hadith signaled
> strong disaffection in his capital, Medina, in the garrison        that the age of the Rashidun was to be set apart from all
> towns of Kufa and Basra, and in Egypt against the policies of      subsequent eras. For the Sunnis, that age has continued to be
> the caliph, who was eventually murdered in Medina by the           seen as a time, indeed the only time, when Islamic ideals were
> rebels. These rebels then supported the accession of 
Ali, but     truly implemented. As such, invocations of the Rashidun have
> he was never recognized as a legitimate caliph by the entire       continued to be part of the religio-political discourse in the
> community of Muslims. In particular, Mu
awiya b. Abi Sufyan,       Sunni Islamic world to the present.
> the governor of Syria and a kinsman of 
Uthman, demanded
> See also Abu Bakr; 
Ali ibn Abi Talib; 
Athman ibn
> that 
Ali first punish the killers of his predecessor, and a
> number of the Prophet’s Companions, including his wife
> 
Affan; Fitna; Imam; 
Umar.
> 
Aisha, made similar demands. There was dissension in 
Ali’s
> own camp also, with some of his followers, who came to be          BIBLIOGRAPHY
> known as the Khawarij, seceding from him on grounds that it        Ess, Josef van. “Political Ideas in Early Islamic Religious
> was improper to negotiate with rebels like Mu
awiya. 
Ali was         Thought.” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 28
> eventually murdered by one of the Khawarij, and his death,            (2001): 151–164.
> and the rise of the Umayyads to power under Mu
awiya (r.           Hinds, Martin. Studies in Early Islamic History. Edited by Jere
> 661–680), marked the end of the Rashidun caliphate.                  Bacharach, et al. Princeton, N.J.: The Darwin Press, 1996.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                      573
> Rawza-Khani
> 
> Madelung, Wilferd. The Succession to Muhammad: A Study of              Refah united marginalized people around Islamic identhe Early Caliphate. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge Univer-          tity, morality in government, a domestic policy favoring the
> sity Press, 1997.                                                lower and middle classes, and a pro-Mideast/Asian and anti-
> Tabari, al-. The History of al-Tabari. Vols. 10–17. Albany:        Western/Israel foreign policy. After capturing Istanbul’s and
> State University of New York Press, 1985–1999.                   Ankara’s mayoralties, the Refah Party won the 1995 national
> election with 21 percent of the vote and formed a coalition
> Muhammad Qasim Zaman            with Tansu Ciller’s center-right True Path Party. This uneasy partnership achieved some domestic change and a more
> balanced foreign policy, but government corruption remained high.
> RAWZA-KHANI
> Refah presented an alternative to mainstream parties
> A rawza-khani is a Shi
ite ritual sermon recounting and            mired in stagnation and corruption, appealing to disenmourning the seventh-century tragedy of Karbala, which was         franchised small businessmen, impoverished workers, young
> a battle in which the Prophet’s grandson Husayn was martyred       professionals and students, women, and new export-oriented
> (in what is viewed by the Shi
a as a heroic struggle against       capitalists. Its Islamism sought to replace traditional
> religious tyranny and corruption). The primary catalyst in the     Kemalism’s heavy-handed secularism, statist economics, and
> emergence of this ritual was the appearance of Hosayn Vaez         pro-Westernism. Its religious agenda countered ethnic con-
> Kashifi’s 1502 composition entitled Rawzat al-shuhada
 (The         flict, social dislocation, and organized crime; its Mideast
> garden of martyrs). Rawza-khanis are performed in homes,           agenda offered commercial profits and employment in techmosques, takiyas, husayniyas, religious sites, and even in the     nical fields; and its welfare plans inspired those at the bottom
> streets and bazaars of cities. The rawza-khani is a ritual in      of the income scale. Inconsistent policies toward women and
> which a sermon is given based on a text like the Rawzat al-        a human-rights agenda that excluded opponents frightened
> shuhada
, with a great deal of improvisation on the part of the    secularists and Kemalists. The Refah government was forced
> specially trained speaker. The objective of the speaker is to      from power in 1997, and the party was closed down in
> move the audience to tears through his recitation of the tragic    February 1998.
> details of the Battle of Karbala. In addition to serving social,
> political, and psychological functions, this type of mourning      See also Erbakan, Necmeddin; Modernization, Politiritual has been viewed by Shi
a as a means of achieving            cal: Participation, Political Movements, and Parties.
> salvation. This belief is illustrated by the often-repeated
> Shi
ite quotation, “Anyone who cries for Husayn or causes          BIBLIOGRAPHY
> someone to cry for Husayn shall go directly to paradise.”          Gülalp, Haldun. “Political Islam in Turkey: The Rise and
> Fall of the Refah Party.” Muslim World 89 (1999): 22–41.
> See also Ta
ziya.
> Howe, Marvine. Turkey Today: A Nation Divided over Islam’s
> Revival. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 2000.
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Ayoub, Mahmoud. Redemptive Suffering in Islam: A Study of                                                      Linda T. Darling
> the Devotional Aspects of Ashura in Twelver Shiism. The
> Hague, Netherlands: Mouton Publishers, 1978.
> Schubel, Vernon James. Religious Performance in Contemporary Islam: Shii Devotional Rituals in South Asia. Columbia:
> REFORM
> University of South Carolina Press, 1993.
> 
> Kamran Aghaie          ARAB MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA
> Sohail H. Hashmi
> 
> IRAN
> Hossein Kamaly
> REFAH PARTISI                                                         MUSLIM COMMUNITIES OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE
> Allen J. Frank
> Refah Partisi (Welfare Party), a Turkish Islamist political
> party (1984–1998), was founded by Necmeddin Erbakan to                SOUTH ASIA
> Ahrar Ahmad
> replace the National Salvation Party. It was initially unpopular, but economic slowdown and political corruption at-               SOUTHEAST ASIA
> tracted protest voters to it.                                          Mark R. Woodward
> 
> 574                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Reform
> 
> ARAB MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA                                     The origins of modernist Muslim thought in the Arab
> Revivalist movements and reformist thinkers have arisen           world are often traced to Rifa
a al-Tahtawi (1801–1873). As
> throughout Islamic history. Since the early nineteenth cen-       the religious advisor traveling with an Egyptian student
> tury, two intellectual strands have evolved among the Arabic-     delegation to Paris in 1826, Tahtawi immersed himself in
> speaking populations of Southwest Asia and North Africa,          European history, geography, politics, literature, and scieach in its own way calling for Islamic renewal (tajdid) and      ence, learning French in order to do so. Upon returning to
> reform (islah) against the status-quo traditionalists among the   Cairo in 1831, he became Muhammad 
Ali’s chief supporter
> ulema on the one hand and Western-style secularists on the        among the ulema for the modernizing reforms the pasha had
> other. One of these strands is variously dubbed conservative,     initiated. In his writings, Tahtawi expounded a theme that
> fundamentalist, and more recently Islamist; the other is          would engross later modernist thinkers: reform of Islamic law
> generally known as modernist or liberal. Neither strand, it       based on the needs of the modern age. To begin such legal
> should be emphasized, advocates reform of Islamic dogma           reform, he argued, the education of the law’s interpreters, the
> itself, which would obviously open it to charges of illicit       ulema, had to be overhauled. Tahtawi’s most important
> innovation (bida). Rather, Islamic reformism is limited to       contribution to educational reform, and his greatest influence
> correcting the interpretations and practices of Muslims, al-      upon later generations of reformers, was exerted through the
> legedly in order to better reflect the true Islam. A number of     School of Languages, of which he was appointed director in
> different understandings of the means and ends of reform          1837. The school educated Egyptian students in European
> could be accommodated within such a broad aspiration.             languages and translated key European texts into Arabic.
> 
> The Wahhabi movement that began in late eighteenth-               Khayr al-Din al-Tunisi (c. 1822–1890), prime minister
> century Arabia was the last significant reformist effort in the    first to the bey of Tunis and later to the Ottoman sultan,
> era before European imperialism. It erupted out of the potent     called much more directly than Tahtawi for political reforms
> mixture of the fiery religious appeal of Muhammad Ibn 
Abd         to accompany legal and educational changes. Khayr al-Din
> al-Wahhab (1703–1792) and the political and military acu-         argued that Europe’s military prowess was an outgrowth of
> men of the Sa
ud family. Ibn 
Abd al-Wahhab called for a          the development of effective and accountable governments.
> return to the strict monotheism (tawhid) that he claimed          For Muslims to borrow constitutional principles from Eurounderlay the mission of the prophet Muhammad. In his view,        peans would not be innovation at all, he wrote, but merely a
> the society around him had departed in many regards from          return to the true principles of government established by the
> this pure Islam, neglecting, for example, the enforcement of      Prophet and the rightly guided caliphs.
> Islamic punishments for such things as adultery and theft and
> Despite the modernization efforts in states such as Egypt
> absorbing such un-Islamic practices as the building of tombs
> and Tunisia—limited mainly to small-scale educational and
> for the dead and saint worship. When the Wahhabiyya
> bureaucratic reforms, with no serious legal or political
> succeeded in conquering most of Arabia in the early ninechanges—Muslim power relative to that of Europe steadily
> teenth century, the first Saudi state set about implementing
> declined during the first half of the nineteenth century, and
> Ibn 
Abd al-Wahhab’s vision of an ideal Islamic society,
> by the century’s end, Algeria, Tunisia, and Egypt had passed
> grounded in a strict, literal interpretation of the Quran and
> under direct French and British rule. The beginning of
> the Prophetic hadith that he considered to be authentic.
> formal European imperialism produced among Arabs a more
> Although this state was crushed by an Egyptian army in 1818,
> profound intellectual search for the causes of Muslim decline
> the conservative reformist message of Wahhabism spread to
> and the means for its reversal.
> other Muslim areas, and its influence upon other reform
> movements in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century          The broad term designating the movement for Islamic
> is incontrovertible.                                              reform that emerged in the last decades of the nineteenth
> century is Salafiyya. Exactly when the Salafiyya movement
> Wahhabi forces were checked by the army of Muhammad           began and who should be included among its adherents
> 
Ali (c. 1769–1849), the founder of a new dynasty in Egypt        remain controversial issues. The name is derived from the
> and the initiator of modernization in the Arab world. Having      phrase salaf al-salihin, which refers to the first three generaseen the technological superiority of Napoleon’s army when        tions of Muslims and various pious figures in subsequent
> it invaded and occupied Egypt from 1798 to 1801, Muham-           generations who best understood and applied the “true”
> mad 
Ali launched a program to reform the Egyptian military       Islam. Its proponents argue for a return by Muslims to the
> and civil administration, after becoming the Ottoman gover-       practice of these, Islam’s forebears. As such, the Wahhabiyya
> nor of the province in 1805. Educational missions were            could be and sometimes are considered a Salafi movement.
> dispatched to Europe, mainly France, for scientific and technological training, beginning as early as 1809. The students         The figure most widely considered as the architect of
> returned with ideas of how to reform Egyptian politics,           Salafi principles, however, is Muhammad 
Abduh (1849–1905).
> culture, and education as well.                                   Three basic principles underlie 
Abduh’s reformism. First, he
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                  575
> Reform
> 
> Muslim reform and renewal movements (18th to 20th century)
> 
> Arabia
> Reform teaching in Mecca and Medina
> Wahhabiyya—founded by Muhammad b. 
Abd al-Wahhab (1703–1792); allied with Ibn Sa
ud to create Saudi state
> Idrisiyya—founded in Mecca by Ahmad b. Idris (d. 1837)
> 
> Caucasus
> Naqshbandiyya—1785–present, anti-Russian resistance
> 
> Inner Asia
> Naqshbandiyya—reform-oriented Sufi tariqa leads Muslim resistance to Russia and China
> New teaching, 1761–1877—offshoot of Naqshbandiya, late-eighteenth- and late-nineteenth-century resistance to Chinese rule
> Khwajas and Ya
qub Beg–holy Muslim lineage, formerly rulers of Kashgar, attempt to establish a Muslim state, defeated by China in 1878
> Yunnan, 1856–1873—rebellion against Chinese rule and effort to establish a Muslim state
> Usul-e jadid—Kazan, Crimean, and Bukharan intellectuals, notably Isma
il Gasprinskii (1851–1914), sponsor new schools, combined Muslim and Russian
> education; modernization of Muslim peoples
> 
> India
> Shah Wali Allah (1703–1762)
> 
> Shah 
Abd al-
Aziz (1746–1824)
> 
> Muhammad Isma
il (1781–1831)
> 
> Sayyid Ahmad Barelwi (1785–1831)                    Meccan influences
> unites Pathans to resist British and Sikhs
> Patna-Maulana Walayat 
Ali                                         Faraidi (Bengal);
> Maulana Karamat      ahl-e hadith                                      1818–1845 anti-Hindu
> 
Ali                                                                      and anti-British
> Delhi School                   Titu Mir (Bengal)
> 
> Deoband—founded 1876. Muslim
> college combined hadith studies
> and Sufism and spawned satelliite schools
> 
> Tablighi Islam—founded 1927 by
> Mawlana Muhammad Ilyas
> Southeast Asia
> Padri Movement—Sumatra 1803–1837
> Dipanegara leads revolt on Java, 1825–1830
> Banten, West Java revolts, nineteenth century
> Kaum Muda—Sumatra and Malaya movement for reform and modernization
> Acheh—1873–1908 ulema-led resistance to Dutch occupation
> Muhammadiyya—1912; educational and social reform
> 
> Egypt and North Africa
> Salafiyya—founded by Muhammad 
Abduh (d. 1905), influenced islah and national movements in North Africa; Tunisia, Young Tunisians;
> Algeria, Ben Badis; Morocco, 
Allal al-Fasi
> 
Abd al-Qadir—Qadiriyya chieftain attempts to establish Algerian State, defeated by the French
> Rahmaniyya—religious brotherhood uses networks of zawiyas in Algeria and Tunisia to resist French occupation
> Tijaniyya—reform Sufi order inspires West and North African jihad and resistance movements
> Sanusiyya—reformist brotherhood creates "state" structure in Libya, founded by Muhammad b. 
Ali al-Sanusi (d. 1859); resists Italian occupation
> Khalwatiyya—reformist Sufi brotherhood
> 
> East Africa
> Idrisiyya spawned Rashidiyya in Algeria; Amirghaniyya in Sudan and Nubia; Sanusiyya in Libya
> Sudan—Sammaniyya gives rise to Muhammad b. Ahmad al-Mahdi (d. 1898)
> Somalia—Muhammad 
Abdallah Hasan leads resistance to British, 1899–1920
> 
> West Africa
> Jihad of 
Uthman Dan Fadio (1754–1817)—Northern Nigerian reformist opposition to Hausa states
> Sokoto Caliphate (1809–1903) and related jihads in Adamawa and Masina
> Al-Hajj 
Umar (1794?–1864)—jihad state in region of Mali and Senegal
> Bundu, Futa Jallon, and Futa Toro, reform Muslim states in the Senegambian region
> Ma Ba—nineteenth-century jihad in Senegal
> Samory (1860s–1898)—Muslim adventurer founds West African State
> 
> SOURCE: Lapidus, Ira M. A History of Islamic Societies. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
> 
> Muslim reform and renewal movements arranged by region.
> 
> 576                                                                                                                       Islam and the Muslim World
> Reform
> 
> rejected predestination and the fatalism and intellectual tor-       although their views on specific points of Quranic interprepor that he believed resulted from it. Second, he emphasized         tation and Islamic law may vary.
> the compatibility of revelation with reason. In other words,
> he argued that religion does not impose unduly on what                   By the early years of the twenty-first century, Islamic
> reason demands as scientific or moral truths and, conversely,         reform in the Arab world remained a highly contested disthat human rational faculties are capable of confirming most,         course. In terms of political mobilization, the conservative
> if not all, the spiritual truths illuminated by religion. Finally,   Islamist agenda seemed to have triumphed over the liberal
> 
Abduh asserted a claim to renewed interpretation (ijtihad) of       modernist project. Conservative reformers such as Muham-
> Islamic law based on the requirements of social justice (maslaha)    mad al-Ghazali (1917–1996) in Egypt and Hasan al-Turabi
> of his own era.                                                      (b. 1932) in Sudan had attracted much larger public followings
> than their modernist counterparts. Arab modernists had thus
> 
Abduh did not directly advocate a political program,             far failed to form a mass-based organization to compete with
> implying only that Islamic principles of accountable and             the Muslim Brotherhood and its many, more radical offlimited government supported the idea of liberal parliamen-          shoots. Still, the work of such modernist intellectuals as Tariq
> tary democracy. Later reformers appealed, explicitly or              al-Bishri and Hasan Hanafi (b. 1935) in Egypt and Muhamimplicitly, to his writings to justify their own, sometimes          mad Shahrur in Syria, and the political activism of Rachid alopposite views. The most bitter controversy erupted when             Ghannoushi (b. 1941) in Tunisia have demonstrated the
> 
Ali 
Abd al-Raziq (1888–1966) published a treatise arguing          continuing relevance and development of modernism.
> that the mixture of religion and politics in the institution of
> See also 
Abd al-Rahman Kawakibi; 
Abd al-Wahhab,
> the caliphate was a perversion of the Prophet’s teachings and
> Muhammad Ibn; 
Abduh, Muhammad; Banna, Hasan
> practice. Rashid Rida (1865–1935) denounced 
Abd al-Raziq’s
> al-; Ghazali, Muhammad al-; Ikhwan al-Muslimin;
> arguments, which opened secular possibilities within Islamic
> Qutb, Sayyid; Rida, Rashid; Salafiyya; Tajdid; Turabi,
> political thought, as a perversion of Islamic teachings and
> Hasan al-; Wahhabiyya.
> history. Another disciple of 
Abduh’s, 
Abd al-Rahman al-
> Kawakibi (c. 1849–1902), had earlier written on the need to
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> revive the Arab caliphate as a precursor to Islamic revival
> worldwide.                                                           Binder, Leonard. Islamic Liberalism: A Critique of Development
> Strategies. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988.
> 
Abduh expressed his views prolifically in the pages of the        Hourani, Albert. Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 1798–
> journal al-Manar. He also tried to implement his reform                1939. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1983.
> program by issuing progressive fatwas in his capacity as             Kerr, Malcolm H. Islamic Reform: The Political and Legal
> Grand Mufti of Egypt, and through his efforts at reorganiz-            Theories of Muhammad Abduh and Rashid Rida. Berkeley:
> ing the education of Egyptian religious scholars at al-Azhar           University of California Press, 1966.
> University and other institutions. Many Arab nationalists            Safran, Nadav. Egypt in Search of Political Community. Camwould attempt to incorporate his progressive, moderate, and             bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1961.
> flexible interpretations of Islam into their political ideologies,
> but generally failed to produce a true synthesis of theory and                                                   Sohail H. Hashmi
> practice once independence was achieved.
> IRAN
> 
Abduh’s reform agenda was carried on by Rashid Rida,
> The reform and reconstruction of Islamic doctrine in Iran,
> but Rida brought to it a greater conservatism in philosophical
> aimed at striking a stable balance with contemporary requireoutlook and methodology, relying primarily on Hanbali
> ments, exhibits important and at times idiosyncratic characjurisprudence, whereas his mentor had advocated free borteristics. Iran is the largest non-Arab Islamic country where
> rowing from all Sunni schools of law. He was also much more
> the greater majority of the population adheres to Shi
ite
> politically oriented than 
Abduh, seeing the institution of an       principles. Unlike most Islamic countries, throughout West-
> Islamic state as the precursor to the application of Islamic law     ern colonial and imperialist expansions Iran has enjoyed
> and the promotion of Islamic social mores. Rida thus laid the        unbroken, if at times fragile, native sovereignty, and this has
> intellectual foundations for a more conservative strand of           led to a peculiar dynamic of perception and interaction with
> Salafi reformism, one that is associated with the Muslim              the West. The outbreak of the Islamic Revolution (1979), in a
> Brotherhood. The reformism of Hasan al-Banna (1906–1949)             rapidly but unevenly modernizing nation-state, together with
> and Sayyid Qutb (1906–1966), the principal ideologues of the         the turbulent evolution of the Iranian society ever since,
> Brotherhood, reflects Rida’s influence in its advocacy of a            further mark the Iranian experience as unique.
> holistic conception of Islamic state and society, where sharia
> regulates all spheres of life. In this regard, the Brotherhood’s        The roots of Islamist reform in Iran are commonly traced
> Salafism is similar in approach to that of the Wahhabiyya,            back to the Constitutional Revolution of 1906 to 1908.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                      577
> Reform
> 
> However, for at least two generations prior to that turning             the vicissitudes of history. This tendency in Iran bore close
> point in modern Iranian history, emerging social and intel-             kinship to the salafiyya movement in Egypt.
> lectual forces had grappled with new questions regarding
> Islamic, Iranian, and “progressive” identities. The enigmatic               
Ali Shari
ati (1933–1977), a prolific intellectual of an
> reformist Jamal al-Din Afghani (1838–1897), for example,                unfathomable range of influence, best exemplified the utohad won a sizable following in Iran, one among whom                     pian tendency. He not only shared in the maximalist outlook,
> ended up assassinating the Qajar sovereign, Naser al-Din                but consciously hailed the transformation of the dormant
> Shah, in 1896.                                                          Islamic culture into a potent ideology imparting clear-cut
> instructions for political struggle, as a most urgent and
> Beginning in the years prior to the Constitutional Revolu-          significant accomplishment.
> tion, and continuing throughout the twentieth century, groups
> of clerics, teachers, journalists, government officials, and lay             The maximalist-utopian ideal, culminating in the Islamic
> professionals attempted to flesh out a “progressive” discourse           Revolution of 1979, provided the exponents of Islamist reby way of molding such modern concepts as the nation                    form, such as Mehdi Bazargan (1902–1994), Sayyed Mahmud
> (mellat), or a representative assembly (majlis shura), into             Taleqani (d. 1979), and Morteza Mutahhari (1919–1979),
> historically more familiar native contexts.The discourse of             with an opportunity to put into practice what they had
> Islamic reform in Iran is best understood by demarcating its            preached for decades. The radical doctrine of “Absolute
> pre- and postrevolutionary phases, with reference to the                Guardianship of the Jurist” (vilayat motlaqe faqih), expounded
> Islamic Revolution of 1979. In its prerevolutionary phase,              by Ayatollah Khomeini, rendered absolute discretion into the
> the reformist discourse tended to be nativist-apologetic,               hands of the religious elite, and boosted the maximalist
> maximalist, utopian, and “progressive.” It also embraced, or            program. A full-blown, yet ostensibly inadequate, juridical
> at least condoned, militant violence as a legitimate means.             (feqahati) approach toward complex issues of the state alien-
> Prerevolutionary reformists in Iran further called for univer-          ated among others surviving pioneers of Islamist reform, such
> sal Islamic union or integration, in the face of non-Muslim             as Bazargan, who had throughout their careers vouched for a
> adversaries. The burgeoning postrevolutionary discourse, in             humanely tolerant view of Islam and had foreseen more
> contrast, while maintaining its “progressive” stance, exhibits          inclusive methods of governance.
> eclectic-critical, minimalist, pragmatic, and pluralistic tendencies and it increasingly downplays the purported efficacy of               Beginning in 1988, the publication of a sequence of
> violent tactics.                                                        critical essays sparked new debate and led Islamist reform in
> Iran toward a turning point. 
Abd al-Karim Sorush (b. 1945),
> Prerevolutionary Islamic reform proceeded from the fun-             an academic thinker with impeccable prorevolutionary credamental premise that Islam, as a comprehensive system,                 dentials, contended that Islamic doctrine lies inevitably subshould aptly offer answers to every conceivable question of             ject to historic expansion and contraction. The body of
> human concern, at individual and societal levels, as well as in         knowledge standing outside the proper domain of “Islam,”
> both temporal and spiritual spheres. The discourse was                  according to Sorush, inexorably influences the way questions
> maximalist in its aiming to bring an ever-expansive domain              are framed and solutions formulated within it. The recogniunder an Islamic umbrella. Reformists, from the 1920s on-               tion of a set of inalienable rights for human beings irrespecward, unflinchingly formulated “nativist” Islamic solutions              tive of religious affiliation, for example, should lead to a
> for issues raised by the secularizing government agenda, as             reconsideration of the primarily “duty-bound” conception of
> well as for those put forward by Marxist activists in Iran.             man hitherto propounded in Islamic texts. Religious texts,
> Reformists took on the daunting task of spelling out the                Sorosh contends, should be interpreted in light of the broader
> proper Islamic ways for approaching a plethora of issues,               extrareligious context. Mohammad Mojtahed-Shabestari (b.
> from such mundane matters as personal hygiene and dietary               1936), an articulate reformist cleric, further elaborates on this
> practice to the intricate workings of the economy and inter-            hermeneutic approach, making room for alternative yet ranational diplomacy. Pamphlets and books with formulaic                  tional interpretations or “readings” of Islam. Mojtahedtitles such as “Islam and . . .,” and “. . . in Islam,” proliferated.   Shabestari urges that true religious faith thrives on social
> As a result of its maximalist-nativist character, reformist             liberty, and he earnestly criticizes the officially enforced
> discourse was prone to indulge in apologetics. In an effort to          interpretation of Islam advocated by the state in Iran.
> present a view of the Islamic tradition that was in tune with
> the manners of the time, reformists did not hesitate to                     The new discourse of Islamic reform, exemplified in the
> denounce portions of it as “superstitious.” Some, like the              work of Soroush, and manifested in the writings of Mojtahedcleric Shari
at-Shangelaji (1890/2–1943), had to face ostra-            Shabestari and a few others, defined a nascent group of
> cism, perhaps for jettisoning too much. In general, a collec-           religious intellectuals (rowshanfekran dini), retrospectively
> tive penchant developed among reformists for doing away                 including in its ancestry such thinkers as Bazargan and Shari
ati.
> with what they deemed spurious, and for restoring the una-              During the 1990s, a group of these religious intellectuals,
> dulterated, primordial Islam (eslam rastin) that transcended            sometimes referred to as the Kiyan Circle (halqe Kiyan),
> 
> 578                                                                                                  Islam and the Muslim World
> Reform
> 
> expressed their views in the important periodical Kiyan (offi-     and variously influenced by pan-Turkic, pan-Islamic, and
> cially closed down by court decree in 2000). This forum           nationalist ideas. At the same time, as actors in the political
> raised crucial questions with regard to Islamic reform, includ-   life of Russia as a whole, the jadids were not politically unified
> ing issues of democratic governance, Islamic law, and faith,      and were to be found among several of the empire’s radical,
> and probed into the fields of epistemology and ethics.             liberal, and even conservative political parties. Following the
> Russian Revolution (1917), jadids were active in the various
> The election of Mohammad Khatami as the president of          factions engaged in the Russian Civil War, notably among
> the Islamic Republic in 1997 signaled a potential triumph for     the various Muslim nationalist movements, within the Socialpostrevolutionary Islamic reformism. An advocate of relig-        ist Revolutionary Party, and among the Bolsheviks. Followious intellectualism himself, Khatami incorporated key ele-       ing the Bolshevik victory, jadids became increasingly politically
> ments of the burgeoning discourse in his campaign slogans         marginalized, as their vision of secularized Muslim commuand called for increased social pluralism and a move toward       nities, and their ability to effect political change, were rapidly
> civil society. In practice, however, theoretical as well as       eclipsed by revolutionary social change and secularization
> functional shortcomings seem to have stifled this particular       that became the hallmark of Soviet rule. Furthermore, their
> promise. Nevertheless, Islamic reformism persists as an on-       association with nationalism, pan-Turkic, and pan-Islamic
> going and evolving project in contemporary Iran.                  ideas resulted in the complete purging of active jadids from
> political and even social life during the rule of Stalin, which
> Iranian reformers, more often than not, have formulated
> ended the jadidist movement in Russia.
> ideological or doctrinal questions in purely epistemic terms,
> and have shown conspicuously less concern for sociohistori-           The ideological founder of jadidism is usually identified as
> cal processes constituting religion in general and Islam in       Isma
il Bey Gasprinskii (1851–1914), a Crimean Tatar from
> particular.                                                       the town of Bakhchesaray in the Crimea. Having studied and
> lived in Paris and Istanbul in the 1870s, where he came under
> See also 
Abd al-Karim Sorush; Afghani, Jamal al-Din;
> the influence of French liberals, the Young Turks, and the
> Bazargan, Mehdi; Khomeini, Ruhollah; Mojtahedpan-Islamist ideas of al-Afghani, Gasprinskii returned to the
> Shabestari, Muhammad; Reform: Arab Middle East
> Crimea, where in 1883 he founded the newspaper Tarjuman
> and North Africa; Reform: Muslim Communities of
> (The interpreter). Until the 1905 revolution, this publication
> the Russian Empire; Reform: South Asia; Shari
ati,
> was the sole Turkic-language newspaper in the Russian
> 
Ali.
> empire, and a major platform for disseminating Gasprinskii’s
> jadidist ideas. An avowed monarchist, Gasprinskii sought to
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> unify the Turkic peoples of Russia (who constituted the vast
> Boroujerdi, Mehrzad. Iranian Intellectuals and the West. Syra-    majority of Russia’s Muslim population) and facilitate their
> cuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1996.
> integration into the economic and civic life of imperial
> Jahanbakhsh, Forouq. Islam, Democracy and Religious Modern-       Russian society. To this end, Gasprinskii championed the
> ism in Iran, 1953–2000: From Bazargan to Soroush. Boston:      creation of a common Turkic literary language and, most
> E. J. Brill, 2001.
> significantly, sought to reform Muslim education to make it
> Soroush, Abdol Karim. Reason, Freedom, & Democracy in             conform more to Western models. Gasprinskii especially
> Islam: Essential Writings of Abdolkarim Soroush. New York:     championed the teaching of Russian language, arithmetic,
> Oxford University Press, 2000.                                 geography, and the sciences. In addition, he is credited with
> Taleqani, Seyed Mahmud. Islam and Property Ownership.             introducing a phonetic system of reading for pupils to learn to
> Lexington, Ky.: Mazda Publishers, 1983.                         read faster. Gasprinskii opened the first jadidist school in
> Bakhchesaray in 1884.
> Hossein Kamaly
> As an educational reform movement, jadidism grew stead-
> MUSLIM COMMUNITIES OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE                          ily from the 1880s to 1917. It was received most enthusiasti-
> Jadidism was an intellectual current among the Muslims of         cally among the Tatars and Bashkirs of Russia’s Volga-Ural
> the Russian empire that emerged in the 1880s, and it re-          region. The urban elites of these Muslim communities were
> mained active into the first decade of Soviet rule. Although       relatively well integrated into Russian economic life, and it
> Jadidism is commonly defined as a manifestation of Islamic         was precisely the Tatar urban bourgeoisie who were the most
> reformism, it would be more correct to label it as a form of      active backers of jadidist educational institutions. While
> Islamic modernism.The word “Jadidism” is derived from the         jadidist schools could be found throughout the Russian
> term usul-e jadid, signifying “new method,” and initially first    Empire’s Muslim regions, it was mainly brought to outlying
> came to prominence as an educational reform movement.             regions by Tatar colonists. Yet jadidist schools were viewed
> However, during and after the 1905 revolution the move-           with suspicion among traditional Muslim elites, particularly
> ment became increasingly politicized, and its adherents, known    in Central Asia and Kazakhstan, but even in the Volga-Ural
> as jadids, began to articulate a political agenda increasingly    region as well.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                     579
> Reform
> 
> Jadids, including numerous graduates of jadid madrasas,         See also Gasprinskii, Isma
il Bay; Reform: Arab Middle
> had a substantial impact on the growth of nationalist, pan-         East and North Africa; Reform: Iran; Reform: South
> Turkic, and pan-Islamic political activity following the 1905       Asia.
> revolution, especially in the emergence of Muslim nationalism. At the same time, jadids also came into conflict with           BIBLIOGRAPHY
> conservative and traditionalist elements within their own           Frank, Allen J. Muslim Religious Institutions in Imperial Russia:
> societies. This conflict between the jadids and the traditional-        The Islamic World of Novouzensk District and the Kazakh
> ists is often depicted as simply a conflict between “reaction           Inner Horde, 1780–1910. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2001.
> and reform,” but in fact was in large measure a political           Khalid, Adeeb. The Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform: Jadidism
> struggle mirroring the conflict in Russia between political            in Central Asia. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: Uniconservatives and increasingly radical proponents of social           versity of California Press, 1998.
> and political change within the Russian Empire. In the
> Volga-Ural region, this conflict was characterized by a                                                               Allen J. Frank
> politicization of the religious debate between jadids and
> conservatives; in Central Asia, where local adherents of jadidism   SOUTH ASIA
> were far fewer, it was even more restrictive than in Russia         Reform, in the context of South Asian Islam, can acquire two
> proper. Both native rulers and Russian administrators were          different, indeed contradictory, meanings and objectives. It
> openly hostile to jadidist activity.                                can refer to the liberalizing tendencies encompassing a rational, scientific, “enlightenment” orientation to Islam, or it
> During the period from 1905 to 1917 the jadidist move-          may signify traditionalist movements seeking to restore Islam
> ment remained ideologically heterogeneous, although many            to its more orthodox, pristine, “original” form. The first is
> jadids became increasingly secular and radicalized, as the          intended to ensure the progress of Muslims in the modern
> Russian Empire drifted toward revolution. At this time,             world, the second to revive a glorious past. Islamic reformism
> especially after 1910, many jadids began making an ideologi-        in South Asia has usually struggled within this awkward
> cal shift from Muslim nationalism to local nationalisms. This       dialectic.
> process was most evident in the Volga-Ural region, Azerbaijan,
> and to a lesser extent among the Kazakhs. With the outbreak             It is noteworthy that South Asia’s initial encounters with
> of civil war following the 1917 revolution, jadids played           Islam were relatively benign and accommodative. When
> important political roles in Muslim nationalist movements,          Muhammad bin Qasim landed in Sind in 712 C.E., he was
> instructed through a legal opinion to treat the local nonparticularly in Azerbaijan, in the short-lived Idel-Ural Republic
> Muslims with justice. Similarly, in spite of successive waves of
> in the Volga-Ural region, and in the Qoqand Autonomy in
> Muslim invasions, it was the Sufi saints (charismatic mystics)
> Turkestan. Other more radical jadids, who rejected nationalwho were largely instrumental in converting the vast majority
> ism in favor of class struggle, joined the Communist Party or
> of the population to Islam through example and persuasion.
> allied themselves with the Bolsheviks. In Central Asia, Bol-
> And finally, while the distinctions with the Hindus were
> sheviks briefly installed local jadids as the rulers of the shortprofound and obvious, the poorer classes of both communilived People’s Republics of Bukhara and Khorezm.
> ties were brought together by their poverty, agrarian exist-
> The historical legacy of jadidism remains debated both in       ence and the syncretistic compulsions of “popular” or “folk”
> the West and in the former Soviet Union. As Muslims, the            religion. Therefore, Hindus were seldom the dreadful “other”
> jadids were certainly the first members of imperial Russia’s         against whom reform movements were directed.
> Muslim societies to coherently articulate a vision of secular-
> It is perhaps Shah Wali Allah (1703–1762) who can
> ized Muslim community integrated within the Russian Empire
> claim the status of being one of the first influential theologianand, by extension, into European society. Indeed they sought
> revivalists in the subcontinent. He belonged to the
> to harmonize, and actually alter, Islamic culture to function
> Naqshbandiya tariqa (a Sufi order), and represented a combiwithin a European framework. In fact, the transition from
> nation of both rationalism and traditionalism. He suggested
> pan-Islamic or pan-Turkic jadidism to jadidist-inspired Musthat Muslims should practice ijtihad (independent reasoning)
> lim nationalism, and even ethnic nationalism, was a relatively
> to reach conclusions relevant to the times. And while he did
> seamless one. Some modern Tatar nationalists, for instance,
> not subscribe to the same puritanical rigidity of his contemdepict jadidism as a manifestation of Tatar national identity,
> porary Muhammad ibn 
Abd al Wahhab of Arabia, he did
> and national genius. However, other scholars, especially
> criticize many un-Islamic accretions that South Asian Islam
> those who have examined jadidism within the context of              had acquired. Because of the range, eclecticism, and power of
> Islamic intellectual and cultural history as a whole, have          his writings, many reformists of different persuasions claim
> depicted jadidism as a rather marginal movement within              him as part of their intellectual heritage.
> Islamic society, especially in comparison to existing traditional institutions and ideas, not only in Central Asia, but in        The gradual displacement of the Muslims from their
> the Volga-Ural region as well.                                      position of privilege and authority owing to the impact of
> 
> 580                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Reform
> 
> British commercial and imperial ambitions, and the increas-             However, in independent Pakistan a tension developed
> ing fear of British intrusion into their religious practices,       between the ulema, who demanded a preeminent role for
> generated an edginess and militancy within later reformists.        Islam in the new state, and the powerful military and bureau-
> Anti-British sentiment was fused with ideas of religious self-      cratic elite who were unenthusiastic. Reform, in either modpreservation and purification causing Wali Allah’s son to            ernist or orthodox directions, followed the vicissitudes of
> declare territories under British control as dar-ul-harb (land      temporary political arrangements. The 1956 constitution
> of war). Some of his followers such as Sayyid Ahmad Barelwi         referred to the Islamic Republic of Pakistan; the 1962 constiand Syed Ismail Shahid died in western India fighting against        tution dropped the word Islamic; the 1973 constitution
> the Sikhs and British in 1831. In the eastern province of           reincorporated it in principle. The liberal Muslim Family
> Bengal, other followers such as 
Haji Shariatullah (1781–1840)      Law Ordinance of 1961, which sought to reform marriage
> and his son Dudu Mian (1819–1862) combined class and                and divorce laws in the country, was all but gutted in the
> religious sensitivities to launch the faraidi movement (imply-      1980s through various enactments on the punishment, inhering that which is religiously mandated), against the British        itance, and laws of evidence relating to women. Moreover,
> indigo planters and Hindu landowners.                               the establishment of sharia courts to adjudicate matters
> according to strict Islamic principles, the declaration of
> The aftermath of the Mutiny, or the First Indian War of         Qadianis as non-Muslims, the self-conscious courtship of
> Independence, in 1857, radically altered the direction of           Arab countries through emphasizing its Islamic credentials,
> reformism in South Asia. It was felt by some that the deterio-      and the injection of a heightened sensibility about religious
> rating condition of the Muslims resulted from their sullen
> matters on public issues (including education and entertainattitude toward the British, and their inability or unwillingment), all appeared to indicate a swing back toward traditionness to take advantage of the opportunities for advancement
> alist premises in the 1980s and 1990s.
> that British rule provided. None perceived this more clearly,
> or expressed himself as emphatically, as Sir Sayyid Ahmad               The separation of Bangladesh from Pakistan in 1971
> Khan (1817–1898). He preached loyalty to the British, pro-          seemed to demonstrate the primacy of language and culture
> moted Western language and education to overcome Muslim             as more important markers for identity and destiny than
> backwardness, developed an exegetical rationalism in his            religion. Initially the country adopted a determinedly indifwritings on Islam, warned against the stultifying influence of       ferent posture toward religion. However, and in spite of a
> the reactionary ulema (religious leaders), and called upon          gradual institutionalization of democracy, political develop-
> Muslims to stay away from Hindu political organizations.            ments since the early 1980s have compelled Bangladesh to
> Aligarh University, which he founded in 1875, was emblem-           drop the word “secular” from its constitution, declare Islam
> atic of his approach and interests.                                 to be the state religion, patronize parochial schools, and insist
> on outward expressions of religious zeal and commitment
> The Aligarh model faced challenges from scholars
> from its leaders.
> associated with the Firangi Mahal in Lucknow (established
> in the 1690s) and the theological seminary at Deoband,                  In both countries, it is obvious that conservative religious
> where classes began in 1867. Most scholars associated with          parties do not command a large following in electoral compethese schools were opposed to the Aligarh brand of una-             titions. However, it is also clear that these forces are formidabashed eagerness for Western knowledge, demanded greater            ble enough to drive the discourse in directions they seek. The
> concern for Islamic identity and heritage, bristled at the          modernist agenda—with its emphasis on women’s rights,
> perceived subservience to the British, and sought deeper            minority protections, and civil liberties—appears to face
> engagement with both pan-Islamist and nationalist tenden-           rather daunting challenges, perhaps a little more so in Pakicies that were gradually evolving.                                  stan than in Bangladesh.
> In the twentieth century, Islamic reform and political           See also Ahmad Khan, (Sir) Sayyid; Wali Allah, Shah.
> activism became inextricably intertwined. It was Aligarh
> modernism, and its logical corollary expressed as Muslim
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> separatism, that eventually culminated in the formation of
> Pakistan in 1947. It is intriguing to note that orthodox            Ahmad, Aziz. Islamic Modernism in India and Pakistan
> Muslim leaders like Abu l-A
laMaududi and Maulana Madani,            1875–1964. London: Oxford University Press, 1967.
> and nationalist/populist leaders like Abul Kalam Azad, Hakim        Ahmed, Akbar. Jinnah, Pakistan, and Islamic Identity: The
> Akmal Khan, and Abd al-Ghaffar Khan, opposed the idea of              Search for Saladin. London: Routledge, 1997.
> Pakistan while it was a very Westernized, secular, legalistically   Hasan, Mushirul, ed. Islam, Communities and the Nation:
> oriented leadership (Sir Muhammad Iqbal, Liaquat 
Ali Khan,           Muslim Identities in South Asia and Beyond. Dhaka: The
> Muhammad 
Ali Jinnah) that championed it. At the time, it             University Press, 1998.
> was assumed that Pakistan would be a home for Muslims, but          Robinson, Francis. Islam and Muslim History in South Asia.
> not necessarily a theocratic Muslim state.                            New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2000.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                      581
> Reform
> 
> Schimmel, Annemarie. Islam in the Indian Subcontinent. Leiden-
> Koln: E. J. Brill, 1980.
> 
> Ahrar Ahmad
> 
> SOUTHEAST ASIA
> In Islamic Southeast Asia the concept of “reform” is the
> subject of a highly contested discourse. Self-proclaimed “reformists” range from the Malaysian feminist organization
> Sisters in Islam, which advocates changes in Islamic family
> law that increase the rights and power of women, to the
> Indonesian Lakshar Jihad, which advocates the establishment
> of a conservative form of Islamic law to act as the basis of an
> Islamic state combining Indonesia, Malaysia, and the southern Philippines.
> 
> Reformist movements in Southeast Asia emerged in the
> early decades of the twentieth century as responses to British,
> Dutch, and American colonial rule. They were also responses
> to intellectual developments in the broader Muslim world.
> Early reformists were influenced by the writings of the
> Egyptian reformers Muhammad 
Abduh and Rashid Rida
> and by the Wahhabi movement in Arabia. They attributed
> the decline of Muslim political and economic power to the
> impure state of early twentieth-century Islam. The rejection
> of Sufism and elements of popular religion—including the
> veneration of the tombs of saints, ritual meals, and the
> celebration of the birth of the prophet Muhammad—are              Megawati Sukarnoputri, front, the leader and presidential candidate of the Indonesia Democratic Party for Struggle (PDI-P) and
> among the hallmarks of Southeast Asian reformism. These           her husband, Taufik Kimas, cast their ballots in Jakarta in 1999, in
> and other aspects of popular Islam were (and are) denounced       Indonesia’s first free elections since 1955. Although her party
> as innovation and unbelief by these reformists. In Indonesia      won the election, she was forced to accept the position of vicepresident. In 2001, President Abdurraham Wahid was forced to
> reformists argued that the prayers of traditional Muslims
> resign and Sukarhoputri became the president of Indonesia. AP/
> were invalid because supplicants face directly west instead of    WIDE WORLD PHOTOS
> northwest, which is the actual direction of Mecca.
> 
> The reformists advocated strict enforcement of sharia.       and that the acquisition of modern skills and knowledge is a
> They denied the authority of classical legal texts that formed    religious duty. They also encouraged participation in the
> the core of the curriculum in traditional Islamic schools. Like   emerging modern economic system. Reformists adopted stratesalafiyya reformers elsewhere, they maintained that the Quran     gies similar to those of Christian missionaries. Organizations
> and hadith are the only allowable sources of legal deci-          such as Muhammadiyya in Indonesia and al-Islam in Malaya
> sions. This presented a major challenge to the traditional        established schools that combined a salafiyya understanding
> ulema. Throughout the twentieth century disputes between          of Islam with modern (Western) subjects. They established
> modernists and reformists were extremely bitter. Because of       schools for girls as well as women’s and youth organizations.
> the profound implications of these religious disputes—each        Muhammadiyya and other reformist organizations now mainparty describes the other as heretics bound for hell—it is        tain extensive systems of schools, universities, and hospitals.
> unlikely that the cavernous divide between traditional and        The provision of social and educational services contributed
> reformist communities can be closed.                              significantly to the spread of modernism, especially in urban areas.
> Early reformists combined this religious agenda with calls
> for social and educational reform. They argued that the               In Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore a basic distinction
> acquisition of technical and scientific knowledge is a religious   can be drawn between reformist movements that seek to
> obligation. The Javanese scholar Ahmad Dahlan and the             transform culture and society and those that seek to employ
> Malay Tahir Jalal al-Din wrote and preached that there is an      the political process to establish Islamic states. In the Philipimportant link between the two components of the reform           pines the distinction is that between those who would estabagenda. They taught that Islam is the religion of rationality     lish a Muslim state in the southern region and others who
> 
> 582                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Religious Beliefs
> 
> envision the Muslim community as a component of a pluralis-        BIBLIOGRAPHY
> tic state. Muslims in southern Thailand have been influenced        Bowen, John. Muslims Through Discourse: Religion and Ritual
> by Malaysian reformists and have organized to protect and            in Gayo Society. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
> expand the rights of Muslims in an overwhelmingly Buddhist           Press, 1993.
> society. In Southeast Asian states where Muslims are small         Nagata, Judith. The Reflowering of Malaysian Islam: Modern
> minorities—Burma, Cambodia, and Vietnam—Islamic re-                  Religious Radicals and Their Roots. Vancouver: University of
> formism did not emerge until after the Second World War.             British Columbia Press, 1984.
> In these countries reformism is a religious movement of little     Noer, Deliar. The Modernist Muslim Movement in Indonesia.
> political significance.                                               Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1973.
> Woodward, Mark, ed. Towards a New Paradigm: Recent Devel-
> In the colonial era reformist movements advocating the
> opments in Indonesian Islamic Thought. Tempe: Arizona
> establishment of Islamic states were subject to serious repres-     State University, 1996.
> sion. Postcolonial governments have continued these policies, but have also attempted to include reformist Muslims in
> Mark R. Woodward
> the political process. In Malaysia reformist political parties
> compete in parliamentary elections and govern in several
> states. In Indonesia there has been a constant tension between
> OTTOMAN EMPIRE AND TURKEY
> See Empires: Ottoman; Kemal, Namik; Modernizatraditionalist Muslims, who have generally avoided political
> tion, Political; Nur Movement; Nursi, Said; Young
> action, reformists who have attempted to establish Indonesia
> Ottomans.
> as an Islamic state, and other reformists, including the majority of the Muhammadiya community, who seek to build a
> salafiyya-oriented Muslim community while avoiding overt
> political activity. The collapse of the Suharto regime in 1998
> contributed to the repoliticization of Indonesian reformism.
> Political parties based on reformist ideologies emerged as
> RELIGIOUS BELIEFS
> important voices in Indonesia’s new democracy. Other, more
> While Islam has historically eschewed authoritative bodies
> radical, groups reject the democratic orientation of the politifor issuing creeds with the authority of an ecclesiastical order,
> cal parties and advocate the use of force to establish a
> several statements of orthodox belief have, over time, come to
> salafiyya state.
> be recognized as defining Sunni faith (iman). From these
> creeds six central beliefs have been distilled that have come to
> In Southeast Asia, and particularly in Indonesia, there
> define orthodox faith. Belief in God and his attributes, prophhave also been attempts to develop Islamic theologies emphaets, angels, sacred books, the Last Day, and predestination
> sizing tolerance, interreligious discourse, and democratic
> has, by Sunni consensus, come to define normative Islam.
> politics. This variety of reformism differs fundamentally
> from earlier salafiyya movements. This variety of reformism             Belief in God and his attributes refers to the concepts of
> began to develop in the 1980s and has come to be known as          tawhid (divine unity) and sifat Allah (the attributive characterliberal Islam. In Indonesia it was initially sponsored by the      istics of God). Tawhid means that God is omnipotent, that he
> government as an antidote for fundamentalism. Most of the          needs no helpers, and has no partners. Associating partners
> participants in this course come from traditionalist back-         with God is referred to as shirk, and is considered a serious
> grounds and are conversant with classic Arabic theological,        sin. This concept has been extended by some Muslim thinklegal, and mystical texts. The central institutional location of   ers to mean that submission to God’s unity means the abso-
> Islamic liberalism is the State Islamic Studies Institute. Many    lute adherence to God’s rules, as described in the Quran and
> graduates from these programs continue their studies abroad.       hadith. Failing to adhere to God’s rules indicates that the
> In the 1990s, liberalism emerged as a major force for political,   individual places his or her own judgment equal to God’s, and
> social, and economic change. Liberal reformists reject the         thus becomes God’s associate. The attributes of God refer to
> notion of an Islamic state. They are active in development-        God’s abilities and characteristics as they are defined in the
> oriented NGOs (nongovernmental organizations), promote             Quran. There are generally held to be ninety-nine characinterfaith understanding and cooperation, and are advocates        teristics that are reflected in the ninety-nine names of God.
> for human rights and gender equality. In Indonesia they
> played a major role in the Reformasi (reformation) movement           Belief in prophets, angels, and sacred books is based on
> that brought an end to the “New Order” regime of President         Surah 2:285. This verse equates faith with the belief that God
> Suharto.                                                           has sent many prophets prior to Muhammad. It also indicates
> the larger concept that Muhammad was the end of a chain of
> See also Reform: Arab Middle East and North Africa;                prophetic succession beginning with Adam and continuing
> Reform: Iran.                                                      through the twenty-five prophets mentioned in the Quran.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                     583
> Religious Institutions
> 
> Belief in angels is central to both the belief in prophets and    historical plan. They create identities and representations,
> in sacred books. The angel Jibril, according to Muslim               and determine attitudes, emotions, and behavior. These
> tradition, conveyed the revelation from God to Muhammad              manifestations and outward projections originate from beand other prophets. Angels also figure prominently in a               liefs and practices, but they are also limited by historical
> variety of beliefs, including those surrounding Munkar and           contexts. Geographical, social, and political considerations
> Nakir, angels who interrogate the dead in their graves, and          modify attitudes and practices. Religious institutions, then,
> Michael, who was commissioned by God to oversee the                  take shape in relation to both religious impulses and contexnatural world.                                                       tual configurations. The following entry suggests some of the
> enduring and changing features of religious institutions in
> Muslims believe that many prophets have received sacred
> Islam in broad historical strokes.
> textual revelations similar to the Quran but that these revelations became corrupt over time. Thus while Christians and                Religious beliefs and practices have been noticeably ex-
> Jews are considered “people of the book” due to their recep-         pressed in key institutions constructed in uniquely different
> tion of textual revelations, their religions fell into error, thus   social and historical contexts. The caliphate as a universal
> necessitating Muhammad’s mission.                                    political and social order was the key institution developed in
> the early period of Islam. This was followed by more clearly
> The Last Day refers to the belief that the world will be
> religious institutions like the school of law (madhhab) and Sufi
> destroyed by God and will be followed by a Day of Resurrecorder (tariqa). The modern period has witnessed the emertion on which all people will be required to account for their
> gence of various forms of religious states together with the
> deeds. Those who obeyed the commands of God will go to
> independent religious association in secular contexts.
> paradise, while those who did not will go to hell. Many
> Muslim theologians have held that everyone will eventually
> Early Islam
> be released from hell after they have suffered sufficient
> The early period of Islamic history begins with the life of the
> punishment. Some Sufis have gone so far as to include Iblis
> prophet Muhammad and ends with the weakening of the
> (leader of jinn, who rebeled against God after the creation of
> Abbasid Empire. Following Marshall Hodgson, we can use
> Adam) in this category.
> the year 945 as a significant point in that history when the
> Predestination means that God has total power over all of        independence of the caliphate was finally shattered. A general
> creation and therefore determines the course of all events.          of a regional power, the Buyids, occupied Baghdad and laid to
> Paradoxically, humans have the ability to obey or disobey the        rest the more than two hundred years of a universal political
> commands of God. This ambiguity has never been settled               authority. The eventual failure notwithstanding, early Islam
> fully and reached a compromise position with the concept of          laid the foundation of the caliphate as a vital religious institukasb, which asserts that God creates acts that humans then           tion that moved and inspired Muslims. It is also an institution
> acquire or own, thus involving their culpability for action or       that has provided considerable inspiration for subsequent
> inaction.                                                            political and social movements in diverse cultural and historical contexts up to the present time. The caliphal order was the
> See also Angels; Kalam.                                              most important religious institution the Muslims created
> during this period. The word “order” is used to include the
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                         political system and ideas themselves, as well as the related
> Denny, Frederick Mathewson. An Introduction to Islam. New            notions of self, society, and others. Early Islam was a period of
> York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1994.                          intense political conflicts, many of which raged particularly
> Watt, William Montgomery. Islamic Creeds: A Selection. Edin-         over the nature and shape of this political order and its related
> burgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1994.                           issues. At the same time, these conflicts and disagreements
> Wensinck, A. J. The Muslim Creed: Its Genesis and Historical         created opportunities for great creativity that inspired legal,
> Development. London: Frank Cass, 1965.                             theological, philosophical, and literary productions in support of one or the other conceptions of the political order.
> R. Kevin Jaques
> Who must be the caliph? After the death of the prophet
> Muhammad in 632, one of the first questions that needed to
> be answered was that of his succession. Would it be someone
> RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS                                               close to him from the beginning? Would it mean the split of
> the Muslim community between its Meccan and Medinan
> Religious institutions are the visible and organized manifes-        followers? Or would it be someone from his family? Or would
> tations of practices and beliefs in particular social and histori-   the community simply choose one among equals? In time,
> cal contexts. Like human emotions and attitudes, religious           these political questions were answered in religious and
> beliefs and practices project outward onto the social and            theological terms. The history of religious ideas of early
> 
> 584                                                                                               Islam and the Muslim World
> Religious Institutions
> 
> In a mosque in Jakarta, Indonesia, Muslim men listen to a sermon during Friday prayers. In Islamic nations, religious institutions have
> traditionally been subject to the rules of the state, but in countries where Muslims are minorities (India and the United States, for example),
> mosques have been able to transform themselves into more independent religious institutions. GETTY IMAGES
> 
> Islam revolves around questions and answers about the iden-               light of this particular discussion, such a notion of religious
> tity, nature, and authority of the caliphate.                             and political leadership is an important part of the religious
> institution of the caliphate of early Islam.
> One of the close associates of the prophet Muhammad,
> Abu Bakr al-Siddiq, was selected as his immediate successor                   Another important aspect of this institution was the nain a tense political context. Soon, members of the Prophet’s              ture of the community and its boundaries. Shi
ite protest
> own clan, the Banu Hashim, and their supporters claimed                   against the reigning caliph sowed the seeds for a degree of
> that they had been deprived of rightful leadership granted by             elitism within the community of believers. The family of the
> the Prophet to 
Ali, the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet,            Prophet would enjoy a level of recognition and respect above
> and his legitimate successors. Thus emerged the first glim-                ordinary believers. However, the egalitarian message of earmer of a religio-political faction, the party of 
Ali (Ar. Shi
a),        lier biblical religions found a profound resonance in Islam as
> that developed into a full-fledged religious and theological               well. The first group to raise this issue on the political sphere
> group within Islam. Even though it remained a minority, and               was the Khariji, who took a position diametrically opposed to
> the various factions were hardly unanimous on the particular              the Shi
a. For them, the political leader was an equal in the
> descendant of 
Ali as the rightful successor, the Shi
a pro-              community of believers, and open to censure and removal if
> duced notions of legitimate and rightful leadership for relig-            he failed to live by the teachings of the Quran. According to
> ious leadership in general. The prophetically chosen one was              traditional Muslim historiography, the Kharijis emerged predivinely guided, and ready to go into battle against injustice            cisely during the reign of the fourth caliph, 
Ali, the first
> and usurpation. Such a notion of a religious leader became                imam of the Shi
a, when they rejected his compromising
> the cornerstone of other religious groups and political par-              stand in war. They claimed that he had ignored a fundamenties. Mystical schools took on the notion of direct or indirect           tal teaching of the Quran by agreeing to negotiate with a
> divine assistance, and leaders of political and religious move-           usurper, and no longer deserved the allegiance of the Muslim
> ments followed the inspiration of its revolutionary apsects. In           community. The Kharijis developed another philosophy of
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                                585
> Religious Institutions
> 
> revolution against authority. Unlike the Shi
ite ideas, it har-         The boundaries of the community against outsiders were
> bored a radical egalitarianism.                                     more clearly drawn, even though not always consistently
> applied. The caliphate was justified on the basis of a universal
> Standing between the Shi
a and the Khariji, other theo-         and expanding empire that engaged the reigning superpowers
> logical schools emerged to define the boundaries of Muslim           of the day. The Sassanian Empire of the Persians fell early,
> identities. The first theological questions emerged directly         and the Byzantine Empire was dislodged from its territories
> from the issues raised by these early groups. Islamic theology,     in Palestine and North Africa. The latter remained a major
> for example, asked to what extent the wrongdoing of a               adversary and target until its capital, Constantinople, fell in
> reigning caliph could be tolerated. From the Shi
a point of         1453. A condition of war between the caliphate and other
> view, the absence of a rightful imam was sufficient ground for       political orders was accepted as the norm, even though such a
> launching a revolt against the caliph, while the Kharijis           norm could be temporarily regulated by treaties. The reladeclared that any person guilty of a grave sin should be            tionship with other religions followed this political norm.
> deposed. Against them, the Mu
tazila argued that such a             The expanding caliphate tolerated no polytheistic religious
> person did not automatically relinquish his faith and could         communities. They had to abandon their religions, and
> not be summarily dismissed. But they said that such a person        accept Islam. In contrast, Christians and Jews were recogwas suspended between belief and disbelief. The majority of         nized as People of the Book and were tolerated in the
> the scholars gravitated toward a more accommodationist              caliphate order.
> position, and argued that grave acts or sins by themselves do
> not declare a person a non-Muslim. The theological argu-                But still, the caliphate was a political institution driven by
> ments were the first political arguments concerning the              the interests of those who were able to command power.
> identity of the caliph, but it is quite clear that they contrib-    Various factions of Arab tribes played a dominant role in the
> balance of power during the Umayyad period and the early
> uted in no small part to the definition of a Muslim against
> Abbasid period, and the history and success of conquest
> disbelief. And the early theological debates among Muslims
> created significant opportunities for others. The religious
> themselves and between Muslims and other religious groups
> character of the caliphate was reinforced by the ideological
> in the Near East established the boundaries and identity of
> claims made by various parties, from the Shi
as who declared
> Islam and Muslims.
> their support for the divinely inspired leadership of the
> The identity of Muslims also raised the issue of the Arabs      imams, to the Kharijis who lived by the letter of the Quran.
> and Arabic. As Islam spread from Arabia and embraced many           The religious element was reinforced through the developdifferent cultures and traditions, it confronted the question of    ment of a religious literature on the legacy of the Prophetic
> the relationship between Arabs and non-Arabs, and between           period. In particular, the compilation of the Quran and the
> Arab culture and local languages and cultures. The spread of        sayings of the Prophet and his associates provided the foundations for a religious discourse of power, authority, and
> Islamic power went hand in hand with Arabization. The first
> community. As an institution, then, the political and religious
> dynasty of Islam that followed the reign of 
Ali, the Umayyads,
> elements of the caliphate were not so easily separated. And
> played a leading role in ensuring that the Arab nature of the
> yet, in spite of the inseparability of the political from the
> conquest and its new administration were not lost. Against
> religious, the production of a literary tradition provided the
> this hegemony of Arab authority, the Islamic impulse favored
> basis for the emergence of religious learning (ilm) and its
> a greater sense of egalitarianism between Arabs and nonprestige. Those who possessed this knowledge, the ulema,
> Arabs. One of the main factors that supported the Abbasid
> were distinct from those who wielded power and from the
> revolution (750) against the Umayyads was the alliance bemass of followers, even though they did not always form a
> tween Arab and non-Arab forces. The victory of the Abbasids
> distinctive institution that bound them to each other on the
> meant the victory for universalism in the house of Islam. But
> public plain. Sometimes one gets the impression that, in the
> the position of the Arabs and Arabic was not abandoned. The
> earliest period of conquest, those who wielded brute force
> Arabic language, as the language of divine revelation par
> disdained such men of learning. But the accumulation of
> excellence, took on an elevated position in society in general
> scholarly tradition could not be ignored in the administration
> and in religious scholarship in particular, and became the
> of justice, the bureaucracy, and in the general legitimization
> lingua franca of aspiring religious teachers and scholars. The      of the political order itself.
> genius of the Arabs lay not so much in their intrinsic ethnic
> worth, but on the role and eminence of the Quran and the               In the latter half of the Ummayad and the early part of the
> teachings of the prophet Muhammad. Social movements that            Abbasid caliphates, the accumulation of the teachings of the
> favored anti-Arab sentiments, like the Shu
ubiyya, remained         Prophet and the early Muslims began in the important towns
> in the society, but could never dislodge the lofty status of the    and cities such as Medina, Mecca, Kufa, and Basra. The most
> Arabic language as the language of revelation. Legal, exegetical,   well known of these teachings were from prominent individuand philological studies emphasized the indispensability of         als who later came to be associated with schools of law like
> Arabic even while keeping the door open to conversions.             Abu Hanifa (d. 767), Malik b. Anas (d. 796), Muhammad b.
> 
> 586                                                                                              Islam and the Muslim World
> Religious Institutions
> 
> Idris al-Shafi
i (d. 820), and Ahmad b. Hanbal (d. 855). Their       period, when the Ottoman Empire conquered Constantinodiscussions on issues such as criminal justice, evidence, mili-     ple and became the model of extensive, but not universal,
> tary warfare, and slavery provided the political and social         Muslim empires until the emergence of nation-states. As
> foundations for the caliphate. At the same time, and of more        challengers from religious and political groups were regular
> lasting significance, they founded the basic framework for a         features of the caliphate, individual caliphs relied more and
> religious way of life by defining and specifying the way in          more on slave soldiers and generals for their personal rule and
> which to fulfill the religious duties in Islam. Theological          effective control. The Abbasid revolution unleashed the force
> discussions defined the boundaries of belief and membership,         of regional powers, particularly in the areas previously conjuridical discussions elaborated the performance of ritual          trolled by the Sassanian Empire. From the tenth century
> practices, and mystical notions explored religious experience       these regions witnessed the emergence of powerful governors
> with the Divine.                                                    and generals who wielded more power than the central
> government. In this same century, challenges to the univer-
> Eventually, the apparatus of scholarship inscribed a dis-       sality of the institution also became apparent. A rival caliphate
> tinct zone of authority that the caliphs and other political        was established in the West by survivors of the Umayyad
> rulers could not access through the exercise of military            family who fled to North Africa and southern Spain. One of
> means. One of the most interesting episodes in Abbasid              their descendants, 
Abd al-Rahman III (912–961), declared
> history illustrates the limits of political authority against the   himself a caliph in 929, challenging the theory of the single
> authority of religious scholarship. In 833, the Abbasid caliph      political authority of Baghdad. In contrast, the Shi
a, in spite
> Mamun instituted an inquisition (mihna) to force all notable       of their differences, were able to rise to prominence. The
> scholars to accept the doctrine of the createdness of the           Buyids took effective control of Baghdad in 945, even though
> Quran as state policy. A celebrated and most popular teacher       they did not completely replace the caliph with a recognized
> of hadith, Ahmad b. Hanbal, refused to embrace the doctrine.        imam. But another Shi
a movement was even more ambi-
> The state policy continued for some time after the death of         tious. The Fatimids, with the support of Berber clans in
> Mamun, but was finally rescinded by al-Mutawakkil (r.               North Africa, lay claim to the universal caliphate from Spain
> 847–861). The event reinforced the authority of the religious       to India. They occupied Cairo in 969 and went on to become
> scholars and their role in society. Some have seen in this          the largest and longest surviving political order until the
> episode the divergence of political from religious authority        1170s, when they were defeated by the Seljuks, another group
> of Turkish military adventurers. The dominance of regional
> in Islam.
> powers, and direct religious challenges from the Shi
a both
> The caliphate was a religious institution created and           helped to lay to rest the effective authority of the universal
> established in early Islam. It defined a religious order of          caliphate. The rival caliphates from both Sunni (Spanish
> power and authority that included the meaning of the self,          Andalusian) and Shi
ite (Buyid and Fatimid) claims shook the
> community, and the Other. The history of the caliphate              institution and myth of the single universal caliphate.
> during this period indicates that the precise details of the
> The religious elements developed during the early caliphate
> order were determined by the historical exigencies of internal
> did not completely disappear, but they were transformed in
> disputes, and conflict with the Other. The beginnings of the
> the context of these new social and political experiences. The
> accumulation of the teachings of the Prophet, the Quran,
> idea of a universal community of believers (umma) persisted
> and the legacy of the earliest Muslim community provided
> through the political breakdown of the empire, but a political
> the scholarly foundations for these conceptions, which by           unity became impossible. The place and role of the Quran
> themselves were not always presented in one fully developed         and the prophet Muhammad reinforced this unity and this
> theory. In general, however, the caliphate bequeathed to            identity on social, religious, and commercial levels. More-
> Muslims the idea of a universal egalitarian community (umma)        over, the foundation of the religious discourse during the
> with a special place for the Arabic language and the family of      caliphate was now employed in the production of new instituthe Prophet; an expanding political order and hegemony over         tions. The juridical, theological, and mystical ideas that
> Jews, Christians, and other recognized religious communi-           emerged during the late Umayyad and Abbasid periods were
> ties; complete dominance over polytheistic communities; and         developed, and slowly produced institutions like the schools
> a religious authority based on knowledge of the revelations         of law and theology, and mystical orders. It is precisely the
> received by the prophet Muhammad.                                   latter institutions that were a dominant feature of the Middle
> Period of Islam. The caliphate gave way to more clearly
> The Middle Period                                                   definable religious institutions that expressed the emotions,
> The universal caliphate faced daunting challenges from the          attitudes, and behaviors of Muslims.
> outset, and finally collapsed as an effective political authority.
> The middle period refers to the time when the caliphs lost             Before elaborating on the religious institutions of the legal
> effective power to regional authorities until the modern            schools (madhhab) and the Sufi orders (tariqas), a brief note on
> period. One can also point to 1453 as a quasi midpoint of this      the political situation is essential. In comparison with the
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                      587
> Religious Institutions
> 
> caliphs, the governors and generals who wielded power in the         Abu Hanifa, Malik b. Anas, al-Shafi
i, and Ahmad b. Hanbal.
> Middle Period were less justified through religious theology.         Genealogies of students linking the founders were formu-
> In light of the early conceptions of the caliphate, they would       lated, founding texts and commentaries identified, more or
> simply be regarded as usurpers. But scholarly articulation of        less coherent theories outlined, and positions were founded
> the political order recognized and accepted the realpolitick on      against others. Makdisi has shown how the practice of comthe ground, and provided some space and recognition for              mentaries and notation on earlier works played a leading role
> these adventurers. One of the most significant theorists to           in the development of consensus within each of the schools.
> take up this task was the Baghdadian al-Mawardi (d. 1058),           The schools were in no small measure supported by the
> whose work on the caliphate has been widely acclaimed. He            foundation of the madrasa, a school established to teach one
> recognized the new realities of the political space, and tried to    or another school of law. The first to introduce the madrasa as
> articulate justice as an organizing principle for public and         an institution for teaching were the Shi
a, but it quickly
> private life. The new rulers may come to power by virtue of          became a distinct way of consolidating and promoting the
> their strength, according to al-Mawardi, but they were duty-         teachings of Sunni schools as well. The madrasa did not
> bound to uphold justice in their realms. The sharia, as             replace the networks around individual teachers, but proelaborated by the religious scholars, played an important role       vided a basis for their further consolidation. In Sunni Islam,
> in the administration of justice, apart from its more signifi-        then, the four schools of law took their shape during the
> cant role of outlining more personal religious duties. Al-           Middle Period. It was also this period that saw the consolida-
> Mawardi emphasized the requirement for justice in their              tion of Shi
ism as a rival scholarly vision of Islam, as the
> political behavior (siyasa). Such theories did not always tem-       foundation of a complete political order, or as a school of law,
> per the political ambitions of the men of power, but they            theology, and mysticism.
> provided a new model of political life.
> In addition to the schools of law, this period also witnessed
> In light of such a broad justification, the generals and          the emergence of Sufi orders (tariqas). Like the schools of
> rulers often obtained support from one of the schools of law,        law, the earliest ideas on mystical life had also emerged in the
> theology, or mystical orders. Buyid support for Shi
ite teach-       early caliphate. With the Middle Period, Sufi ideas were
> ings was followed by a series of Sunni-inclined rulers. The          similarly consolidated. Compendia were compiled, biogra-
> Seljukid and Ayyubid rulers were prominent examples who              phies (or hagiographies) were collected of the early Sufis, and
> promoted Sunni Islamic thought and life. In this period,             then, in the twelfth century, the first order was developed
> perhaps as a result of their lesser religious roles, the generals    around the teachings of 
Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani (d. 1166) of
> were more inclined to shore their regimes with the support of        Baghdad. A highly respected and popular preacher, al-Jilani
> religious tendencies. They supported the building of schools         introduced a large number of people to the simple insights of
> for legal and theological groups, and also embarked upon             Sufi experience. His order has become the most widespread
> extensive architectural projects of mosques, mausoleums, and         in the Muslim world, and many others have followed it in
> Sufi lodges. Mottahedeh’s analysis has suggested that support         form. The orders in general grew out of the strong relationfor the religious projects was not motivated only by insecu-         ship between a Sufi teacher and his disciple, and the additional
> rity, or deep religious feelings and convictions. He argued          rites prescribed to experience God through remembrance
> that in this period the system of land grants (iqta) to gover-      (dhikr).
> nors and soldiers made this the most important means of
> acquiring and cultivating land. In this context, pious endow-            But both legal schools and Sufi orders exemplified the
> ments (waqf) made by wealthy and political elites created a          chief religious institutions in this period. Both the school of
> relatively autonomous space that escaped these land grants,          law (madhhab) and Sufi order (tariqa) became complementary
> and were therefore favored by wealthy patrons of religious           ways of being a Muslim in the Middle Period. Not every
> life in general, and religious institutions in particular. Through   Muslim would belong to a Sufi order as they would adopt a
> the waqf then, religious practices were granted a degree of          school or a jurist, but Sufism became a prevalent badge of
> autonomy and independence in a period of often-great mili-           identity as well. The legal school and tariqa were the promitary conflict.                                                        nent institutions that gave shape to religious life in the
> Middle Period. Both assumed the presence of a political
> As mentioned already, Islamic juridical thought origi-           authority that supported Islamic law, even though not always
> nated early during the caliphate. Shi
ite imams and other            very consistently. But the legal schools and the orders gave
> teachers started outlining rules and conditions for the per-         shape to the religious spheres that were created in the early
> formance of personal religious duties and the application of         caliphate.
> public law. During the Middle Period, the elaboration and
> articulation of legal theory and practices continued. But now        Modern Period
> distinct identities emerged around prominent scholars and            The next major transformation of religious institutions octheir students. In Sunni Islam, the Middle Period witnessed          curred with the impact of Western (European) hegemony.
> the consolidation of four legal schools, linking themselves to       The armies of the generals and the sultans first lost to the
> 
> 588                                                                                              Islam and the Muslim World
> Religious Institutions
> 
> Europeans on the battlefields, followed by direct occupation         in the legal systems of the new states. But the central idea of
> and widespread cultural and political influence. This latest         the modern state is not rejected, and the greater degree of
> period of Islamic history has also spawned its unique institu-      instrumentalization of religion in the state is not questioned.
> tions, continuing from the past in some sense and inventing         By and large, the idea of the Islamic state is a marriage
> new features in the new political contexts.                         between the modern state and the sultanates of the Middle
> Period. The modern Muslim state, advocating a greater or
> In the central lands of Islam (the Ottoman sultanate, Iran,     lesser degree of Islamization, is a unique religious institution.
> and Egypt) the modern period witnessed an intense conflict           It is neither completely free from the influence of traditional
> between the political rulers and the ulema. The former              Islamic patterns and institutions, the caliphate and the legal
> wanted to modernize the state and society as quickly as             schools, nor from modern notions of state. So far the first and
> possible in order to emulate and compete with the Western           most successful of such states has been the Islamic Republic of
> powers that were defeating them on the battlefields, while the       Iran (established 1979).
> latter regarded most of these changes as a direct threat to
> their own positions in society and to Islam as a way of life. In        But the modern period has also given rise to a different
> the nineteenth century, individual religious scholars sup-          kind of religious institution in Islam. Such institutions are a
> ported some aspects of modernization, and promoted some             product of secular states, and are most clearly noticeable in
> form of reformist interpretation of Islam. But the ulema as a       countries of minority Muslim contexts such as India, Africa
> class of scholars lost their unique place in the new political      south of the Sahara, and more recently Europe and America.
> orders. Sometimes they were violently suppressed in the             In the secular context, religion is relatively free from direct
> process, and the pious foundations over which they main-            state influence, and vice versa. In such conditions, Muslims
> tained control and through which they enjoyed some inde-            have established anew or transformed their mosques, schools,
> pendence were confiscated or nationalized. In varying degrees,       pious endowments, and burial grounds into more indepenwhat emerged in the modern period was a political space             dent religious institutions. The development of these instituoccupied entirely by generals, rulers, and later politicians.       tions has been closely tied with local historical contexts, but
> has drawn on resources and patterns of autonomy in the
> In this context, the state in Islamic society was trans-        Middle Period of Islam. More recently, with the emergence
> formed into a powerful entity that controlled all aspects of        of new technologies of communication (the radio, Internet,
> life, including religion. Religion, in this case Islam, became      and satellite), such independent institutions have proliferan instrument to bring about change and modernization, and          ated. Once their role in secular pluralist societies is identified,
> to keep the incumbents in power. With its long history of           they become easily recognized in Muslim majority countries
> religious politics, the new state could employ symbols and          as well. Such institutions are not always easily visible in
> instruments to further its goals. And yet the new state was         majority Muslim states, but they play an important role in the
> neither a continuation of the caliphate nor the military            practice of Muslims. Only the political control and monopsultanates of the Middle Period. The new state accepted the         oly of Islam in the modern state prevents their explosive
> rights, privileges, boundaries, and limitations of a modern         proliferation.
> state, and, like other modern states, it used religion for its
> particular political purposes. The new state could be a mon-        See also Arabic Language; Empires: Abbasid; Empires:
> archy based on the prestige of the family of the Prophet            Sassanian; Empires: Umayyad; 
Ibadat; Identity, Mus-
> (Jordan and Morocco) or a revivalist religious movement             lim; Islam and Islamic; Khirqah; Khutba; Masjid; Mate-
> (Saudi Arabia), a socialist or capitalist one-party state (Iraq,    rial Culture.
> Syria, and Egypt), or a secular republic based on universal
> suffrage (Turkey). In spite of their diversity, the acceptance of   BIBLIOGRAPHY
> the modern state system, and the instrumentalization of Islam       Crecelius, Daniel. “The Course of Secularization in Modern
> for legitimacy, united them.                                          Egypt.” In Islam and Development: Religion and Sociopolitical
> Change. Edited by J. L. Esposito. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse
> In the second half of the twentieth century, most of the          University Press, 1980.
> states witnessed opposition movements that demanded a               Crone, Patricia, and Hinds, Martin. God’s Caliph: Religious
> greater degree of Islamization. But the opposing positions            Authority in the First Centuries of Islam. Cambridge, U.K.:
> have not been based so much on the absence of religion in the         Cambridge University Press, 1986.
> modern states, but on their inappropriate practice and inter-       Hodgson, Marshall G. S. The Venture of Islam: Conscience and
> pretation. So, the demand for an Islamic state to replace the         History in a World Civilization. Chicago: University Press
> older modern state is based on a more complete adoption of            of Chicago, 1974.
> Islamic teachings in both the state and society. In particular,     Lapidus, Ira M. Muslim Cities in the Later Middle Ages. 1967.
> there is a demand that the sharia developed by the legal             Reprint. Cambridge, U.K.: Press Syndicate of the Universchools in the Middle Period play a central and dominant role         sity of Cambridge, 1984.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                       589
> Republican Brothers
> 
> Makdisi, George. The Rise of Colleges: Institutions of Learning in   BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Islam and the West. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University                An-Naim, Abdullahi Ahmed. “Introduction.” In The Second
> Press, 1981.                                                         Message of Islam. Edited by Mahmoud Mohamed Taha.
> Martin, Richard C. “Public Aspects of Theology in Medieval             Translated by Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im. Syracuse,
> Islam: The Role of Kalam in Conflict Definition and                    N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1987.
> Resolution.” Journal for Islamic Studies 13 (November
> 1993): 77–100.
> John O. Voll
> Mikhail, Hanna. Politics and Revelation: Mawardi and After.
> Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1995.
> Mottahedeh, Roy P. Loyalty and Leadership in an Early Islamic
> Society. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1980.        REVOLUTION
> Starrett, Gregory. Putting Islam to Work: Education, Politics,
> and Religious Transformation in Egypt. Berkeley: University
> CLASSICAL ISLAM
> of California Press, 1998.                                            Saïd A. Arjomand
> Zaman, Muhammad Qasim. The Making of a Religious Discourse: An Essay in the History and Historiography of the             ISLAMIC REVOLUTION IN IRAN
> Kristian P. Alexander
> Abbasid Revolution. Research Monograph Series, vol. 5.
> Islamabad: International Institute of Islamic Thought;                MODERN
> Islamic Research Institute, 1995.                                      Saïd A. Arjomand
> Zaman, Muhammad Qasim. Religion and Politics Under the
> Early Abbasids: The Emergence of the Proto-Sunni Elite.
> Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1997.                                         CLASSICAL ISLAM
> The concept that comes closest to revolution in early Islam is
> Abdulkader Tayob       fitna (civil strife), used in reference to three civil wars that
> occurred in the first 125 years of Islamic history. The first
> civil war (556–561) began with the murder of the third caliph,
> 
Uthman, and ended after the assassination of the fourth
> REPUBLICAN BROTHERS                                                  caliph, 
Ali. Its consequence was the transfer of the caliphate
> to Mu
awiya, the founder of the Umayyad dynasty. The
> The Republican Brothers is a Sudanese organization advosecond fitna (680–692) began after the death of Mu
awiya and
> cating Islamic reformation that follows the teachings of
> ended with the victory of the Marwanid branch of his dynasty.
> Mahmud Muhammad Taha (d. 1985). Taha originally estab-
> The third civil war began within the Umayyad dynasty, with
> lished a small political party advocating Sudanese indepenthe rebellion of Yazid III against Walid II in 744, and
> dence in 1945, but following a profound religious experience
> continued until the defeat of Marwan II and the overthrow of
> in 1951, he gradually transformed the Republican Party into a
> the Umayyads by the Abbasids in 750. The rise of the
> reformist brotherhood. Taha called for a comprehensive
> Abbasids was viewed as a new turn (dawla) in power. That
> rethinking of the nature of Islamic law, giving emphasis to
> term, dawla, came to mean the state as the Abbasid rule
> gender equality and religious pluralism, and a new vision of
> what Islamic society should be. This vision came to be called        continued for centuries. Modern scholarship concurs that
> “The Second Message of Islam.” The Republican Brothers               this change of dynasty in the mid-eighth century was of
> were not politically activist. They did not establish a political    fundamental importance and generally refers to it as the
> party during the eras of parliamentary politics in Sudan             Abbasid revolution.
> (1956–1958, 1964–1969, 1985–1989) and were not active in
> If revolution is taken to mean a fundamental change in the
> opposition to the military regimes. However, in 1983 Taha
> political order and its social base, then the rise of Islam itself
> opposed the imposition of a form of Islamic law by the
> can be considered a revolution. The rise of Islam (622–632)
> military regime of President Ja
far al-Numayri, a position for
> was primarily a religious revolution that saw itself as the
> which he was executed in 1985. Although the Republican
> realization of Messianism, but it entailed a political revolu-
> Brothers became organizationally weak following the execution
> tion in Arabia and immediate expansion into the Roman and
> of their leader, Taha’s teachings gained increasing visibility
> Persian empires. Muhammad succeeded in creating a unified
> among Muslims around the world. The leading representacommunity and state out of the segmentary tribal society of
> tive of this school of thought is Abdullahi An-Naim, one of
> Arabia. He mobilized those who accepted Islam as a new
> Taha’s students who, as an expatriate, developed Taha’s
> monotheistic religion for “struggle (jihad) in the path of
> thinking further and became a prominent Muslim scholar in
> the field of human rights and international law.                      God,” and unified the refractory tribes of Arabia on the basis
> of the acceptance of his Prophecy. Immediately upon com-
> See also Modernity; Reform: Arab Middle East and                     pleting the unification of Arabia after his death, his succes-
> North Africa.                                                        sors, the caliphs, redirected the energy the Prophet had thus
> 
> 590                                                                                               Islam and the Muslim World
> Revolution
> 
> mobilized, turning their attention toward the conquest of the    Mahdi, Muhammad b. 
Abdallah b. al-Hasan, finally rose
> Byzantine and Persian empires. The result of their efforts was   under the latter’s leadership in 762, but their rebellion was
> the exportation of Islam and its gradual spread through vast     suppressed with much bloodshed.
> conquered lands, from North Africa to Central Asia and
> northern India.                                                  Effects of the Abbasid Revolution
> The Abbasid revolution was the social revolution of Islam,
> The subject populations of these conquered lands were        and created a more integrated polity defined in terms of
> converted to Islam only very gradually. Under the Umayyads       Islam. The subject populations became integrated into the
> (660–750), the Muslim empire remained an Arab empire.            Abbasid Empire as Muslims in their own right, and no longer
> The non-Arabs who converted to Islam became the clients          lived as disprivileged clients of the Arabs. The Abbasid
> (mawali) of the Arabs, and did not have a share in political     caliphs embarked on an empirewide recruitment of the new
> power. As the number of people in the client class grew in the   political elite from the local notable families as well as the
> second quarter of the eighth century, so did their demand for    Arab tribal aristocracy, and opened their bureaucracy more
> equal treatment as fellow believers in Islam. A movement         widely to Iranians and Nestorian Christians. Military careers
> with this as its aim gained momentum among the converts of       were opened to Iranian and, later, Turkish converts. Non-
> Islam in Khurasan and Central Asia, whose adherents later        Arab Muslims were not only integrated into the Abbasid
> became known as the Murji
a, but in fact called themselves       imperial administration and armies but also fully participated
> “the people for equality.”                                       in the cultural elaboration of Islam as a universalist religion of
> salvation, making major contributions to the collection of the
> The Shi
ite sects took advantage of the discontent among     traditions of the Prophet (hadith) and the development of
> the mawali to form underground revolutionary organizations       Islamic law, and even to the development of the Arabic
> on behalf of different branches of the House of the Prophet,     language as Islam’s lingua franca.
> raising these as alternatives to the ruling Umayyads. These
> After the second civil war, which ended in 692, the
> clandestine revolutionaries made messianic claims for their
> caliphate had gradually been transformed from a regime of
> leaders as the Mahdi, the reviver of religion and redeemer of
> patriarchal rule over a coalition of nomadic conquerors into
> the world. They remained united, however, by not naming
> an imperial government employing Arab-speaking clients
> their messianic leader. Rather, he was anonymously referred
> into its bureaucracy. This process was completed after the
> to as the one to be agreed upon (al-rida) from the House of
> Abbasid revolution, and an elaborate central government
> Muhammad.
> emerged, divided into a number of departments (diwans): a
> The Shi
ites favored the House of 
Ali (the Prophet’s son-   chancery, an imperial postal and inspection service, and
> in law) and were mostly active in Medina and Kufa. But the       taxation and army bureaus, each functioning under a wazir.
> party of the House of 
Abbas (the Prophet’s uncle) began         Thus, like modern social revolutions, the Abbasid revolution
> proselytizing in Khurasan. The Abbasid leader, Abu Muslim,       resulted in the centralization of administration and concenbegan his open rebellion in Khurasan while the Umayyad           tration of power, inaugurating an era of caliphal absolutism.
> Empire was torn by an internecine civil war after a period of
> See also Assassins; Empires: Abbasid; Empires: Umayyad;
> military overextension in North Africa. An army recruited by
> Fitna; Shi
a: Early; Succession.
> Abu Muslim defeated the governor of Khurasan and several
> Umayyad armies in Iran, and, finally, the last Umayyad
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> caliph, Marwan II, near the river Zab in northern Mesopotamia
> in 750. The Khurasanian army proceeded to Kufa, brought          Humphreys, R. S. Islamic History: A Framework of Inquiry.
> Rev. ed. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
> the Abbasid family out of hiding, and proclaimed one of
> them, Abu ’l-
Abbas 
Abd Allah b. Muhammad, the new              Lapidus, I. M. A History of Islamic Societies. Cambridge, U.K.:
> caliph over the objection of the Kufan revolutionary elite.        Cambridge University Press, 1988.
> The revolutionary power struggle continued under Abu ’l-         Wellhausen, J. The Arab Kingdom and Its Fall. Beirut:
> 
Abbas (750–754), and the real consolidation of Abbasid           Khayyats, 1963.
> power took place under his brother and successor, Abu Ja
far,
> who later assumed the title of al-Mansur (754–775).                                                            Saïd A. Arjomand
> 
> The first step in the consolidation of Abbasid power was      ISLAMIC REVOLUTION IN IRAN
> the elimination of Abu Muslim, in 755. Then came Abu             The Iranian Revolution, which occurred between 1978 and
> Ja
far’s break with Shi
ism and his other former revolutionary   1979, has been called the last major revolution of the twentipartners. Descendants of the House of 
Ali were not only         eth century. It marked the end of the rule of monarch Reza
> excluded from power but also persecuted. Abu Ja
far’s former     Shah Pahlevi and the beginning of the establishment of a
> allies, who claimed he had in fact pledged allegiance to their   theocratic state in Iran. It was urban based, meaning that
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                    591
> Revolution
> 
> During the Iranian Revolution of 1978–1979, mass demonstrations rather than a concerted military effort brought the end of the rule of
> monarch Reza Shah Pahlavi. Here, with posters of the Ayatollah Khomeini (who replaced the shah after the Revolution), the Iranian army
> shows its solidarity with street protesters. GETTY IMAGES
> 
> many of the revolutionary groups were from the city and not          shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlevi, maintained total control
> peasants from the periphery. The main political instruments          over the Majlis (national assembly), the cabinet, the bureauthat brought down the shah’s regime were strikes and mass            cracy, and Iran’s political parties. Restricted freedom, arbidemonstrations and not a concerted military action. Although         trary decisions, and political repression by the Ministry of
> the overarching ideology of the revolution was that of Shi
ite       Security (known as SAVAK), as well as widespread corrup-
> Islam cloaked in third-world sentiments, it was in actuality a       tion, cronyism, and bureaucratic inefficiency, are all cited by
> multiclass coalition of widely disparate groups, from liberal        many observers as the ultimate forces that finally led to the
> nationalists to Islamic radicals, that finally overthrew the          downfall of the shah.
> shah. The anti-shah movement was also largely detached
> from the international context, with little direct military or           In addition, the Pahlevi dynasty’s claim to legitimacy was
> political support from outside Iran. The Iranian Revolution          irreparably damaged after the August 1953 coup, which was
> was so spontaneous and unexpected that it took many ana-             organized by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and
> lysts and observers by surprise. In fact, as late as August          British intelligence, overthrew the democratically elected
> and September of 1978, U.S. intelligence reports still indi-         government of then–prime minister Mohammad Mosaddeq
> cated that opposition groups did not pose a threat to the            and reinstalled the young shah to the throne. In the midshah’s regime.                                                       1970s, human rights organizations and the Western press
> started a campaign against violations of human rights in Iran
> The Failure of the Pahlevi Regime                                    and criticized the shah for the mistreatment of political
> The shah’s autocratic rule is widely viewed to be an important       prisoners. The administration of U.S. president Jimmy Carter
> factor contributing to the rise of revolutionary action. The         sought to compel the shah to be more observant of human
> 
> 592                                                                                               Islam and the Muslim World
> Revolution
> 
> rights, but hoped to avoid destabilizing Iran or jeopardizing      government under the leadership of the faqih, or Muslim
> the close ties between the two countries. Responding to            jurist. In the early 1970s, Khomeini moved to Paris, which
> increasing criticism, the shah decided to permit a limited         had a growing population of Iranian expatriots. There he
> amount of public discourse. Unfortunately, the public per-         gathered other exiled opposition leaders around him.
> ceived the shah’s liberalization process as a sign of weakness.
> Further exacerbating the situation was the shah’s massive             Two social groups were very much disaffected by the
> modernization program (the so-called White Revolution of           shah’s rule/policies, the bazaaris (merchants) and the ulema.
> 1962) and his embrace of westernization, both of which             These established close ties with one another, and proved to
> alienated large parts of Iranian society. The White Revolu-        be a formidable alliance, in which the bazaaris provided
> tion embodied a variety of economic and social initiatives,        financial support to the ulema through the payment of tithes.
> including land reform, public ownership of industries,             In return for this financial support, the religious community
> enfranchisement of women, profit-sharing for workers, and a         provided the leadership and organizational backbone for the
> literacy corps to implement compulsory education in rural          antigovernment alliance.
> areas. However, it was opposed by landowners, who were
> afraid that they would lose the main source of their wealth,           Iran’s estimated 8,000 mosques provided an efficient naand by the ulema, who were alarmed by the spread of secular        tionwide communication network. The mosques served as
> education and the propagation of anti-Islamic values.              centers for dissent, political organization, agitation, and sanctuary. In this context, revolutionary Shi
ite Islam was rapidly
> Heedless of his subjects’ growing dissatisfaction, the shah     transformed into a discursive ideology that transcended class
> set forth to westernize Iranian society, patterning it along       differences and social divisions and provided an effective
> American lines. This process of the Americanization of Ira-        channel of communication between dissident leaders and
> nian society was undertaken with the help of American              their followers. When the shah’s minister of information
> planners. Military personnel and U.S. advisors were granted        planted an article in a daily newspaper attacking Khomeini
> legal latitude so broad as to constitute personal immunity         and attempting to discredit him, protesting religious students
> from prosecution. The shah failed to realize that his plans for    in Qom staged sit-ins, which in turn led to violent repression
> modernization, intended to foster a political environment          from the shah. Some time later, several hundred demonstracapable of sustaining the nation’s political and economic          tors were killed during the government suppression of nongrowth, neglected to recognize the importance of religion          violent protests, an event that came to be known as the “Black
> and culture in Iranian society.                                    Friday massacre” and “Jahleh square massacre.”
> 
> The Rise of the Ayatollah                                              The deaths of the demonstrators were used to inspire a
> The Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini denounced the shah’s               further round of protests. Mourning processions were staged
> modernization program, focusing his attacks on the new             to commemorate the protestors, hailing them as heroes and
> electoral law enfranchising women and the referendum that          martyrs. Ayatollah Khomeini himself was viewed by many as
> endorsed the White Revolution. He declared the new elec-           the charismatic leader and provided the inspiration for the
> toral law un-Islamic and the referendum unconstitutional.          revolutionary movement. He was one of half a dozen Shi
ite
> Khomeini called upon his followers to protest, leading to the      marja-e taqlid (source of emulation), a position that permitriots that erupted in 1963, but such public demonstrations         ted him to widely publicize his views, but it was his pre-exile
> were brutally crushed by the shah. Khomeini was arrested           vehemence against the shah that garnered him his most
> and detained in Tehran for two months. In late 1964, when          fervent followers. Indeed, his vehement political stand against
> the shah extended diplomatic immunity to his American              the shah, which led to his exile in 1964. Khomeini was also
> military advisors, Khomeini accused the ruler of betraying         credited with expounding the theory of government that
> Iran and endangering Islam.                                        claimed that during the Mahdi’s absence the community
> could only be governed by a velayat-e faqih. He could be the
> This time Khomeini was deported to Turkey, from where          only person to execute God’s will on behalf of the Hidden
> he subsequently moved to the holy city of Najaf, in Iraq. In his   Imam, an agency with the mandate to rule both politically
> years in exile he continued to attack the shah’s policies,         and spiritually. His conceptual reformulation of the origidenounced the whole institution of monarchy, confronted            nally quietist precept was innovative.
> the religious establishment through a series of lectures condemning the ulema as apolitical, and organized his growing         Postrevolutionary Government
> cadre of supporters. It was during those years that he pro-        Although antimodernization and anti-Western sentiment
> duced his most famous handbook, Velayat-e faqih hokumat-e          played an important role in the downfall of the Pahlevi
> Islami (The jurist’s guardianship: Islamic government), in         dynasty, economic factors were also important. Industrial
> which he argued that the shah’s monarchy was incompatible          development did take place in Iran, but it proceeded very
> with Islam and that true Muslims must strive for an Islamic        unevenly and was dependent on the state, oil revenues, and
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                     593
> Revolution
> 
> external technology. The oil sector expanded or contracted
> primarily in response to the world market, rather than to
> domestic economic needs. Partially as a result of this, Iran
> experienced a phase of hyperinflation, growing unemployment, a rising cost of living, and an erosion of business
> confidence. All of this resulted in a decline in private investment and in massive capital flight, totaling more than $100
> million a month in 1975 and 1976. Strikes by oil workers and
> bank employees further devastated the economy of the
> shah’s regime.
> 
> In the aftermath of the revolution, the political situation
> was inflamed by the struggle between secular and religious
> forces, by the existence of rival bases of power, and the
> emergence of autonomous revolutionary organizations. As
> the central state disintegrated, local, self-appointed committees (komitehs) were formed to carry out the basic tasks of
> security and administration. In February 1979, revolutionary
> tribunals staffed by religious judges were set up to pass
> sentence on former officials of the shah’s regime, as well as on
> private individuals who were accused of counterrevolutionary
> activities. In May 1979, Khomeini ordered the formation of
> the Pasdaran, an armed force that was distinct from the
> regular army and deployed against opponents of the revolution. In an attempt to provide an organizational structure to
> the ideology of the Islamic revolution, a group of ayatollahs
> close to Khomeini formed the Islamic Republic Party (IRP)
> in mid-1979. The IRP sought to mobilize popular support for
> the Islamic Republic and to discredit the secular moderates.
> An effigy of the Statue of Liberty in a demonstration in Tehran
> The religious forces, led by Khomeini, used political         during a 2002 rally to mark the twenty-third anniversary of Iran’s
> Islamic Revolution. Tens of thousands of Iranians gathered to
> maneuvering, propaganda, and terror to eliminate all opposi-      protest repeated US condemnations of their country. GETTY IMAGES
> tion. The Mujahedin-e Khalq (an anticlerical opposition organization) were forced underground, and members of the
> Tudeh Party (Labor-Communist Party) and the Fedayin-e
> to screen and, if necessary, modify all legislation issued from
> Islam (Devotees of Islam, a religio-political organization)
> the Majlis before passing it on to the faqih for his approval,
> were either jailed or executed. Throughout this period of
> and to ensure that all candidates for Iran’s newly established
> consolidation, clerics and their supporters effectively elimipresidency possessed the proper Islamic credentials. It is the
> nated the secular nationalist faction and other opponents to
> faqih and the Majlis that select the members of the council.
> their rule. The chaotic postrevolutionary situation was ulti-
> The first presidential and legislative elections were held in
> mately clarified by a national referendum on the future of
> early 1980, and again resulted in sweeping victories for
> Iran that resulted in an overwhelming victory for Khomeini’s      Khomeini’s handpicked candidates.
> vision of an Islamic Republic. Elections for a Constituent
> Assembly charged with drafting a constitution for the Islamic     See also Imamate; Iran, Islamic Republic of; Khomeini,
> Republic were also won by Khomeini’s supporters and fur-          Ruhollah; Majlis; Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlevi;
> ther consolidated the authority of the religious forces. The      Velayat-e Faqih.
> resultant constitution institutionalized the principle of the
> velayat-e faqih (rule by a supreme religious leader). The         BIBLIOGRAPHY
> constitution also created a 270-seat Majlis to write and pass     Arjomand, Said Amir. The Turban for the Crown. Oxford:
> new laws subject to the faqih’s (that is, Khomeini’s) approval.      Oxford University Press, 1988.
> The Assembly of Experts—an elected body of seventy to             Milani, Mohsen M. The Making of Iran’s Islamic Revolution.
> eighty eminent Islamic scholars—was made responsible for            From Monarchy to Islamic Republic. 2d ed. Boulder, Colo.:
> such high matters of state as revising the constitution and         Westview Press, 1994.
> selecting a successor to the faqih. A twelve-member Council
> of Guardian, selected by the faqih and the Majlis, was created                                              Kristian P. Alexander
> 
> 594                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Revolution
> 
> MODERN                                                               1950s, and in Yemen, Libya, and the Sudan in the 1960s,
> Modern revolutions are generally viewed as part of the               proclaiming them to be revolutions. These events became
> process of political modernization. Although marking a break-        understood as a revolutionary wave washing across the Arab
> down in the process of state-building and constituting a             world, and were primarily motivated by Arab nationalism. Of
> radical rupture with the past, they are often caused by obsta-       these regime changes by the military, the two cases with the
> cles in the path of political modernization and can result in        strongest claim to being considered modern revolutions are
> far-reaching political transformation. The first wave of mod-         the July 1952 revolution in Egypt and the July 1958 revoluern revolutions in the Islamic world occurred in the first            tion in Iraq, both of which overthrew monarchies and estabdecade of the twentieth century, in reaction to the suspension       lished republics.
> or frustration of the attempts at political reform.
> Army officers were among the first groups to receive a
> Early-Twentieth-Century Constitutional Revolutions                   modern, Westernized education in the Middle East. Imbued
> Popular agitation for reform in Iran began in 1905, and              with ideas of nationalism and modernization of the state, they
> forced the shah to order elections for a parliament and to           were considered “intellectuals in uniform” in the 1950s. In
> grant Iran a constitution in 1906. It is therefore appropriately     July 1952, a group of Egyptian officers of the rank of colonel
> called the “Constitutional Revolution.” The ailing Mozaffar          or below, who called themselves the Free Officers, overthrew
> al-Din Shah died shortly after signing the constitution at the       the ruling monarchy of the descendants of Muhammad 
Ali
> end of December 1906. No sooner had the second part of the           (1804–1841). They proclaimed a republic and named a reconstitution (the Supplementary Fundamental Law) taken               spected army general its president. The real power, however,
> effect in October 1907 than serious trouble began between            was in the hands of the leader of the Free Officers, Col. Jamal
> the constitutionalists and his successor. The Shi
ite religious      
Abd al-Nasser (1918–1970), who abolished all political parleaders had been prominent in mobilizing popular agitation           ties in 1953 and proscribed the Muslim Brotherhood in 1954.
> for the constitution, but were split when the secularizing           In its place he created the Liberation Rally, followed by the
> implications of parliamentary legislation became clear to            National Union in 1956, which became the Arab Socialist
> them. The young Muhammad 
Ali Shah formed an alliance                Union after Nasser’s adoption of socialism as the ideology of
> with the Shi
ite traditionalists, suspended the constitution,        the Egyptian state in 1961. Nasser immediately championed
> and restored autocratic rule in 1908. Constitutional govern-         pan-Arab nationalism, which became so closely identified
> ment was restored, however, after his defeat and ouster in           with him that it was sometimes called “Nasserism.” He
> July 1909.                                                           succeeded in bringing about a United Arab Republic, to
> which Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Libya adhered for brief peri-
> The Turkish revolution of 1908 was also the result of a           ods. The war against Israel in 1967 was primarily justified in
> constitutionalist movement, this time led by the Young Turks         terms of Arab nationalism, and the defeat of the Arab coaliand organized by their Committee of Union and Progress. It           tion was taken as a clear signal of its failure and of the failure
> began with scattered revolts of military units led by army           of socialism as a modernizing ideology.
> officers who belonged to the movement. They ultimately
> forced Sultan 
Abd al-Hamid (1842–1918) to restore the                  In July 1958, the Iraqi Free Officers overthrew the
> Ottoman Constitution of 1876, after a thirty-year gap. The           Hashimite monarchy that had been established under the
> Committee of Union and Progress won a decisive majority in           British protectorate in 1921. They declared Iraq a republic,
> the parliamentary elections of that year. In April 1909,             with General 
Abd al-Karim Qasim (1914–1963) as its prime
> however, the sultan instigated an abortive counterrevolution-        minister. The revolution set in motion an intense competiary uprising in Istanbul among traditionalist religious stu-         tion for popular mobilization between the Iraqi Communist
> dents and officers who had been purged from the old army              Party and the pan-Arab Ba
th Party. This competition culmicorps. This uprising, similar to the traditional counterrevolu-      nated in an insurrection that brought the Ba
th party into
> tion in Iran a year earlier, ultimately failed, and the sultan was   power in February 1963, and General Qasim was executed
> deposed in favor of his brother. The Young Turks amended             that year.
> the constitution and strengthened the power of parliament,
> and remained in power until the end of the First World War              Nationalism was the defining feature of the Egyptian and
> in 1918. During their tenure, however, they carried out a            Iraqi revolutions, and it was most clearly reflected in the
> program of administrative reform and military modernization.         foreign policies of these countries. The idea of social reform
> was not absent, and both regimes carried out land reforms.
> The Arab World After the Second World War                            The main impact of the respective revolutions on their
> The modern revolutions of the Arab Middle East occurred              economies and societies was, however, the result of the
> after the end of the Second World War. Following the                 adoption of socialism and a wave of nationalizations in Egypt
> fashion of the time, especially in Latin America, military           in 1961, and the coming to power of the Ba
th Party in
> officers carried out coups d’état in Egypt, Syria, and Iraq in the    Iraq in 1963.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                        595
> Reza Shah
> 
> The Iranian Experiment                                              War. In October 1923 he became Prime Minister. He organ-
> The most important revolution in the twentieth-century              ized the deposition of the reigning monarch, Ahmad Shah
> Middle East, and the one with the greatest social and interna-      Qajar, and ascended the throne in April 1926.
> tional impact, was the Islamic revolution of 1979 in Iran.
> Although it fits the pattern of revolution as part of the process        Immediately after the coup, Reza Khan began the task of
> of modernization of the state, its unique feature was the           constructing a modern army and, using this army, he then
> replacement of Islam for constitutionalism, nationalism, and        proceeded to suppress the autonomy of the tribes and the
> socialism as the ideology of revolutionary transformation.          regional magnates, later he adopted a policy of enforced
> sedentarization of the nomadic tribes. In the late 1920s, a
> See also Modernization, Political: Constitutionalism;               number of radical, centralizing reforms were introduced,
> Reform: Arab Middle East and North Africa; Revolu-                  including the secularization of the judicial system, as well as a
> tion: Islamic Revolution in Iran; Young Turks.                      series of etatiste economic measures. In 1935, following a
> visit to Ataturk’s Turkey, he banned female veiling.
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                           The regime that was headed by the semiliterate Reza Shah
> Afary, J. The Iranian Constitutional Revolution, 1906–1911.         became increasingly authoritarian and finally dictatorial. His
> New York: Columbia University Press, 1996.                       brutality, which included the murder of many of his closest
> Arjomand, S. A. The Turban for the Crown: The Islamic Revolu-       supporters, and his mania for land acquisition, through which
> tion in Iran. New York: Oxford University Press, l988.           he had become the largest landowner in the country, made his
> Batatu, H. The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Move-       regime increasingly unpopular. He was unable to preserve his
> ments of Iraq. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University             country’s independence after the outbreak of the Second
> Press, 1978.                                                     World War, and on 25 August 1941 British and Soviet armies
> Godron, J. Nasser’s Blessed Moment. Egypt’s Free Officers and        invaded Iran. On 16 September he was obliged to abdicate in
> the July Revolution. New York: Oxford University                  order to secure the succession for his son. Reza Shah went
> Press, 1991.                                                      into exile in South Africa.
> Kansu, A. The Revolution of 1908 in Turkey. Leiden: E. J.
> See also Modernization, Political: Authoritarianism and
> Brill, 1997.
> Democratization.
> Sharabi, H. Nationalism and Revolution in the Arab World. New
> York: D. Van Nostrand Co., 1966.
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Sohrabi, N. “Historicizing Revolutions: Constitutional Revolu-
> Cronin, Stephanie. The Army and the Creation of the Pahlavi
> tions in the Ottoman Empire, Iran, and Russia, 1905–1908.”
> State in Iran. London and New York: I. B. Tauris, 1997.
> American Journal of Sociology 100, no. 6 (1995): 1383–1447.
> 
> Stephanie Cronin
> Saïd A. Arjomand
> 
> RIBA
> REZA SHAH (1878–1944)
> Of all the economic proscriptions in the Quran, the most
> Shah Reza Khan was the founder and first shah of the Pahlavi         controversial has been the ban on riba, the pre-Islamic lenddynasty of Iran. The exact date of his birth is uncertain but has   ing practice held responsible for pushing destitute Arab
> been fixed officially as 16 March 1878. He died in exile in           borrowers into enslavement. According to some early Mus-
> South Africa on 26 July 1944.                                       lims, this ban was meant to cover all interest, regardless of
> form, context, or magnitude; for others, the ban’s intended
> Reza was born into a family of modest means in Alasht in         scope was limited to exorbitant interest charges. Although
> Mazandaran, Iran, and joined the Russian-officered Iranian           the restrictive definition triumphed, as a matter of practice
> Cossack Brigade. In 1920 the British officer Major-General           the giving and taking of interest continued, at times through
> Sir Edmund Ironside organized the removal of the Russian            the use of legal ruses (hiyal), often more or less openly.
> officers and placed Reza Khan in command of the Iranian
> cossacks at Qazvin. From Qazvin, Reza Khan, in partnership             The latest chapter of this old controversy was ignited in
> with the pro-British journalist, Sayyed Ziya al-Din Tabatabai,     the 1940s by the emergence of “Islamic economics,” a school
> launched a coup, taking control of Tehran on 21 Febru-              of thought that aims to purge interest from all economic
> ary 1921.                                                           operations. The accomplishments of this school include the
> establishment of Islamic banks in over seventy countries and
> After the coup, Reza Khan received the title of Sardar-e         the banning of interest in three of them: Pakistan, Iran, and
> Sipah (army commander) and in May became Minister of                the Sudan. Islamic banks claim that they avoid giving or
> 
> 596                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Ritual
> 
> taking interest, but they have found it impractical to obey        BIBLIOGRAPHY
> their own charters. Interest is disguised under a variety of       Adams, Charles C. Islam and Modernism in Egypt: A Study of
> charges.                                                             the Modern Reform Movement Inaugurated by Muhammad
> Abduh. New York: Russell and Russell, 1968.
> Various critics of Islamic economics, including secular
> Kerr, Malcolm H. Islamic Reform: The Political and Legal
> economists and Islamic modernists, believe that the goal of
> Theories of Muhammad Abduh and Rashid Rida. Berkeley:
> eradicating interest is both misguided and unfeasible. Distin-       University of California Press, 1966.
> guishing between riba and ordinary interest, these critics hold
> that interest is indispensable to any complex economy, that
> Sohail H. Hashmi
> competitive financial markets limit interest charges, and that
> bankruptcy laws now exist to protect borrowers against the
> horrors once produced by riba.
> RITUAL
> See also Economy and Economic Institutions.
> Ritual is a term that indicates more or less fixed acts and
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                       actions that take place at certain recurrent moments and in
> Chapra, M. Umer. Towards a Just Monetary System. Leicester,        which certain bodily gestures, words, music, and material
> U.K.: Islamic Foundation, 1985.                                  objects may play a role.
> Kuran, Timur. “The Economic Impact of Islamic Fundamentalism.” In Fundamentalisms and the State: Remaking           Theories
> Polities, Economies, and Militance. Edited by Martin E.          In the past, the word ritual referred to religious ritual acts and
> Marty and R. Scott Appleby. Chicago: University of               to the rules regarding these acts. Therefore, the Roman
> Chicago Press, 1993.                                             Catholic Rituale Romanum (1614) and the famous Islamic
> work on Islamic ritual and law, the Mukhtasar of the Malikite
> Timur Kuran       scholar Khalil ibn Ishaq al-Jundi (b. c. 1374), are comparable
> phenomena in the sense that they both prescribe rituals.
> Early twentieth-century scholars of religion such as Sigmund
> Freud and the biologist Julian Huxley began to use the word
> RIDA, RASHID (1865–1935)                                           ritual in a much broader meaning. Freud used it to describe
> compulsive acts and movements of neurotic patients, and
> Rashid Rida was the most prominent disciple of Muhammad            Huxley for certain animal acts and behaviors. Since then
> 
Abduh and one of the most influential scholars and jurists of      there has been a tendency to use ritual in a broad sense.
> his generation. Rida was born near Tripoli, in present-day         Hence, rituals can no longer be associated solely with the
> Lebanon. His early education consisted of training in tradi-       domain of religion. They play an important role in many
> tional Islamic subjects and a brief, disenchanting exposure to     fields of public and private life; for example, in political life,
> the secular curriculum of the Ottoman government school in         war, festivals, and feasts.
> Tripoli. His reformist views began to form in 1884–1885
> when he was first exposed to Jamal al-Din Afghani’s and                 Many nineteenth-century students of religion, particu-
> 
Abduh’s journal al-Urwa al-wuthqa (The firmest grip). In          larly those educated in the tradition of liberal, modern theol-
> 1897, Rida left Syria for Cairo to collaborate with 
Abduh.        ogy and later the phenomenologists of religion, tended to
> The following year he launched al-Manar, first a weekly and         view ritual as merely an illustration of religious beliefs and
> then a monthly journal comprising Quranic commentary              myths. At the other end of the spectrum, scholars such as
> (begun by 
Abduh, continued by Rida, but never completed)          William Robertson-Smith and Émile Durkheim held the
> and opinions on pressing legal, political, and social issues of    opposite view, namely that ritual is more basic than beliefs.
> the day. Like 
Abduh, Rida based his reformist principles on       Later scholars have tried to overcome the belief-action dithe argument that the sharia consists of 
ibadat (worship) and    chotomy by formulating notions such as habitus (learned
> muamalat (social relations). Human reason has little scope in     techniques, including such basic activities as running, etc.)
> the former and Muslims should adhere to the dictates of the        and discourse/discursive practice (Talal Asad) which stresses
> Quran and hadith. The laws governing muamalat should             the embodied nature of beliefs or the unity of actions and
> conform to Islamic ethics but on specific points may be             beliefs. Four brief theoretical observations should be made.
> continually reassessed according to changing conditions of
> different generations and societies. Unlike 
Abduh, Rida               1. In the course of time, rituals may change. In gennarrowed the salaf (the “pious ancestors” as authoritative                eral, they tend to become more complex. Thereinterpreters of Islamic tradition) to include only the Prophet’s          fore, in many religions (including Islam) ritual
> companions and immediate successors.                                      specialists exist. These ritual specialists have different names in different parts of the world and in
> See also 
Abduh, Muhammad.                                                different religious settings. The pilgrimage to
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                      597
> Ritual
> 
> Mecca, a very complex ritual, is guided by special-        with God in prayer, or as Sura 51:56 has it: “Jinn and humans
> ists as well.                                              are created only to worship God.” In the salat, the Quran is to
> 2. The meaning of rites may be subject to                     be recited as if it were revealed onto the believer’s heart. The
> reinterpretation. For example, according to mod-           performance of the salat includes a number of more or less
> ernist interpretations, purity rules have their back-      fixed bodily movements, which express core religious values.
> ground in hygiene, that is, they claim that the            According to tradition, during the salat the believer speaks
> original meaning of these regulations has its base         with his Lord. In the salat, there is also space for saying
> in conceptions of clean and dirty, thereby dimin-          invocations of a personal nature, dua
. Prayer as well as other
> ishing their religious, symbolic, meaning. For ex-         Islamic rituals, for example those involved in saint veneration,
> ample, in traditional Islam, a menstruating woman          are in one way or the other related to notions of purity. A
> is not allowed to perform the salat (ritual prayer)        well-known tradition says, “Purity is half the faith.” The
> because she is ritually unclean. The modernists            overall term for these notions is tahara, which means purity.
> argue that it is permitted to her not to do so, on
> account of her being ill. Such interpretations are
> Rites of Passage or Life Cycle Rituals
> Rites of passage mark the biological and spatial transitions in
> for obvious reasons called “medical materialism.”
> They attempt to give a modern, “scientific”                 human life and give them cultural meaning. Sometimes the
> explanation.                                               rites occur at the same time as the biological transition
> themselves, but they may occur earlier or later. Important
> 3. In many periods of Islamic history, reformists
> steps towards a theory of ritual structures have been made by
> have criticized ritual behavior that deviated from
> Arnold van Gennep and Victor Turner. Van Gennep noted
> orthodox norms and values. This criticism is esthe threefold structure of rites of passage in the life cycle and
> pecially apparent in the orthodox reform moveterritorial passages. Each rite of passage is marked by phases
> ment of the end of the nineteenth century
> of separation, transition (the so-called liminal phase, from
> (Muhammad 
Abduh [1849–1905], Muhammad
> the Latin word limen, threshold), and incorporation or
> Rashid Rida [1865–1935]), but we also come across
> reaggregation.
> it in the work of the neo-modernist Fazlur Rahman
> (1910–1988). He sharply criticizes forms of Sufism              The most important rites of passage in Muslim religious
> for teaching superstitionism, miracle mongering,           life are: the naming and birth ritual (subu, aqiqa), circumcitomb-worship, mass-hysteria and, of course,                sion, marriage, funerary rites, and the commemorative mourncharlatanism (Islam, p. 246).                              ing rites that follow at certain fixed periods.
> 4. The existence of historical meanings does not
> mean that all participants in rituals are fully aware          Depending on the stages in life, these three stages get
> of these meanings. Muslims in the Netherlands,             different values, for example, by the complexity of the rites to
> when asked about the meaning of shaving one’s              be performed. One example is a child’s initiation ritual in
> hair on the occasion of the aqiqa ritual (see be-         Islam, which is carried out on the seventh day after birth. The
> low), simply answered that it was part of their            rite involves three interrelated elements: sacrifice of an anireligion, or that by doing so, the hair would              mal (usually a sheep, aqiqa), the name-giving rite, and shavbecome thicker (Dessing, p. 30ff). In other words,         ing the hair of the baby.
> rituals may drift out of meaning or acquire new
> meaning in changed circumstances, for example,                 An instance of a separation rite preceding these three acts
> as a result of “transplantation” to a Western coun-        is the bathing of the child, performed in some parts of the
> try, or as result of the secularization of rituals.        world at the beginning of the ritual. The bath symbolizes the
> separation from the mother (who had kept the child near her
> Catherine Bell distinguishes six major categories of rites:     until then) and the introduction of the child to the natural
> rites of passage or “life crisis” rituals; calendrical or com-      world. The naming ritual, which confers an Islamic identity
> memorative rites; rites of exchange and communion; rites of         (often in accordance with the Prophet’s injunction to the
> affliction; rites of feasting, fasting and festivals; and, finally,   believers to call themselves by graceful names), and expresses
> political rites. These categories will be applied here to the       its membership in the community, is closely connected to the
> major Islamic rites. I have added a seventh category, rites of      sacrifice. Shaving and sacrifice may be seen as liminal rites,
> communication.                                                      whereas the festive meal that often concludes the ritual and to
> which the family is invited, is an aggregation ritual.
> Rites of Communication
> This type of rite mainly serves to communicate with God,                Marriage is an important social, juridical event as well as a
> jinn and zar spirits, or with deceased humans (saints, proph-       life cycle ritual with a number of fixed elements. At many
> ets). The most important example is the salat, or ritual prayer.    ritual occasions, including marriage rituals, a festive meal
> According to Islam, it is a human obligation to communicate         (walima) is held.
> 
> 598                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Ritual
> 
> Performing their ablutions before their daily prayer, Muslim schoolboys wash their hands and faces. © MICHAEL S. YAMASHITA/CORBIS
> 
> Calendrical Rituals                                                        On 12 Rabi
 I, the third month, the birthday of the
> Calendrical rituals include seasonal (often agricultural) rites         Prophet is celebrated. On 27 Rajab, the Laylat al-Mi
raj, or
> and commemorative rites. They are meant to give meaning-                ascension of the Prophet to the Heavens, is celebrated. The
> ful social definitions to the passage of time. The first rites are        ascension of the Prophet to Heaven via Jerusalem (Isra-
> closely connected to the changes in the seasons. The second             Mi
raj) is one of the great symbols of Islam that serves as a
> commemorative rites recall certain important events. As is              (mystical) symbol of the ascension of the believer toward
> explained in the article on the ibadat, rituals such as the umra      God. This is when the number of daily salats was fixed at five.
> and the hajj are seasonal rites in origin. Because of the               Elements of the ritual celebration may include recitation of
> abolishment of the intercalation in 31 C.E., Islamic rites are no       Surat al-isra
 (Sura 17), followed by commentaries, singing,
> longer tied to the solar calendar, and hence no longer tied to          and the recitation of religious poems.
> the changes of the seasons. The determination of the new
> months, by sighting the new moon, acquired ritual signifi-                  The popularity of the celebration of the fifteenth middle
> cance, especially in connection with the beginning and end of           night of Shaban can be explained by its age-old associations
> the fast in the month of Ramadan. In Islam, the narrative               with the Divine which is believed to be made on that night
> component in this ritual cycle is perhaps less present than in          with regard to those who will die the next year.
> some other religions; nevertheless it appears, for example, in
> a very outspoken way in the poems about the birth and life of              The month of Ramadan is marked by the fast and by
> the Prophet, which are recited at various occasions.                    Laylat al-Qadr (27 Ramadan). On 1 Shawwal, the Day of the
> Breaking of the Fast (
Id al-Fitr) is celebrated.
> The ritual cycle opens with 
Ashura on 10 Muharram.
> 
Ashura had been a fasting day before the revelation of the                 On 10 Dhu-l-Hijja, the twelfth month of the Islamic year,
> Ramadan fast, and it has remained a voluntary fasting day in            Id al-Adha is celebrated. This ritual marks the end of the
> Sunnite Islam until the present day. For Shiite Muslims                 year, but in fact it does not represent the end of the ritual
> 
Ashura is the day on which the martyrdom of the grandson of            cycle, since there is a clear connection between the id (feast
> the Prophet, al-Husayn, at Karbala in 680 C.E., is commemo-             day) and the 
Ashura rituals. The pilgrimage itself can also be
> rated by emotional and at times violent mourning rituals.               seen as a rite of passage, in the sense that pilgrims set out for a
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                            599
> Ritual
> 
> place “out there,” from which they return with a higher             carnival-like rituals such as masquerades, processions, and
> religious status, that is to say, as hajjis.                        theater (Hammoudi 1993).
> 
> Rites of Exchange and Communion                                     Political Rituals
> The central element in these rites is an offering (sacrifice) or a   These rites construct, display, and promote the power of
> gift. Major Islamic rites that can be mentioned are the aqiqa      political institutions. The early history of Islamic rituals has
> and the sacrifice at the occasion of 
Id al-Adha. Moreover,          partly been determined by their relationship to politics. For
> sacrifice can also take place in other settings, such as posses-     example, the salat al-juma (Friday prayers) originally had
> sion cults (see under rites of affliction). Votive offering may      political connotations as a medium to convey messages to the
> also be included here. Such offerings happen at the graves of       body politic. Muhammad’s birthday festival also came into
> the saints.                                                         being in highly political surroundings, that is, as a palace
> ritual. It was meant to enhance the position of the Fatimid
> Rites of Affliction                                                  ruler. It stressed his bond with the prophet Muhammad and
> These rituals heal, exorcise, protect, and purify. In Islam,        his family in particular. By giving presents to his most faithful
> they occur, for example, in the context of saint veneration,        servants, the ruler stressed the existing hierarchy in the
> where people seek healing, and in possession cults. Possession      Fatimid state. Later in the Middle East and the Islamic West,
> cults are marked by public and private gatherings where             the celebration often continued to be a court ceremony, but
> sacrifice, dance and trance are central elements. Those who          became a popular festival as well. The Islamic world knows
> suffer from particular mental, social or physical problems          numerous truly political rites, such as, for example, the
> seek healing by establishing contact with the spiritual world       celebration of the accession to the throne in Morocco, or the
> of the jinn and other meta-empirical beings such as the zar.        anniversary of the death of well-known political figures, such
> Other examples of (public) rites of affliction are the special       as (again in Morocco) that of King Muhammad V.
> salats to be performed at times of drought, or the recitation of
> See also Circumcision; Death; 
Ibadat; Khutba; Law;
> Surat Ya Sin (Sura 36) in times of distress.
> Marriage; Pilgrimage: Hajj.
> Rites of Feasting, Fasting and Festivals
> These rites display both the hierarchical prestige social sys-      BIBLIOGRAPHY
> tem and the interdependence or unity of human and divine            Abu Zaid, Nasr. The Qur
an: Man and God in Communication.
> worlds. The two major “canonical” festivals are 
Id al-Fitr and       Leiden: Leiden University, 2000.
> 
Id al-Adha (another name for the great feast, al-
Id al-Kabir).    Antoun, Richard T. “The Social Significance of Ramadan
> 
Id al-Fitr marks the end of Ramadan fast. Ramadan is the             in an Arab Village.” The Muslim World 58 (1968):
> sacred month par excellence. This has to do with the commu-           36–42; 95–104.
> nal aspects of the fast, which expresses a number of basic          Asad, Talal. The Idea of an Anthropology of Islam. Washington:
> values of the Muslim community. As various scholars have               D.C.: Georgetown University Center for Contemporary
> Arab Studies, 1986.
> argued, fasting may extol fundamental distinctions, lauding
> the power of the spiritual realm, while acknowledging the           Bell, Catherine. Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions. New York,
> subordination of the physical realm. According to popular              Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.
> beliefs, the devils (shayatin) and jinn are powerless, while God    Bowen, John R. Muslims through Discourse: Religion and Ritual
> is nearer then than during other months. This increased               in Gayo Society. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
> Press, 1993.
> religious awareness culminates in Laylat al-Qadr, when, as
> some people believe, the gates of heaven are opened. After the      Combs-Schilling, M. E. Sacred Performances. Islam, Sexuality,
> salat al-id, people will pay visits to relatives, which often        and Sacrifice. New York: Columbia University Press, 1989.
> includes visits to the graves (ziyarat al-qubur).                   Denny, Frederick M. “Islamic Ritual. Perspectives and Theories.” In Approaches to Islamic Studies. Edited by R. C.
> 
Id al-Adha on 10 Dhu-l-Hijja, commemorating Ibrahim’s             Martin. Oxford, U.K.: Oneworld, 2001.
> readiness to sacrifice his son, marks the end of the pilgrimage      Dessing, Nathal M. Rituals of Birth, Circumcision, Marriage,
> (the hajj). Another major festival, the Mawlid al-Nabi, grew          and Death among Muslims in the Netherlands. Leuven:
> out of the Fatimid Shiite ritual practice (11th century C.E.).        Peeters, 2001.
> Nowadays, although it is celebrated nearly everywhere (al-          Elad, Amikam. Medieval Jerusalem and Islamic Worship: Holy
> though exceptions, such as Saudi Arabia, exist), its status as a       Places, Ceremonies, Pilgrimage. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1995.
> feast has nevertheless remained controversial until the pres-       Goitein, Shlomo Dov. “The Origin and Nature of Muslim
> ent time.                                                             Friday Worship.” In idem: Studies in Islamic History and
> Institutions. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1966.
> In Morocco, 
Ashura is a festival honoring the dead, and         Goitein, Shlomo Dov. “Ramadan, the Muslim Month of
> during which the participants give alms, eat dried fruit, and         Fasting.” In idem: Studies in Islamic History and Institutions.
> buy toys for their children. It is marked by reversal and             Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1966.
> 
> 600                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Rumi, Jalaluddin
> 
> Grunebaum, Gustav E. von. Muhammadan Festivals (1956).
> London: Curzon, 1992.
> Haarmann, Ulrich. “Islamic Duties in History.” The Muslim
> World 68 (1978): 1–24.
> Hammoudi, Abdallah. The Victim and Its Masques: An Essay on
> Sacrifice and Masquerade in the Maghreb. Chicago and
> London: The University of Chicago Press, 1993.
> Kaptein, Nico J. G. Muhammad’s Birthday Festival: Early
> History in the Central Muslim Lands and Development in the
> Muslim West until the 10th/16th Century. Leiden: E. J.
> Brill, 1993.
> Peters, Francis E. The Hajj: The Muslim Pilgrimage to Mecca
> and the Holy Places. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
> Press, 1994.
> Rahman, Fazlur. Islam. London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1966.
> Shinar, Pesach. “Traditional and Reformist Mawlid Celebrations.” In Studies in Memory of Gaston Wiet. Edited by M.
> Rosen Ayalon. Jerusalem: Institute of Asian and African
> Studies, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1977.
> Tapper, Nancy, and Tapper, Richard. “The Birth of the
> Prophet: Ritual and Gender in Turkish Islam.” Man, New
> Series 21 (1987): 69–92.
> Westermarck, Edward. Ritual and Belief in Morocco (1926). 2
> vols. New York: University Books, 1968.
> 
> Gerard Wiegers
> Thirteenth-century mystical Persian poet Jalal al-Din Mohammade Balkhi, above, is known as Rumi in the West, where his works
> have been translated widely and have come to represent a
> profound and tolerant vision of Islamic spirituality. He founded
> RUMI, JALALUDDIN (1207–1273)                                      the Mevlani Sufi sect of the Whirling Dervishes. THE ART ARCHIVE/
> DAGLI ORTI (A)
> Jalaluddin Rumi is the name by which the Persian poet Jalal
> al-Din Mohammad-e Balkhi is conventionally known in the
> West. In the Muslim world he is generally called Maulavi or       (qadi) in Vakhsh would erase. The resulting conflict, which
> Maulana (Mevlana in Turkish), meaning, respectively, “my          can be dated to about 1208—as well perhaps as larger quesmaster” or “our master,” a title reflecting the veneration in      tions of political instability in the region—led Baha al-Din to
> which he was held by his followers, who formed the Mevlevi        move to Samarkand, where Rumi recalls living during the
> (Maulaviyya) order of dervishes around his writings and           Khwarazamshah’s siege of the city, circa 1212.
> example.
> Baha al-Din left eastern Persia (Khorasan) with much of
> Life                                                              his family by about 1216, eventually obtaining positions as
> The hagiographical sources portray Rumi’s father, Baha al-       preacher or teacher in provincial Anatolia, where Persian was
> Din-e Valad, as one of the most important Hanafi scholars          the court language. While the family was in Karaman
> and theologians of his day, placing his family origins in Balkh   (Larende), Rumi’s mother, Momena Khatun, died, and Rumi,
> (near Mazar-e Sharif in modern Afghanistan), one of the four      at the age of about seventeen, married Gauhar Khatun, with
> great urban centers of the eastern Iranian cultural sphere in     whom he had two sons, including Sultan Valad (1226–1312),
> the pre-Mongol period. When Rumi was born in 1207,                who would later play an instrumental role in founding the
> however, Baha al-Din was living in Vakhsh, a small town          Mevlevi order. By 1229, Baha al-Din had been invited by
> located in what is now Tajikistan, acting as an itinerant         Sultan 
Ala al-Din Keiqobad (r. 1219–1237) to transfer to the
> preacher (vaez) and religious scholar. It does not appear that   Seljuk capital in Konya, where he taught until his death two
> Baha al-Din belonged to any established Sufi order though a       years later. In 1232, Baha al-Din’s protégé, Borhan al-Din
> small group of disciples seems to have gathered around him.       Mohaqqeq, arrived from Termez to take over the leadership
> Inspired by dreams, Baha al-Din began to sign his fatwas as      of the disciples. Rumi was sent to Aleppo and Damascus to be
> “Sultan al-ulema” (“King of the Clerics,” or scholars of          educated, and he apparently also underwent a period of
> religion), an unauthorized title that the local religious judge   retreat and fasting under Borhan al-Din’s direction. By the
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                   601
> Rumi, Jalaluddin
> 
> time Borhan al-Din died in 1241, Rumi had assumed leader-        poem of some 25,000 lines, over several years, beginning
> ship of Baha al-Din’s classes and the circle of disciples       circa 1262. It consists of a series of versified anecdotes and
> in Konya.                                                        tales, often amusing and occasionally quite ribald, varying
> widely in length, style, and subject matter, and rather loosely
> Rumi’s teaching and spiritual praxis were noticeably al-     organized into six books. The Masnavi illustrates a practical
> tered under the influence of Shams al-Din Tabrizi, an itiner-     mysticism drawing from the Persian Sufi tradition, provides a
> ant religious scholar and mystic who came to Konya in 1244.      poetic commentary on the meaning of the Quran and hadith,
> It was perhaps under Shams’s influence that Rumi began            and expounds Rumi’s views on many of the theological cruxes
> composing poetry. Shams’s talks (preserved in Maqalat-e          of Islam. It is arguably the most widely read and frequently
> Shams-e Tabrizi) demonstrate his strong desire to create an      glossed poem in the Muslim world, from Bosnia to Bengal.
> authentic form of spirituality that dispensed with pretensions
> and imitative piety. This attitude possibly detracted from           The Divan-e kabir, or Kolliyat-e Shams-e Tabrizi, collects
> Rumi’s reputation as a pious preacher, even though the           Rumi’s lyrical poems, including some 3300 ghazals, qasidas,
> ostensible goal of Shams’s spirituality was to closely follow    and strophic poems, along with just under two thousand
> the example of the prophet Muhammad. The curtailing of           quatrains (rubaiyat). These poems are characterized by an
> Rumi’s teaching activities to devote more attention to Shams     intense sense of transcendent longing or loss; a frequently
> also led to resentment on the part of some of his disciples.     conversational, though philosophically rich, style; and a cap-
> Apparently in response to this situation, Shams left Konya       tivating rhythmic musicality (many of the poems seem indeed
> abruptly in the spring of 1246, sending Rumi into a state of     to have been composed, and are often performed, to instrudespair during which he ceased composing poetry. After           mental accompaniment). German adaptations by Friedrich
> about a year’s absence, Sultan Valad found Shams in Syria        Rückert of some of these poems made an impression on the
> and convinced him to return to Konya. Shams, despite a           German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, and
> marriage to a member of Rumi’s extended household, soon          initially gave Europeans the impression that Rumi was a
> disappeared again (c. 1248), never again to return to Konya.     pantheist. Subsequently, especially after Reynold Nichol-
> Rumi searched desperately for Shams, expressing his deep         son’s complete explanatory translation of the Masnavi into
> sense of loss in frenetic poems (mostly ghazals) that cast       English, Rumi became synonymous in the West of a deep and
> Shams in the role of spiritual guide, and were indeed fre-       tolerant Islamic spirituality. In the last quarter of the twentiquently spoken through the persona of Shams of Tabriz.           eth century, dozens of popular versions and “translations” of
> Eventually Rumi found his own voice, after internalizing         Rumi’s poems appeared in English free verse, many by
> what he had learned from Shams, and even addressed other         individuals without any knowledge of the original Persian.
> individuals, first Salah al-Din the Goldsmith (d. 1258) and
> then Hosam al-Din Chelebi (d. c. 1284), to whom Rumi’s              Rumi’s prose works include the notes recorded by his
> Masnavi is addressed, as spiritual mentors. Throughout his       disciples during lectures, informal sermons, and classes (Fihe
> life, Rumi maintained cordial relations with several Seljuk      ma fih, or Discourses); seven sermons delivered on formal
> sultans and officials, some of whom expressed their devotion      occasions (Majales-e saba); and a number of letters (Maktubat).
> and extended their patronage to him.
> See also Persian Language and Literature.
> The Mevlevi (Maulaviyya) order of “whirling dervishes,”
> founded in the last quarter of the thirteenth century through    BIBLIOGRAPHY
> the efforts of Sultan Valad, bases itself on Rumi’s poetry and   Chittick, William. The Sufi Path of Love: The Spiritual Teachhis practice of “turning” to music and verse (sama). Rumi’s       ings of Rumi. Albany: State University of New York
> mausoleum in Konya, though now a museum, has functioned            Press, 1983.
> as a shrine and center of the Mevlevi order, which has been
> Lewis, Franklin. Rumi: Past and Present, East and West. Oxford,
> particularly influential in the history of Sufism in Anatolia,       U.K.: Oneworld, 2000.
> the Balkans, and the Levant. Though this order was not active
> Rumi, Jalaluddin. The Mathnawí of Jalálu
ddín Rúmí. In
> in South Asia, Rumi’s poetry was widely read in the subconti-
> E. J. W. Gibb Memorial Series. Edited and translated by
> nent and frequently commented upon by Sufis of other                Reynold A. Nicholson. London: Luzac & Co., 1925–1940.
> orders. Rumi’s poetry and teachings have continued to exert
> Rumi, Jalaluddin. Discourses of Rumi.Translated by A. J.
> an important influence on the thinking of Islamic modernists,
> Arberry. London: J. Murray, 1961.
> such as Muhammad Iqbal in Pakistan, and 
Abd al-Karim
> Sorush in Iran.                                                  Schimmel, Annemarie. The Triumphal Sun: A Study of the
> Works of Jalaloddin Rumi. Rev. ed. Albany: State Univer-
> Works                                                               sity of New York Press, 1993.
> Rumi composed his Masnavi-ye manavi (Spiritual couplets;
> or Couplets of true meaning), a lengthy mystical-didactic                                                     Franklin D. Lewis
> 
> 602                                                                                          Islam and the Muslim World
> Rushdie, Salman
> 
> RUSHDIE, SALMAN (1947– )
> Salman Rushdie is a novelist and critic who became a household name after his fictional work, The Satanic Verses, was
> protested by numerous Muslims and Muslim groups. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini pronounced a fatwa (legal opinion)
> sentencing Rushdie to death, and as a result Rushdie was
> forced into hiding in England from 1989 to 1998. In later
> years he moved to the United States, dividing his time
> between Los Angeles and New York City.
> 
> Rushdie was born to Muslim parents in Bombay, India,
> and was educated at the Cathedral School. In 1961, he left
> India to attend Rugby, a prestigious boarding school in
> England. Rushdie then attended King’s College, Cambridge,
> where he wrote a paper on Muhammad and the origins of
> Islam for part of his honors examination in history. Early
> literary influences on Rushdie were the Thousand and One
> Nights and the Urdu poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz, a family friend.
> 
> Rushdie’s first novel, Grimus (1975), was a variation of the
> medieval Sufi poet Farid al Din 
Attar’s The Conference of the
> Birds. It was a commercial failure. His second novel, Midnight’s Children (1981), was about the lives of 1001 children
> born at the stroke of midnight on India’s independence from       Novelist Salman Rushdie, above, was forced into hiding for
> Britain. This book won him critical acclaim, including the        almost a decade when in 1989 the late Ayatollah Khomeini,
> 1981 Booker Prize. However, Rushdie’s satirical portrayal of      leader of the Iranian Revolution, issued a fatwa demanding
> Rushdie’s death. Khomeini and many other conservative Muslim
> Indira Gandhi resulted in a lawsuit that was resolved only        leaders believed Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses blasphemed
> after a sentence considered particularly hurtful by Gandhi        Islam. CHUCK KENNEDY/GETTY IMAGES
> was omitted from subsequent editions. His third novel, Shame
> (1983), satirized Pakistani politics and politicians, such as
> Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and General Zia al-Haqq, in the way that       protested against in Islamabad (where six people died during
> its predecessor had satirized Indian politics. Clearly, Rushdie   a riot on 12 February 1989) and Bombay (with twelve people
> knew much about Islam, Muslims, and South Asian politics          killed in a riot on 24 February 1989). On 14 February 1989,
> and culture.                                                      Khomeini pronounced his death sentence on Rushdie. While
> distancing itself from Khomeini’s death sentence, the elev-
> The Satanic Verses (1988) was Rushdie’s fourth novel, and     enth session of the Islamic Law Academy of the Muslim
> dealt with the themes of migration, of being a member of a        World League (held in Mecca from 10 to 26 February 1989),
> dark-skinned minority in England, and of the multiple identi-     issued a statement declaring Rushdie an apostate and recomties that come with being Asian in London. The main charac-       mending that he be prosecuted in a British court, and tried in
> ter is Gibreel Farishta, an Urdu name that translated into        absentia under the sharia laws of an Islamic country.
> English as “the Angel Gabriel.” Beginning with the second
> chapter of the book, Gibreel has a series of dreams. The first         On the whole, North American responses were much
> of these features a character named Mahound, who is an            more muted and peaceful than in other countries. To take the
> orphan, a businessman living in a city named Jahilia, who         case of Toronto, the city with the largest population of
> through revelation begins to preach a religion called “Sub-       Canada’s Muslims, there was a deliberate effort made by
> mission.” This religion is, of course, Islam. In another chap-    various Muslim communities to keep the protests nonviolent.
> ter, Gibreel has a series of encounters with an exile known       The protests in Toronto were not used for political purposes,
> simply as “the Imam,” who is intended to be recognized as the     in the same way that they were used in, for example, Iran or
> Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.                                      India, and there was even some sympathy and tolerance
> expressed for Rushdie.
> The book was first banned in India on 5 October 1988 at
> the urging of several Indian Muslim politicians. Subsequently,    See also Arabic Literature; Persian Language and Litthe book was banned in South Africa (24 November 1988),           erature; South Asia, Islam in; Urdu Language, Literaburned publicly in Bradford, England (14 January 1989), and       ture, and Poetry.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                 603
> Rushdie, Salman
> 
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                     Hussain, Amir. “Misunderstandings and Hurt: How Canadi-
> Appignanesi, Lisa, and Maitland, Sara, eds. The Rushdie File.      ans Joined Worldwide Muslim Reactions to Salman
> London: Fourth Estate, 1989.                                    Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses.” Journal of the American
> Academy of Religion vol. 70, no. 1 (March 2002): 1–32.
> Clark, Roger Y. Stranger Gods: Salman Rushdie’s Other Worlds.
> Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2001.              Kamali, Mohammad Hashim. Freedom of Expression in Islam.
> Fischer, Michael M. J., and Abedi, Mehdi. Debating Muslims:        Cambridge, U.K.: Islamic Texts Society, 1997.
> Cultural Dialogues in Postmodernity and Tradition. Madison:
> University of Wisconsin Press, 1990.                                                                    Amir Hussain
> 
> 604                                                                                      Islam and the Muslim World
> S
> SADAT, ANWAR AL- (1918–1981)                                              October victory, he was assassinated by Islamist extremists.
> Sadat remains a controversial figure at home, and a balanced
> The future president of Egypt, Muhammad Anwar al-Sadat,                   assessment of him still remains impossible twenty years later.
> was born on 25 December 1918 in a Nile Delta town, the son
> See also 
Abd al-Nasser, Jamal; Reform: Arab Middle
> of an army clerk. Sadat grew up in Cairo and entered the
> East and North Africa.
> military academy in 1938. In the army he joined a Muslim
> Brotherhood cell; there he met Jamal 
Abd al-Nasser and
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> other future Free Officers. Patriotic, yet reckless, he contacted German agents and conspired in the murder of a pro-                Beattie, Kirk J. Egypt During the Sadat Years. New York:
> British pasha. Recommissioned after eventual acquittal, he                   Palgrave, 2000.
> regained contact with dissident officers who seized power in
> July 1952.                                                                                                                 Joel Gordon
> 
> A fellow conspirator, Sadat served the Nasser regime in
> various capacities. Vice president in 1970, he succeeded
> Nasser, supported by power brokers who thought to domi-
> SADIQ, JA
FAR AL- See Ja
far al-Sadiq
> nate him. Instead, he purged Nasserist foes in May 1971, then
> threw his support to Islamist activists, releasing jailed Muslim
> Brothers and allowing others to return from exile. In October
> 1973 he initiated war against Israel, scoring a political victory         SADR
> that led ultimately to normal relations. In 1974 he proclaimed
> an “opening” to Western investment and diminution of the                  Dating from eleventh-century Transoxiana in Central Asia,
> public sector. For several years Sadat reaped glory as “hero of           by the Timurid period (fourteenth century) the sadr referred
> the crossing,” a reference to his army’s initial success in               to the chief, government-appointed officer who oversaw the
> breaching Israeli defenses across the Suez Canal. In Novem-               management of state and private religious endowments (awqaf );
> ber 1977, after a stunning public declaration, he traveled to             the appointment of mosque, madrasa, and other religious
> Jerusalem and addressed the Israeli Knesset. The following                personnel; and cared for the poor, needy, and orphans. Up
> year he accepted an invitation from American president                    until the late sixteenth century, the first Safavid century,
> Jimmy Carter to join Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin                provincial sadrs also existed, but they were not always under
> at Camp David. The talks paved the way for a peace                        the direct authority of the central-government sadr.
> treaty in 1979.
> The Safavids also formalized the Timurid practice of
> Sadat became an international celebrity, but economic                 dividing the responsibilities of the post between two figures,
> troubles, anti-Israeli sentiment, a surge of intercommunal                one overseeing the endowments bequeathed by the shah and
> violence, and his growing aloofness shattered public opti-                the other those left by private individuals, with the former
> mism at home. In uncharacteristic fashion, Sadat now turned               seemingly the preeminent figure, and gradually also divided
> against opponents from all political tendencies, secular and              the authority of the two along geographical lines. As befit the
> religious. In September 1981 he ordered sweeping arrests of               highly personalized nature of Safavid politics, however, one
> political foes. On 6 October 1981, at a parade marking his                individual might hold both posts, and an individual holding
> 
> Sadr, Muhammad Baqir al-
> 
> another post at court might also be appointed sadr.The post        1959, and by 1969 he was the chairman of the Higher Shi
ite
> was nearly always held by a religious scholar, a sayyid (descen-   Council, which he had helped to create in that same year. Aldant of the Prophet), in both Timurid and Safavid times.           Sadr led and tried to transform the people of the historically
> quiescent Shi
ite community of Lebanon, who needed cour-
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                       age to stake out a claim in their fractured country. He
> Floor, Willem. “The Sadr or Head of the Safavid Religious          advanced the notion of ideological Islam, and proposed that
> Administration, Judiciary and Endowments and Other              the leader in Lebanon should be an imam, much like 
Ali
> Members of the Religious Administration.” Zeitschrift der       Shari
ati, a religious intellectual, had advocated in Iran before
> Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 150 (2000): 461–500.    the Islamic revolution.
> 
> Andrew J. Newman            Al-Sadr was a political moderate who was considered a
> reformer by his followers. The title of imam was applied to
> only twelve individuals in the Shi
ite tradition: It was given to
> Musa al-Sadr and Ruhollah Khomeini, the Iranian leader, by
> SADR, MUHAMMAD BAQIR AL-                                           their followers and subsequently accepted by the high-ranking
> (1930–1980)                                                        clerics. Sadr disappeared in Libya while on a visit to Libya’s
> ruler, Mu
ammar al-Qadhdhafi, in 1978. He and two com-
> Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr was a scholar and revered figure of          panions, a cleric and a journalist, were never heard from again.
> Shi
a in Iraq. He wrote widely on matters of Islamic economics and modern logic and philosophy. His books were bibles        See also Imamate; Lebanon; Political Islam; Revoluof Islamic modernists, Sunni and Shi
ite alike, throughout the     tion: Modern.
> Muslim world. Some of his works, including Falsafatuna (Our
> philosophy) and Iqtisaduna (Our economics), are used as            BIBLIOGRAPHY
> textbooks in Shi
ite seminaries. Most of his writings and          Ajami, Fouad. The Vanished Imam: Musa al Sadr and the Shia of
> teaching concentrated on renewal of principles of jurispru-           Lebanon. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1986.
> dence in Islamic tradition. He attempted to reconcile the
> traditions and strictures of Islam with the ideas and practices                                                Majid Mohammadi
> of the West. He was one the most enlightened Shi
ite legists
> and inspired much devotion among the people of Iraq.
> 
> Al- Sadr’s orientation was not excessively political. Never-    SAHARA
> theless, there were many people in Iraq who were receptive to
> Iran’s Islamic Revolution. Therefore, when Iraq’s Shi
ite          Once a lush and fertile environment sustaining a diversified
> community began to look to al-Sadr for political leadership,       human population, fauna, and flora, the Sahara experienced
> and when Iran’s Arabic radio broadcasts repeatedly referred        an irreversible process of desertification from 3000 B.C.E.
> to him as the “Khomeini of Iraq,” he became a threat to the        onward. Since then, two events significantly marked the
> Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein, whose base of support              history of the Sahara: the introduction of camels, sometime
> consisted of Sunni military officers and functionaries. As a        after the second century, and the spread of Islam, starting in
> consequence, both al-Sadr and his sister were executed on the      the eight century. The adoption of camels, the “vessels of the
> orders of Iraq’s president Saddam Hussein.                         desert,” revolutionized the nature of transportation in endurance, volume, and efficiency. Adherence to Islam, its philoso-
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                       phy, and code of law, favored the development of successful
> Batatu, Hanna. “Iraq’s Underground Shia Movements: Char-           commercial and scholarly networks connecting Muslims across
> acters, Causes, and Prospects.” MERIP Reports: Islam and        the Sahara desert and beyond. In time, the majority of
> Politics no. 102 (Jan. 1982): 3–9.                              Saharans would become Muslim.
> Mallat, Chibli. The Renewal of Islamic Law: Muhammad Baqer            Although Islam arrived at least two centuries earlier, the
> as-Sadr, Najaf and the Shi
i International. New York: Cam-
> Almoravid movement in the eleventh century was the first
> bridge University Press, 1993.
> organized attempt at religious reform in the Sahara. To be
> sure, the Almoravids were interested in controlling a share of
> Majid Mohammadi
> the gold trade as much as they were motivated to spread their
> Muslim faith. From then onward, trans-Saharan trade flourished. In the first half of the fourteenth century, the ostenta-
> SADR, MUSA AL- (1928–1978?)                                        tious pilgrimage to Mecca of the emperor of Mali, Kankan
> Mansa Musa, alerted the Muslim world to the gold riches of
> Musa al-Sadr, who was born in Qom, Iran, was a politically         Western Africa, and consequently would attract many more
> active and controversial cleric. Al-Sadr arrived in Lebanon in     Muslim visitors to Saharan towns such as Timbuktu and Gao.
> 
> 606                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Saint
> 
> By the seventeenth century, Saharan towns were well-          Webb, James L. A. Desert Frontier: Ecological and Economic
> established markets and centers of Islamic learning. The            Change along the Western Sahel, 1600–1850. Madison:
> reputations of notable scholars of Timbuktu, Walata, and            University of Wisconsin Press, 1995.
> Shingiti extended all the way to North Africa and the Middle
> East. Saharan scholars regularly organized caravans to per-                                                   F. Ghislaine Lydon
> form the pilgrimage. They built mosques, developed libraries, and established schools. One cannot underestimate the
> significance of trans-Saharan trade and the development of
> scholarly networks to the spread of Islamic knowledge and         SAINT
> Arabic literacy in the region. Caravaners relied on their
> literacy skills for correspondence, accounting, accountability,   Wali, the word roughly defined as “saint,” which is derived
> and for drawing contractual agreements, all in accordance         from the Arabic root w-l-y and has a root meaning of proximwith Islamic law.                                                 ity, generally is found in the construct wali Allah, that is,
> It is no coincidence, therefore, that scholars often per-      someone who is close or intimate with God. It is a designation
> formed as traders and vice versa in Saharan commercial            that Muslims use to define a holy person, and can refer to
> centers such as Shingiti, Tishit, Walata, Timbuktu, and           overlapping categories of pious people, religious scholars,
> Ghadames. To uphold the law, traders relied upon the              Sufis, and Shi
i imams. In English wali is translated variously
> services of scholars of Islamic law or judges. Moreover, until    as protégé, intimate, friend of God, or “saint.” A wali who has
> European colonization, Saharan towns tended to be gov-            power over others has wilaya (being a protector or intercessor)
> erned by Muslim scholars who performed as regional judges         while a wali with walaya focuses on the closeness or nearness
> ruling on all matters, civil, commercial, or political. These     to God (being a friend of God). Both of these meanings can be
> sedentary scholarly communities maintained alliances with         harmonized with interpretations of Quranic usage. Except
> nomadic groups who provided protection services to both           for hairsplitting grammatical discussions, popular usage
> town dwellers and trans-Saharan travelers.                        conflates these meanings since one close to God has power to
> protect and intercede and vice versa.
> The late nineteenth century saw the end of the great camel
> caravan. European conquest redirected trade toward new                The popular idea of wali, an heir of the Prophet, is a postcenters of control located along the Atlantic coast and in key    Quranic development whose first textual source, the writings
> colonial outposts in the interior. Consequently, the Sahara       of al-Hakim al-Tirmidhi (d. c. 910), dates to the second half
> became a contested terrain and home to pockets of resistance      of the ninth century. Tirmidhi proposed a “seal of God’s
> to French, and later Moroccan, overrule. Not surprisingly,        friends” that was later claimed and subsequently popularized
> Saharans presented the greatest challenge to European con-        by Ibn al-
Arabi (d. 1240). This “seal” corresponds to the
> quest. This was due to the shrewdness of Muslim leaders as        creedal notion of Muhammad as the final prophet or the “seal
> much as the ruggedness of the terrain. It was not until           of the prophets,” while assiduously subordinating awliya
> the 1930s that the French could claim control over the
> (plural of wali) to prophets. The developing doctrine of wali
> whole region, connecting Morocco and Algeria to their
> accounts for non-prophetic expressions of the sacred, for
> West African colonies. Later, when the Spanish relinquished
> example, ilham (non-prophetic divine inspiration) versus wahy
> their Western Saharan colony in 1975, both Morocco and
> (prophetic revelation) in a way that explained extraordinary
> Mauritania fought the Saharan independence movement, or
> phenomena without violating creedal dictates.
> Polisario, for claims over the contested region. To date, the
> fate of the Western Sahara has not been sealed, as a UN               The contemporary theological war over legitimate religreferendum is repeatedly postponed.
> ious authority, often initiated and funded by scripturalist
> An image of Saharan desert landscape appears in the volume        groups such as Salafis or Wahhabis, denies that anyone can be
> two color insert.                                               a friend of God. Instead, they assert that all Muslims have
> equal access to God through the written scriptural sources of
> See also Globalization; Networks, Muslim.                         Quran and hadith, absolutely undercutting any possibility of
> intercession or of spiritual hierarchy. Presently a growing
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                      minority of Muslims shares this scripturalist perspective.
> Hunwick, John. Timbuktu and the Songhay Empire. Leiden:           They are mostly concentrated in Arabic-speaking countries
> Brill, 1999.                                                    and in countries like the United States, which are influenced
> Levtzion, Nehemia, and Pouwels, Randall. History of Islam in      by Salafi interpretations of Islam.
> Africa. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2000.
> Levtzion, Nehemia, and Spaulding, Jay. Medieval West Africa:         On one hand, wali is a socially constructed concept based
> Views From Arab Scholars and Merchants. New York:               upon a recognizable community consensus. Generally Mus-
> Markus Wiener, 2003.                                            lims recognize a wali Allah on the basis of four overlapping
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                   607
> Saladin
> 
> sources of authority: spiritual/genealogical lineage, religious     example are powerful symbols in the modern Middle East.
> experience (spiritual traveling), acquisition of transmitted        His subsequent struggles against the forces of the Third
> religious knowledge, and exemplary behavior in harmony              Crusade (1189–1192) and King Richard I of England became
> with the Prophetic sunna. Hagiographic literature has estab-        the stuff of romance in European literature, where Saladin
> lished a narrative paradigm that reinforces these sources of        and Richard emerge as rival chivalrous foes.
> authority in the popular imagination. On the other hand, in
> the Sufi environment wali is a technical term based on                   Saladin’s career began in the armies of Nur al-Din b.
> consensually verified phenomena allowing specialists to clas-        Zangi, ruler of Aleppo and Damascus, and himself a famous
> sify types of proximity to God.                                     counter-crusader. Saladin went to Egypt in early 1169 in a
> contingent of Nur al-Din’s army sent to assist the Fatimid
> In terms of religious practice, the concept of wali provides    Caliphate, which in late 1168 had been attacked by Crusader
> a basis for the development of shrine rituals at the tombs of       forces. Saladin subsequently removed the Fatimids from
> deceased saints located throughout the Islamic world. Often         power, and made himself ruler in Egypt, subservient to Nur
> at these shrines the descendants of the deceased holy person,       al-Din. Upon the latter’s death in 1174, Saladin moved
> considered to be walis, act as mediating shaykhs who “pass          against Nur al-Din’s heirs and began to bring the Muslim
> requests to God” instead of acting as spiritual masters teach-      cities of Syria under his command. He then used the coming a person how to arrive close to God through a set of            bined resources of Egypt and Syria to attack the Crusaders.
> contemplative practices. Although the legitimacy of these           By forcibly uniting Muslim territory prior to assaulting the
> shrine rituals is strongly denied by scripturally oriented          Franks, he followed the pattern of Nur al-Din and Zangi.
> Muslims, these shrines provide meaningful religious experi-         The same strategy would be used by the Mamluks in their
> ences for many pious visitors. Functionally, the multivalent        final elimination of the Latin states in 1291.
> concept of wali varies historically and geographically so as to
> include scholars, saints, spiritual mentors, counselors, healers,   See also Crusades.
> and intercessors, both living and deceased.
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> See also Ibn 
Arabi; Mi
raj; Silsila; Sunna; Tasawwuf;
> Tariqa; Ulema.                                                      Ehrenkreutz, Andrew S. Saladin. Albany: State University of
> New York Press, 1972.
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                        Gibb, H. A. R. The Life of Saladin. Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon
> Press, 1973.
> Buehler, Arthur F. Sufi Heirs of the Prophet: The Indian
> Naqshbandiyya and the Rise of the Mediating Shaykh. Colum-        Lyons, Malcolm Cameron, and Jackson, D. E. P. Saladin: The
> bia: University of South Carolina Press, 1998.                      Politics of Holy War. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge Uni-
> Chodkiewicz, Michel. Seal of the Saints: Prophethood and Saint-       versity Press, 1982.
> hood in the Doctrine of Ibn 
Arabi. Cambridge, U.K.: Islamic
> Texts Society, 1993.                                                                                          Warren C. Schultz
> Cornell, Vincent. Realm of the Saint: Power and Authority in
> Moroccan Sufism. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1998.
> Radke, Bernd, and John O’Kane. The Concept of Sainthood in
> Early Islamic Mysticism. Richmond, Surrey, U.K.: Curzon           SALAFIYYA
> Press, 1996.
> Salafiyya is the name given to those who follow the ideas and
> Arthur F. Buehler      practices of the righteous ancestors (al-salaf al-salih). This
> “salafi” approach rejects later traditions and schools of thought,
> calling for a return to the Quran and the sunna as the
> authentic basis for Muslim life. The salafi approach empha-
> SALADIN (1137 OR 1138–1193)                                         sizes the application of ijtihad (independent, informed judgment) and rejects taqlid (adherence to established precedents
> Salah al-Din Yusuf b. Ayyub (d. 1193), who became known in          and conformity with existing traditional interpretations and
> the West as Saladin, was a Kurdish warrior renowned for his         institutions).
> victories over the Crusaders and as the founder of the Ayyubid
> dynasty in Egypt, Syria, and upper Iraq. Saladin’s defeat of           The “righteous ancestors,” or salaf, are usually considered
> the Crusaders at the Horns of Hattin (4 July 1187) in               to be the first three generations of Muslims, including the
> northern Palestine led to the Muslim reconquest of Jerusalem        immediate companions of the Prophet. Because of the closeand the near elimination of the Franks in the Levant. His           ness of these salaf to Muhammad, later Muslims regarded the
> success in jihad against the Crusaders was celebrated by his        former’s transmissions of the Prophet’s traditions, their incourt biographers. Not surprisingly, Saladin’s name and             formed practice as believers, as having special authority.
> 
> 608                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Salafiyya
> 
> Major figures in the definition of the salafi perspective and             Other important Salafi-modernist movements developed
> approach are Ahmad ibn Hanbal (d. 855), the founder of the         in the late nineteenth century, sometimes relatively indepen-
> Hanbali school, and Ahmad ibn Taymiyya (1263–1328).                dently and sometimes in close coordination with the group
> around 
Abduh. In South Asia, Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan
> The fundamental concern of modern Salafiyya, who rec-          (1817–1898) emphasized the importance of understanding
> ognize that Muslim power and influence is in decline relative       nature as a reflection of God’s revelation in his teachings,
> to the West, is the relationship between Islam and modernity.      and established the Mahomedan Anglo-Oriental College
> The goal of the movement is to make Islam a dynamic force in       (which later became Aligarh Muslim University). As the
> the contemporary world. The modern Salafiyya invoked the            Russian Empire completed its conquest of Muslim areas in
> classic themes: a call for a return to the Quran and the sunna,   the nineteenth century, another Islamic modernist movea rejection of the medieval authorities (taqlid), and an affirma-   ment, “Jadidism,” developed there under the leadership of
> tion of the necessity of independent, informed thinking            Isma
il Gasprinskii (1851–1914). He created a new school
> (ijtihad). In the modern context, this involved an emphasis on     curriculum for Muslim children, and his journal, Tarjuman,
> the compatibility of reason with revelation, and of Islam with     was important in creating a modern, cohesive sense of idenmodern science. It also entailed a call for moral social reform.   tity among Muslims living in Russia.
> However, by the end of the twentieth century, the term
> Salafiyya also came to be applied to extremist movements that          Many movements throughout the Muslim world were
> advocated violent jihad against existing regimes and social        directly inspired by the 
Abduh tradition, and were in comorders, both Muslim and non-Muslim, and that did not               munication with it. In North Africa, Salafis organized moveadhere to a rigid and literalist understanding of the Qur
an       ments like the Association of Algerian Ulema under 
Abd aland sunna. This new Salafiyya often differed from the time-         Hamid Ibn Badis (1889–1940). Salafi intellectuals and orhonored salafi approach of Ibn Hanbal and Ibn Taymiyya by           ganizations became important parts of Muslim life in Syria
> rejecting independent analysis (ijtihad).                          and Iraq as well, and in Egypt and many other parts of the
> Muslim world. In Southeast Asia, the Shi
a Imami, which
> Among those involved in the definition and establishment        became one of the largest organizations in the Muslim world,
> of the modern Salafiyya, the best-known are Jamal al-Din al-        was formed in 1912 to advocate specifically Salafi-style re-
> Afghani (1839–1897) and Muhammad 
Abduh (1849–1905).               form, especially through education.
> 
Abduh created the broad intellectual foundations for modern Salafiyya. First in exile and then as Grand Mufti of Egypt,         Throughout the twentieth century, individuals and groups
> he shaped the thinking of generations of Muslim intellectu-        built on and developed the modernist Salafi traditions in
> als. The theological core was an emphasis on tawhid, which is      many different directions. In South Asia, the work of Muhamthe assertion of the singleness of God and the comprehensive       mad Iqbal (1877–1938) provided a critical synthesis of modunity of God’s message. Tawhid was the basis for showing the       ern and Islamic thought in his book, The Reconstruction of
> compatibility of Islam with modern science and revelation          Religious Thought in Islam, and other works. At the same time,
> with modern reason. Consistent with the earlier Salafiyya,          he worked for the creation of Pakistan. Some forms of
> 
Abduh advocated the informed, independent analysis of the         nationalism were presented in Salafi form, as in the develop-
> Quran and sunna.                                                  ment of the Dustour Party in Tunisia and the drive toward
> liberal nationalism in Egypt in the first half of the century.
> The new Salafiyya did not involve direct opposition to          Later, Mahmud Shaltut (1893–1963), as shaykh of al-Azhar
> European imperial rule over Muslims. Rather, it saw internal       University, confirmed the 
Abduh tradition at the heart of the
> Islamic reform as the first priority, and the key to the            Islamic scholarly establishment, and scholars like Fazlur
> implementation of its goals was education and scholarship.         Rahman (1919–1988) further developed modernist method-
> 
Abduh provided the inspiration for many educational re-           ologies in historical and philosophical studies.
> forms and al-Manar, the journal published by his follower
> and associate, Rashid Rida (1865–1939), was read throughout            By the end of the twentieth century, the term Salafi came
> the Muslim world. Following 
Abduh’s death, Rashid Rida            to be applied to a very different type of Islamic revivalism.
> became the most visible international articulator of Salafi         When an ideology of violent jihad against existing Muslim
> thought, becoming active in organizing Pan-Islamic con-            societies and secular modernity developed, it started with a
> gresses and, after the abolition of the Ottoman caliphate in       Salafi-style call for a return to the purity of faith exemplified
> 1924, in working for the establishment of a modern Arab            by the righteous ancestors. As this message was developed by
> caliphate. He came to view the efforts of 
Abd al-
Aziz Ibn        later activists, however, the emphasis was placed on militant
> Sa
ud to create a state in the Arabian Peninsula based on the      action, rather than on intellectual effort. By the beginning of
> puritanical reform traditions of the Wahhabiyya as repre-          the twenty-first century, the term was widely applied to
> senting an important manifestation of the reforms necessary        advocates of violent jihad. Terrorists like those who defor all Muslim societies.                                          stroyed the World Trade Center, along with Usama bin
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                   609
> Saleh bin Allawi
> 
> Ladin and his organization, al-Qa
ida, are called Salafi, as are    monopolized by or restricted to descendants of the Prophet
> militants throughout the Muslim world.                             and select other families. It was to the credit of Allawi both as
> an outsider to Lamu and as a member of the Alawi tariqa (that
> The older style of Salafi modernism was also significant at       emphasized education and training of scholars) that he began
> the beginning of the twenty-first century. The intellec-            to teach people previously denied this education. When he
> tual content of curricula in Islamic schools and interna-          began to teach them Quranic exegesis, he angered the town’s
> tional Islamic universities around the world reflects much          elitist traditional scholars. Eventually he established his own
> of the tradition of 
Abduh, while organizations like the           madrasa (Islamic school) in Langoni (a district in the south-
> Muhammadiyya in Indonesia remain a significant part of              ern part of Lamu Island). There he taught the slaves and
> political and social life.                                         recent immigrants to the island. This madrasa became the
> See also 
Abduh, Muhammad; Ijtihad; Muhammadiyya                   famous Riyada mosque-college, which attracted students
> (Muhammadiyah); Nationalism: Arab; Wahhabiyya.                     from all over East Africa, and spread his fame as a scholar
> and saint.
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> See also Africa, Islam in; Tariqa.
> Hourani, Albert. Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 1798–1939.
> Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1993.
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Kurzman, Charles, ed. Modernist Islam: A Sourcebook,
> Farsy, Shaykh Abdallah Saleh. The Shafi
i Ulama of East
> 1840–1940. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
> Africa. Translated by Randall Pouwels. Madison: Univer-
> Martin, Richard C.; Woodward, Mark R.; and Atmaja, Dwi S.             sity of Wisconsin-Madison, 1989.
> Defenders of Reason in Islam. Oxford: Oneworld, 1997.
> Rahman, Fazlur. Islam and Modernity: Transformation of an                                                           Abdin Chande
> Intellectual Tradition. Chicago: University of Chicago
> Press, 1982.
> Schulze, Reinhard. A Modern History of the Islamic World. New
> York: New York University Press. 2000.                          SALAH AL-DIN B. AYYUB See Saladin
> Smith, Wilfred Cantwell. Modern Islam in India: A Social
> Analysis. Lahore: Minerva Book Shop, 1943.
> Weismann, Itzchak. Taste of Modernity: Sufism, Salafiyya, and
> Arabism in Late Ottoman Damascus. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2001.
> SALJUQ See Sultanates: Seljuk
> Wiktorowicz, Quintan. The Management of Islamic Activism:
> Salafis, The Muslim Brotherhood, and State Power in Jordan.
> Albany: State University of New York Press. 2001.
> 
> John O. Voll     SANHURI, 
ABD AL-RAZZAQ, AL- See
> 
Abd al-Razzaq al-Sanhuri
> 
> SALEH BIN ALLAWI (C. 1844–1935)
> Saleh bin Allawi (Ar. Salih bin 
Alawi) was a renowned scholar
> and founder of the Riyada mosque college in Lamu. He was           SAUDI DYNASTY
> of Yemenite origin and born in the Comoro Islands. From
> there he migrated to Lamu sometime between 1876 and                The ruling family of Saudi Arabia, the Saudi dynasty, is
> 1885. He belonged to the Jamal al Layl Sharif lineage (one of      known as the House (al) of Sa
ud. Founding of the dynasty is
> the Sharif lineages and descendants of the Prophet), whose         conventionally dated in 1744, when the ruler of the small
> members have been responsible for the dissemination of             oasis town Dir
iyya (south of Riyadh), Muhammad ibn Sa
ud,
> Islam and its intellectual tradition in East Africa. In fact,      made an alliance with the reformist religious activist Muhammuch of Islam as it is taught and practiced in East Africa bears   mad ibn 
Abd al-Wahhab. Muhammad ibn Sa
ud accepted
> the stamp of Yemenite influence. Descendants of these fami-         the strict, puritanical interpretation of Islam propounded by
> lies were born of African mothers, and this factor facilitated     Muhammad ibn 
Abd al-Wahhab as the basis for his state, and
> their easy integration into the Swahili community.                 the latter pledged his support for the expansion of the
> former’s domains. Two Saudi realms in Arabia (1744–1818,
> Allawi’s membership in the Alawi tariqa (Sufi order)             1824–1891), destroyed by Ottoman intervention and internal
> enabled him to side with and patronize the slaves and the poor     strife, preceded the foundation of the current Kingdom of
> of Lamu Island, who became the main focus of his religious         Saudi Arabia by 
Abd al-
Aziz ibn 
Abd al-Rahman al-Sa
ud
> efforts. Before this time religious education in Lamu was          (known in the West as Ibn Saud) at the outset of the twentieth
> 
> 610                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Science, Islam and
> 
> century. By 1934, 
Abd al-
Aziz had expanded the kingdom to         regardless of their ethnic or religious affiliation, a distinctive
> its current boundaries. He has been succeeded as ruler by a         shape. Mention is frequently made of several sayings (hadith)
> number of his thirty-six sons: Sa
ud (1953–1964), Faysal            of the Prophet that state “seek 
ilm, even in China.”
> (1964–1975), Khalid (1975–1982) and Fahd (1982–present).
> Including the direct descendants of 
Abd al-
Aziz, the de-              The Arabic term 
ilm (pl. 
ulum) refers more broadly to
> scendants of his brothers, and significant cadet branches of         “knowledge” and its antonym is considered to be “ignorance”
> the family, the number of princes in the Saudi royal family is      (jahl). In its various verbal forms, 
ilm is found frequently in
> estimated now at between five and eight thousand.                    the Quran. At a fairly early date, however, the concept of 
ilm
> was differentiated from that of ma
rifa. The latter refers to a
> F. Gregory Gause III      form of knowledge derived from personal experience or
> intuition, whereas the former is contingent upon the observation and discovery of first principles. This is not to say,
> however, that all of the primary sources make a sharp distinc-
> SAYYID                                                              tion between these two modes of knowledge.
> 
> The concept of science in Islam is a vast subject. Histori-
> The word sayyid is derived from the Arabic root “to be lord
> cally, Arabs and Persians who were interested in explaining
> over, to rule” and is commonly used to refer to a descendant
> the natural world around them first introduced Greek scienof the prophet Muhammad (normally through his grandson
> tific treatises to the Arabic-speaking world during the eighth
> al-Husayn), but can also, more generally, signify a holy
> century. From the ninth century on, scholars traveled from
> person (also called wali). Descendants of the Prophet are
> one end of the empire to the other, carrying books and ideas,
> accorded respect, particularly in Shi
ism, but also in Sunni
> Islam. In Shi
ism, respect is generally preserved for descen-       thereby insuring what some have called the cultural and
> dants of Fatima, the daughter of the Prophet, through her           intellectual unity of the Islamic world. Since this time, countmarriage to Imam 
Ali. In Twelver Shi
ism, sayyids gain this        less Muslims from all over the world throughout the course of
> respect through their genealogy, including relation to one of       many centuries have been involved in scientific developments.
> the Twelve Imams, and many contemporary Shi
ite families
> Yet, almost immediately there is a conceptual and
> claim sayyid status. In Zaydi Shi
ism, the leader of the comtaxonomical difficulty. How exactly is the term “Islamic
> munity must be a descendant of the Prophet for his rule to be
> science” defined? Ostensibly, “science” is a universal term
> legitimate. In Sunni Islam, sayyids have certain legal privileges
> that knows no linguistic or ethnic bounds; yet, the adjective
> over non-sayyids. In all these branches of Islam, the privileged
> “Islamic” implies a particular language by a definable group
> status of sayyids is perhaps most obvious in the rules concernof people. Does “Islamic science,” then, refer to a particular
> ing marriage, where a sayyida (female descendant) should
> “Islamic” take on science? Or, does it refer to science done by
> marry only a sayyid to preserve the “equity” (kafaa) status in
> individuals who identify themselves as Muslims? This entry
> the marriage. In popular religion, descendants of the Prophet
> assumes the latter assertion.
> in all branches of Islam are often viewed as channels for divine
> blessing (baraka). The colloquial term sidi, derived from               An equally difficult hermeneutical problem presents itself:
> sayyid, is used as an honorific before Muslim saints, especially     When Arabic speakers use the term 
ilm did they mean by it
> in North Africa. It does not always imply that the saint is a       something similar to what today is called science? Because the
> descendant of the Prophet.                                          Arabic term is not identical to the Western concept of hard
> science, it is often used in a number of theological and
> See also Sharif.
> mystical contexts. For instance, early Muslim hadith criticism
> was known as 
ilm al-rijal (lit., “the science of the men” who
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                        made up the chain of transmitters, or isnad). Despite the
> Gilsenan, Michael. Recognising Islam: Religion and Society in the   employment of the term 
ilm there was nothing particularly
> Modern Middle East. London: Croom Helm, 1982.                    scientific about it. Likewise, even theology (
ilm al-kalam) was
> regarded as a science with its own demonstrative method
> Robert Gleave     derived from first principles. These principles, however, were
> not derived from syllogistic reasoning, but the Quran. A
> more recent trend has fundamentalists arguing that the Quran
> predicts many important scientific discoveries, thereby vali-
> SCIENCE, ISLAM AND                                                  dating the Quranic miracle for the believers.
> 
> The concept of 
ilm, “science,” has been an important one in        Premodern Scientific Developments
> the history of Islamicate civilization and has gone a long way      A momentous impetus was given to the development of
> to giving this civilization, and all those who participated in it   science in the Islamic world with the accession of the Abbasid
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                      611
> Science, Islam and
> 
> caliphate to power and the subsequent foundation of Baghdad        (maratib al-
ulum). One of the most famous examples of this is
> as its capital in 762. This resulted in a translation movement     the Enumeration of the Sciences, by al-Farabi (870–950). In the
> that saw, by the end of the tenth century, virtually all of the    preface to this work, al-Farabi states that his intention is to
> scientific and philosophical secular Greek works that were          give an enumeration of all the sciences of his day and provide
> available in the Late Antique period (fourth to seventh            descriptions of their themes and subject matter. He divides
> centuries C.E.) translated into Arabic. These works included       the sciences into those dealing with (1) language, (2) logic, (3)
> many diverse topics such as astrology, alchemy, physics,           mathematics, (4) physics and metaphysics, and (5) political
> mathematics, medicine, and the various branches of philoso-        science, jurisprudence, and dialectical theology. Other lists
> phy. The great majority of these texts were translated from        were compiled by the Brethren of Purity (Ikhwan al-Safa),
> Greek into Arabic by way of Syriac. Furthermore, many of           Ibn al-Nadim, Ibn Sina (Avicenna), al-Ghazali, and Ibn
> the earliest translators were Christians, many of whom were        Khaldun. Ghazali’s list is interesting in that he divides all of
> employed in the renowned bayt al-hikma (“House of Wis-             the sciences into those that are either praiseworthy (mahmuda)
> dom”). This functioned as the official institute and library for    or blameworthy (madhmuma).
> translation and research. The caliph al-Mamun (d. 833) sent
> emissaries throughout the Mediterranean world to seek out             Such lists, however, are by no means a medieval phenomeand purchase books on “ancient learning,” which were subse-        non. In 1980 at the Second World Conference on Muslim
> quently brought back to Baghdad and translated into Arabic         Education, sponsored by the King 
Abd al-
Aziz University in
> by a panel of scholars. The result was an impressive official       Jiddah and the Quaid-i Azam University in Islamabad, delelibrary that included many of the most important scientific         gates adopted a similar list. The main difference between
> and philosophical works produced in the ancient world.             their enumeration and that of someone like al-Farabi was that
> These works would form the foundation for medieval sci-            theirs begins with the memorization of the Quran and ends
> ence, not only in the Islamic world, but also subsequently in      with the practical sciences.
> the Christian world.
> Highlights
> The earliest Greek works translated into Arabic were           Two caveats must be made at the beginning. First, the
> often made for purely pragmatic reasons. This is why treatises     Muslims did not invent any of the sciences. Rather, as
> devoted to astrology, mathematics, and alchemy represent           mentioned, they received texts from the Greeks (especially
> some of the earliest scientific works in Arabic. A useful list of   those of Aristotle, Ptolemy, and Euclid) and, in the process,
> the treatises translated into Arabic and when and by whom          adopted and adapted their theories as they saw fit (e.g., in
> can be found in the account given by the biographer of             order to reconcile them with monotheistic sensibilities or
> Islamic writings, Ibn al-Nadim (d. 995).                           with new advances made in observation). Second, the term
> Arabic science might be better than Islamic science, because
> A common, though incorrect, assumption has it that the         there was nothing particular religious about science, and
> Greeks invented the sciences, the Arabs rescued them from          many of the scientists spoke Arabic, even though religiously
> disappearing in the “Dark Ages,” and subsequently passed           they might have been Christian or Jewish.
> them untouched and uncommented upon to the Renaissance
> period. This ignores the fact that many people living in the           Muslims made many important innovations in a great
> Islamic world wrote commentaries to the works of important         majority of the sciences. In astronomy (
ilm al-haya; lit. “the
> individuals such as Aristotle, Galen, and Ptolemy. The genre       science of the figure”), for example, Muslim thinkers made
> of the commentary was not a slavish recapitulation of a text,      important advancements, following on the heels of Ptolemy,
> but often a creative way of writing about science and philoso-     in discerning the laws governing the periodic motions of the
> phy in the medieval period. Rather than regard commentaries        celestial bodies. One of the most famous of the Islamic
> as uncreative, they often allowed scholars to think about          astronomers was al-Battani (Albategnius). He compiled a
> scientific matters in such a way that they could validate their     catalog of the stars for the year 880, in which he determined
> claims by putting them in the mouths of ancient sages. In fact,    the various astronomical coefficients with renowned accumany commentators often used ancient authors to argue the          racy. He was also responsible for discovering the motion of
> very opposite of what these ancient authors had intended in        the solar apsides. In addition, he also wrote an important
> the first place. So although the Arabs worked within the            introductory treatise that was used in European universities
> parameters of science as established by the Greeks, they made      until the sixteenth century. Gradually, in order to reconcile
> many important developments in the Western scientific               perceived observation of the universe, Muslim thinkers, disatradition.                                                         greeing with Aristotle, posited the existence of epicycles that
> revolved not around the earth, but around the various celes-
> Classification of the Sciences                                      tial spheres. This movement away from Aristotle greatly
> Many of the medieval philosophers compiled various “lists of       bothered the Andalusi thinkers, especially Ibn Bajja and Ibn
> the sciences” (ihsa 
ulum) and “classifications of the sciences”   Rushd (Averroes), who decided to remove the epicycles. This
> 
> 612                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Science, Islam and
> 
> created almost as many problems as it solved. In the thir-         Islamic Law
> teenth century, however, at the observatory in Maragha,            Science, as is to be expected, was a very malleable term. It
> scientists explained the motions of the heavenly spheres as the    referred not only to those disciplines (e.g., physics, mathecombination of uniform circular motions. This is the model         matics) that today are considered to be the purview of science,
> that was eventually adopted by European astronomers, such          but also to other disciplines whose scientific veracity is rather
> as Copernicus.                                                     difficult to ascertain. The Muslims had a tendency to consider every potential discipline as a science, and as a result
> Mathematics (
ilm al-hisab; lit. “the science of reckoning”)   tried to articulate first principles for them. Important in this
> was, according to al-Farabi’s classification, divided into seven    regard is the science of law or fiqh. For the practitioners of
> branches. Furthermore, he divided mathematics into two             fiqh, known as the fuquha, the law was a science and consisted
> types: practical (amali) and theoretical (nazari). The former is   of the proper knowledge of the Quran and the sunna.
> concerned with numbers as they pertain to numbered things
> such as tables or humans. The latter, in contrast, is concerned        In its developed form, the science of Islamic legal theory
> with numbers in the abstract, including the properties that        recognized a variety of sources and methods (usul al-fiqh) by
> numbers acquire when related to one another or when                which to derive the law. The first principle was the Quran,
> combined with or separated from one another. In the tenth          followed by the sunna which, though second in importance,
> century, Nichomachus’s Introduction was translated from Greek      provided the overwhelming majority of material from which
> into Arabic. This resulted in the acquaintance of mathematics      the law was derived. The third principle is consensus (ijma)
> with other subjects, such as geometry, astronomy, and music.       of the legal scholars in the name of the entire community.
> Another important mathematician, and probably the most             The fourth principle is known as human reasoning (qiyas).
> important Arab physicist, was Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen; d.          These four principles became the means whereby legal schol-
> 1039). Among other things, he attempted, without success, to       ars could, in their opinion, scientifically determine the legal
> regulate the flow of the Nile. He also composed over a              effects of the textual sources of Islam.
> hundred different scientific treatises, most devoted to medi-
> The supreme Muslim science was considered to be religcine, mathematics, and physics. Furthermore, he was responious law as opposed to theology as it was in the scholastic
> sible for establishing the theorem of the cotangent, in addition
> world. This had important repercussions: Because scholastic
> to resolving the problem of optics (the intersection of an
> theologians also did work on logic and medicine, they conequilateral hyperbole with a circle) that still bears his name.
> tended that God could not do what was logically impossible.
> Islamic fuquha, in contrast, were not interested in deducing
> In the field of medicine, probably the most important
> religious principles from reason or explaining them rationally.
> name is Ibn Sina (Avicenna; d. 1037). In his autobiography he
> informs us that medicine (tibb) was not one of the difficult            Having surveyed some of the major features and trajectosciences and he claims to have mastered it by the age of           ries of science within the orbit of Islam, the question arises:
> sixteen. Throughout his life he engaged in medical experi-         Why did Islam not carry out a scientific revolution in the
> ments and wrote various treatises on specific topics. He also       same manner that the Europeans did? After all, Islam praccomposed a medical encyclopedia, Qanun fi ’l-Tibb (The              ticed the various sciences long before Europe and remained
> canon of medicine), that became the standard textbook on the       ahead of the Europeans until the thirteenth century.
> subject not only in the Islamic world, but also in the West for
> over five hundred years.                                               The primary difference resides in the fact that, whereas
> European scholastics succeeded in developing the modern
> Mention should also be made of two disciplines that            physical sciences, Islam created a metaphysics that was more
> medieval scholars considered to be sciences, but which are         interested in mysticism. According to the analysis suggested
> not thought of in that way today: astrology and alchemy. Both      by John Walbridge in The Leaven of the Ancients (2000), this
> of these sciences provided important sources for an empirical      was the result of several features. First, the Muslim philosoand experimental approach to nature. Whereas Aristotelianism       phers consistently held the position that the world existed
> offered an explanatory framework for understanding the             without a temporal beginning and were thus more interested
> physical world, astrology and astral magic supplemented this       in ontological hierarchies than temporal chains of causality.
> by providing explanations (and prognostications) for the           As a result, they tended to speculate about metaphysics
> phenomena of this world in the heavens. Both astrology and         and ontology as opposed to the natural sciences. Second,
> astral magic presupposed a thorough knowledge of mathe-            Muslim theologians (mutakallimun) developed an extreme
> matics and astronomy. In like manner, alchemy (al-kimiya)         occasionalism that refused to bind God in any way to the
> was concerned with the transmutation of base metals into           natural order. At its most extreme, even a philosopher such as
> precious ones. Although most often associated with the             Ghazali, who believed in the truth of mathematics, argued
> attempt to “create” gold, many regarded it as an important         that God destroyed and created the universe in every instant
> part of natural philosophy.                                        in accordance with His arbitrary Will. God’s law, in other
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                    613
> Secularism, Islamic
> 
> words, was regarded as totally arbitrary and, thus, the notion       Fakhry, Majid. A History of Islamic Philosophy. 2d edition. New
> of natural law was for the most part foreign to Islam. Third,           York: Columbia University Press, 1983.
> the discovery of mysticism by the Islamic philosophers (be-          Grant, Edward. Planets, Stars, and Orbs: The Making of the
> ginning with Ibn al-
Arabi in the thirteenth century) coin-            Medieval Cosmos. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge Univercided with the almost complete lack of interest in natural             sity Press, 1996.
> philosophy, especially physics and mathematics. The end              Gutas, Dimitri. Greek Thought, Arabic Culture: The Graecoresult was that by the thirteenth century, philosophy increas-         Arabic Translation Movement in Baghdad and Early Abbasid
> ingly was reduced to metaphysics with the primary tools of its         Society. New York and London: Routledge, 1998.
> discovery being intuition and mystical experience as opposed         Ibn Nadim. The Fihrist. Edited and translated by Bayard
> to deduction and scientific observation. And so it remained              Dodge. New York: Columbia University Press, 1970.
> until the modern period when Muslims who engage in                   Ibrahim, I. A. A Brief Illustrated Guide to Understanding Islam.
> scientific discovery use, for the most part, models and para-            2d edition. Houston: Darussalam, 1997.
> digms developed by Europeans.
> Nasr, Seyyed Hossein. An Introduction to Islamic Cosmological
> Doctrines. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993.
> Modern Approaches
> For sake of convenience, there are essentially three main            Qadir, C. A. Philosophy and Science in the Islamic World.
> trajectories. The first trajectory is that of the “fundamental-         London and New York: Routledge, 1988.
> ists.” Many think that the Quran predicts modern science.           Rosenthal, Franz. Science and Medicine in Islam. Aldershot,
> This approach is based on the assumption that the Quran in            U.K.: Variorum, 1990.
> its nontechnical language actually refers to modern scientific        Sarton, George. Introduction to the History of Science. Vol. 1:
> data (e.g., embryology, geology). This is impossible to verify,         From Homer to Omar Khayyam. Vol. 2: From Rabbi Ben
> yet it is taken by the faithful as proof of the authenticity of         Ezra to Roger Bacon. Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins, 1927.
> their religion. A second attempt to bring science and Islam          Walbridge, John. The Leaven of the Ancients: Suhrawardi and
> together is based on, for lack of a better term, apologetics.          the Heritage of the Greeks. Albany: State University of New
> According to this approach, “Western” science has failed to            York Press, 2000.
> formulate a vision of truth based on revelation; rather, it relies
> on the rational and secular principles as handed down by the                                                          Aaron Hughes
> pagan Greeks. The result is the desacralization of knowledge
> (cf., Nasr, Qadir). Islam, in contrast, presents a sacred
> worldview and it is the job of “Islamic science” to ascertain
> this. Proponents of this approach argue that there is such a         SECULARISM, ISLAMIC
> thing as Islamic science and that it does not subscribe to the
> theory of evolution. Accordingly, whenever science threatens         Islamic secularism is a movement seeking to limit the scope of
> religion (e.g., evolution), the former must ultimately give way      religious authority, parallel to similar movements in other
> to the latter. Such a dichotomy between “Western” and                faith traditions. The limitation may be ideological, as in
> “Islamic” science is, as should be clear from this entry, based      secularist movements to remove religious authority from
> on essentialism and ignores the fact that for much of its            state institutions or from social relations; or it may be experihistory Islamic science was, for all intents and purposes,           ential, as in the encroachment by consumerism and mass
> Western science. The third and final trajectory seems to be           media on activities previously regulated by religious authorthe most mainstream; namely, the thousands of Muslim                 ity. Ideological secularism arose in the nineteenth century,
> scientists throughout the globe who engage in the ongoing            when atheists such as Mirza Fath Ali Akhundzada (1812–1878)
> discovery of scientific principles by means of careful and            rejected Islam as inherently incompatible with modern ideals
> controlled observation.                                              of progress. In the twentieth century, ideological secularism
> gained adherents among devout progressives as well. Major
> An image of a fourteenth-century yellow copper astrolabe ap-         statements were drafted by Muhammad Husayn Naini
> pears in the volume two color insert.                              (1860–1936), who warned against “religious despotism”; 
Ali
> 
Abd al-Raziq (1888–1966), who argued for a separation of
> See also Astrology; Astronomy; Education; Falsafa;
> religious and political authority; and Nurcholish Madjid (b.
> Ghazali, al-; Ibn 
Arabi; Ibn Khaldun; Ibn Sina; Ikhwan
> 1939), who called for the “secularization” of worldly matters
> al-Safa; Law; Modernity; Quran.
> so as to leave the divine to God.
> 
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                            A generation of military leaders in the middle of the
> Alfarabi. “The Enumeration of the Sciences.” In Medieval             twentieth century, beginning with Mustafa Kemal Ataturk
> Political Philosophy. Edited by Ralph Lerner and Muhsin           (1881–1938), forcibly secularized many Muslim societies,
> Mahdi. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1963.              subjugating religious authority to increasingly intrusive lay
> 
> 614                                                                                              Islam and the Muslim World
> Secularization
> 
> supervision and stripping it of institutions it previously mo-      In the Western tradition, religious revivalist movements did
> nopolized, such as courts and schools. At the same time,            not necessarily conflict with secular orientations. In the
> experiential secularism spread in the daily practices of Mus-       Muslim world, contrary to the expectations of the first genlims. For example, alcohol consumption and interest-based           eration of modernization theorists, there has been an upsurge
> bank accounts increased despite widespread prohibition by           in antisecular movements even in those societies long ex-
> Islamic authorities. Nonetheless, secularism remains a taboo        posed to modernization (for example, Turkey). Muslim exconcept in many Muslim communities, where it is associated          perts have argued that modernization does not have to result
> with atheism and Western cultural imperialism.                      in secularization and that modernization is a universal concept over which no single civilization or culture has monop-
> See also Modernism; Modernity; Secularization.
> oly. The premise that Muslim countries will inevitably grow
> more secular as they are exposed to Western notions of
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> rationality and progress is not axiomatic. The secularization
> Adelkhah, Fariba. Being Modern in Iran. New York: Columbia
> process has failed to permeate all aspects of life in the Muslim
> University Press, 2000.
> world; instead, reaction to it has become a major contributor
> Berkes, Niyazi. The Development of Secularism in Turkey. 2d
> to the social and political resurgence of Islam. While a small
> ed. London: Hurst & Co., 1998.
> group of leaders has adopted a Western secular worldview,
> the vast majority of Muslims have not adopted secular
> Charles Kurzman
> perspectives.
> 
> Islam has not experienced a reformation analogous to that
> SECULARIZATION                                                      of Protestantism in Western Christianity. Islamic movements have sought to purify Islam of worldly and heretical
> It is often said that secularization is intimately related to the   accretions by reinforcing Islamic authority over society and
> process by which the Christian West split religion from             law. In Western Europe, the rise of the nation-state in the
> politics. The origins of this process are traced to Christ’s oft-   seventeenth century led to secularization and decreased religquoted words: “Render therefore unto Caesar the things              ious influence. Muslims, instead, gave allegiance to the umma,
> which are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s.”         the community of the faithful as defined by common adher-
> Muslims, in contrast, have fused religion and politics in an        ence to faith rather than by political or ethnic boundaries.
> attempt to maintain their unique cultural identity worldwide.       The notion of the nation-state did not take shape in Muslim
> This approach has endured a checkered history: a period             thought until the late nineteenth century. Whereas in Europe
> of decline and external domination followed by a recent             the secularization process was gradual and proceeded in
> reassertion of civilizational vigor. Muslim leaders and ruling      tandem with socioeconomic growth, in the Muslim world it
> elites have been preoccupied with the exact nature of state         was treated as an externally imposed blueprint reflecting
> and nation-building, the absorption of social change, and           European imperial interests. While in the Muslim world
> the adjustment to, or backlash against, the processes of            secularization preceded religious reformation, in the Eurosecularization by which property, power, and prestige are           pean case it resulted more or less from such reformation.
> passed from religious to lay control. Today, the term
> secularization refers to the overall process by which religious        To understand the secularization process in the Muslim
> institutions have been deprived of their economic, political,       world, it is important to examine the extent to which religious
> and social influence.                                                institutions and norms are pervasive in all areas of life. In the
> majority of Muslim societies, there is not a distinct separation
> It is important to realize, however, that the great achievebetween religion and other aspects of people’s lives. Islam is
> ments of the West in the economic, scientific, and technoboth din wa dunya (religion and the world). The basic conflict
> logical realms, culminating in what is known as globalization,
> here is not necessarily between religion and the world, as was
> have spread the secular life throughout the world. The
> opportunities generated by enhanced higher education and            the case in Christian experience; rather, it is between the
> mass communications have had profound impact on both                forces of tradition and the forces of modernity.
> women and men of the Muslim world, fostering an awareness
> In the Muslim world, secularism resulted entirely from
> of and a debate over new religious rethinking, public life, civil
> European contact and influence. Many Middle Eastern counsociety, religious and ideological tolerance, and individual
> tries adopted secular legislation, inspired mostly by European
> rights and responsibilities. To small but growing numbers of
> models, on a wide range of civil and criminal matters. These
> Muslims, human rights are the expression of the process of
> laws are now the target of the Islamists’ attack. While concedsecularization.
> ing the value of Western technology, Islamists question those
> The secularization process has also led to a religious           values and practices associated with modernization, including
> revivalist backlash in both the Christian and Muslim worlds.        materialism, consumerism, individualism, and moral laxity.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                      615
> Seljuq
> 
> Contemporary reformists in the Muslim world vehemently                 the Tunisian Shaykh Rachid al-Ghannouchi, have demanded
> resist any institutionalized control by religion over human            an Islamic constitution and resistance to “Westernization.”
> life, arguing that such dominance fosters absolutist tenden-           Others, such as 
Abd al-Karim Sorush, an Iranian political
> cies, destroys the existing intellectual life, and promotes less       philosopher, have called for an inward-looking approach to
> tolerant and antidemocratic forms of social and political              consider the Muslims free and responsible individuals, capacontrol.                                                               ble of using their independent judgments. Sorush’s views
> are capable of revolutionizing Muslim theology and mass
> Since the 1970s, as a result of Iran’s Islamic Revolution,          religiosity. Neither the lay modernism of the ruling elites nor
> the key question has become, if the struggle between Islamic           the rejectionist populism of traditional leaders has been able
> reformists and Islamic conservatives is legal or political.            to offer a sustainable course for the future of the Islamic
> Arguably the struggle between the two is both political and            world. Sorush’s synthesis may stand as a viable alternative.
> legal. Both reformists and conservatives have governed most            The Muslim world has increasingly become the site of an
> Muslim countries since they gained independence from West-             emerging cultural conflict over “who” controls the process of
> ern colonial rule. Emphasizing the separation of religion and          social change as well as over “whose interests” are really
> politics, these leaders extensively secularized their legal and        served by change or resistance to it.
> educational systems. Some nationalists, such as Mustafa Kemal
> Ataturk (Turkey, 1881–1938), Jamal 
Abd al-Nasser (Egypt,              See also Pakistan, Islamic Republic of; Reform: Arab
> 1918–1970), and both Reza Shah (Iran, 1878–1944) and                   Middle East and North Africa; Reform: Iran.
> Mohammad Reza Shah (Iran, 1919–1980), adopted aggressive secularization methods and programs; others, such as
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Anwar al-Sadat (Egypt, 1918–1980) and Zulfaqar Ali Bhutto
> Esposito, John L. The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality. 3d ed.
> (Pakistan, 1928–1979), manipulated Islamic symbols and pur-
> New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
> sued a more subtle and circumspect approach to secularization.
> Falk, Richard A. “The Monotheistic Religions in the Era
> A variety of governments—including monarchies, mili-                   of Globalization.” Global Dialogue 1, no. 1 (Summer
> tary dictatorships, and liberal authoritarian regimes—ruled               1999): 139–148.
> Egypt for most of the twentieth century. They faced occa-              Filali-Ansary, Abdou. “Islam and Liberal Democracy: The
> sional challenges and threats from the Muslim Brotherhood                 Challenge of Secularization.” Journal of Democracy 7, no. 2
> and other Islamic organizations. In both Iran and Turkey, the             (1996): 76–80.
> imposition of a secular state from the top has backfired,               Monshipouri, Mahmood. Islamism, Secularism, and Human
> resulting in the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran and by the              Rights in the Middle East. Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner
> brief takeover of political power by an Islamist prime minister          Publishers, 1998.
> in Turkey in 1996. In Algeria, nationalist rule since indepen-         Sadri, Mahmoud, and Sadri, Ahmad. “Let the Occasional
> dence in 1962 has resulted in a bifurcated society like Egypt’s.          Chalice Break: Abdolkarim Soroush and Islamic Libera-
> A secular society and culture for the urban bourgeoisie and               tion Theology.” The Iranian, 26 (October 1998).
> intellectuals exist alongside an Islamic culture in the country-       Voll, John Obert. Islam: Continuity and Change in the Modside and the urban slums. The abrogation of the 1992 elec-               ern World. 2d ed. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University
> toral process, which prevented Front Islamique du Salut (Islamic         Press, 1984.
> Salvation Party or FIS) from controlling parliament, has
> plunged Algeria into a civil war. Secularism is now violently
> Mahmood Monshipouri
> challenged by Islamists.
> 
> Since Pakistan’s creation in 1947, that country’s leaders
> have faced different forces vying with each other for political
> power. In Muslim countries where Islamists have ruled (e.g.,
> SELJUQ See Sultanates: Seljuk
> Iran, Sudan, and Afghanistan), they have failed to find longterm solutions to many contemporary ills. In Afghanistan, the
> Wahhabist Taliban regime immersed the country in a civil
> war as well as in a foreign war as a result of the terrorist attacks
> of 11 September 2001.                                                  SHAFI
I, AL- (C. 767–820)
> Recent trends throughout the Muslim world point to the             Muhammad ibn Idris al-Shafi
i, the jurisprudent, was probemergence of an intense debate over reforming Islam. Women             ably born in 
Asqalan (Ashkelon) in Palestine. He was a pure
> in the Muslim world are beginning to demand greater free-              Arab on both sides, and on his father’s side he was a third
> dom and to question the restrictive status that cultural tradi-        cousin, six times removed, to the Prophet. He grew up in
> tions have imposed on them. Some Muslim leaders, such as               Mecca and northern Arabia and became renowned for his
> 
> 616                                                                                                Islam and the Muslim World
> Shafi
i, al-
> 
> archery and Arabic as well as law. He is said to have studied          means toward understanding the application of Quran and
> under Malik ibn Anas in Medina for as long as ten years and            hadith. His concept of consensus is fairly undeveloped. Howlater debated with al-Shaybani in Baghdad. He emigrated to             ever, as made explicit by later tradition, consensus does not
> Old Cairo about six years before his death there. Accounts             invent new ordinances but rather rests on data from the
> vary as to how he died: of an illness; from the after-effects of a     Quran and hadith lost to later generations but known to the
> beating at the hands of aggrieved adherents of the Maliki              Companions of the Prophet, who could scarcely have agreed
> school, one of whom he had denounced to the governor for               unanimously without the hardest evidence.
> insulting him in the course of a debate; or from a beating by
> adherents of the Mu
tazili theology.                                       Among modern writers, Schacht stresses an argument
> Shafi
i made expressly in two of the short works: that local
> Writers of the later Shafi
i school distinguish between             custom, hadith from experts of the previous centuries, and
> Shafi
i’s early teaching (al-qadim), in Iraq, and his later (al-        common sense are always outweighed by hadith from the
> jadid), in Egypt. Nine or ten short works on jurisprudence are         Prophet. (The Risala assumes without discussion that only
> extant, as many as half of which may be early; otherwise, the          hadith from the Prophet have weight.) Calder (1983) finds
> early teaching is lost except for scattered quotations. The            that the Risala legitimizes disagreement among jurisprudents
> later works that survive are the Risala (Epistle), an exposition       by distinguishing between simple questions whose answers all
> of how to infer ordinances from the evidence of revelation;            Muslims know and abstruse questions only experts can adthe Umm (Guidance), a large, systematic collection of ordi-            dress and whose answers even they can know only probably,
> nances; and the rest of the short works. Two large works               not certainly. Adherents of all schools from the tenth century
> sometimes published in his name, a substantial collection of           onwards legitimized disagreement in roughly the same way,
> hadith and a collection of ordinances from the Quran, are             although it is hard to say to what extent Shafi‘i’s arguments
> later extracts from known works. Other works (statements of            were what caused the theory to spread. Hallaq argues that just
> his creed, comments on asceticism) are likely pseudonymous.            because it sought a middle course between traditionalism and
> rationalism, well in advance of majority opinion, the Risala
> At the level of theory (usul al-fiqh), medieval Muslim               attracted little attention until the tenth century.
> commentators credit Shafi
i with reconciling the two great
> early approaches to discerning the law, mainly hadith and                 The Umm as we know it manifestly includes some interray, traditionalism and rationalism. The traditionalists pro-         polations by later authors. Calder (1993) proposes that the
> posed to base Islamic law entirely on what had been transmit-          Risala and the Umm (and implicitly the other extant works of
> ted from the earliest generations, especially hadith reports of        Shafi
i as well) are primarily the work of later disciples writing
> what the Prophet had said and done. The rationalists allowed           in Shafi
i’s name. Among other things, Calder argues that
> more play to reason and sometimes, when it came to revela-             these works appeal to prophetic hadith (as opposed to the
> tion, argued for reliance on the Quran to the exclusion of            opinions of earlier jurisprudents) in the fashion of other
> hadith. With the traditionalists, on the one hand, Shafi
i’s            works from the early tenth century, not from the early ninth.
> Risala argues for reliance on revelation before reason and for         Calder’s opinion has not commanded wide assent, but the
> hadith as a necessary complement to the Quran. On the                 question of attribution remains open.
> other hand, with the rationalists, it proposes a sophisticated
> A Shafi
i school of law was constituted when, first, Shafi
i’s
> system of manipulating the revealed texts to justify the law.
> doctrine had been collected and organized and, second, a
> One of Shafii’s greatest accomplishments was to systema-           regular procedure had been developed for training and certitize analogical reasoning. According to Shafii, the jurispru-          fying new Shafi
i jurisprudents. The two came together with
> dent looks for a strictly defined condition common to known             Ibn Surayj (863–918) in Baghdad. He trained his advanced
> and unknown cases, concerning which there is a certain                 students with the Mukhtasar (Epitome) of al-Muzani, Shafi
i’s
> ruling from elsewhere in Quran or hadith. So, for example,            most important Egyptian disciple. The other surviving schools
> the Quran expressly forbids grape wine; the reason (ma
na in          of law formed similarly over the course of the tenth century.
> Shafi
i’s exposition, 
illa in the later tradition of usul al-fiqh) is   The Shafi
i school is distinguished by the acuity of its juridical
> that it intoxicates (not, say, that it is red or imported from         reasoning, so that writing about the theory of Islamic law was
> Byzantine territory); date wine also intoxicates; therefore,           long dominated by Shafi
i jurists, although doubtless their
> date wine also is forbidden.                                           preponderance will appear to diminish as more and more
> non-Shafi
i works are studied. Outside North Africa, the
> Later writers in the Shafi
i tradition argued expressly that         Shafi
i and Hanafi schools for centuries almost divided the
> the law had basically four sources, meaning four sorts of              Islamic world between them. At the end of the Middle Ages,
> evidence by which the jurisprudent discerned God’s will:               however, the Hanafi school was favored by Turkish rulers
> Quran, hadith, consensus, and analogy. However, Lowry has             from the Ottoman Empire to the Mogul, so the Shafi
i school
> shown that the Risala itself ultimately recognizes only two            is now predominant only on the edges of the Islamic world, as
> sources, Quran and hadith. For Shafi
i, analogy is just a              in Indonesia, Yemen, and East Africa.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                         617
> Shah
> 
> See also Law; Madhhab.                                            See also Reform: Arab Middle East and North Africa.
> 
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                      BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Calder, Norman. “Ikhtilâf and Ijma in Shâfi
i’s Risâla.” Studia    Lemke, Wolf-Dieter. Mahmud Shaltut (1893–1963) und die
> Islamica 58 (1983): 39–47.                                        Reform der Azhar. Frankfurt: P. D. Lang, 1980.
> Calder, Norman. Studies in Early Muslim Jurisprudence. New        Zebiri, Kate. Mahmud Shaltut and Islamic Modernism. Oxford,
> York: Clarendon Press, 1993.                                      U.K.: Clarendon Press, 1993.
> Hallaq, Wael B. A History of Islamic Legal Theories. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1997.                                                             Sohail H. Hashmi
> Khadduri, Majid, trans. Islamic Jurisprudence: Shafi
i’s Risala.
> Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1961.
> Lowry, Joseph Edmund. “The Legal-Theoretical Content of
> the Risala.” Ph.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1999.     SHARI
A
> Schacht, Joseph. The Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence.
> Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon Press, 1950.                           Often translated as “Islamic law” the shari
a is better understood as the path of correct conduct that God has revealed
> Christopher Melchert     through his messengers, particularly the prophet Muhammad. The earliest sources indicate its meaning as a “way of
> belief,” either Muslim or non-Muslim, and it was used to
> translate the word Torah into Arabic. Jurists tend to prefer the
> SHAH See Monarchy                                                 term fiqh (understanding) in their books on jurisprudence,
> leaving shari
a as a general term. Intention (niyya) to fulfill
> one’s duty to God is often as important as the act itself, and
> every action should be conceived as worshipping God.
> 
> SHALTUT, MAHMUD (1893–1963)                                           This focus on God extended to a medieval institutionalization of the shari
a that limited human authority. Even
> Mahmud Shaltut was an Egyptian religious scholar, jurist,         today, there is no central authority for matters of Islamic law
> and reformer of al-Azhar, the renowned center of Islamic          in Sunni Islam (some Shi
ites have developed authority struclearning in Cairo. Born in a farming village of lower Egypt,      tures), and Muslims may seek advice from a number of
> Shaltut distinguished himself as a student in the princi-         different authorities (muftis) before making up their mind.
> pal religious institute of Alexandria and later at al-Azhar.      Further, actions are assigned one of five “shari
a values”
> He became an instructor of Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) at         (ahkam); between required and forbidden are: recommended,
> al-Azhar in 1927. The following year, the reform-minded           indifferent, and disapproved. These valuations have led some
> Muhammad Mustafa al-Maraghi was appointed shaykh al-              to describe shari
a as ethics rather than as law. Arguably,
> Azhar (rector), and Shaltut immediately emerged as one of         postcolonial legal institutions have utterly changed the Mushis ardent supporters. When conservative opposition forced        lim’s relationship to shari
a, both by codifying the law and by
> al-Maraghi out of office the following year, Shaltut con-          replacing shari
a courts.
> tinued pressing for reform. Because of his opposition, he
> was dismissed from al-Azhar in 1931. Upon al-Maraghi’s               Shari
a in Western discourse has come to signify Islam as
> reappointment as rector in 1935, he returned as a senior          moribund or authoritarian, perhaps reflecting Christian preofficial in the faculty of Islamic law. Following service in       sumptions of a distinction between law and gospel. Rhetorical
> numerous committees and conferences inside and outside of         use is also found among Muslim intellectuals, some of whom
> al-Azhar, Shaltut was appointed shaykh al-Azhar in 1958.          urge a “return” to shari
a focusing primarily on issues of
> During his tenure, Shaltut oversaw a modernization of the         public dress and ritual conduct, but also invoking the idea of
> school’s curriculum in theology and law, and the addition of      the shari
a as a total way of life.
> new faculties, including medicine. His influence, however,
> See also Law.
> was undermined when the Nasser government imposed direct state control over al-Azhar in 1961. The progressive bent
> to Shaltut’s thought is best exemplified in his condemnation       BIBLIOGRAPHY
> of Islamic sectarianism and his appointment of scholars of        Calder, Norman. “Shari
a.” In Vol. 9, Encyclopaedia of Islam.
> Shi
ite fiqh at al-Azhar. But on social issues such as polygyny      Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1962.
> and birth control, he adopted more conservative positions         Goldziher, Ignaz. Introduction to Islamic Theology and Law.
> that were at odds with government reform programs.                  Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1981.
> 
> 618                                                                                           Islam and the Muslim World
> Shari
at-Shangalaji, Reza-Qoli
> 
> Weiss, Bernard. The Spirit of Islamic Law. Athens: University      meanings in Muslim usage, and the word is related in meanof Georgia Press, 1998.                                          ing to sayyid. Ashraf (the plural form of sharif ), like sadat (or
> sada, the plural form of sayyid), are subject to special rules in
> Jonathan E. Brockopp      Islamic law. One meaning, that of a descendant of the Prophet,
> is perhaps the most common, and specifically it often indicates descent through the line of al-Hasan, the Prophet’s
> grandson. Muslim genealogists differ in their definition of
> SHARI
ATI, 
ALI (1933–1977)                                        sharif (as they do over sayyid). Some define sharif in a broad
> manner (including, for example, descendants of the Prophet’s
> Born in 1933 in the province of Khorasan, northeast of Iran,
> 
Ali Shari
ati died in 1977 in London of natural causes. His       cousins); others are stricter, limiting the term to descendants
> intellectual disposition was formed in early adulthood through     of Muhammad through Hasan, the older son of the Prophet’s
> his involvement with the Center for the Propagation of             daughter (Fatima) and her husband, 
Ali. The two extremes
> Islamic Truths, an educational and advocacy institute founded      only roughly correspond to the Sunni or Shi
ite proclivities.
> by his father, and later with the movement God-Worshiping          For example, ashraf are prohibited from receiving the alms
> Socialists. Both organizations advocated a reformist Islam,        (zakat), though in Shi
ite law they are compensated by being
> the goal of which was to liberate religion from its “regressive”   the sole recipient of the one-fifth tax (khums). Some hadith
> and “passive” outlook and to promote social justice. Shari
ati     portray the ashraf as guaranteed a place in heaven, and others
> never received any traditional seminarian education. He            exhort the community to show them respect and honor.
> earned a bachelor’s degree in French from Mashad Univer-           Some commentators have argued that these stipulations are
> sity in 1958 and received his doctorate from the Sorbonne in       not nullified, even if the individual is a sinner. The governor
> 1963. His residence in Paris in the early 1960s and his            of Mecca (who was always a descendant of the Prophet) was
> exposure to African anticolonial movements and their French        known as al-sharif during the Ottoman period.
> intellectual advocates proved to be significant in the development of his Islamic worldview.                                     See also Sayyid.
> 
> Shari
ati formulated an Islamic Weltanschauung in his          BIBLIOGRAPHY
> most celebrated book Islam-shenasi (Islamology), published
> Gilsenan, Michael. Recognising Islam: Religion and Society in the
> in 1969. He identified a dynamic and progressive “true Islam”
> Modern Middle East. Croom Helm: London, 1982.
> of Imam 
Ali (Alavid Shi
ism) and distinguished it from the
> petrified institutionalized Islam of the clergy (Safavid Islam).
> Through a revisionist genealogy of Islamic concepts and                                                              Robert Gleave
> ideas, he articulated a philosophy of history and social change
> that he believed would appeal to young modern Iranian
> intellectuals. He conceived his Islamic Weltanschauung as a
> counter hegemonic ideology against the “trinity of oppres-         SHARI
AT-SHANGALAJI, REZA-QOLI
> sion”—the economic power of capitalism, the coercive politi-       (1890–1943)
> cal power of monarchy, and the cultural dominance of the
> Safavid Islam. Although Shari
ati came to be known as the          A reformist Iranian theologian during the secularizing reign
> ideologue of the Iranian revolution par excellence, his ideas      of Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlevi, Reza-Qoli Shari
atremained marginal to the state-sanctioned interpretations of       Shangalaji was considered a heretic by his religious peers for
> Islam in postrevolutionary Iran.                                   his attempts to modernize and reform Islam in Iran. He
> supported Twelver Shi
ism: namely, the existence of free will
> See also Reform: Iran.
> in human beings, the infallibility of the imam, and the idea
> that the twelfth, or current, imam is hidden from the world
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> and will emerge again. However, he also advocated the use of
> Rahnema, Ali. An Islamic Utopian, A Political Biography of 
Ali    scientific thought in Islam and the pursuit of social justice,
> Shari
ati. London and New York: I. B. Tauris, 1998.
> and may have been an admirer of Wahhabism, which was
> hostile to Shi
ism. His main suggestion, to use ijtihad (discus-
> Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi
> sion) for the purposes of reform in order to get rid of taqlid
> (conservatism), was rejected as too secular by the religious
> leaders of the Iranian ulema, who were conservative and
> SHARIF                                                             already felt under attack by Reza Shah’s own secularizing and
> authoritarian reforms. After Reza Shah’s fall from power,
> The word sharif is derived from the Arabic root “to be noble,      they reestablished control and reinstituted strict Islamic law
> highborn.” Sharif is an honorific term that has a variety of        in Iran. Shangalaji’s reformist thought was subsequently
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                      619
> Shaykh al-Islam
> 
> declared heretical and ignored, particularly under the cur-       was abolished, as were all the trappings of the Ottoman
> rent, fundamentalist regime, which advocates traditional in-      caliphate, in 1924.
> terpretations of Muslim law and opposes reform. Since his
> death, Shangalaji’s ideas have fallen into obscurity.             See also Empires: Ottoman; Empires: Safavid and Qajar.
> 
> See also Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlevi; Reform: Iran;                BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Shi
a: Imami (Twelver).                                           Repp, R. C. The Mufti of Istanbul. Oxford, U.K.: Ithaca
> Press, 1986.
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Richard, Y. “Shari
at Shangalaji: A Reformist Theologian of                                                       Robert Gleave
> the Rida Shah Period.” In Authority and Political Culture in
> Shi
ism. Edited by S. A. Arjomand. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988.
> SHAYKHIYYA
> Paula Stiles
> Shaykhiyya was a nineteenth-century Iranian, mystical, sectarian movement within Shi
ism that was inspired by Shaykh
> Ahmad al-Ahsai, an eighteenth-century cleric who originally
> SHAYKH AL-ISLAM                                                   came from the Arabian peninsula. It was more popular with
> the common people, who found it more accessible and vital
> Before the rise to power of the Ottomans and Safavids, shaykh     than its rival Shi
ite schools, Usulism and Akhbarism. It
> al-Islam (pl. shuyukh al-Islam) was, in general, an honorific      emphasized gaining gnostic knowledge through the love of
> title given to the leading scholar (or at times, spiritual Sufi    God, in addition to the dry, legalistic study of the Quran and
> master) in a particular locality. During the Ottoman and          hadiths and rigid traditionalism advocated by the other two
> Safavid dynasties, it evolved into an official administrative      schools. Shaykhiyya espoused the concept that the twelfth
> position. The shaykh al-Islam was responsible for government      imam (descendant of the prophet Muhammad) of Shi
ite
> control of education (through the madrasa system) and law         Islam had gone into hiding from humankind and remains in
> (through the courts), and therefore, for the purposes of          “occultation” until he returns shortly before the end of the
> legitimacy, had to be a legally trained and well-respected        world. The “Fourth Principle” of Shaykhiyya (rokn-e rabi
)
> scholar. His fatwa (opinion), though technically nonbinding       envisaged a “perfect Shi
a,” the only person on Earth who
> on a judge (qadi), held the force of government policy. In the    could become aware (through mystical intuition) of the
> Ottoman Empire, the great shaykh al-Islam Ebus-Su
ud (Ar.         Hidden Imam while he was in occultation. Shaykh Ahmad did
> Abu l-Su
ud, d. 1574) acted, not only as a powerful influence     not claim this role for himself, but the followers of his chief
> over the sultan in terms of policy, but also enforced the         successor, Sayyid Kazim Rashti, believed that Rashti was the
> primacy of Hanafi legal doctrine within the empire. Ottoman        perfect Shi
a of his time. Rashti formed much of the basic
> shuyukh al-Islam were known as the “Mufti” of the empire,         organization of Shaykiyya as a school of thought.
> and while others were able to give fatwas, it was their legal
> opinions that (at least officially) were authoritative. Within         Shaykh Ahmad (1753–1826), one of the last great Muslim
> the Safavid Empire, shuyukh al-Islam such as Mohammad             philosophers before the influx of European thought, was a
> Baqer Sabzawari (d. 1679) and Mohammad Baqer Majlesi (d.          gentle man of paradox who enjoyed both the patronage of the
> 1699) were renowned as scholars rather than policy makers,        court of the Qajar Shah in Tehran and the love of the masses,
> though they too clearly had official responsibilities which        yet refused an official position for fear that he might lose
> included presiding over the coronation ceremony of a new          touch with the common people. Originally from Bahrain, he
> shah. The shuyukh al-Islam formed a network of government-        spent the last twenty years of his life in Iran. He considered
> appointed figures in Safavid Iran, and functioned as a means       himself an orthodox Shi
ite who was hostile to Sufism, yet
> of enforcing a legal unity over a diverse and often fractious     inspired a movement that incorporated many elements of
> population.                                                       Sufi thought. Shaykh Ahmad emphasized the necessity for a
> religious leader to combine mystical revelation with tradi-
> The post of shaykh al-Islam survived in both the Ottoman      tional jurisprudence. His philosophy, influenced by visions of
> Empire and Iran into the nineteenth century, though with a        the prophet Muhammad, numerology, rigorous study of
> reduced significance. The Afshar, Zand, and Qajar dynasties        Muslim law, and the religious thought of his native Bahrain,
> of Iran certainly appointed shuyukh al-Islam, though these        inspired the movement that bore his name after his death.
> were rarely major figures within the religious establishment.      The movement was influenced heavily by its founder’s fasci-
> In Iran, the post seems to have died out in the late nine-        nation with myth and gnostic thought (
irfan). Though Ahmad
> teenth century. The shaykh al-Islam of the Ottoman Porte in       was a mystic, and held many beliefs similar to the Sufis’, he
> Istanbul continued to be appointed, though there too the          attacked them as anti-Shi
ite Sunnis with pantheistic tendenpost was rarely held by renowned or dynamic scholars. It          cies and criticized them for claiming authority that only the
> 
> 620                                                                                           Islam and the Muslim World
> Shi
a
> 
> imams should have, though the ultimate authority belonged          The First Fitna
> to the prophet Muhammad. After Ahmad’s death, his follow-          The Shi
a first formed an identifiable movement in Islamic
> ers used the Sufi ideal of the Perfect Person to formulate the      history during the First Civil War (fitna), which tore the
> concept of the Perfect Shi
a. This person could be used as an      Muslim community apart between 656 and 661 C.E. Accordauthority because he had received mystical knowledge from          ing to Shi
i doctrine, 
Ali was meant to assume leadership of
> God, in addition to his study of Muslim law. In a way,             the community upon the Prophet’s death in 632. Tradition
> Shaykhiyya later became a form of Sufism untouched by               holds that the Prophet designated his cousin as heir in a
> Sunni influence, eventually inspiring Babi and Bahaism. The        speech made at Ghadir Khumm on the way back from
> Perfect Shi
a did not take precedence, however, over the           Muhammad’s farewell pilgrimage, made shortly before his
> imams, who were exalted to a higher degree than in the past.       death. However, the jealousy and ambition of the Prophet’s
> This reflected the chaos in eighteenth- and early nineteenth-       other principal Companions (Abu Bakr, 
Umar, and 
Uthman)
> century Shi
ism, caused by external forces, and which created      prevented him from assuming that post. Abu Bakr was the
> an increased need for tradition and a central authority to         first, serving as leader from 632 to 634. He was followed by
> follow. Instead, Shaykhiyya, like its founder, attempted to        
Umar (634–644), and finally by 
Uthman (644–656).
> strike a balance between the dry legalism of pure jurisprudence and the uncontrolled (in their eyes) individualistic            Shi
ism as a movement, however, burst into full view with
> esotericism of the Sufis, though it did not always succeed.         the assassination of 
Uthman and the ensuing civil war.
> Two branches of Shaykhiyya have survived in Tabriz and             
Uthman, a member of the aristocratic Umayyah clan of
> Kerman. The activities of the Shaykhis of Kerman were              Quraysh, had converted to Islam early on, marrying the
> suppressed under the Islamic Republic of Iran.                     Prophet’s daughters Ruqayyah and Umm Kulthum. As caliph, he appointed many of his relatives to lucrative governor-
> See also Shi
a: Early; Shi
a: Imami (Twelver).                     ships in the newly conquered provinces, and was consequently
> widely criticized for nepotism. Disgruntled Companions,
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                       based primarily in Egypt, conspired against him and suc-
> Cole, Juan R. I. “The World as Text: Cosmologies of Shaykh         ceeded in assassinating him in Medina in 656. At this point,
> Ahmad al-Ahsa’i.” Studia Islamica 80 (1994): 1–23.               
Ali was chosen as caliph, but soon met opposition from the
> Umayyah clan, the Prophet’s widow 
Aisha, the prominent
> Paula Stiles    Companions Talhah and al-Zubayr, and others.
> 
> 
Uthman’s enemies accused him of complicity in 
Uthman’s
> assassination, because he showed little interest in pursuing
> SHI
A                                                              the conspirators and in fact had close ties with some of them,
> including his step-son Muhammad b. Abu Bakr. Protest
> against 
Ali sparked a major war, pitting 
Ali’s supporters,
> EARLY
> Devin J. Stewart                                               who were centered in the garrison town of Kufa, in Iraq,
> against opposition forces based in Basra and Syria. In 656,
> IMAMI (TWELVER)
> 
Ali’s forces met those of 
Aisha and her co-generals, Talha
> David Pinault
> and al-Zubayr, just outside Basra, in what came to be known
> ISMA
ILI                                                        as the Battle of the Camel, because 
Aisha joined the fray in
> Farhad Daftary
> an armored palanquin mounted on her camel, 
Askar.
> ZAYDI (FIVER)
> Robert Gleave                                                      
Ali’s forces were victorious. Talhah and al-Zubayr were
> killed, and 
Aisha was captured and returned to Medina in
> shame. The tide turned against 
Ali the following year,
> EARLY                                                              however, with the battle of Siffin in the Syrian desert. 
Ali lost
> The Shi
a were originally the “partisans” of 
Ali, cousin of       this battle after his deputy bungled arbitration with the agent
> Muhammad’s cousin and husband of the Prophet’s daughter,           of Mu
awiya, the governor of Damascus. A large group of
> Fatima. Today, however, the label designates a number of           
Ali’s supporters, angered that he had submitted to arbitradistinct groups that have arisen over the course of Islamic        tion, left his cause. Known as the Kharijis “deserters,” they
> history and which are united by a belief that the leader (caliph   became bitter enemies of 
Ali.
> or imam) of the Muslim community (umma) should be a
> member of the Prophet’s family (ahl al-bayt). The Shi
a                
Ali retreated to Kufa, but rallied sufficiently to defeat a
> include the Twelvers, second largest of all the Muslim sects       Khariji army at Nahrawan in 658. In 661, 
Ali fell to the blows
> (the largest being the Sunni). Other Shi
a groups include the      of a Khariji assassin in Kufa. 
Ali’s supporters recognized his
> Zaydis, Khoja Isma
ilis, and Bohra Isma
ilis, who taken to-        eldest son Hasan as their leader, but Hasan soon entered into
> gether, represent more than ten percent of the world Muslim        a truce with Mu
awiya and renounced his claim to the
> population.                                                        Caliphate. Thus, the First Civil War ended.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                     621
> Shi
i Imams
> Shi
a
> 
> Ja
far                                                                                                               1. 
Ali                                                                       al-
Abbas
> (d. 661)
> 
> 
Abdallah                                                                                                                                                                                           
Abdallah
> (by Fatima)                                                                (by Fatima)                                                  (by Hanafi woman)
> 2. Hasan                                                                   3. Husayn                                                Muhammad b. al-Hanifiyya
> (d. 669)                                                                   (d. 680)                                                        (d. 700)
> 
Ali
> Mu
awiya                                                                                     4. 
Ali (Zayn al-‘Abidin)
> Abu Hashim
> (d. 714)
> (d. 716)
> Zayd                                           Hasan
> Muhammad
> 
> 
Abdallah                                 Ibrahim                              
Abdallah            5. Muhammad al-Baqir                           Zayd
> b. Mu
awiya                                                                    (d. c. 758)                 (d. 731)                               (d. 740)
> (d. 746)                                                                                                                                                                             Ibrahim        al-Saffah     al-Mansur
> (d. 748)       (d. 754)       (d. 775)
> Yahya         Ibrahim       Muhammad        Idris
> (d. 763)        al-Nafs                  6. Ja
far al-Sadiq            Yahya                      
Isa
> al-Zakiya                      (d. 765)                (d. 743)                  (d. 783)
> (d. 762)                                                                                                            The Abbasid Caliphs
> Ibrahim Tabataba
> 
> Ahmad
> (d. 860)
> Muhammad                                                         7. Isma
il                                 7. Musa al-Kazim
> b. Tabataba               al-Qasim                                (d. 760)                                      (d. 799)
> (d. 815)                (d. 860)
> 
> 8. 
Ali al-Rida
> (d. 818)
> Zayd
> Muhammad
> Husayn                                 al-Mahdi                                9. Muhammad al-Jawad
> (d. 835)
> 
> Hasan                Muhammad
> (d. 884)               (d. 900)                                                                             The Qarmatians          10. 
Ali al-Hadi
> (d. 868)
> Yahya al-Hadi                           
Ubaydallah
> (d. 911)                                (d. 934)
> Zaydi Imams                                                                                                           11. Hasan al-
Askari
> of Tabaristan                                                                                                               (d. 874)
> 
> 12. Muhammad al-Mahdi
> Zaydi Imams                             The Fatimid
> of the Yemen                              Caliphs
> 
> The "Twelver" or Imami Shi
a
> 
> SOURCE: Peters, F. E. Allah's Commonwealth. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1973. Quoted in Lapidus, Ira M. A History of Islamic Societies. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World
> Shi
a imam lineage.
> Shi
a
> 
> Shi
a Under the Umayyads                                            the eighth Imam of the Twelver Shi
a line, as his succes-
> The Muslim community was united under one regime, for               sor in 816.
> Mu
awiya became caliph of the entire community by default.
> The capital was moved to Damascus, and when Mu
awiya                Shi
a and Sunni: A Comparison
> designated his son Yazid as heir, the Umayyad dynasty               An untenable distinction is often made between the Sunni
> (661–750) was established. Doctrinally, however, the Muslim         caliph, seen as a purely political authority, and the Shi
a
> community remained divided into three main groups, 
Ali’s           imam, seen as a religious authority. In the early period, the
> supporters (the Shi
a), enemies of 
Ali who had originally          titles imam and caliph referred, at least potentially, to the
> supported him but renounced their allegiance at Siffin (the          same office and authority. The goal behind the Shi
a revolts
> Kharijis), and the main body of his opponents, the Umayyads         against the Umayyads and Abbasids was to depose what was
> and their supporters.                                               considered to be the illegitimate leader of the community and
> to replace him with a legitimate one. Both for the Shi
a and
> Throughout Umayyad rule, the Shi
a engaged in periodic          their opponents, the Shi
ite Imam was always a potential
> uprisings against what they viewed as the illegitimate caliphs,     counter-caliph. Whether chosen from the descendants of 
Ali
> revolting in the name of various members of ahl al-bayt. The        or from another line, the caliph was held to be both a religious
> most famous of these incidents is the revolt of Husayn, 
Ali’s      and political authority even by the Sunni, and was called
> second son, upon the death of Mu
awiya and the accession of         imam as well as sahib hadha al-amr (“the one in charge”).
> his son Yazid in the year 680. Husayn was summoned to Kufa
> to lead a revolt. He set out from Medina with a small                   In the first Islamic century, there can hardly have been any
> contingent, but Umayyad forces halted him in the Iraqi              other identifiable religious authorities; jurists, theologians,
> desert, preventing him from reaching his supporters in Kufa.        and others did not gain influence until later. An indication of
> Rather than surrender, Husayn and his followers fought.             the caliphs’ religious authority is the fact that their decisions
> Most were slaughtered, and Husayn’s head was delivered to           often became enshrined in Islamic law. An example of this can
> Yazid in Damascus. The martyrdom of Husayn and his                  be found in the “Conditions of 
Umar,” restrictions on the ahl
> followers is still retold and re-enacted by the Shi
a on 
Ashura,   al-dhimma imposed by the second caliph, 
Umar b. al-Khattab
> the tenth day of Muharram, which is the first month of the           (or possibly the Umayyad 
Umar b. 
Abd al-
Aziz). These
> Islamic calendar.                                                   “Conditions” provide the basis for many of the laws that
> govern the status of Jews and Christians in Islam.
> Four years after Husayn’s death, a faction among the
> Kufan Shi
a arose in revolt. This group became known as al-             Another popular misconception is that Sunnism is the
> Tawwabun (the penitents), a name that reflected their dedi-          original form of Islam, from which the Shi
a deviated. In the
> cation to the cause of Husayn and their regret they had failed      beginning, the opponents of the Shi
a were not Sunnis,
> to come to his aid. In 686, Mukhtar al-Thaqafi led an initially      properly speaking, but adherents to what might be termed
> successful revolt in the name of Muhammad b. al-Hanafiyya,           Umayyad Islam. Sunni Islam is a compromise position bea son of 
Ali, holding Kufa in 686–687. In 740, Zayd, a             tween Shi
ite and Umayyad Islam, and could only have come
> grandson of Husayn, led a new revolt in southern Iraq, but          into existence some time after the advent of the Abbasids.
> was defeated and killed. 
Abd Allah b. Mu
awiya, a great-           This may be seen succinctly in the Sunni phrase al-khulafa

> grandson of Muhammad’s cousin Ja
far, led yet another               al-rashidun (lit. the “rightly guided caliphs”), which indicates
> insurrection (744–747).                                             approval of all the first four caliphs. The Umayyads revered
> the first three caliphs, but 
Ali was anathema to them. They
> Shi
a and the Abbasids                                              reportedly instituted a practice of cursing him from the pulpit
> The Abbasid revolution that toppled the Umayyads in 750             in Friday prayer. The Shi
a, however, revered 
Ali but debegan, in part, as a Shi
a movement, adopting the slogan al-        tested or disapproved of the first three caliphs. The Sunni
> rida min al al-bayt “the acceptable candidate from the family       approval of all four could only have developed at a much later
> of the Prophet.” Upon victory, a descendant of the Prophet’s        date, as an attempt to reconcile the two opposing positions.
> uncle 
Abbas assumed rule as caliph. In a clear pro-Shi
a
> move, the new dynasty established their capital in Iraq, first at    Rival Factions within the Shi
a Community
> Wasit, then at Baghdad, which was founded in 761.                   Conflict over leadership of the Muslim community and over
> succession among rival Shi
i claimants to the imamate gave
> The Abbasids, however, soon turned on their Shi
a allies,        rise to theological doctrines and concepts that would remain
> and eventually took over the Umayyads’s role as illegitimate        important throughout Islamic history. In the course of the
> rulers and the nemesis of Shi
a aspirations. Muhammad al-           eighth century the Shi
a developed the doctrines of the
> Nafs al-Zakiyya, “the Pure Soul,” led a Shi
ite revolt against      imam’s 
isma, meaning “infallibility” or “divine protection
> the Abbasids as early as 762, and the Abbasid period would          from sin,” and nass, the explicit and divinely sanctioned
> witness countless more revolts in the name of various descen-       designation of the imam by his predecessor. The ghulat
> dants of 
Ali. Attempts at reconciliation were short-lived, the     (extremists) developed more exaggerated forms of reverence
> most notable being al-Mamun’s appointment of 
Ali al-Rida,         for various claimants to the imamate, including beliefs that
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                      623
> Shi
a
> 
> the imam did not die but went into occultation (ghayba) or         Madelung, Wilfred. The Succession to Muhammad: A Study of
> that he would return (raj
a) as a messianic figure (mahdi)            the Early Caliphate. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge Univerbefore the apocalypse. Others claimed that the imam shared           sity Press, 1997.
> in prophetic authority, had status equal to that of the Prophet,   Modarressi, Hossein. Crisis and Consolidation in the Formative
> possessed divine qualities, or manifested divinity through           Period of Shi
ite Islam. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univerdivine infusion (hulul). Some of these extreme concepts,             sity Press, 1993.
> particularly occultation, would become standard doctrine in        Momen, Moojan. An Introduction to Shi
i Islam: The History
> the main divisions of the Shi
a in later centuries.                  and Doctrines of Twelver Shi
ism. New Haven, Conn.: Yale
> University Press, 1985.
> A second set of issues had to do with the status of the         Moussavi, Ahmad Kazemi. Religious Authority in Shi
ite Islam.
> Prophet’s Companions. In order to bolster the legitimacy of          Kuala Lumpur: International Institute of Islamic Thought
> 
Ali, the Shi
ites used hadith reports and historical accounts       and Civilization, 1996.
> concerning the first three caliphs, 
Aisha, and many other         Sachedina, Abdulaziz Abdulhussein. Islamic Messianism: The
> Companions to impugn their characters, casting them as                Idea of the Mahdi in Twelver Sh
ism. Albany: State Universinners, incompetent leaders, or outright unbelievers. The            sity of New York Press, 1981.
> Sunnis, used similar accounts to uphold the view that the          Watt, W. Montgomery. “Shi
ism Under the Umayyads.”
> Companions were all exemplary. The Shi
ite position, while           Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1960): 158–72.
> certainly exaggerated over time, readily admits the serious-       Watt, W. Montgomery. The Formative Period of Islamic Thought.
> ness of the conflicts that wracked the early Muslim commu-            Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1973.
> nity, while Sunni historiography has often endeavored to
> cover them up or explain them away.                                                                              Devin J. Stewart
> A seventeenth-century fresco depicting Iman Shah Zaid is
> IMAMI (TWELVER)
> represented in the volume two color insert.
> The term Ithna 
Ashari (“Twelver”) or Imami refers to the
> See also Empires: Abbasid; Empires: Umayyad; Shi
a:                denomination of Shi
ism to which the majority of Shi
as
> Imami (Twelver); Succession.                                       worldwide adhere. Characteristic of Twelver Shi
ism is recognition of the authority of twelve successive imams (spiritual
> leaders) who were members or descendants of ahl al-bayt (the
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> prophet Muhammad’s immediate family). Their authority is
> Amir-Moezzi, Mohammad Ali. The Divine Guide in Early               said to have been transmitted over time via the lineage of
> Shi
ism: The Sources of Esotericism in Islam. Translated by      Muhammad’s daughter Fatima and her husband, 
Ali. Also
> David Streight. Albany: State University of New York
> characteristic of Twelver Shi
ism is an emotional attachment
> Press, 1994.
> to ahl al-bayt that manifests itself in annual rituals commemo-
> Arjomand, Said Amir. The Shadow of God and the Hidden              rating the battlefield death of the imam Husayn, grandson of
> Imam. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984.               Muhammad.
> Crone, Patricia, and Hinds, Martin. God’s Caliph: Religious
> Authority in the First Centuries of Islam. Cambridge, U.K.:         Twelver Shi
ism identifies the first imam as Muhammad’s
> Cambridge University Press, 1986.                                cousin and son-in-law, 
Ali b. Abi Talib. According to Shi
a
> Donaldson, Dwight M. The Shi
ite Religion. London:                 tradition, the Prophet, shortly before his own death, publicly
> Luzac, 1933.                                                     announced the selection of 
 Ali as his successor. But 
Ali was
> Farouk, Omar. “Some Aspects of the Abbasid-Husaynid                blocked repeatedly from power. He did not contest the
> Relations during the Early Abbasid Period, 132–193/             election of the first three caliphs, apparently out of a desire to
> 750–809 A.D.” Arabica 22 (1975): 170–179.                       avoid civil war. Finally, 
Ali did obtain the caliphate and ruled
> for five years, only to be murdered in 661 C.E.
> Goldziher, Ignaz. An Introduction to Islamic Theology and Law.
> Translated by Anras and Ruth Hamori. Princeton, N.J.:
> In Twelver Shi
ism the term imam indicates those mem-
> Princeton University Press, 1984.
> bers of ahl al-bayt who are the true spiritual leaders of the
> Halm, Heinz. Shi
ism. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University              Muslim community regardless of any political recognition or
> Press, 1991.                                                     lack thereof extended by the Islamic world at large. After 
 Ali,
> Hodgson, Marshall G. S. “How Did the Early Shi
a Become            the imamate passed to his sons, Hasan and Husayn successively.
> Sectarian.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 75
> (1955): 1–13.                                                       The martyrdom of the third imam, Husayn, during the
> Kohlberg, Etan. “Imam and Community in the Pre-Ghayba              second civil war in 680 is the most decisive event in Shi
ite
> Period.” In Authority and Political Culture. Edited by Said      history. At Karbala, near the Euphrates River, he was inter-
> Amir Arjomand. Albany: State University of New York              cepted and surrounded by forces loyal to the Umayyad caliph,
> Press, 1988.                                                     Yazid. During the initial days of the month of Muharram the
> 
> 624                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Shi
a
> 
> imam Husayn and his followers withstood siege by Yazid’s            referred to as the Ja
fari tradition). Additionally, he is credited
> army, which hoped to force the small band to surrender.             with having further defined the qualifications for the imamate
> Husayn chose death instead. On 
Ashura, the tenth of                in terms of the concept of 
ilm (knowledge). The imams are
> Muharram, Husayn was killed, his household taken captive.           said to be the most knowledgeable of all humankind in
> The train of captives, including Husayn’s sister Zaynab and         matters pertaining to religious law, the principles governing
> his son 
Ali Zayn al-
Abidin, was marched through the desert        conduct in this life and rewards and punishments in the next,
> to Damascus.                                                        and the realm of the unseen. In particular the imams’ knowledge extends to scripture. They understand both the zahir
> Husayn’s death at Karbala marks the beginning of the            (the external or literal meaning) and the batin (the hidden
> transformation of Shi
ism from a political movement to a            significance) of the Quran. The batin is accessed via tawil, an
> distinctive religious tradition within Islam. His death is viewed   interpretive process that applies allegory and symbolism to
> by devout Shi
as as a sacrifice that benefits believers. In           the scriptural text.
> exchange for the suffering voluntarily undergone by Husayn
> and the other Karbala martyrs, God has granted them shafa
a            A turning point came in Shi
ite history with the death of
> (the power of intercession). Intercession is granted especially     Hasan al- 
Askari, the eleventh imam (d. 874). Skeptics in the
> to those believers who earn savab (religious merit) by mourn-       Muslim community claimed that Hasan had died without
> ing Husayn during Muharram.                                         leaving behind a son as leader of the Shi
as. But Imami
> doctrine asserts that Hasan did in fact have a son, named Abu
> The centuries following Husayn’s death saw the gradual           al-Qasim Muhammad, and it explains the circumstance that
> emergence of distinctive Shi
ite communities, not only in           Muhammad was unknown to his contemporaries by invoking
> southern Iraq, the site of the imam’s martyrdom, but also in        the ancient concept of ghayba (occultation). To protect the
> Lebanon, Syria, and parts of South Asia. To this day various        twelfth imam from his persecutors, God concealed the young
> localities in India and Pakistan commemorate Husayn’s death         man from the world at large. The period from 874 to 941 is
> with an annual “Horse of Karbala” procession. Mourners              known as the Lesser Occultation. From concealment this
> parade a riderless stallion caparisoned to represent Zuljenah,      “Hidden Imam” provided guidance to his community through
> the horse ridden by Husayn at Karbala. The horse’s appear-          a series of agents, who met with him and conveyed his
> ance acts as a stimulus to rituals of lamentation, the perform-     directives to the world.
> ance of which earns participants savab.
> The period from 941 to the present day is known as the
> Twelver Shi
as recognize as the fifth imam Muhammad               Greater Occultation. No longer are there agents who confer
> al-Baqir (d. c. 735), the son of the fourth imam, 
 Ali Zayn al-    with the Hidden Imam directly or transmit his instructions to
> 
Abidin. Like his father, al-Baqir avoided confrontation with       the faithful. Nevertheless he is alive and will return to earth
> the reigning caliphate. He promulgated the doctrine of nass         one day as the Mahdi, “the rightly guided by God,” when he
> (“designation”): guided by God, each imam designates the            will purge the earth of all the injustice that has stained it since
> person who is to be his successor as spiritual leader of the        the time when 
 Ali, Husayn, and the other members of ahl al-
> Muslim community. Thus the imamate is not a matter of               bayt were first denied the political recognition to which they
> human choice or self-assertion. This doctrine countered the         were entitled. For this reason the twelfth imam is called alactivities of al-Baqir’s half-brother Zayd b. 
Ali, who attracted   Muntazar (“the Awaited One”), for Imami Shi
ite belief looks
> the support of militants impatient with al-Baqir’s political        hopefully to the Mahdi’s return as the inauguration of the
> passivity. Zayd led an uprising against the reigning Umayyad        Day of Judgment.
> government in Kufa and was killed there in the fighting in 740.
> Imami folklore includes tales that indicate that the twelfth
> The political engagement characteristic of Zaydi Shi
ism        imam dwells among us, invisibly present but capable of
> was countered by Ja
far al-Sadiq (d. 765), the sixth imam in        manifesting himself to individuals in moments of need. Iraqi
> the Twelver tradition. Like his father al-Baqir, he espoused        Shi
as in the 1990s who had returned from the pilgrimage to
> an accommodationist attitude toward the caliphal authorities.       Mecca recounted to this author stories of hajj-sightings.
> Also like his father, he advocated the doctrine of nass, thereby    Elderly people who had been knocked to the ground and
> delegitimizing rival claimants to leadership of the Shi
ite         nearly trampled in the pilgrim-crowds told of how they had
> community. Some Muslim scholars trace to his imamate the            been rescued by “a tall youthful man of radiant appearance”
> doctrine of taqiyya (“dissimulation”), which permits Shi
as         who subsequently vanished. Surely, they argued, this had
> threatened with persecution to conceal their denominational         been the Hidden Imam.
> identity as followers of the imams. These teachings fostered
> in the Imami community a political quietism that furthered             The net effect of Twelver belief concerning the Mahdi
> their survival as a religious minority under the Sunni caliphs.     was to strengthen the accommodationist attitude already
> prevalent among the Imami Shi
as. Desires for social justice,
> Ja
far al-Sadiq was also renowned as a scholar of law (for       for radical changes in the worldly order, and for the restorathis reason the body of legal lore in Twelver Shi
ism is            tion of the caliphal throne to ahl al-bayt were linked to the
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                        625
> Shi
a
> 
> concept of intizar: “expectation,” the passive awaiting of the     the martyrs), which was written by Husayn Wa
iz al-Kashifi
> Mahdi’s return at the end of time.                                 (d. 1504). “Paradise is awarded to anyone,” argues Kashifi,
> “who weeps for Husayn for the following reason, that every
> Twelver theology underwent further elaboration with the        year, when the month of Muharram comes, a multitude of the
> creation of the Safavid dynasty in Iran beginning in 1501          lovers of the family of the Prophet renews and makes fresh
> under Shah Isma
il. This monarch established Imami Shi
ism         the tragedy of the martyrs.”
> as Iran’s state religion. The Safavids clashed frequently with
> the neighboring empire of the Ottoman Turks, whose sultans            “Lovers of the family of the Prophet”: Here Kashifi
> arrogated to themselves the title of caliph, with its implica-     defines the community of believers not in terms of doctrine
> tions of universal Islamic sovereignty. The settlement of the      but in terms of emotional disposition and ritual activity. His
> caliphate in Istanbul from the sixteenth century sharpened         description suggests an important aspect of Imami Shi
ite
> Sunni-Shi
a tensions as a religious expression of international    identity. At the popular level, from the premodern era through
> political rivalries.                                               the twenty-first century, Twelver Shi
as tend to define themselves as those Muslims who excel beyond all others in their
> Theological developments during the Safavid era (sixteenthlove for the Prophet’s family and for the Prophet’s desceneighteenth centuries) reflected the Iranian clergy’s desire to
> dants, the imams. This affection is expressed annually in the
> heighten adherence to Shi
ite communal identity in lands
> action of matam (displays of grief for the Karbala martyrs).
> under the shah’s dominion. This is reflected in the writings of
> the celebrated 
alim (religious scholar) Muhammad Baqir               Safavid-era ulema such as Majlisi developed a predestinarian
> Majlisi (d. 1698). In a work called Bihar al-anwar (The oceans     theology of voluntary suffering, ritual commemoration, and
> of lights) he assembled numerous Shi
ite hadiths so as to          intercession as a reward for mourners. They also campaigned
> justify the linkage of popular ritual practices with a distinc-    vehemently and sometimes violently against Sufi shaykhs and
> tively Imami soteriology. For example, in a chapter of the         the tariqat (mystical associations) that were under the direc-
> Bihar entitled “The Ways in Which God Informed His                 tion of the Sufi masters. Twelver ulema condemned Sufism as
> Prophets of the Forthcoming Martyrdom of Husayn,” Majlisi          heterodox out of a recognition that popular devotion to the
> emphasized the predestinarian quality of the seventh-century       shaykhs and visits to the tombs of Sufi saints threatened to
> events at Karbala.                                                 compete with the forms of piety administered by the clerical
> hierarchy, namely, devotion to the twelve imams and pilgrim-
> Majlisi linked Husayn’s martyrdom at Karbala with the
> age to shrines associated with the imams.
> imam’s power to grant intercession in paradise to those who
> honor Husayn through acts of ritual commemoration. Majlisi             Persecution of Sufis, however, did not preclude Sufi
> also promoted popular veneration of Husayn and the other           influence on Imami Shi
ism. Such influence can be seen in the
> imams by collecting in the Bihar various traditions describing     later Safavid era with the flourishing of the “School of
> the twelve imams as ma
sum (sinless, infallible, and protected
> Isfahan,” which is associated with Mulla Sadra (d. 1640). The
> from error). In Shi
ite devotion today, the imams, together
> school of Isfahan pursued the study of Hekmat-e elahi (“divine
> with the prophet Muhammad and his daughter Fatima, are
> wisdom”), a discipline that combined formal training in
> known collectively as the “fourteen Infallibles.” Their
> Quranic studies and related Islamic sciences with rational
> sinlessness guarantees their closeness to God in heaven as
> philosophic inquiry and the cultivation of the direct and
> well as their ability to intercede for those on earth who
> unmediated personal experience of divine reality. Hekmat-e
> remember Husayn through acts of lamentation.
> elahi traces its origin to Shihab al-Din al-Suhrawardi (d.
> Twelver Shi
ism spread in Syria during the rule of the         1191), who in works such as Hikmat al-ishraq (The wisdom of
> Hamdanid dynasty in the tenth century. Aleppo became an            illuminationist dawning) envisioned intellectual studies as the
> important center of medieval Shi
ism. Another center of            propaedeutic to mystical ascension and encounters with the
> Shi
ite learning in the region emerged in Mamluk and Otto-         sacred. In the Twelver tradition this intellectual-mystical
> man times in Jabal 
Amil in present-day Lebanon. A number          approach to learning is linked to the term 
 irfan (“gnosis”: the
> of Shi
ite scholars emigrated to Iran after the establishment of   seeking after of experiential and participatory knowledge of
> the Safavid empire, but the Shi
ite community continued its        the patterns governing the cosmos). The term carries politilife in the region and constitutes over one-third of the           cal implications. With the decline of centralized governmenpopulation of Lebanon at present.                                  tal authority in the later Safavid and Qajar eras (eighteenthnineteenth centuries), the ulema acquired ever more tempo-
> Public rituals lamenting the Karbala martyrs are attested      ral power. A spiritual elitism evolved in which at least some
> as early as the tenth century in Baghdad. The Safavid era,         clerics were willing to accord the highest rank to the scholarhowever, witnessed the elaboration of a soteriology that           cum-mystic: the perfected Gnostic, the theosopher-king.
> joined ritual mourning with Shi
ite communal identity. This        This illuminationist strand in Imami theology culminated in
> is attested in a work that became increasingly popular during      the twentieth century with the founding of Iran’s Islamic
> the reign of the Safavids, Rawdat al-shuhada (The garden of       Republic under Ruhollah Khomeini.
> 
> 626                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Shi
a
> 
> The declining power of the Safavid shahs was accompa-          passive expectation of salvation) into “Red Shi
ism” (whereby
> nied by the increasing importance in the public realm of the       Shari
ati invoked the color of blood to call for confrontation,
> Usuli form of Shi
ite jurisprudence. One way to understand         revolution, and self-sacrifice in the service of society).
> Usulism is as a refutation of traditional Imami Shi
ite attitudes toward governance. Imami theology argued that since              Not only the imam Husayn but also the revered women of
> the only legitimate government is that administered by the         ahl al-bayt have been subjected to reinterpretation in recent
> perfect and sinless imam, during the imam’s occultation all        years. An example is Zaynab bt. 
Ali, Husayn’s sister. Present
> forms of earthly government are necessarily imperfect and          at Karbala, she was taken prisoner by Yazid’s soldiers and
> sinful. Many traditionalist Shi
as therefore avoided engage-       presented to the triumphant caliph in his Damascus court.
> ment with worldly politics, preferring to await the Hidden         Despite her powerlessness, she spoke out defiantly and de-
> Imam’s return as the Mahdi. Usuli jurisprudence, however,          nounced Yazid as a tyrant. Supporters of Khomeini during his
> granted to qualified ulema the latitude to apply ijtihad            struggle against the Pahlevi regime described Zeinab as a
> (scripturally based independent reasoning) to every aspect of      model of political activism worthy of imitation by contempolife, not only religious, but also social and political. Those     rary Shi
ite women. Writing shortly after the 1979 revoluscholars whose studies qualified them to exercise ijtihad were      tion, Farah Azari, one of the founding members of the Iranian
> known as mujtahids.                                                Women’s Solidarity Group, stated, “[I]t was Zeinab who
> came to the forefront to symbolize the ideal of the modern
> But while elevating the exercise of rational skills among      revolutionary Muslim woman in Iran. Those enigmatic young
> jurisprudents, Usulism restricted religious and intellectual       women clad in a black chador bearing machine guns, aspire to
> independence among the masses. Usuli clerics insisted that         follow Zeinab. It is not inappropriate that they have been
> the Shi
ite laity must select a living mujtahid as a marja
 al-    sometimes referred to as ‘the commandos of her holiness
> taqlid (“reference point for imitation”), a guide that one         Zeinab’” (Azari 1983, p. 26).
> follows in legal, moral, and ritual issues. The centralizing and
> authoritarian tendencies implicit in Usulism were resisted by          Since Khomeini’s death in 1989 contemporary Shi
ite
> the more conservative Akhbari school of jurisprudence, which       thought in Iran has been characterized by increasing diversity
> argued that Muslims should direct their taqlid (“imitation” or     and the emergence of a movement for the reformation of
> devout and unquestioning obedience) only to the imam and           Shi
ism. Among recent theological developments in Imami
> not to any earthly mujtahid. But by the late eighteenth            Shi
ism is the advocacy of taqrib (“rapprochement”), the
> century Usulism was clearly ascendant. Since the nineteenth        easing of religious clashes between Shi
as and Sunnis. In 1990
> century certain of the most prominent Usuli maraji
 (plural of     Khomeini’s successor, Ayatollah Sayyed 
Ali Khamenei,
> marja
 al-taqlid) have received the title naib al-imam (“the      founded the Majma
 al-taqrib (“the rapprochement associa-
> Hidden Imam’s deputy”), implying the jurisprudent’s right to       tion”), with the idea of establishing an international league of
> govern as the lieutenant of the twelfth imam. In recent times      Sunnis and Shi
as who would be united as Muslims in the face
> na’ib al-imam was applied most famously to the Ayatollah           of perceived opposition from the non-Muslim world at large.
> Khomeini after the success of Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.
> Khomeini rationalized the imamic deputy’s role in society              With this goal in mind, Khamenei has taken steps to
> through his doctrine of velayet-e faqih (“the rule of the          reform a Shi
ite practice frequently denounced by Sunnis: the
> jurisconsult”): In the imam’s absence, government should be        ritual of zanjiri-matam, in which mourners employ knives,
> in the hands of those Muslims who are most versed in               razors, and chains in acts of self-flagellation to honor Husayn
> Islamic law.                                                       and the Karbala martyrs. In the 1994 Muharram season
> Khamenei issued a fatwa forbidding acts of matam per-
> Preparation for the 1979 revolution involved a                 formed in public involving the use of weapons to shed one’s
> reinterpretation of many components of the Imami tradition.        own blood. Such attempts to curb “bloody” matam have met
> In the prerevolutionary Iran of Reza Shah Pahlevi’s reign, the     at most with very limited success. Even before Khamenei’s
> imam Husayn was typically regarded as a model of patient           fatwa, in the 1980s an attempt to forbid Muharram selfsuffering, whom one lamented during Muharram and to                flagellation had been made by Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah,
> whom one turned for shafa
a (intercession) and personal            “spiritual mentor” of the militant Lebanese group Hezbollah.
> salvation. Such an image reflected the hierarchic and strati-       But Hezbollah Shi
as in Beirut disregarded Fadlallah’s prohi-
> fied social relations characteristic of Iran and other tradi-       bition. And in various localities in India and Pakistan, Shi
a
> tional Islamic societies. New interpretations in the 1960s and     matami (lamentation) associations continue to sponsor public
> 1970s, however, replaced the image of Husayn-as-savior with        matam-performances in which many members engage in self-
> Husayn-as-revolutionary exemplar. Such thinking is evident         flagellation. When interviewed, these mourners explained
> in the writings of 
Ali Shari
ati (d. 1977), a Sorbonne-educated   their reasons for persisting in this ritual: the wish to honor
> intellectual who advocated the transformation of “Black            Husayn and earn religious merit, as well as the desire to assert
> Shi
ism” (associated with mourning for Husayn and the              Shi
ite communal identity in the presence of neighboring
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                    627
> Shi
a
> 
> faith communities, whether Hindu, Buddhist, or Sunni Mus-           Muslim community. The message of the movement was
> lim. The Iranian government’s program of imposing uni-              disseminated by a network of da
is or missionaries in many
> formity worldwide in Shi
ite ritual practice is by no means         parts of the Muslim world.
> complete.
> The early success of the Isma
ili movement culminated in
> One of the most progressive Imami thinkers of the present       the foundation of the Fatimid caliphate in North Africa in
> day is 
Abd al-Karim Sorush (b. 1945). He offers a postpositivist   909. 
Abdallah al-Mahdi (d. 934) and his successors in the
> assessment of modernity’s challenge to revealed religion.           Isma
ili imamate ruled as Fatimid caliphs over an important
> While religion itself is divine in origin, Sorush argues, all       state that soon grew into an empire stretching from North
> human knowledge of religion is limited, indeterminate, and          Africa to Egypt, Palestine, and Syria. The Fatimid period was
> necessarily subject to change. No interpretation of Quranic        the “golden age” of Isma
ilism when Isma
ili thought and
> scripture can ever be definitive. According to Sorush, every         literature attained their summit and Isma
ilis made important
> scriptural interpretation, no matter how authoritative the          contributions to Islamic civilization, especially after the seat
> source, is fallible and can offer only an approximation of          of the Fatimid caliphate was transferred to Cairo, itself
> divine truth. Such indeterminacy should not be viewed with          founded in 969 by the Fatimids. The early Isma
ilis developed
> alarm. Rather, this condition is intended by God so as to           a distinctive esoteric, gnostic system of religious thought
> encourage humans to engage in the ongoing process of                based on a distinction between the exoteric (zahir) and
> ijtihad, whereby they exercise the divine gifts of intellect and    esoteric (batin) aspects of the sacred scriptures as well as
> independent judgment. Because of the challenge to tradi-            religious commandments and prohibitions. They also develtional clerical authority implied by such arguments, Sorush         oped a cyclical view of religious history and a cosmological
> has aroused considerable hostility among members of the             doctrine. The early doctrines were more fully elaborated in
> governing hierarchy in Iran’s Islamic Republic.                     Fatimid times by Isma
ili da
is who were also the scholars and
> authors of their community. Isma
ili law was codified through
> See also Taqiyya; Usuliyya.                                         the efforts of al-Qadi al-Nu
man (d. 974), the foremost jurist
> of the Fatimid period, and the Fatimid Isma
ilis developed
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                        distinctive institutions of learning.
> Arjomand, Said Amir. The Shadow of God and the Hidden
> Imam. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984.                    The early Isma
ili movement had been rent by a schism in
> 899 when a faction of the community, designated as Qarmati,
> Azari, Farah, ed. Women of Iran: The Conflict with Fundamentalist Islam. London: Ithaca Press, 1983.                        refused to acknowledge continuity in the Isma
ili imamate
> and retained an earlier belief in the Mahdiship of the seventh
> Halm, Heinz. Shi
a Islam: From Religion to Revolution. Prince-
> Isma
ili imam, Muhammad ibn Isma
il, who was expected to
> ton, N.J.: Markus Wiener Publishers, 1997.
> reappear. The Qarmatis, who did not recognize the Fatimid
> Momen, Moojan. An Introduction to Shi
i Islam. New Haven,           caliphs as their imams, founded a powerful state in Bahrayn,
> Conn.: Yale University Press, 1985.
> eastern Arabia. The Qarmati state collapsed in 1077.
> Pinault, David. Horse of Karbala: Muslim Devotional Life in
> India. New York: Palgrave, 2001.                                    The Fatimid Isma
ilis themselves experienced a major
> schism in 1094, on the death of al-Mustansir (1036–1094),
> David Pinault      the eighth Fatimid caliph and the eighteenth Isma
ili imam.
> Al-Mustansir’s succession was disputed by his sons Nizar (d.
> ISMA
ILI                                                            1095), the original heir-designate, and al-Musta
li (1094–1101),
> Isma
ili Shi
a represent the second most important Shi
ite          who was installed to the Fatimid throne through the machicommunity after the Twelver (Ithna
ashari) Shi
a and are            nations of the Fatimid wazir al-Afdal (d. 1121). As a result, the
> scattered in more than twenty-five countries in Asia, the            unified Isma
ili da
wa and community were split into rival
> Middle East, Africa, Europe, and North America. The Isma
ilis       Nizari and Musta
li factions. The da
wa organization in Cairo
> have subdivided into a number of factions and groups in the         as well as the Isma
ili communities of Yaman and Gujarat, in
> course of their complex history.                                    western India, supported the claims of al-Musta
li. The
> Isma
ilis of Iran and adjacent lands, who were then under the
> The Isma
ilis recognized a line of imams in the progeny of       leadership of Hasan Sabbah (d. 1124), upheld Nizar’s right to
> Isma
il, son of Imam Ja
far al-Sadiq (d. 765), hence their          the Isma
ili imamate.
> designation as Isma
ili. By the 870s, the Isma
ilis had organized a revolutionary movement against the Abbasid caliph in            On the death of the Fatimid caliph-imam al-Amir
> Baghdad. The aim of this religio-political movement, desig-         (1101–1130), the Musta
li Isma
ilis themselves subdivided
> nated as al-da
wa al-hadiya or the “rightly guiding mission,”       into Hafizi and Tayyibi branches. The Hafizi Isma
ilis who
> was to install the Isma
ili imam belonging to the prophet           recognized al-Hafiz (1130–1149) and the later Fatimid ca-
> Muhammad’s family to a new caliphate ruling over the entire         liphs as their imams disappeared completely after the Fatimid
> 
> 628                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Shi
a
> 
> dynasty was uprooted in 1171 by Saladin, the founder of the       known as Khojas and they developed an indigenous tradition,
> Ayyubid dynasty who championed the cause of Sunnism.              designated as the “Satpanth” or true path. The Nizaris of
> Tayyibi Isma
ilis established their permanent stronghold in       Badakhshan, now divided between Tajikistan and Afghanithe Yemen. By the end of the sixteenth century, the Tayyibi       stan, have preserved numerous collections of Persian Isma
ili
> Isma
ilis split into separate Daudi and Sulaymani branches       manuscripts. The Nizari Khojas, together with the Tayyibi
> over the question of the rightful succession to the twenty-       Bohras, were among the earliest Asian communities to have
> sixth da
i mutlaq, Daud b. 
Ajabshah (1567–1589). By that        settled in the nineteenth century in East Africa. In the 1970s
> time, the Tayyibis of India, known locally as Bohras, had         and later, many East African Isma
ilis immigrated to the
> greatly outnumbered their Yemeni co-religionists. Daudi          West. Under the leadership of their last two imams, Sultan
> and Sulaymani Tayyibis have followed different lines of da
is.    Muhammad Shah, Aga Khan III (1885–1957), and Prince
> Daudi Bohras, accounting for the great majority of the           Karim Aga Khan IV, who in 1957 succeeded his grandfather
> Tayyibis, have split into a number of groupings, the largest      as their forty-ninth imam, the Nizari Isma
ilis, who number
> numbering around 800,000.                                         several million, have entered the modern age as a progressive
> community with high standards of education and well-being.
> Hasan Sabbah’s seizure of the mountain fortress of Alamut,
> in northern Iran, in 1090, marked the effective foundation of     See also Da
wa; Khojas; Nizari.
> what became the Nizari Isma
ili state of Iran and Syria. Thus,
> Nizaris acquired political prominence under Hasan and his         BIBLIOGRAPHY
> seven successors at Alamut. In 1094, Hasan also founded the
> Daftary, Farhad, ed. Mediaeval Isma
ili History and Thought.
> independent Nizari da
wa and severed his ties with Fatimid
> Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
> Egypt. The Nizari state was comprised of a network of
> strongholds and towns in several regions of Iran and Syria, in    Daftary, Farhad. A Short History of the Ismailis. Edinburgh:
> Edinburgh University Press, 1998.
> the midst of the Seljuk sultanate. Hasan’s armed revolt
> against the Seljuk Turks, whose alien rule was detested by the
> Iranians, did not succeed, nor did the Seljuks succeed in                                                       Farhad Daftary
> destroying the Nizari fortress communities despite their
> superior military power. A stalemate, in effect, developed        ZAYDI (FIVER)
> between the Nizaris and their various enemies until their         The branch of Shi
ism known as the Zaydiyya owes its name
> state in Iran was destroyed by the all-conquering Mongols in      to the belief in the imamate of Zayd b. 
Ali. Adherents
> 1256. The Nizaris of Syria, who had numerous military             proclaimed Zayd as imam because it was he who raised an
> encounters with the Crusaders, and Saladin, among others,         army against Ummayad rule in an aborted uprising in 740 C.E.
> were later subdued by the Mamluks. The Iranian Nizaris            The Zaydis are the inheritors of that element of Shi
ism that
> elaborated their own teachings and adopted Persian, in pref-      emphasizes a willingness to challenge illegitimate political
> erence to Arabic, as their religious language. They also          structures as a characteristic of the imam, rather than an
> established libraries at Alamut, the headquarters of the Nizari   esoteric conception of the imam as spiritual guide with a
> state and da
wa, and other mountain fortresses, also extending    qualitatively different relationship to God than the ordinary
> their patronage of learning to outside scholars.                  believer. The qualities of the imam for Zaydis include a
> willingness and ability to assume some sort of political power,
> The Nizari Isma
ilis survived the destruction of their        along with learning (
ilm, in the traditional, rather than
> state. Initially, for about two centuries, they remained disor-   esoteric sense of the word) and descent from the Prophet’s
> ganized and developed independently in scattered communi-         cousin and son-in-law, 
Ali. It is not essential that the imam
> ties, also adopting Sufi guises to safeguard themselves against    be designated by the previous imam, and there may be times
> persecution. During the Anjudan revival in the post-Alamut        when the world is entirely bereft of an imam since no
> period of their history, which lasted some two centuries from     descendant of 
Ali is qualified to assume the position. For
> the middle of the fifteenth century, the Nizari imams emerged      some Zaydis, there may be times when there is more than one
> at Anjudan, in central Iran, and increasingly established their   imam, each leading Islamic states in different parts of the
> control over various communities of their followers, also         world (though the long-term aim that these states conjoin is
> reviving Nizari missionary and literary activities. At the same   regularly expressed). Indeed this was the case in the tenth
> time, the Nizaris of Iran and adjacent lands retained different   century, when Zaydi states existed simultaneously in Yemen
> taqiyya or precautionary dissimulation practices of disguising    and Tabaristan (on the Iranian coast of the Caspian Sea) with
> themselves under the cloaks of Sufism and Twelver Shi
ism,         separate imams.
> the official religion of Safavid Iran. The Anjudan revival
> achieved particular success in Central Asia and South Asia,          The rejection of the special qualities of the imam in Zaydi
> where large numbers of Hindus were converted in Sind,             thought removes one of the elements of Shi
ism viewed as
> Gujarat, and elsewhere. The Indian Nizaris became locally         problematic by Sunni authors. This has led to a certain
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                  629
> Shirk
> 
> rapprochement between Zaydis and Sunnis, and the develop-          tribal loyalty versus imamate authority are a constant theme
> ment of a Zaydi theological and legal tradition that intersects    in the history of the area.
> with the Sunni tradition more than with that of the Isma
ilis
> or Imamis. This rejection of the special qualities of the imam         Perhaps the most interesting figure of later Zaydi thought
> manifests itself in the common Zaydi assertion that 
Ali,          is Muhammad b. 
Ali al-Shawkani (d. 1834), whose learning
> Hasan, and Husayn were designated as imams, but that their         in both Sunni and Zaydi traditions has earned him the title
> designation was hidden (nass khafi), and could only be discov-      mujaddid (renewer) of the twelfth hijri century by no less a
> ered after investigation. This exempted some of the compan-        Sunni authority than Rashid Rida. Though not an imam
> ions of the Prophet, who had not recognized 
Ali’s imamate,        himself, he was appointed as chief judge of the Zaydi imamate.
> from blame or censure. Zaydi theologians and historians have       Shawkani’s exposition of ijtihad, and his refusal to slavishly
> also been less eager to criticize the caliphates of Abu Bakr (r.   imitate past legal authority (of either the Zaydi or Sunni
> 632–634), 
Umar (r. 634–644), and 
Uthman (r. 644–656).            schools) brought about a revivification of legal studies, the
> The legal system, it is claimed by Zaydi scholars, owes much       effect of which was felt well beyond the boundaries of the
> to Shafi
ite jurisprudence.                                         Zaydi state.
> 
> The theological writings of the Zaydiyya show the imprint          The Zaydi imamate in Yemen continued well into the
> of the Mu
tazili school. Al-Qasim b. Ibrahim al-Rassi (d.860),     twentieth century. This was in part due to the charismatic and
> an early imam and supposed founder of the Zaydi legal              dynamic imam Yahya Hamid al-Din who fought against the
> school, set the tone for later Zaydi exploration of Mu
tazili      Ottomans (eventually negotiating for them to withdraw from
> themes with his support of standard Mu
tazili principles such      the area) and took the disputed town of Badr from the Saudis.
> as the unity of God (tawhid), the justice of God (
adl), and the   After his death in 1948, the imamate faced a number of
> promise and the threat (al-wa
d wal-wa
id). Al-Qasim’s grand-     challenges and eventually collapsed in 1962 as Yemen experison, al-Hadi ila al-Haqq al-Mubin (d. 911), himself a noted        enced a revolution influenced by the thought of Jamal 
Abd
> theologian, founded the Zaydi state in Yemen, and a close          al-Nasser. The republicans who formed the Yemen Arab
> relationship with Mu
tazilism characterized Yemeni Zaydi           Republic, and negotiated an abortive union with Egypt,
> discourse thereafter. Other Mu
tazili principles that perme-       divesting the Hamid al-Din line of the imamate. This brought
> ate Zaydi theological works include a belief in human free will    the end of the most long lasting Shi
ite state in the Muslim
> (qadr), a renunciation of anthropomorphism (tashbih) with          world, and although Zaydi scholars still study and teach in the
> regard to God, and the widely cited Mu
tazili slogan taklif ma     highlands of Yemen, the legal tradition has become increasla yutaqu. The last of these can be interpreted as meaning that    ingly mixed with Shafi
ite law, the other major legal tradition
> God cannot demand that his subjects (mukallafun) perform           in the area.
> duties they are incapable of either doing or knowing; to do so
> See also Shafi
i, al-; Shi
a: Early; Shi
a: Imami (Twelver);
> would make God unjust. These principles were not, however,
> Shi
a: Isma
ili.
> incorporated into Zaydi Islam without debate. Perhaps most
> notable of the dissident groups was the Mutarrifiyya, a Yemeni
> Zaydi movement that emerged in the eleventh century and            BIBLIOGRAPHY
> was named after its founder Mutarrif b. Shihab (d. 1067). The      Abrahamov, Binyamin. Anthropomorphism and Interpretation
> Mutarrifiyya claimed to be adhering strictly to the teachings         in the Quran in the Theology of al-Qasim b. Ibrahim. Leiden:
> of al-Qasim b. Ibrahim in rejecting certain elements of              E. J. Brill, 1996.
> Basran Mu
tazilism in support of some of the conclusions of        Madelung, Wilfred. Religious Schools and Sects in Medieval
> the Mu
tazili school of Baghdad. In Zaydi Tabaristan, the            Islam. London: Varirum Reprints, 1985.
> state founded by a descendant of Zayd, al-Hasan b. Zayd (d.
> 888), there was also much theological and legal debate,                                                            Robert Gleave
> particularly under the imamate of al-Nasir Hasan al-Utrush
> in the tenth century. The latter’s legal doctrine was a matter
> of dispute among the Zaydis both during his life and after his
> death (in particular his doctrine that three statements of         SHIRK
> divorce announced by the husband in one session was a valid
> form of divorce). The intellectual history of the Zaydi school     Meaning “association,” the term shirk generally implies asis, then, a history of debate and dispute that at times threat-    signing partners or equals to God, and is considered to be the
> ened the unity of the community. When the Zaydi state in           paramount sin in Islam. The central doctrine of Islam is
> Tabaristan collapsed in 1126, however, Yemen became (and           tawhid (divine unity), which came to mean that God does not
> remains to the present day) the undisputed home of Zaydi           need nor have partners to assist Him. By contrast, Muslims
> theology and law. The Zaydi imamate in Yemen had grown             base their understanding of shirk on three passages from the
> out of a loose coalition of Yemeni tribes, and the dynamics of     Quran (34:20–24, 35:40, 46:4), which advise Muslims against
> 
> 630                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Silsila
> 
> associating helpers or partners with God. For instance, Sura       Surty, Muhammad Ibrahim. The Quranic Concept of al-Shirk
> 34:20–24 establishes the non-duality of God, arguing that             (Polytheism). London: Ta Ha Publishers, 1990.
> evil and good originate in God’s creative act and that evil (the   Watt, W. Montgomery. Islamic Philosohy and Theology: An
> shaytan) has no power over creation.                                 Extended Survey. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University
> Press, 1985.
> Sura 34:23 has been used by some commentators to
> suggest that God’s power is so all-encompassing that hu-                                                          R. Kevin Jaques
> mans have no free will, and that God has predetermined
> who will be saved and who will be damned. The Jabriyya
> (compulsionists, circa eighth-to-ninth century) argued that
> those who advocated a free will position (the Qadariyya) held,     SIBA
I, MUSTAFA AL- (1915–1964)
> by implication, that humans have abilities over which God
> has no power, in effect making humans equal to God in              Mustafa al-Siba
i was the socialist founder of the Society of
> certain respects. This view was later modified by al-Ash
ari        the Muslim Brothers of Syria, a branch of the Egyptian,
> anticolonialist organization Ikhwan. Unlike the original Broth-
> (d. 935), who held that God creates a range of choices from
> erhood in Egypt, the lesser-known Syrian branch did not
> which humans have the limited ability to choose (kasb, literopenly engage in terrorist activities under Siba
i and was
> ally “to acquire”) at the moment of decision. In this way,
> generally regarded as following peaceful means to achieve its
> God’s ultimate unity is not violated and humans do not
> goals. Born in Homs, Damascus, in 1915, Siba
i went to
> associate themselves with God’s creative power.
> Egypt in 1933 to study at the University of Al-Azhar, where
> Some contemporary Islamic revivalists have argued that         he was influenced by the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. In
> the Quran accuses Christians and Jews of shirk, based on          1949, he completed his Ph.D. dissertation, entitled “The
> Sura 9:30, which states that “the Jews call Ezra a son of God      Position of Sunna in Legislation.” Charged with subversion
> and the Christians call Christ the son of God.” Furthermore,       by the British government in 1934 and 1940, he was eventu-
> Sura 5:72–73 accuses Christians of associating Jesus with God      ally deported to Palestine. Siba
i questioned the economic
> and contends that “if they do not desist … a painful punish-       and cultural reliance of Muslim states on either the United
> ment will come upon them.” Sura 2:105, however, draws a            States or the Soviet Union, feeling that Muslims should assert
> distinction between Christians and Jews, whom it refers to as      their independence from Western influences. He advocated
> ahl al-kitab (people of the book) and the polytheists, whom it     social reform based both on Marxist theories and traditional
> calls the mushrikun (literally the “ones who associate”). The      Islamic thought and strongly believed in the idea of universal
> distinction is based on the idea that while Christians and Jews    Muslim solidarity. Siba
i discussed the rights of women under
> may be in error, they base their mistake on a corruption of        Islamic law in an article published in 1962. A noted author
> earlier revelation. They, therefore, accept the basic concepts     and scholar of fiqh and sunna, he also edited the journals Alof God’s true religion while interpolating certain ideas that      Manar, Al-Muslimin, and Hadarat al-Islam.
> need to be corrected for them to fully follow God’s path. The      See also Ikhwan al-Muslimin.
> mushrikun reject all revelation and prefer to worship their
> own gods in preference to the united and all-powerful God          BIBLIOGRAPHY
> (see Sura 23:51–77).
> Salt, J. “An Islamic Scholar-Activist: Mustafa al-Siba
i in
> Contemporary Islamic revivalists have also used the con-          Syria, 1945–54.” Journal of Arabic, Islamic and Middle
> Eastern Studies 3 (1996): 103–115.
> cept to justify attacks on non-Muslims, as well as fellow
> Muslims who reject revivalist ideologies. Many contempo-
> Paula Stiles
> rary revivalists base their ideas on the writings of Sayyid Qutb
> (d. 1966), who argued that true Islam had been corrupted by
> pre-Islamic and extra-Islamic ideas that promoted concepts
> of shirk and interwove them with Islamic ritual and theology.      SILSILA
> According to this view, only through the violent expulsion of
> shirk concepts can true Islam flower as it did during the time      Silsila, Arabic for chain, is the word commonly used to
> of the prophet Muhammad and his Companions and successors.         describe the spiritual genealogy of Sufi lineages, which in
> turn are used to legitimize the authority of Sufi shaykhs. It is
> See also Allah; Arabia, Pre-Islam; Asnam; Modern                   assumed that both the “heart-to-heart connection” and the
> Thought; Political Islam; Qutb, Sayyid.                            spiritual teaching originated with Muhammad, hence the
> need for a series of spiritual links constituting a “chain” that
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                       connects back to the Prophet acting as a “conduit” for divine
> Qutb, Sayyid. Milestones. Indianapolis: American Trust Pub-        grace from God. In many respects these sufi genealogical
> lications, 1990.                                                 chains resemble hadith isnads (chains of hadith transmitters).
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                    631
> Sirhindi, Shaykh Ahmad
> 
> The encompassing principle involved in both isnads and                  Sirhindi’s notions of Islamic orthopraxy/orthodoxy and
> silsilas is the personal encounter between two reliable trans-       reflections on Sufi doctrine are discussed extensively in his
> mitters. Generally, hadith scholars define this encounter in          Maktubat (536 Collected Letters), which have been translated
> personal, verbal terms and for Sufis it entails a nonverbal           from the original Persian into Arabic, Turkish (Ottoman and
> sharing of the heart. This allows Sufi silsilas to have “Uwaysi       modern), and Urdu. Other of his writings include Mabda
> links,” which involve “supra-temporal” meetings of Sufis in           wa-ma
ad, Makashafat-e 
ayniyya, Ma
arif laduniya, Sharh-e
> their imaginal forms.                                                rubaiyat-e khwaja Baqi billah, and Ithbat al-nubuwwa.
> 
> The earliest Sufi silsila traces the spiritual genealogy of       See also Falsafa; Ibn 
Arabi; South Asia, Islam in;
> Ja
far al-Khuldi (d. 959) back to the Successors. Like hadith        Tasawwuf; Wahdat al-Wujud.
> isnads, these Sufi chains were “raised” over time to connect
> with Companions and then to Muhammad. In many Sufi                    BIBLIOGRAPHY
> lineages disciples memorize the silsila of the lineage as a litany   Friedmann, Yohanan. Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi: An Outline of
> invoking divine grace or as a contemplation exercise to attract         His Thought and a Study of His Image in the Eyes of Posterity.
> the spirits of deceased shaykhs.                                        Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1971.
> Haar, J. G. T. Follower and Heir of the Prophet: Shaykh Ahmad
> See also Khilafat Movement; Tariqa.
> Sirhindi (1564–1624) as Mystic. Leiden: Het Oosters Institute, 1992.
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Buehler, Arthur F. Sufi Heirs of the Prophet: The Indian                                                           Arthur F. Buehler
> Naqshbandiyya and the Rise of the Mediating Shaykh. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1998.
> Trimingham, Spencer. The Sufi Orders in Islam. New York:
> Oxford University Press, 1998.                                    SOCIALISM
> Arthur F. Buehler      In the Arab Middle East, socialism (Arabic, ishtirakiyya) as an
> explicit political-economic ideology had a brief period of
> prominence in the 1960s. Policies that could be identified as
> socialist, however, have been much more enduring, even in
> SIRHINDI, SHAYKH AHMAD                                               countries that explicitly reject socialist ideology. If socialism
> (1564–1624)                                                          is understood as government control of the major sectors of
> the economy, combined with a commitment to redistribution
> Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi was born in Sirhind, a small town              of wealth and an assurance of economic security to all citilocated two hundred kilometers northwest of Delhi. The               zens, then even the most “capitalist” of the Arab states in the
> head of a Sufi lodge as well as a competent religious scholar,        Middle East are to some extent socialist.
> he was initiated into three Sufi lineages: the Chishtiyya, the
> Qadiriyya, and the Suhrawardiyya. The turning point of his               Political circumstances drove early moves by Arab states
> life came with a meeting with Muhammad Baqi billah (d.               in the post–World War II period to take a more controlling
> 1603), a Central Asian Naqshbandi shaykh. In three months            role in their economies. Egyptian and Iraqi military coups in
> Sirhindi returned to Sirhind with unconditional permission           the 1950s were followed by land reform measures aimed at
> to transmit the teachings of the Naqshbandi lineage. Three           destroying the economic base of the pillars of the old regime,
> years later Baqi billah died and Sirhindi was recognized by          the large landowners. Confiscated lands were mostly redismost of Baqi billah’s disciples as the principal successor.          tributed, not kept by the state, but this process brought these
> governments more directly into the management of the
> From this point Sirhindi elaborated a new set of Sufi              agricultural economy. Symbols of foreign economic control
> doctrines and disciplines grounded in following the pro-             like the Suez Canal in Egypt and the British Petroleum
> phetic example (sunna) and Islamic law (shari
a). More than          concession in Iraq were nationalized in whole or in part as
> any other Naqshbandi since Bahauddin, Sirhindi became the           expressions of political independence and to provide revenue
> pivotal figure in India who redefined Sufism’s role in society          to the new regimes. While populist and nationalist in nature,
> and who integrated Sufi practice into strict juristic notions         such steps were not animated by explicitly socialist blueprints.
> of shari
a observance. Indeed, after Sirhindi’s death, the           They did, however, further increase government control of
> Naqshbandiyya became renowned as the Naqshbandiyya-                  the economy.
> Mujaddidiyya, named after Sirhindi’s title of “the renewer of
> the second millennium” (mujaddid alf-e thani). In the twenti-            The 1960s were the heyday of explicitly socialist policies
> eth century selective interpretations of Sirhindi’s thoughts         in the Arab Middle East. In 1961 the United Arab Republic
> have been utilized by Pakistani nationalists to legitimize the       (Egypt) adopted the “Socialist Decrees” of 1961, in one fell
> creation of Pakistan.                                                swoop nationalizing most large-scale industry, all financial
> 
> 632                                                                                              Islam and the Muslim World
> Socialism
> 
> Arab students occupying the Syrian embassy in London in 1963, the year the Ba
th party came to power in Syria. The Ba
th party’s motto is
> “Unity, Freedom, and Socialism.” The Ba
th party effected wide nationalization measures in Syria and, a few years later, in Iraq. GETTY IMAGES
> 
> institutions, all utilities and transportation concerns, and all         reinforced in the minds of many Arab leaders by the strong
> foreign trade. Soviet-style “five-year plans” became the blue-            support they received from Moscow on foreign policy issues.
> print for economic development. In 1962 the Egyptian ruling              Both Moscow and Beijing actively pushed the line that
> party was renamed the Arab Socialist Union. In the same year             opposition to Western colonialism and neo-colonialism rean explicitly socialist party, the National Liberation Front (in         quired a socialist orientation, and the anticolonial zeitgeist in
> French, the FLN), came to power in newly independent                     Asia, Africa, and Latin America bolstered that notion.
> Algeria. The new government confiscated the agricultural                  Undoubtedly many Arab leaders believed that “scientific”
> and industrial assets of the departed French colonists and,              planning and state direction of the economy were the shortest
> rather than redistributing them, turned them into state assets.          path to economic development and social justice. But equally
> It subsequently nationalized the French companies that had               enticing to new and sometimes unsteady Arab regimes was
> developed the country’s oil and natural gas reserves. In 1964            the political power that state control over the economy
> the ruling party in Tunisia added the “Socialist” sobriquet to           placed in their hands. The state could provide jobs in its
> its name as well, and adopted state planning as the way to               expanding bureaucracy and in state enterprises, subsidize
> bring about a socialist transformation of the economy. The               housing and consumer goods, and direct capital toward its
> Ba
th party (whose motto is “unity, freedom, and socialism”)             favored clients.
> came to power in Syria in 1963 and Iraq in 1968, and in each
> state far-reaching nationalization measures were adopted. An                The enormous oil price increases of the 1973–1981 period
> explicitly Marxist regime took power in South Yemen in 1967              had a mixed and paradoxical effect on the socialist trend in the
> after the withdrawal of British colonialism.                             Arab world. States with little oil, like Egypt and Tunisia, in
> large measure abandoned the socialist rhetoric of the 1960s in
> The reasons behind this trend of explicit socialism in the            an effort to attract foreign investment and carve out a trading
> 1960s are a mixture of intellectual fashion, foreign policy, and         niche in a world where the export-led growth model had
> political opportunity. The success of the Soviet model in the            supplanted the socialist models of the 1960s. Socialist oil
> 1950s, in rebuilding war-torn Russia into a superpower, was              producers, like Algeria and Iraq, had vast new resources at
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                               633
> South Asia, Islam in
> 
> their disposal to increase their control over their economies.    south of the Himalaya and Hindukush mountain ranges: the
> The Libyan regime added the term “socialist” to the official       Ganges and Indus river plains and the peninsula (now the
> name of the state in 1977. Syria, with a small amount of oil      nations of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh). Included in
> production but an ability to attract aid from other Arab oil      South Asia are the mountainous regions (Afghanistan, Nepal,
> producers and from the Soviet Union, made a few gestures in       Bhutan, Burma, Tibet) whose societies have been in close
> the 1970s toward a more open economy, but basically contin-       contact with the Indus and Ganges plains. Also in the South
> ued on the socialist economic path.                               Asian cultural zone are islands of the Indian Ocean (Sri
> Lanka, Lakshadweep, Andaman, Nicobar, and the Maldives).
> The Arab monarchies, explicit opponents of socialism on
> an ideological basis, during this period began to adopt poli-        South Asia is a distinctive area with complex relations to
> cies that brought their economic profiles much closer to           other parts of Asia. The world’s highest mountains separate
> those of their socialist neighbors. In Saudi Arabia and the       South Asia from China, Central Asian steppes, and the
> smaller Persian Gulf states, vast oil revenues allowed the        Iranian plateau; yet mountain passes provided conduits for
> governments to dominate their economies, build huge state         trade, religious and cultural exchange, migration, and invabureaucracies, and provide a level of welfare benefits to their    sion. Sea lanes connect South Asia to the “Middle Eastern”
> citizens far beyond what the socialist states could. Even in      lands of the Persian Gulf and Red Sea and to islands of
> Morocco and Jordan, without oil, foreign aid and phosphate        Indonesia and the Malay peninsula. South Asia developed
> sales gave the governments the wherewithal to substantially       complex agrarian societies, political empires, and highly
> increase their control over their economies. Differences with     developed religious systems (from local cults to Brahmanical
> the “socialist” economies certainly remained. Much more of        Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism).
> the monarchical economies remained in private hands, notably the financial sector. But the trend toward practical eco-      Islam in South Asia
> nomic convergence was clear.                                      These geographic boundaries and connections shaped the
> growth of Muslim communities in South Asia, which con-
> With the falling off of oil prices from the mid-1980s, the    tains a diversity of Muslim groups. Muslims in South Asia
> last vestiges of official socialist doctrine were for the most     include all major sectarian groups and different legal schools,
> part abandoned in the Arab world. Algeria began to invite         and speak many regional languages. If the populations of
> foreign investment; Iraq privatized (to cronies of the regime)    India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh are combined, the South
> many state assets; even in Syria the official discourse became     Asian core area has the highest population of Muslims globally.
> more favorable to private sector initiatives. But while the
> rhetoric of the market dominated the Arab world at the turn       Early Muslims in South Asia
> of the new millennium, in reality the Arab states, whether        Commerce, conquest, and conversion led to the growth of
> formerly “socialist” or not, were having a hard time giving up    Muslim communities in South Asia. Maritime commerce first
> the power that state control over the economy brings. The         established a Muslim presence in South Asia. The western
> Arab states lagged far behind East Asian and Latin American       coast of South Asia had intimate commercial and political
> states in actual privatizations and in foreign investment,        relations with the “Middle East” long before the time of
> outside of the energy sector. The vocabulary of socialism has     Muhammad (died 632 C.E.). The southwest of Malabar (from
> disappeared, but its practices hang on, more for political than   Ma
bar, Arabic for “place of crossing,” now Kerala) housed
> for ideological and economic reasons.                             merchants and settlers from pre-Islamic Arab, Jewish, and
> Christian communities.
> See also Communism; Modernization, Political: Participation, Political Movements, and Parties.                        The advent of Islam transformed Arab settlers into Muslim settlers. At first, this may not have dramatically changed
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                      their relation with rulers or local populations. Arab mer-
> Issawi, Charles. An Economic History of the Middle East and       chants married local women and were recognized as a distinct
> North Africa. New York: Columbia University Press, 1982.      caste with high status. Muslim Arab traders built mosques
> Richards, Alan, and Waterbury, John. A Political Economy of       and acted as overseas commercial agents of local rulers and
> the Middle East. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1996.         political advisors. Tamil-speaking Muslims on the southern
> tip of the peninsula are known as Marakkayar, meaning
> F. Gregory Gause III     “sailors” (possibly derived from Arabic Markab or ship).
> 
> Arabic literacy raised the status of Muslim Arabs in Malabar, as the Islamic empire in the Middle East and the Iranian
> SOUTH ASIA, ISLAM IN                                              plateau established Arabic as the commercial lingua franca in
> the Indian Ocean basin. Children of Arab merchants and
> South Asia is commonly known as the “Indian Subcontinent”         South Asian women were raised Muslim, creating the nucleus
> or the “Indo-Pak Subcontinent.” Its core is the landmass          for a more indigenous Muslim community; in addition Hindu
> 
> 634                                                                                           Islam and the Muslim World
> South Asia, Islam in
> 
> and may have colluded with Arab Muslims in order to
> displace them. Muhammad ibn Qasim extended dhimmi status to Brahmanical Hindus and Buddhists: the first example
> in Islamic history of “protected religious community” applied
> to groups not mentioned in the Quran. Despite this, Arab
> rulers justified their conquest of Sindh with a call for conversion to Islam. There is no evidence of a sustained effort to
> convert local populations (as in the Umayyad empire as a
> whole). After conquest, Brahmanical temples functioned and
> Hindu communities administered revenue collection.
> 
> The Arab conquerors founded Mansura as a garrison and
> the capital city (from approximately 730). Multan became the
> second Islamic urban center, though it had been a major city
> and Hindu temple site before the Arab conquest. After the
> Abbasid empire transferred the caliphal capital to Baghdad,
> cultural, religious, and scientific contact between South Asians
> and Muslims in the central Islamic lands increased.
> 
> Political strife in the central Islamic lands affected Sindh.
> As the Fatimids established a revolutionary counter-caliphate
> In Bhopal, India, Muslims in the streets surrounding the Taj al Masjid
> mosque offer prayers on the final day of the Tablighi Ijtema religious    at Cairo, Isma
ili missionaries (da
is) in Sindh engineered a
> gathering, in which thousands of Muslims from over forty countries       coup. Sunnis were driven underground and Sindh became a
> took part. © AFP/CORBIS                                                  satellite of Fatimid rule. Isma
ili missionaries drew equivalence between Islamic beliefs and those of native populations
> to facilitate conversion and gain support beyond urban cenrulers appointed children to Arab families to learn techniques           ters. Allah was pictured as equivalent to Brahma, while Adam
> of the seafaring trade. According to legend, a Hindu ruler               was an incarnation or avatar of Shiva and 
Ali was an avatar of
> converted to Islam during Muhammad’s lifetime and traveled               Vishnu. Beyond political strategy, this syncretic theology
> to Medina, leaving his Hindu descendants to rule by delega-              promoted the idea that Hindu theism was compatible with or
> tion from the disappeared “Muslim king.” This legend pro-                equivalent to Islam.
> vided a mythic explanation of the cooperative relationship
> between Hindu kings and Arab-Muslim trade communities.                   The Ghaznavid Sultanate (997–1175 C.E.)
> Initial contact between Islam and South Asia came via sea
> The Conquest of Sindh (711–997 C.E.)                                     routes, but more sustained contact came though land routes.
> Unlike Malabar, the northwest coast was not hospitable to                During the Abbasid period Central Asia, Khurasan, and
> Arab and Persian merchant settlers. The Hindu communities                Afghanistan became important regions of the Islamic empire.
> of Sindh and Gujarat were already engaged in maritime trade;             When Abbasid rule became weak, Turkic slave-soldiers
> Arab settlements were competition, not complement. As the                (mamluks) governing outlying territories asserted indepen-
> Islamic community expanded into an empire in the seventh                 dence as sultans, beginning with the sultanate of Ghazna in
> century, it conquered the Sassanid empire and absorbed the               962. With its capital of Ghazayn (in Afghanistan), the sultanate
> Iranian potential to dominate the Indian Ocean basin.                    bridged the land routes between the Iran plateau and
> South Asia.
> The Umayyad dynasty initiated diplomatic and commercial relations with Sri Lanka and the Indonesian archipelago,               Mahmud of Ghazna ruled this sultanate from 998–1030,
> coming into conflict with Hindu rulers in Sindh over pirates’             creating a Turkic aristocracy with Persian court rituals and
> interference in sea routes. Sindhi rulers failed to control              strong loyalty to Sunni sectarianism. He expanded westward
> piracy (or perhaps profited by it). In 711, when Sindhi pirates           into Khurasan and eastward into Punjab, establishing Lahore
> captured a ship bound from Sri Lanka to the Umayyad ruler                as a frontier garrison town and important center of Islamic
> with royal gifts, the Arab-Islamic empire mounted a naval                scholarship. Mahmud patronized Abu Rayhan al-Biruni, a
> expedition that conquered Sindh.                                         scholar who authored a study of the religions and sciences of
> South Asia (Kitab al-Hind).
> The expedition leader, Muhammad ibn Qasim, established the first Arab-Islamic polity in South Asia. Sectarian                Mahmud participated in larger political and religious
> feuds in Sindh facilitated conquest; Mahayana Buddhists                  rivalries. He invaded Sindh, opposing the Isma
ili Fatimid
> struggled for political supremacy against Brahmanical Hindus,            presence there. He raided far into the Ganges plain; political
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                           635
> South Asia, Islam in
> 
> chronicles attribute to him a policy of plundering the wealth          Because of this continuity, Muslim artisans, intellectuals,
> of Hindu temples. Historians argue over the extent of his          and religious leaders immigrated to South Asia, causing
> plunder and whether iconoclastic desecration was a religious       Sufism, Islamic scholarship, and literary and fine arts to
> justification for military campaigns. All agree, however, that      flourish. Official structure of the administration included
> plunder funded westward campaigns rather than ruling South         religious leaders: A shaykh al-Islam, who was the most au-
> Asia beyond Lahore.                                                thoritative Islamic scholar in each city or region, presided
> over qadis, who acted as judges and notaries drawn from the
> Sufi organizations began to move into Ghaznavid-                ranks of scholars trained in jurisprudence (fiqh) and theology
> controlled territories and acted as missionaries for Sunni         (usul al-din). Although the sultans of Delhi favored the Shafi
i
> allegiance. Suhrawardi Sufis were active in opposing the            school of law, most South Asian Muslims adhered to the
> Isma
ili presence: These include Bahauddin Zakariya, who          Hanafi school (as did Turkic peoples in Central Asia). Muscreated a devotional center in Multan; Sayyid Jalal Bukhari in     lims of the southern coasts like Malabar continued to follow
> Uchh; and Ali Hujwiri (known as Data Ganj Bakhsh) in               the Shafi
i school.
> Lahore. Sufis continued the Isma
ili effort to convert South
> Asians to Islam by preaching, teaching, and healing.                  Religious life outside state control was vibrant. Sufis
> established mosques and hospices (khanaqa or jama
at-khana)
> The Sultanates of Delhi (1175–1526 C.E.)
> in smaller towns as devotional, educational, and charitable
> Ghaznavid rule allowed further Turkic slave-soldier regimes
> centers. Discourses of Sufi masters introduced new intellecto invade. In 1175, Muhammad ibn Sam invaded from Afghanitual disciplines and scholarly knowledge. The Chishti Sufi,
> stan into Punjab. Unlike the Ghaznavids, he conquered
> Nizam al-Din Awliya (died 1325 C.E.), was one of the first in
> Delhi and set up a lasting administration in the South Asian
> South Asia to debate religious topics through constant referheartland. This administration, known as the sultanate of
> ence to prophetic hadith. Although state officials and Sufi
> Delhi, was ruled by a succession of slave-soldier regimes:
> leaders debated issues of religious practice, they were not
> Ghuri (1193–1290), Khalji (1290–1320), Tughluq
> diametrically opposed. Especially outside the capital, tacit
> (1320–1398), Sayyid (1414–1450), and Lodi (1451–1526).
> cooperation between qadis and Sufi leaders was the norm.
> Despite rapid dynastic change, these sultans created a
> stable political structure. In their rhetoric, “Islam” meant the
> Regional Islamic Kingdoms (1338–1687 C.E.)
> The Delhi sultanate became weak in the mid-fourteenth
> political dominance of the Sunni Turkic and Afghan elite.
> This rhetoric (preserved in coinage, monumental architec-          century; governors asserted independence, creating regional
> ture, and historical chronicles) should not obscure the fact       Islamic dynasties. The Ilyas Shahi dynasty built a kingdom in
> that local Muslim communities were growing outside state           Bengal from 1342 with its capital at Lakhnawti, while the
> control. Hindu kings (rajas) who fought against the Turkic         Bahmani dynasty threw off Delhi’s rule in the Deccan in
> dynasties employed South Asian Muslims as soldiers, just as        1347. Thereafter, the Deccan split into five small Islamic
> Hindu soldiers fought with the Turkic armies. Political            states: Golkonda, Khandesh, Bijapur, Ahmadnagar, and Berar.
> conflict between Turkic sultans and Hindu rajas was not a           In 1401 in Gujarat, the Zafar Shahi dynasty created its local
> clash between two religions or two incompatible civilizations      capital at Ahmadabad. These smaller Islamicate dynasties
> despite claims of colonial-era and contemporary nationalist        created distinctive regional Islamic societies and literature in
> histories.                                                         local languages beyond Persian.
> 
> The Delhi sultanates introduced new forms of political              Regional dynasties justified independence from Delhi by
> administration (the iqta
 or jagirdari system), military organi-   patronizing local Sufi leaders or adopting Shi
ite loyalties. In
> zation, architecture, coinage, and patronage of literature and     Gujarat, the Zafar Shahi dynasty built the tomb of Shaykh
> music. These last two cultural spheres involved syncretic          Ahmad Khattu, after whom they named Ahmadabad. In the
> creativity between Hindus and Muslims. The system of               Deccan, the Bahmani dynasty built a tomb for the Chishti
> North Indian (Hindustani) classical music was shaped by            Shaykh, Muhammad Hussayni Gesu Daraz, at Gulbarga.
> Muslim innovations through court patronage; Amir Khosrow           The Faruqi dynasty of Kandesh named their capital Burhanpur
> (died 1325), an innovator in Hindustani music, was involved        after the Chishti Sufi master, Burhan al-Din Gharib. These
> in Sufism and court life.                                           Sufi leaders migrated from Delhi as central power of the
> Delhi sultanate broke down. Some of the Deccani dynasties
> The Delhi sultanate expanded across the Ganges plain to        were Shi
a and fostered cultural and commercial relation-
> Bengal, and southward to Rajasthan and Gujarat, encompass-         ships with Iran.
> ing the Deccan region of peninsular South Asia in 1310 C.E.
> The Delhi sultans’ profound military success was against              This centrifugal process accelerated when Timur
> Mongol incursions, turning South Asia into a haven for             (Tamerlane) invaded South Asia and sacked Delhi in 1389.
> Islamic rule while Iran, Iraq, and Syria were devastated.          Timur did not occupy Delhi, but a chieftain of Chaghatai
> 
> 636                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> South Asia, Islam in
> 
> Turks who claimed descent from Timur did. Zahir al-Din               Chaghatai Turkish was the native tongue of Mogul royal
> Muhammad Babur, a Turkic warlord from the Ferghana               family, but Persian was the language of court chronicles,
> Valley (now Tajikistan), invaded South Asia to rebuild his       secular poetry, and Sufi devotional literature. Cooperation
> fortune until he could reconquer Ferghana, defeating Ibrahim     and intermarriage between Muslim and Rajput Hindu elites
> Lodi, the last ruler of the Delhi sultanate, in 1526.            created new syncretic possibilities in literature. Urdu, the
> language of the army camp, formed with Hindawi grammar
> The Mogul Timurid Empire (1526–1857 C.E.)                        absorbing vocabulary from Persian and Turkish and became
> Babur died five years after his conquest of Delhi, yet his        the common language of the Gangetic plain and a literary
> descendants build the largest and strongest agrarian empire      language complementing Persian. Sufis innovated in devoof the early modern world. His son, Humayun (ruled               tional literature in vernacular Indic languages. Shah Hussayn
> 1530–1556), consolidated Mogul rule against Afghan nobles.       (1539–1599) expanded Sufi poetry in Punjabi. Sayyid Sultan
> Military remnants of the Lodi regime rallied under the           (late sixteenth century) composed the Nabibhanmsa, a mythic
> leadership of Sher Shah Suri, an Afghan leader in Bihar. Sher
> retelling of the prophet Muhammad’s life, in Bengali. Such
> Shah Suri defeated Humayun’s armies in 1540, drove the
> vernacular literatures bridged the gap between elite Persian
> Moguls into exile in Safavid Iran, and reestablished the Delhi
> poetry and folk traditions, drawing equivalencies between
> sultanate under a new Suri dynasty. The Safavid ruler, Shah
> Islamic theological concepts and local Indic images.
> Isma
il, supported Humayun who reinvaded South Asia in
> 1555, defeated the Suri regime, and established Mogul rule.          Vernacular compositions reveal increasing conversion of
> Humayun began conquering regional dynasties in Bengal and        local South Asians to Islam. Castes of artisans (like weavers)
> Gujarat.                                                         joined Muslim communities, giving rise to syncretic and
> iconoclastic religious leaders like Kabir of Banares (1440–1518).
> Jalal al-Din Akbar (ruled 1556–1605 C.E.) continued this
> While many Sufis advocated the inviolability of the shari
a,
> expansion, giving Mogul rule stability and ideological maturthe Mogul era witnessed a rise of Sufis who ignored or
> ity. Akbar conquered Rajputana, Sindh, and Kashmir. Later
> disparaged Islamic communal norms. New Sufi communities
> Mogul rulers Nur al-Din Jahangir (ruled 1605–1627), Shah
> came to prominence in the Mogul era; the Shattari around
> Jahan (1628–1658), and Aurangzeb (1658–1689) pushed Mogul
> Muhammad Ghawth Gwaliori (1501–1562) and the Sabirirule southward into the Deccan and eastward into Sikkim
> Chishti around 
Abd al-Quddus Gangohi (died 1537) exand Burma.
> plored yogic exercises and images that were common to
> The Mogul empire succeeded because of some unique            Hindus and Muslims. The Mogul elite cultivated ties to Sufi
> administrative features. The army and court moved with the       communities, and some Mogul nobles were outspoken
> emperor on a circuit of urban fortress-cities like Lahore and    “unifiers” (muwahhid) who believed that Islamic and Hindu
> Agra, and tent-cities in the provinces. This mobility facili-    theology were compatible rather than contradictory. Prince
> tated central rule and tax collection. An elaborate system of    Dara Shikoh argued the ultimate identity of Hindu and
> promotions in court and military kept administrators de-         Islamic theological concepts. The Mogul court patronized
> pendent on following centralized policy. Assignments for         Persian translations of the Upanishads, Ramayana, and
> administration and tax collection were routinely rotated,        Mahabharata.
> preventing governors from building independent power. From
> the time of Akbar, the Mogul ruling class absorbed Rajput            In contrast, this relaxation of communal boundaries in-
> (Hindu) warlords through promotion and marriage. The             spired Muslim reformers who called for a return to the
> Mogul empire was ideologically open to sharing power with        shari
a. Naqshbandi Sufis, like Baqi Billah (died 1603) and his
> Hindu elites and Ithna 
Ashari (Twelver) Shi
ite nobles,         disciple, Ahmad Sirhindi (1562–1624), tried to influence
> diffusing the insistance on Sunni and Turkic supremacy that      Mogul nobles. However, reformers came from many comhad sustained the Delhi sultanate.                               munities. In Ahmadabad, 
Ali Muttaqi (1480–1575) strove to
> reform Sufism and advocated the centrality of the Prophet’s
> Religious Life in the Mogul Empire                               example. His follower, 
Abd al-Haqq Dihlawi (1551–1642),
> To manage the multiethnic and multireligious court elite,        established a reformist madrasa in Delhi in friendly competi-
> Akbar elevated the emperor into a divinely guided figure          tion with the Naqshbandis. Even earlier, Sayyid Muhammad
> (through an eclectic blending of Sufi, Mahdawi, and Shi
ite       Jawnpuri (1443–1505) led a reform movement by declaring
> ideas). Courtiers experimented with a new cult of devotion to    himself the Mahdi. The Mahdawi movement was a Sunnathe emperor, the Din-e Ilahi or Universal Religion of God.       inspired reform movement that conflicted with Sunni elites
> Shahjahan and later emperors discontinued it and restored        and led to violent conflicts in Gujarat, where it was espetraditional Islamic titles and symbols. Islamic scholars and     cially strong.
> Sufis argued that Akbar’s experiment was heretical, but in
> reality, once Rajput and Shi
ite nobles integrated into court      Reformers gained popularity under the emperor Aurangzeb.
> life, the cult was no longer needed.                             Naqshbandis like Shah Wali Allah (1703–1762) strove to
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                   637
> South Asia, Islam in
> 
> integrate Sufism with study of the Quran, hadith, and Islamic       in legal and ritual rulings), abandoning conformity with the
> law to strengthen allegiance to shari
a among South Asia            Hanafi legal school. Organizing his followers into a mili-
> Muslims. He urged Muslims to avoid sectarian extremes and           tia, he waged a struggle (that he called jihad) against the
> blind adherence to legal schools by reviving independent            Sikh kingdom, and was killed in 1831. Hajji Shari
atullah
> legal reasoning (ijtihad). Two of his grandsons, 
Abd al-Qadir      (1780–1839) organized a similar movement among peasants
> (d. 1813) and Rafi al-Din (d. 1818), translated the Quran           in Bengal, known as Faraidi (The Obligatory Duties). He
> into Urdu.                                                          declared Bengal to no longer be Dar al-Islam since the British
> ruled it through landlords. He urged Bengali Muslims to
> British Dominance and Muslim Reaction                               reform and conform more closely to the sunna of Muham-
> After the death of Aurangzeb in 1707, weaker Mogul rulers           mad, which he identified with the Arabian practices of Mecca.
> could not hold the empire together. Local powers grew in            His son politicized the movement, attacking Hindu landstrength: Sikhs in Punjab, Marathas in the Deccan, and              lords, resisting British taxation, and subverting Anglo-
> Shi
ite nobles in Lucknow and Hyderabad. Later Mogul                Muhammadan courts. Many Islamic leaders participated in
> rulers grew so weak that the Safavid emperor, Nadir Shah,           the 1857 rebellion, like the Sabiri-Chishti leader, Hajji
> sacked Delhi in 1739. The Afghan ruler, Ahmad Shah Abdali           
Imdadullah (1817–1899). Under threat of arrest, he lived in
> Durrani, plundered it again in 1761.                                exile in Mecca while guiding disciples in South Asia who
> founded the Deoband Academy (see below).
> Chaos in the Mogul capital facilitated European expansion in South Asia. The British East India Company (EIC)                Other Islamic leaders did not oppose British colonization
> grew from a trading post to a regional military power based at      after the war of 1857. Sayyid Ahmad Khan (1817–1898)
> Calcutta. By 1765, the EIC’s governor general had assumed           founded the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College (now
> the title of Diwan of Bengal with rights of taxation and fiscal      Aligarh Muslim University). To the British, he demonstrated
> administration. Though a nominal “vassal” of the Mogul              the loyalty of Muslim educated classes; with Muslim elites, he
> emperor, the EIC began military and commercial expansion            urged cooperation with Christians, politically and theologically.
> into Bihar and Orissa. The British acted as mercenaries and         Through the journal Tahdhib al-akhlaq (The refinement of
> political advisors to surrounding Muslim rulers, such as the        morals), he sought to reconcile rationalism, science, and
> Nawab of Awadh (Oudh). Orientalist scholars in the EIC, like        Islamic theology while promoting the education of Muslim
> William Jones and Charles Hamilton, translated Persian and          women. More conservative Islamic scholars founded a com-
> Arabic texts into English. After the “Permanent Settlement”         peting school, Dar al-
Ulum (known as the Deoband Acadof land-ownership regulations in 1793, the EIC administered         emy), in 1960 to preserve Islamic law and education after the
> Islamic law to Muslims in the territories it controlled, and        destruction of Mogul patronage.
> synthesized Islamic and British legal norms in Anglo-
> Muhammadan Law.                                                         Political modernists like Jamal al-Din Afghani (1838–1897)
> and Muhammad Iqbal (1876–1938) criticized both the Aligarh
> By 1840, the British controlled most Mogul dominions            movement’s acceptance of colonialism and the Deoband
> directly or indirectly. After conquering the Sikh kingdom in        movement’s traditionalism. They agitated for cultural revival
> 1849, the British integrated the local rulers under their           and political self-rule for Muslims in South Asia through
> control. When the EIC deposed the Nawab of Oudh in 1856,            “nationalism” and “Pan-Islamism.” Exemplary of this move-
> Muslim and Hindu soldiers in the EIC army revolted in the           ment, Amir 
Ali’s Spirit of Islam presented Islam as a more
> first Anglo-Indian war (called the Sepoy Mutiny). Rebel              “liberal” civilizing force than European Christianity. Epic
> soldiers and nobles rallied around the Mogul emperor, Bahadur       poems of Altaf Husayn Hali (“The ebb and flow of Islam” in
> Shah II. A proclamation issued in his name read, “In this age       1879) and Iqbal (“Complaint and answer” in 1909) popularthe people of Hindustan, both Hindus and Muslims, are               ized these sentiments in Urdu. Islamic modernists blamed
> being ruined under the tyranny and oppression of the infidel         “despotic” Mogul rule, Sufi mysticism, and “effeminate”
> and treacherous English. It is therefore the bounded duty of        Persian culture for the political weakness of South Asian Islam.
> all wealthy people of India to stake their lives and property for
> the well being of the public.” By 1857, the EIC army                    With the First World War, these sentiments crystalized in
> reconquered Delhi and executed or exiled the Mogul royal            an anticolonial movement. South Asian Muslim elites profamily, and EIC rights were transferred to the British crown.       tested when Britain imposed the Treaty of Sevres on Ottoman Turkey in 1920. The Khilafat movement aimed to
> Some Muslim leaders opposed British expansion and tried          preserve the authority of the caliph in Turkey, spreading
> to restore Islamic rule militarily. Sayyid Ahmad Barelwi            anti-British sentiment and inviting Muslim leaders into Gan-
> (1786–1831), a Sufi leader and soldier, declared South Asia to       dhi’s “Non-Cooperation Movement.” The Jam
iyat-e 
Ulamano longer be Dar al-Islam (realm of Islamic rule). He allied        e Hind (JUH), the Indian Congress of Islamic Scholars,
> with Wali Allah’s family and was ghayr muqallad (independent        formed to support the Khilafat movement. Students and
> 
> 638                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> South Asia, Islam in
> 
> UZ
> BE
> KI
> ST
> AN
> TAJIKISTAN                                                                                                                                             Islam in South Asia
> 0                       200                     400 mi.
> TURKMENISTAN                                                                                                                                                                           International border

> 0           200               400 km                             Disputed border

> Area conquered by

> muslims under Umayyids 

> SH
> U            KU                                                                                                                                           and Abbasids, 711-999

> HIND                North-                                                                                                                                     Area conquered by Mahmud 

> West                                        L                                                                                              of Ghazna (r. 1004-1022)

> A F G H A N I S TA N                                         L IN E                RO                                              C       H         I       N    A
> Frontier                      O F C O NT                                                                                                    Area conquered by Khaljê

> Kashmir                                                                                                             dynasty, 1296-1316

> Ghazayn
> Srinagar                                                                                                     City
> Ghazna
> Map shows modern boundaries.
> Jammu
> 
> H
> 
> 
> Sikh Kingdom
> T i b e t
> 
 
> 
> Lahore
> 
> I
> P u n j a b                                                       M
> Multan
> PA K I S TA N                                                                                                A
> Uchh
> Baluchistan
> L
> Delhi                                                           A
> NE                    Y        A          S
> PA
> Rajputana                                                                                                     L                 Sikkim BHUTAN
> Agra             Uttar Pradesh                                                                                     
> 
> R a j a s t h a n                                                             Lucknow                                                              
> Mansura                                                                                                                                                        
> 
>                                       
> Sindh                                                                                                                                    
> 
> Bihar                   BANGLADESH
> 
> Gujarat
> Bengal
> Ahmadabad                                        
>                                                                           Calcutta
> 
> Khandesh                 
> I        N       D            I   A
> M YA N M A R
> Burhanpur                                                                                                                      (BURMA)
> agar
> A hma d n
> 
> Berar                                        Orissa
> Bombay
>               
> 
> DE CCA N
> Hyderabad
> B i j a p u r Gulbarga
> 
>                                                                     
> 
>  
> !
> Golkonda
> 
> 
> 
>      
> 
> N
> Andaman
> Islands
> Ma
> la
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> Lakshadweep
> ba
> r
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> Nicobar
> SRI                                                                                      Islands
> LANKA
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> MALDIVES
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>                                                               INDONESIA
> 
> Muslim dynasties in South Asia. XNR PRODUCTIONS/GALE
> 
> faculty withdrew from Aligarh Muslim University and founded                                                                    “secular” and multireligious nation. They can be called “Isa “nationalist” Muslim University, Jami
a Milliya Islamiya.                                                                    lamic integrationists” (they have been traditionally labeled
> “Islamic Nationalists”). These include 
Abd al-Ghaffar Khan
> Islamic anticolonial activity was split between two groups.                                                                 (1890–1988), a Pashto-speaking educator in the North West
> The first group felt Muslims had to join Hindus, Sikhs, and                                                                     Frontier Province who led the nonviolent Khudai Khidmatgar
> other South Asians to oppose British domination and create a                                                                   movement (“Servants of God”) and Abul Kalam Azad (known
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                                                                                                              639
> South Asia, Islam in
> 
> as Maulana Azad, 1888–1958), an Urdu-speaking theologian         INC’s “secular” democracy, those more rooted in their local
> and journalist from Calcutta. Such leaders cooperated with       community than in Islamic nationalism, or those without
> Gandhi and Nehru in the activities of the Indian National        economic resources to move. Muslims remain the largest
> Congress (INC).                                                  religious minority in independent India.
> 
> The second group felt Muslims should form an exclusive           In 1947, Pakistan began as one nation with two
> community based on religious identity and communal ethics,       noncontiguous territories. Its western territory included West
> and that Muslims could not coexist in an independent na-         Punjab, Sindh, Baluchistan, Kashmir, and North-West Frontion with a Hindu-majority. They can be called “Islamic          tier; its eastern territory included East Bengal. The Awami
> exclusivists” (they have traditionally been labeled “Islamic     League, a political party stressing language and cultural
> Communalists”). This group included leaders of the Muslim        distinctiveness of Bengali Pakistanis, succeeded in demo-
> League, a political party organized in 1906 by landholding       cratic elections in 1970 and pressed for Bengali autonomy.
> Muslims to seek concessions from the British. Muhammad           West Pakistan leaders stalled implementation of the election
> 
Ali Jinnah reorganized the League in 1936 to stand provin-      results, leading to a civil war in 1971. The Indian military
> cial elections, rivaling the INC. In 1940 the Muslim League      intervened, allowing former East Pakistan independence as
> declared that a constitutional government for Independent        Bangladesh.
> India was not possible, demanding that Muslim-majority
> provinces be formed into “autonomous and sovereign” states.          Partition created geopolitical crises, such as in Kashmir.
> The British ruled most of South Asia directly, but ruled many
> Partition and Independence of India and Pakistan                 regions indirectly through 570 “princely states.” The largest
> British policies placed Muslims and Hindus into two separate     was Kashmir where a Hindu prince, the Dogra of Kashmir,
> and irreconcilable “communal” groups. British histories and      governed a 75 percent Muslim population. He negotiated for
> ethnographies since the eighteenth century portrayed these       autonomy, but faced an ultimatum to choose between India
> groups in racial terms as opposites. After 1857, British         or Pakistan. A Muslim Kashmiri leader, Shaykh Muhammad
> policy suppressed upper-class Muslim communities while           
Abdallah (born 1905), demanded democratic representation,
> promoting Hindus who embraced colonial education and             made acute by a Muslim peasants’ insurrection. In reaction,
> bureaucracy. The colonial acquiescence to parliamentary          the Dogra declared Kashmir annexed to India without a
> representation for South Asians in 1937 raised questions of      popular referendum with his majority-Muslim population.
> “proportional representation” and quotas, polarizing com-        The Pakistani government saw this as a betrayal of the
> munal relations between Muslims and Hindus.                      principle of partition, while the Indian government saw it as
> legal annexation of integral territory. Military stalemate cre-
> The British administration experimented with partition        ated a “line of control,” with Pakistan occupying one-third of
> to organize colonial subjects by communal identity. In 1905,     Kashmir and India occupying two-thirds, which includes the
> the administration tried to partition Bengal into Eastern        heavily populated valleys of Srinagar and Jammu. The “line
> “Hindu-majority” and Western “Muslim-majority” portions,         of control” exists up until the present, though both nations
> sparking riots and resistance. As the anticolonial movement      claim the entire territory. The United Nations mandated a
> gained momentum after 1917, the British used concern over        popular referendum about Indian annexation, but the Indian
> rights of “minority” communities to stall discussions of im-     government has never executed this. Since the 1980s, some
> pending independence. The Muslim League at first advo-            Kashmiri Muslims have resisted Indian military occupation
> cated that Muslim-majority provinces become autonomous           through civil disobedience and violence.
> regions within a federal government of independent India.
> Later, the League advocated the “two-nation” solution: Brit-     Religious Communalism and Radicalism
> ish India would be partitioned and Muslim-majority prov-         India built a multireligious and multiethnic democratic state.
> inces would form the separate state of Pakistan.                 However, communalist Hindu forces advocate a Hindu India
> in which Muslims (and other religious minorities) would be
> Despite opposition by the INC and some Islamic leaders,       excluded from full citizenship. A member of the paramilitary
> partition became a political reality in 1947. Partition up-      Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) assassinated Mahatma
> rooted millions as Sikhs and Hindus fled Muslim-majority          Gandhi in 1948, claiming that he “capitulated” to Muslim
> areas of the Punjab and Sindh, while Muslims in Hindu-           concerns. Leaders who sympathized with the RSS ruled
> majority areas of Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Bengal       Maharastra, furthering Hindu communal politics. The Bharata
> experienced a similar displacement. Communal riots erupted       Janata Party (BJP) organized a national party combining
> on both sides, resulting in countless murders, looting, and      Hindu communalist ideology (commonly called “Hindutva”),
> destruction of property.                                         neo-liberal capitalist economics, and opposition to the INC.
> 
> Partition did not solve the political complexities of South       To capture power in parliament, the BJP raised a contro-
> Asia’s multireligious population. Many Muslims refused or        versy, claiming that the Babri Mosque was built (in the
> were unable to move to Pakistan, including those loyal to the    sixteenth century) over the site of a destroyed Hindu temple
> 
> 640                                                                                          Islam and the Muslim World
> South Asian Culture and Islam
> 
> at the birthplace of Rama at Ayodya. Calling for destroying         Friedmann, Yohanan. Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi. New York:
> the mosque and rebuilding the temple, the BJP came to                  Oxford University Press, 2000.
> national power. A coalition of Hindu communalist organiza-          Gopal, Ram. Islam, Hindutva, and Congress Quest. Delhi:
> tions demolished the Babri Mosque in 1993, leading to                 Reliance Publishing House, 1998.
> communalist riots in Bombay and other urban centers. Hindu          Habib, Mohammad, and Nizami, Khaliq Ahmad. A Comprecommunalist militancy (and Hindu middle-class support of              hensive History of India: the Delhi Sultanat (A.D. 1260–1526).
> it) compromises the promise of democratic citizenship for all         Delhi: People’s Publishing House, 1970.
> religious minorities and threatens the life and welfare of          Hermansen, Marcia. The Conclusive Argument from God: Shah
> Indian Muslims in particular.                                         Waliullah’s Hujjat Allah al-Baligha. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1996.
> 
> Muslims in South Asia have also formed communalist              Kugle, Scott. “Framed, Blamed and Renamed: The Recasting
> of Islamic Jurisprudence in Colonial South Asia.” Modern
> organizations. The Tablighi Jama
at or “Missionary Party” is
> Asian Studies 35, no. 2 (2001): 257–313.
> a communalist religious movement that is largely apolitical.
> Maulana Muhammad Ilyas (died 1944) began a missionary               Lawrence, Bruce. Notes from a Distant Flute: The Existent
> Literature of Pre-Mughal Indian Sufism. Tehran: Imperial
> movement to properly “Islamize” Indian Muslims, in reac-
> Iranian Academy of Philosophy, 1978.
> tion to Hindu missionary movements, like the Arya Samaj,
> that viewed them as “lapsed Hindus” who must re-convert             Lelyveld, David. Aligarh’s First Generation: Muslim Solidarity
> (shuddhi) to “Hinduism.” The movement advocated religious              in British India. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
> Press, 1978.
> revival and abandoning participation in “secular” projects
> like modern education and critical inquiry into religious           Maclean, Derryl. Religion and Society in Arab Sind. Leiden:
> tradition. It has become international, one of the largest            E. J. Brill, 1989.
> Islamic organizations worldwide.                                    Metcalf, Barbara. Islamic Revival in British India: Deoband,
> 1860–1900. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
> The journalist turned political theologian, Abu l-A
la           Press, 1982.
> Maududi (died 1979), organized the Jama
at-e Islami as a            Minault, Gail. The Khilafat Movement: Religious Symbolism and
> radical political party to forge Pakistan into an Islamic state.      Political Mobilzation in India. New York: Columbia Uni-
> The party has not succeeded in parliamentary elections, but           versity Press, 1982.
> formulates “Islamist” ideology. The Jama
at spread interna-         Nasr, Seyyed Vali Reza. Mawdudi and the Making of Islamic
> tionally to Bangladesh, Britain, and North America. Along             Revivalism. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
> with al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun in Egypt, the Jama
at is the
> Richards, John. The Mughal Empire. New Delhi: Cambridge
> oldest and most institutionalized radical political association        University Press, 1993.
> calling for Islamic revolution in postcolonial nation states.
> Robinson, Francis. Separatism Among Indian Muslims: the
> Both the Jama
at-e Islami and Tablighi Jama
at question the
> Politics of the United Provinces Muslims, 1860–1923. Camlegitimacy of the parliamentary democratic governments of             bridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1974.
> Pakistan and Bangladesh, especially since the election of
> Schimmel, Annemarie. Islam in the Indian Subcontinment.
> women as prime ministers (Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan and
> Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1980.
> Khalida Zia in Bangladesh).
> Shackle, Christopher, and Majeed, Javed. Hali’s Musaddas:
> A reproduction of a painting captures Mogul emperor Shah              The Flow and Ebb of Islam. Delhi: Oxford University
> Jahan on a peacock throne in the volume two color insert.           Press, 1997.
> Smith, Wilfred Cantwell. Modern Islam in India: A Social
> See also South Asian Culture and Islam.                               Analysis. London: Victor Gollancz, 1946.
> Troll, Christian. Sayyid Ahmad Khan: A Reinterpretation of
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                          Muslim Theology. Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1978.
> Ahmad, Aziz. Studies in Islamic Culture in the Indian Environment. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 1964.                                                                 Scott A. Kugle
> Eaton, Richard. The Rise of Islam on the Bengal 1204–1760.
> Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993.
> Eaton, Richard. “Temple Destruction and Indo-Muslim
> States.” In Beyond Hindu and Turk: Rethinking Religious           SOUTH ASIAN CULTURE AND ISLAM
> Identities in Islamicate South Asia. Edited by Bruce Lawrence and David Gilmartin. Gainsville: University of              When the Muslims arrived, South Asia had already cradled
> Florida Press, 2000.                                              two great religions, Buddhism and Hinduism, and was di-
> Ernst, Carl. Eternal Garden: Mysticism, History and Politics at a   vided into culturally distinct areas by differences in terrain,
> South Asian Sufi Center. Albany: State University of New           climate, ethnicity, religion, and social background. Apart
> York Press, 1992.                                                 from the Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Urdu introduced by
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                      641
> South Asian Culture and Islam
> 
> the Muslims, there were already a vast number of existing         of foreign extraction (Arabs, Turks, Afghans, and Persians)
> languages, all of which cut across religious barriers, and        were considered nobility, lived in cities, and maintained
> Muslim contributions to the various extant literatures were,      exclusiveness. They spoke first Persian and later Urdu, a new
> and are, substantial. Although there were some cities, society    language combining Hindi syntax with Persian and Arabic
> was still predominantly rural and agricultural, and religion      vocabulary. The seed for a separate state for the Bengalis of
> played an important role in people’s lives. Even today, many      East Pakistan was sown when there was a move from the West
> social customs are rooted in ancient Hindu practices, for         to impose Urdu as the state language. The cultural divide
> example the hereditary caste system, which Islam appropri-        between the two wings, separated by a thousand miles of
> ated rather than threw away.                                      Indian territory, and an economic disparity rooted in oppression and exploitation, led to civil war and the emergence of
> Islam’s Entry and Early Conversions                               Bangladesh in 1971.
> Arab Muslim mercantile interest in western India began in
> the seventh century, predating the conquest of Sind (in what         Next in the social hierarchy of Muslim times were upperis now Pakistan) by Muhammad b. Qasim in 712. Qasim               caste Hindu converts, such as the Rajputs. After them came
> executed opposing soldiers, but spared the traders, artisans,     the artisans and “clean” castes, with the “unclean” occupaand ordinary people, and wrought minimal changes in the           tional castes occupying the lowest rung. (Caste is still imporsocial and administrative structures of Sind. He also struck a    tant in arranging marriages.) Local officials learned to speak
> deal with the Brahmins, the priestly high caste of Hindus, co-    and dress like the Muslim ruling classes, and gradual interopting them as partners in the administration, exempting          marriage with the local population led to Muslim adoption of
> them from paying the poll tax imposed on non-Muslims and          indigenous food and customs. The Muslim and Hindu aristoensuring their right to worship freely. Temples, such as the      crats kept their women secluded behind purdah (curtains) in
> famous sun-temple in Multan, were important to the early          separate apartments, whereas women of the artisan and culti-
> Muslim rulers as a source of revenue, as they could collect the   vating classes had relatively more freedom, probably because
> pilgrims’ donations.                                              of the economic necessity of working with men. Marriage
> customs and rituals also cut across religions. Although not
> As Turks and Afghans after Qasim established small,            sanctioned by traditional Muslim law, dowry, a Hindu cus-
> Muslim-ruled enclaves in the northwest of India, Arab and         tom by which the bride’s father must give money to the
> Persian mercantile communities flourished along the western        couple, was widely practiced among Muslims (it remains so,
> coast. The merchants were honored and protected by local          today), and has resulted in much violence against women.
> Rashtrakuta kings (eighth to tenth century), intermarried
> with lower-caste Hindus, spoke Malayalam, and dressed like           The practices of Islam and Hinduism influenced each
> the Hindu military caste. However, Muslims and lower castes       other; Muslim mystics (sufis) and holy men (pirs) showed this
> were excluded from the social life of upper-caste Hindus.         influence the most. Their mystical doctrines centered around
> union with God through love. Highly unorthodox, they were
> Muslim kings up to the eighteenth century ruled over a        nonetheless often revered by Hindus as well, and their tombs
> vast majority of non-Muslims, largely Hindus, but including       became pilgrimage sites for people of all religions, a phe-
> Buddhists, Jains, and indigenous tribes. They wisely followed     nomenon particular to South Asia. In many rural areas such
> a policy of conquest and reconciliation; conversion was not       charismatic men took part in clearing forests, introducing
> prioritized because it meant less revenue. The fact that the      agriculture, settling populations, and effecting large-scale
> Muslims of South Asia have remained a minority suggests           conversion.
> that the vast majority of Indians did not seek conversion.
> While the Brahmins resisted change, it was within the lower       Interactions with Folk and Indigenous Religions
> castes that most conversions took place. Yet the advantages to    In the fifteenth century Sufism resonated with popular Bhakti
> converts were minimal, because their post-conversion life-        devotional movements in Hinduism, whose leaders attacked
> style did not differ much from that which they practiced          institutionalized religion, disregarded caste, and taught in
> as Hindus.                                                        the vernacular languages. Kabir (1440–1518) and Nanak
> (1469–1539), both of Punjab, were two of the most significant
> The Effects of Caste and Culture                                  contributors to the Bhakti movement, and both assimilated
> At the partition of India in 1947, following almost two           Muslim ideas. They taught devotion and love devoid of ritual
> hundred years of British rule, the country was divided along      framework, and aimed at a reordering of society along egalicommunal lines. At that point Bengal and Punjab, the two          tarian lines. Their followers are known as the Kabirpanthis
> foremost agricultural provinces, had the largest number of        and Sikhs, respectively.
> Muslims. The converts in these areas were from indigenous
> groups who had never been fully integrated into a strong             Among the Muslims, interesting developments took place
> Hindu social system, and even after conversion had been           within the Nizari branch of the Shi
ite Isma
ili community.
> distanced from the centers of Muslim political power. Caste       Their most successful leader in Sind, Sadr al-Din (fifteenth
> remained operative in Muslim society in India, where families     century), is considered to be the first author of the literary
> 
> 642                                                                                           Islam and the Muslim World
> South Asian Culture and Islam
> 
> genre of Das avatar (The tenth incarnation), an amazing          
Abdul Qadir Bedil (b. 1644) of Uzbek descent. Well acblend of Islamic and Hindu ideas, in which 
Ali and the          quainted with Indian religions and philosophy, and influprophet Muhammad are acknowledged as incarnations of the         enced by Sufis, he was skeptical of all dogma. Persian remained
> Hindu gods Vishnu and Brahma.                                    the official language of Muslim India until 1835.
> 
> At the popular level there were folk religions of indige-        Due to the disapproval of dance and theatre by orthodox
> nous origin, like the cults of Panch Pir (five holy men) and      Muslim scholars, which stemmed from concerns over the
> Satya Pir (the true holy man), in which various beliefs and      portrayal of the human image, performing arts were regarded
> practices were assimilated. Religious reform movements of        with extreme caution. Nevertheless, a form of passion play
> the eighteenth to twentieth centuries, led by returnees from     developed, especially in areas of Shi
ite concentration, enact-
> Mecca, disputed the Indian influences on local Muslims, and       ing the tragedy of Karbala when Husayn’s (the Prophet’s
> aimed to instill in the masses a commitment to “pure” Islam.     grandson) family was killed in battle. In spite of the ortho-
> Descendants of Shah Wali Allah Dehlawi (1703–1762), per-         doxy, Kathak dancing, born of a marriage of Hindu and
> haps the greatest Indian theologian, spearheaded this move-      Muslim cultures and enacting the love story of Radha and
> ment; and the later Deobandis and Ahl-i hadith opposed the       Krishna, flourished in the Mughal courts in the seventeenth
> excessive veneration of saints and tomb worship. Shah Wali       century. Ghazals, short lyrical poems in Urdu set to music;
> Allah translated the Quran into Persian that it might be more   Marsiya, songs on the tragedy of Karbala; and qawwali, songs
> widely understood, and his grandsons made an Urdu transla-       celebrating the life of the Prophet or a Sufi saint, became
> tion. Later, Haji Shari
atullah (1781–1840) of Bengal also       popular during this period, and remain so today.
> made it his mission to correct the Islam of the Bengali
> peasantry. His movement was known as the Faraiziyya (Ar.            In India, the most dramatic impact of the Muslims was on
> Faraidiyya), laying emphasis on the faraid, or Muslim relig-   the visual arts. Because of the orthodox Muslim aversion to
> ious duties. Bengal had well-developed local religious tradi-    the representation of living beings, non-figural art, such as
> tions, including the veneration of local saints, because of a    calligraphy, and vegetal and geometric designs in both archidearth of orthodox Sunni Islamic writings in Bengali.            tecture and painting are preferred. Once settled, Muslim
> sultans started commissioning religious and secular manu-
> Language and the Arts                                            scripts in the various Persian Islamic styles, replacing palm
> At the advent of Muslim rule, Sanskrit was limited to Hindu      leaf with paper. Thus, the Indo-Persian style of painting
> texts, while Buddhist and Jain texts used Prakrit. The new       developed, reflecting Indian styles as well as individual rulers’
> Indic vernaculars (Hindi, Bengali, Kashmiri, Punjabi,            tastes. The N
imat-nama (Book of recipes) was done in this
> Rajasthani, Marathi, Gujrati, Oriya, Sindhi, and Assamese),      style for the Sultan of Malwa in the sixteenth century. It can
> which grew out of the Prakrit and the Apabhramsa stages of       be seen today in the India Office Library in London.
> Sanskrit, received a tremendous boost from the Muslims,
> who preferred the newer languages over Sanskrit and Prakrit.         Two Persian masters, Mir Sayyid 
Ali and Khwaja 
Abd al-
> Samad, founded the Mughal School of painting in the six-
> Arabic enjoyed prestige as the language of the Quran, and   teenth century. The atelier, composed of mostly Hindu
> was used mostly for religious scholarship, historiography and    artists, illustrated both Persian and Indian histories and
> for translating scientific books on astronomy, medicine, and      romances; for example the Dastan-e Amir Hamza (Stories of
> arithmetic for the West Asian market. Turkish flourished          Amir Hamza), part of which is in the Metropolitan Museum
> briefly as a literary language under the early Mughal emper-      of Art, New York. The compositions, fine line, and architecors, but was replaced by Persian. Muslims were the most          tural detailing were Persian influences, while the vigorous
> influential writers in the Indic languages of Kashmiri, Sindhi,   movement and bold color were indigenous. Contemporaneand Punjabi, and the writing of Indo-Iranian languages Baluchi   ous with the Mughal school was the Rajput style, the subject
> and Pashto was exclusively done by Muslims. In Bengal,           matter of which was almost exclusively Hindu. The interplay
> Muslim sultans patronized the translations of Sanskrit clas-     between these two artistic styles depended on the contact
> sics into Bengali, and Muslims like Syed Sultan (sixteenth       between the Mughal and Rajput rulers—political, cultural,
> century), Dawlat Qazi, and Alaol (seventeenth century) were      and marital, or simply the movement of artists from the
> well-known writers in Bengali.                                   Mughal court. These traditional styles of painting were
> revived in the early twentieth century by the stalwarts of the
> In the heartland of northern India, Amir Khosrow              Bengal School, who wished to make Indian artists aware of
> (1253–1325) mainly composed poetry in Persian, but also          their own heritage.
> wrote in the Awadhi dialect of Hindi. During the sixteenth
> and seventeenth centuries the Muslim contribution to mystic      Architectural Influences
> (both Sufi and Bhakti) poetry in several dialects and lan-        In architecture, the Indian temple, with its sculpture-encrusted
> guages was considerable. The so called “Indian style” of         walls and ceilings and dark interior housing an image of a
> Persian poetry peaked during the reign of the Moguls (Fayzi,     deity, with entry restricted to the Brahmin priest, radically
> 
Urfi, Naziri, Zuhuri, Kalim); the greatest exponent being        differed from the mosque of the Muslims, which was open,
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                  643
> Southeast Asia, Islam in
> 
> large enough for congregational prayer, and contained no            Dallapiccola, Anna Libera, and Lallemant, Stephanie Zingelimagery. Yet the new Muslim architecture became eclectic,             Ave, eds. Islam and Indian Regions. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner
> capitalizing on the ancient Indian traditions, and introducing        Verlag, 1993.
> new forms brought from West Asia; for example, the voussoired       Eaton, Richard M. Sufis of Bijapur 1300–1700: Social Roles of
> arch (composed of wedge-shaped constituent pieces). Mus-               Sufis in Medieval India. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univerlim building activity passed through three stages. The first            sity Press, 1978.
> was short and violent, when the new rulers politically appro-       Eaton, Richard M.. Essays on Islam and Indian History. New
> priated temples by destroying them. In the second, material            Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2000.
> from destroyed sites was used to build mosques and tombs.           Hasan, Perween. “The Indian Subcontinent.” In The Mosque.
> Finally, once they settled, Muslims prepared their own build-         Edited by Martin Frishman and Hasan-Uddin Khan.
> ing materials for individual structures, and used salvaged            London: Thames and Hudson, 1994.
> material only rarely.                                               Schimmel, Annemarie. Islam in the Indian Subcontinent. Leiden:
> E. J. Brill, 1980.
> As in painting, provincial architectural styles developed in
> the independent sultanates as the rulers assimilated the local      Tarachand, M. A. Influence of Islam on Indian Culture. Allahabad:
> The Indian Press (Publications) Private Ltd., 1963.
> culture. Elegance of style depended on indigenous traditions,
> terrain, climate, and available materials. This accounts for the    Wink, Andre. The Making of the Indo-Islamic World. Vols. 1
> enormous difference between the brick and terracotta mosques          and 2. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999.
> of Bengal (Mosque at Bagha, 1523), the wooden mosques
> with spires in Kashmir (Friday Mosque, Srinagar, 1385, 1402,                                                       Perween Hasan
> and 1674), and the stone-built mosques of Gujarat, the
> interiors of which have marked temple features (Ahmed
> Shah’s Mosque, Ahmedabad, 1411).
> SOUTHEAST ASIA, ISLAM IN
> The Mogul style, which started in the imperial capitals of
> Delhi, Agra, and Fatehpur Sikri in the sixteenth century, and       Island Southeast Asia, that is, the Malay world, has one of the
> which is marked by the spectacular architecture of Humayun’s        heaviest concentrations of Muslim peoples on earth. This
> tomb, Delhi (1571), the Jami Mosque of Fatehpur Sikri               “Muslim archipelago” encompasses Malaysia (around 55% of
> (1574), and the Tajmahal, Agra (1643), diffused to the prov-        22 million people are Muslim), Indonesia (87% of 200 milinces as they increased. The universal Mogul style can be           lion), Brunei (68% of 330,700), and the Philippines, where
> recognized everywhere, but there were special features in           Muslims are concentrated in the western and central parts of
> every provincial context that were rooted in the vernacular         the Mindanao island and the Sulu archipelago (4 to 7% of 74
> tradition. For example, in Bengal, where there was no marble,       million).
> the brick surface was plastered, lime coated, and polished
> to a gleam.                                                         The Era of Islamization
> Islam was first brought to the “lands below the winds” around
> Although European styles took over during British rule,         the eighth century by Arab Muslim traders. Not until the
> the Mogul style resurfaced again in the late nineteenth             thirteenth century did the process of society-wide Islamization
> century, when the Indo-Saracenic style became popular for           start with the kingdom of Aceh in northern Sumatra, situated
> the official British buildings. It was an architecture of facades,   at what used to be Indonesia’s gateway to India and the
> with a traditionally Indian exterior favoring the Mogul arch        Middle East. In the next one hundred years, local communiand dome masking a European interior. Examples of this              ties of Muslims sprang up in port towns.
> style include the Law Courts in Madras, built between 1888
> and 1892. This linkage to the Mughals and to India’s past was          Between the fifteenth and the seventeenth century Islamic
> useful to the British in establishing legitimacy for their rule.    kingdoms replaced the Hindu-Buddhist states and Islam
> spread rapidly throughout the Malay world due to intense
> See also Hinduism and Islam; South Asia, Islam in;                  commercial activity. Muslim merchants, religious scholars,
> Urdu Language, Literature, and Poetry.                              and mystics, West Indians from Gujarat and Malabar, and
> Arabs from Hadramaut carried the message of Islam with
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                        them along the main trade routes. Islamic sultanates en-
> Asher, Catherine B. The New Cambridge History of India. Vol.        croached on the power of the Hindu-Buddhist empires. The
> 4: Architecture of Mughal India. Cambridge, U.K.: Cam-           most formidable one of Majapahit on Java collapsed in 1525
> bridge University Press, 1992.                                   and was replaced by the Muslim dynasty of Mataram. Islam
> Beach, Milo C. The New Cambridge History of India. Vol. 3:          was both a religion and an ideology of rule. The prevailing
> Mughal and Rajput Painting. Cambridge, U.K.: Cam-                model was “raja-centered”: When local rulers (rajas, later
> bridge University Press, 1992.                                   sultans) embraced Islam, their subjects followed, accepting
> 
> 644                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Southeast Asia, Islam in
> 
> them as worldly and spiritual leaders. Islam provided the            United States. Moros could not identify themselves with the
> theocratic and political base for the Islamic sultanates of the      majority of Christian Filipinos but failed to be excluded from
> Malayan peninsula, Sumatra, Java, the southern Philippines,          the Philippine state when it gained independence in 1946.
> and Borneo. The flourishing commerce led to cultural innovation comparable to Europe’s Renaissance while Islam cre-              During the colonial era, Sunni Islam of the Shafi
ite
> ated a sense of shared identity among the peoples living             school continued to grow in Southeast Asia. Rural Islamic
> throughout the archipelago.                                          boarding schools called pesantren became the heart of orthodox Islam in Indonesia where students studied religious
> The Islam received was pluralistic and mostly tolerant of        subjects combined with mystical practices.
> other religious traditions. Cultural influences from the Hindu-
> Buddhist era were tolerated or incorporated into Islamic                Contact between the area and the heartlands of Islam in
> rituals. In certain pockets of the area (the north and northeast     the Middle East grew after the Suez canal opened in 1869.
> coasts of Java) a legalistic Islamic tradition prevailed. Existing   The growing number of pilgrims making the Hajj to Mecca
> religious traditions facilitated the reception of mystical Sufi       led to deepened Islamic learning and a growing tendency
> practices. Seeking unity with God through meditation was             toward Islamic orthodoxy. Teachers of Islam and Arabic
> part of Hindu-Buddhist religious beliefs. Inspired by the            studied for years with shaykhs (sheikhs) in Mecca and upon
> works of the great Islamic scholar al-Ghazali, a tradition of        return contributed to the reform of Sufism and orthodox Islam.
> Islamic learning emerged that combined fiqh (jurisprudence),
> At the beginning of the twentieth century, Islam became a
> kalam (philosophy), and Sufism.
> rallying banner to resist colonialism. Mild successes of Chris-
> The Era of Colonialism                                               tian missions caused a decline of confidence in Islamic au-
> Island Southeast Asia was the major source of spices and other       thorities. Resistance arose among reform-seeking Muslims
> natural resources that Europeans sought to control. In 1511          and among the ulema who led the traditional pesantren. The
> the commercial empire of Melaka fell to the Portuguese. In           first Islamic reform movements started in the nineteenth
> the 1570s, Spain began colonizing the Philippines with the           century in Sumatra. Reformist ideas were brought to Indonethree Muslim principalities of Sulu, Maguindanao, and Buayan.        sia by religious teachers returning from the hajj and via
> The Dutch started trade missions to Indonesia’s spice islands        journals published in Singapore and Egypt. Reformists urged
> in the seventeenth century, gradually colonizing Indonesia.          Muslims to return to a simple lifestyle, renew the moral basis
> By 1841, British rule started in Malaysia while Brunei became        of Islam, return to the original scripture, and purify Islam
> a British protectorate (1888).                                       from unlawful innovations. Inspired by the teachings of the
> famous Egyptian Islamic scholar Muhammad 
Abduh, they
> Initially, European colonization changed the outward-            advocated an accommodation with modern thought and
> looking, vibrant profile of Islam during the age of commerce          technology. In 1912, Indonesian reformers strengthened
> into an inward-looking conservatism. Islam became regu-              their movement by creating Muhammadiyah. This sociallated by colonial rules, bureaucratized, and suppressed. The         religious organization aimed at purifying Islam from indige-
> Dutch tried to deny Indonesian Islam by ignoring its deep            nous and Sufi practices. It built schools that combined an
> roots in society, stressing local traditions and European law        Islamic and secular curriculum for the majority of Muslims
> instead. Local custom (adat, Ar. 
adat) was made the basis of        who did not have access to the Dutch school systems. The
> laws for the indigenous population. Personal matters nor-            movement was unique in its concern for women who were
> mally regulated by the Islamic shari
a, such as marriage,            trained as preachers for women. The traditionalist Muslims
> divorce, inheritance, and almsgiving, were under the jurisdic-       based at the pesantren furthered Muslim piety through activition of adat laws. Recourse to Islamic law was only allowed          ties in the mosques and by bringing local village rituals in
> when the rules overlapped the adat.                                  conformity with Islam. In 1926, these ulema grouped together in the Nahdlatul Ulama movement (NU).
> The British curtailed the political role of Malay sultans
> but allowed them a degree of authority as heads of religion in          In Malaysia, the reform movement drew educated, urban
> their states. They misrepresented Islam by incorporating             Muslims who gathered around journalistic enterprises. A
> within it local traditions yet left the application of Islamic law   student of Muhammad 
Abduh founded the periodical alto the sultans.                                                      Iman in 1906 to spread the reformist message. Hindered by
> the British colonial regime and opposed by traditionalists and
> By the 1570s, Spanish incursions halted the Islamization         Malay secular elites, reformism in Malaysia remained less
> process in the islands of the Philippines. The colonizers            diverse and socially effective than its counterpart in Indonesia.
> called the Muslims in the Philippines Moros (because they
> had the same religion as the Moors of Spain). For over four          The Era of Independence
> centuries the Moros tried to defend their Islamic identity in        Indonesia. Upon gaining independence, the newly formed
> the “Moro Wars” against the colonial forces of Spain and the         nation-states had to redefine the position of Islam in their
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                       645
> Southeast Asia, Islam in
> 
> Islam in Malaysia
> and Indochina
> Area Islamized, 1200-1500

> 
> Philippine
>                  Area Islamized, 1500-1800

> Major sultanate, 1600

> Indochina                      Islands                                              City

> 

> Malay
> Peninsula
> Mindanao
>  
>                                      BRUNEI
> 
         

> 
> Brunei
> Sulu
> Archipelago
> ACEH
>  
> Melaka
> JOHOR                                      Sulawesi
> Singapore          Borneo                                          TIDORE
> Sumatra
> JAMBI
> PALEMBANG
> MATARAM     MACASSAR                TERNATE
> 
> 
> 

>  

> BANTEN
>                                                                 New Guinea
> Jakarta-Batavia
> Java
> BALI
> 
 
> 
> Islam in Malaysia and Indochina. XNR PRODUCTIONS/GALE
> 
> governments. Indonesia chose a nonconfessional govern-                              Differences of opinions among Indonesian Muslims still
> ment over an Islamic state in order to unite some six thousand                  run along the spectrum of reformist Muhammadiyah and
> inhabited islands that hold a variety of cultures and religions.                traditionalist NU. Reformists wish to purify Islam from all
> The founding fathers promoted the state ideology of Pancasila,                  indigenous culture. They consider Islamic scripture to be
> the concept of unity in plurality—one God worshiped in                          complete and self-sufficient, and support the use of ijtihad
> separate ways by Muslims, Christians, Hindus, and Bud-                          (independent reasoning) and personal study. At the conservadhists. Muslim aspirations to an Islamic state regularly led to                 tive end of the reformist spectrum are those who are against
> uprisings in Sumatra, West Java, and Sulawesi. The Suharto                      religious pluralism and who lobby for an Islamic state. After
> regime (1966–1998) curbed the political power of Islam. The                     independence the Masyumi political party represented restate established a ministry of religion to monitor religious                   formist aspirations in the national government of President
> matters such as the hajj, religious education, and the judicial                 Sukarno (1945–1965). One of their concerns was the growing
> administration. In 1973 the government tried to introduce a                     communist movement. They were banned after rebellions in
> marriage bill that would give precedence to civil authority in                  Sumatra and Sulawesi demanding Islamization of the state.
> cases of marriage and divorce, rather than to the religious                     When political aspirations were denied to all Muslims, in
> Muslim courts. The bill was modified when Muslim leaders                         1967, theologically conservative ex-Masyumi reformists
> protested vigorously.                                                           formed Dewan Dakwah Islamiyah Indonesia (DDII), an
> organization for Muslim proselytization.
> Leading intellectuals such as Nurcholish Madjid and
> Abdurrahman Wahid advocated focusing on a “cultural”                               NU is the umbrella for Muslims tolerant of local culture
> Islam as opposed to a “political” Islam. The goal was Muslim                    that does not interfere with Islamic teachings. They stress the
> renewal —spiritual, intellectual, and economic. This led to a                   study of fiqh because it espouses the views of generations of
> strong revival of Indonesian Islam during the 1980s, and the                    scholars starting from the prophet Muhammad. They only
> Suharto government realized that Islam was becoming a force                     exercise ijtihad in the context of this historic body of teachto reckon with. Non-Muslims started to worry when in 1990                       ings, preferring taqlid, following traditional opinions. The
> the government established the Indonesian Muslim Intellec-                      political aspirations of its ulema were represented by the NU
> tuals’ Association (ICMI) to promote Islamization of state                      party until the Suharto government forced all Islamic parties
> and society.                                                                    to unite into one government-supervised Islamic party, the
> 
> 646                                                                                                         Islam and the Muslim World
> Southeast Asia, Islam in
> 
> Malaysia. When in 1957 Malaysia became independent,
> UMNO was committed to a secularist vision of the new
> nation. Challenged by PAS, UMNO became more committed to Islam as Malaysia’s religion. After the 1969 clashes with
> the Chinese population, “Malayness” came to be defined in
> terms of the three pillars: Muslim religion (agama), Malay
> language, or bahasa (not English, Chinese, or Indian), and the
> government of the sultans (raja). The Malay rulers of each
> state serve as guardians of Islamic religion and Malay custom.
> The constitution requires Malaysians (55% of the population) to be Muslim. Islam and Malayness are identified with
> political dominance. Islam is coordinated through the state,
> rather than through independent socio-religious organizations as is the case in Indonesia. Being Malay permits access to
> affirmative action programs that are part of the New Economic Policy (NEP), which was created to allow Malaysians
> to compete with the wealthy Chinese population. The goal is
> to transform Malaysia into an industrialized nation by the
> year 2020.
> 
> During the 1970s the revivalist Dakwah (Ar. da
wa) movement emerged among urban, middle-class youth organizations
> that faced the influences of modernization and globalization.
> It reiterated the reformist themes, seeking to implement
> Islam as a holistic way of life in society through religious
> renewal. It made Islam the main pillar of society and challenged the state led by prime minister Mahathir Mohamed to
> adopt its own Islamization strategy to “out-Islamicize” the
> opposition. The result was the Islamization of government
> In Bangkok, Thai Muslim women attend a prayer for peace one
> week before the start of Ramadan. GETTY IMAGES                     bodies, the arts, the press, and institutes for learning. The
> Malay population became more devoutly Islamic. PAS continued its demands for an Islamic state and managed to
> Partei Persatuan Pembangunan (Party for Unity and Devel-           implement shari
a in the state of Kelantan. Through the new
> opment, or PPP). When the Suharto government demanded              ethnic definition, increased Islamization, and economic benefit,
> that all mass organizations affirm Pancasila as their ide-          the Malay community has been transformed in what is called
> ology, the NU dropped its political aspirations and fo-            the “new Malay.”
> cused on religious, social, and economic development instead. This shift away from politics has resulted in increased         In Brunei Islam is the national religion. The wealthy
> piety among Indonesian Muslims and a steady strengthening          country is ruled by an Islamic monarchy, the original rajaof a democratic-minded civil society.                              centered model. The sultan, Hassanal Bolkiah (r. 1968– ), is
> head of the faith and responsible for upholding the Islamic
> After Suharto stepped down in May 1998, the structure          way of life. One of the main issues in Brunei public religious
> that repressed religion and society collapsed. Political parties   life is the disagreement between those who advocate a
> representing Muslims of various affiliations were set up,           theocratic Islamic state, and those who are secularly oriented.
> religious organizations were free to have Islam as their sole
> constitution, and Muslims are fully represented in the demo-       Philippines. Philippine Muslims, the Moros, live in the
> cratically elected Parliament. Freedom of religion also led to     only Christian-dominated country in Southeast Asia. Moros
> the emergence of extreme groups such as Lashkar Jihad in           do not identify themselves as Filipinos and have been
> 2000 that called for holy war against the Christian population     marginalized within the institution of the nation-state. Since
> in the Malaccan islands.                                           the 1950s Moro Islam has witnessed a revival in Islamic piety.
> Moro Muslims have received assistance to build mosques and
> Malaysia and Brunei. In 1946, conservative, nationalist            educate religious leaders from other Muslim countries.
> Malaysians aspiring for independence formed the United             Marginalization and the increasing influx of Christian Fili-
> Malay Nationalist Organization (UMNO). In 1955 the Pan-            pino immigrants into the Muslim regions gave rise to armed
> Malayan Islamic Party (Partai Islam Se-Malaysia, PAS) regis-       secession movements. The most popularly supported of these
> tered to press the establishment of an Islamic state in British    movements is the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF).
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                    647
> Southeast Asian Culture and Islam
> 
> Its actions caused the Filipino government to implement          language, and sets of shared cultural characteristics, many of
> affirmative action programs for the benefit of the Moros such      which are shaped by pre-Islamic cultural systems. Concepts
> as building religious schools, and scholarships for Moro         of power and spirituality, respect for ancestors, belief in
> students. The administration of Corazon Aquino (l986–1992)       spirits, and the local understanding of gender relations owe
> granted autonomy to four provinces in Mindinao. Armed            much to the pre-Islamic beliefs. Key concepts of pre-Islamic
> struggle continues in the twenty-first century with groups        ethics are fused with Islamic ethical teachings. Southeast
> such as the extremist Abu Sayyaf pressing its claim for          Asians stress concepts such as the maintenance of social and
> independence.                                                    religious harmony (rukun), respect toward those whose position in society demands it, and sincerity in one’s actions
> See also Muhammadiyya (Muhammadiyah); Nahdlatul
> (ikhlas).
> Ulama (NU); Reform: South Asia; Southeast Asian
> Culture and Islam.                                                   Islam, however, is not just a veneer painted over Hindu-
> Buddhist notions. Islam became vibrant by accommodating
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                     core elements of the traditions present in the area at the time
> Andaya, B. Watson, and Andaya, L. Y. A History of Malaysia,      of Islamization through patterns of interpenetration and local
> 2d ed. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2001.             variation. Over time, acceptance was increasingly measured
> Barton, G., and Fealy, G., eds. Nahdlatul Ulama, Traditional     against the scale of compatibility with Islamic teachings. How
> Islam and Modernity in Indonesia. Clayton, VIC, Australia:    far Islam should coincide with Arab culture became a recur-
> Monash Asia Institute, 1996.                                  rent topic of debate.
> Hefner, R. Civil Islam. Muslims and Democratization in Indonesia. Princeton, N.J., and Oxford, UK: Princeton Univer-            When considering elements of culture and Islam in the
> sity Press, 2000.                                              region, the past and the present, the local and the global,
> Hefner, R., and Horvatich, P., eds. Islam in an Era of Nation-   intersect. There are many stages of commitment to norma-
> States. Politics and Religious Renewal in Muslim Southeast     tive Islam in local expressions of Islam. Nowadays, local
> Asia. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1997.              cultures are also changing rapidly under the influence of
> Leake, David. Brunei: The Modern Southeast-Asian Islamic         modernization and globalization. With increasingly higher
> Sultanate. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1989.                   levels of education and knowledge of Western and Arab
> Majul, C. A. Muslims in the Philippines. Diliman, Quezon City:   culture transmitted via the modern media, rituals held sacred
> The University of the Philippines Press, 1999.                 for centuries can fade within one generation. Reformists
> McKenna, T. M. “Muslim Rulers and Rebels.” In Everyday           altogether condemn indigenous rituals deemed inconsistent
> Politics and Armed Separatism in the Southern Philippines.     with Islam. “Purifying the faith” has been their rallying cry
> Berkeley and Los Angeles: The University of California         since the beginning of the twentieth century. Traditionalist
> Press, 1998.                                                   Muslims incorporated local rituals, purging them of beliefs or
> Muzaffar, Chandra. Islamic Resurgence in Malaysia. Petaling      practices forbidden by Islam. This entry discusses some of the
> Jaya, Indonesia: Fajar Bakti, 1987.                            main ideas that have governed religious rituals practiced by
> Nagata, Judith. The Reflowering of Malaysian Islam. Vancouver:    indigenous Southeast Asian Muslims, and the debates and
> University of British Columbia Press, 1984.                    interpretations generated by these practices.
> Woodward, Mark R. Islam in Java: Normative Piety and
> Hierarchy and Power
> Mysticism in the Sultunate of Yogyakarta. Tucson, Ariz.:
> Association for Asian Studies, 1989.                            Pre-Islamic understandings of hierarchy and power shape
> many cultural practices. In many places the king was the
> Woodward, Mark R., ed. Toward a New Paradigm. Recent
> defender of the faithful and the mystical anchor of the
> Developments in Indonesian Islamic Thought. Tempe: Arizona State University Program for Southeast Asian Stud-         religious community. Power is considered a quality that can
> ies, 1996.                                                      be obtained through inheritance or by divine favor. Many
> became Muslim when the king accepted Islam. The king, and
> Nelly van Doorn-Harder       later the sultan, protected this power by performing ceremonies and rituals and by possessing certain artifacts that were
> said to be laden with mystical power, such as the kris, a dagger
> that was a symbol of manhood, honor, and ethnic identity.
> SOUTHEAST ASIAN CULTURE                                          Religious and worldly power are preferably combined with
> AND ISLAM                                                        various mystical powers (kasekten). Power is stratified according to rank and generation: elders are higher than juniors, and
> The rich tradition of Islam in Southeast Asia is characterized   aristocrats are higher than commoners. Peoples (and spirits)
> by a variety of local practices and beliefs. Unifying this       live in a more or less clearly defined hierarchical structure.
> colorful spectrum are the basic precepts of Islam, the Malay     This hierarchy is expressed during important festivities. Before
> 
> 648                                                                                          Islam and the Muslim World
> Southeast Asian Culture and Islam
> 
> marriage the bride and groom will ask forgiveness for wrongs         the spirits of deceased ancestors (roh), or local spirits (jinn)
> done against the parents. During the 
Id al-Fitri feast that         who are sometimes given special dishes called sajen (offercompletes Ramadan, Indonesians honor those ranking above             ings). Foods served at the meal have ritual meanings and are
> them in a ritual called halal bi-halal when they visit them, in      presented in symbolic arrangements of four, seven, or fortythe family, the neighborhood, or their work, to show respect,        four. Some believe that the use of incense facilitates commuseek reconciliation, and preserve or restore harmonious              nication with ancestral spirits. Prayers said during the slametan
> relations.                                                           are a mix of Arabic and local language. When held in
> orthodox Muslim families, only Quranic verses are used and
> Some sultans, for example on Java, still organize large          the participants refrain from speech or symbolic acts that
> traditional celebrations such as the Sekaten and the Gerebeg.        refer to spirits. Many Islamic feast days and life-cycle rituals
> The Sekaten is a month-long fair held prior to the Mawlid al-        are celebrated with a slametan.The framework for interpret-
> Nabi (Prophet’s birthday), one of the most popular feasts in         ing the slametan depends on the Islamic or indigenous orien-
> Southeast Asia. This festivity used to be the prime tool of          tation of the participants.
> conversion to Islam: Peasants coming from the surrounding
> villages were moved to pronounce the shahada, thus nomi-             Ancestors and Caring for the Dead
> nally converting to Islam. The Gerebeg is a parade between           Many in Southeast Asia consider death a transition. In order
> the sultan’s palace and a nearby mosque where a mount of             to help the deceased on their way in the afterlife special
> fruits laden with blessings from the sultan’s palace is divided      slametan (called sedekah for the Arabic sadaqa, alms) are held at
> among the people.                                                    certain intervals after death: on the first, third, seventh,
> fortieth, and one hundredth day, followed by one year, two
> A variety of specialists from the earlier traditions (many of    years, and a thousand days. Combined with the meal are
> them called dukun) became incorporated in Islam. Among               recitations from the Quran in the forms of praise, prayers,
> them are healers, spirit mediums, shamans, specialists in            dhikr or tahlil (repetitions of “there is no god but God”), and
> certain agricultural rituals, and midwives. They combine             requests for forgiveness. The foods, in combination with the
> Islamic and customary or adat ceremonies, using incense,             prayers, help to ask the deceased for forgiveness for outstandofferings to spirits, and prayers. They preserve their spiritual     ing offenses and create merit transferable to the dead that will
> power by fasting, ascetic practices, and communication with          aid the spirit’s passage from the world of the living to the
> guardian spirits. Many consider the spirits to be unacceptable       afterlife.
> to Islam. Their prayers contain Islamic elements and start
> Remembering the dead prior to important events is cruwith the invocation of Bismillah al-Rahman al-Rahim (In the
> cial. Often people gather at the graves for prayer and cleanname of God, the Compassionate, the most Merciful). Shadowing. Especially at the beginning and end of Ramadan, people
> play puppeteers (dalang) belong to these specialists. They
> will visit the graves in masses to include those who passed on
> preserve one of the most popular art forms in Southeast Asia,
> in the spiritual and physical purification during the month of
> the wayang plays, performing the Javanese versions of Indian
> fasting.
> epics of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. To many these
> plays convey the picture of a proper social and spiritual order.     Spiritual Authority
> Dalangs are of high moral character and spiritual potency.           The Islamic equivalent of the charismatic person endowed
> Part of their potency is the word; their voice expresses the         with spiritual potency are the Muslim saints (wali) who are
> realm of the inner or mystical world. Traditions were in-            remembered and honored by traditionalist Muslims. In this
> vented to defend some of these practices by crediting early          same tradition the kiyais, leaders of Islamic boarding schools
> Muslim saints with creating them. Indonesians believe that           called pesantren, are considered links in a chain of sacred
> nine holy men, wali songo, converted its population. The first        knowledge that reaches back to the prophet Muhammad.
> wali songo, Sunan Kalijaga, is said to have invented the             They are not only religious, but also social and political
> shadow plays.                                                        leaders. Spiritual and physical power are linked together
> when students are trained in fasting, meditation (dhikr), and
> Slametan/Kenduri: Meals of Blessing                                  martial arts (pencak silat). Developing ikhlas, an inner attitude
> A meal called slametan on Java and kenduri in other parts of         of resignation that moves a person to do good deeds for the
> Indonesia and Malaysia is a meal of blessing that forms the          sake of good and not for self-promotion, is part of this
> central rite of popular religion. The purpose for holding a          training.
> slametan is to obtain slamet: well-being, safety, social and
> spiritual harmony. The meal is held for a variety of events              Academic study in the pesantren concentrates on Quran,
> ranging from pregnancy and birth, circumcision, marriage,            Arabic, and fiqh (jurisprudence). Part of the curriculum used
> life crises and death, and occasions such as starting a long trip,   to be, and in some places still is, the practice of mysticism
> finishing a house, or to resolve a dispute. Slametan are subject      (tasawwuf) and asceticism. Some pesantren became centers for
> to a wide range of interpretations. Some believe they please         mystical orders (tarekat from Ar., tariqa). Mysticism here was
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                       649
> Southeast Asian Culture and Islam
> 
> The Masjid Raya, in the city of Medan in North Sumatra, was built in 1906 by Sultan Makmum al-Rasyid. Adapting elements of Andalusian
> Moorish architecture, the mosque and the nearby Maimoon Palace are part of the legacy of the Deli Sultan, that was founded in 1630. ©
> STEPHEN G. DONALDSON
> 
> closely connected to legal Islamic learning. Certain Sufi             practice of ziyara, especially in urban areas, although local
> groups in Malaysia practice meditation combined with trance          villagers continue to perform cherished rituals.
> dancers. Some practice special veneration for their leaders. At
> times Messianic figures gain followings in their quest for a          Speech
> just and prosperous society.                                         Recitation of Arabic verses from the Quran is considered a
> powerful medium for healing, protection, to have a wish
> Similar to the Sufi shaykh, a kiyai passes his charisma and       fulfilled, or to gain power. The words by themselves are
> position on to the son who is deemed most fit. After a                purifying and uplifting. Many do not necessarily understand
> spiritually potent kiyai has passed away, his students will visit    their meaning. When in 1998 Indonesia fell into a massive
> his grave once a week in order to bring the “gift” of praise         economic crisis with ensuing social unrest, mass prayers
> (tahlilan), and Quran recitation. The popular practice of           during dhikr meetings called istighosah were held all over the
> visiting graves of saints (ziyara) to perform rituals of prayer,     country to strengthen and heal the nation. Those who learn
> praise, and meditation is shaped by the idea that their exem-        the Quran by heart are obliged to guard the text the rest of
> plary religious life brings some persons closer to God after         their life. Forgetting will be their gravest sin. During the
> death than others, which qualifies them to become interme-            month of Ramadan, the use of holy words is intensified
> diates for the living. Graves are found all over Lara; the most      through tarawih prayers at night and nightly readings of the
> powerful of these are those of the wali songo. Some graves are       entire Quran, or nightly recitation of one-thirtieth of the
> believed potent enough that visiting them a certain number           Quran. Beliefs in the power of speech are inspired by the Sufi
> of times is considered equal to performing the hajj to Mecca.        intellectual tradition that identifies material reality as ema-
> Graves shape a sacred landscape filled with male and female           nating from God. This means that powerful speech can
> saints, teachers, kings, and princes. Reformist and legalistically   change this reality. Words from the Quran are believed to
> minded Muslims have long vehemently opposed ziyara. In               have healing qualities when used in amulets or mantras. In
> Malaysia, the reformist Dakwah movement has reduced the              Malaysia, shamans use Islamic stories, images, and texts to
> 
> 650                                                                                              Islam and the Muslim World
> Succession
> 
> heal sickness caused by spirit possession. Spirits are identified   applies the Islamic rule that gives only half a man’s share.
> as the jinn that are mentioned in the Quran. Imbalance or         Through the activities of orthodox and Reformist Muslims,
> impurity within the body also causes disease that can be           the tendency now is to stress Syaria rather than adat.
> healed by the pronunciation of formula.
> An image of a pupeteer at work appears in the volume two
> Literature                                                           color insert.
> Apart from Quranic texts, a large body of Islam-inspired
> writings, poetry, and prose developed in the Malay language.       See also 
Ada; 
Ibadat; Southeast Asia, Islam in.
> The writings that reacted to Islamic mysticism became some
> of the richest in the world. The most famous are the               BIBLIOGRAPHY
> seventeenth-century works of Hamzah Pansuri, Nuruddin
> Beatty, Andrew. Varieties of Javanese Religion. An Anthropoar-Raniri, and Samsuddin al-Sumatrani. Hamzah Pansuri
> logical Account. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University
> created a form of written poetry called syair that became a           Press, 1999.
> major vehicle for Sufi poetry and that has inspired Malay
> Bowen, John, R. Muslims through Discourse: Religion and Ritual
> poetry up to the present period. Ar-Raniri defended orthodox
> in Gayo Society. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
> mysticism using the works of al-Ghazali. Tales (hikayat)
> Press, 1993.
> about the Prophet and his Companions became a popular
> genre of writing. Poems and tales are meant to be sung and         Geertz, Clifford. The Religion of Java (1960). Chicago and
> London: The University of Chicago Press, 1976.
> recited. Students in pesantren still chant the Barzanji (poetic
> eulogy) several times a week in honor of the prophet               Hefner, Robert, W. Hindu Javanese. Tengger Tradition and
> Muhammad.                                                            Islam. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1985.
> Ibrahim, Ahmad; Siddique, Sharon; and Hussain, Yasmin,
> Local genres of semi-Islamic literature are the chronicles         eds. Readings on Islam in Southeast Asia. Singapore: Insti-
> (babad) that were composed in the courts of the early sultans         tute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1985.
> to establish their Islamic legitimacy. Certain Javanese babad
> Keeler, Ward. Javanese Shadow Plays, Javanese Selfs. Princedescribe the sultan as a saint who has the power to fly.              ton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1987.
> After independence an Islamic literature developed that        Laderman, Carol. Taming the Wind of Desire: Psychology,
> espouses Islamic values. Especially in Malaysia, edifying nov-       Medicine, and Aesthetics in Malay Shamanistic Performance.
> els became popular. Contemporary Indonesian writings by              Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991.
> writers like Emha Ainun Nadjib explore the relationship            Siegel, James. The Rope of God. Berkeley: University of Calibetween the individual and God. Young activists have started          fornia Press, 1969.
> to use the novel as a medium to teach concepts such as human       Van Doorn-Harder, Nelly, and de Jong, Kees. “The Pilgrimrights to students in the pesantren and other Islamic schools.       age to Tembayat.” In The Muslim World 91, nos. 3 and 4
> (Fall 2001).
> Women
> Especially in Indonesia, women share the power of the word.
> Nelly van Doorn-Harder
> Many women have memorized the Quran to become a
> hafidha and go on to become finalists in the national Quran
> reciting contests. In the past, international competition was
> not possible since contestants from other Muslim countries
> SUCCESSION
> were only men. Nowadays women are allowed to compete in
> certain Muslim countries. Women also teach in the pesantren
> The issue of succession—the assumption by a person of
> and make up more than half of the judges in Islamic Syari’a
> political or other institutional authority previously possessed
> (Ar. shari
a) courts.
> by another—entered Islam with the death of the prophet
> Islam and Adat                                                     Muhammad and has been a subject of continuous debate ever
> Southeast Asian societies have developed local legal codes or      since. Simply put, Sunni Muslims believe that the Prophet’s
> practices called adat. This code existed and in many places        religious authority died with him, that his political authority
> still exists alongside the Syari’a. Adat complemented the          passed to a succession of caliphs initially selected on the basis
> Islamic law in many matters of tradition and custom. The two       of consensus and merit, and that the institution of the caliphate
> law systems collide regularly in evaluating the same prob-         rapidly declined into hereditary monarchy and ultimately
> lems: how to divide an estate, what position to assign to          military usurpation. Shi
ites believe that both the Prophet’s
> women. In general, adat allowed women a position equal to          religious and political authority remained united in a heredithat of men. Orthodox Muslims took offense to these rules,         tary line of imams, that his dying wishes were subverted and
> for example, in the division of an estate where adat grants the    suppressed by Sunnis, and that the caliphal succession has
> woman a share equal to that of her male relatives. Syaria law     never been legitimate. Recently, scholars have increasingly
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                     651
> Succession
> 
> questioned the traditional Muslim view of both the theory          identity of these two roots is echoed today in the use by
> and the practice of caliphal succession. Some have argued that     modern Arabic and Hebrew of badla and khalifah, respecthe historical record is obscure on even the most crucial          tively, to denote “suit”—that is, change of clothes.
> points, and that in any case what can be gleaned from it
> suggests that divine absolutism, primogeniture, and forcible       The Term “Khalifa” in the Quran
> seizure of power were present from the beginning. Oth-             The etymological significance of the word khalifa in the
> ers have stressed the contributions of pre-Islamic Middle          Quran is less obscure than its pre-Quranic usage because the
> Eastern political traditions— particularly that of Persian/        Quran has been an object of philological exegesis since very
> Zoroastrian divine absolutism—to the development of Islamic        early after its appearance. The two plural forms khulafa and
> khalaif occur seven times between them in the Quran, and in
> political theory. Whatever the exact course of events, it is
> all cases are said by commentators to denote tribes or peoples
> clear that “the classical theory of the caliphate” as formulated
> who, despite the warnings of their apostles, disobeyed God’s
> by al-Mawardi (d. 1058) was the culmination of an ongoing
> will and were consequently wiped off the face of the earth by
> process of interaction between the Islamic religious and
> Him. Most commentators similarly treat the two occurrences
> political establishments. Subsequently, Muslim thinkers who
> of the singular khalifa as referring to the classic Quranic
> strove to preserve an Islamic component in political succestheme of a succession of peoples governing the earth, rather
> sion were forced into increasingly distressing compromises
> than the succession of individual rulers governing peoples.
> by such cataclysms as the Mongol destruction of the Baghdad
> However, a handful of interpretations of Quran 2:30—
> caliphate, the advent of secular dynastic rule in most Muslim
> “When your Lord said to the angels: I am about to put a
> lands, and the increasing intervention in Middle Eastern
> successor (khalifa) on the earth, they said: Will You place on it
> politics by European imperialism. After the dismantling of
> one who will do harm on it and will shed blood …”—
> the Ottoman Empire following the First World War, most
> interpret the word khalifa as a reference to Adam as an
> governments in Muslim lands adopted modern secular prinindividual rather than the Children of Adam as a collective.
> ciples of political legitimacy, although by the end of the
> The scarcity and lateness of commentators who ascribe to the
> twentieth century, popular support for the reinstatement of
> word khalifa the connotation of an individual person with a
> Islamic principles and practices of political succession was
> political office have suggested to some scholars that the
> increasing.
> connection between the Quran’s term khalifa and the office
> of caliphate was not made “before the end of the Umayyad
> Etymology of Khalifa
> period or the early decades of Abbasid rule” (al-Qadi, “The
> The original significance of the Arabic verb for “to succeed,”
> Term Khalifa”). To others it implied that the idea of a
> kh-l-f—from which is derived the word for caliph (khalifa)—
> connection was in the air but played down by early commenis irretrievably buried beneath ancient and impenetrable
> tators “anxious to avoid approving the Umayyad caliphs’ use
> layers of usage. It occurs in Akkadian meaning “to slip into or
> of the verse about Adam to enhance their own dignity” (Watt
> put on [especially clothes]” and in Hebrew meaning “to
> 1971, p. 567).
> succeed, replace or pass away.” Dictionaries of early South
> Arabic give one occurrence of the word khalifa with the quasi-     Umayyad Succession
> political meaning of “viceroy” in a fourth-century South           The role of religion in the Umayyads’ justification of their
> Arabic inscription, but also give meanings as diverse as “suit     succession to the caliphate has itself undergone substantial
> of clothes,” “gate of a city,” and—happily confirming a             revision by scholars—a revision that parallels revisionist views
> popular conception about Arabic etymology—“pregnant                of the progress of both empire and theocracy in the early
> camel.” It is a sign of the ambiguity of the meaning of the        Islamic state generally. The Umayyads’ use of the title khalifat
> word that, although in both Arabic and Hebrew the first form        Allah—“Caliph of God” (denoting a direct connection to the
> of the root commonly denotes succession in time, place, or         Divine) as opposed to “Caliph of the Apostle of God” (denotfunction, it has come in the former to be applied to the thing     ing succession to Muhammad as political leader of the umma)—
> succeeding and in the latter to the thing succeeded. Lane’s        belies the conventional picture of the entire Umayyad period
> Arabic-English Lexicon gives the primary meaning of the verb       as an interval of secular kingship between the perfect theockhalafa as “he came after, followed, succeeded, or remained        racy of the Rashidun and the less perfect theocracy of the
> after, another, or another that had perished and died.” Of the     Abbasids. 
Umar II’s reprise of Abu Bakr’s humble declara-
> 127 instances of the root kh-l-f in the Quran, most have          tion that “I am not khalifat Allah” was the exception rather
> specialized meanings related only distantly to the first form       than the rule. The sources abound in evidence of a concerted
> meaning of “to come behind or after.” As demonstrated by           effort by Umayyad court poets and scribes to augment the
> al-Qadi, the array of meanings encompassed by kh-l-f and its       initial Umayyad claim to the caliphate as avengers of the
> derivatives is closely paralleled by the array of meanings         blood of 
Uthman with the claim that they had been installed
> encompassed by b-d-l, which can mean both “to exchange”            in their position by God. Crone and Hinds rely heavily on
> and “to be exchanged” and is used by the Quran in contexts        this court poetry to reverse the traditional view of the emerclosely analogous to those in which it uses kh-l-f. The near       gence of divine absolutism in Islam. They argue that the
> 
> 652                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Succession
> 
> as a state religion from its inception, the political roots of
> early Islamic sectarianism are not disguised at all. The three
> broad non-Shi
ite sectarian subdivisions of the earliest period—
> Kharijite, Qadarite, and Murjiite—all contained parallel
> theological and political components—that is to say, doctrinal positions on sin that very closely allied with conceptions
> of legitimate political succession. The Kharijite doctrine that
> any sin renders the sinner an apostate had its political reflection in their position that any injustice on the part of the
> caliph renders his succession invalid. The Qadarite doctrine
> that humans possess control over (qadar) and therefore responsibility for their actions had its political reflection in
> their position that the legitimacy of the caliph’s succession
> depended on his dispensing equitable justice to the ruled.
> The Murjiite doctrine that judgment of any sinner must be
> deferred to God had its political reflection in their view that
> the legitimacy of caliphal succession was the concern of God
> rather than men. While Kharijite anarchism and Qadarite
> activism were persecuted under the Umayyads, Murjiite
> quietism seems to have been the political ideology of choice
> for the silent majority during the Umayyad caliphate. In
> contrast to the supposed period of Rashidun harmony during
> which no fewer than three of the first four caliphs were felled
> by assassins, not one of the Umayyad caliphs–with the sole
> exception of the battlefield death of Sulayman b 
Abd al-
> Malik—ended his term of office for any reason other than
> death by natural causes until al-Walid II was edged out by
> 
Abd al-Hamid (1842–1918) was the sultan of Turkey from 1876
> to 1909. Towards the end of the nineteenth century the Ottoman
> Yazid III in 744 after the Abbasid revolution had already begun.
> sultan 
Abd al-Hamid tried to counter national separatism among
> Muslim ethnic minorities in the Empire by pushing the idea that       Hadiths About Caliphal Succession
> the Ottoman sultans were legitimate successors to the caliphate       It is against this background of political and theological
> on the basis of dubious claim that the last descendant of the
> ferment that hadith statements about caliphal succession
> Abbasid caliphs in Mamluk, Cairo, had transferred the caliphate
> to Selim III upon his conquest of Egypt in 1517. © BAIN COLL/CORBIS   attributed to the Prophet must be evaluated. In contrast to
> the dearth of explicit statements in the Quran about legitimate political succession, hadith literature has many explicit
> theocratic Shi
ite-type conception of the imamate was the             references to the caliphate as a political office. Many of these
> original one and that from the very first, caliphs aspired to as       hadiths use the terms imam or emir rather than khalifa in
> much, if not more, religious authority than the Prophet. It           some or all variants, leaving open the possibility that they
> can be plausibly argued either that the interpretation of the         might have been initially uttered by the Prophet in reference
> title khalifat Allah by the Umayyads constituted “the first            to following the leader of the communal prayer and obeying
> formulated ‘theory’ of the caliphate in Islamic history” (al-         the commanders of early military expedition, and were later
> Qadi, “The Religious Foundation of Late Umayyad Ideology              reinterpreted—willfully or not, and with or without substituand Practice”) or that the Umayyads “had still not decided to         tion of the word khalifa—as allusions to a political institution
> transfer the concept of ‘Caliph of God’ from the sphere of            that did not exist prior to the Prophet’s death. Those hadiths
> court flattery and rhetorical salutation into the sphere of law”       which refer unambiguously to the caliphate reflect debates
> (Barthold).                                                           about the political succession in Islam going on among early
> Muslim intellectuals who wrote down the record of the
> Early Islamic Sectarianism and Caliphal Succession                    Prophet’s utterances and the history of the early exemplary
> If the precise etymology of the caliphal title and the exact          Rashidun (rightly guided) caliphate centuries after the fact. A
> nature of the ideological basis on which the Umayyads                 vast majority of approved hadiths about caliphal succession
> justified their succession are matters of speculation, the fact        fall into the quietist Mujiite rather than the radical Kharijite
> that the air was thick with theological ferment surrounding           or activist Qadarite category.
> the issue of political succession in the umma throughout the
> Umayyad period is not. Sectarianism in any religion often has            The question of whether the caliph’s full title was properly
> thinly disguised political roots, but because of Islam’s status       khalifat Rasul Allah, (“the successor of the Apostle of God”),
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                        653
> Succession
> 
> with the connotation of succeeding the Prophet in his tempo-       capable of achieving power—was rendered unassailable by
> ral function as defender of the faith, or khalifat Allah (“the     the successful result of the Abbasid revolution.
> successor of God”), with the connotation of being appointed
> by and having a direct connection with God Himself, was also           The early Abbasid era, in addition to being the golden age
> a much-vexed and obscure issue of early Islamic political          of the Baghdad caliphate, was also the period during which
> discourse. The uneasiness of Sunni orthodoxy with the latter       the embryonic Sunni Islam defined its approach to legitimate
> title and its accompanying conception of the caliph as posses-     caliphal succession—frequently in opposition to the vision of
> sor of the type of divine charisma claimed for the Shi
ite         the reigning caliph. The view favored by the caliphs is
> imams is reflected by the widely circulated stories about the       represented by the Risala fi al-Sahaba of Ibn al-Muqaffa
 (d.
> first caliph Abu Bakr’s insistence on being called khalifat Rasul   756), which advises the caliph al-Mansur (r. 754–775) to
> Allah rather than khalifat Allah. The second caliph 
Umar          aspire to be something like the high priest of Islam and act as
> rejected both khalifat Allah as applying only to King David        the final arbiter on points of Islamic law. The view favored by
> and khalifat Rasul Allah as applying only to Abu Bakr and          the “proto-Sunni” ulema was represented by the qadi (judge)
> decided that the correct title was “Caliph of the Caliph of the    Abu Yusuf, who in his Kitab al-Kharaj advises the caliph
> Apostle of God.” In view of the potential of this title for        Harun al-Rashid (r. 786–809) to subordinate his will to the
> stricture of the book and the sunna like any other Muslim.
> cumbersome recursiveness, 
Umar opted for amir al-muminin
> The issue was decided by the outcome of the mihna, or
> (“Commander of the Faithful”), a title that continued to have
> “Islamic Inquisition” (833–847), during which Ahmad b.
> a rarified status even after the title khalifa became debased in
> Hanbal’s (d. 855) heroic opposition to the caliphal governthe late Middle Ages through widespread usage by many
> ment’s efforts to enforce adherence to the Mu
tazilite docdifferent rulers of widely varying power and piety.
> trine of the createdness of the Quran upheld the ascendance
> Caliphal Succession Under the Abbasids                             of the book and the sunna over the will of the caliph of the
> As is attested to by the survival of hadith expressing some of     day. This triumph of the emerging Sunni approach to caliphal
> their views in the standard Sunni collections, aspects of the      legitimacy resulted in the dispersal of religious authority
> Khariji, Qadari, and Murjiite approaches all fell within the      away from a central governing body and toward multiple
> boundaries of what later became the Sunni discourse on the         schools of law and a decentralized clerical authority. In
> legitimacy of caliphal succession. But it was slogans borrowed     retrospect, this separation between Islam and the state infrom 
Alid groups later consigned by the heresiologists to the     sured that Islam would avoid the fate of Zoroastrianism, the
> moderate but nonetheless heretical fringes of Shi
ism that         official religion of Iraq-based, Middle East-wide, divineswept the Abbasids into office. The Abbasids borrowed three         absolutist Sassanian Empire to which the Abbasid caliph was
> planks from the 
Alid platform. First of all, they claimed the     successor, and develop into a supranational world religion
> right to caliphal succession as members of the house of            that was able to survive the demise of the first Islamic state.
> Muhammad (ahl al-bayt) by virtue of their eponymous ances-
> The Classical Theory of the Caliphate
> tor’s having been the uncle of the Prophet. Secondly, they
> It is one of the oft-noted paradoxes of Islamic intellectual
> claimed to be the beneficiaries of nass—designation by virtue
> history that the theory of caliphal succession was explicitly
> of the father of the first Abbasid caliph’s having had the imami
> formulated just at the time when the institution of the
> charisma transferred to him by the son of Muhammad b. alcaliphate was declining into political insignificance. But it is
> Hanafiyya, the reluctant figurehead of the revolt of al-Mukhtar
> precisely in weakness that political institutions are in need of
> which had first put both the mawali constituency and their
> theoretical bolstering. The fullest expression of the classical
> 
Alid ideology on the Islamic political map. Thirdly, they
> theory of the caliphate was articulated by al-Mawardi (d.
> claimed to be rightful caliphs by virtue of being the members
> 1058), whose Ahkam al-sultaniyya (Rules of sovereign power)
> of the family of Muhammad (Al Muhammad) most capable of
> defines the relationship between the caliph’s spiritual and
> achieving power. The first two of these claims were shaky to
> temporal duties, noting that the “imamate is established for
> say the least. While it is true that in terms of genealogy al-     the succession of prophecy in the preservation of the religion
> 
Abbas was on the right side of the 
Abd Manaf family tree         (din) and the administration of the world (dunya).”
> relative to Umayya, he had not even converted to Islam
> during Muhammad’s lifetime, and was certainly not the                  The necessity of the caliphate as a collective religious duty
> relative of the Prophet whom the 
Alids had in mind when           (fard kifaya) upon the Islamic community is demonstrated
> they chanted the slogan “most pleasing of the house of             through such shari
a evidence as hadiths enjoining obedience
> Muhammad.” The alleged transfer of imami charisma to the           to the imams, the ijma
 (consensus) of the community about
> father of al-Saffah by the son of Ibn al-Hanafiyya had all the      establishing an imam. Traces of the polemic against Shi
ism
> plausibility of the Donation of Constantine employed a half        that conditioned the formulation of the embryonic theories
> century later to justify papal dominion in Western Europe.         of caliphal succession of al-Mawardi’s predecessors—for ex-
> The third justification of the Abbasid succession—that the          ample, the Ash
arite theologians al-Baqillani (d. 1013) and al-
> Abbasids were the members of the family of the Prophet most        Baghdadi (d. 1037)—surface only rarely in al-Mawardi’s
> 
> 654                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Succession
> 
> exposition. The awkward position into which Sunni theorists         as a religious principle of legitimate political succession. For
> of the caliphate were squeezed by the need to defend the            Ibn Taymiyya, good Islamic government is any state in which
> historical record of the caliphate, on the one hand, and the        emirs and ulema collaborate in the interests of Islam.
> need to oppose Shi
ite theocratic conceptions of political
> succession, on the other is illustrated by al-Mawardi’s insis-          Al-Taftazani is far less sanguine about the removal of the
> tence that, while the caliph should be selected by election,        caliphate from the political legitimacy equation, and is far less
> rather than appointment, and this election can be accom-            ready than Ibn Taymiyya to accept the political fragmentaplished by a single elector—this last provision justifying what     tion of the Middle Period (c. 1000–1500) as a permanent
> became the most common mode of succession, appointment              feature of the Islamic world. Al-Taftazani’s views on the
> by a caliph of his son as heir. Al-Mawardi is careful to refer to   caliphate were referred to frequently by proponents of the
> this mode of succession as 
ahd (“investiture”) rather than         revival of the caliphate in the late nineteenth and early
> with the Shi
ite term nass (“designation”). Similarly, the          twentieth centuries. His Sharh was used as a textbook at alprinciple of imamat al-mafdul (“the imamate of the less             Azhar, and both his Maturidi rationalism and his frequent
> qualified”) does double duty for al-Mawardi. It serves as a          references to the salaf al-salih (“upright predecessors”) aprejection of the Kharijite stance that as soon as a better          pealed to the reformist Salafi movement of the nineteenth
> qualified candidate appeared he must replace a less qualified         century that touted original Islam as the true religion of
> sitting caliph no matter how much civil disturbance this            reason and enlightenment. By contrast, the favoritism toward
> might cause; it also counters Shi
ite claims that the succes-       Hanafism and eventual revival of caliphal universalism by the
> sions of the first three caliphs were illegitimate because 
Ali—     Ottoman sultans banished Ibn Taymiyya’s Hanbali puritanism
> who even by most Sunni accounts was a more qualified                 to the margins, where it became associated with groups on
> candidate than 
Uthman—was passed over. For all his will-           the religious fringe, such as the Wahhabis. However, after the
> ingness to compromise on the person of the caliph, al-              failure of the caliphal revival efforts of the 1920s, Ibn
> Mawardi strives at every point to uphold the sanctity of the        Taymiyya’s tactical retreat to “Islamism-in-one-country” got
> caliphal succession itself. Despite the many principles of          a second look from groups like the Muslim Brotherhood
> caliphal succession that he draws by analogy with shari
a           (Ikhwan al-Muslimin) that worked for Islamic renewal from
> contracts, al-Mawardi stresses that the caliphal bay
a is “a        the ground up instead of from the top down.
> public interest whose consequences go beyond that of private
> contracts” (al-Mawardi, al-Akham al-sultaniyya, p. 9).                  In the meantime, in addition to eradicating the Baghdad
> caliphate, the Mongols also brought to the Islamic world a
> As the caliphate progressively declined into powerlessness       theory of dynastic succession in which God chose the ruler of
> and caliphal succession eventually became the plaything of          the world directly, without the agency of the umma, and
> the sultan of the moment, al-Mawardi’s successors were              demonstrated His choice not through the consensus of scholforced into a progressively more realistic accommodation            ars but through the outcome of military struggles. This made
> with historical actuality. Al-Ghazali (d. 1111), for example,       the subject of legitimate political succession less a matter for
> adds to election and investiture by the preceding caliph a          prescription by men of religion and more a matter for
> third mode of succession: investiture by a man of power (rajul      description by historians. The most prominent of these was
> dhu shawka). As he reluctantly concedes: “Government in             Ibn Khaldun, “the world’s first sociologist,” who viewed the
> these days is a consequence solely of military power, and           succession of political sovereignty as driven by 
asabiyya—or
> whosoever he may be to whom the possessor of military               the ruling dynasty’s group cohesion. Indeed, he interprets the
> power gives his allegiance, that person is the caliph. ” (Al-       restriction by previous theorists of the caliphate to the house
> Ghazali, Ihya 
ulum al-din)                                        of Quraysh not as deriving from hadith text but rather as from
> the fact that Quraysh was in possession of the 
asabiyya of the
> Succession after the Caliphate                                      moment during the period of Islamic origins. Although Ibn
> After the Mongol conquests obliterated the Baghdad caliphate,       Khaldun is more of a historian than a religious scholar, his
> the terms in which men of religion evaluated the legitimacy of      views on the relationship of religion to political succession
> political succession diverged still further from al-Mawardi’s       were often quoted by later ulema because of his general
> “classical” theory. Two different approaches to a world with-       prestige. In particular, his portrayal of the Quraysh lineage
> out a caliph are represented by Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328) and al-      requirement as a practical rather than doctrinal consideration
> Taftazani (d. 1389). Ibn Taymiyya’s theory of the caliphate         was much cited by proponents of non-Quraysh candidates for
> can best be characterized as a revival of Kharijite positions.      the caliphate.
> He abandons the Quraysh lineage requirement, the imamate
> of the less qualified, and even the necessity of the caliphate          Dynastic succession displaced caliphal legitimacy as a
> itself. Ibn Taymiyya seems to regard excessive stress on the        political principle in the Islamic world from the Mongols
> importance of even the Sunni imamate as a Shi
ite-like heresy       through the period of the early modern Timurid, Safavid, and
> and is as antipathetic to Sunni consensus as to imami charisma      Ottoman empires. Toward the end of the nineteenth century
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                      655
> Sufism
> 
> the Ottoman sultan 
Abd al-Hamid II tried to counter na-            Watt, W. Montgomery. God’s Caliph: Quranic Interpretations
> tional separatism among Muslim ethnic minorities in the               and Umayyad Claims. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University
> empire by pushing the idea that the Ottoman sultans were              Press, 1971.
> legitimate successors to the caliphate on the basis of a dubious
> claim that the last descendant of the Abbasid caliphs in                                                             Mark Wegner
> Mamluk Cairo had transferred the caliphate to Selim III upon
> his conquest of Egypt in 1517. Immediately following the
> defeat of the Ottoman Empire in 1918, several efforts to
> revive the caliphate as a governing body of the world Muslim        SUFISM See Tasawwuf
> community garnered support among Islamic liberals and
> pan-Islamists. By then it was too late, however, European
> hegemony having imposed on the Middle East principles of
> political succession that had neither religious roots nor cultural resonance in the Islamic world. By the end of the             SUHRAWARDI, AL- (C. 1154–1191)
> twentieth century this had provoked an Islamist reaction
> whose vision of political legitimacy has far more in common         Shihab al-Din Yahya b. Amirak Suhrawardi was a philosowith historically marginal fringe Islamic political movements       pher and mystic whose Neoplatonic “Illuminationist” school
> than with traditional mainstream views of caliphal succession.      was a major influence on later Islamic philosophy, especially
> in Iran and India. Suhrawardi was born and educated in
> See also Abu Bakr; Caliphate; Empires: Abbasid;                     northwestern Iran and as a young man was an adherent of the
> Empires: Umayyad; Islam and Other Religions;                        Peripatetic philosophy of Avicenna. His mystical experiences
> Tasawwuf; 
Umar.                                                    and a famous dream of Aristotle convinced him of the
> inadequacy of this philosophy and made him a Platonist. The
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                        key elements in his new system were a reliance on intuition as
> Barthold, V. V. “Caliph and Sultan.” Islamic Quarterly 7            a basic tool of philosophy, the closely related theory of
> (1963): 117–138.                                                 knowledge later called knowledge by presence, and an insis-
> Binder, Leonard. “al-Ghazali’s Theory of Islamic Govern-            tence on the reality of the Platonic Forms conceived as
> ment.” The Muslim World 45 (1955): 229–241.                      immaterial intelligences. The most important statement of
> Crone, Patricia, and Hinds, Martin. God’s Caliph: Religious         his mature doctrine was his book Hikmat al-Ishraq (The
> Authority in the First Five Centuries of Islam. Cambridge,        philosophy of illumination), in which he attacked certain Peripa-
> U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1986.                           tetic doctrines and expounded his system in the form of a
> Gibb, H. A. R. “al-Mawardi’s Theory of the Khilafah.”               metaphysics of light.
> Islamic Culture 11 (1937): 291–302.
> Though Suhrawardi wrote his major works in Arabic, he
> Goitein, S. D. “A Turning Point in the History of the Muslim
> also wrote in Persian. His short philosophical allegories,
> State.” In his Studies in Islamic History and Institutions.
> written in a simple and elegant style, are still considered
> Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1968.
> masterpieces of early Persian prose.
> Ibn Khaldun. al-Muqaddima. Beirut: Dar al-Kitab al-
> Lubnani, 1961.                                                       In 1183 he attracted the attention of the young al-Malik
> Ibn al-Muqaffa
, 
Abdallah. al-Risala fi al-Sahaba. In Conseilleur   al-Zahir, the governor of Aleppo, and for a time enjoyed an
> du Calife. Edited and translated by Charles Pellat. Paris:       ascendancy over the prince that aroused the jealousy of
> G. P. Maisonneuve, 1972.                                         religious scholars and alarmed the prince’s father, the great
> Lambton, A. K. S. State and Government in Medieval Islam: An        Saladin, who was facing the threat of the Third Crusade. It
> Introduction to the Study of Islamic Political Theory. London:    seems likely that Saladin was alarmed by the political implica-
> Oxford University Press, 1981.                                    tions of Suhrawardi’s philosophy, which called for a mystical
> Margoliouth, D. S. “The Sense of the Title Khalifah.” Orien-        philosopher-king and which resembled the view of the Ismailis,
> tal Studies Presented to Edward G. Brown. Edited by T. W.         whom Saladin had suppressed in Egypt and Syria. Suhrawardi
> Arnold and R. A. Nicholson. Cambridge, U.K.: Cam-                 was put to death at Saladin’s orders, probably in 1191.
> bridge University Press, 1922.
> Qadi, Wadad al-. “The Term ‘Khalifa’ in Early Exegetical               Though Suhrawardi’s philosophy has always been in-
> Literature.” Die Welt des Islams 28 (1988): 392–411.              fluential in the Islamic East, it was almost unknown in
> Qadi, Wadad al-. “Religious Foundation of Late Umayyad              the West until it was popularized by the French Orientalist
> Ideology and Practice.” In Religious Knowledge and Political      Henry Corbin, who interpreted Suhrawardi as an Iranian
> Power. Edited by Manuela Martin et al. Madrid: Consejo            “theosopher” committed to the revival of ancient Iranian
> Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, 1993.                     thought. Though Corbin’s view remains influential, it has
> 
> 656                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Sultanates
> 
> been challenged by those who view Suhrawardi as a                 BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Neoplatonist whose project was primarily philosophical.           Mernissi, Fatima. The Veil and the Male Elite: A Feminist
> Interpretation of Women’s Rights in Islam. Translated by
> See also Falsafa; Ishraqi School; Tasawwuf.                         Mary Jo Lakeland. Reading, Mass.: Addison Wesley Publishing Co., 1991.
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                      Sanni, Amidu. “Women Critics in Arabic Literary Tradition
> Aminrazavi, Mehdi. Suhrawardi and the School of Illumination.        with Particular Reference to Sukayna bt. al-Husayn.”
> Richmond, Surrey, U.K.: Curzon, 1996.                              British Society for Middle Eastern Studies (July 1991): 358–366.
> Suhrawardi, Shihab al-Din. The Philosophy of Illumination.
> Edited and Translated by John Walbridge and Hossein                                                                 Rizwi Faizer
> Ziai. Provo, Utah: Brigham Young Univesity Press, 1999.
> Walbridge, John. The Leaven of the Ancients: Suhrawardi and
> the Heritage of the Greeks. Albany: State University of New
> York Press, 2000.                                               SULTAN See Monarchy
> 
> John Walbridge
> 
> SULTANATES
> SUKAYNA (671–737)
> AYYUBID
> Sukayna was the nickname (laqab) of the granddaughter of              Carole Hillenbrand
> Fatima (the daughter of the Prophet) and 
Ali bin Abi Talib.
> DELHI
> Her full name is variously given as Umayma (according to al-
> Iqtidar Alam Khan
> Kalbi) or Amina (according to al-Isbahani) bint Husayn. Her
> mother was al-Rabab bint Imri al-Qays al-Kalbiyya, a poet,          GHAZNAVID
> whose father was the reputed military leader of the Kalb.             Walid A. Saleh
> 
> MAMLUK
> Having lost both her father and husband (
Abdallah b. al-         Warren C. Schultz
> Hazan b. Abi Talib) at Karbala, Sukayna moved to Medina,
> where she acquired a taste for intellectual matters from her         MODERN
> Hassan Mwakimako
> mother. In 686 C.E. she married Mus
ab b. al-Zubayr (d. 691
> C.E.), who was killed fighting for his brother, 
Abdallah, the        SELJUK
> acknowledged caliph in Medina and Iraq. Then, after a                  Saïd Amir Arjomand
> couple of marriages which ended in divorce, she finally wed
> Zayd b. 
Umar, the grandson of 
Uthman b. 
Affan. She died
> as his widow at the age of sixty-seven.                           AYYUBID
> The Ayyubids were the family dynasty of Saladin (Salah al-
> A member of the ahl al-bayt (family of the Prophet),           Din), the famous Kurdish Muslim hero of the Crusades. The
> Sukayna nevertheless had the reputation of a barza, a woman       dynasty is normally dated from Saladin’s career onward (c.
> who is never veiled, entertains men at home, and is recog-        1169), but is named after Saladin’s father, Ayyub. In their
> nized for her judgment and sound reasoning. Her bold              heyday, the Ayyubids ruled Egypt, Syria, Palestine, the Jazira
> integrity was expressed politically in her opposition to the      (a region to the north of Baghdad and extending into Syria),
> Umayyads, and socially, in her marriage contracts, wherein        and Yemen. Their rule may be divided into three major
> she insisted on her freedom from marital control and de-          phases: Saladin’s career, his prominent successors, and the
> manded the monogamy of her intended husband. Though it            dynasty’s decline.
> was to a hairstyle—al-turra al-Sukayniyya—that she gave her
> name, Sukayna was, importantly, a lover of the arts: Accord-         Ayyub and his brother Shirkuh came from Dwin in Armenia
> ing to Abu Zinad (d. 757), Jarir (d. 728) and Farazdaq (d. 727)   and served the Turkish warlords Zengi and his son, Nur alwere two famous poets whose skills she encouraged, and Ibn        Din, Saladin’s two great predecessors in the Muslim “Counter-
> Surayj (d. 744), one of the great singers of the Hijazi School,   Crusade.” Saladin accompanied Shirkuh on three expeditions
> considered himself her protege, and set many of her verses        to Egypt in the 1160s. After Shirkuh’s death in 1169, Saladin
> to music.                                                         took control in Egypt in the name of Nur al-Din and
> reestablished Sunni Islam there. However, a rift began to
> See also Ahl al-Bayt; Law.                                        develop between Saladin and his master, Nur al-Din. This
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                      657
> Sultanates
> 
> rift was prevented from developing into open warfare only by       Ayyubid period the remaining Crusader states became fully
> the death of the latter in 1174. That same year Saladin sent his   integrated as local Levantine polities. The Ayyubids made
> brother Turanshah to conquer Yemen.                                treaties and truces with them and sometimes, as at al-Harbiyya
> (1244), fought alongside them against fellow Muslims. Trade
> Much of Saladin’s first decade as an independent ruler,         was important for the Ayyubids. They were afraid of further
> from about 1174 to 1184, was devoted to subjugating his            crusades being launched from Europe, which would disrupt
> Muslim opponents and creating a secure power base in Egypt         their lucrative arrangements with the Italian maritime states.
> and Syria for himself and his family. In 1187 he achieved a
> decisive victory against the Crusaders at the battle of Hattin        Despite their religious reverence for Jerusalem, the Ayyubid
> and reconquered Jerusalem for Islam. The Third Crusade,            dynasty never chose it as a capital, preferring Cairo or
> launched in response to this loss, ended in 1192 in truce and      Damascus. During the Fifth Crusade in 1219, al-Mu
azzam,
> stalemate. Saladin died the following year. Despite his un-        who, like other Ayyubids, had beautified the Holy City,
> doubted successes, he nonetheless failed to rid the Levant of      dismantled its fortifications lest it should fall into Crusader
> the Crusaders.                                                     hands again. This action, justified as sorrowful necessity by
> al-Mu
azzam, provoked widespread condemnation among
> Saladin did not envisage the development of a centralized      the local Muslim population. Worse was to come when alstate. He bequeathed a divided empire among his relations,         Kamil, plagued by inter-familial strife, and anxious to deflect
> giving his sons the three principalities centered on Damas-        another crusade, ceded Jerusalem to Frederick II. The Holy
> cus, Aleppo, and Cairo. In the ensuing power struggle,             City remained a pawn on the Levantine chessboard, coming
> Saladin’s brother, al-
Adil, a seasoned politician, rather than    back under the control of the Ayyubids in 1239 and then
> Saladin’s sons, emerged triumphant by 1202 and reorganized         handed back to the Crusaders five years later, then being
> Saladin’s inheritance in favor of his own sons. This kind of       sacked in 1244 by the Khwarazmians and returning to Musinter-clan struggle was deep-rooted. Yet, despite the frag-        lim control.
> mented nature of the Ayyubid confederation, three rulers, al-
Adil (1202–1218), al-Kamil (1218–1238), and al-
Ali           In other respects, the Ayyubids were keen to prove their
> Ayyub (1240–1249), managed to exercise overarching con-            Sunni credentials, building religious monuments in Jerusatrol. The succession of rulers in Aleppo remained among            lem, Damascus, Cairo, and elsewhere and choosing grandiose
> Saladin’s direct descendants. Other principalities were set        jihad titulature on their correspondence, coins, and monuup in Transjordan and Mesopotamia. Two of these, and               mental inscriptions. They founded no less than sixty-three
> Mesopotamia, survived beyond the year 1250.                        religious colleges in Damascus alone (the Ayyubids were
> Shafi
is or Hanafis). They welcomed Sufis, for whom they
> In 1218, the Fifth Crusade arrived in Egypt but made little    founded cloisters (khanqahs).
> impact. That year al-
Adil died and was succeeded by his son,
> al-Kamil, who in the treaty of Jaffa (February 1229) gave             The Ayyubids’s relationship with the Baghdad caliphate
> Jerusalem back to Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor and             was complex. Like earlier military dynasties that had usurped
> king of Germany. However, al-Kamil retained a Muslim               power, the Ayyubids sought legitimization from the caliph in
> enclave in Jerusalem, including the Aqsa Mosque, the Dome          Baghdad. Caliphal ambassadors mediated in inter-Ayyubid
> of the Rock, and a corridor from Jerusalem to the coast. The       disputes, and the caliph al-Nasir (d. 1225) created around
> pious on both sides were horrified at this diplomatic maneuver.     himself a network of spiritual alliances with Muslim rulers,
> including the Ayyubids. Such symbolic links did not remove
> The death of al-Kamil in 1238 ushered in a turbulent            mutual suspicion, however. Both sides feared each other’s
> period. His son, al-
Ali Ayyub, emerged as the new sultan          expansionist aims and denied each other military support.
> with the help of the Khwarazmians, displaced troops from
> Central Asia who had fled the approaching the Mongols. In               Saladin inherited eastern governmental traditions brought
> 1244 the Khwarazmians sacked Jerusalem, to widespread              to Syria by the Seljuks. In Egypt continuity also existed
> condemnation. The Ayyubid dynasty was terminated in 1250           between Fatimid and Ayyubid practice, especially in taxation.
> in a coup instigated by the sultan’s own slave troops, the         This process is mirrored in the career of Qadi al-Fadil, a
> Mamluks, who raised one of their number to the rank of             Sunni Muslim who had served the Fatimid government in
> sultan. At the same time a new crusade, launched against           Cairo but later became Saladin’s head of chancery. The
> Egypt under the French king Louix IX, was defeated by the          Ayyubids expanded the existing system of iqta
 (land given to
> Mamluks.                                                           army officers in exchange for military and administrative
> duties) to the benefit of their kinsmen and commanders.
> The unique focus of jihad during Saladin’s time was the         Armed with the revenues of Egypt, Saladin built up a strong
> reconquest of Jerusalem. This goal had faded by the thir-          army which included his own contingents (
askars) as well as
> teenth century. With the Crusaders, the Ayyubids often             iqta
 holders, vassals, and auxiliary forces. The Ayyubid arpracticed détente and they were criticized, even in their own      mies were composed of Kurds and Turks, with the latter
> time, for their lukewarm prosecution of jihad. During the          predominating. The recruitment of slave soldiers (mamluks),
> 
> 658                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Sultanates
> 
> SELJUKS OF RUM
> BYZANTINE                                                                                                                                              Lake Van
> EMPIRE                                         Konya
> 
> ayyafariqin
> Mayyafariqin
> IA                  1185: taken by Saladin
> EN
> ARM                                       Edessa
> LE
> LIT T          Tarsus
> 
> Antioch Aleppo                                        Mosul
> PRINCIPALITY                            1183:          Euphr
> OF ANTIOCH                             taken by            ate
> KINGDOM
> 
> sR
> Saladin
> OF CYPRUS
> 
> ive
> Syria
> 
> Tigr
> r
> Krak des
> 
> is R
> N
> Chevaliers
> 
> veri
> I
> COUNTY
> OF TRIPOLI
> 
> D
> 1174:
> taken by Saladin                                           Baghdad
> Damascus
> 
> A
> 8 Jul 1187: Surrenders to Saladin
> 1191: Recovered by Crusaders
> Acre          4 Jul 1187:
> 
> L
> Med iterranean Sea                                                            Hattin        Christians
> defeated
> KINGDOM OF                               by Saladin     A
> JERUSALEM                                          S
> Jerusalem         Dead Sea
> Alexandria                                              2 Oct 1187:
> To Tripoli                                                       taken by Saladin                F
> and Gabes
> O
> Cairo                          S
> 1169-71:                                  N
> Fatimid Caliphate
> overthrown by Saladin                           O                                                                                              N
> I
> I      N
> O      M
> D
> 
> E g y p t                                                                                                                 0           100                    200 mi.
> 
> N                                                                                                              0     100         200 km
> H
> e
> i le
> 
> j a
> R iv
> 
> Saladin and the
> er
> 
> z
> 
> Ayyubid Sultanate,
> 1169-1193
> Re
> 
> Qus
> d S
> 
> Boundary, 1193
> Maximum extent of
> ea
> 
> Crusader states, 1144
> Saladin’s advance, 1174-84
> other Ayyubid campaigns,
> Medina                    1174-90
> Yenbo
> routes of the Third
> Aswan                                                                                                 Crusade, 1188-92
> Zangids, 1127-1222
> City
> To Ibrim
> To Yemen
> 
> Saladin and the Ayyubid Sultanate 1169–1193. XNR PRODUCTIONS, INC./GALE
> 
> always a feature of Ayyubid military policy, intensified under                                    based on individual cities, such as Cairo and Damascus. Here
> al-
Ali Ayyub. This able ruler began to centralize his adminis-                                  the Ayyubid princes patronized the arts. Some, such as altration in Cairo, thus foreshadowing the policies of the                                         Amjad Bahramshah and Abul-Fida of Hama, were themselves
> Ayyubids’s successors, the Mamluks.                                                              men of letters; others (Saladin, al-
Adil, and al-Kamil) were
> exceptionally able rulers.
> Apart from Saladin’s brief attempt to build a navy, the
> Ayyubids were not interested in fighting the Crusaders at sea.                                       Two key characteristics of Ayyubid policy were already
> They did not construct castles in the Crusader manner,                                           evident in Saladin’s time: the promotion of Sunni Islam and
> preferring instead to build or strengthen city fortifications                                     the need to rule a united Syro-Egyptian polity. Saladin had
> and erect citadels, as in Cairo and Aleppo. The fragmented                                       acquired great prestige by abolishing the two hundred-yearnature of Ayyubid power led to a proliferation of small courts                                   old Ishma
ili Shi
ite caliphate of Cairo. The key Ayyubid
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                                                                                 659
> Sultanates
> 
> principalities were Cairo and Damascus; when these were           incorporated in the Ghorian state structure. These instituunited under one ruler, equilibrium and stability prevailed.      tions combined with Ghaurian control over the sources of
> horse supply, and their greater expertise in mounted archery
> It is important to view the Ayyubids not only in relation to   and use of crossbows may explain the sweep and rapidity of
> the Crusaders but also within their wider Islamic context,        their conquests in India. The Delhi sultanate’s success in
> where they had to contend with other neighboring states.          checking the Mongols had much to do with the efficacy of its
> Among these were the powerful Anatolian Seljuks, the Artuqids     military organization identified with the iqta
 system. 
Ala-aland the Zengids in the Jazira, and the Caucasian Christian        Din Khalji’s measures of price control and assessment of a
> kingdoms. Traditionally, the Ayyubids have been cast as           land-tax by measurement (wafa-e biswa) also greatly enlarged
> opportunistic, self-serving politicians, but their survival de-   the sultanate’s fiscal resources.
> pended on local Levantine solidarity. In times of crisis or
> external aggression the Ayyubids would ally with their close      Structure of Delhi Sultanate
> neighbors, whoever they were, to defend their territory.          During the thirteenth century, the sultans’ nobility consisted
> of two main segments: the Persian-speaking Tajiks and the
> See also Cairo; Caliphate; Crusades; Education; Saladin;          Turkish slaves. The latter were more influential; many of the
> Sultanates: Delhi; Sultanates: Ghaznavid; Sultanates:             high military positions and assignments were held by Turkish
> Mamluk; Sultanates: Modern; Sultanates: Seljuk.                   nobles of slave origin known as the forty (chahalgani). Balban’s
> reign witnessed the eclipse of the forty. There emerged a new
> Carole Hillenbrand     set of nobles many of whom, like Khaljis, were not necessarily
> of Turkish origin. There was also a perceptible tendency
> DELHI
> toward accommodating within the ruling elite Indian and
> The Ghorian prince Shahab al-Din (who assumed the title of
> Mongol converts to Islam as well as some of the Hindu
> Mu
izz al-Din Muhammad on becoming the sultan in 1202)
> warrior elements (rawats) having a long tradition of military
> conquered extensive territories in North India up to Bengal
> service. Ziya Barani’s perception of the rise of the “low born”
> during the years 1175 to 1206. His Turkish slave Qutb
> appears to be a reflection of this tendency, which became
> al-Din Aibek became an independent ruler following his
> quite strong during Muhammad Tughlaq’s reign (1325–1351).
> death in 1206. Aibak was succeeded by his slave Iltutmish
> (1211–1236), who, after having established himself at Delhi,          Once they received land tax at the rate of one-half of the
> received diploma of investiture as the “Sultan of India”          produce, the sultans did not disturb the rights of the nonfrom the Abbasid caliph. The Delhi sultanate thus formed          Muslims on the lands they tilled. Down to Firoz Shah
> was ruled over by the Turkish slaves down to 1290; by             Tughlaq’s accession (1351), no attempt was made to impose
> Iltutmish’s descendants until 1266, and by Ghiyas al-Din          jizya—a tax on the person rather than on the land, usually on
> Balban (1266–1286) and his offspring subsequently. Later,         non-Muslims—on any section of the non-Muslims, though
> during the period 1290 to 1412, it was ruled over successively    the land tax itself was often called khiraj-o-jizya. Again, the
> by two non-Turkish dynasties, the Khaljis (1290–1320) and         Hindu chiefs (rays and ranas) were left in possession of their
> Tughlaqs (1320–1412). The sultanate underwent great ex-           principalities in lieu of annual tribute; some of them were
> pansion during the reign of 
Ala al-Din Khalji (1296–1316),      even recruited as the officers of the sultan’s government.
> under whom Gujarat was annexed, and the southern states           Similarly, the village headmen (khuts and muqaddams) were
> down to Tamil Nadu were subjugated. By the time of Muham-         incorporated into the machinery of revenue collection. 
Ala
> mad Tughluq (1325–1351), all the major South Indian states        al-Din Khalji is reported to have prevented them from
> had been annexed. However, before his death a large number        shifting the burden of their share of land tax to the ordinary
> of provinces had seceded, forming independent principalities      peasants.
> such as the Bahmanis in the Deccan. Timur’s invasion in 1398
> weakened the sultanate irretrievably; thenceforth it ceased to    Economic and Cultural Impact
> be a pan-Indian entity.                                           The state patronage in the Delhi sultanate was distributed
> among deserving members of the Islamic elite by the head of
> Shahab al-Din’s original principality, Ghor, comprised        the ecclesiastical affairs (sadr al-sudur), who also acted as chief
> the Afghan province of the same name located in the zone          judge (qadi-e mumalik). He enforced the orthodox law through a
> more exposed to Iranian culture. It was organized on a clan       network of local courts.
> and family basis; the royal office was confined to the Shansbani
> clan while the military commanders (pahalwanan) were of the           The establishment of Delhi sultanate coincided with the
> Kharmil and Salar clans. The troopers were recruited from         coming to India of new skills and crafts such as the manufacamong the inhabitants of Ghor and those of the lowlands           ture of paper, the arcuate technique in buildings, and the
> (garmsir) in the Hilmand valley. After the occupation of          spinning wheel. The sultanate was marked by an urban
> Ghazni by the Ghorians in 1173 and 1174, the Ghaznavide           revival and commercial expansion. Both Delhi and Daulatabad
> tradition of governance identified with a corps of Turkish         (in the south) were exceptionally large cities by the standards
> slaves and a system of temporary land assignments (iqta
) was     of the time.
> 
> 660                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Sultanates
> 
> The sultanate gave rise not only to a large Muslim popula-     plains. Meanwhile, the Samanid emirs, under severe pressure
> tion but also to the implantation of a culture revolving round    from Turkish invaders from the inner Asian Steppes, had to
> the Persian language. As the noted poet Amir Khosrow              turn to Sebuktigin and his son Mahmud, who was already the
> (d.1325) showed, the Muslim stream began to merge with the        commander of the Samanid army. Having saved the Samanids,
> traditional Indian to create a genuinely composite culture.       Mahmud came to inherit most of their domains, bringing
> This was reflected in the realm of architecture where the two      their rule to an end.
> merged, to create not only the Qutb Minar at Delhi, but a
> number of other splendid monuments as well. The Sufic                  Through a life of continuous military campaigning,
> schools interacted with the Yogic, and played their part in       Mahmud (r. 998–1030) built a vast empire; by the time of his
> bringing about the later monotheistic movements of Kabir          death he had united eastern Iran and the southern parts of the
> and Nanak.                                                        Oxus River, Khwarazm, northern Iran, Afghanistan, and
> northern India. The army that conquered this realm was
> See also Sultanates: Ghaznavid; Sultanates: Mamluk;               made up of professional Turkish slave-soldiers who were
> Sultanates: Seljuk.                                               bought and trained for the purpose of fighting. Its core was
> the ghulam-e saray, an elite palace guard. Alongside this core
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                      was a wider force of Turkish slave-soldiers. The Ghaznavids,
> Habib, Irfan. “Formation of the Sultanate Ruling Class of the     in turn, employed other auxiliary soldiers, such as Iranians,
> 13th Century.” In Vol. 1, Medieval India. Edited by Irfan       Arabs, and Hindus. In its campaigns in India, the Ghaznavid
> Habib. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1992                     army was augmented by ghazis, or volunteer Muslim para-
> Jackson, Peter. The Delhi Sultanate: A Political and Mili-        military groups. In many respects, the story of the Ghaznavids
> tary History. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University            prefigures the story of the Ottoman Empire: each at the
> Press, 1999.                                                   periphery of the Muslim world, each made up of a Turkish
> core, and both staunchly orthodox in their ideology.
> Iqtidar Alam Khan
> This expanding military sultanate was, however, in the
> GHAZNAVID                                                         long run impossible to maintain. It would be dealt a crushing
> The Ghaznavids were a Turkish slave-soldier dynasty (mamluk       defeat soon after it reached its zenith. Mahmud, busy camor ghulam) who ruled a sultanate that rose to dominance in        paigning in India, where looting Buddhist monasteries had
> eastern Iran, central Afghanistan, and modern-day Pakistan        become a very profitable enterprise, failed to realize the
> during the eleventh and twelfth centuries C.E. Though on the      danger posed by the advancing Seljuq Turkish tribes. His son
> periphery of the Muslim world at the time, this sultanate was     Mas
ud (r. 1030–1041) was no match to the challenge when
> to play a major role in the formation of Persian literature and   the moment arrived. The battle of Dandanqan (1040) in
> the opening of India for Muslim control. Motives aside, the       Khorasan was so decisive that the Ghaznavid Sultan, having
> Ghaznavids were great patrons of arts and literature, and         been forced to abandon all of the northern parts of his
> their courts were magnets for a large number of poets, artists,   empire, was even contemplating deserting Ghazna. This
> and scholars. The Persian national epic, the Shah-nameh, was      being a military empire, the soldiers soon killed their discreddedicated by Firdawsi (940–1025) to Sultan Mahmud (r.             ited sultan.
> 998–1030). Even more than the Samanid dynasty that preceded them, the Ghaznavids brought a huge realm under the             The battle of Dandanqan signaled a turning point in the
> control of a single dynasty that made Persian the primary         history of the Ghaznavids. Mawdud (r. 1041–1048), the new
> language of communication, both officially, as the language        sultan, would work on consolidating what was left of the
> of the chancery, and artistically, as the preferred language of   empire, which meant an expansion toward the Indian subconpanegyrics addressed to the sultans. Moreover, Iranians would     tinent. First Ghazna and then Lahore would be made the
> start writing their histories now in Persian, a move of mo-       capital cities of what was now the first important Indian
> mentous cultural significance. Arabic continued to enjoy the       Muslim sultanate. Less is known about the remaining one
> primary position as the language of science, and religion, yet    hundred and fifty years of the dynasty than is known about
> Persian now stood on its own and soon would come to replace       the earlier phase, since far fewer sources are preserved, but
> Arabic in most fields.                                             this should not skew a present-day assessment of the historical significance of the later Ghaznavids. By turning their
> The founder of the dynasty was Sebuktigin (r. 977–997), a      energy to northern India, they made possible the Islamization
> Turkish commander in the semi-independent city of Ghazna.         and conquest of large parts of India by later Muslim invaders.
> Though part of the Samanid state, Ghazna was governed by          Their courts remained centers of literary and cultural activarmy generals who ten years earlier had rebelled against the      ity, producing such important works as the Persian translacentral authority. Sebuktigin managed to consolidate his rule     tion of the classic in statecraft, Kalila va Dimna, and the
> in Afghanistan and was able to defeat the Hindushahis princes,    poetry of Mas
ud Sa
d Salman. In 1186 the Ghurids brought
> wresting from them the Kabul river basin and the Panjab           this dynasty to an end.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                   661
> Sultanates
> 
> The Ghaznavids were fortunate to be immortalized by the            The Mamluks of al-Salih established a ruling system in
> adoration and admiration that was showered on Mahmud and            which only Mamluks were supposed to participate. The
> later sultans by poets, ulema, and ideologues. Their rise to        sultan was to be a primus inter pares, atop a hierarchy of
> power would become exemplary in the mirror-of-princes               graduated ranks and responsibilities. As both the sultan and
> literature. Moreover, Mahmud and his page Ayaz would                leading Mamluk emirs would purchase Mamluks of their
> become the ideal lovers for the Sufis, who sang of their love in     own, the jockeying for power and influence among the
> their poetry. Some modern Indian Muslims would revive the           resulting factions was often quite intense and complex. A
> memory of Mahmud as a Muslim Indian hero.                           typical Mamluk career might begin in the ranks, and then
> progress through the grades of Emir of ten (number of
> See also Persian Language and Literature; Sultanates:               Mamluks in his retinue), Emir of forty, and Emir of one
> Seljuk.                                                             hundred. In addition to these promotions, a Mamluk might
> receive positions in the military-political administration, from
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                        posts as governors of small towns or larger cities to com-
> Bosworth, Clifford Edmund. The Ghaznavids: Their Empire in          mander of the army or even vice sultan. Salaries for the lower
> Afghanistan and Eastern Iran 994–1040. Edinburgh: Edin-           ranks would consist of cash payments. As his rank increased, a
> burgh University Press, 1963.                                     Mamluk would count on receiving an iqta
, or right of
> Bosworth, Clifford Edmund. The Later Ghaznavids: Splendour          revenue, from agricultural districts of varying size and wealth.
> and Decay, The Dynasty in Afghanistan and Northern India          Cadastral surveys were carried out early in the Mamluk
> 1040–1186. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1977.           sultanate to aid in the process of revenue inventory and iqta

> distribution.
> Walid A. Saleh
> As freeborn Muslims, the sons of Mamluks were excluded
> MAMLUK                                                              from the system. This was the ideal. In actuality, upon
> The Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt and Syria (1250–1517) had             reaching the sultanate many Mamluks attempted to pass the
> its origins in the recruitment of military slaves (Arabic mamluk,   office on to their sons. While we thus see apparent “dynasliterally “owned”) by the Ayyubid sultan of Egypt, al-Malik         ties” of sultans from the same lineage—the most famous
> al-Salih (d. 1249). By this time, military slavery was a well-      being that descended from al-Malik al-Nasir Muhammad ibn
> established institution in the Islamic world. Young males           Qalawun (third reign, 1309–1340)—most of these sultans
> from outside the Islamic world would be purchased as slaves,        were in fact puppets, controlled by the senior Mamluk emirs
> transported to the city of the purchaser, converted to Islam,       who were maneuvering to take the throne themselves. Many
> and trained in the techniques of war. Upon reaching adult-          of the sons of Mamluks, known collectively as awlad al-nas
> hood and usual manumission, they would form—it was                  (“sons of the people,” that is, of those who matter), pursued
> hoped—a loyal military force, without ties to the local popu-       careers in other endeavors.
> lation. In the turbulent period after al-Salih’s death (during a
> Crusader invasion of Egypt), al-Salih’s Mamluks murdered                Fueled by the agricultural richness of Egypt and sitting
> his son and heir Turanshah. Over the ensuing decade they            astride the lucrative trade routes linking the Mediterranean
> took steps to rule in their own name. By the time these             region to the Indian Ocean and points east, the cities of the
> Mamluks defeated the invading Mongols at 
Ayn Jalut in              Mamluk sultanate were centers of commerce, art, and learn-
> Palestine in 1260, they controlled the Nile valley and much of      ing. The Mamluk sultans recognized and supported all four
> the Syro-Palestinian littoral. Under the early sultans, most        Sunni schools of law, and appointed (and demoted) chief qadis
> notably Baybars (1260–1277) and Qalawun (1279–1290), the            (judges) at their discretion. The patronage of leading Mamluks
> Mamluks eventually eliminated the last of the Crusader states       resulted in the construction of many mosques, madrasas, Sufi
> and kept the Mongol Il-Khans at bay. The Mamluk regime              khanqas (hospice), and other structures. Mamluk financial
> remained a major regional power until it was conquered by           support for the building and upkeep of these institutions was
> the Ottoman Sultan Selim I in 1517.                                 often codified in endowment deeds (waqfs). These would
> typically provide for the salaries of the clerics who taught
> The Mamluk Sultanate is commonly divided into two                there and the religious functionaries who staffed the buildperiods. The contemporary sources base this division on             ings, underwrite the living expenses of students, and support
> the ethnicity of the leading Mamluks. During the first pe-           other charitable activities. One repercussion of this active
> riod, which ended in 1382, the majority of the sultans were         religio-educational environment was the production of a
> Turks from the Kipchak steppe. During the second period             large number of written works in many genres. Today those
> (1382–1517), most of the sultans were ethnic Circassians.           same texts provide a wealth of primary source material for
> The utility of this division is limited. Moreover, the labels       scholars interested in Mamluk history, culture, and society.
> Bahri and Burji, frequently applied to the same twofold
> periodization, are of later invention and should be avoided as      See also Sultanates: Delhi; Sultanates: Ghaznavid;
> they do not hold up to scrutiny.                                    Sultanates: Seljuk.
> 
> 662                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Sultanates
> 
> Battle of Cairo, 1798. Murad Bey’s Mamluk army lost control of Egypt to the French, led by Napoleon Bonaparte. © HISTORICAL PICTURE
> ARCHIVE/CORBIS
> 
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                       Muslim societies. Sultanate implies a Muslim polity preclud-
> Ayalon, David. Studies on the Mamluks of Egypt (1250–1517).        ing the caliphal states. The Islamic political doctrine lays
> London: Variorum Reprints, 1977.                                 emphasis on the umma, whose internal organization was
> Ayalon, David. The Mamluk Military Society. London: Vario-         secured and defined by a common acceptance of and submisrum Reprints, 1979.                                              sion to the shari
a and the temporary head of the community,
> the caliph or the sultan, who are religious leaders, representa-
> Ayalon, David. Islam and the Abode of War: Military Slaves and
> Islamic Adversaries. London: Variorum Reprints, 1994.            tives of the communities, and sometimes referred to as the
> successors of the Prophet, (khalifat rasul Allah), or command-
> Holt, P. M. The Age of the Crusades: The Near East from
> ers of the faithful (amir al-muminin), but subordinate to the law.
> Eleventh Century to 1517. London: Longman, 1986.
> Irwin, Robert. The Middle East in the Middle Ages: The Early           Muslims believe in the divine origins of government.
> Mamluk Sultanate 1250–1382. Carbondale: Southern Illi-          Authority emanates from God and the shari
a established the
> nois University Press, 1986.                                    principles or roots of religion (usul al-din). Islamic law is
> Petry, Carl F., ed. The Cambridge History of Egypt,Vol. 1:         immutable. The Islamic political theory assumes absence of
> Islamic Egypt, 640–1517. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge             legislative powers by humans and the state, but the state and
> University Press, 1998.                                         rulers are expected to carry out the law. To disobey a law is to
> Raymond, André. Cairo. Translated by Willard Wood. Cam-            infringe on a rule of the social order. As such, it is an act of
> bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000.                   religious disobedience, a sin (fisq), involving a religious penalty. Consequently, the Islamic theory of government views
> Warren C. Schultz       man as khalifat rasul Allah and produced idealistic forms of
> government based on lineage illustrative of Max Weber’s
> MODERN                                                             sultanism, which refers to Middle Eastern Muslim rulers who
> Sultan is a Near-Eastern term that connotes a variant form of      dominate their society through the establishment and devel-
> Muslim governors emerging out of the Ottoman, Umayyad,             opment of administrations and military forces as purely
> and Abbasid practices of ruleship, power, and authority over       personal instruments of the sultans. Sultanates are, therefore,
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                       663
> Sultanates
> 
> geographical and political units that characterize Muslim        trading interests, which eventually escalated into open conpower embodied in patronage, nepotism and cronyism. Nev-         flict. Reforms followed thereafter, including preparations to
> ertheless, not all regimes headed by a sultan were in fact       terminate the British protectorate when the sultanate became
> “sultanism” in Weber’s definition. Other scholarship refutes      an independent constitutional monarchy. In 1964, the Afrithis view especially in the case of the Ottoman Empire, which    can populations revolted against Sultan Jamshid b. 
Abdullah
> had a political system that was much more bureaucratic,          (b. 1929) and led Zanzibar to join mainland Tanganyika to
> based on objective rules rather than being rapacious and         form the Republic of Tanzania, thus ending one of Africa’s
> despotic. Ottoman historian Halil Inalcik applied sultanism      Muslim sultanates. While Sultan Jamshid was deposed the
> to the Ottoman Empire without ascribing negative connota-        Oman branch has continued with Sultan Qaboos b. Sa
id (b.
> tions, thus minimizing its anti-Islamic tinge.                   1940) as the head. Other petty sultanates in the eastern coast
> of Africa include the Pate sultanate founded by Nabhani
> Nineteenth to twenty-first century sultanates in Islamic       Arabs around 1205. Around 1858 former rulers of Pate
> communities are construed as polities based on personal          founded the sultanate of Witu, which became a German
> rulership, where loyalty to the ruler is motivated not by        protectorate in 1885 and a British protectorate in 1890.
> embodying an ideology, or charismatic qualities, but by a
> mixture of fear and rewards to collaborators. Sultans exercise       The Sokoto sultanate is a West African Islamic empire
> power at their own discretion and are unencumbered by            established by a Fulani cleric named 
Uthman dan Fodio
> rules, usually subverting bureaucratic administration by arbi-   (1754–1817). By 1812 his jihads had conquered most Hausa
> trary personal decrees. Those who administer sultanates are      states of northern Nigeria. As the territory of the sultanate
> chosen by the ruler, and may include family members, friends,    extended, it was divided in 1817 into the emirate of Gwandu
> or individuals who submit themselves to the ruler. Some          and the sultanate of Sokoto, each being overlord to a number
> sultanates are modern, but are nevertheless characterized by     of tributary emirates. The sultan of Sokoto remained overthe weakness of their legal legitimacy.                          lord of the empire. Dan Fodio was succeeded by his son
> Muhammad Bello (1781–1837). In 1885 the empire was
> Twentieth-century examples of Muslim sultanates inconquered by the British but the sultans survived through
> clude the sultanate of Oman located on the southeastern
> indirect rule. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries sub-
> Arabian Peninsula. Ruled on Ibadhi principles by the Aljects of the sultanate held important portfolios in Nigeria
> Busaidi dynasty, the Ibadhis initially believed that the umma
> including the first premier of Northern Nigeria, Ahmadu
> had priority over the ruler and could function without the
> Bello, and Shehu Shagari (b. 1925), the first executive presisuperior authority because people could themselves apply the
> dent of Nigeria (1979–1983). In 2002, the sultan of Sokoto
> shari
a. The Yarubi dynasty changed this with succession
> was Muhammad Maccibo ibn Abubakar (b. 1948).
> based on preference for members of current ruling families
> over claims of outsiders. The sultanate emerged in 1791             The sultanate of Brunei is located on the northern coast of
> when Ahmad b. Sa
id al-Busa
idi seized control of Muscat         the island of Borneo, in eastern Asia. Its people are Malay
> from his brother Imam Said b. Ahmad and informally recog-        with Chinese and Indian minorities and a variety of indigenized a single ruling family, assuming the title of sayyid       nous communities such as the Dayaks, Iban, and Kelabit.
> or sultan.                                                       Chinese annals of the sixth and seventh centuries indicate
> early Islamic influences, as evidenced by Jawi, a script derived
> In 1840, Sayyid Sa
id b. Sultan b. Sa
id al-Busa
idi
> from Arabic that had been in use as the written language
> (1791–1856) acceded to the throne after the death of his
> before 1370. The late fourteenth century saw a widespread
> father, Sayyid Sultan b. Ahmad. He moved his capital from
> Muscat to Zanzibar and established the sultanate of Zanzibar,    conversion to Islam in Brunei as Sultan Muhammad Shah,
> which ruled the towns and settlements along the eastern coast    formerly Awang Alak Betatar, embraced Islam and became
> of Africa through the nineteenth century. From the close of      the first Muslim ruler around 1371. Islam spread rapidly
> the seventeenth century, Zanzibar and its territories formed     when Sharif 
Ali from Taif, a descendant of the Prophet’s
> part of the Oman sultanate, then a powerful maritime regime.     grandson Husayn, became sultan (Seri Sultan Berkat) suc-
> Sayyid Sa
id’s death in 1856 led to a succession dispute         ceeding his father-in-law, Sultan Ahmad. From the sixteenth
> between his sons and division of the sultanate between the       through nineteenth centuries Brunei was a powerful state
> Muscat branch and the African dominions. European influ-          ruling over the northern part of Borneo and the adjacent
> ences weakened the sultanate of Zanzibar, which became a         chain of islands. Its power declined when it became a British
> British protectorate in 1890. In 1898 the minor Sayyid 
Ali II   protectorate in 1888 and a British dependency in 1905. In
> ruled under a British regent.                                    1959, Sultan 
Umar 
Ali Saifuddin III, who had nominal
> authority, promulgated the first constitution. In 1963 Brunei
> During the late nineteenth century, the sultanate of Zan-     declined to join the Federation of Malaysia. In October 1967,
> zibar experienced severe racial tensions between the pre-        Sultan 
Umar 
Ali Saifuddin Sa
adul Khairi Waddin abdidominantly African population, Arab landowners, and Indian       cated in favor of his eldest son, Sultan Haji Hassanatul
> 
> 664                                                                                          Islam and the Muslim World
> Sultanates
> 
> Bolkiah Mu
izzidin Waddaulah (b. 1946), who was coronated         armies had been recruited among the Turks, large landin August 1968. In 1979, a treaty was signed with the British,    grants were made to the members of the Seljuk family as
> and Brunei became an independent sovereign state in January       appanages, which, before long, were also referred to as iqta
.
> 1984. In 1991 Sultan Bolkiah introduced an ideology called
> Malay Muslim Monarchy that represented the monarchy as a             Nizam al-Mulk also built an extensive network of colleges
> defender of Islam.                                                (madrasas) throughout the empire. These became known as
> the Nizamiyyas after him, and were devoted to the teaching
> See also Caliphate; Monarchy; Succession.                         of orthodox traditions, law, and theology. He appointed
> many of the professors himself, including the great Muslim
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                      thinker, Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazali (d. 1111), who
> taught at the Nizamiyya college of Baghdad for a number of
> Binder, Leonard. “Al-Ghazali’s Theory of Islamic Governyears. The Seljuk sultans and the women of the ruling
> ments.” The Muslim World 45, no. 3 (1955): 209–325.
> household endowed similar colleges throughout the empire.
> Chehabi, H. E., and Linz, Juan J. Sultanistic Regimes. Bal-       The aim of Nizam al-Mulk’s educational reform, which was
> timore and London: The John Hopkins University                  somewhat controversially referred to as “the Sunni restora-
> Press, 1955.
> tion,” was to curb the influence of revolutionary Isma
ili
> Guenther, Roth, and Wittich, Claus, eds., Max Weber, Econ-        Shi
ism, which emanated from the Fatimid Empire in Egypt,
> omy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology. Berke-   the fortresses in northern Iranian mountains and the Isma
ili
> ley: University of California Press, 1978.                      clandestine cells in the cities.
> Haim, Gerber. State Society and Law in Islam: Ottoman Law in
> Comparative Perspective. Albany: State University of New           There can, however, be no doubt about the long-term
> York Press, 1994.                                               impact of the colleges on the pattern of learning and subse-
> Huntington, Samuel P. The Third Wave: Democratization in          quent development of Sunni Islam. Isma
ili militants assassithe Later Twentieth Century. Norman: University of Okla-        nated both Nizam al-Mulk and Malekshah in the same year,
> homa Press, 1991.                                               1092, which marked the end the unified empire. The Seljuks
> Inalcik, Halil. “Comments on ’Sultanism’: Max Weber               remained in power, and the sons and grandsons of Nizam al-
> Typification of the Ottoman Polity.” Princeton Papers in        Mulk remained prominent among their wazirs.
> Near Eastern Studies 1 (1992): 49–72.
> The disintegration of the Seljuk Empire did not result
> from revolutionary Isma
ili Shi
ism, but rather from the
> Hassan Mwakimako         Turkish tribal practice of dividing the kingdom as the patrimony of the ruler among his male heirs. In other words, the
> SELJUK                                                            Seljuks, like the Timurids and a number of other Turko-
> The Seljuk Sultanate was the first empire built by a Turkish       Mongolian dynasties, failed to solve the problem of succesnomadic tribe from Central Asia. In 1040, the Seljuks, who        sion without the division of the empire, and in the twelfth
> belonged to the Oghuz Turks, decisively defeated the              century the territory had become fragmented into a large
> Ghaznavid Sultan Mas
ud under the leadership of two broth-        number of principalities. Malekshah’s sons fought among
> ers, Tughril Beg and Chagri Beg. They went on to establish        themselves. One of them, Sultan Sanjar (1097–1157), became
> an empire in Iran that soon extended to Mesopotamia, where        a powerful ruler in the East, but the disintegration of the
> Tughril captured Baghdad in 1055 and assumed the titles of        empire elsewhere set in irreversibly. This fragmentation was
> sultan and shahanshah (shah of shahs). His nephew and             facilitated by the practice of granting large iqta
s, which
> successor, Alp Arslan (1063–1072), defeated and captured the      alienated provinces from central control, and even more by
> Byzantine emperor in the battle of Manzikert (Malazgird)          another Turkish institution: rule by the atabeg, who was the
> and opened Anatolia to Turkish migration. His son, Malekshah      tutor of a minor prince, but who would often marry his
> (1072–1092), completed the conquest of Syria in 1084. The         ward’s mother.
> empire thus extended from the Oxus to the Mediterranean. It
> is known as the empire of the Great Seljuks, and remained            Important Atabeg dynasties came into being in Azerbaijan,
> unified for some half a century.                                   Syria, northern Mesopotamia, and Fars, while different
> branches of the Seljuks ruled in Kerman and in Anatolia.
> The architect of this unity was Nizam al-Mulk (d. 1092),       Many of the Atabeg dynasties survived the death of the last
> the great wazir of Alp Arslan and Malekshah. Nizam al-            mainline Seljuk sultan, Tughril III, in 1194. The courts of
> Mulk unified the centralized administrative systems of the         these local dynasties became centers of culture, and contin-
> Ghaznavids in eastern Iran and the Buyids in western Iran         ued to support new institutions of Islamic learning, the
> and Iraq. In the western regions, he took over the system of      madrasas, through endowments. The kingdom of the Seljuk
> land assignments in exchange for military and administrative      of Rum (Anatolia) flourished in the thirteenth century, after
> service known as iqta
. In the east, where the conquering         the Mongol invasion, when their court received a large
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                 665
> Sunna
> 
> Sultan Hani Caravanserai Portal in Aksaray, Turkey, of the Anatolian Seljuk style. The Seljuks’ empire arose in the eleventh century, and
> ultimately included Iran, Mesopotamia, Turkey, and Syria. © VANNI ARCHIVE/CORBIS
> 
> number of learned refugees, such as the great poet and
> mystic, Jalaludin Rumi (d. 1273), and his father, who fled
> SUNNA
> from Iran to escape the advance of the Mongols.
> Sunna refers, in common usage, to the normative example of
> The women of the Seljuk ruling house were very power-              the prophet Muhammad, as recorded in traditions (hadith)
> ful, owing to the continuation of the Turkish nomadic cus-             about his speech, his actions, his acquiescence to the words
> tom. They were active in courtly politics, and acted as patrons        and actions of others, and his personal characteristics. This
> of religion and learning. Many of them had their own wazirs            close identification of sunna with Muhammad, and with
> even under the Great Seljuk sultans. Their power increased             authentic hadith reports originating with the Companions of
> further as queen mothers under the atabeg system after the             the Prophet, has prevailed since the ninth century. Earlier
> fragmentation of the Seljuk territories, and a few of them             sources, however, reflect a more flexible use of the term.
> ruled in their own right after the death of their husbands, as
> did Zahida Khatun, who ruled Fars in southern Iran for over               The noun “sunna” (pl. sunan) is related to the Arabic verb
> twenty years in the mid-twelfth century.                               sanna and refers to a normative practice ordained or instituted
> by a specific person. The argument that sunna refers more
> See also Sultanates: Ghaznavid; Nizam al-Mulk.                         generally to group norms or tribal customs is based on a false
> etymology, which takes sunna to refer to a smooth or well-
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                           worn track, implying in a social context the established or
> Boyle, J. A., ed. The Cambridge History of Iran, Vol. 5: The           “well-trodden” custom of a tribe or group. In fact the ancient
> Saljuq and Mongol Periods. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge                Arab idea of sunna is necessarily associated with a particular
> University Press, 1968.                                              person responsible for establishing that sunna. “Every people
> has a sunna,” according to a celebrated Arab poet, “and a
> Saïd Amir Arjomand           progenitor of that sunna.” Such sunna can be good or bad.
> 
> 666                                                                                                 Islam and the Muslim World
> Sunna
> 
> The same poet boasts that his ancestors left nothing bad in         distrusted hadith reports and argued that to follow the prothe way of sunna, and early Muslim traditions warn against          phetic sunna simply meant to follow the Quran; scholars of
> following the bad sunna of the pre-Islamic Arabs.                   Islamic law, the ahl al-ray, who acknowledged the authority
> of prophetic sunna in theory, but resisted its exclusive identi-
> Bad sunna is also a concern of the Quran, where the word        fication with hadith and relied on other sources as well; and
> appears in two contrasting expressions: sunnat al-awalin, the       traditionists, the ashab al-hadith, represented by al-Shafi
i,
> sunna of the ancients, which incurs the judgment of God; and        who argued that sunna could only be known from reliable
> sunnat Allah, the sunna of God, according to which He metes         hadith reports traced back to the Companions of the Prophet.
> out judgment. The Quran thus contrasts ancestral norms to
> the norms of God, according to which the ancestral sunna            Sunna as Revelation
> will be judged. The Quran never explicitly associates sunna        The traditionist argument championed by al-Shafi
i ultiwith Muhammad, although the notion may be considered                mately won the day, a triumph reflected in the elevation of
> implicit in the repeated Quranic command to obey God and           sunna to the status of revelation (wahy). According to one
> His Prophet.                                                        hadith report that reflects the traditionist point of view,
> “Gabriel used to descend to the Prophet with sunna just as he
> Early Muslim Uses of the Term                                       descended with the Quran.” This and many similar tradi-
> It was natural, given Muhammad’s prominence and the                 tions reflect the early, pre-dogmatic form of a doctrine that
> Quranic command to obey him, that early Muslims began to           would later be spelled out explicitly: that the Quran repreconsider the Prophet a source of sunna. Ideas about prophetic       sents recited revelation (wahy matlu) whereas sunna is unrecited
> sunna among the earliest Muslims differed significantly from         revelation (wahy ghayr matlu). The two manifestations of
> later usage, however. First, the association of sunna with          revelation differ in form and function—the words of the
> Muhammad was not exclusive. The first four caliphs in                Quran are themselves of divine provenance and the Quran is
> particular, and the Companions of the Prophet in general,           recited in ritual worship—but the Quran and sunna do not
> were also sources for sunna. The caliph 
Umar, for instance,        differ in substance. Both are revealed by God and are equally
> asserted his freedom with regard to the appointment of a            authoritative sources of guidance. This doctrine bears a
> successor on the basis of conflicting precedents: Muhammad           striking similarity to the doctrine in rabbinic Judaism of a
> did not appoint a successor, whereas Abu Bakr did. Hence, for       dual Torah, one part written, one part orally transmitted by
> 
Umar, either course of action was sunna. Similarly, 
Ali           the rabbis, but both originating with Moses at Mount Sinai.
> reports that Muhammad and Abu Bakr both applied forty               The authority of sunna was further reinforced by the doctrine
> lashes as a penalty for drinking wine, while 
Umar applied          of 
isma—the assertion that, as Prophet, Muhammad was
> eighty. In the words of the tradition, “All this is sunna.”         protected by God from error.
> 
> For those who circulated such traditions, Muhammad’s                 In practice the relation of the Quran to sunna came to be
> sunna was one sunna among many, and in principle held no            expressed in the maxim, “the Quran has more need of the
> higher status than the sunna of Abu Bakr or 
Umar. This             sunna than the sunna has of the Quran.” As al-Shafi
i argued,
> association of sunna with prominent leaders other than the          the Quran gives general commands, whereas the sunna
> Prophet continued among Shi
ite Muslims, for whom the               specifies the exact intent and application of those commands.
> Shi
ite imams became sources of sunna. The second differ-           Without sunna, Muslims would know, for example, that they
> ence between early understandings of sunna and those that           should perform ritual worship, salat, but they would be in the
> came later was that, in early Muslim usage, sunna was not yet       dark about precisely when, how, or how often to do so.
> closely identified with hadith. Early theological treatises and      Moreover, the sunna provides the historical context essential
> historical reports show a clear dissociation of the two ideas.      for interpretation of the Quran by means of the “occasions of
> Sunna was often invoked as a general principle of justice or        revelation,” or asbab al-nuzul.
> right conduct, without any reference to specific hadith reports. Even more significantly, some of the earliest Muslim              The dependence of Quran on sunna, and the primacy of
> legal writings are virtually hadith free. Malik b. Anas (d. 795),   the latter, is further illustrated in discussions of abrogation
> author of the Muwatta, the earliest extant manual of Islamic       (naskh). Most legal scholars agreed that prophetic sunna had
> law, appeals to sunna but treats the existing practice of the       in certain cases abrogated, that is, replaced, earlier revela-
> Muslims of Medina as a more reliable source of that sunna           tions, whether in the Quran or in a prior sunna. “There is no
> than hadith.                                                        dispute,” writes the great medieval theologian al-Ghazali (d.
> 1111), “that the Prophet did not abrogate the Quran on his
> During the lifetime of the great jurist Muhammad b. Idris        own initiative. He did it in response to inspiration. God does
> al-Shafi
i (d. 820) these early, flexible ideas of sunna still        the actual abrogating, operating through the medium of his
> persisted, but they were under challenge. In his polemical          Prophet.” Information about which commands abrogate and
> writings Shafi
i records a contest to define sunna involving          which are abrogated can only be known, of course, by means
> three parties: speculative theologians, the ahl al-kalam, who       of sunna.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                     667
> Sunna
> 
> Sunna and Hadith                                                      From the perspective of Muslim piety, however, the sunna
> The primacy and authority of sunna as a form of revelation, as     of the Prophet as reflected in authenticated hadith reports
> the authoritative commentary on the Quran and as an               was to be imitated in all its particulars. Thus al-Ghazali
> independent source of guidance, was thus established in            instructs Muslims that “the key to joy is following the sunna
> principle. In practice, however, knowledge of sunna required       and imitating the Prophet in all his comings and goings,
> sifting authentic traditions from the voluminous, diverse, and     words and deeds, extending to his manner of eating, rising,
> forgery-ridden mass of hadith reports. The chief tool for this     sleeping, and speaking.” The term sunna also came to be used
> sifting was examination of the isnad, a hadith report’s formal     more generally in any claim to represent the authentic and
> chain of transmission. Hadith specialists evaluated the isnad      original practice of the Muslim community. The opposite of
> on two criteria: the reliability of the individuals who trans-     sunna in this sense is bid
a, or innovation. Thus Sunni Musmitted the tradition, and continuity within the chain of           lims distinguished themselves from Shi
ites and claimed to
> transmission.                                                      represent the authentic legacy of the Prophet by adopting the
> label ahl al-sunna wa
l jama
a, people of the sunna and of the
> When those alleged to have transmitted a tradition met         community. It is also in this sense that reformist Muslims
> the highest standards of character, memory, and reliability,       have from time to time called for a revival of the sunna as
> and when each transmitter could be shown to have been in           remedy for the ills of their time. Such appeals have been
> sufficient proximity with the next to have plausibly passed on      especially associated with scholars of the Hanbali school of
> the report, then the tradition could be considered sound           law, most notably the school’s founder, Ahmad b. Hanbal (d.
> (sahih). Traditions judged less reliable were classified as fair    855), and its most celebrated medieval jurist, Taqi al-Din Ibn
> (hasan), weak (da
if), or fabricated (mawdu
). A huge literature   Taymiyya (d. 1328), whose intellectual legacy has continued
> grew up around this process, including massive biographical        to modern times.
> dictionaries, collections of hadith, and manuals of hadith
> Modern Controversies
> criticism. The process of sifting hadith culminated in the
> A call to revive the sunna (ihya al-sunna) became a particular
> tenth century with the compilation of the great collections of
> focus of eighteenth-century reformers like Shah Wali Allah
> sahih hadith, especially the six “canonical” collections, the
> of India and Muhammad al-Shawkani of Yemen, who apmost celebrated of which are those of Muhammad b. Isma
il
> pealed to sunna to critique existing religious practices and
> al-Bukhari (d. 870) and Muslim b. al-Hajjaj (d. 874). From the
> received legal doctrine. This pattern of sunna-based reform
> tenth century onward, the canonical collections of hadith,
> continued in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, espeespecially the collections of Bukhari and Muslim, became
> cially among certain Indian Muslims who called themselves
> virtually synonymous with sunna, exerting a profound and
> the Ahl-e Hadith (people of the hadith) as well as among the
> pervasive impact on Islamic culture.
> salafi reformers of Egypt and Syria. At the same time that
> these reformers were emphasizing the centrality of sunna as a
> The Influence of Sunna on Islamic Law and Piety
> means of reviving Islam, however, others began to challenge
> The triumph of hadith had an especially deep impact on the
> its authority for the same purpose.
> theory and method of Islamic law. The traditionist thesis
> exerted extraordinary pressure to document every legal opin-           Modern challenges to the authority of sunna have had two
> ion with generous citations of hadith, hence the tendency for      points of focus. First, a number of Muslims have argued that
> hadith reports to proliferate and for chains of transmission to    the hadith reports from which sunna is derived are unreliable.
> grow backwards. The impact of hadith on the actual content         Nineteenth-century modernists Sayyid Ahmad Khan (d. 1898)
> of the law was mitigated, however, in a variety of ways.           of India and Muhammad 
Abduh (d. 1905) of Egypt were
> Acceptance of a hadith report as embodying authentic sunna         among the first to openly express doubts about the reliability
> did not necessarily assure its legal application. Jurists com-     of hadith, partly under the influence of European hadith
> monly distinguished, for example, between the personal hab-        criticism. Beginning in the twentieth century some Muslims,
> its and preferences of the Prophet (al-sunna al-
adiyya) and       most notably Mahmud Abu Rayya and Ghulam Ahmad
> actions related to his Prophetic mission (sunnat al-huda). The     Parwez (d. 1985), came to reject hadith altogether, arguing
> former gave rise, at best, to recommended actions, while the       that oral transmission, rampant forgery, and the late recordlatter were legally binding. This distinction is reflected in a     ing of hadith reports in writing make it impossible to sort
> tradition that recounts an occasion on which Muhammad              authentic hadith from the mass of forgeries. Second, some
> gave bad advice to some date farmers. When confronted with         Muslims have argued that even if the details of Muhammad’s
> the unfortunate results he replied, “I am only human. If I         life could be known with certainty, not all of his words and
> command something related to religion, then obey, but if I         deeds are meant to be followed. Secularists, like Chiragh 
Ali
> order you to do something on the basis of my own opinion,          (1844–1895) and 
Ali 
Abd al-Raziq (1888–1966), argued that
> then I am only a human being.” Among the schools of Islamic        Muhammad’s authority was limited to spiritual matters only.
> law, only the Zahiris, who were extreme literalists, insisted      A small number of Quran-only Muslims, the so-called Ahl-e
> that the sunna in its entirety was legally applicable.             Quran (people of the Quran) of Pakistan as well as individual
> 
> 668                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Suyuti, al-
> 
> scholars like Parwez, contend that Muhammad’s only legacy          Yusuf, S. M. An Essay on Sunnah. Lahore: Institute of Islamic
> is the Quran. Even some revivalist Muslims, notably Abu l-          Culture, 1966.
> A
la Maududi (1903–1979), a fierce defender of sunna in
> theory, limit the scope of sunna by distinguishing between                                                      Daniel W. Brown
> Muhammad’s actions as an ordinary man and his actions as a
> Prophet.
> 
> These challenges to sunna have provoked vigorous polemics in defense of its authority from conservative scholars.     SUNNI See Shi
a; Succession; Sunna
> Consequently sunna has become the single most important
> focus of controversy in modern Muslim discussions of religious authority.
> 
> See also Bid
a; Hadith; Law; Modern Thought; Muhammad; Quran; Religious Institutions.
> SUYUTI, AL- (1445–1505)
> 
> Al-Suyuti was an Egyptian scholar best known for his prolific
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> writings on prophetic tradition (hadith), Islamic jurispru-
> Adams, Charles J. “The Authority of Prophetic Hadith in the        dence (fiqh), Quranic studies, Arabic language, and related
> Eyes of Some Modern Muslims.” In Essays on Islamic
> subjects. The son of a minor religious scholar, he was trained
> Civilization Presented to Niyazi Berkes. Edited by Donald P.
> in the Sunni religious disciplines, and held several endowed
> Little. Leiden: Brill, 1976.
> academic positions in Cairo. Convinced that he alone was
> Bravmann, M. M. The Spiritual Background of Early Islam:
> truly learned in an age of scholarly decline, he compiled a
> Studies in Ancient Arab Concepts. Leiden: Brill, 1972.
> series of works intended to preserve the fundamentals of
> Brown, Daniel. Rethinking Tradition in Modern Islamic Thought.     classical Sunni scholarship for posterity. His sense of his own
> Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
> superiority and his quickness to denigrate others’ abilities
> Burton, John. “Notes toward a Fresh Perspective on the             provoked his colleagues, and he was embroiled in numerous
> Islamic Sunna.” British Society of Middle Eastern Studies        scholarly disputes. His claims to be qualified to give indepen-
> Bulletin. 11 (1984): 3–17.
> dent legal opinions (ijtihad) and to be the reviver of Islamic
> Burton, John. An Introduction to Hadith. Edinburgh: Edin-          knowledge at the beginning of the sixteenth century were
> burgh University Press, 1994.
> highly controversial. Al-Suyuti’s relationship with the Mamluk
> Crone, Patricia, and Hinds, Martin. God’s Caliph: Religious        sultans who ruled Egypt was also an uneasy one, since he
> Authority in the First Centuries of Islam. Cambridge, U.K.:      firmly believed that the religious scholars (ulema), as guardi-
> Cambridge University Press, 1996.
> ans of God’s law, should be the supreme authorities in the
> Dutton, Yasin. The Origins of Islamic Law. Richmond, U.K.:         state. Toward the end of his life, frustrated and disheartened,
> Curzon Press, 1999.                                              al-Suyuti relinquished his public posts and sought consola-
> Goldziher, Ignaz. Muslim Studies. Translated by C. R. Barber       tion in mysticism (tasawwuf). He continued to write, leaving
> and S. M. Stern. Albany: State University of New York            at his death over 550 books and treatises on a wide range of
> Press, 1967.                                                     subjects. Several works are still in use as valuable references.
> Graham, William. Divine Word and Prophetic Word in Early           Some modern scholars have dismissed him as a mere com-
> Islam: A Reconsideration of the Sources with Special Reference   piler, a judgment that underrates his scholarly contributions,
> to the Divine Saying or Hadith Qudsi. The Hague: Mou-            especially in the fields of jurisprudence, prophetic tradition,
> ton, 1977.
> and Arabic language.
> Juynboll, G. H. A. The Authenticity of Tradition Literature:
> Discussions in Modern Egypt. Leiden: Brill, 1969.               See also Arabic Language; Hadith; Ijtihad; Tasawwuf.
> Juynboll, G. H. A. “Some New Ideas on the Development of
> Sunna as a Technical Term in Early Islam.” Jerusalem
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Studies in Arabic and Islam 10 (1987): 97–118.
> Garcin, Jean-Claude. “Histoire, opposition politique et
> Rahman, Fazlur. Islamic Methodology in History. Karachi: Cenpiétisme traditionaliste dans le Husn al-muhadarat de
> tral Institute of Islamic Research, 1965.
> Suyuti.” Annales Islamologiques 7 (1967): 33–90.
> Schacht, Joseph. The Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence.
> Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 1950.                    Sartain, Elizabeth M. Jalal al-din al-Suyuti. Cambridge, U.K.:
> Cambridge University Press, 1975.
> Shafi
i, Muhammad b. Idris al-. Islamic Jurisprudence: Shafi
i’s
> Risala. Translated by Majid Khadduri. Baltimore: Johns
> Hopkins Press, 1961.                                                                                              E. M. Sartain
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                    669
> T
> TABARI, AL- (839–923)                                                    Rosenthal, Franz. The History of al-Tabari, Vol. 1: General
> Introduction and From the Creation to the Flood. Albany:
> Muhammad b. Jarir al-Tabari was an important jurisprudent,                 State University of New York Press, 1989.
> Qur
an commentator, and historian (in descending order
> among tenth-century Muslims; in ascending order among                                                            Christopher Melchert
> modern scholars). Born in Amul, Tabaristan (by the Caspian
> Sea), Tabari memorized the Qur
an at eight and left home to
> study under more distant masters at twelve. He finally settled
> in Baghdad, always mainly supported by remittances from his
> TABLIGHI JAMA
AT
> landowning family in Tabaristan.
> The Tablighi Jamaat (“the society for inviting or convey-
> In theology, he advocated the moderate Sunni tendency,                ing”) may be the most widespread movement of Islamic da
wa
> accepting such tenets as the uncreatedness of the Qur
an                 (“call,” “proselytism”) in the world today. Annual congrega-
> (against the Mutazila, among others) and recognition of Ali            tions held in Tablighi centers in Raiwind (Pakistan) and
> as fourth caliph and fourth-best Companion (against the                  Tungi (Bangladesh) are said to include perhaps two million
> Shia) but arguing rationally in their defense. Likewise, he             participants each. Dewsbury (U.K.) serves as a center for
> inferred the law chiefly from the prophetic sunna but gave                Islamic education and tabligh activity in Europe. Its annual
> reason considerable freedom to manipulate the revealed                   meeting attracts several thousand participants, as do annual
> texts. Extremist Sunnis were sufficiently offended to block-              meetings held in North America. Overall leadership is based
> ade his house near the end of his life.                                  at the Banglewali Masjid at Nizam al-Din in New Delhi,
> India, where the movement began.
> Tabari’s jurisprudential works were massive, and during
> the tenth century, a Jariri school of law vied with the Shafii,              The 1920s were a period of violent religious competition
> Hanafi, and other schools for the attention of Sunni Muslims;             in northern India, spurred by the beginnings of mass politics.
> however, the Jariri school then died out, and most of the                Muslims in Mewat, southwest of Delhi, were a particular
> works are now lost. His massive Qur
an commentary was the                target of Hindu “reconversion” movements. Maulana Muham-
> first to deal systematically with every verse in succession.              mad Ilyas (1885–1944), the movement’s founder, first en-
> Tabari quotes many alternative interpretations from past                 countered humble Mewati laborers in Delhi. He quickly
> authorities but he normally gives his own preference at the              realized the limitations of mere schooling in influencing
> end, often appealing to grammar to establish the meaning.                them, and instead initiated a method of practical learning,
> The author’s voice is most faintly heard in his world history,           encouraging even the uneducated to remove themselves from
> likewise a succession of quotations; however, the grand scheme           their environment and preach to others. Tabligh, he argued,
> that emerges agrees with what else is known of Tabari’s                  was incumbent not only on the learned but on every Muslim.
> theology.
> The movement requires no bureaucracy and no paid staff.
> See also Historical Writing; Qur
an.                                     It depends on small groups or cells ( jama
ats) of perhaps ten
> men, financing themselves, going out door-to-door and speak-
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                             ing in mosques. Participants ideally volunteer one day a week,
> Gilliot, Claude. Exégèse, langue et théologie en Islam—L’Exégèse         one three-day period a month, one forty-day period a year,
> de Tabarî. Paris: J. Vrin, 1990.                                      and one four-month tour at least once in a lifetime. Women
> 
> Tafsir
> 
> do tabligh within their own circles and gather regularly for         current social, moral, legal, doctrinal, and political condiinstruction with other women; they accompany a traveling             tions. Through their interpretive strategies, exegetes have
> jama
at only if it includes one of their male relatives. Tablighis   struggled to make the Qur
anic text more accessible to
> follow and teach “Six Points:” the attestation of faith (kalima),    believers, and more applicable to changing environments.
> canonical prayer (salat), knowledge and ritual remembrance
> of Allah (
ilm o zikr), respect toward all Muslims (ikram-e          Origins
> Muslim), sincerity (ikhlas-e niyyat), and volunteering time for      The emergence of the word tafsir as both a process and a
> tabligh (tafrigh-e waqt). Writings by Maulana Muhammad               literary genre is unclear. The word tafsir appears only once in
> Zakariyya Kandhlawi (1897–1982), based on hadith and known           the Qur
an (25:33), suggesting that no formal science of
> as the Tablighi nisab (The tabligh curriculum) or Fazail-e          interpretation was established early in the Islamic tradition.
> a
mal (The merits of practice), serve as the movement’s vade         Traditionally, tafsir can be traced back to Muhammad. Howmecum. Mutual consultation (mashwara) is a fundamental               ever, within hadith collections, only a small amount of tafsir is
> principle in allocating responsibilities and making decisions.       ascribed to the Prophet; much of the early exegesis is attributed to one of his companions, Abdallah ibn Abbas. During
> Partition spurred new centers in Pakistan and served as a        the first three centuries of Islam, the words tawil and tafsir
> fillip to the movement in places like Mewat, which saw                were used interchangeably to mean “interpretation of the
> virulent anti-Muslim devastation. Maulana Muhammad Yusuf             Qur
an,” and many authors employed either one of these
> (1917–1965), who succeeded his father as emir of the move-           terms (or none at all) to describe their exegetical enterprises.
> ment in 1944, toured actively throughout the subcontinent.           For example, Ibn Ishaq (d. 768), in his biography of the
> The Jamaat’s activities increasingly spread to Southeast Asia,      Prophet (Sirat rasul Allah), surrounds his citings of scripture
> Africa, Europe, and North America.                                   with contextual detail, which serves to explain many vague,
> ahistorical Qur
anic passages; however, his activity was never
> During Maulana Inamu
l Hasan’s leadership (1965–1995)
> formalized or labeled as tafsir. Other early exegetical works
> worldwide activity increased dramatically, dependent in part
> focus on explicating legal issues or theological rhetoric, such
> on the growth of an Indo-Pakistani diaspora. This continued
> as Muqatil ibn Sulayman’s (d. 804) Tafsir khams mia aya min
> under the leadership of the council, which succeeded him.
> al-Quran, and Ibn Qutayba’s (d. 889) Tawil mushkil al-
> The movement more recently has taken root among North
> African immigrants to France and Belgium, as well as among           Quran (respectively), but again, each author uses a different
> Southeast Asian Muslims. Followers of the “Barelwi” school,          term to describe his activities. After the tenth century, a
> who see Tablighis as Deobandis, as well as modernists, and           gradual distinction was drawn between tawil, which came to
> state-oriented Islamist parties like the Jamaat-e Islami, who       refer to exegesis based upon reason or personal opinion, and
> reject Tablighi withdrawal from social and political activism,       tafsir, which relied on hadith reports going back to Muhamare their primary opponents. These latter critics deplore the        mad and his early companions. Throughout history, individnarrowness of Tabligh teachings. The Tablighi Jamaat’s              ual tafsir works emphasize either opinion or tradition, but
> stance has, however, allowed it to operate without govern-           sometimes rely on both.
> ment suspicion across many countries.
> With the rapid expansion of Islam, problems arose in non-
> See also South Asia, Islam in; Traditionalism.                       Arabic speaking communities with regard to the Qur
an and
> its translation and interpretation, which called for more
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                         formalized exegetical commentary that extended beyond the
> Haq, M. Anwarul. The Faith Movement of Mawlana Muham-                words of Muhammad or his companions. During the time of
> mad Ilyas. London: George Allen, 1972.                             the successors, schools of tafsir evolved within distinct geographical regions: Mecca, Medina, and Iraq, along with their
> Masud, Muhammad Khalid, ed. Travellers in Faith: Studies of
> the Tablighi Jamaat as a Transnational Islamic Movement for        corresponding exegetical “specialists” (mufassirun). The jus-
> Faith Renewal. Leiden: Brill, 2000.                                tification for the development of tafsir schools rests on Qur
an
> 3:5–6, which lays out two categories of Qur
anic verses: clear
> Metcalf, Barbara D. “Living Hadith in the Tablighi Jamaat.”
> Journal of Asian Studies 52, no. 3: 584–608.                       (muhkamat) and unclear (mutashabihat). The role of the
> exegete (mufassir) is to reiterate what is already “clear” and to
> Muhammad Zakariyya Kandhlawi, Maulana. Teachings of
> Islam. New Delhi: Isha
at-e-Islam, 1960.                           clarify what is “unclear.” Much debate arose concerning what
> passages fell into either of these categories, as well as to what
> Barbara D. Metcalf       extent finite human reason could be relied upon to make such
> determinations. The resolution of this debate served to shape
> tafsir works (and continues to do so) on into the twenty-first
> century.
> TAFSIR
> Typology
> Tafsir refers to Qur
anic exegesis. Tafsir claims to “clarify”       Generally, tafsir works emphasized four types of issues that
> the divine word, which serves to make the text “speak” to            required systematized interpretive efforts: linguistic, juristic,
> 
> 672                                                                                              Islam and the Muslim World
> Tafsir
> 
> historical, and theological. Linguistic efforts focus on the       intellect (grammatical, rhetorical, legal, and discursive intermeaning of a word, where to put in punctuation and pauses,         pretation). Sufi exegesis privileges seemingly random verses
> the case endings of words, or the rhetorical presentation of       in the Qur
an rather than presenting a symbolic reading of
> information: Why are entire sentences or phrases repeated          the entire work. Oftentimes Sufi interpretations extract a
> again and again? A juristic accent stresses what is to be taken    single sentence from the Qur
an, give it an allegorical readas the general or specific application of a command, or what        ing, and then use that reading to decipher a whole pattern of
> verses were to be abrogated by others. Questions of abroga-        nontextual symbols through which the inner nature of God is
> tion (naskh) rely heavily on those tafsir that deal specifically    revealed. The relationship between the sign and the signified
> with the occasions of the revelation (asbab al-nuzul), that is,    is not always apparent to the non-Sufi reader, who may expect
> those tafsir that embed ahistoric Qur
anic passages within a       a more systematized set of interpretative strategies. For
> progressive timeline. Without the exegetical efforts that          example, Qur
anic references to Muhammad’s “night jourcontextualize specific Qur
anic passages, the legal tradition,      ney” (al-isra;17:1), a journey that is taken quite literally by
> in particular the theory of abrogation, would have no firm          classical exegetes, is treated metaphorically by Sufis, who cast
> basis from which to operate. Theologically oriented tafsir         it as a model for one’s ascent along the Sufi path that requires
> engage such problems as predestination versus free will, the       a stripping away of the self so only the divine remains. Sufis
> nature of God, or the infallibility of the prophets. Many tafsir   understand the anthropomorphic statement in the Qur
an
> works revolve around a single issue; others are composite          about God seating himself upon his throne (7:54) to mean
> in nature.                                                         God metaphorically setting himself over the heart of Muhammad. Some of the well-known collections of Sufi tafsir in-
> Tafsir studies can be divided roughly into six groups based    clude Sahl ibn Abdallah al-Tustari’s (d. 986) Tafsir al-Tustari
> on discrete literary and methodological features: classical,       (Exegesis of al-Tustari) and Muhyi al-Din ibn al-Arabi’s (d.
> mystical, sensual, Shiite, modern, and fundamentalist. Clas-      1240) Tafsir Ibn al-
Arabi (Exegesis of Ibn al-Arabi).
> sical tafsir emerges with full force in the fourth century of
> Islam, typified by the work of Abu Jafar Muhammad b. Jarir             Sufis further interpret the Qur
an through their emphasis
> al-Tabari (d. 923), whose Jami al-bayan 
an tawil ay al-         on the recitation of certain Qur
anic passages (dhikr), and
> Quran (The collection of the explanation of the interpreta-       their calligraphic art. Generally, Qur
anic recitation makes a
> tion of the Qur
an) presents a seemingly objective collection      written text a living text (for Sufis and non-Sufis). The words
> of hadith reports that originated with the Prophet and his         themselves do not lie static on the page, but rather resound in
> Companions. Other classical exegetes include Mahmud ibn            everyday existence, collapsing ordinary time into sacred time:
> Umar al-Zamakhshari (d. 1144), who looked to Arabic po-           the moment when God first uttered his revelation to the
> etry as a valuable source for his linguistic and literary inter-   Prophet; when mystics directly encounter their God. And,
> pretation of the Qur
an. His work engages both the rhetorical      just as the mystic finds hidden meanings within the written
> and theological aspects of Qur
anic exegesis. Fakhr al-Din         word, so too does he see the calligraphic form of particular
> Razi (d. 1210) surveys a whole range of debates in his             words allowing for deeper reflection upon the dual meanings
> commentary, in particular the differences between the Ashari      of their shapes and sounds. The calligraphic form of “Muand the Mutazili theologians. The Mutazalis, for example,        hammad” or “Husayn” allows one to reflect not just on the
> argued that irrational passages could be interpreted to make       word that signifies the person, but on the person’s true
> sense through metaphorical (tawil) interpretation. Other          qualities and intimate relationship with the divine. These oral
> exegetes defend the legal views of one school of law or            and visual forms of tafsir serve to extend the written docuanother in their works, such as Ibn al-Jawzi (d. 1200), who        ment into the realm of direct sensual experience.
> supports the Hanbali tradition, or Abu Abdallah al-Qurtubi
> (d. 1273), who backs the Malikis. In these examples, com-             Shiite tafsir rose in parallel with its Sunni counterparts.
> mentaries further a variety of theological, legal, or political    Shiites are primarily concerned with establishing a line of
> agendas through formal explication of Qur
anic passages.           divinely ordained, infallible leaders (imams) who stem from
> the Prophet’s family, starting with Ali, who was the first in a
> Mystical (Sufi) tafsir favors allegorical interpretation of      series of twelve. Shiites, like Sufis, rely heavily on the
> scripture. Sufi exegetes suggest there are two possible read-       distinction between literal and allegorical readings of the
> ings of the Qur
an: the literal (zahir), and the allegorical       Qur
an to support their understanding that the concept of the
> (batin). They are most interested in allegorical readings,         imam (along with the necessity of blood descent for true
> which often counter growing orthodox interpretations. Gen-         leaders of the Islamic community) is rooted in and validated
> erally, Sufis are concerned with establishing an intimate           by the Qur
an. For example, the cryptic Qur
anic statement
> relationship with the divine, and look to those Qur
anic           that likens a good word to a good tree (14:24) is understood
> verses that reveal his hidden nature in gnostic fashion. These     by Shiites to refer specifically to the Prophet and his family.
> inner meanings of scripture are accessible only to those who       Contrarily, a corrupt word likened to a corrupt tree (14:26)
> grasp it through intuitive knowledge (gnosis), rather than the     points to the immoral Umayyads, whom Shiites view as
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                    673
> Tafsir
> 
> usurpers of their rightful leadership. As is the case with Sufis,   lands, such as promiscuity or usury. Like many modernists,
> the connection between the sign and the signified is not            bin Ladin searches for the general intent of the Qur
an—as
> readily apparent to those who do not accept Shiite theology.      opposed to traditional statements—and then seeks to apply
> In their interpretive efforts, the Shia move beyond symbolic      that general intent to specific political and religious crises.
> interpretations to favor textual variants of the Qur
an that       For example, bin Ladin bypasses traditional theories of abrovalidate their imamate doctrine, including one reference           gation of an earlier by a later verse to select and privilege
> where Sunnis read “umma” (community), and Shia read               those Qur
anic verses that most closely support his military
> “a’imma” (imami leaders). Some of the major Shiite tafsir         goals, in particular verses that urge believers to slay idolaters
> include Abu Jafar al-Tusi’s (d. 1067) al-Tibyan fi tafsir al-       (9:5) and to smite the necks of disbelievers (47:4). Unnamed
> Quran (The explanation in interpretation of the Qur
an), and      members of al-Qaida describe the hijackings of the planes
> Abu al-Tabarsi’s (d. 1153) Majma
 al-bayan li-
ulum al-Quran      that destroyed the World Trade Center in New York City on
> (The collection of the explanation of the sciences of the          11 September 2001 as a kind of sacrificial ritual sanctioned by
> Qur
an).                                                           the Qur
an. In each of these examples, the fundamentalist
> exegete discards tradition in favor of his own personal cha-
> Modern tafsir refers to twentieth-century interpretation.      risma, which ultimately gives him the authority to “interpret
> The aim of modern tafsir is to understand the Qur
an in light      the Qur
an by the Qur
an.”
> of reason, rather than tradition; to strip the Qur
an of any
> traces of superstition or legend; and to use the Qur
an as a           In each type of tafsir, the Qur
an is made eternally pliable
> source to justify its own claims. Generally, modern exegetes       to offer numerous interpretative solutions to Muslims as they
> try to make the text more readily accessible to the common         confront changing political, economic, doctrinal, moral, and
> person who faces the challenges of modernity in a post-            scientific conditions.
> colonial environment where past tradition no longer seems
> applicable to current concerns. Modern tafsir works differ         See also Calligraphy; Law; Muhammad; Qur
an.
> from classical works in that they no longer focus on issues of
> grammar, rhetoric, law, or theology, but privilege more            BIBLIOGRAPHY
> immediate social, political, moral, and economic concerns of       Ayoub, Mahmoud M. The Quran and Its Interpreters. Albany:
> the day. However, they are similar in that they strive to make       State University of New York Press, 1992.
> the divine word more accessible to those who believe. A
> Baljon, J. M. S. Modern Muslim Koran Interpretation,
> major modern work is Muhammad Abduh’s (d. 1905) “Tafsir              1180–1960. Leiden: Brill, 1961.
> al-manar” (The beacon of interpretation), which calls for a
> Brown, Daniel. “The Triumph of Scripturalism: The Docrational approach to applying the Qur
an to modern dilemtrine of Naskh and its Modern Critics.” In The Shaping of
> mas. Abduh elaborates on the Qur
anic passage that suggests
> an American Islamic Discourse: A Memorial to Fazlur Rahman.
> the taking of four wives is really an impossibility, due to the       Edited by Earle H. Waugh and Frederick M. Denny.
> fact that a man could never treat them all equally (4:129), and       Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1998.
> argues that such polygamous relationships cause harm to
> Gatje, Helmut. The Quran and Its Exegesis: Selected Texts with
> spouses and children. Modernists like Abdu locate the moral
> Classical and Modern Muslim Interpretations. Translated
> core of the text, and then use their rational capabilities to        and Edited by Alford T. Welch. Berkeley: University of
> extend that general moral injunction to a variety of mod-            California Press, 1976.
> ern issues.
> Madigan, Daniel A. The Quran’s Self-Image: Writing and
> Aauthority in Islam’s Scripture. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
> Future Trends
> University Press, 2001.
> The study of fundamentalist tafsir is still in its early stages.
> Many fundamentalists interpret the Qur
an according to             Rahman, Fazlur. Islam and Modernity: Transformation of an
> Intellectual Tradition. Chicago: The University of Chicago
> their own political and theological agendas, with little regard
> Press, 1982.
> for traditional modes of systematic exegesis. For example, in
> Fi zilal al-Quran (In the shadow of the Qur
an), Sayyid Qutb      Rippin, Andrew. “Literary Analysis of the Quran, Tafsir, and
> (d. 1960), spokesperson for the Egyptian Muslim Brother-              Sira: The Methodologies of John Wansbrough.” In Approaches to Islam in Religious Studies. Edited by Richard C.
> hood, denies the established Islamic tradition that jihad is a
> Martin. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1985.
> defensive act of war, and determines that jihad is incumbent
> upon all Muslims as they abolish corrupt political and relig-      Rippin, Andrew. Approaches to the History of the Interpretation of
> ious regimes. In the early twenty-first century, Usama bin             the Quran. Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon Press, 1988.
> Ladin also bypasses the traditional understanding of jihad by      Rippin, Andrew. “Present Status of Tafsir Studies.” Muslim
> reinterpreting the definition of a defensive attack to include         World 72 (1982): 224–238.
> the mere occupancy of sacred Muslim lands by foreign
> powers, or the sheer presence of anti-Islamic values in those                                                       Kathryn Kueny
> 
> 674                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Tajdid
> 
> Muslim community] at the head of each century those who
> TAHA HUSAYN (HUSSEIN) See                                         will renew its faith for it.” Persons engaged in this activity of
> Husayn, Taha                                                      renewal are called mujaddids.
> 
> Although there have been disagreements over the details,
> and over which Muslim leaders were deserving of the title of
> mujaddid, the basic understanding of the importance of re-
> TAHMASP I, SHAH (1514–1576)                                       newal has been remarkably constant throughout Islamic
> history. In the course of the history of the human community
> Tahmasp I, born on 22 February 1514, was the eldest son of        of Muslims, Muslims recognize that the actual faith and
> Shah Ismail. He succeeded his father to the throne in 1524       practice of the people sometimes departed from the ideal
> and ruled Iran until his death on 14 May 1576. His fifty-two-      defined by the Qur
an and the model of the Prophet. Muslims
> year reign was marked by religious consolidation and battles      believe that the prophet Muhammad is the final Messenger of
> with rival Uzbeks and Ottomans.                                   God so that in those times when Muslims have not lived up to
> the Islamic ideal, the community does not need a new prophet,
> Tahmasp came to power at age ten, at which time Qizilbash     it needs renewal. This mode of response to historical change
> (Turkoman tribesmen) forces took control of Iran for the first     is most important among Sunni Muslims. Within the Shiite
> decade of his rule. The Qizilbash were not united, however,       traditions, there is greater emphasis on messianic styles of
> and the situation deteriorated into civil war in 1526. By 1533,   religious resurgence, with an important theme being the
> Tahmasp reasserted his sovereignty, having executed the           coming of the anticipated Mahdi, or rightly-guided leader
> main Qizilbash chief who was effectively ruling the country.      whose appearance will be part of the events leading to the
> By this time, rival Ottomans and Uzbeks had taken advantage       final establishment of God’s rule of justice.
> of Iran’s weak position, gaining territory from the Safavids.
> Nevertheless, the Safavids held on, fighting numerous defen-           The approaches of leaders of renewal have usually emphasive wars on two fronts. As a result of the Ottoman threat to     sized certain common themes. The first was the call for the
> the capital city of Tabriz, Tahmasp moved the capital to the      return to the Qur
an and the sunna (traditions of the Prophet).
> city of Qazvin in 1555.                                           This often involved condemnation of practices that were
> identified as illegitimate innovations and departures from the
> Tahmasp’s reign witnessed a flowering of the arts, in           Islamic ideal. This was not a simple conservative perspective
> particular the arts of the book, best exemplified by a magnifi-     since it involved a rejection of at least some aspects of existing
> cent Shah-nameh (Book of kings), commissioned in 1522             conditions. As a result, a common second element in moveand containing some 250 outstanding miniature paintings.          ments of renewal is the call for exercising informed indepen-
> Tahmasp was a man of great piety, and his long reign was of       dent judgment (ijtihad) and a rejection of the practice of
> great importance for the spread and consolidation of Twelver      simply following the judgments and interpretations of previ-
> Shiism in Iran.                                                  ous teachers (taqlid). The debates between the advocates of
> the two positions, ijtihad and taqlid, form a major part of the
> See also Empires: Safavid and Qajar.                              intellectual history of movements of renewal in Islamic history.
> 
> A number of major figures in Islamic history are usually
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> identified as having been mujaddids in their era. Among the
> Savory, Roger. Iran under the Safavids. Cambridge, U.K.:          most important of these are Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (d. 1111
> Cambridge University Press, 1980.                              C.E.), a teacher who brought together mystical and legal
> 
> dimensions of Islamic faith, Ahmad ibn Taymiyya (d. 1327), a
> Sholeh A. Quinn      scholar whose ideas inspired later puritanical movements of
> renewal, and Shah Wali Allah of Delhi (d. 1763), whose
> teachings on socio-moral reconstruction provide foundations
> for most major modern Islamic movements in South Asia. A
> TAJDID                                                            special figure in the line of renewers is Ahmad Sirhindi (d.
> 1624), who was called the “Mujaddid of the Second Millen-
> Tajdid is the Arabic term for “renewal.” In formal Muslim         nium” because he lived at the end of the first thousand years
> discussions, this term refers to conscious efforts to bring       of the Islamic era. Sirhindi was a leader of a reform-oriented
> about the renewal of religious faith and practice, emphasizing    Sufi brotherhood, the Naqshbandiyya, in India. His branch
> strict adherence to the prescriptions of the Qur
an and the       of that order became known as the Mujaddidi. It later played
> precedents of the prophet Muhammad. The foundation for            important roles in activist reform in Central Asia and the
> this usage is a widely accepted tradition in which Muhammad       Middle East and organized resistance to European expansion
> is reported to have said, “God will send to this umma [the        in areas like the Caucasus.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                     675
> Taliban
> 
> In the modern period, concepts and movements of tajdid          BIBLIOGRAPHY
> take many different forms. Many movements have their               Brown, Daniel. Rethinking Tradition in Modern Islamic Thought.
> intellectual origins in the teachings of Muhammad ibn Abd            Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
> al-Wahhab (d. 1792 ), who joined with a chieftain in central       Voll, John O. “Renewal and Reform in Islamic History:
> Arabia, Muhammad ibn Saud (d. 1765), to create a political           Tajdid and Islah.” In Voices of Resurgent Islam. Edited by
> system and movement of puritanical renewal. In its strictness        John L. Esposito. New York: Oxford University Press, 1983.
> and uncompromising approach to what it defined as innovations, the Wahhabi movement came to be seen as the proto-                                                            John O. Voll
> typical militant style of Islamic renewal. By the late twentieth
> century, even militant movements that had no direct connections with the actual Wahhabi tradition came to be called
> “Wahhabi.”                                                         TALIBAN
> Modern movements that emphasized the importance of             The word taliban derives from the Persian plural form of the
> the intellectual dimensions of renewal through ijtihad became      Arabic word talib, meaning “seeker” or “student.” As a genimportant by the late nineteenth century. A leading personal-      eral term, taliban, or its Arabic equivalents tullab or talaba,
> ity in this was the Egyptian scholar Muhammad Abduh (d.           alludes to students from madrasas (religious schools) dedi-
> 1905), who served as Grand Mufti of Egypt. Abduh empha-           cated to theological studies of Islam. After 1994, however, Da
> sized the compatibility of reason and revelation in Islam. Al-     Afghanistan da Talibano Islami Tahrik (The Afghan Islamic
> Manar, the journal reflecting his teachings, was read by            Movement of Taliban), or “Taliban,” was known internaintellectuals throughout the Muslim world at the beginning         tionally as the name chosen by a mujahidin splinter group that
> of the twentieth century. Other conscious movements of             eventually dominated the civil war in Afghanistan.
> intellectual renewal developed in the Russian Empire under
> Ismail Gasprinskii, in India with Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan,              The rise of the Taliban as a military force is debated.
> and elsewhere.                                                     Their supporters maintained that the movement surfaced in
> Kandahar to enforce public safety and order in reaction to the
> Throughout the twentieth century, the movements of             looting and harassment of the local population by other
> rationalist renewal continued. However, they were overshad-        mujahidin groups. Their opponents viewed the Taliban as a
> owed by Muslim movements advocating broader programs of            creation of Pakistan’s Interservices Intelligence (ISI) in order
> social and political Islamization. The Muslim Brotherhood,         to gain indirect control of Afghanistan and unhindered access
> established in Egypt by Hasan al-Banna in 1928, and the            to Central Asia.
> Jamaat-e Islami, established in South Asia by Abu l-Ala

> Maududi (d. 1979) in 1941, became the most visible examples           In any case, the Taliban, with direct Pakistani military and
> of modern-style renewal movements. These movements pre-            diplomatic support and financial backing from Saudi Arabia
> sented programs for creating Islamic states and societies in       and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), emerged as the domithe modern world. Although for a time they were overshad-          nant military force that gradually came to rule about 85
> owed by secular nationalist and radical leftist movements, by      percent of Afghanistan by 1999 (the remainder of the country
> the 1980s the movements of Islamic resurgence were the             was controlled by an anti-Taliban alliance under the leadermost visible opposition movements in many countries, and           ship of Ahmad Shah Masud). Comprised of former mujahidin
> often they set the agenda for the Islamization of political        belonging mostly to the Pashtun ethnic majority, the group
> discourse throughout the Muslim world. Intellectuals within        first emerged in Kandahar in 1994. The original leaders and
> these movements, like Hasan al-Turabi, who led the Muslim          members claimed to be students from religious schools run
> Brotherhood in Sudan for most of the final third of the             by Pakistan’s Jamiyat-e Ulama-e Islam (JUI).
> twentieth century, wrote about the necessity for tajdid in
> rethinking all of the fundamentals of political, social, and           The Taliban gained international notice on 3 November
> legal structures in the Muslim world.                              1994, when the group freed a convoy of Pakistani trucks
> commandeered by a local Afghan mujahidin group. Two days
> By the late twentieth century, many of the more visible         later, the Taliban captured Kandahar, and in September
> militant Muslim groups, like al-Qaida, were concentrating         1995, the western city of Herat. The Taliban seized the
> on issues of power and jihad rather than ijtihad. The broad        capital, Kabul, on 27 September 1996, ousting the ruling
> tradition of renewal in Islam continued in new forms, among        mujahidin government of President Burhan al-Din Rabbani.
> the militants and also among scholars who continued the
> process of reexamining the sources in order to present ways of         Initially, the Taliban claimed that its goal was to rid the
> having renewed Islamic life in the contemporary world.             country from factionalism and the rule of warlords. However,
> on 3 April 1996, Mulla Muhammad Omar Mujahid pro-
> See also Ijtihad; Reform: Arab Middle East and North               claimed himself Emir al-Mu
minin (Commander of the Faith-
> Africa; Reform: South Asia; Taqlid.                                ful), thus becoming the Emir (ruler) of Afghanistan. Taking
> 
> 676                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Taliban
> 
> food supplies (to the Bamiyan region). What triggered international condemnation of the Taliban, though, was their
> maltreatment of women, who were banned from attending
> schools, holding jobs, venturing outside of their homes unless
> accompanied by a male relative, and being treated by male
> physicians. The Taliban also placed restrictions on foreign
> female aid workers helping Afghan women.
> 
> Signs of the Taliban’s eventual international isolation
> began to show in 1998. With pressure from women’s rights
> groups, the absence of international investment, and the
> Taliban’s double-dealings with rival pipeline projects, the
> U.S. oil company Unocal pulled out of a major business deal
> that would have facilitated the construction of a gas pipeline
> from Turkmenistan to Pakistan through Afghanistan, a project planned by Unocal and a Saudi company, Delta Oil.
> 
> In August 1998, in retaliation for the bombings of two
> U.S. embassies in Africa by affiliates of Usama bin Ladin and
> the Taliban’s refusal to surrender him, the United States
> launched cruise missile attacks on suspected terrorist camps
> in Afghanistan and spearheaded an international effort to
> isolate the Taliban through unilateral and U.N. sanctions.
> A young girl peers out among a group of Afghan women wearing
> the Burqa covering at a Red Cross distribution center in Kabul in
> 1996, when the ruling Taliban forced women to cover themselves          In addition, the Taliban’s drug production and trafficking
> completely in public, and banned women from schools and             activities brought international scorn. In 2001 the United
> workplaces. AP/WIDE WORLD PHOTOS                                    Nations acknowledged Taliban efforts to reduce the production of narcotics, the first such recognition since their assumption of power in 1994. However, these efforts did not
> advantage of inter-Uzbek rivalries in northern Afghanistan,         gain the movement much international sympathy, as its
> in May 1997, the Taliban captured Mazar-i-Sharif, the last          radicalization intensified. In March 2001, Mulla Omar orsignificant Afghan city not under its control. This victory          dered the destruction of all idols in the country, including two
> brought the Taliban recognition from Pakistan, Saudi Ara-           1,500-year-old colossal Buddha statues in Bamiyan. Two
> bia, and the UAE as the legitimate rulers of Afghanistan.           months later, in a decree that brought international outrage,
> Although defeated in a subsequent battle, with heavy losses to      the Taliban ordered all non-Muslim Afghans to wear distinctheir ranks (including some 250 Pakistani casualties), the          tive yellow patches.
> Taliban recaptured Mazar-i-Sharif and then seized the Hazarah
> stronghold of Bamiyan in 1998 and 1999. This consolidation             The policies of the Taliban affecting women and religious
> of power changed the internal structure of the Taliban              minorities, its destruction of ancient Buddha statues, and the
> movement from loose pockets of fighters led by a consultative        banning of music, television, photography, and traditional
> council in which Mulla Omar was primus inter pares, into an        Afghan games such as kite flying were carried out under an
> theocratic regime increasingly ruled with secrecy and terror        innovative form of the shari
a, combining Pashtun tribal
> as a means of control, with no leader accessible to the people.     codes and a radical form of Islamic teaching propagated by
> As rulers, the Taliban sought the creation of what the move-        some of the graduates of the Dar al-Ulum (House of Sciment believed to be pure Islamic rule according to the shari
a      ences) madrasa in Deoband, India, who later became mem-
> (Islamic law).                                                      bers of JIU and other radical Islamic movements in Pakistan.
> The presence of radical Arabs encamped in Afghanistan led
> From its appearance on the Afghan political scene until its      by Usama bin Ladin also galvanized this development. While
> capture of Kabul, the Taliban were viewed by some sectors of        some Taliban members genuinely believed their rule was
> the Afghan population as a means of restoring order. This           based in Islam, others appeared to use Islam as a justification
> view was also shared by certain foreign powers, including the       for absolute “divine” power. The policies of the Taliban have
> United States, which tacitly welcomed the Taliban capture of        given birth to the term “Talibanization,” referring to this
> Kabul. However, while securing the territories under its            new form of radical Islam.
> control, the Taliban proved to be yet another destabilizing
> group of warriors whose methods included ethnically targeted           The 11 September 2001 suicide bombings of the World
> mass murder of unarmed civilians (in the northern and               Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washcentral parts of Afghanistan) as well as the total blockade of      ington, D.C., were immediately attributed to Usama bin
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                     677
> Tanzimat
> 
> Ladin. Because the group of Arab and other Muslim fighters        State, Justice, Education, and Reform were established at
> he headed, known as al-Qaida, had operated in Afghanistan       various points in time, charged with the task of overseeing the
> with the knowledge and protection of the Taliban govern-         process. Provincial councils were also established, including
> ment, a U.S.-led war of retaliation led to the destruction of    representatives of different religious and social groups.
> the Taliban government and the routing of al-Qaida forces
> from Afghanistan. In early December 2001, the leaders of            Tax reforms were insufficient to prevent bankruptcy (1876),
> both the Taliban and al-Qaida escaped and fled into the          but communications and education gradually improved, and
> mountains of eastern Afghanistan or into Pakistan.               a new lawcode (Mecelle) was prepared, which codified Islamic
> law in the Western style. Reforms were stringently applied,
> As of early Spring 2003, the Taliban had begun regroup-       leading to complaints of tyranny. The Young Ottomans
> ing and instigating frequent, low-level attacks against Afghan   proposed a constitutional government, but were suppressed
> and U.S.-led anti-terror coalition forces in the south and       by the absolute monarchy of Abd al-Hamid II. Technical
> southeastern regions of Afghanistan, along the border with       modernization continued, but political liberalization was post-
> Pakistan. Many Taliban members were believed to be shel-         poned until the twentieth century.
> tered in the southwestern region of Pakistan and assisted by
> sympathetic individuals and groups there. The whereabouts        See also Empires: Ottoman; Modernization, Political:
> of top Taliban leaders, including Mulla Omar, remained          Administrative, Military, and Judicial Reform; Young
> unknown. However propaganda distributed by the group in          Turks.
> Afghanistan claimed that he continued to lead the Taliban.
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> See also Mojahidin; Qaida, al-; Political Islam.                Lewis, Bernard. The Emergence of Modern Turkey. Oxford:
> Oxford University Press, 1961.
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                     Shaw, Stanford J., and Shaw, Ezel Kural. History of the
> Marsden, Peter. The Taliban: War and Religion in Afghanistan       Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, Vol. II: Reform, Revo-
> (Politics in Contemporary Asia). London: Zed Books, 2002.        lution, and Republic: The Rise of Modern Turkey, 1808–1975.
> Matinuddin, Kamal. The Taliban Phenomenon: Afghanistan             Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977.
> 1994–1997. Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1999.
> Rashid, Ahmed. Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamental-                                                  Linda T. Darling
> ism in Central Asia. London: Yale University Press, 2000.
> 
> Amin Tarzi
> Kimberly McCloud
> TAQIYYA
> Often translated as “dissimulation,” the word taqiyya is
> etymologically linked to piety and devotion. In Twelver
> TANZIMAT                                                         Shiite thought it has come to refer to the tactic employed by
> the imams (and recommended to the Shiites) of hiding one’s
> The Tanzimat (meaning reorganization, reordering) was a          beliefs when faced with oppression. Normally, a Muslim is
> reform period in the Ottoman Empire lasting from 1839 to         expected to declare his belief, so to deny it is a grave sin
> 1871. Its aims were modernization, centralization, increasing    (kabira). However, according to tradition, the Shiite imams
> revenue, and forestalling fragmentation and conquest. Its        were faced with oppression from the Sunni majority, and in
> main agents were the influential grand wazirs Mustafa Resit       order to preserve the well-being of both their followers and
> Pasa (1800–1858) and his protégés, Fuat (1815–1869) and          themselves, they dissimulated. Outwardly they would con-
> Ali (1815–1871). Sultan Mahmud II’s 1826 destruction of         form to Sunni belief and practice; inwardly they would
> the old janissary military corps, which resisted change and      remain Shiite. When the Abbasid caliph al-Mansur emdeposed those who advocated change, and the introduction of      barked on a campaign against the supporters of the sixth
> Western-language education paved the way for these reforms.      imam, Jafar, the imam is said to have encouraged the Shia to
> dissimulate in order to save themselves. The doctrine was
> The 1839 Imperial Rescript (Hatt-i Serif) of Gülhane         based upon a certain interpretation of the Qur
anic verse
> guaranteed security and equal justice to all subjects, regard-   16:106, where the wrath of God is said to await the apostate
> less of religion. He also proposed reforms in taxation and       “except those who are compelled while their hearts are firm in
> military conscription and created a lawmaking body. A new        faith.” This exceptive clause is interpreted in Shiite Qur
anic
> class of modern-educated men staffed a reorganized bureau-       commentaries as referring to “those who are forced to praccracy and military, and standardized provincial government       tice taqiyya.”
> and taxes. The Crimean War (1853–1856) interrupted progress, but at its end a new reform rescript (Hatt-i Hümayun,         Taqiyya, within the Shiite tradition, can be seen as a
> 1856) reiterated and expanded earlier reforms. Councils of       balance to shahada—the willingness to expose oneself to
> 
> 678                                                                                          Islam and the Muslim World
> Taqlid
> 
> danger in the cause of truth. While Imam Jafar recom-             interpretation of the law put forward by the mujtahid. Taqlid
> mended taqiyya, the example of Imam Husayn seems to                in the Sunni tradition was, however, not always used with
> encourage self-sacrifice in the face of oppression. Shiite         negative connotations. The theory of ijtihad developed within
> theologians and jurists have debated long and hard about           the Sunni tradition, with grades of ijtihad from absolute
> when one should be willing to face martyrdom, and when one         ijtihad (ijtihad mutlaq) to ijtihad within the school (al-ijtihad
> may resort to taqiyya. There has not emerged a unanimous           fi’l-madhhab) to partial ijtihad. A more sophisticated theory of
> orthodox position or teaching on this point, though the            taqlid accompanied these developments. A scholar might be
> factors to be considered include the magnitude of the evil         viewed as muqallid to the founding imam of the madhhab
> perpetrated by the oppressor and the estimated risk to one-        (since a jurist would not normally claim that his ijtihad was
> self, one’s family, and the community of believers. The            superior to that of the imam), but was a mujtahid with regard
> different tactics have been employed at different times in         to jurists of lesser rank within the school. Taqlid was, there-
> Shiite history. The Shia in the Ottoman empire, living           fore, a recognition of the importance of the madhhab tradition
> under Sunni rule, were encouraged by some Shiite ulema to         as both a legal identity and as setting the broad parameters
> perform taqiyya. At the beginning of the revolutionary move-       within which a jurist might operate.
> ment in modern Iran, on the other hand, martyrdom was seen
> as a virtue, and taqiyya was discouraged by some ulema.                Within the Imami Shiite tradition, such a nuanced definition of taqlid did not, on the whole, emerge. The Imamis had
> In Shiite law, taqiyya was employed as an explanation of      no founding imam whose ijtihad had to be viewed as superior,
> why at times the reports from the imams contradict each            because the imams in Twelver Shiism were sinless (ma
sum).
> other. The occurrence of contradictions was explained by           The imams did not need to perform ijtihad to find a ruling,
> designating one of the reports (hadiths or khabars) as being       since they were granted a complete knowledge of the law by
> generated by “taqiyya.” While for most jurists and hadith          God. Taqlid to anyone other than the imam does not form a
> scholars, reports were evaluated on the basis of the chain of      feature of early Shiite jurisprudence. However, as Shiite
> authorities, taqiyya served as an alternative means of rejecting   jurists realized that the ghayba was to be a prolonged absence
> a report as inauthentic (or rather, as an inauthentic source of    of the imam, a theory of ijtihad did emerge in embryonic form
> law). This, in turn, gave rise to extensive debates about how to   in the work of al-Muhaqqiq al-Hilli (d. 1277), and was fully
> recognize a taqiyya report, and whether one receives punish-       developed in the writings of his pupil, al-Allama al-Hilli (d.
> ment in the hereafter if one follows one, and thereby trans-       1325). The result was an acceptance that an ordinary Shiite
> gresses the law. Among the means of recognizing a taqiyya          Muslim was forced to perform taqlid to a mujtahid. For the
> report was a direct comparison with Sunni doctrine. If one of      believer, with no access to the imam himself, the rulings of
> the contradictory reports agreed with Sunni doctrine, then it      the mujtahid were all that was necessary to obey the law. In
> was clearly a taqiyya report. The imam was obviously agreeing      effect, taqlid of the mujtahid, even when the mujtahid’s rulings
> with the Sunnis to avoid persecution of himself or his             were mistaken, was sufficient to guarantee full obedience to
> community.                                                         the law of God.
> 
> See also Shia: Imami (Twelver).                                       This theory was one of the ideological foundations of the
> authority of the scholarly class in Shiism, and led, in part, to a
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                       heightened respect for the ulema in Shiite communities in
> Gleave, Robert. “Silence, Obscurity and Contradiction in           comparison with that found in the Sunni world. Mujtahids
> Revelation.” In Inevitable Doubt. Edited by Robert Gleave.       gained authority and prestige by the number of muqallids they
> Leiden: E. J.Brill, 2000.                                        attracted. Since the ulema were, for much of Shiite history,
> Kohlberg, Etan. “Some Imami-Shia Views on Taqiyya.”               unaligned with any governmental structure, the mujtahids
> Journal of the American Oriental Society 95 (1975): 395–402.     were, in effect, building up an independent power base. This
> power base of muqallids could be (and was) used to mobilize
> Robert Gleave     opposition to government measures in the largely Shiite
> country of Iran. Indeed, the theory of taqlid enabled a number
> of mujtahids to call for the opposition to the shah, which
> eventually led to the Iranian revolution of 1979.
> TAQLID
> See also Ijtihad; Madhhab; Marja al-Taqlid; Muhtasib;
> The term taqlid refers to the “following” or “imitation” of a      Shia: Imami (Twelver).
> legal expert by a nonexpert. In Sunni Muslim law, in both its
> classical and modern manifestations, taqlid is generally viewed    BIBLIOGRAPHY
> negatively. Taqlid is the activity that the legally unaccom-       Arjomand, S. A. “The Muqaddas al-Ardalili on Taqlid.” In
> plished (called muqallid or 
ammi) are forced to perform. As          Authority and Political Culture in Shi
ism. Albany: State
> they have no legal qualifications, they must merely obey the           University of New York Press, 1988.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                       679
> Tariqa
> 
> Clarke, L. “The Shii Construction of Taqlid.” Journal of           apparatus, typically through accepting endowment with land-
> Islamic Studies 12, no. 1 (2001): 40–64.                         tax income. Thus by 1281, the Mongol rulers of Iran set up an
> Hallaq, W. “Was the Gate of Ijtihad Closed?” IJMES 16               endowment for the previously independent hospice estab-
> (1984): 3–41.                                                     lished by Ruzbihan, in this way linking its fortunes with the
> state. In India, the residences of Sufi masters of the Chishti
> Robert Gleave     order were typically one large room where everyone lived and
> pursued their discipline, unlike the multiple private cells of
> hospices in Syria and Iran. These “meeting houses” (jama
at
> khanas) tended to be supported, at least initially, by voluntary
> TARIQA                                                              donations rather than fixed land income. In Turkey the
> hospices were known as tekkes. Because of hospitality regula-
> Tariqa is an Arabic term for the spiritual path, especially in      tions that required feeding and lodging guests for a limited
> the sense of a method of spiritual practice, often embodied in      time, the Sufi hospices became centers where members of
> a social organization and tradition known as a Sufi order.           different levels of society interacted with the Sufi master.
> 
> Tariqa has the etymological sense of way or path, and                It was only in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries that a
> along with its near twin, tariq, it is used as a generic term for   significant number of outstanding Sufi masters lent their
> the way or path to God in the mystical writings of the Sufis.        names to groups constituting individual spiritual methods or
> Despite the existence of numerous different traditions of Sufi       “ways” (tariqas). It was also common to characterize each way
> practice and organization, it is common for Sufi teachers to         as a “chain” (silsila), with masters and disciples constituting
> point out that there is only one spiritual path that encom-         the links. Names of Sufi orders ending in the Arabic feminine
> passes all of these different variations. At the same time, it is   form (-iyya), such as Naqshbandiyya, are short hand for “the
> frequently asserted that there are as many paths to God as          Naqshbandi way or chain” (al-tariqa al-Naqshbandiyya, althere are human souls. It is difficult to translate this kind of     silsila al-Naqshbandiyya). These chains were plotted backward
> spiritual ideal into any definitive enumeration of Sufi orders        in time to end ultimately with the prophet Muhammad as the
> as sociological entities.                                           final human figure; some chains are duly depicted as continuing with the angel Gabriel and God as the ultimate
> Early History
> sources. Nearly all of these chains reach Muhammad via his
> The early Sufi movement as it developed in the first centuries
> son-in-law and cousin Ali. A notable exception is the
> of the Muslim era was characterized by informal association
> Naqshbandi order, which reaches the Prophet via Abu Bakr
> of like-minded individuals. But as Sufi communities gradually
> instead (although the Naqshbandi lineage includes other
> coalesced, Sufi leaders increasingly were associated with
> early Shiite imams). A complication in the notion of the
> residential hospices (Ar., ribat or zawiya; Pers., khanqa), an
> chain as a historical lineage results from the phenomenon of
> institution first developed in Iran by a puritanical religious
> movement known as the Karramiyya. The followers of Abu              transhistorical or Uwaysi initiation (named after Uways al-
> Ishaq al-Kazaruni (d. 1033) established their own hospices in       Qarani, a contemporary disciple of the prophet Muhammad
> southern Persia and in coastal trading towns of the Indian          in spite of never having met him). On this basis, many Sufis
> Ocean. Abu Said ibn Abu 
l-Khayr (d. 1049) established a           have been initiated by eminent saints of the past or by the
> center for Sufis in eastern Iran, with codes of conduct for the      immortal prophet al-Khidr (Per., Khizr), and this transcenguidance of novices. Newly arrived Muslim rulers such as the        dental relationship also falls into the category of a Sufi order.
> Seljuk Turks found it attractive to sponsor the construction        Another challenge to our understanding of Sufi institutions is
> and upkeep of such hospices, along with academies (madrasas)        the presence of deliberately deviant wanderers such as the
> for the teaching of the Islamic religious sciences. These           Qalandars, who criticized the established Sufi orders even as
> hospices typically were places dedicated to prayer, study of        they adopted the charismatic roles of Sufi teachers.
> the Qur
an, meditation, and communal meals, where travel-
> While it is convenient to refer to these organizations as
> ers and the needy were welcome. Sufi masters would impart
> instruction and advice to their students and to visitors.           “orders,” with an implicit analogy to the monastic orders of
> Christianity (Franciscans, Dominicans, etc.), the comparison
> Some hospices like the Said al-Suada
 in Cairo (founded        is inexact. Sufi orders are much less centrally organized than
> by Saladin in 1173) depended entirely on royal patronage.           their Christian counterparts, and they have a more fluid
> Other hospices had a broad clientele among the artisan              hierarchical structure, which is formulated in terms of differclasses, from which many of the Sufi masters came. The               ent types of initiations. Complicating the situation is the
> hospice of Ruzbihan Baqli (d. 1209) was built in Shiraz in          phenomenon of multiple initiation, observable at least since
> 1165 by stonemasons among his followers. Yet the need of            the fourteenth century, through which individual Sufis could
> political leaders for religious legitimation put pressure on the    receive instruction in the methods of various orders while
> new Sufi institutions to become part of the state patronage          maintaining a primary allegiance to only one. Sufi orders are
> 
> 680                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Tariqa
> 
> Early tariqas (Sufi brotherhoods) and their founders
> 
> al-Junayd, d. 910
> 
> Ahmad al-Ghazali (d. 1126)
> 
> 
Abdallah al-Ansari         
Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani                                  
Abd al-Qahir al-Suhrawardi
> (d. 1089), Herat           (d. 1166), Baghdad;                                              (d. 1168)
> Qadiriyya
> 
> Abu-Hafs 
Umar
> al-Suhrawardi (d. 1234)
> Suhrawardiyya
> Yusuf al-Hamadani               Ahmad b. al-Rifa
i                                                                    Najm al-Din
> (d. 1140), "khwajagan,"            (d. 1182), Iraq:                                                                    Kubra (d. 1221)
> Transoxania                      Rifa
iyya                                                                         Kubrawiyya
> 
> Abu ’l-Hasan
> 
Abd al-Khaliq                                                           al-Shadhili
> Ghujdawani                                                              (d. 1258);                                                   Jalal al-Din
> (d. 1220)                                                              Shadiliyya                                                 Rumi (d. 1273);
> Mevleviyya
> Ahmad al-Yasavi (d. 1166)          Ahmad al-Badawi
> Yasaviyya; infl. on             (d. 1276), Egypt;
> Turkish Sufism                     Badawiyya
> 
> Mu
in al-Din Chishti
> (d. 1236), Ajmer; Chishtiyya
> Baha al-Din
> Naqshband
> (d. 1389);       Hajji Bektash (d. c. 1338);
> Naqshbandiyya              Bektashiyya
> 
> SOURCE: Hodgson, M. G. S. Venture of Islam. Vol. 2. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974. Quoted in Lapidus, Ira M. A History of
> Islamic Societies. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
> 
> Genealogy and origins from 600 until 1200.
> 
> not inherently driven by competing and exclusive ideologies,                    signify the disciple’s entrance into the order; special procealthough competition in the sociopolitical arena is certainly                   dures governed the initiation of women disciples, though
> not unknown. The majority of Sufi orders have a Sunni                            masters were typically male. A frequent feature of initiation
> orientation, although Shiite orders exist as well, particularly                was the requirement that the disciple copy out by hand the
> in Iran, but Sufis have been associated with all of the major                    genealogical “tree” of the order, which would link the disciple
> Islamic legal schools. Although it is commonly asserted that                    to the entire chain of masters going back to the Prophet.
> the Sufi orders played an important role in spreading Islam
> on a popular level, there is little historical evidence that                        The tombs of many Sufi saints were usually erected at or
> premodern Sufi leaders took any interest in seeking the                          near their homes. Under Islamic law, the ownership and
> conversion of non-Muslims.                                                      maintenance of these tombs fell to family members, who may
> or may not have had spiritual qualifications. In subsequent
> The major social impact of the Sufi orders in terms of                       generations, the devotion of many pilgrims thus created a
> religion was to popularize the spiritual practices of the Sufis                  class of hereditary custodians who were in charge of the
> on a mass scale. The interior orientation of the informal                       finances and operations of the tomb-shrines, which could be
> movement of early Sufism became available to a much wider                        combined with a functioning hospice where the teachings of a
> public through participation in shrine rituals, the circulation                 Sufi order took place, or with other institutions such as
> of hagiographies, and the dispensing of various degrees of                      mosques or madrasas. Increasingly, however, the Sufi tomb
> instruction in dhikr recitation and meditation. Elaborate                       came to be an independent institution, in some cases funcinitiation rituals developed, in which the master’s presenta-                   tioning as the center of massive pilgrimage at the annual
> tion of articles such as a dervish cloak, hat, or staff would                   festival of the saint; these festivals were variously termed the
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                                               681
> Tariqa
> 
> saint’s birthday (mawlid) in the Mediterranean region, or            endowment. Some Sufi masters would demonstrate their
> “wedding” (
urs) in Iran and India, in the latter case symboli-      disdain of the world by refusing to entertain rulers or visit
> cally celebrating the death anniversary as the “wedding” of          them at court.
> the saint’s soul with God. The tombs of especially popular
> saints eventually were surrounded with royal burial grounds,             On the other hand, certain orders have a history of close
> where kings and members of the nobility would erect their            association with political power; the Suhrawardiyya and the
> own tombs, to acquire a borrowed holiness or to benefit in the        Naqshbandiyya in India and Iran felt it was important to
> afterlife from the pious exercises of pilgrims to the nearby         influence rulers in the proper religious direction, and the
> saints. Examples of this kind of necropolis include the Sufi          Bektashiyya had strong links to the elite Ottoman troops
> shrines of Khuldabad and Gulbarga in the Indian Deccan,              known as the janissaries. The Safawiyya, once a moderate
> Tatta in Pakistan, and the various graveyards of Cairo. Since        Sunni order based at Ardebil, became widespread among
> many founders and important figures of the Sufi orders are             Turkish tribes on the Persian-Ottoman frontier, and it emerged
> buried in such shrines, the history of the orders cannot be          with a strongly Shiite and messianic character to become the
> separated from the phenomenon of pilgrimage to these tombs.          basis for the Safavid empire that ruled Iran from the sixteenth
> through the eighteenth century. During the period of
> Periodization of Pre-Modern Sufi Orders                               nineteenth-century colonialism, when much of the Islamic
> The standard view of the history of Sufi orders advanced by           world fell under European domination, Sufi institutions
> Trimingham suggests that the Sufi tariqa orders enjoyed               played varied roles. Hereditary custodians of Sufi shrines in
> their “golden age” in the thirteenth century. Trimingham             places like the Indian Punjab were treated as important local
> viewed the institutionalization of Sufi orders in the fifteenth        landlords by colonial officials, and they became further encentury, in the form of organizations (taifas), as a “decline”      trenched as political leaders due to British patronage; ironifrom original spirituality into sterile ritual and vulgarization.    cally, the cooperation of these Sufi leaders became essential in
> This Orientalist perspective on the Sufi orders, with its             later independence movements directed against British conbackground in the Protestant rejection of Catholic tradition         trol. Similarly, the Senegalese order known as the Muridiyya
> and ritual, unfortunately does not adequately represent the          became heavily involved in peanut farming as a result of being
> later history of Sufism. While the existing scholarly literature      favored by French colonial authorities, and they have emerged
> on Sufism largely focuses on what is often called its “classical”     in the postcolonial order as a prominent social and religious
> phase, the ramification of Sufi orders in Muslim countries in          institution. With the overthrow of traditional elites by Eurothe later so-called period of decline was extensive, and the         pean conquest, Sufi orders in some regions remained the only
> literary and social impact of these more recent developments         surviving Islamic social structures, and they furnished the
> remains largely unexplored. The “golden age” view of Sufism           principal leadership for anticolonial struggles in places such
> is also shared by modern Muslim reformists and fundamen-             as Algeria (Abd al-Qadir), Libya (the Sanusiyya), the Caucatalists, who are extremely critical of modern and contempo-          sus (Shaykh Shamil), and China. French administrators in
> rary Sufism, although they may concede that long-dead Sufi             North Africa viewed Sufi orders with suspicion, and colonial
> masters of the past were pious Muslims. As Carl Ernst and            scholars produced studies of the Sufi orders designed to
> Bruce Lawrence have argued, however, neither of these                predict their possible resistance to or cooperation with offi-
> ideological views of Sufi history does justice to the self-           cial policies.
> conscious efforts of later Sufi teachers to give life to Sufi
> teachings in their own time.                                         Post-Colonial Era
> In the postcolonial period, Sufi orders and institutions have
> Some of the Sufi orders, such as the Qadiriyya (named             an ambiguous political position, which is inevitably deterafter Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani, d. 1166), are spread throughout       mined in relation to the nation-state. Governments in many
> Islamic lands from North Africa to Southeast Asia. Others are        Muslim countries have inherited the centralized bureaucratic
> more regional in scope, like the Shadhiliyya in North Africa         organization of their colonial predecessors, which sometimes
> (named after Abu 
l-Hasan al-Shadhili, d. 1258), or the              themselves go back to precolonial bureaucracies. In countries
> Chishtiyya in South Asia (named after Muin al-Din Chishti,          like Egypt and Pakistan, efforts have been made to subject the
> d. 1236). Particular orders are known for distinctive practices,     orders and shrines to governmental control. Nonetheless,
> such as the loud dhikr recitation of the Rifaiyya, in contrast to   many of the largest and liveliest Sufi organizations, such as
> the silent dhikr favored by the Naqshbandiyya. Some orders,          the Burhaniyya in Egypt, flourish without official recogniincluding the Chishtiyya and the Mevleviyya (the latter being        tion. Officials frequently appear at Sufi festivals and attempt
> known to Europeans as the “whirling dervishes”), have inte-          to direct popular reverence for saints into legitimation of
> grated music and even dance into their practice, while other         their regimes, and governments also attempt to control the
> orders resolutely shun these activities as distractions to spiri-    large amount of donations attracted to the shrines. State
> tual training. Sometimes Sufi leaders, such as the early              sponsorship of Sufi festivals also aims to enroll support
> Chishti masters, tried to keep political power at arm’s length,      against fundamentalist groups critical of the government, and
> and they advised their followers to refuse offers of land            to redirect reverence for saints in a nationalist direction.
> 
> 682                                                                                              Islam and the Muslim World
> Tariqa
> 
> Contemporary fundamentalist movements attack Sufism             many Muslim countries; although it derives from a branch of
> with a virulence sometimes even more intense than that             the Chishtiyya and still respects the early Sufi saints, this
> which is reserved for anti-Western diatribes. Reformers fre-       movement considers contemporary Sufi practice to be illequently denounce pilgrimage to Sufi tombs as an idolatry that       gitimate and attempts to dissuade people from pursuing it.
> treats humans on the level of God, and they reject the notion
> that saints are able to intercede with God on behalf of            Contemporary Orders
> ordinary believers. Sufi orders have been illegal in Turkey         In recent years, Sufi orders have extended their reach into
> since the 1920s, when Mustafa Kemal Ataturk secularized the        Europe and the Americas, and today branches of orders from
> Turkish state. The public performance of the Sufi rituals such      India, Iran, Africa, and Turkey are actively attracting adheras the “whirling dervish” dance of the Mevleviyya, and the         ents in major urban centers in many Western countries.
> dhikr of the Istanbul Qadiriyya, is tolerated only as a cultural   Some orders have also expanded into other Asian and African
> activity, which is exported abroad through touring companies       countries where they were never previously found. Certain
> and sound recordings; the tomb of the great Sufi poet Jalaluddin    groups derived from Sufi orders, such as the International
> Rumi (1207–1273), which many visitors treat as a shrine, is        Association of Sufism derived from the teachings of Hazrat
> officially regarded as a museum. This reformist critique of         Inayat Khan (1882–1927), have only tenuous associations
> Sufi practice has been internalized in some Sufi circles, such       with Islam; they present Sufism as a mystical universal religas the Sabiri Chishti tradition associated with the Deoband        ion that may be pursued through dancing and chanting,
> academy in India; leaders of this group, such as Ashraf Ali       without requiring the practice of ritual prayer or other duties
> Thanvi (1863–1943), have been highly critical of traditional       of Islamic law. Other groups have more explicit relations with
> Sufi practices such as listening to music and visiting the          Islamic tradition, including even insistence on the clothing
> tombs of saints. Certain Ottoman thinkers from Sufi back-           and customs of the order’s country of origin. Sufism is taking
> grounds (Bediuzzaman Said Nursi [1876–1960], Kenan Rifai         on some aspects of modern American and European culture,
> [1867–1950]) rejected life in the hospice and insisted on          such as joint participation of men and women in contexts
> living in the world, and they interpreted Sufi theorists like Ibn   where gender separation was the norm in many premodern
> al-Arabi (1165–1240) and Rumi in terms of modern thought          Muslim societies; several American Sufi groups even have
> and science. Modernist secular thinkers and Muslim coun-           female leaders, something quite rare in the traditional societries have also been critical of Sufism, but for different          ties where Sufism has flourished. At the same time, Sufism in
> reasons. To authors like Muhammad Iqbal (1877–1933) in             Europe and America strives to preserve some of the distinc-
> South Asia and Ahmad Kasravi (1890–1946) in Iran, institu-         tive rituals and institutions of traditional Sufism—the tomb
> tional Sufism was the source of fatalism, passivity, and civili-    of Sri Lankan Sufi master Bawa Muhaiyuddin near Philadelzational decline. Sufi advocates such as the Barelwi school in      phia has already become a place of pilgrimage.
> South Asia, and the Naqshbandis led by Shaykh Hisham
> Kabbani (b. 1945), have responded to these reformist cri-              Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of Sufism in the
> tiques with polemics and apologetics of their own, defending       nineteenth and twentieth centuries has been the publicizing
> Sufi practices as authentic and even necessary according to         of a previously esoteric system of teaching through modern
> Islamic principles. In response to the modernist critique, Sufi     communications media. Today, Sufi orders and shrines protheorists have asserted that science ultimately seeks what         duce a continual stream of publications aimed at a variety of
> Sufism alone can offer, and they have adopted the language of       followers from the ordinary devotee to the scholar. Evidence
> psychology and modern technology.                                  suggests that Sufi orders, along with governments, were
> among the first users of print in Muslim countries in the
> Sufi activities are not publicly tolerated in Saudi Arabia      nineteenth century. Not only traditional treatises on Sufi
> and Iran, since Sufi leaders and tomb cults would constitute        metaphysics and practice, but also new genres like periodicals
> an unacceptable alternative spiritual authority to the regnant     and novels, became vehicles for the expression of Sufi thought
> religious orthodoxy in either case. Still, it is remarkable that   in multiple languages. Other technologies, such as the audio
> the founders of certain fundamentalist movements, such as          cassette (especially for music), and now the Internet, have
> Hasan al-Banna (1906–1949) of the Muslim Brotherhood in            been extremely effective in disseminating Sufi ideas and
> Egypt, and Abu l-Ala
 Maududi (1903–1979) of the Jamaat-e        culture to broad audiences. In short, the Sufi orders have
> Islami in India, were exposed to Sufi orders in their youth,        employed the technologies and ideologies of modernity even
> and they seem to have adapted certain organizational tech-         as they have been forced to respond to them.
> niques and leadership styles from Sufism; the main difference
> is that these movements substitute political ideology for Sufi      See also Dhikr; Khirqah; Pilgrimage: Ziyara; Tasawwuf.
> spirituality, in order to become mass parties in the modern
> political arena. Another movement that has branched off            BIBLIOGRAPHY
> from Sufism in a hostile fashion is the pietistic Tablighi          De Jong, Fred, and Radtke, Berndt, eds. Islamic Mysticism
> Jamaat, founded in India and with immense followings in             Contested: Thirteen Centuries of Controversies & Polemics.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                   683
> Tasawwuf
> 
> Islamic History and Civilization: Studies and Texts, 29.      poverty. The ideal qualities evoked by these derivations are
> Leiden: Brill, 1999.                                          the key to the concept of tasawwuf as formulated by authors of
> Ernst, Carl W. Guide to Sufism. Boston: Shambhala Publica-        the tenth century, such as Sulami (d. 1021). While acknowltions, 1997.                                                   edging that that the term Sufi was not current at the time of
> Ernst, Carl W., and Lawrence, Bruce. Sufi Martyrs of Love:        the Prophet, Sufi theorists maintained that this specialization
> Chishti Sufism in South Asia and Beyond. New York: Palgrave     in spirituality arose in parallel with other disciplines such as
> Press, 2002.                                                   Islamic law and Qur
anic exegesis. But the heart of Sufism,
> Friedlander, Shems. The Whirling Dervishes: Being an Account     they maintained, lay in the ideal qualities of the prophet
> of the Sufi Order Known as the Mevlevis and its Founder the    Muhammad and his association with his followers. Defini-
> Poet and Mystic Mevlana Jalalu
’ddin Rumi. Albany: State      tions of Sufism described ethical and spiritual goals and
> University of New York Press, 1992.                           functioned as teaching tools to open up the possibilities of the
> Gramlich, Richard. Die schiitischen Derwischorden Persiens.      soul. In practice, the term Sufi was often reserved for ideal
> Wiesbaden, Germany: Steiner, 1965–1981.                        usage, and many other terms described particular spiritual
> Hoffman, Valerie J. Sufism, Mystics, and Saints in Modern         qualities and functions, such as poverty (faqir, darvish), knowl-
> Egypt. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1995.     edge (alim, arif), mastery (shaykh, pir), and so on.
> 
> Karamustafa, Ahmet T. God’s Unruly Friends: Dervish Groups           Orientalist scholarship introduced the term Sufism to
> in the Islamic Middle Period 1200–1550. Salt Lake City:
> European languages at the end of the eighteenth century.
> University of Utah Press, 1999.
> Prior to that time, European travelers had brought back
> Lifchez, R. The Dervish Lodge: Architecture, Art, and Sufism      accounts of exotic religious behavior by Oriental dervishes
> in Ottoman Turkey. Berkeley: University of California         and the miscellaneous Indian ascetics called fakirs, who were
> Press, 1992.
> considered important only when their social organization
> O’Fahey, R. S. Enigmatic Saint: Ahmad ibn Idris and the Idrisi   posed a problem for European colonialism. The discovery of
> Tradition. London: Hurst & Co., 1990.                          Persian Sufi poetry, filled with references to love and wine,
> Popovic, Alexandre, and Veinstein, Gilles, eds. Les voies        allowed Europeans to imagine Sufis as freethinking mystics
> d’Allah: Les ordres mystiques dans le monde musulman des       who had little to do with Islam. The “-ism” formation of the
> origines à aujourd’hui. Paris : Fayard, 1996.                  word (originally “Sufi-ism”) reveals that “Sufism” was a part
> Schimmel, Annemarie. Mystical Dimensions of Islam. Chapel        of the Enlightenment catalog of ideologies and belief sys-
> Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1975.               tems, and frequently it was equated with private mysticism,
> Trimingham, J. Spencer. The Sufi Orders in Islam. London:         pantheism, and the doctrine that humanity can become
> Oxford University Press, 1971.                                divine. Scholars such as Sir William Jones (d. 1794) and Sir
> Zarcone, Thierry; Işin, Ekrem; and Buehler, Arthur, eds.         John Malcolm (d. 1833) advanced the thesis that Sufism
> Journal of the History of Sufism. Vols. 1–2: The Qâdiriyya     derived from Hindu yoga, Greek philosophy, or Buddhism.
> Order. Istanbul: Simurg Press, 2000.                          This concept of the non-Islamic character of Sufism has been
> widely accepted in Euro-American scholarship ever since,
> Carl W. Ernst     despite (or perhaps because of) its disconnection with the
> Islamic tradition, in which tasawwuf and its social implementations have played a central role. Thus, in terms of its origin,
> the introduction of the term Sufism into European languages
> TASAWWUF                                                         may be regarded as a classic example of Orientalist misinformation, insofar as Sufism was regarded primarily as a radical
> Tasawwuf is an Arabic term for the process of realizing          intellectual doctrine at variance with what was thought of as
> ethical and spiritual ideals; meaning literally “becoming a      the sterile monotheism of Islam. Nevertheless, as a word
> Sufi,” tasawwuf is generally translated as Sufism.                 firmly ingrained in the vocabulary of modernity, Sufism can
> usefully serve as an outsider’s term for a wide range of social,
> The etymologies for the term Sufi are various. The             cultural, political, and religious phenomena associated with
> primary obvious meaning of the term comes from suf, “wool,”      Sufis, including popular practices and movements that might
> the traditional ascetic garment of prophets and saints in the    be in tension with normative definitions of Sufism.
> Near East. The term has also been connected to safa,
> “purity,” or safwa, “the chosen ones,” emphasizing the psy-      Origins and Early History
> chological dimension of purifying the heart and the role of      The Qur
an itself may be taken as a major source of Sufism.
> divine grace in choosing the saintly. Another etymology links    The experience of revelation that descended upon the prophet
> Sufi with suffa or bench, referring to a group of poor Muslims    Muhammad left its mark in numerous passages testifying to
> contemporaneous with the prophet Muhammad, known as              the creative power of God and to the cosmic horizons of
> the People of the Bench, signifying a community of shared        spiritual experience. God in the Qur
an is described both in
> 
> 684                                                                                          Islam and the Muslim World
> Tasawwuf
> 
> terms of overwhelming transcendence and immanent pres-             with God is associated particularly with the outstanding early
> ence. In particular, the ascension (mi
raj) of the prophet         woman Sufi, Rabia of Basra (d. 801). Other early Sufis
> Muhammad to Paradise, as elaborated upon from brief refer-         contributed to the development of an extensive psychological
> ences in the Qur
an (17:1–2, 53:1–18), provided a template         analysis of spiritual states, as a natural result of prolonged
> for the movement of the soul toward an encounter with the          meditative retreats. Socially speaking, many of the early Sufis
> Creator. While it was commonly accepted that the Prophet’s         came from lower-class artisan and craftsman origins. Their
> ascension was accomplished in the body, for Sufis this opened       piety often included deliberate critique of the excesses of
> up the possibility of an internal spiritual ascension. The         wealth and power generated by the rapid conquests of the
> notion of special knowledge available to particularly favored      early Arab empire. Major early figures in the Sufi movement
> servants of God, particularly as illustrated in the story of       included Dhu al-Nun of Egypt (d. 859), the ecstatic Abu
> Moses and al-Khidr (18:60–82), provided a model for the            Yazid al-Bistami in Iran (d. 874), the early metaphysician alrelationship between inner knowledge of the soul and out-          Hakim al-Tirmidhi (d. 910) in Nishapur, and the sober
> ward knowledge of the law. Another major theme adopted by          psychologist and legal scholar Junayd of Baghdad (d. 910).
> Sufis was the primordial covenant (7:172) between God and
> humanity, which established the relationship with God that             Although religious criticism of Sufi practices and docthe Sufi disciplines sought to preserve and restore. A broad        trines started to occur as early as the late ninth century, it is
> range of Qur
anic terms for the different faculties of the soul    particularly in the case of al-Hallaj (executed in 922) that
> and the emotions furnished a basis for a highly complex            tensions between Sufism and the legal establishment became
> mystical psychology.                                               apparent. Although the trial of al-Hallaj was a confusing mix
> of politics and crypto-Shiism, in hagiographical sources it
> The earliest figures claimed by the Sufi movement include         became mythologized as a confrontation between radical
> the prophet Muhammad and his chief companions; their               mysticism and conservative Islamic law. Sufi writers adapted
> oaths of allegiance to Muhammad became the model for the           to this crisis by insisting upon adherence to the norms and
> master-disciple relationship in Sufism. Muhammad’s medita-          disciplines of Islamic religious scholarship, while at the same
> tion in a cave on Mount Hira outside Mecca was seen as the         time cultivating an esoteric language and style appropriate to
> basis for Sufi practices of seclusion and retreat. In an exten-     the discussion of subtle interior experiences. Early Sufi writsion of the authority of the Prophet as enshrined in hadith        ers such as Sarraj (d. 988), Ansari (d. 1089), and Qushayri (d.
> accounts, Sufis regarded the model of the Prophet as the basis      1072) emphasized Sufism as the “knowledge of realities,”
> for spiritual experience as well as legal and ethical norms.       inseparable from yet far beyond the knowledge of Islamic law
> While there is debate about the authenticity of much of the        and scripture. Many of these writers also declared their
> classical hadith corpus, many hadith sayings favored by Sufis       loyalties to established legal schools or the Ashari school of
> describe the cosmic authority of Muhammad as the first being        theology.
> created by God, and in many other ways these sayings
> establish the possibility of imitating divine qualities. Venera-       The institutional spread of Sufism was accomplished
> tion of the prophet Muhammad, both for his own qualities           through the “ways” or Sufi orders, which increasingly from
> and in his role as intercessor for all humanity, became the        the eleventh century offered the prospect of spiritual commukeynote of Sufi piety as it diffused through Muslim society on      nity organized around charismatic teachers whose authority
> a popular basis.                                                   derived from a lineage going back to the prophet Muhammad
> himself. Under the patronage of dynasties like the Seljuks,
> Among the early successors to the Prophet, the later Sufi       who also supported religious academies in their quest for
> movement singled out as forerunners ascetics like al-Hasan         legitimacy, Sufi lodges eventually spread throughout the
> al-Basri (d. 728), who was renowned for preaching the vanity       Middle East, South and Central Asia, North Africa and Spain,
> of this world and warning of punishment in the next. By the        and southeastern Europe. While dedicated membership in
> end of the eighth century, small groups of like-minded             Sufi orders remained confined to an elite, mass participation
> individuals, particularly in northeastern Iran and in Iraq, had    in the reverence for saints at their tombs has been a typical
> begun to formulate a vocabulary of interior spiritual experi-      feature in Muslim societies until today.
> ence, based in good part on the Qur
an and the emerging
> Islamic religious sciences. Intensive and protracted prayer        Major Figures and Doctrines
> (including not only the five obligatory ritual prayers daily, but   The central role of Sufism in premodern Muslim societies is
> also five supererogatory or “extra credit” prayers) and medi-       perhaps best typified by the intellectual career of Abu Hamid
> tation on the meanings of the Qur
an were notable features of      al-Ghazali (d. 1111). Having become the foremost theoloearly Sufi practice. The sometimes stark asceticism of early        gian at the Nizamiyya academy in Baghdad at a very youthful
> Sufis, with its rejection of the corrupt world, came to be          age, he underwent a spiritual crisis chronicled in his autobiotempered by the quest to find God through love. This                graphical Deliverance from Error. Systematically questioning
> emphasis on an intimate and even passionate relationship           everything, he interrogated the four chief intellectual options
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                     685
> Tasawwuf
> 
> available in his day: dialectical theology, Greco-Arabic phi-       particular, Ibn al-Arabi described in detail the invisible
> losophy as interpreted by Ibn Sina, Ismaili esotericism, and       hierarchy of saints who control the destiny of the world; he
> Sufism. He regarded theology as a severely limited discipline,       also expressed, sometimes in enigmatic code, his own role as
> and philosophy as tainted by metaphysical arrogance, while          one of the chief figures of this hierarchy.
> the Ismailis were dismissed as authoritarians with a fallacious
> understanding of religion and morality. This left the Sufis as           Although polemical opponents as well as modern scholars
> the only custodians of knowledge that transcends the limits of      have criticized Ibn al-Arabi for identifying God with creareason; Ghazali’s conclusion was that Sufism, properly un-           tion and nullifying Islamic law, works of recent scholars like
> derstood, was the surest guide to the spiritual ideals deriving     Michel Chodkiewicz and William Chittick have demonfrom the Qur
an and the Prophet. While Ghazali program-             strated both Ibn al-Arabi’s metaphysical complexity and his
> matically separated Sufism from theology, philosophy, and            strong engagement with the shari
a. The phrase most com-
> Shiism, in fact the subsequent history of Sufism could not be       monly used to describe the teachings of Ibn al-Arabi, “oneseparated from these three streams of Islamic thought. Ghazali      ness of existence” (wahdat al-wujud), never occurs in his
> assumed that Sufis would be based in an authentic tradition of       writings; it vastly oversimplifies his doctrines, which are
> Islamic law, and it was in fact normal for Sufis to profess          better described as demonstrating the dialectical tension
> whichever school of law was current in their region (Hanafi in       between the different modes of existence in terms of divine
> South and Central Asia and the Ottoman lands, Shafii in             attributes. Nevertheless, there have been many critiques
> Persia and the eastern Mediterranean, Maliki in North Africa        directed at Ibn al-Arabi over the centuries, accusing him of
> and Spain, and Hanbali sporadically in Khurasan and Egypt).         flagrant heresy. Ironically, the best-known of his critics, the
> Ghazali’s massive synthesis, Giving Life to the Sciences of         Hanbali legal scholar and controversialist Ibn Taymiyya (d.
> Religion, connected basic Islamic ritual and religious texts and    1328), was himself a Sufi and a member of the Qadiri order.
> practices with the interiorization of Sufi piety in a way that
> was accessible to Muslim intellectuals trained in the madrasa           Another major Sufi figure was the great Persian poet
> legal tradition. The intellectual integration of Sufism with         Jalaluddin Rumi (d. 1273). Trained as a theologian with a Sufi
> the Islamic religious sciences typified many Muslim societies        background, Rumi unleashed his spiritual talent after enup to the age of European colonialism. In other writings,           countering the enigmatic dervish Shams-i Tabriz. His collec-
> Ghazali was also critical of antinomian tendencies and un-          tion of lyrical poems, named after Shams, is the largest body
> conventional practices found in Sufi circles. These deliber-         of such poetry by any Persian poet of the last millennium. His
> ately nonconformist trends were also inevitably a part of the       great poetic epic, Masnavi-ye ma
navi (Spiritual couplets), is a
> Sufi ambience.                                                       vast repository of Sufi teaching through stories and images.
> The Sufi order established by his descendants in Anatolia,
> The pervasive role of Sufism is demonstrated by countless       known as the Mevleviyya, have become famous to foreign
> biographical works in Arabic, Persian, and other languages,         observers as the “whirling dervishes,” due to their characterrecounting the virtues and exemplary religious lives of the         istic turning meditative dance. Rumi’s writings, which have
> Sufi saints. Many of these biographical traditions about Sufis        been immensely popular from Southeast Europe to India,
> are also enmeshed in the history of Islamic religious scholar-      portrayed divine beauty and mercy through unforgettable
> ship and dynastic political history. Although it is difficult to     and vivid imagery, easily memorized and popularized in
> select a handful of representative figures out of the innumer-       musical performance. Today Rumi’s poetry enjoys a new
> able possibilities, it would be impossible to leave out the great   vogue in English translation by American poets Robert Bly
> Andalusian Sufi, Ibn al-Arabi (d. 1240). Perhaps more than          and Coleman Barks.
> any other, Ibn al-Arabi illustrated the fusion of ethical and
> psychological mysticism with powerful metaphysical analysis,            Despite Ghazali’s earlier objections to philosophy, Sufi
> all in the context of Islamic law and the Qur
an. His teachings     teachings in their metaphysical form overlapped with both
> on human perfection, the manifestation of divine attributes in      the terminology and the doctrines of Aristotelian and
> creation, the divine names, imagination, and the nature of          Neoplatonic philosophy as interpreted in the Arabic tradiexistence were expressed through a series of difficult but           tion. Although Sufis aimed at a knowledge that transcended
> extremely popular Arabic writings, including the voluminous         intellect, it was inevitable that philosophical categories would
> encyclopedia The Meccan Openings, and the succinct treatise         be used to put Sufism into cosmological and metaphysical
> on prophecy and mysticism, Bezels of Wisdom. The latter work        perspective. Figures such as Shihab al-Din Yahya al-Suhrawardi
> has attracted over one hundred commentaries, in Arabic,             (executed in 1191) combined a critical revision of the meta-
> Persian, and Turkish, in countries ranging from the Balkans         physics, logic, and psychology of Ibn Sina (Avicenna, d. 1037)
> to South Asia. Ibn al-Arabi also elaborated upon the doctrine      with an identification of being as light. His “Illuminationist”
> of sainthood, which in Islamic contexts derives from author-        (ishraqi) philosophy, expressed both in logical treatises and in
> ity and intimacy conferred by God rather than from sanctity         Platonic fables in Arabic and Persian, drew upon Sufi mystias recognized in official Christian doctrines of sainthood. In       cal experience as an important source of knowledge. Although
> 
> 686                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Tasawwuf
> 
> Men in Oman participate in a Sufi dhikr performance where they repeat the name of God and his attributes or engage in a call and response in
> praise of God and the prophet Muhammad. The beating of the drums, the swaying body movements, and the repetition of the chants can lead
> to trances or states of ecstasy among Sufis. HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES
> 
> Ibn al-Arabi was not a philosopher, and Suhrawardi was not             are deeply revered in Sufi circles. While the majority of Sufi
> really a Sufi, the shared quest for understanding the relation-          scholars have been affiliated with Sunni legal schools, some
> ship between God and the world allowed Sufism and philoso-               Sufi orders (Nimatallahi, Khaksar) have had a Twelver
> phy both to play roles in the intellectual tradition of later           Shiite orientation. Certainly there have been Shiite theolo-
> Muslim societies.                                                       gians who have rejected the claims of Sunni saints, and the
> Safavid dynasty suppressed organized Sufism in Iran after
> Likewise, although Ghazali had made clear his objections
> seizing power in the early sixteenth century and making
> to Shiism in its Ismaili form, it is also apparent that Sufism
> cannot be separated from Shiism either. The recognition of             Shiism the state religion. As a result, formal Sufi orders in
> the Shiite imams as spiritual leaders possessing authority and         Iran have had a precarious existence or even gone underintimacy with God (walaya) is closely related to the rise of the        ground under threat from militant Shiism. Nevertheless,
> spiritual master and the concept of sainthood in early Sufism.           philosophical Sufism (
irfan) has remained an important as-
> Sufi lineages either include Ali or some of the later imams in          pect of the advanced curriculum in Iran. Philosophers of the
> their spiritual genealogies, and the imams of Twelver Shiism           Safavid period, such as Mulla Sadra (d. 1640), drew upon
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                            687
> Tasawwuf
> 
> Ibn Sina, Ibn al-Arabi, Suhrawardi, as well as Sufi and           thus reinforced the Islamic cosmology of Sufism. The mysti-
> Shiite themes.                                                   cal psychology that accompanied these practices articulated
> different levels of the heart and soul, which are further
> Ranging further afield, Sufi theorists in India and China to    differentiated in terms of multiple spiritual states (ahwal) and
> some extent adopted aspects of those cultures. Sufis in India      stations (maqamat) that have been charted out in varying
> were aware of yogic practices, including breath control and       degrees of detail.
> other psychophysical techniques. Knowledge of hatha yoga
> was disseminated through a single text known as The Pearl of          While dhikr recitation may originally have been restricted
> Nectar (Amrtakunda), which was translated into Arabic, Per-       to adepts undertaking retreat from the world, as a kind of
> sian, Turkish, and Urdu with a heavy dose of Islamizing           group chanting this practice can also be accessible to people
> tendencies. Sufi masters of the Chishti and Shattari orders        on a broad popular scale. Simple chanting of phrases like
> adopted certain yogic meditations into their repertoire through   “there is no god but God” (la ilaha illa allah) did not only
> this channel. Similarly, when the Chinese Sufi Wang Daiyu          express the fundamental negation and affirmation of Islamic
> (d. 1658) translated Persian Sufi works by Jami and others         theology, but also made it possible for a wider public to adopt
> into classical Chinese, he employed a neo-Confucian vocabu-       the practices of Sufism. One of the advantages of dhikr was
> lary and cosmology that made the works virtually indistin-        that it could be practiced by anyone, regardless of age, sex, or
> guishable from the productions of Chinese literati.               ritual purity, at any time. Under the direction of a master,
> Sufi disciples typically are instructed to recite dhikr formulas
> Alongside these main currents of Sufi thought, one can         selected in accordance with the needs of the individual, based
> also distinguish a kind of anti-structure in a series of move-    on the different qualities of particular divine names.
> ments that were deliberately unconventional. Psychologically
> the mood was set in the concept of self-blame (malama),               The tombs of Sufi leaders, especially those associated with
> which called for incurring shame before the public as a           major orders, played an important role in the public developdiscipline for the ego. While the early self-blamers among        ment of Sufism. On a popular level, these tombs were comthe Sufis were not supposed to infringe on religiously forbid-     monly connected to lodges or hospices maintaining open
> den territory, the dropout dervishes of the Qalandar move-        kitchens where all visitors were welcome. Major festivals
> ments (including Abdals, Haydaris, Malangs, and Madaris)          were held not only for standard Islamic holidays but also in
> rejected institutional Sufism as a betrayal of independent         particular for dates honoring the prophet Muhammad and
> spirituality. Shunning respectability, maintaining a bizarre      the Sufi saints. While the birthday of the Prophet was a
> appearance, and indulging in intoxicants, these eccentrics led    popular observance in many places, the death-anniversary of
> civil disturbances in Delhi and even organized peasant rebel-     the saint was also a focus of attention. The practice of
> lions against Ottoman rulers. They still may be seen on the       pilgrimage (ziyara) to the tombs of saints was generally
> fringes of Muslim societies as a kind of spiritual underground.   considered to be beneficial, but was especially valued at the
> anniversary of the moment when the saint was joined with
> Practices                                                         God; all this assumes the saint’s ability to intercede with God
> Aside from the obligatory daily prayers and supererogatory        on behalf of pilgrims. At major shrines like Tanta in Egypt, or
> ones, the most important Sufi practice is undoubtedly the          Ajmer in India, hundreds of thousands of pilgrims may
> recollection of God (dhikr) by recitation of Arabic names of      congregate for days at the annual festival, with many distinc-
> God as found in the Qur
an. This recitation, which could be       tive local rituals and performances. Over the past two centueither silent or spoken aloud, typically drew from lists of       ries, with the rise of the Wahhabis in Arabia and kindred
> ninety-nine names of God (it being understood that the one-       Salafi reform movements elsewhere, there has been extensive
> hundredth name was “the greatest name” of God, known              criticism of pilgrimage to tombs and the notion of saintly
> only to the elect). As with the supererogatory prayers, dhikr     intercession, all of which is considered to be sheer idolatry.
> aimed at interiorizing the Qur
an and its contents, in order to   Although in Saudi Arabia the tomb of practically every Sufi
> obtain closeness to God. As meditations, these practices          saint and family member of the Prophet has been destroyed,
> aimed to empty the heart of anything but God and to begin to      elsewhere pilgrimage to saints’ tombs continues to be popular.
> establish the qualities of the divine in the human being.
> Treatises like The Key to Salvation by Ibn Ata
 Allah of            Other widely encountered forms of Sufi practice are music
> Alexandria (d. 1309) described in detail the psychological and    and poetry, which take on different regional forms in accordexistential results to be obtained from multiple repetitions of   ance with local traditions. Although conservative Islamic
> particular names of God. The parallelism between repetition       legal tradition has been wary of musical instruments as
> of the divine names and Islamic theology is significant; in        innovations not present during the time of the Prophet, the
> Ashari theology, the divine names are the attributes of God,     rich and sophisticated musical traditions of Iran, India,
> and are the faculties through which the divine essence inter-     Andalusia, and Turkey have furnished irresistible and highly
> acts with the created world. Recitation of the divine names       developed forms for the communication of Sufi teachings,
> 
> 688                                                                                           Islam and the Muslim World
> Tasawwuf
> 
> particularly when combined with poetry. Sufis in fact speak         the expansion of literacy by colonial regimes, not only facilimostly of “listening” (sama
), emphasizing the spiritual role of   tated the workings of administration for the government, but
> the listener far more than that of the musical performer, and      also permitted the dissemination of formal religious knowlthe focus is upon the words of poems that may or may not be        edge among Muslims on a scale never before attempted. On
> accompanied by musical instruments. Early Sufi poetry in            one hand, the replacement of manuscript culture with identi-
> Arabic and Persian is frequently indistinguishable in form         cal printed books doubtless encouraged the scriptural auand content from secular love and wine poetry emanating            thoritarianism that arose with Salafi reform movements. On
> from the courts. The difference is that Sufi listeners would        the other hand, Sufi orders, with their large guaranteed
> refer libertine images and daring expressions to the passion-      markets, were major patrons of printing. The spread of
> ate relationship with God or the Sufi master. Leading Sufi           previously esoteric Sufi texts to a broad reading public
> poets like the Egyptian Ibn al-Farid (d. 1235) made mystical       amounted to a publication of the secret. Postcolonial govverse into an art form of great density and subtlety; for          ernments, modern universities, and academic societies also
> centuries, pilgrims to his shrine recited his poems at his         sponsored the printing of books related to Sufism. Parallel
> annual festival. In Persian, multiple genres ranging from the      with the printing phenomenon is the rise of audio recordquatrain (ruba
i) to the lyric (ghazal) and the ode (qasida),      ings of Sufi music distributed on global scale, initially for
> along with the epic couplet (masnavi), were cultivated by          ethnomusicological audiences, but more recently for popular
> poets in Sufi lodges as well as by court poets with Sufi             world music and fusion recordings. Major recording artists
> leanings. Particularly famous poets in Persian include Rumi,       with Sufi connections include Pakistani singer Nusrat Fateh
> Attar (d. 1220), Hafiz (d. 1389), and Jami (d. 1492).              Ali Khan (1948–1997) and Senegalese musician Youssou
> N’Dour (b. 1959).
> Poetic literature developed in many regional languages,
> sometimes using language and themes derived from Arabic               As Sufism became publicized on global scale, likewise
> and Persian models, but frequently employing rhyme, meter,         major ideological shifts occurred in Muslim countries, through
> and subject matter of local origin. The Indian subcontinent        which the term Islam increasingly became a symbol of
> offered many local languages to Sufi poets, who freely ex-          anticolonial identity. Salafi reform movements, often deplored the resources of Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, Tamil, and       scribed as fundamentalist, opposed Sufism as a non-Islamic
> Kashmiri. Writers like the Chishti poet Muhammad Jayasi (d.        innovation based on idolatrous worship of saints. Just as
> 1542) used Hindu figures from Rajput epics to convey Sufi            European Orientalists detached Sufism from Islam, now
> themes. Turkish became a vehicle both in the simple verse of       Muslim fundamentalists came to the same conclusion. Sufism
> Yunus Emre (d. 1321) and in the sophisticated Ottoman              has now become a position to be defended or criticized in
> poetry of figures like Shaykh Ghalib (d. 1799). Other major         terms of ideological constructions of Islam. In the most
> languages employed by Sufi include Malay, Swahili, Berber,          recent forms of representation of Sufism, Internet advertising
> and Hausa.                                                         paradigms and polemics have become the norm. Transnational
> Sufi movements, with the help of technically educated mem-
> Contemporary Manifestations and Situation                          bers in Europe, North America, or South Africa, maintain
> The changes wrought by European colonial expansion in              websites both for informing the public and for maintaining
> Asia and Africa, and by globalization in the postcolonial          connections for a virtual community. Some Sufi websites also
> period, have had major effects on Muslim societies. The            engage in extensive polemics against fundamentalists, who
> overthrow of local elites by foreign invaders removed tradi-       are often dismissed with labels such as Najdi (Wahhabi).
> tional sources of patronage for Sufi orders and shrines. Under
> the suspicious eyes of European colonial administrators,               Through encounters with colonial missionaries and through
> hereditary administrators of Sufi shrines in India became           migration to Europe and America, Sufis have become enintegrated into landholding classes, while the extended net-       gaged with non-Islamic religious traditions in various ways.
> works of Sufi orders furnished some of the only centers of          Some Sufi teachers, such as Hazrat Inayat Khan (d. 1927),
> resistance against European military aggression, as in the         decided to present Sufism to Europeans and Americans as a
> Caucasus, North Africa, and Central Asia. Sufi responses to         universal mystical teaching with no essential connection to
> colonialism thus ranged from accommodation to confronta-           Islam. The traditional Sufi emphasis on universality provided
> tion. As with traditional religious scholars, so too for Sufis it   a conceptual basis for this ecumenism, although non-Muslim
> was necessary to come to terms with new roles dictated by the      membership in Sufi orders had been decidedly rare prior to
> technological and ideological transformations of modernity.        the twentieth century. Now there are significant numbers of
> self-professed Sufis in Europe and America who do not
> One of the first notable features of modern capitalism and       consider themselves Muslims. At the same time, other Sufi
> technology introduced into Muslim countries by colonial            movements from Iran, Turkey, and West Africa include
> regimes in the nineteenth century was Arabic script printing,      varying degrees of emphasis on Islamic identity and tradiwhether in movable type or lithography. Printing, along with       tional custom. The relationship between Sufism and Islam is
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                   689
> Tasawwuf
> 
> thus debated and contested both in its traditional homelands       BIBLIOGRAPHY
> and in its new locations.                                          Addas, Claude. Quest for the Red Sulphur: the Life of Ibn 
Arabi.
> Translated by Peter Kingsley. Cambridge, U.K.: Islamic
> Another recent shift of emphasis in Sufism concerns
> Texts Society, 1993.
> women’s public participation in Sufi activities and what may
> be called feminist interpretations of Sufism. American women        Chittick, William C. The Sufi Path of Knowledge: Ibn al-
> 
Arabi’s Metaphysics of Imagination. Albany: State Univerare now trained to perform the Mevlevi turning dance in
> sity of New York Press, 1989.
> public ceremonies, and to take on the role of shaykha or
> female spiritual leader. While such prominence of women            Chittick, William C. Sufism: A Short Introduction. Oxford,
> was not unknown in traditional Muslim societies, global              U.K.: Oneworld Publications, 2000.
> changes in the roles of women are bringing women to the fore       Chodkiewicz, Michel. An Ocean Without Shore: Ibn 
Arabi, the
> in Sufi organizations to a remarkable extent, in countries like       Book and the Law. Albany: State University of New York
> Turkey and Pakistan as well as in America and Europe.                Press, 1993.
> Corbin, Henry. Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn
> As with religious matters everywhere, Sufism in the end is        
Arabi. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1969.
> governed by the state. The dervish orders in Turkey were
> Ernst, Carl W. Ruzbihan Baqli: Mysticism and the Rhetoric of
> outlawed by decree of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in 1925 as part
> Sainthood in Persian Sufism. Richmond, U.K.: Curzon
> of official secularism, and the revival of the Mevlevi “whirling      Press, 1996.
> dervish” performance was permitted only on condition that it
> Ernst, Carl W. Guide to Sufism. Boston: Shambhala Publicabe a nonreligious activity, destined especially for foreign
> tions, 1997.
> tourists. Sufi groups in Iran keep a very low profile under the
> watchful eyes of the Islamic regime. Sufism in the former           Ernst, Carl W. Teachings of Sufism. Boston: Shambhala Publi-
> Soviet republics, like most other religious activities, was          cations, 1999.
> practically extinguished under Soviet rule, although some          Ewing, Katherine Pratt. Arguing Sainthood: Modernity, Psyinformal networks survived. The Sufi-oriented Darul Arqam             choanalysis, and Islam. Durham, N.C.: Duke University
> movement in Malaysia was banned in 1994 for its political            Press, 1997.
> activities. A Lebanese Sufi group of African origin, the            Homerin, Th. Emil. Umar Ibn Al-Farid: Sufi Verse, Saintly
> Ahbash movement, promotes a program of religious plural-             Life. New York: Paulist Press, 2001.
> ism and peace within the framework of the secular state.           Hujwiri, Ali. The Kashf al-mahjub, The Oldest Persian Treatise
> Government bureaucracies closely control Sufi shrines in              on Sufiism. Translated by R. A. Nicholson. Leiden and
> Egypt and Pakistan, both because of the extensive revenue            London: Luzac, 1911.
> gathered at the shrines and to monitor the large crowds            Knysh, Alexander D. Islamic Mysticism: A Short History. Leiden:
> that attend.                                                         Brill, 2000.
> 
> Despite the vicissitudes of foreign invasion, the collapse of   Lewis, Franklin. Rumi: Past and Present, East and West. Lontraditional social structures, the imposition of European            don: Oneworld Publications, 2000.
> education and culture, and the rise of the secular nation-state,   Massignon, Louis. Essay on the Origins of the Technical Lan-
> Sufism in many different local forms persists and survives            guage of Islamic Mysticism. South Bend, Ind.: University of
> both among illiterate members of the lower class and among           Notre Dame Press, 1998.
> urban elites. Whether defended in traditional languages as         Razi, Najm al-Din. The Path of God’s Bondsmen. Translated
> part of classical Islamic culture or attacked as a non-Islamic       Hamid Algar. New York: Delmar, 1982.
> heresy, Sufism still forms part of the symbolic capital of          Schimmel, Annemarie. Mystical Dimensions of Islam. Chapel
> majority Muslim countries. As a form of religious practice            Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1975.
> spread to Europe and America by transnational migration            Schimmel, Annemarie. As Through a Veil: Mystical Poetry in
> and through the global marketplace, Sufism is seen both as an          Islam. New York: Columbia University Press, 1982.
> eclectic form of New Age spirituality and as the mystical
> Sells, Michael Anthony. Early Islamic Mysticism: Sufi, Quran,
> essence of Islam. The globalizing fortunes of Sufism over the          Mi
raj, Poetic and Theological Writings. New York: Paulist
> past two centuries are one more indication why it is no longer        Press, 1996.
> possible to speak meaningfully of a separate Muslim world.
> Sulami, Muhammad ibn al-Husayn. Early Sufi Women: Dhikr
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abbidat as-Sufiyyat. Translated by Rkia
> Hasan al-; Ghazali, al-; Hallaj, al-; Ibn Arabi; Ibn                 Cornell. Louisville, Ky.: Fons Vitae, 2000.
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> Literature; Pilgrimage: Ziyara; Rumi, Jalaluddin; Shia:             Cults. London and New York: Routledge, 1998.
> Imami (Twelver); Suhrawardi, al-; Tariqa; Urdu Language, Literature, and Poetry.                                                                                      Carl W. Ernst
> 
> 690                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Terrorism
> 
> Qajar Patronage
> TA
ZIYA (TA
ZIYEH)                                                   The heyday of ta
ziya was the Qajar era (1796–1925). The
> most elaborate example of Qajar patronage of ta
ziya was the
> Taziya is an Islamic Shiite ritual performed mainly in Iran.       Takiya Dawlat, which was built in Tehran in 1873 by the
> The Arabic term ta
ziya (Per., Taziyeh) means to mourn or           order of the Iranian monarch Naser al-Din Shah. This takiya
> to offer one’s condolences for a death. It is also sometimes         was built on a very grand scale. Nevertheless, it was in most
> called ta
ziya khani, or shabih khani. The term ta
ziya has been     ways a typical takiya. It consisted of a large circular amphiused primarily in Iran to refer to a Shiite religious ritual        theater with several entrances surrounding a large open area;
> consisting of a theatrical re-enactment of the tragic seventh-       a tent was used as a roof. Its primary purpose was to provide a
> century Battle of Karbala. This historic battle was fought           staging area for the most elaborate ta
ziya performances.
> between the followers of prophet Muhammad’s grandson                 Lady Sheil, a European traveler, resident in Tehran in 1856,
> Husayn and the troops of the second Umayyad caliph Yazid.            gives a brief account of the ta
ziya performance in the Takiya
> While ta
ziya performance rituals have been mostly restricted        Dawlat in 1856, concluding, “It is a sight in no small degree
> to Iran, the Shia of South Asia and Iraq use the term ta
ziya to    curious to witness an assemblage of several thousand persons
> refer to a model or replica of Husayn’s tomb, which they use         plunged in deep sorrow, giving vent to their sorrow” (p. 127).
> in their ritual processions, after which they are ritually
> discarded.                                                           Modern Trends
> Following the fall of the Qajar dynasty in the early twentieth
> The Battle of Karbala                                                century, the ta
ziya slowly declined until it was mostly aban-
> Accounts of the Battle of Karbala can be summarized as               doned in the large cities in the 1930s and 1940s. However,
> follows. In the year 680 C.E., Husayn, who was also the third        ta
ziyas have continued to exist in Iran on a smaller scale
> imam of the Shia, was killed in the desert of southern Iraq         throughout the twentieth century, especially in traditional
> along with over seventy of his family and close friends by           sectors. There were two reasons for this relative decline. The
> troops loyal to the caliph Yazid. The women and children             first Pahlavi king, Reza Shah, outlawed the ta
ziya. More
> were taken prisoner and paraded in various cities, adding to         importantly, as Iranian society changed modernized elites
> the humiliation, but also providing opportunities for these          became less interested in sponsoring such traditional ritual
> women, particularly Husayn’s sister Zaynab, to speak out             events. Scholars of literature and drama as well as governpublicly against Yazid. Yazid is portrayed by the Shia as           ment agencies attempted to preserve this theatrical tradition
> notoriously corrupt, immoral, and oppressive. Hence, Husayn’s        in the 1970s, and again in the 1980s and 1990s. However,
> rebellion and subsequent martyrdom is understood by the              unlike the Qajar period, which was the heyday of the ta
ziya
> Shia as an epic struggle between good and evil. For the Shia       ritual, the dominant public rituals since the 1930s have
> this event has served as a vindication of the Shiite cause in the   been the Muharram processions, and various forms of the
> face of Sunni criticism, as well as constituting the central         rawza khani.
> event in their understanding of human history.
> See also Hosayniyya; Rawza-Khani; Taqiyya.
> Historical Development
> Following the battle itself, popular elegies of the martyrs
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> were composed. However, the earliest reliable account of the         Chelkowski, Peter, ed. Ta
ziyeh: Ritual and Drama in Iran.
> performance of public mourning rituals was recorded in 963             New York: New York University Press, 1979.
> C.E. during the reign of Muizz al-Dawla, the Buyid ruler of         Hegland, Mary Elaine. “The Majales-Shia Women’s Rituals
> southern Iran and Iraq. When the Safavid dynasty came to               of Mourning in Northwest Pakistan.” In A Mixed Blessing:
> Gender and Religious Fundamentalism Cross Culturally. Edited
> power in Iran a new type of ritual called rawza-khani emerged,
> by Judy Brink and Joan Mencher. New York and London:
> consisting mainly of a ritual sermon recounting and mourn-
> Routledge, 1997.
> ing the tragedy of Karbala. This ritual was based on texts like
> Pelly, Sir Lewis. “The Miracle Play of Hasan and Husayn.”
> Husayn Vaez Kashfi’s 1502 composition entitled Rawzat al-
> Collected from Oral Traditions. London: Wm. H. Allen and
> shuhada (The garden of martyrs). Kashfi’s text was a synthesis          Co., 1879.
> of a long line of historical accounts of Karbala by religious
> scholars.                                                                                                          Kamran Aghaie
> By the time the Qajar dynasty took power in Iran in 1796,
> the rawza-khani ritual had evolved into the much more
> elaborate ritual called shabih-khani or ta
ziya.The ta
ziya, an      TERRORISM
> elaborate theatrical performance of the Karbala story based
> on the same narratives used in the rawza-khani, involved a           Terrorism is one of today’s most contested terms. It is widely
> large cast of professional and amateur actors, a director, a         used polemically to delegitimate both state-sponsored viostaging area, costumes, and props.                                   lence as well as counter-state insurgencies. Although there is
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                     691
> Terrorism
> 
> as yet no scholarly consensus in defining and theorizing about       resistance differed within and among the many groups at
> the subject, there is some agreement that terrorism involves        work, regardless of whether or not this resistance was articuthe threat and actual use of violence against civilians to bring    lated in terms of national struggle and liberation, as with
> about political, social, and economic change. During the late       many early resistance movements, or in religious terms through
> twentieth century, political elites, state intelligence agencies,   the concept of jihad, a concept that acquired greater salience
> the establishment media, and an array of experts (qualified          in the 1970s. At that time, revisionist formulations of classical
> and unqualified) began to use the term to describe the               Islamic jihad doctrine by Islamist ideologues such as Abu lmilitant tactics of various movements and organizations,            Ala
 al-Maududi (1903–1979) and Sayyid Qutb (1903–1966)
> none more than those connected with Islam. The subject is           were adapted by radical Islamic groups to legitimate the use
> considerably more complicated, however.                             of violence, first against agents of secular, pro-Western
> nation-states, and subsequently against civilian populations.
> Origins and Meanings of the Term
> The origin of the word “terror” in Latin-derived languages is           Groups as diverse as the European anarchists, Viet Cong,
> the French terreur, which assumed its modern meaning in the         Irish Republican Army, Nicaraguan Sandinistas, and Nelson
> context of the French Revolution. Following the overthrow           Mandela’s African National Congress have been branded
> of the monarchy in 1789, the new government established its         with the terrorist label. In Middle Eastern contexts, terrorism
> laws and its authority through a “reign of terror,” which           has been used generically to characterize incidents of violence
> inspired in the population a constant fear of arrest and            such as the attacks by Jewish guerillas against the British
> execution. In this context, terrorisme was understood as fear       during the Mandate Period; the 1972 killings of Israeli
> created by the state, or government rule through the specter        Olympic athletes in Munich at the hands of Palestinian
> of violence. This definition also applies to the totalitarian        Liberation Organization gunmen; violence committed by
> states of the twentieth century. More contemporarily, how-          agents of the Islamic Republic of Iran at home and abroad
> ever, terrorism has become synonymous with violence perpe-          since 1979; the assassination of Egyptian president Anwar
> trated by non-state actors.                                         Sadat by the Jihad group in 1981; the 1983 bombing of a
> United States Marine barracks in Beirut and the kidnappings
> In Arabic, the term irhab is commonly used today as the         of westerners in Lebanon; the Islamist insurgency against the
> equivalent for “terrorism,” its meanings largely affected by        Algerian government since the mid-1990s; and attacks against
> the use of the latter term in Western languages, particularly       Israeli forces and civilians. While anti-Soviet Muslim com-
> English and French. Irhab, derived from arhaba (“to frighten,”      batants in Afghanistan received moral, economic, and mili-
> “to strike with fear,” or “to terrify”), never appears in the       tary support from the United States from 1979 to 1988 as
> Qur
an, though its imperfect verbal form occurs once. The           “freedom fighters” (a loose translation of mujahidin), spin-off
> Qur
an states, “Against them make ready your strength to the        organizations such as al-Qaida and the Taliban have come to
> utmost of your power, including steeds of war, to terrify           epitomize what many now call terrorism.
> (yurhibuna) thereby the enemies of God, your enemies, and
> others whom you do not know, but God knows” (8:60). The                 In the wake of the 11 September 2001 attacks on the
> historical context for this command is that of the early battles    World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the administration of
> of Muhammad and his followers against their Meccan ene-             George W. Bush placed the war against terrorism, known
> mies; it has had limited use subsequently in the context of         officially as Operation Enduring Freedom, at the top of its
> discourses on jihad. Other variations of the same root appear-      foreign and domestic political agendas. This new anti-terrorism
> ing in the Qur
an refer to humanity’s awe of God, particularly      policy led to large-scale military actions in Afghanistan and
> as an appellation for Christian monks (ruhban). Since the           Iraq, as well as implementation of stringent security measures
> 1980s, irhab has been widely used in Arabic political rhetoric      in the United States, including mass deportations, detento condemn Israel’s use of military force. Egyptian political       tions, and curtailment of the civil rights of immigrants and
> elites and government-controlled media usually use the term         visitors to the country—especially those coming from the
> to describe violence committed by anti-state Islamist groups.       Middle East, South Asia, and Southeast Asia and who may be
> Muslims.
> More Recent Usages
> After the Second World War, movements countering coloni-               The way in which the international community—includalism and imperialism grew in strength and influence in              ing Western and Arab states—interpreted these events has
> Africa, Asia, and Latin America. In the Middle East (for            had a profound effect on how terrorism is identified today.
> example, Israel/Palestine, Egypt, Algeria, and Iran), national-     The incidents described above reflect many different conist and Islamic movements engaged in active and, at times,          texts and many different kinds of violence. What links them
> violent opposition to Western powers and the emergent               analytically is that various actors have described each as
> client regimes they supported. Then, as now, the means of           terrorist activity. When attempting to identify terrorism,
> 
> 692                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Thaqafi, Mukhtar al-
> 
> however, the term’s broad use offers little guidance in de-          Walzer, Michael. Just and Unjust War. New York: Basic
> scribing or understanding a particular situation.                      Books, 1977.
> 
> Defining Terrorism Today                                                                                       Juan Eduardo Campo
> How we define “terrorism” creates the intellectual frame-                                                           Caleb Elfenbein
> work that delimits the explanations available to us in working
> to understand an event or series of events. Most states, and
> much of the international community, now define terrorism
> as the use of force by non-state actors, a definition that            THAQAFI, MUKHTAR AL-
> focuses analytic attention on the violence of resistance at the      (C. 622–687)
> expense of attention to violence perpetrated by the state. The
> analytic and conceptual shift in the meaning of terrorism in         Mukhtar b. Abi Ubayd al-Thaqafi took over Kufa (in Iraq)
> the last decades of the twentieth century has had important          for a year and a half during the Second Civil War (fitna, set off
> consequences. Rather than focusing on the causes that lead to        by the murder of Husayn in 680), as the Zubayrids and
> violent resistance, discussions of terrorism are often limited       Marwanids struggled for control of the empire in succession
> to questions about the legitimate use of force to eliminate it.      to the Sufyanid branch of the Umayyad caliphs. Mukhtar
> initially supported the Zubayrids but later, in 685, he deposed
> Brought into greater relief, the modern meaning of ter-          their governor of Kufa in the name of Muhammad b. alrorism comes out of the use of violence to justify and preserve      Hanafiyya (d. 700), son of Ali by a concubine of the Hanafi
> a regime of law, relations of power, or, more broadly, a way of      tribe. When Mukhtar sent an armed force to Medina, the
> life. While all states use violence to protect the authority of      Zubayrids released Muhammad b. al-Hanafiyya, who, howthe law and the state itself, those using violence to resist state   ever, declined to join Mukhtar in Kufa. In 686, he defeated a
> authority do so in order to undermine that authority. Both           Marwanid army from Syria, but soon after, the Zubayrids of
> kinds of violence aim at a similar end: creating and maintain-       Basra defeated his army and beleaguered him in the citadel of
> ing a system that orders the world. In fact, when seen in a          Kufa. After perhaps six months, Mukhtar was killed in battle.
> broader context, state terror and non-state terror legitimize        Four years later, the Zubayrids themselves were driven out of
> each other, marginalizing alternatives to that violence.             Iraq by the Marwanids, who refounded the Umayyad dynasty
> on the principle of vigorous direction from Syria.
> Defining terrorism in terms of “essential meanings” of
> Islam—or of any religious tradition—provides little help in             Mukhtar’s history is difficult to make out because of the
> understanding how violence functions. Violence is not par-           vagaries of transmission between his time and that of our
> ticular to a specific religion, or to religion in general, or to a    sources in the ninth century. The difficulty is further aggraparticular kind of socio-political organization, though it is        vated because numerous politico-religious factions have had
> indelibly part of both. The term “terrorism” used to describe        an interest in dissociating themselves from him. It does seem,
> any and all violent activity unsanctioned by a sovereign state       however, that non-Arab converts were prominent among his
> or by international authority is insufficient to arrive at a          soldiers and that some elements of his program were taken up
> nuanced understanding of events. As a result, the term “ter-         by later radical Shiites, including the early Abbasids, while
> rorism” should be limited to a heuristic role, and should not        other elements, such as the concept of a mahdi, or a reformer
> be used as an explanatory tool in analyzing specific incidents        who appears at the end of time, attracted later Sunnis. The
> of violence or patterns of violence.                                 distinctive religious tinge of Mukhtar’s reign, although now
> difficult to identify with certainty, helped provoke the
> See also bin Ladin, Usama; Conflict and Violence;                     Marwanids to Islamize their administration.
> HAMAS; Intifada; Qaida, al-; Taliban.
> See also Muhammad al-Nafs al-Zakiyya; Shia: Early;
> Succession.
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Crenshaw, Martha, ed. Terrorism in Context. University Park:         BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995.
> Dixon, Abd al-Ameer Abd. The Umayyad Caliphate 65–86/
> Esposito, John L. Unholy War: Terror in the Name of Islam.              684–705: A Political Study. London: Luzac and Com-
> Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.                  pany, 1974.
> Falk, Richard. The Great Terror War. New York: Olive                 Hawting, G. R. The First Dynasty of Islam. The Umayyad
> Branch Press, 2003.                                                 Caliphate AD 661–750. Carbondale and Edwardsville:
> Juergensmeyer, Mark. Terror in the Mind of God: The Global             Southern Illinois University Press, 1987.
> Rise of Religious Violence. Berkeley: University of California
> Press, 2000.                                                                                               Christopher Melchert
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                      693
> Theology
> 
> THEOLOGY See Disputation; Kalam; Law                            TITLES, ISLAMIC See Sayyid; Sharif;
> Shaykh al-Islam
> 
> TOUBA
> TIMBUKTU
> The city of Touba is located in the region of Diourbel in
> Senegal, West Africa. It is the second largest city in Senegal
> During the early medieval period, Timbuktu was a seasonal
> and (in 2001) had approximately one quarter of a million
> camp of Berber nomadic tribes as they took their livestock to
> inhabitants. The city was established in 1887 by Ahmad
> the Niger River during the dry season. It became a semi-        Bamba, the founder of the Muridiyya (Mouride) brotherhood
> permanent settlement in the twelfth century. By the fifteenth    (tariqa), as the headquarters for his new brotherhood. Accordcentury, the settlement had become one of the most famous       ing to tradition, the location was revealed to him by the angel
> intellectual and commercial cities of the African continent.    Gabriel while he was seated praying. The French, fearful of
> Salt and gold were among the precious products sought after     an uprising against their regime, did not permit Ahmad
> in Timbuktu. Merchants and scholars from North Africa           Bamba to live in Touba but he continued to see it as a holy site
> visited or settled in there during the second half of the       and the center of his brotherhood. Succeeding caliphs would
> fourteenth century. A number of universities were estab-        either live in Touba or have a principal home there.
> lished in Timbuktu from the fifteenth century onwards.
> Before his death in 1927 Ahmad Bamba began the con-
> Notable among them are the following: Sankore, which was
> struction of the great mosque in Touba, which is today the
> established by Sanhaja Berbers; Djingerey Bey; and the Oralargest mosque in Senegal. The founder’s mausoleum is in
> tory of Sidi Yahya. Their course offerings included the study
> Touba as are several religious and Arabic schools, libraries,
> of the Qur
an, the hadith, law, theology, rhetoric, logic,      historical sites, and tombs of other Muridiyya leaders. The
> prosody, and Arabic grammar. The universities of Timbuktu       city is home to the annual Muridiyya festival, the Magal. The
> maintained close contact with other universities in North       date of the Magal marks the exile of Ahmad Bamba to Gabon,
> Africa and Egypt. They offered the same topics and recog-       symbolizing his suffering and resistance to the French colonized each other’s degrees.                                     nial authorities. Hundreds of thousands of disciples make the
> pilgrimage every year to pray at the founder’s tomb and to
> The two major sources of the political history of the       celebrate their religion. Especially during the immediate premedieval Western Sudan are the Tarikh al-Sudan (History of     and post-independence periods, when Muriddiyya caliphs
> the Black people) and the Tarikh al-Fattash (History of the    played a large role in the political process of Senegal, Touba
> researcher ) were written by Timbuktu scholars: Abd al-        was a major seat of political as well as religious power.
> Rahman al-Sadi and Mahmud Kati, respectively. During          See also Africa, Islam in; Bamba, Ahmad; Tariqa.
> the 1990s, the al-Furqan Islamic Heritage Foundation published catalogues of thousands of manuscripts in Arabic or      BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Ajami located in the libraries and private collections of
> Coulon, Christian. “The Grand Magal in Touba; A Religious
> Timbuktu. These manuscripts include scholarly works and           Festival of the Mouride Brotherhood in Senegal.” African
> other documents, providing crucial information on the relig-      Affairs 98 , no. 391 (April 1999): 195–210.
> ious social, economic, and political history of the region.     Ross, Eric. “Touba: A Spiritual Metropolis in the Modern
> World.” Canadian Journal of African Studies 29 , no. 2
> See also Africa, Islam in; Kunti, Mukhtar al-.                    (1995): 222–259.
> 
> Lucy Creevey
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Hiskett, Mervyn. The Development of Islam in West Africa.
> London and New York: Longman, 1984.                          TRADITIONALISM
> Hunwick, John. Timbuktu and the Songhai Empire: Al-Sa
di’s
> Tarikh al-Sudan down to 1613 and Other Contemporary           The term traditionalism is commonly used to describe the
> Documents. Leiden : Brill, 1999.                              early Islamic movement that coalesced around the ideas of
> Ahmad Ibn Hanbal (d. 855) during the mihna (inquisition, c.
> 833–847). Traditionalism indicates the loose configuration of
> Ousmane Kane       scholars who rejected the rationalist interpretation of Islamic
> 
> 694                                                                                         Islam and the Muslim World
> Translation
> 
> theology proposed by the Mutazili school of thought. Tradi-        originals were lost. Arabic translations preserved the works of
> tionalists were also known as the Hashwiyya (promoters of           other Greek writers, such as Euclid, Rufus of Ephesus,
> farce) by their rationalist opponents who argued that there         Nicolaus of Damascus, Porphyry, and Proclus. Hunayn bewas little scholarly depth to traditionalist ideas. Central to      queathed his translation legacy to his son, Ishaq ibn Hunayn
> traditionalism was the rejection of the doctrine of the created     (d. 910). Hunayn and his school created a genuine home in
> Qur
an, which held, contrary to traditionalist views, that the      the Arabic language for a rich repertoire of new ideas and
> Qur
an was not eternal and was revealed ad hoc in response to       concepts. Most of the major translators were Christian, with
> specific crises in the life of the prophet Muhammad. Tradi-          the possible exception of a Jewish scholar named Marsajawayh,
> tionalism, however, should not be confused with the term            who translated from the Syriac, and Thabit b. Qurrah (c.
> “traditionists,” which more narrowly describes scholars en-         834–901), a Sabian from Harran.
> gaged in the development and promotion of hadith literature
> as a major component of Islamic theology and law (the                  Translation was almost entirely devoted to scientific,
> medical, and philosophical works. Philosophical texts were
> muhaddithun). While it is true that most traditionalists were
> paraphrased and included commentaries for Arabic students.
> traditionists (i.e., proponents of hadith), not all muhaddithun
> Simplified adaptations of the works of Plato and Aristotle
> agreed with the anti-rationalist tendency of the group that
> were known in Arabic. Another area of great intellectual
> came to embrace Ibn Hanbal. In contemporary discussions of
> interest was Neo-Platonism, particularly the works of the
> Islam, the term traditionalism has come to refer to Islamic
> Egyptian Plotinus (c. 200–269 C.E.), and of his disciple Porrevivalists (so-called fundamentalists) due to their links to Ibn
> phyry (233–301).
> Hanbal through the writings of Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328).
> However, modern traditionalism has little similarity to the             Yet it would be wrong to overemphasize the impact of
> ideas that gave rise to anti-rationalist groups in early Islam.     Greek ideas on Islam’s religious life and culture. Only a small
> Contemporary traditionalism is loosely based on the idea that       circle of educated elites was shaped by the influence of Greek
> all individuals have the faculties of reason necessary, when        intellectual ideas. The Qur
an survived the critical Greek
> combined with piety and a reading knowledge of Arabic, to           encounter to endure as the great devotional and missionary
> discern on their own the will of God, an idea that would have       text of the religion, conveying the sounds and tones of the
> been anathema to Ibn Hanbal and early traditionalist thought.       original sacred Arabic of Scripture to multitudes of adherents
> down the centuries and scattered well beyond the Arab
> See also Hadith; Ibn Hanbal; Ibn Taymiyya; Mihna.
> heartlands.
> 
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                        Mission and Translation
> Hallaq, Wael. A History of Islamic Legal Theories: An Introduc-     In the course of its worldwide expansion and cross-cultural
> tion to Sunni Usul al-Fiqh. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge            transmission, Islam has maintained a remarkable consistency
> University Press, 1997.                                           in promoting the nontranslatable status of the Qur
an. That
> may account in part for the relative unity of faith and practice
> Lawrence, Bruce. Defenders of God: The Fundamentalist Revolt
> Against the Modern Age. San Francisco: Harper and                 among Muslims who are otherwise characterized by an ex-
> Row, 1989.                                                        traordinary diversity of race, language, culture, and social
> status. Without an institutional central authority to enforce
> Makdisi, George. “Ash’ari and Ash’arites in Islamic Religious
> doctrine and to adjudicate the affairs of believers, Islam has
> History.” Studia Islamica 17 (1962): 37–80; 18 (1963): 19–39.
> nevertheless continued to enjoy a degree of solidarity that is
> belied by its organizational decentralization. It happens that
> R. Kevin Jaques      only a minority of the world’s one billion Muslims is Arab in
> language and culture, yet for all Muslims the Holy Qur
an in
> the original Arabic is divine oracle. Rather than impede the
> spread of Islam, this fact has been the basis of the appeal of the
> TRANSLATION                                                         religion in societies even beyond the Arab heartland. The
> language of scripture has been a major force in establishing
> Scholars working under the sponsorship of Muslim patrons            boundaries and shaping identity for new communities in Islam.
> undertook the translation of works on Greek philosophy and
> scientific learning and transmitted them to the West. An                 The Qur
an bears witness to its own unique and manifest
> early and particularly fertile center for translation was Jundi-    status as Arabic speech (12: 1–3; 16: 105; 41: 41–42), a
> Shapur in Khuzistan, southeast of Baghdad. There the                celestial discourse designed for repeated recitation “whereat
> Bukhtishu, a family of physicians at the court of the caliph,      shiver the skins of those who fear their Lord; then their skins
> became energetic translators of Greek works on medical              and their hearts soften to the remembrance of God” (39: 23).
> matters. Hunayn ibn Ishaq (808–873), based in Baghdad,              The Qur
an as the “essence of divine speech” is sublime and
> translated the medical as well as ethical and philosophical         wise guidance for the faithful, and is preserved in its Arabicness
> works of Galen, which were preserved in Arabic long after the       with God as such (43: 3).
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                       695
> Translation
> 
> The transmission of Islam has been accompanied by                 little understood, they possessed still great beauty and music,
> adaptations in local practice and understanding, and, accord-         a subtle and indefinable charm “incomprehensible to those
> ingly, the Qur
an has been appropriated to reflect new                 not acquainted with the language in which the Koran was
> situations, whether as divine oracle, rule book, breviary, vade       written.”
> mecum, periapt, or as universal template. There being no
> rival versions of the Qur
an, Muslims possess in their scrip-         Translation, Reform, and Revolution
> ture a single and unvarying standard of faith and devotion,           The tradition of orthopraxy that a uniform Qur
an proand a tangible symbol of the oneness of the umma (commu-              moted, and that was important where caliphal authority was
> nity of believers). Through Islam’s worldwide expansion the           weak or unknown, was difficult to maintain among acephalous
> Arabic of scripture became, according to H. A. R. Gibb, “a            Muslim populations such as existed in North Africa. For
> more than three centuries after the introduction of Islam, the
> world language and the common literary medium of all
> Berbers there remained poorly instructed in the faith and
> Muslim peoples” (1974, p. 37).
> remained, therefore, susceptible to splintering and heresy.
> Although proficiency in the language of Scripture is the           To remedy such defects, the Almoravid movement, launched
> preserve of a small circle of specialists, nevertheless the task of   in 1056, sought to assemble the dispersed Berber tribes under
> learning the holy book by rote memorization is the sacred             Islamic rule in forms that were frankly outlandish: the Qur
an
> duty of all Muslims, scholar and sundry alike, because only           and the sunna, for example, were discounted as too demandthat way may Muslims observe the obligatory five daily                 ing for the simple and ignorant, their place now taken by a
> periods of worship known as salat. Even though there are              culture of strict discipline on the masses and unquestioning
> translations of the Qur
an, they are invalid for salat for which      obedience to the leader. Religious illiteracy became even
> the sacred Arabic has been instituted as a prerequisite, a rule       more conspicuous from the high expectations raised by
> that gives translations no canonical merit in the central             Almoravid power.
> religious rites.
> The illiteracy aggravated the moral delinquency belonging with the fictitious nature of power, and that finally
> A potent connection exists between the Arabic script and
> provoked a reaction. An idea had been growing steadily that it
> Islam’s sacrosanct view of language. One tradition speaks of
> was necessary to extend to the Berber tribesmen the unifying
> the human face as God’s image, of language as the mark of
> dividends that the Asharite revolution had achieved in the
> humanity, and the twenty-eight letters of the Arabic script as
> eastern provinces of the caliphate. By making use of reason to
> containing the essence of that contained in language: the
> defend revelation, Asharism repositioned Muslim intellecmysteries of God, humanity, and eternity. Echoes of such
> tual life after its encounter with Greek ideas by stressing
> reverence for the sacred Arabic can be found in mosque
> God’s omnipotence (qadar) and by rejecting the naturalist
> calligraphy composed of Qur
anic verses and the names of
> inferences of anthropomorphism (tajsim).
> God, the Prophet, the shahada (profession of faith), and the
> early caliphs. Calligraphic art has spread widely, and with it           Transferred to North Africa, these Asharite ideas would
> an iconographic reverence for the sacred script. Muslim               have a major impact on religion, state, and society. In the
> devotions involve rhythmic chanting (tartil) of the Qur
an.           circumstances of political fragmentation and religious
> syncretism that characterized North Africa in the eleventh
> The widespread iconographic reverence for the language
> century, a movement of reaction and revolution erupted to
> and script of the Qur
an led travelers in the far regions of the
> channel pent up forces through a political outlet under a
> Islamic world to comment on the prominence given to study
> charismatic leader. This leader was Ibn Tumart (d. 1130),
> of the Qur
an and to its use in canonical worship. Thus did
> founder of the militant Almohad (al-muwahhidun) counter-
> Ibn Battuta recount how Muslim Africans were punctilious in
> revolution against the lackadaisical Almoravids.
> mosque attendance and zealous in learning the Qur
an, testifying that parents “put their children in chains if they show             Ibn Tumart assumed power and had the Qur
an translated
> any backwardness in memorizing it, and they are not set free          into his native Berber; he ordered the call to prayers (adhan)
> until they have it by heart.” Dr. Edward Wilmot Blyden                to be given in Berber; the Friday sermon (khutba) likewise was
> (1832–1912), a pan-African visionary of West Indian origin,           delivered in his mother tongue; and he required the clerics,
> made a close study of Islam and Muslim life, noting that even         the ulema, to know and function in that language. He arat the margins of the Muslim world the untranslated Qur
an            ranged for his own theological writings to be circulated in
> held a particularly high position. He said he saw evidence of         Berber as well as Arabic. Such translation activity stimulated
> the Holy Book exerting a powerful influence on nonliterate             sentiments of local nationalism, though it conflicted with Ibn
> populations, providing a ground of unity for the disparate            Tumart’s own aims of integrating Berber Islam into the
> tribes and a sentiment of loyalty that promoted a sense of            unified Asharite and Ghazalian tradition that he so much
> common identity. The words of the sacred book, he testified,           admired. Undertaking his ambitious translation enterprise as
> were held in the greatest reverence and esteem. Although for          a facet of the changes he wished to see introduced in Muslim
> many Muslim Africans the words of the Arabic Qur
an were              North Africa, Ibn Tumart ended by producing a variation so
> 
> 696                                                                                               Islam and the Muslim World
> Translation
> 
> colorful and so rare as to amount to a serious rupture with          in West Africa. Swahili verse and prose literature have func-
> Qur
an and sunna.                                                    tioned to impress on the fabric of popular life images of Islam
> drawn from the Arabic classics: accounts of the Prophet in
> The nationalist impulse of language reform and religious         popular praise songs; studies of the origins of the Islamic
> renewal converged again much later, during the Ottoman               state; stories of the caliphs and the Prophet’s companions;
> Empire. By the late nineteenth century this linguistic nation-       devotional literature tied to the religious calendar; exegetical
> alism was gaining a foothold within and without. Students            works expounding the Qur
an; and manuals designed for
> from the empire returned from their studies in European              exchange and study in shops, markets, and private homes.
> universities with a heightened sense of national identity.           Swahili has thus worked in favor of Islam’s penetration into
> Works on Turkish language and grammar, some the result of            coastal and transient populations of East Africa.
> European Orientalist scholarship, were coming into general
> circulation. Works in European languages, particularly French,           Hausa verse and prose have had a comparable effect on the
> were translated into Turkish. Hungarian and Polish refugees,         Hausa people of Nigeria and beyond. Early in the nineteenth
> many of whom converted to Islam, wrote in French and                 century an era of revolution and reform produced an environ-
> Turkish. Russian Turks brought a strong sense of national            ment conducive to the large-scale use of written Hausa in
> identity, infusing the Turkish language with a sense of his-         Arabic script. That in turn inspired a corresponding pantorical destiny. These impulses coalesced into the Turkish           Islamic sensibility among scholars. Writers in Hausa ap-
> Society, founded in Istanbul in 1908. The society was dedi-          pealed to the Arabic classics, including the literature procated to objectives that were scholarly as well as cultural,         duced during the Abbasid caliphate, to reform local practice
> including the advancement of language and literature. As part        and to implement the religious canon. The reformers drew
> upon the Qur
an, the hadith, the history, and the legal and
> of its aggressive program of secularization, the new political
> biographical traditions to create structures and institutions in
> authorities set about reforming religious life and practice. In
> their part of the Muslim world, and the gains they made
> 1929 Arabic and Persian were abolished as subjects of instrucbecame a permanent part of the life of the people.
> tion in schools to facilitate the teaching and spread of Turkish. A reorganization of religious schools and mosques was               For its part, Fulfulde enjoyed a long and distinguished role
> undertaken, with the requirement that the language of wor-           as the language of instruction, catechism, and exegesis in
> ship be Turkish, and that all prayers and sermons be in the          Qur
an school and beyond. The educational syllabus was
> national language, and not Arabic. Measures were adopted to          based on a four-stage process: introducing the Arabic alphatranslate the Qur
an and the hadith into Turkish, with money         bet (jangugol), writing (windugol), Scriptural exegesis in Fulfulde
> voted for the scheme in 1932. In that year for the first time the     (firugol), and higher studies (fennu; Ar., ilm awfaq). Religious
> adhan resounded from minarets in Turkish.                            catechism was conducted in Fulfulde. All this linguistic activity laced Fulbe national feeling with a heightened sense of
> Beginning in 1928 with the adoption of a new Latin
> Islamic exceptionalism. Beginning with the reforms of
> alphabet to replace Arabic, a vigorous, if at times overenthusi-
> Karamokho Alfa of Futa Jallon in 1727, and Uthman dan
> astic, language reform program was undertaken. The Turk-             Fodio of northern Nigeria in 1804, the Fulbe became enerish language was purged of its Arabic and Persian borrowings         getic sponsors of reform in West African Islam and the selfand grammatical features to bring it closer to national aspira-      acclaimed defenders of Sunni orthodoxy. Under Fulbe hetions. Although some of the excesses of this linguistic purge        gemony, the language issue acquired a central status: the
> were later reversed, the language reforms achieved the goal of       accommodationists among the local Muslim clerics were
> closing a crucial gap between written and spoken Turkish,            decried as 
ulama al-su
, the “venal clerics,” and charged with
> giving birth to a new sense of national identity. The attempts       allowing scriptural standards to slip and political corruption
> to carry the translation efforts into the mosque failed because      to spread. Literacy in Arabic, however limited, became a
> of clerical opposition. A similar fate befell attempts in India to   criterion of reform and renewal. Such limited literacy repretranslate the Islamic canonical rites into Hindi, in that case       sented precious intellectual capital in marginal Muslim sociealso for reasons of trying to bring Islam into line with the         ties, and the Fulbe reformers deployed it to great effect.
> national sentiment.                                                  Literate clerics, accordingly, became the vanguard of change
> in state and society.
> Translation and Cross-Cultural Consolidation
> These large-scale national reforms aimed at shifting people’s           It is not the case, however, that all literate clerics adopted
> devotion to the sacred script and language are testimony to          the path of militancy from their privileged position as masters
> the enduring influence of the Qur
an on the habits and                of Arabic. An outstanding example are the Jakhanke Muslim
> customs of Muslim peoples. Yet a different impulse has               clerics of Senegambia who, as a matter of principle, have,
> worked in translation to fashion in people a sense of identity       from medieval times, rejected jihad as well as political coand to provide boundary markers. This is the case, for               option, and have instead adopted the methods of peaceful
> example, with Swahili in East Africa and Hausa and Fulfulde          persuasion in their role as educational specialists. They have
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                         697
> Travel and Travelers
> 
> introduced the Arabic of scripture and tradition in their            The expansion of Islam beyond its early borders meant
> schools by means of local languages, adapting the grammati-       that such a pilgrimage invariably required long-distance
> cal concepts and special vocabulary of the Qur
an to local        travel. The conversion of the local population to Islam
> usage. They created in West Africa a culture of religious and     necessitated travel for both new converts and for those
> political moderation in spite of a bruising era of confronta-     proselytizing. This expansion resulted not only from war, but
> tion under an anticlerical French colonial administration. At     also through commerce as traveling merchants established
> the hands of the pacific clerics, translation assured the re-      trading posts farther away from Islam’s original center.
> newal of Islam and its continuing vitality as a pillar of civil
> society without the compromise of armed intervention or              The most fundamental values of Islam have tended to
> state enforcement.                                                encourage a high degree of social mobility and to free movement of individuals from one city and region to another.
> See also Arabic Language; Ibn Battuta; Persian Lan-               Travel was promoted through Islamic culture and put great
> guage and Literature; Qur
an; Science, Islam and.                 emphasis on egalitarian behavior in social relations based on
> the ideal of a community allegiance to one God.
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Travel was made easy by the dynamics of social life
> Battuta, Ibn. Travels in Asia and Africa, 1325–1354. Edited
> and translated by H. A. R. Gibb. London: Routledge and         centered on an egalitarian, contractual, and relatively free
> Kegan Paul, 1983.                                              play of relations among individuals striving to conform to
> Islamic moral standards. Wherever an individual traveled,
> Gibb, H. A. R. Arabic Literature: An Introduction. London:
> pursued a career, or bought and sold goods, the same social
> Oxford University Press, 1974.
> and moral dictates of Islam largely applied. The language
> Grunebaum, G. E. von. Classical Islam, A History 600–1228.
> common to early Islam, Arabic, ensured another unifying
> London: George Allen & Unwin, 1970.
> characteristic.
> Hayes, John R., ed. The Genius of Arab Civilization: Source of
> Renaissance. 1976. Reprint. Oxford, U.K.: Phaidon, 1978.            The pattern of travel and migration of adherents to Islam
> Lewis, Bernard. The Emergence of Modern Turkey. Oxford,           all but ensured a persistent dispersion of architects, writers,
> U.K.: Oxford University Press, 1968.                            craftsmen, legal scholars, scribes, Sufi divines, and theologi-
> Nasr, S. H. Islamic Science: An Illustrated Study. London:        ans outward from the older centers of Islam to the new
> World of Islam Festival Publishing Company Ltd., 1976.          frontiers of Muslim activity.
> O’Leary, De Lacy. How Greek Science Passed to the Arabs.
> London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1948.                             The members of the cultural elite maintained during
> traveling a close tie with the greater cities of the central part
> Rosenthal, Franz. The Classical Heritage in Islam. London:
> of the Islamic lands. They created, thereby, not only a
> Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1975.
> scattering of literate and skilled Muslims across several conti-
> Sanneh, Lamin. The Crown and the Turban: Muslims and West         nents, but an integrated, growing, self-replenishing network
> African Pluralism. Denver, Colo.: Westview Press, 1997.
> of cultural communication.
> Ullmann, Manfred. Islamic Medicine. Edinburgh: Edinburgh
> University Press, 1978.                                           A great interest in knowledge and learning has been a
> Walzer, Richard. Greek into Arabic: Essays in Islamic Philoso-    common thread of Islam from its earliest days. Travel solely
> phy.Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1962.           in search of knowledge has been an integral part of the
> intellectual life of the Islamic world. The scholarly class was
> Lamin Sanneh       an extraordinarily mobile group, who circulated incessantly
> from one city and country to another, studying with renowned professors, leading diplomatic missions, and taking
> up posts in mosques and government chanceries.
> TRAVEL AND TRAVELERS
> Scholars from the more remote part of the Islamic world
> Travel has been a part of the Islamic culture from the            traveled to the countries considered central to Islam in
> beginning. The obligation of every Muslim, once in a life-        search of civilized models, higher knowledge, and learned
> time, to make the pilgrimage, or hajj, to Mecca and Medina        companionship.
> was an early and significant reason for much of the travel.
> The need for travel and interest in it created an equal need
> Before air transport the greater the distance one needed to    for knowledge of geography and navigation both on land and
> travel on the hajj the more the journey tended to become a        sea. As a consequence the rihla, or book of travels, emerged.
> grand study tour of the greater mosques and madrasas of the       The genre recounted for the reader the journey to Mecca
> Muslim heartland. It was an opportunity for the traveler to       with information and entertainment of religious sites on
> acquire knowledge.                                                the route.
> 
> 698                                                                                           Islam and the Muslim World
> Tribe
> 
> A copy of a Catalan map showing North Africa appears in the           organize the different segments of the tribe in a network of
> volume two color insert.                                           mutual rights and responsibilities. Typically, the smallest
> tribal segment is the household made up of one or more
> See also Biruni, al-; Ibn Battuta; Ibn Khaldun; Pilgrim-              patrilineally related families; a number of such households
> age: Hajj.                                                            make up the next ascending segment, or lineage. Among the
> Bedouins, this level of organization is known as fakhd; mem-
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                          bers of a fakhd or lineage usually lay claim to a common
> Eickelman, Dale F., and Piscatori, James, eds. Muslim Travel-         grazing territory, brand their herds with the same symbol,
> lers: Pilgrimage, Migration, and the Religious Imagination.        and are collectively liable to pay blood money in the case of a
> Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California                 murder committed by one of their memebrs. A number of
> Press, 1990.                                                       related lineages are grouped into the next all-encompassing
> level of the tribe, or qabila; in some parts of the Arabic-
> Thyge C. Bro      speaking Middle East, this level is also referred to as 
ashira.
> The tribe is thus the largest named unit of incorporation
> constructed on a genealogical framework. While today tribes
> serve mainly as reference groups for related lineages, in the
> TRIBE                                                                 past they played an important role in the political life of the
> region. Each tribe united behind a paramount chief who
> The English word tribe is an ambivalent term that is used
> acted as a military commander in intertribal warfare. Tribal
> indiscriminately to refer to a wide variety of social groupings
> members typically share a strong sense of common heritage
> that range from small, preliterate, and relatively isolated
> that goes beyond that of common descent. They tend to
> communities in the Amazon jungles of South America to
> speak one dialect, dress in a distinctive style, and have their
> large, powerful confederacies whose chiefs are members of
> own customs and traditions.
> the national political elite such as the case of the Bakhtiyari of
> southwest Iran. In what follows, the concepts of “tribe”and               Tribes have a long and complicated history in the Middle
> “tribalism” are discussed in the specific context of the Mid-          East; unlike the case for other parts of the world, tribes did
> dle East.                                                             not disappear with the formation of nation-states in the
> region. In fact, the historical coexistence of state and tribe
> The Arabic term for tribe is qabila ( pl. qabail). The word
> lends a unique texture to Middle Eastern human geography.
> qabila is mentioned in the Qur
an: “ O mankind: we have
> Beginning with the Islamic conquest in the seventh century
> created you from a male and a female and made you into
> (itself carried out by Arab tribal forces) tribes and tribal
> peoples and tribes [qabail] that you may know each other”
> confederacies have played a key role in the creation and
> (49:13). In its most common usage, qabila refers to a named
> disintegration of several Islamic imperial dynasties such as
> group of people who share an ideology of common descent in
> the Abbasids, the Ottomans, and the Qajars. Equally signifi-
> the male line, claim a common geographical territory, and are
> cant were the many tribes who managed to maintain their
> politically united under the leadership of a chief, called a
> autonomy in defiance of state rule. This was the case with the
> shaykh in Arabic, or khan in Persian and Turkish. As such, the
> Bedouin tribes of Arabia, the Kurds of the Zagros mountains,
> concept of “tribe” and “tribalism” is used to simultaneously
> and the large tribal confederacies of Iran like the Bakhtiyari
> indicate a personal and group identity, a form of social
> organization, and a distinct political structure.                     and the Qashqa
i.
> 
> As a source of personal and group identity, tribal affilia-           In the mountain and desert areas of Kurdistan, the Aration can be analogous to ethnicity albeit on a more limited           bian Peninsula, and Iran, tribally organized confederacies
> scale; it confers a distinct identity on its members, binding         managed to escape the reach of the state and maintain their
> them together in a distinct moral code expressed most com-            independence well into the twentieth century. Following the
> monly in the idiom of honor, courage, and personal auton-             breakup of the Ottoman Empire after the First World War
> omy. Tribal identity, based on ties of kinship (real or fictitious),   and the arrival of European colonial powers in the region, the
> is further reinforced by the common practice of close endog-          role of tribes in the newly formed nation-states assumed a
> amy that favors the marriage of a man to his father’s brother’s       new significance. In their effort to stem anticolonial and
> daughter. Among Arabic speakers, intratribal bonds and                nationalist movements in the region, colonial powers encourgroup cohesion are expressed in the idiom of 
asabiyya, or            aged tribal separatism by promoting tribal identities and
> group solidarity, based on blood ties and common descent.             reinforcing the authority of tribal leaders. This policy of
> “divide and rule” came to an end after the Second World
> Tribal systems of sociopolitical organization are also based       War, which marked the end of colonialism in the region.
> on the ideology of common descent from a founding ances-              Seeking to promote national unity, the policy of the newly
> tor; some pastoral nomads, like the Bedouins of the Arabian           independent governments aimed at integrating the tribes
> and Syrian deserts, keep elaborate genealogies that serve to          into the nation-state. In cases of pastoral nomadic tribes such
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                       699
> Turabi, Hasan al-
> 
> as the Bedouins of Arabia and the Qashqa
i of Iran, this took      in the national reconciliation process and became a signifi-
> the form of forced sedentarization, taxation, and conscription     cant force in the Islamization policies initiated by Numayri.
> into the national army.                                            Although al-Turabi did not have a direct role in drafting “the
> September Laws” of 1983 that imposed a version of Islamic
> Today all over the Middle East, tribes have ceased to be       law on Sudan, he and his group gained prominence in the new
> important political units capable of challenging the power of      context. When Numayri was overthrown in 1985, al-Turabi
> the central governments. Tribal leaders have been generally        reorganized the Brotherhood as the National Islamic Front
> co-opted or were absorbed into the national elite. But while       (NIF), which emerged as the third largest party in the new
> their political role has been generally undermined, tribes and     parliamentary system. NIF was able to prevent the repeal of
> tribalism remain an important component of Middle Eastern          the September Laws and kept Islamic issues in the forefront
> cultural landscape. Supplanted by nationalist and Islamist         of the Sudanese political agenda.
> ideologies, tribalism as an ideology has not disappeared.
> Tribal identity and tribal ties continue to be an important            Al-Turabi’s role was transformed in 1989, when a military
> source for self-reference and social organization for many         coup led by Hasan Umar Bashir established an Islamist-style
> people in the region.                                              military regime in which al-Turabi was the ideological mentor. Throughout the 1990s, the Bashir-Turabi alliance at-
> See also Asabiyya; Bedouin; Ethnicity.
> tempted to create a new political system. The regime engaged
> in severe violations of human rights and the civil war between
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> the central government and the southern region intensified as
> Bates, Daniel G., and Rassam, Amal. Peoples and Cultures of the    a result of military intransigence and the NIF’s agenda of
> Middle East. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice-Hall,           Islamizing the whole country. In 1998 and 1999, Bashir
> Inc., 2001.
> relieved al-Turabi of all official posts and al-Turabi became a
> Khoury, Philip S., and Kostiner, Joseph, eds. Tribes and State     marginal force in Sudanese politics.
> Formation in the Middle East. Berkeley and Los Angeles:
> University of California Press, 1990.                               During the 1970s and 1980s, al-Turabi’s ideas became
> widely known in the Muslim world. He called for significant
> Amal Rassam       renewal of the whole structure of Islamic legal thought and
> developed important concepts of Islamic democracy. His
> writings on the importance of gender equality in Islam were
> controversial but gained him a reputation as an Islamic liberal
> TURABI, HASAN AL- (1932– )
> activist. However, the failures of the NIF regime in the 1990s
> Hasan al-Turabi is a Sudanese political leader and Islamist        and its excesses in blocking human rights reforms meant that
> intellectual. Al-Turabi’s family was well known and had a          al-Turabi’s international visibility and reputation declined by
> recognized tradition of piety. Al-Turabi’s father was one of       the end of the twentieth century.
> the first Sudanese to be trained as a judge in the British system
> of administering Islamic law in Sudan, and Hasan received a        BIBLIOGRAPHY
> traditional Islamic education from his father along with his       Affendi, Abdelwahab el-. Turabi’s Revolution: Islam and Power
> modern education in the government-supported system. In               in Sudan. London: Grey Seal, 1991.
> secondary school and then at the University of Khartoum, al-       Esposito, John L., and Voll, John O. Makers of Contemporary
> Turabi became active in the small, Islamically oriented stu-          Islam. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.
> dent groups. He studied in London and received a doctorate
> Hamdi, Mohamed Elhachmi. The Making of an Islamic Politifrom the Sorbonne. He returned to Sudan in 1964, in time to          cal Leader. Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1999.
> be a visible participant in the October Revolution that overthrew the military regime of Ibrahim Abboud.
> John O. Voll
> In the second period of civilian parliamentary politics in
> Sudan (1964–1969), al-Turabi led the Sudanese Muslim
> Brotherhood (established in the 1950s) into an important
> place in Sudanese politics. It was not a mass party but was well   TUSI, MUHAMMAD IBN AL-HASAN
> organized among students and professionals, and was able to        (SHAYKH AL-TA
IFA) (995–1067)
> give prominence in Sudanese politics to issues of Islamic
> identity. The Brotherhood continued this role in changing          Muhammad b. Hasan al-Tusi (d. 1067), who was given the
> political contexts. Al-Turabi’s Brotherhood was the core of        honorific “Shaykh of the sect” (shaykh al-taifa), was an
> the Islamic Charter Front in the 1960s, and then became part       important Imami Shiite thinker of the early period. He
> of the opposition to the military regime established by Jafar     hailed from Tus in Khorasan, but made his name in Baghdad.
> al-Numayri in 1969. In the late 1970s, al-Turabi participated      His work represents both of the two main trends in early
> 
> 700                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Tusi, Nasir al-Din
> 
> Twelver Shiism: rationalism and hadith study. His commen-           governor Nasir al-Din Abi Mansur at Sertakht, he continued
> tary on the Qur
an (tafsir), al-Tibyan, exemplifies this trend as     to work for the Ismailis at various Iranian fortresses, includboth styles of argumentation are employed to explain the             ing Quhistan, until he transferred to the Ismaili castle at
> meaning of each Qur
anic verse. His hadith works, the most           Alamut, where he remained until joining the Mongol Hulagu’s
> famous being al-Tahdhib and al-Istibsar, are more than mere          entourage as a political advisor in 1247. Subsequent to the
> collections, but are also detailed expositions of the legal          Mongol victory over Baghdad (1257), he was encouraged by
> employment of the traditions of the imams. His work in law           Hulagu to found an observatory at Maragha in Azerbaijan,
> proper was similarly sophisticated, particularly his Uddat al-      equipped with the best instruments, some constructed for the
> usul (a work in the principles of jurisprudence) and al-Mabsut       first time. His courtly duties included supervision of waqf
> (one of his many works of law). Tusi also wrote theological          estates, a position that he retained under the Mongol leader
> works, in which arguments in the Mutazilite style were used         Abaqa, until Tusi’s death in 1274. Two critical issues conalongside more text-based justification for the imamate. His          cerning his religious persuasion and political stance remain
> activities in bibliography and biography enabled the disci-          the subject of scholarly and ideological debate: one, whether
> pline of biography (
ilm al-rijal) to develop into a sophisti-       he was an Ismaili Shiite by choice or by employment; and
> cated science in Twelver Shiism. His prolific output as a            two, whether his involvement in the fall of Alamut and
> scholar can, in part, be explained by the criticism of the           Baghdad, respectively, entailed treachery or prudence. G. M.
> Twelver tradition by Sunni intellectuals—that they lacked a          Wickens, for instance, in his introduction to The Nasirean
> sufficient corpus of respectable writings. Tusi’s response was        Ethics holds the view that Tusi’s alignment with the Mongols
> to compile and collate works of great importance.                    “made possible the continuance in new and flourishing forms
> of Islamic learning, law and civilization,” a point that under-
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                         scores Tusi’s political acumen under difficult circumstances.
> Stewart, Devin J. Islamic Legal Orthodoxy: Shiite Responses to the   Although over one hundred books are attributed to Tusi,
> Sunni Legal System. Salt Lake City: University of Utah            only a handful have survived. Apart from his many scientific
> Press, 1998.
> works, his noteworthy texts include the Hall mushkilat al-
> Isharat, a commentary on Ibn Sina’s al-Isharat as well as a
> Robert Gleave
> refutation of Fakhr al-Din al-Razi’s Muhassal; an ethical
> treatise titled the Akhlaq-e Nasiri, which evinces the influence
> of Ibn Miskawaih; the Ismaili-inspired works Tasawwurat
> TUSI, NASIR AL-DIN (1201–1274)                                       (also known as Rawdat al-taslim) and the autobiographical
> Sayr wa Suluk; the Twelver-Shiite kalam or theological
> Nasir al-Din Tusi, Abu Jafar Muhammad b. Muhammad b.                works Tajrid al-
aqaid and Qawa
id al-
Aqaid; and a mystical
> al-Hasan, was a Shiite philosopher, theologian, astronomer,         work titled Awsaf al-Ashraf. An original and innovative thinker,
> mathematician, and political advisor. Tusi was born in Tus, in       his works continue to merit attention.
> northeastern Iran, and died in Baghdad, in present-day Iraq.
> A man of astounding intellectual breadth, he witnessed the           See also Falsafa; Khojas.
> transfer of power in the Islamic world to the Mongols.
> Beginning his career as a court astronomer to the Ismaili                                                         Zayn R. Kassam
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                      701
> U
> ULEMA                                                                      translations mark the beginnings of the incorporation of the
> applied sciences into the curriculum of learning, to comple-
> Literally “those who have knowledge” or “those who know”                   ment the religious sciences, in which the ulema were already
> (singular 
alim, plural 
ulama
). The term is most widely used             considered expert.
> to refer to the scholarly class of Muslim societies, whose main
> Once established, the ulema class became a fundamental
> occupation is the study of the texts that make up the Islamic
> element of Muslim societies. The expansion of the Muslim
> Tradition (religious sciences such as Qur
an, hadith, Qur
anic
> world, incorporating many different cultures and traditions,
> commentary, jurisprudence, and theology, but also the apdid not obviate the need for a scholarly class whose primary
> plied sciences such as medicine, biology, astronomy, and
> functions were to maintain the intellectual tradition and
> mathematics). Members of the ulema class have also been
> provide religious and scientific guidance to the population.
> called upon to act as advisors to rulers, or as qadis (judges)
> Their fortunes waxed and waned depending on the receptivity
> implementing the law (shari
a) within Muslim societies. The
> of the dynasties to religious influence, but the vast majority of
> authority of the ulema class in defining right doctrine and
> Muslim societies, both past and present, have included a class
> right practice within Islam has been immense in Muslim
> of scholars, usually given the generic name ulema.
> history.
> The authority of the ulema in matters of doctrine and law
> In the early period (7th–9th centuries C.E.), a separate class
> has been definitive. The ulema themselves, though, have
> of scholars concerned with the elaboration of knowledge
> been divided on many issues, and hence should not be viewed
> (ilm) took some time to develop. Most historians date the
> as a unified group with common aims and intentions. An
> emergence of a scholarly class to the early years of the
> example of this division can be seen in the famous Inquisition,
> Umayyad period, when Islamic doctrine was much debated.
> (mihna) from 829 onwards, when one group of scholars (the
> Debates concerning the constituent elements of faith (iman),               Mutazilis) persuaded the Abbasid caliph to persecute (and
> or predestination (qadr), as well as the transmission of hadith            declare as heretics) scholars who did not adhere to the
> (from the Prophet or other notable figures) and legal doctrine              doctrine of “the created Qur
an.”
> (fiqh) were the principal intellectual concerns of the emerging
> scholarly class. Many of the ulema also, it appears, partici-                  The authority and respect demanded by the ulema has
> pated in the opposition movements to the Umayyad caliphate.                usually been justified on the simple basis of a practical
> Some viewed them as deviating from true Islam in their                     division of labor. Not all members of society have the time,
> leadership of the Muslim empire, and wished to put forward                 the skills, or the inclination to dedicate their lives to the study
> a more sophisticated religio-intellectual criticism of the                 necessary to determine right doctrine and practice. Hence, it
> Umayyads. It was, however, in the Abbasid period that the                  is argued, a class of society that dedicates itself to this task
> ulema began to gain both political influence and popular                    should be instituted, and since these matters affect each
> respect, as Abbasid caliphs and their wazirs sponsored institu-            individual’s fate (both in this world and in the afterlife), the
> tional schools in which scholars could develop the intellectual            guidance of this class is of paramount importance. In the area
> foundations of Islam. It was early in this period that the                 of legal matters, this attitude was enshrined in the theory of
> ulema, with the support of some caliphs, became interested in              taqlid, whereby the Muslim community is divided between
> the Greek tradition of philosophy and science, and works in                scholars and those who follow the rulings of the scholars
> languages other than Arabic began to be translated. These                  (typically called the muqallids).
> 
> Ulema
> 
> Apart from this practical justification for the ulema’s         the ideal political system, but believed that the imam had
> authority, scholars also turned to the Qur
an. Q. 4:59 states      gone into hiding (ghayba). Since there was no ideal political
> “Obey God, the Prophet and those in authority amongst              leader other than this missing imam, Twelver Shiites were
> you.” Many Sunni scholars argued that “those in authority”         greatly concerned with the issue of community authority. A
> probably refers to the ulema (some also included the political     theory of “delegation” (niyaba) was therefore needed. The
> rulers in the category). Similarly, Q. 16:43: “Ask the people of   Twelver Shiites recognized a succession of Twelve Imams
> remembrance if you do not know” was interpreted by Sunni           after the death of the Prophet. Only the first of these, Imam
> scholars as exhorting the people to submit in matters of           Ali, had succeeded in gaining political power, and the last of
> knowledge to the ulema. There were also convenient hadiths,        these had gone into hiding. Reports from a number of these
> traced back to the prophet Muhammad, which could be used           Twelve Imams were interpreted to indicate that the imams
> to establish the ulema’s status. For example, the well-known       had delegated leadership of the community to the ulema in
> words attributed to the Prophet, “The ulema are the inheri-        the absence of the Imam.
> tors of the Prophets,” was interpreted as implying that in
> religious authority, the ulema were given the responsibility of        In works of fiqh, one sees a gradual expansion of the
> announcing the message of Islam to the community.                  ulema’s role in areas that, in early Twelver Shiism, were seen
> as the prerogative of the Imam. This position faced a serious
> Although there were many scholars whose individual              challenge when the Safavid mystical order came to power in
> charismatic power is well attested, their authority was ulti-      Iran in 1501. The first Safavid Shah, Ismail, declared Twelver
> mately based on learning. The ulema deserved this respect,         Shiism to be the state religion. Jurists either devised means
> not because of lineage, or familial connections, or even           whereby the shah might be considered a legitimate ruler,
> because of individual piety and religiosity. Rather, the ulema     despite the absence of the true ruler (the imam) or they
> were due respect because of they had undergone a particular        rejected association with the Safavids and maintained the
> type of training and education that elevated their understand-     ultimate authority of the ulema.
> ing of religious matters above the ordinary populace. It was
> on this basis that the institution of the ulema became an              The debate over the role of the ulema in the life of the
> indispensable part of Muslim culture.                              Muslim community has become more acute in the modern
> period. In Twelver Shiism, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini
> In Muslim history, however, the respect due to the ulema       argued that the ulema should rule the Muslim community
> did not translate into political power. Most scholars who          until the return of the Hidden Imam, a theory he had the
> wrote on the relationship between political power and relig-       opportunity to put into practice following the Islamic Revoious authority accepted that the ulema were advisors who           lution in Iran in 1979. In the modern Sunni Muslim world, on
> aided the ruler in the maintenance of the religion. Al-Ghazali     the other hand, one can recognize a variety of trends. Many
> (d. 1111), for example, argued that the sultan should “exercise    Sunni Muslim governments have used members of the ulema
> coercive power and have authority because the sultan is the        to brand their government as religious in a manner reminisrepresentative of God,” whereas the ulema were appointed by        cent of the medieval period. In the revivalist movements,
> the sultan and given the responsibility of enacting the law.       however, one sees a reaction against the ulema, who often are
> This theory of the dependence of the ulema upon the ruler          characterized as obscurantist and pedantic, worrying about
> for their practical authority in society reflected the relation-    matters of religious technicalities, rather than the more
> ship of the Sunni ulema with political power in historical         important issues of preserving Muslim identity in the face of
> terms. During the Ottoman Empire the ulema became an               non-Muslim imperialism. The popularist commentaries on
> increasingly structured class of society, headed by the mufti,     the Qur
an of, for example, Sayyid Qutb or Abu l-Ala

> who advised the sultan on both religious and political issues,     Maududi, represent a rejection of the ulemas and an exhortaheaded the judiciary, and controlled the religious education       tion to “the people” to approach the divine text without the
> system in the empire. The situation was not dissimilar in the      encumbrance of the scholarly tradition of learning.
> Indian Mogul Empire.
> This rejection of the ulema’s authority in matters of
> Al-Ghazali’s influential formulation of the sultan-ulema        religion is likely to increase as literacy and the availability of
> relationship can be informatively contrasted with the views of     foundational texts of Islam become more widespread in the
> Shiite groups. Some Shiite groups, particularly the Ismailis    Muslim world. In some Muslim countries, however, one sees
> in the medieval period, saw religious authority and political      the re-emergence of the ulema as active political agents,
> power conjoined in an individual, who was given the title          working for change. Two examples of this are Saudi Arabia
> imam. The need for a class of religious scholars who advised       and Morocco. In the recent past, Saudi ulema have chalthe imam was reduced, since the imam was, himself, blessed         lenged the concentration of power in the person of the king
> in a mystical manner with knowledge of doctrinal and legal         and his royal family. Attempts continue to be made to diffuse
> matters. Twelver Shiites also placed an imam at the apex of       this power to a larger body, within which the ulema would
> 
> 704                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Umma
> 
> play a larger role. In Morocco, legal scholars such as Muham-     cities, and distributed offices more widely among the various
> mad Allal al-Fasi have been at the forefront of the moderni-     Arabian tribes, thereby moving away from Abu Bakr’s favoritzation of Islamic law. Al-Fasi and others are responsible for     ism for the Quraysh.
> the production of an intellectual movement in which the
> shari
a is considered more responsive to the needs of a society   See also Caliphate; Law; Succession.
> changing under the influence of new technology and science.
> The ulema have, then, at different times been loathed and         BIBLIOGRAPHY
> loved by the political establishment. However, their partici-
> Kennedy, Hugh. The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates: The
> pation in the institutions of power remains an essential            Islamic Near East from the Sixth to the Eleventh Century.
> component of any Muslim political system wishing to call            London: Longman, 1986.
> itself “Islamic.”
> Madelung, Wilfred. The Succession to Muhammad: A Study of
> the Early Caliphate. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge Univer-
> See also Knowledge; Law; Madrasa; Qadi (Kadi, Kazi);
> sity Press, 1997.
> Shari
a; Shi
a: Imami (Twelver); Shi
a: Isma
ili;
> Succession.
> Khalid Yahya Blankinship
> 
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Ephrat, Daphna. A Learned Society in Transition: The Sunni
> Ulama of Eleventh Century Baghdad. Albany: State Univer-        UMAYYID See Empires: Umayyad; Mu
awiya
> sity of New York Press, 2000.
> Makdisi, George. Religion Law and Learning in Classical Islam.
> Hampshire, U.K.: Variorum Reprints, 1991.
> Momen, Moojan. Introduction to Shi
ite Islam. New Haven,
> Conn.: Yale University Press, 1985.
> UMMA
> Robert Gleave     The term umma is an Arabic word. It was used sixty-two times
> in the Qur
an, in both the Meccan and Medinan periods. Its
> most common meaning is that of a group of people or a
> community, and it also refers to a religious community or a
> 
UMAR (C. 581–644)                                                group of people who follow God’s guidance. Most usages of
> umma in the Qur
an, however, are not related to the commu-
> Umar b. al-Khattab al-Adawi al-Qurashi, an early Meccan         nity of prophet Muhammad.
> companion of the prophet Muhammad, became the Prophet’s
> second successor and is usually viewed as having done much            The concept of a community of believers (umma) took
> to establish the foundations of the caliphal state. At first       shape during the Prophet’s lifetime, first in Mecca then in
> opposed to Islam, Umar embraced it circa 615 in a reversal       Medina. In Mecca, the small group of the Prophet’s followers
> cherished and dramatized by tradition. Like Abu Bakr, with        shared certain common beliefs, values, and practices associwhom he was closely associated, Umar married a daughter of       ated with the new religion, Islam, and gradually came to be
> the Prophet in 625. Because of his strong personality, a motif    differentiated from the rest of the Meccans. Meccan families
> frequently noted in the sources, he gained considerable           were split; some followed the traditional religion of Mecca
> influence. At the death of the Prophet in 632, he helped Abu       (paganism) while others followed the new religion. Religious
> Bakr to be elected as successor, and Abu Bakr in turn ap-         affiliation became more important than family relationship
> pointed Umar to succeed him two years later.                     or tribal membership. When the Prophet and his small group
> of followers fled Mecca to Medina, they formed, with the
> On taking office, Umar placed the new caliphal state on        Muslims of Medina, a distinct community (umma) as opposed
> firmer footing. He assumed the new title of Commander of           to, for instance, the Jewish community there. By the time of
> the Believers (amir al-muminin), thus making clear his supe-     the Prophet’s death in 632 C.E., his followers, known as
> rior authority. He continued the campaign started by Abu          “believers” or Muslims, had a distinct identity. The early
> Bakr to expand the caliphate outside of Arabia. Under his         struggle of this community with non-Muslims, either in the
> rule, Syria (636), Iraq (637), Egypt (639–642), and western       general Arab rebellion (632–633) against Muslim rule from
> Iran (641–643) all came under Muslim rule, a transformation       Medina, or, after that, with the Byzantine and Sassanid
> that greatly altered the nature of the state. Internally, he      empires in the wars of conquest, led to a sharper view of what
> organized the state over a much larger area, founded new          the Muslim umma was; that is, it was based on belief in one
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                 705
> Umm Kulthum
> 
> God, in the prophethood of Muhammad, and in a supranational brotherhood.                                               UMM KULTHUM (1904?–1975)
> Although some scholars have attempted to identify umma           An accomplished and famous Egyptian singer, Umm
> with ethnicity, the understanding of umma in the Prophet’s          Kulthum’s career extended over fifty years. Born to a poor
> time, and particularly in the post-prophetic period, became         village family in the Egyptian delta, Umm Kulthum learned
> divorced from ethnic identity but remained firmly bound to           to sing Muslim devotional songs by imitating her father, the
> the religious identity of Islam. In early Islam, this religious     imam of the village mosque who sang for local occasions. She
> umma coincided with the political umma: Muslims united              began to perform with her father, who dressed her as a boy to
> under one ruler during the periods of the Prophet, the              avoid the opprobrium of presenting his daughter on pub-
> Rashidun caliphs, the Umayyads, and the early Abbasids.             lic stages.
> However, this united political body became fragmented by
> In the early 1920s, the family moved to Cairo to work in
> the emergence of a series of separate political communities
> the lucrative world of performance and recording. At first
> among Muslims from the beginning of the ninth century
> Umm Kulthum appeared markedly rural and lower class
> onward. Despite this, the concept of umma as a common
> compared to the more sophisticated actresses and singers of
> brotherhood of all Muslims based on the two key ideas of
> the day. However, her strong voice attracted the attention of
> shared beliefs and equality has remained an ideal to which
> poet Ahmad Rami who wrote lyrics for her and taught her
> Muslims generally aspire.
> poetry. She adjusted her appearance and repertory and, by
> In the twentieth century, nationalism became an impor-          the late 1920s, commanded a busy schedule in major venues
> tant force in Muslim lands, following on the history of             and one of the best recording contracts in the Middle East.
> fragmentation. In the same period, and despite debate as to its
> “islamicity,” the nation-state model was adopted by Muslims,            Between 1935 and 1946, she made six musical films. As the
> particularly after the abolition of the last, but at the time       Egyptian economy worsened in the 1930s and the problems
> largely symbolic, Ottoman caliphate in 1924. There remains,         of imperialist European domination persisted, Umm Kulthum
> however, significant unease among some Muslims as to where           altered her repertory from escapist, romantic lyrics, to the
> their primary loyalty lies: with the nation-state or with Islam,    terse, localized colloquial poetry of Bayram al-Tunisi set to
> particularly where the objectives of the two do not necessarily     music by Zakariya Ahmad. With this, she rooted her peragree. What is emerging is a view that the nation-state is a        formance in the sounds and meanings of local Egyptian words
> political reality that is here to stay but that effort must be      and music. With Islamism growing as an alternative to
> made to ensure that Muslim nation-states as well as minori-         Westernization in the 1940s, she sang complicated religious
> ties across the globe are brought closer to each other within       and political qasaid (sing. qasida, a centuries-old sophisticated
> the framework of the religious umma. Instances of this are the      poetic genre) by Ahmad Shawqi set to music by Riyad alcreation of supra-national institutions such as the Organiza-       Sunbati.
> tion of Islamic Conference and its subsidiaries, formed to
> In the 1950s, she recorded numerous songs in support of
> promote political and economic cooperation. More importhe Abd al-Nasser government and became linked with
> tantly, the concept and ideal of umma are strengthened by
> Egypt’s charismatic president as an ambassador of Egyptian
> common teachings and by religious institutions such as pilculture. In 1964, she joined forces with long-time rival
> grimage (hajj), an annual gathering of Muslims in Mecca.
> Muhammad Abd al-Wahhab, producing ten new songs
> While these may bring the Muslim nations closer together,
> marked by Abd al-Wahhab’s characteristic “modernity” and
> there are also divisive forces at work, represented in ideologithe historically Arab performance style of Umm Kulthum.
> cal, ethnic, linguistic and cultural differences.
> After the Egyptian defeat in the war with Israel in 1967,
> See also 
Ibadat; Modern Thought.
> Umm Kulthum toured the Arab world giving concerts to
> raise funds to replenish the Egyptian treasury. She became a
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                        near-mythical figure, drawing together Egyptians and Arabs
> Ahsan, Abdullah al-. Ummah or Nation? Identity Crisis in            from different social classes and regions. Her legacy springs
> Contemporary Muslim Society. Leicester, U.K.: Islamic Foun-       from her compelling renditions of fine poetry, her musical
> dation, 1992.                                                     skill, and her uncanny ability to connect with her audience.
> Ali, Muhammad Mumtaz. The Concepts of Islamic Ummah &
> Shariah. Selangor, Malyasia: Pelanduk Publications, 1992.        See also Music.
> Black, Antony. The History of Islamic Political Thought: from the
> Prophet to the Present. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University          BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Press, 2001.                                                     Braune, Gabriele. Umm Kultum, ein Zeitalter der Musik in
> Ägypten: die moderne ägyptische Musik des 20. Jahrhunderts.
> Abdullah Saeed         Frankfurt-am-Main: P. Lang, 1994.
> 
> 706                                                                                              Islam and the Muslim World
> United States, Islam in
> 
> Danielson, Virginia. “The Voice of Egypt”: Umm Kulthum,            North American colonies and later the United States. Per-
> Arabic Song, and Egyptian Society in the Twentieth Century.      haps 10 percent or more of all slaves in the Americas were
> Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997.                      Muslim, depending on what times and places are being
> considered. The number of Muslim slaves in the Americas
> Virginia Danielson      may have increased even more during the early 1800s, after
> the West African Muslim leader Uthman dan Fadio (c.
> 1754–1817) successfully waged a campaign to Islamize much
> of the region. Though the importation of foreign slaves to the
> UNITED STATES, ISLAM IN                                            United States was officially banned in 1808, many U.S.
> residents violated the law, continuing to import slaves, in-
> Many scholars believe that Islam is the fastest growing relig-     cluding Muslims.
> ion in the United States. While debates continue about how
> many Muslims actually live in the country—estimates range              Despite the documented presence of Muslim slaves in the
> from 2 to 8 million persons—there is no dispute over the fact      United States, however, there is little direct evidence that the
> that, due both to conversion and immigration, the number is        practice of Islam was widespread among slaves in North
> on the rise. In addition, over twelve hundred mosques now          America. In many cases, slave owners attempted to control
> operate across the United States in small towns, suburban          slaves more easily by separating families and others who
> locations, and inner cities. American Muslims are like a           shared ethnic and linguistic ties. Though this assault did not
> microcosm of the Islamic world; they are diverse by race,          translate into the elimination of African culture, including
> class, ethnicity, linguistic group, and national origin. African   Islam, it did often lead to the recasting of certain customs,
> Americans, perhaps the largest racial or ethnic group of           beliefs, and practices into different and often synthetic cul-
> Muslims in America, may account for 25 to 40 percent of the        tural forms. Some slaves adapted certain Muslim traditions,
> total population. South Asian Muslims, who trace their roots       like facing toward Mecca in prayer, to their practice of
> to India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, represent approximately        Christianity. A few others, like the famous Umar ibn Sayyid
> 30 percent. The third largest ethnic group of Muslims in the       (1770–1864), a North Carolina slave who was literate in
> United States traces its roots to the Arab world, including        Arabic, eventually relinquished key elements of their Muslim
> countries in both the Middle East and North Africa. This           identities, publicly converting to Christianity. Tellingly, the
> group may total approximately 25 percent of all Muslims in         Muslims about whom the most is known generally lived in
> the United States. The United States is also home to thou-         parts of the American South that had relatively large, isolated
> sands of Turkish, Iranian, Central Asian, Southeast Asian          slave communities—places like the Sea Islands of Georgia
> (especially Malaysian and Indonesian), southeastern Euro-          where African Islamic traditions stood a better chance of
> pean (especially Bosnian), West African, and white and Latino      being preserved and passed on.
> American Muslims.
> Thus, by the end of the Civil War, there seem to have
> In addition to possessing great racial and ethnic diversity,   been very few practicing Muslims in the United States.
> Muslims in the United States can be characterized as a             Beginning in the 1870s, however, large numbers of Muslims
> religiously diverse population as well. Muslims in the United      once again came to the shores of the New World. From 1875
> States engage in a wide array of Islamic practices and adhere      until the First World War, and then again from the 1920s
> to differing schools of Islamic thought and interpretation.        until the Second World War, tens of thousands of Muslims
> The vast majority of Muslims, including African Americans,         from the Ottoman Empire, especially Arabs from greater
> identify themselves as Sunni, those who follow the sunna, or       Syria, traveled to the United States seeking economic opporthe traditions of the prophet Muhammad. Some American              tunity. These Muslims made their homes in places as far flung
> Muslims also call themselves Sufis, meaning that they seek          as Quincy, Massachusetts, and Cedar Rapids, Iowa, whose
> intimate and closer ties to God by traveling one of the            Muslim community eventually established the Mother Mosque
> mystical paths of Islam. Still others are Shiite Muslims,         of North America, one of the oldest continuously operating
> persons whose Islamic practice pays special attention to the       Muslim communities in the United States. By 1920, hunrole of the prophet Muhammad’s family in leading the               dreds of Muslims from both Anatolia and the Balkans had also
> community of believers. Finally, there are Muslims that do         created their own chapter of the Red Crescent (the Muslim
> not fit easily under any of these labels, choosing to follow        equivalent of the Red Cross) in Detroit, Michigan, and had
> interpretations of Islam that are considered unorthodox, if        obtained a cemetery where fellow Muslims could be buried
> not heretical by most Muslims—one famous example is the            according to Islamic law. Many of these Muslims became
> Nation of Islam led by Minister Louis Farrakhan.                   peddlers, grocers, and unskilled laborers. Some eventually
> found jobs as farmers and factory workers, especially in the
> History                                                            burgeoning automobile industry in Detroit. These Muslims
> From the 1600s until the abolition of legal slavery in 1865,       also practiced various forms of Islam. They not only identi-
> West African Muslims were brought as slaves to the British         fied themselves as Sunnis and Shia, but also as Druze, a
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                    707
> United States, Islam in
> 
> In New York City, a Muslim street vendor observes the daily prayer ritual. GETTY IMAGES
> 
> Syrian and Lebanese group that had long ago separated from               newspaper that contained information about the movement
> the Shia; as Bektashi Sufis, a community made up mainly of               and the rudimentary practices of Sunni Islam, especially daily
> Albanians; and as Mevlevis, the so-called whirling dervishes.            prayer, almsgiving, and fasting during the month of Ramadan.
> The Ahmadiyya focused many of their missionary efforts on
> During the 1920s and 1930s, the number of Muslims in                 African Americans. The head missionary, Muhammad Sadiq,
> the United States also grew as hundreds, if not thousands, of            promoted Islam as a religion of freedom and equality, often
> African Americans converted, or as some African-American                 criticizing white Christianity’s links with slavery and the
> Muslims would put it, reverted to Islam. These conversions               destruction of African culture. This was an attractive message
> occurred in the context of the Great Migration, the move-                and hundreds of African Americans, like P. Nathaniel Johnment of over a million and a half persons from the rural South           son of St. Louis, Missouri, converted to Islam. By the midto the more industrialized, urban North throughout the first              1920s, Johnson had become Shaykh Ahmad Din and was
> half of the twentieth century. Attempting to escape racism               leading a multiracial community of Ahmadiyya Muslims in
> and economic oppression, black migrants often worked and                 the Gateway City.
> lived near immigrant Muslims who were also in search of new
> opportunities in cities like Detroit; St. Louis, Missouri; Pitts-           African Americans also formed their own Islamic groups
> burgh, Pennsylvania; Newark, New Jersey; and Chicago,                    during the 1920s and 1930s. Some of these groups, like the
> Illinois. African Americans became part of a dynamic cultural            Moorish Science Temple, merely adopted certain Islamic
> milieu, where people from every part of the globe were                   names and symbols to create new African-American Islamic
> coming in contact with each other, confronting each other’s              traditions. While many scholars have dated the origins of this
> differences and exchanging both goods and ideas.                         movement to 1913, the Federal Bureau of Investigation
> believed that it began sometime in the 1920s, probably in
> This period also witnessed one of the first serious Muslim             Chicago, Illinois. Adapting certain Islamic symbols from the
> attempts to convert Americans to Islam. The Ahmadiyya                    black Shriners (an African American fraternal organization
> movement, considered heretical by many other Muslims, was                that stressed racial cooperation and self-improvement), movethe first Muslim group to mass-distribute English transla-                ment founder Noble Drew Ali (1886–1929) taught that
> tions of the Qur
an, hoping to make the holy book more                   American blacks were actually members of the Moorish
> accessible to those who could not read it in Arabic. Beginning           nation whose original religion was Islam. His Holy Koran of the
> in the 1920s, they also published the Muslim Sunrise, a                  Moorish Science Temple (1927), a sacred text that had no direct
> 
> 708                                                                                                  Islam and the Muslim World
> United States, Islam in
> 
> connection to the Qur
an revealed to Muhammad in the             newly independent countries in Africa and Asia where Islamic
> seventh century C.E., stressed the importance of morality,       activists arose to challenge political regimes that stressed
> industry, and group solidarity, and promised that the practice   nationalist and socialist rather than Islamic identities. In
> of Moorish Science was the key to both earthly and divine        1963, some of these students formed the Muslim Student
> salvation for persons of African descent.                        Association, which would eventually become one of the
> largest Muslim organizations in the United States.
> Some other groups established by African-American Muslims, however, embraced more traditional Islamic practices,          In fact, it is clear that by the 1960s, a global Islamic revival
> placing greater emphasis on the five pillars of Islam and on      was underway, and Islam in the United States was deeply
> the Qur
an. Among these communities, many of which can           affected by it. Many Islamic revivalists stressed the universaltrace their origins to the 1930s, were the First Cleveland       ity of Islam, arguing that Muslims should reject divisions
> Mosque, led by African-American convert Wali Akram (d.           along lines of race, language, or nationality and work toward
> 1994); the Adenu Allahe Universal Arabic Association in          more unity in the Muslim umma, or worldwide community of
> Buffalo, New York; and Jabul Arabiyya, a Muslim communal         believers. The revival, which also called for a return to strict
> farm also located in upstate New York. Most historians have      interpretation of the Qur
an and the hadith, attracted African
> tended to ignore these Sunni African-American Muslim             American Muslims, as well. In places like the Islamic Mission
> groups, largely because their scholarly gaze has focused on      to America in Brooklyn, New York, for example, one could
> the more controversial Nation of Islam.                          find a multiethnic and multiracial crowd of Muslims engaging the ideas of Egyptian activist Sayyid Qutb (1906–1966),
> In the early 1930s, W. D. Fard, a mysterious immigrant       whose writings were being circulated all over the globe.
> peddler probably of Turkish or Iranian origin, founded the       During the same period, some African American Muslim
> Nation of Islam in the Detroit metropolitan area. By 1934, he    revivalists, like members of the Darul Islam movement,
> had disappeared, leaving Elijah Poole (1897–1975), an African-   intentionally separated themselves from mainstream society,
> American migrant from Georgia, to continue his legacy.           hoping to recalibrate the rhythms of their lives in accordance
> Poole, who had since become Elijah Muhammad, echoed the          with Islamic law. Others, like Malcolm X, embraced Sunni
> claims of Noble Drew Ali, arguing that Islam was the original    religious practices, but insisted on the need to struggle
> religion of the “Blackman.” He said that Fard was God in the     simultaneously for black political liberation.
> flesh and that he, Elijah Muhammad, was God’s Messenger,
> sent to resurrect black people from the dead—a teaching that         In the meantime, more and more Muslim immigrants
> violated many of the most basic tenets of Sunni Islamic          were making their homes in the United States. In 1965,
> traditions. An advocate of black separatism, Elijah Muham-       President Lyndon B. Johnson signed a new immigration
> mad also emphasized black economic and political indepen-        law, inviting large numbers of non-Europeans, including
> dence from whites, the building of moral character, and the      Asians and Africans, to join the American nation. Many
> practice of his unique Islam as solutions to the social and      of the Muslim immigrants were professionals with South
> economic challenges facing black America. It was not until       Asian roots and became successful doctors, engineers, and
> after the Second World War, however, that his teachings          academicians in cities and towns throughout the United
> garnered national attention, due largely to the successful       States. Others were from Africa, Europe, other parts of Asia,
> missionary work of the articulate, fiery, and handsome Mal-       and even Central and South America; they represented over
> colm X (1925–1965), who had become a follower of Elijah          sixty different countries in all. Like Muslim immigrants
> Muhammad while in prison.                                        before them, they subscribed to a variety of Islamic practices.
> Among just the Shiite immigrants, for example, there were
> During the postwar period, the face of American Islam         many Twelvers (the largest group of Shiite Muslims in the
> was also transformed by a new wave of Muslim immigration         world) and Ismailis, a smaller community that is itself divided
> from overseas. These Muslims included Palestinians who had       into subgroups.
> become refugees after the creation of the State of Israel in
> 1948 and Egyptian citizens who had been dispossessed after           Sufism, the mystical branch of Islam, also grew during this
> Jamal Abd al-Nasser’s revolution in 1952. Sometimes, they       period. While there had been Sufis in the United States for
> made contact with older generations of Muslim immigrants,        some time, a larger number of white Americans began to join
> who by this time were beginning to organize national net-        various Sufi groups or to follow various Sufi masters in the
> works like the Federation of Islamic Associations in the         1960s and 1970s. Some of these Sufi converts did not call
> United States and Canada, a group of more than twenty            themselves Muslims and did not practice the five pillars of
> mosques that began operations in 1952. Other times, how-         Islam. Others, however, insisted on adherence to foundaever, these new immigrants challenged what they saw as the       tional Islamic practices. By the beginning of the new millenunhealthy assimilation of Muslims into American culture.         nium, Sufi Islam in the United States was a multiethnic and
> The most active critics of such behavior were often foreign      cross-class phenomenon. And American Muslims were memstudents in American universities. They had arrived from         bers of a number of different Sufi groups, including the
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                      709
> United States, Islam in
> 
> Tijaniyya, Naqshbandiyya, Qadiriyya, Bektashis, Shadhiliyya,      oil supplies. In 1979, American-Islamic relations were further
> Ishraqiyya, Sufi Order International, and numerous indepen-        strained when revolutionaries overthrew the U.S.-backed
> dent Sufi communities in cities and even small college towns       shah of Iran and then held dozens of Americans hostage for
> like Carbondale, Illinois. In addition, there were pan-Sufi        over a year. Direct American military involvement in the
> organizations, like the Sufi Women Organization, which             Lebanese Civil War (1982), the Persian Gulf War (1991), and
> encouraged female Sufis to organize for social change among        the War in Iraq (2003) only added to these tensions.
> Muslims and society in general.
> In the aftermath of the 11 September 2001 terrorist
> The post-1965 period of American Islamic history was          attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon,
> also shaped by important transformations in African-American      however, some Americans began to question the deeply
> Islam. The number of independent African-American Mus-            embedded prejudices against Muslims in American culture.
> lim groups continued to increase as did the number of             Americans of many faiths offered support to their Muslim
> individual converts—especially in prisons, where Muslim           neighbors, visited a mosque for the first time, and attended
> individuals and groups, of all ethnic and religious stripes,      large interfaith prayer services. Many understood that though
> reached out to male inmates. But perhaps the most important       the terrorists may have been Muslim, they did not act on
> event of this period was the death of Elijah Muhammad in          behalf of Islam. Other Americans, however, continued to
> 1975. After inheriting the leadership of the Nation of Islam,
> argue that Islam itself was a threat. Muslims faced discrimina-
> Wallace D. Muhammad (b. 1933, a.k.a. Warith Deen Muhamtion on airplanes and in employment. And in some instances,
> mad), one of Elijah’s sons, dramatically altered the religious
> Muslim property and Muslim persons were physically atnature of the movement. Rejecting the most controversial
> tacked. In addition, negative portrayals of Muslims continued
> elements of his father’s teachings, including those about the
> to appear in the popular media and in books written by a few
> divinity of W. D. Fard and the inherent evil of the white race,
> academic critics. Muslim organizations in the United States
> Wallace D. Muhammad (now known as W. D. Mohammed)
> responded quickly to the events of 11 September 2001 by
> emphasized the importance of Sunni Islamic practices, inunequivocally condemning the attacks, offering support for
> cluding daily prayer, the pilgrimage to Mecca, and fasting
> victims, increasing their outreach efforts, and working to
> during Ramadan. He even changed the name of the organizaprotect Muslims in the United States against any further
> tion from the Nation of Islam to the World Community of albacklash.
> Islam in the West, and eventually, the American Muslim
> Mission. Though thousands of members followed the leader
> Gender
> through what he called the “Second Resurrection,” Minister
> Of all issues discussed in the American media regarding
> Louis Farrakhan (b. 1933) criticized these deviations from
> Muslims, gender is one of the most popular. The status of
> Elijah Muhammad’s teachings. By the late 1970s, he had
> women in Islam is a symbol of particular importance for
> reconstituted a version of the old Nation of Islam, which he
> Muslims and non-Muslims alike, often used as a poetic standstill leads as of the time of this writing.
> in for larger arguments about society, politics, economics,
> Discrimination and Prejudice                                      and religion. Muslim women in the United States face a
> From the beginning of Islamic history in North America,           variety of challenges, including discrimination from several
> Muslims have lived in an environment often dominated by           sources: non-Muslims who regard them as the “oppressed
> curiosity, suspicion, fear, and even hatred of Islam and Mus-     women of Islam”; male family members and religious leaders
> lims. Anti-Muslim prejudice has several roots, including a        who act in sexist ways; and a society that has not delivered on
> thousand-year-old European Christian bias against Islam and       its promises of equality of economic and educational oppornineteenth-century American racism and xenophobia. In the         tunity to women in general, especially women of color.
> last half of the twentieth century, however, these prejudices
> have been amplified by several events, many of which involve           American Muslim women themselves disagree about how
> the foreign policy of the U.S. government. During the cold        to face these challenges, but virtually no practicing Muslim
> war against the Soviet Union, for example, the United States      woman would argue that Islam is an inherently sexist religion.
> generally sided with Israel in its disputes with Soviet-backed    Echoing what other conservative Americans would call “fam-
> Arab Muslim neighbors, prompting many Americans to be-            ily values,” some Muslim women maintain that the Qur
an
> lieve that Arabs and Muslims were the “enemy.” During the         directs men and women to operate in separate spheres—the
> 1973 oil embargo of the United States by OPEC (Organiza-          man in the public world of the workplace and the woman in
> tion of Petroleum Exporting Countries) nations, who were          the private world of the home. Men and women are equal,
> protesting U.S. military support of Israel, many Americans        they say, but they are also fundamentally different. Others,
> became resentful of Arabs and Muslims more generally.             like African American Muslim and Qur
anic scholar Amina
> Political cartoonists regularly drew racist images of the stu-    Wadud (b. 1952), argue that while there may be differences
> pid, but dangerous, “Arab shaykhs” who controlled the world’s     between men and women, women’s roles should not be
> 
> 710                                                                                           Islam and the Muslim World
> United States, Islam in
> 
> In 2001 Imam Sa
d al-Kassas speaks to other Muslims during their weekly service in New Jersey. AP/WIDE WORLD PHOTOS
> 
> restricted to the private sphere. The Qur
an guarantees              identities. Children of first-generation immigrants, for exequality between the sexes, Wadud argues, and it does not            ample, sometimes challenge what they regard as the sexist
> prescribe one right way of being a man or a woman.                   views of their parents and grandparents. In so doing, they
> often make a distinction between the patriarchal culture of
> Regarding the controversial issue of the hijab, or the            the old country and what they say is the true, egalitarian Islam
> headscarf, some Muslim women claim that wearing the veil is          of the Qur
an and the hadith. On the contrary, some female
> unnecessary and that modesty of the heart is what matters.           converts to Islam, including white Christian women who
> Some cover their heads only when making their prayers.               marry Muslim men, defend what they identify as the tradi-
> Some say that they would like to cover, but are afraid of the        tional relationship between husbands and wives in Islam,
> discrimination that they would face from non-Muslims. Still          arguing that Islam is liberating precisely because it elevates
> others consistently cover whenever outside their homes or in         their status as wives and mothers.
> the presence of men who are not relatives. Likewise, Muslim
> women disagree over the issue of polygyny. Some argue that           Islamic Organizations
> having up to four wives is a Qur
anic right given to men, as         There are dozens of political, religious, economic, and cullong as these wives are treated equally; others say the practice     tural organizations that focus on issues of interest to Muslims
> was meant to be temporary or that the Qur
an itself virtually        in the United States. The largest is the Islamic Society of
> bans polygyny when it warns against treating one’s wives             North America (ISNA), an umbrella organization formed by
> unjustly (4:3).                                                      members of the Muslim Student Association in 1982. Over
> three hundred mosques are associated with ISNA, whose
> Several factors influence Muslims’ views of gender, in-            headquarters are located in Plainfield, Indiana. The organicluding their ethnic, racial, class, linguistic, and generational    zation holds a popular annual conference during the first
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                      711
> United States, Islam in
> 
> weekend in September in which Muslims network, discuss            among their students, others actively defend the practice of
> concerns of the day, and even meet future mates. In addition,     encouraging responsible interaction among boys and girls,
> it publishes the magazine Islamic Horizons, offers workshops      not only during class but also during social activities. In
> on Islam for teachers, and maintains an active website. Per-      addition, some Muslim parents fear that the creation of
> haps the second largest Muslim organization in the country is     Islamic schools will only make the integration of Muslims
> the American Society of Muslims (ASM), a loose configura-          into mainstream American culture more difficult. Muslim
> tion of predominately African American mosques that recog-        children have been known to argue that their absence from
> nize W. D. Mohammed as their leader. Publisher of the             the public schools is a missed opportunity to explain their
> Muslim Journal, the ASM also offers an annual conference,         Islamic religious convictions to their non-Muslim classmates.
> oversees the broadcast of Imam Mohammed over the radio,
> and encourages followers to attend his many public addresses,         Most mosques in the United States also engage in a
> which often draw thousands of listeners.                          number of outreach activities. Members share their faith
> experiences with non-Muslims, visit a school or church to
> Many smaller Muslim organizations focus their energies        talk about Islam, contact the media, and welcome visitors to
> on more specific concerns. For example, the Council for            the mosque. Though their activities have gone largely unno-
> American-Islamic Relations defends the civil rights of Mus-       ticed by major media outlets, many Muslim leaders have also
> lims, educates other Americans about Islam, and encourages        played prominent roles in interfaith dialogue in the United
> Muslim participation in national politics. The Association of     States. W. D. Mohammed, for example, has become well
> Muslim Social Scientists helps Muslim professionals, educa-       known among some Roman Catholics for his work with the
> tors, and academics develop and share Islamic perspectives on     Focolare movement. Maher Hathout (b. 1936), a leader of
> contemporary issues. And the Fiqh Council of North Amer-          the Muslim Public Affairs Council in southern California, has
> ica, a group of Muslim legal scholars, regularly offers counsel   held interfaith dialogues with both Jewish and Christian
> to Muslim individuals and local communities regarding eve-        leaders. And Imam Elahi of the Islamic House of Wisdom in
> rything from business contracts to haircuts. New groups           Dearborn, Michigan, has even organized an interfaith celecontinue to be formed every day—one recent example is al-         bration of Thanksgiving Day.
> Fatiha, an organization that offers support to gay, lesbian,
> bisexual, and transgendered Muslims.                              Leadership
> It is often said that there is no pope in Islam. Indeed, since the
> Education and Outreach                                            death of the prophet Muhammad, Muslims have never agreed
> There are probably more than two hundred full-time Islamic        on one central authority in religious or secular matters. In the
> schools for children in the United States, and most mosques       United States, Islamic leadership is arguably even more fluid,
> offer some sort of weekend school for both children and           due to the diversity of American Muslim communities, their
> adults. The full-time schools are located mainly in cities and    relatively short history in North America, and constitutional
> suburbs with large Muslim populations. Most of them offer         guarantees of religious freedom. Furthermore, there are
> primary education programs. Their curricula include state-        many different kinds of Muslim religious leaders in the
> mandated subjects like reading and math in addition to            United States, including Sufi masters, Muslim academics and
> Islamic studies and Arabic classes. Perhaps one-quarter of        educators, Islamic legal advisers, the heads of various Muslim
> these, called Sister Clara Muhammad Schools, are associated       organizations and movements, and the imams or presidents
> with the community of W. D. Mohammed. Originally part of          of local mosques.
> Elijah Muhammad’s Nation of Islam, these now-Sunni Islamic
> African American schools are named in honor of the wife of           In many parts of the Islamic world, an imam is simply a
> Elijah Muhammad, who played a key role in the Nation of           male who leads the communal prayers on Friday. In the
> Islam’s survival during the early years of the movement.          United States, however, an imam can play several different
> Located mainly in inner cities, these schools offer an alterna-   roles in the community. In most African American mosques,
> tive to African American parents, both Muslim and non-            the imam operates in both spiritual and administrative ca-
> Muslim, who view their public schools as troubled, if not         pacities, like many Protestant ministers. In predominantly
> failing.                                                          immigrant mosques, however, the imam is more likely to be a
> spiritual leader who answers to an executive committee or
> Many Muslim parents argue that the public school system        board of directors that is composed of men and women from
> has too many drawbacks, including the dangers of drugs,           the local community. Furthermore, many mosque leaders,
> dating, and an unhealthy consumerist culture. They hope           whether called president or imam, work on a volunteer or
> that Islamic schools will help their children develop Islamic     part-time basis, requiring them to seek employment outside
> values and behaviors. Interestingly, what is defined as “Is-       the mosque. While most of them have completed studies at
> lamic” is itself a subject of debate within Muslim schools.       the college level or above, less than half have any kind of
> While some schools attempt to enforce gender segregation          formal Islamic education. Muslim women are generally barred
> 
> 712                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> United States, Islam in
> 
> from serving as imams, although some do become mosque                 ideals. They complain that immigrants often take condepresidents—for instance, when rifle fire pierced the stain-             scending attitudes toward them, especially in deciding who
> glassed windows of her Toledo, Ohio, mosque after 11                  gets to determine what the “real” Islam is. There are also
> September 2001, Chereffe Kadri led two thousand people,               serious linguistic, ethnic, class, and religious differences among
> both Muslim and non-Muslim, in prayer as they literally               Muslim immigrants themselves. These differences often come
> joined hands around the building, asking for God’s protection.        to the fore when immigrants form cultural centers along
> linguistic lines, separating themselves into groups, respec-
> Muslim Identity                                                       tively, of Urdu, Persian, or Arabic speakers. Some Muslims
> Muslims in the United States constantly debate the issue of           defend such activity by arguing that the Qur
an encourages
> identity, engaging the question of what it means to be a              ethnic and racial diversity (49:13). Some African American
> Muslim from a number of different angles. One of these is the         Muslims also assert that cultural autonomy and a sense of
> relationship between Muslims and the state. For decades,              racial pride are especially important in their struggles for
> some Muslims have proudly embraced their identity as Ameri-           black liberation. But other groups, like the Islamic Center of
> can citizens, even patriots. Others, however, have sought to          Southern California (ICSC), work actively to create interdistance themselves from American culture and especially              ethnic and interracial American Muslim communities, often
> American foreign policy. During the Gulf War, for example,            linking the future growth of American Islam to the diminu-
> W. D. Mohammed supported the coalition against Iraq,                  tion of racial divisions among American Muslims.
> arguing that it was desirable, from an Islamic point of view, to
> expel the Iraqi army from Kuwait; but Minister Louis                      There is, in the end, little unity over the question of
> Farrakhan joined some prominent Sunni Muslim figures in                Islamic identity and many other issues of concern to Muslims
> denouncing the presence of American troops on Islamic lands.          in the United States. Such disagreements, while sometimes
> seen as problematic by Muslims themselves, reflect the diver-
> There have been similar divisions in the attempt to find an        sity of American Islam. That diversity—the many faces and
> answer to the question of how Muslims should function in a            voices and manifestations of Islam in the United States—is an
> non-Islamic country, a nation that sometimes seems quite              inextricable part of its growth.
> hostile to Muslims themselves. Should Muslims run for
> political office? Should they serve in the military? How much          See also Farrakhan, Louis; Gender; Islamic Society of
> should Muslims interact with non-Muslims and in what
> North America; Malcolm X; Muhammad, Elijah;
> Muhammad, Warith Deen; Muslim Student Associacapacities? The need for answers only increased in the wake
> tion of North America; Nation of Islam.
> of 11 September 2001and the war in Iraq as many American
> Muslims attempted to show support for America while simultaneously questioning American foreign policy toward vari-            BIBLIOGRAPHY
> ous Muslim countries. Some Muslim organizations in the                Austin, Allan D. African Muslims in Antebellum America:
> United States, like the Tabligh Jamaat, worry that Muslims             Transatlantic Stories and Spiritual Struggles. New York:
> will become corrupted by participating more fully in Ameri-             Routledge, 1997.
> can culture, which they see as un-Islamic. Similarly, Hizb            Bagby, Ihsan; Perl, Paul M.; and Froehle, Bryan T. The
> Tahrir, or the Liberation Party, argues that the United States          Mosque in America: A National Portrait. Washington, D.C.:
> is dar al-kufr (the realm of disbelief), advising Muslims to            Council of American-Islamic Relations, 2001.
> work for the reconstitution of the Islamic caliphate, which           Curtis IV, Edward E. Islam in Black America: Identity, Liberawas abolished in 1924 by Turkish leader Mustafa Kemal                   tion, and Difference in African-American Islamic Thought.
> Ataturk. Most Muslim groups, however, advocate full partici-            Albany.: State University of New York Press, 2002.
> pation in American public life. These include both the Islamic        Dannin, Robert. Black Pilgrimage to Islam. New York: Oxford
> Society of North America and W. D. Mohammed’s Muslim                    University Press, 2002.
> American Society in addition to the American Muslim Coun-             Eck, Diana L. A New Religious America: How a “Christian
> cil and the Council for American-Islamic Relations.                     Country” Has Become the World’s Most Religiously Diverse
> Nation. New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 2001.
> Muslims in the United States also continue to debate the          Haddad, Yvonne Yazbeck, ed. Muslims in the West: From
> place of racial and ethnic difference within their own commu-           Sojourners to Citizens. New York: Oxford University
> nities. Most Muslims, including African American Muslims,               Press, 2002.
> affirm the idea that Islam is a creed or way of life universally       Haddad, Yvonne Yazbeck; and Smith, Jane Idleman, eds.
> applicable to all, regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, class, or     Muslim Communities in North America. Albany: State Uniany other sociological category. Most also espouse Islamic              versity of New York Press, 1994.
> notions of racial equality and categorically denounce racism.         Haddad, Yvonne Yazbeck; and Esposito, John L. Muslims on
> Many African American Muslims argue, however, that the                  the Americanization Path? New York: Oxford University
> reality of racial divisions in American Islam contradicts these         Press, 2000.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                         713
> Urdu Language, Literature, and Poetry
> 
> McAlister, Melani. Epic Encounters: Culture, Media, and U.S.           Throughout the twentieth century Urdu successfully re-
> Interests in the Middle East, 1945–2000. Berkeley: Univer-       tained this role as an Islamic language while also developing
> sity of California Press, 2001.                                  as the medium of a modern secular literature much influ-
> McCloud, Aminah Beverly. African American Islam. New               enced by English. As an administrative and educational lan-
> York: Routledge, 1995.                                           guage, however, Urdu has progressively lost ground to modern
> Smith, Jane I. Islam in America. New York: Columbia Uni-           standard Hindi, the rival Sanskritized language promoted as a
> versity Press, 1999.                                             replacement for Urdu by Hindu nationalists. Since indepen-
> Turner, Richard Brent. Islam in the African-American Experi-       dence from British rule in 1947, Urdu has thus increasingly
> ence. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997.               become marginalized in its Indian homeland and identified
> Wadud, Amina. Quran and Woman: Rereading the Sacred Text          with Pakistan. Although spoken there as a mother tongue
> from a Woman’s Perspective. New York: Oxford University          only by Muslim immigrants from India and their descen-
> Press, 1999.                                                     dants, Urdu is the official language of Pakistan, where languages like Punjabi, Sindhi, or Pashto have limited regional
> Edward E. Curtis IV       status only. As such, Urdu has been carried by the Pakistani
> diaspora to many other parts of the world, including the
> Middle East, Europe, and North America.
> 
> URDU LANGUAGE, LITERATURE,                                         Classical Urdu Poetry
> AND POETRY                                                         Persian poetry was for many centuries one of the major arts to
> be cultivated across the eastern Islamic world. The patronage
> Urdu is a language whose exceptionally complex linguistic          of the great Mughal emperors encouraged a further developand cultural history reflects the special position of Islam in      ment of Persian poetry in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century
> the Indian subcontinent of South Asia. While linguistically        India by both immigrant and native-born poets. While their
> related to Bengali, Hindi, Punjabi, and the other languages of     works were formally cast in the long established traditional
> the Indo-Aryan family (whose classical representative is San-      poetic genres, some novelty of expression came from their
> skrit), Urdu is distinguished by the very high proportion of       development of the new baroque manner called the “Indian
> Perso-Arabic elements in its vocabulary. This Islamic cultural     style” (sabk-e hindi).
> orientation is also reflected in its written form, which uses the
> The eighteenth-century switch from Persian to Urdu as
> Perso-Arabic script with appropriate modifications to mark
> the preferred language of courtly poetry in northern India
> distinctive Indic features such as retroflex and aspirated
> had been linguistically foreshadowed by the preclassical Urdu
> consonants.
> poetry produced in the southern Muslim kingdoms of the
> While its origins elude precise definition, Urdu clearly         Deccan. But the living tradition of classical Urdu poetry is
> began in medieval times from a mixture of the local Indian         identified with the period when the empire had collapsed
> dialects of the Delhi region with the Persian spoken by the        under the twin pressures of external invasions and internal
> Muslim conquerors whose armies rapidly spread the new              struggles into several successor states, notably the court of the
> lingua franca across the subcontinent. Since Persian contin-       Navvab-Vazirs of Avadh in Lucknow and that of the politiued to be the preferred administrative and cultural language       cally shadowy later Mughals in Delhi, both of which were
> of the Delhi sultanate and the Mughal empire, it was only          maintained as puppet kingdoms by the British until the midwith the collapse of unitary Muslim political authority in the     nineteenth century.
> eighteenth century that Urdu came to be cultivated in northern India as a literary language for a courtly poetry that            The carefully cultivated conscious rivalry between the
> constitutes the classical heritage of Urdu literature.             “schools” of Delhi and Lucknow now seems less significant
> than the common features of classical Urdu poetry, which is
> From the early nineteenth century, when British colonial        both the direct heir to the immense artistic heritage of
> rule was extended across northern India, Urdu came increas-        Persian poetry (itself now linguistically inaccessible to most
> ingly to be used also as a written prose language. British         South Asian Muslims) and the chief vehicle for the public and
> policy itself favored the development of Urdu as an official        private literary expression of an elite society facing major
> bureaucratic medium, and Muslim writers took ample advan-          political and cultural challenges. Most of the poetic genres
> tage of the opportunities provided by the colonial state for the   are of the well-known Persian types, and are similarly based
> production of textbooks, newspapers, and very varied prose         on rhyming verses composed in the usual Persian meters,
> writings. It is from this early modern period, when British        typically ending with the incorporation of the poet’s pen
> India was the scene of the most intense debates about the          name (takhallus) in the final signature verse. By far the most
> definition of Islam in the modern world, that Urdu became a         popular genre is the ghazal, the ubiquitous short lyric whose
> language of Islamic expression second only in international        cultivated formal rhetoric readily allows its expressions of
> importance to Arabic.                                              private feeling to achieve widespread public outreach through
> 
> 714                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Urdu Language, Literature, and Poetry
> 
> An Afghan refugee child writes in Urdu in a school in Pakistan. While Urdu was used widely as a written prose language under British colonial
> rule on the Indian subcontinent, its usage has decreased in India and it is now much more identified with Pakistan. AP/WIDE WORLD PHOTOS
> 
> recitation and musical performance as well as written dis-                  While the Lucknow poets are in general considered less
> semination. The two great classical masters of the Urdu                  notable for their thematic range than for their cultivation of a
> ghazal are generally acknowledged to be the very prolific Mir             formal Persianizing elegance, the Shia allegiance of the
> Taqi Mir (c.1722–1810), who is known for the poignancy of                rulers of the Avadh kingdom encouraged the magnificent
> his direct expression of the sufferings of love, and the Delhi           flowering of the strophic marsiyya, the innovative Urdu genre
> poet Ghalib (1797–1869), whose slim collection (divan) of                that deployed the full resources of the “Indian style” for the
> ghazals is an iconic masterpiece combining refinement of                  elegiac celebration of the sufferings of Karbala celebrated in
> sentiment with the ironic intellectualism of the “Indian style.”         the annual rituals of Muharram, and whose two great masters
> are Anis (1801–1874) and Dabir (1803–1875).
> Of the longer public genres of Persian poetry, the narrative masnavi was more successfully cultivated in Urdu during             Modern Urdu Literature
> its pre-classical phase in the Deccan. Although Mir himself              While the transition from the classical to the modern period
> wrote a number of striking short masnavis on contemporary                can be sharply marked by the annexation of Avadh by the
> romantic subjects, it is his versatile and innovative contempo-          British in 1856 and the destruction of much of Delhi that
> rary Sauda (1713–1781) whose poetry addresses the greatest               followed their ruthless suppression of the Great Revolt of
> variety of public themes, using the formal ode (qasida) as well          1857, there was also naturally much overlap between the two.
> as various strophic forms to compose not only elaborately                Under the patronage of other Indian Muslim rulers, some
> rhetorical eulogies and satires but also a number of striking            poets were able to continue working in the classical style, like
> elegies on the cultural and political devastation of Delhi in            Ghalib’s younger relative Dagh (1831–1905) who perfected a
> the mid-eighteenth century. In the qasida Sauda is later                 mastery of the light ghazal designed for singing by courtesan
> matched only by Zauq (1790–1854), the great rival of Ghalib              artistes.
> for the favor of Bahadur Shah II Zafar (1775–1862), the last
> Mogul “emperor” whose sad fate at the hands of the British                  On the other hand, many of the developments most
> has helped to assure a special status for his own elegiac                characteristic of later nineteenth-century Urdu literature
> ghazals.                                                                 such as the increasing importance of prose and of explicitly
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                              715
> Urdu Language, Literature, and Poetry
> 
> Islamic writing had already begun before 1857, not least            philosophical ghazal and of the new kind of thematic poem
> because of the emergence of an Urdu publishing industry             (called nazm in Urdu), Iqbal is rightly remembered in South
> based on the lithographic reproduction of professionally            Asia for his Urdu poetry rather than the longer Persian
> calligraphed texts. It was through this means that a wider          masnavis on which his international reputation tends to be
> public was found, for instance, for such early masterpieces of      based. Although Iqbal continues to be the object of an
> Urdu prose as Ghalib’s elegantly informal letters.                  inflated official cult in Pakistan as the ideological founder of
> the nation, his power directly to inspire, whether as a thinker
> It was, however, after the cultural watershed of 1857,          or as a poet, has long been supplanted by the numerous
> when the Muslims of India had to confront the reality of the        writers of very different types who have subsequently flourdefinitive loss of their political power, that the new trends        ished in Urdu.
> associated with the early modernity of the colonial period
> became firmly established. Some writers of the later nine-              As an Islamic ideologue, the most influential Urdu prose
> teenth century were provoked into formulating new styles of         writer of the later twentieth century was certainly Sayyid Abu
> literary response to the acute sense of cultural loss caused by     l-Ala
 Maududi (1903–1979), the founder of the Jamaatthe political changes of the period. Two of the most notable        e Islami, while the Urdu poetry of the post-Iqbalian peof these were Muhammad Husain Azad (1834–1910), whose               riod came quickly to be dominated by Faiz Ahmad Faiz
> Ab-e Hayat (1881) is a pioneering history of Urdu poetry            (1911–1984), whose combination of an idealistic socialism
> lovingly reconstructed around his revered master Zauq, and          with a unique ability to intermingle the style of English
> the maverick Muhammad Hadi Rusva (1858–1931), whose                 romantic poetry with graceful references of Ghalib has en-
> Umrao Jan Ada (1899) remains the most appealing of Urdu             sured his continuing ability to inspire new generations of
> novels with its wonderful evocation of the life of a courtesan      poetic followers in the ghazal and the nazm.
> in the old Lucknow.
> Modern Urdu narrative prose is less ambiguously based
> For other writers of the period, new kinds of Islamic           on the example of English genres and styles. While a few
> ideology were as important as the new genres opened up by           novelists, notably Qurratulain Haidar (b. 1928) and Abdullah
> the example of English, which now increasingly came to              Husain (b. 1936), have been able to establish serious reputasupplant Persian as the model for Urdu prose styles and             tions on the basis of major works, it is the short story that has
> genres. This was particularly the case with the talented group      generally proved to be the most successful genre. Following
> of writers associated with the Aligarh movement inspired by         on the earlier example of the Urdu-Hindi writer Prem Chand
> the modernist interpretation of Islam promulgated by the            (1880–1936), whose short fiction was inspired by Gandhian
> great reformer Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan (1818–1898), himself           ideals, the new school of self-proclaimed Progressive Writers
> a vigorous and prolific exponent of a forcefully stripped-           that emerged in the 1930s (and with which Faiz was associdown Urdu prose style. The leading poet of the Aligarh              ated) looked rather to socialist realism. By far the most
> movement was Altaf Husain Hali (1837–1914), whose long              successful of these short-story writers was Saadat Hasan
> Musaddas of 1879 (revised in 1886) is the greatest poem of the      Manto (1912–1955), some of whose most memorable stories
> period. Inspired by what he had read of Wordsworth’s poetic         were inspired by the tragedies of the Partition of 1947, and
> ideals, Hali used a quite new style, that he called “natural        his overall achievement in the genre has yet to be fully
> poetry” and that consciously dispensed with most of the             matched by later writers in Pakistan. But several memorable
> familiar Persianizing rhetoric, first to evoke the lost glories of   collections of short stories, variously combining genuinely
> Islam under the Arabs, then to embark on a savage critique of       modernist formal experimentation with troubled articulathe failings of contemporary Islam in India. In prose, a            tions of a modern Pakistani Muslim cultural identity, have
> similarly reformist message is conveyed with greater stylistic      been produced by such leading exponents as the emigre
> subtlety, if smaller artistic impact, in the moralistic novels of   Intizar Husain (b. 1933) with his continual reflections on the
> Nazir Ahmad (1836–1912).                                            loss of an Indian Shii cultural heritage, or Mazhar ul Islam (b.
> 1949) with his attempts to integrate the local Sufi heritage
> Poetry, however, continued to be the favored medium of          embodied in the regional languages of Pakistan with a bleakly
> expression among the next generation of Urdu writers, which         romantic individualism.
> is dominated by Muhammad Iqbal (1879–1938). It was Iqbal’s
> achievement to combine his own uplifting call for a Muslim          See also Pakistan, Islamic Republic of; South Asia,
> renascence, looking to contemporary European philosophy             Islam in; South Asian Culture and Islam.
> as well as to an individual reinterpretation of certain Sufi
> ideas, with a hugely powerful poetic voice that drew anew           BIBLIOGRAPHY
> upon the full resources of a rich Persian vocabulary to             Faiz, Faiz Ahmad. Poems by Faiz. Translated by Victor G.
> reinvigorate Urdu poetic diction after the successful chal-            Kiernan. London: Allen and Unwin, 1971.
> lenge of Hali’s “natural poetry” had undermined the appeal          Matthews, D. J.; Shackle, C.; and Husain, Shahrukh. Urdu
> of traditional styles. A grandiloquent master both of the             Literature. London: Urdu Markaz, 1985.
> 
> 716                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Usuliyya
> 
> Matthews, D. J., trans. and ed. Iqbal: A Selection of the Urdu    including his brief epistemo-theological introductory re-
> Verse. London: School of Oriental and African Stud-             marks whose elaboration he presented in another work Abkar
> ies, 1993.                                                      al-anwar. Amidi defined istidlal in its specific sense, as syllo-
> Russell, Ralph, and Islam, Khurshidul. Three Mughal Poets.        gistic reasoning which is not necessarily based on the four
> Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1968.               classical Islamic legal sources.
> Russell, Ralph, and Islam, Khurshidul. Ghalib, 1797–1869,
> The Shiite school of Hilla, which flourished in the thir-
> Vol. I: Life and Letters. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1969.                                            teenth and fourteenth centuries, did not disregard the rationalist Usuli achievements of its Sunni counterparts. This
> Sadiq, Muhammad. A History of Urdu Literature, 2d ed. New
> school historically begins with Ibn Idris al-Hilli (d. 1202)
> Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1984.
> who, benefiting from the growing rationalist tendency among
> the Twelvers, made a more detailed exposition of Shiite
> Christopher Shackle     jurisprudence in his al-Sara’ir. In refuting the traditionalists,
> Ibn Idris negates the validity of isolate traditions, and explicitly identifies the human rational faculty (
aql) as the fourth
> source of law in deducing legal norms.
> USULIYYA
> The Usuli doctrinal movement truly began with al-
> The term “usuliyya” applies to those who adhere to the            Muhaqqiq al-Hilli (d. 1277), who was the first to open a
> principles in law that, in Twelver Shiism, came specifically to   chapter of ijtihad and qiyas (analogy) in Shiite jurisprudence.
> mean the principles of jurisprudence (usul al-fiqh). The no-       Like Ghazali, Muhaqqiq defines ijtihad in such a way that, by
> tion of principles was at first imbued with the theological        making a distinction between the speculative component
> doctrines of the Mutazila in the works of al-Shaykh al-Mufid      (zann) on the one hand, and qiyas and unrestricted reasoning
> (d. 1022) and his students, al-Sharif al-Murtada (d. 1044) and    on the other, ijtihad is legitimized on the basis of valid zann.
> al-Shaykh al-Tusi (d. 1067), who exposed the imami concep-        He challenges Mufid on the question of qiyas by claiming that
> tion of usul al-fiqh. However, the methodology for extrapo-        the ratio legis (
illa) in certain kinds of qiyas are discernible and
> lating legal norms (ahkam) from the sources had not yet been      may be applied to new cases under the pretext of tanqih althoroughly incorporated into jurisprudence to the extent          minat (scrutiny of criterion). It is noteworthy that the initiaseen in later periods. The ulema of the tenth and eleventh        tion of ijtihad is regarded as the major source of dynamism in
> centuries viewed themselves more as rational-theological          Shiite law since the thirteenth century, when the claim of
> jurists rather than as followers of the Usuli tradition.          “closure of the gate of ijtihad” began to circulate in the Sunni
> milieu. Moreover, Muhaqqiq tried to redefine the Shiite
> After Tusi, Shiite jurisprudence stagnated for a century
> conception of 
aql by restricting it to three applications: (i)
> and a half, during which Sunni law flourished more creaverbal inferences such as the tone (lahn) of religious distively. Ibn Hazm (d. 1064), an Andalusian of the Zahirite
> course, (ii) what is implied in God’s address (fahwa al-khitab),
> school, presented an unusual combination of theology, linand (iii) the reason for the address (dalil al-khitab). Only the
> guistics, logic, and epistemology in his al-Ihkam. He defends
> second is considered to be referring to the human conception
> logic and reasoning on the grounds that all thinking, even        of good and evil.
> “the tradition,” should be verified by reason. A contemporary
> of Ibn Hazm was Imam al-Haramayn al-Juwayni (d. 1085)                 Muhaqqiq’s nephew, al-Allama al-Hilli (d. 1327), adwho combined a strong Asharite tendency with a certain           vanced this Usuli position by not only upholding ijtihad, but
> measure of logic and rationalist epistemology in the introduc-    also by distinguishing the status of the mujtahid as a necessary
> tion to his usul work al-Burhan.                                  office for Shiism. From the vantage point of knowledge of
> jurisprudence, he divided the community into two groups:
> One of Juwayni’s students, Abu Hamid Ghazali (d. 1111),       mujtahids and their followers. In his Tahdhib, Allama legitigave a new structure to Islamic legal methodology that            mized two kinds of qiyas: i) al-mansus al-
illa in which the leges
> inspired Shiite Usulis. In al-Mustasfa, he proposed a hori-      ratio is designated in the Qur
an and Sunna, and ii) al-hukm
> zontal scope for usul al-fiqh which differed from the hierar-      fil-far
 aqwa, wherein the minor case has more applicability to
> chical classification of the sources of legal knowledge as         law than its premise.
> initiated by al-Shafii. Ghazali’s approach to usul al-fiqh
> impressed such subsequent Sunni legal authors as Sayf al-Din         By the middle of the Safavid era (the seventeenth century),
> al-Amidi (d. 1233) and Ibn al-Hajib (d. 1248). These scholars     the Usuli trend suffered a temporary setback due to the
> focused on the method of drawing out legal norms rather           Akhbari (traditionalist) resurgence that seriously challenged
> than on the categorization of the legal sources, as pre-Ghazali   the Usuli way of resorting to qiyas and ijtihad instead of
> authors had done. Amidi dedicated a chapter to syllogism          relying on the imams’ traditions. The founder of the neounder the title of istidlal (evidentiary proof; 1967, 104–120),   traditionalist trend was Mulla Muhammad Amin Astarabadi
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                        717
> Usuliyya
> 
> (d. 1626), who had been educated by Usuli masters. Astarabadi             Another consequence of Usuli dominance was the
> succeeded in turning Akhbarism into a legal school with               reformulation of the doctrine of juristic mandate (velayat-e
> distinct methods of jurisprudence. Among his formulas was             faqih) with a methodical argumentation. The idea of the
> the principle of “customary certainty” (al-yaqin al-
adi or al-       juristic mandate still contained at its heart the concept of the
> qat
 al-
adi), which proposed that the Shiites should content        imam as deputy, but it came to include as well an acknowlthemselves with “the general certainty” (al-qat
 al-ijmali) that      edgement of the legitimacy of qualified jurists to succeed the
> the contents of imams’ traditions convey to them. According           all-embracing authority of the imam, due to the work of an
> to Astarabadi, these traditions are compiled in the four              Usuli jurist of the Qajar court, Molla Ahmad Naraqi. The
> canonical collections of Shiite traditions as well as other early    executive force of this doctrine is taqlid or the unquestioned
> Shiite compilations.                                                 mass following.
> 
> The Usuli methodology found a new momentum in the                    Concurrent with the increase of the mujtahid’s social
> Shiite seminaries during the second half of eighteenth cen-          prestige, the Usuli legal methodology reached another peak
> tury, when the leading Akhbari-oriented jurist of the shrine          with Shaykh Murtada Ansari (d. 1864), who shifted the
> cities of the Atabat, Shaykh Yusuf al-Bahrani (d. 1772),             emphasis of the contents of usul al-fiqh from the semantics of
> incorporated the key elements of Usuli principles, including          the Qur
an and traditions to what he termed “the rational
> the ijtihad, in his comprehensive work on Shiite law, al-            practical principles” (al-usul al-
amaliyya). Ansari defended
> Hada
iq al-Nadira. Bahrani, moreover, allowed his Usuli              the use of syllogism in legal methodology, and he applied it in
> opponent Baqir al-Bihbihani (d. 1791) to flourish in the               parts of his work. Ansari rejected the application of “juristic
> Atabat by encouraging his own students to attend Bihbihani’s         mandate” beyond religious matters, but he advocated the
> lectures, and still more, by assigning Bihbihani to lead the          necessity of a mujtahid for approbation of Muslim actions.
> funeral prayer at his death.                                          Ansari’s discourses were compiled and circulated among
> Shia in the form of the juridical manual (risala-ye 
amaliyya)
> Bahrani’s goal, which was to reduce the differences be-           that were issued by the supreme exemplar of the community.
> tween the two parties, was viewed as having been defeated by
> later Usulis, since they awarded Bihbihani victory over the               The notion of unquestioned following taqlid was further
> Akhbaris. Enjoying his family connections and ability to              corroborated by Sayyed Mohammad Kazem Yazdi (d. 1919),
> support his students, Bihbihani succeeded in re-establishing          who maintained that the actions of Muslims would be void
> Usulism in the shrine cities. However, he wrote more po-              without emulating a mujtahid. Yazdi set the problem of taqlid
> lemical treatises such as Risalat al-ijtihad wal-akhbar, rather       as the opening issue of Shiite law. The last bolster of taqlid, in
> than works on Usuli legal methodology. Despite Bahrani’s              its Usuli context, was made by Ayatollah Khomeini (d. 1989).
> aspiration, the Usuli-Akhbari conflict continued, and eventu-          He claimed that the object of taqlid was not limited to sheer
> ally climaxed into personal refutations and even bloody clashes       “following,” but was intended to mean complete obedience to
> between supporters of the two groups during the nineteenth            the qualified jurist’s commands.
> century.
> The centrality of taqlid in some of the Usuli works should
> The re-establishment of the Usuli position not only in-           not be taken to mean that the Usulism of the contemporary
> creased the authority of the ulema, but also placed the               era was actually reduced to taqlid and its corollary ijtihad to
> doctrine of ijtihad and taqlid at the heart of the Shiite juristic   enhance the mandate of jurists; but rather that several genustructure upon which the subsequent institution of marja
 al-         ine attempts were made to present the Shiite Usuliyya in its
> taqlid had to be built. The juridical office of marja
 al-taqlid       best methodical form. The most successful work in this vein
> appeared as an independent institution when the Usuli ulema           belongs to Shaykh Mohammad Reza Mozaffar (d. 1963),
> of the Atabat began to acknowledge the superiority of one or         who dedicated half of his book to discussions of “rational
> several senior mujtahids in expounding legal opinions, and in         entailments” and “the practical principles.” He expounded
> some cases in pronouncing final and binding verdicts.                  the Shiite conceptions of “independent rational inducements” (al-mustiqillat al-
aqliyya), rational proofs, and the
> The institution was manifested more completely when
> presumption of continuity of the past.
> Shaykh Muhammad Hasan Isfahani was singled out as the
> sole supreme mujtahid in Najaf in 1846, and he formally took
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> charge of paying the stipends of the students of other seminaries in the shrine cities of the Atabat. In view of the            Arjomad, Said Amir, ed. Authority and Political Culture in
> considerable socio-political roles performed in the modern               Shi
ism. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988.
> period by this institution and by the ulema in general, it is         Kazemi Moussavi, Ahmad. Religious Authority in Shi
ite Islam.
> suggested that the consolidation of the independent Shiite             Kuala Lumpur: ISTAC, 1996.
> “hierocracy” resulted in a duality within the structure of
> authority during the Qajar reign in Iran.                                                                   Ahmad Kazemi Moussavi
> 
> 718                                                                                                Islam and the Muslim World
> 
Uthman ibn 
Affan
> 
> 
UTHMAN DAN FODIO                                                
UTHMAN IBN 
AFFAN
> (1754–1817)                                                      (R. 644–656)
> Uthman dan Fodio was a religious scholar and the founder of     Uthman b. Affan, a wealthy merchant of the Qurayshi tribe
> the Islamic empire of Sokoto in present-day northern Nigeria.    who was noted for his elegant dress, supported Muhammad
> when he first began preaching in Mecca. He converted to
> Uthman dan Fodio was born in Maratta in the Hausa           Islam and married Muhammad’s daughter Ruqayya, with
> kingdom of Gobir. He studied the Qur
an with his father, and     whom he emigrated to Abyssinia. Soon after they rejoined the
> other Islamic sciences such as fiqh and hadith with a number      Muslims in Medina, Ruqayya died during the Battle of Badr
> of scholars of the region. Through Shaykh Jibril b. Umar he     and Muhammad gave him Umm Kulthum, another of his
> was initiated into the Qadiriyya Sufi brotherhood. After          daughters, in marriage.
> completing his education in circa 1774, he started to teach
> and preach in Gobir. His preaching brought him into a                On the death of Umar b. al-Khattab, Uthman was
> conflict with the political establishment in Gobir that, al-      elected the third caliph by a council of six, including Uthman,
> though claiming to be Muslim, was still committed to a policy    Ali, and Abd al-Rahman b. Awf. Noticeably, the Ansar (the
> of accommodation with respect to the non-Muslim majority         Medinan companions of the Prophet), had no representation
> of the population. In 1804, this conflict led to a military       in the council, a detail which helped Uthman defeat Ali.
> confrontation between the jama
a (community) of Uthman
> Uthman is credited with establishing the canonical verdan Fodio and the King of Gobir. In the subsequent jihad the
> sion of the Qur
an during his caliphate. He handed the pages
> jama
a of Uthman dan Fodio was able not only to defeat the
> of Qur
an, left by Umar in the care of his daughter Hafsa (a
> King of Gobir in 1808, but also to conquer almost all other
> widow of the Prophet), to Zayd b. Thabit (one of the scribes
> Hausa states and to establish an empire that was ruled by
> of the Prophet), and ordered him to compile it in the dialect
> religious scholars and defined as an Islamic state, the soof the Quraysh. Three other Quraysh were selected to help
> called “Sokoto caliphate.” Uthman dan Fodio became emir
> Zayd in this effort. Finally, a copy was deposited in all the
> al-muminin (the title “commander of the faithful” taken by
> administrative centers of the caliphate, and the destruction of
> the second caliph, Umar) of this empire and was able to exert
> all other Qur
ans ordered.
> great influence on neighboring jihad movements, in particular those in Bornu (from 1808) and Masina (1818). Dan Fodio         Uthman was resented for appointing his irresponsible
> was also author of more than one hundred scholarly works         relatives as governors of Kufa, Basra, and Egypt. Dissension
> that were to influence decisively the intellectual, religious,    came to a head when the rebels, having been promised
> and political development of Islam in the Sokoto empire as       reforms, intercepted a message, supposedly from Uthman to
> well as other parts of West Africa such as the Masina imamate.   the governor of Egypt, ordering their execution. They
> His most influential works are probably those he wrote to         promptly returned to Uthman’s home and despite Uthman’s
> legitimize the jihad, on the necessity of hijra (emigrating to   denial, killed him. This event is known as Yawm al-Dar.
> establish a Muslim community), on reviving the sunna and
> quelling innovation, and on the distinction between Muslim       See also Caliphate; Fitna; Khutba; Religious Institurule and the rule by nonbelievers.                               tions; Shi
a: Early; Succession.
> 
> See also Africa, Islam in; Caliphate; Kano.                      BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Hinds, Martin, “The Murder of the Caliph Uthman.” Jour-
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                       nal of Middle East Studies 3 (1972): 450–469.
> Hiskett, Mervyn. The Sword of Truth. The Life and Times of the   Madelung, Wilfred. The Succession of Muhammad. Cambridge,
> Shehu Usuman dan Fodio. New York: Oxford University             U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
> Press, 1967.                                                  Motzki, Harald. “The Collection of the Qur
an.” Der Islam,
> Last, Murray. The Sokoto Caliphate. London: Longman, 1967.         78 (2001): 1–34.
> 
> Roman Loimeier                                                        Rizwi Faizer
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                  719
> V
> VEILING                                                                  men’s and women’s gaze, gait, garments, and genitalia. The
> specific articles and aspects of clothing that are mentioned
> The word for veiling, hijab, is derived from the root h-j-b. Its         with regard to women only are jilbab, a loose outer clothing or
> verbal form hajaba means to veil, to seclude, to screen. The             cloak, and khimar or scarf. When in the company of men,
> complex phenomenon of hijab is generally translated into the             women are asked to raise their khimar (scarves) over the
> English as veil with its correlate seclusion.                            necklines of their shirts (24:31). When in public women are
> asked to draw their jilbab (cloaks) over them so they may be
> The term hijab or veil is not used in the Qur
an to refer to          identified as respectable women and not be harmed (33:59).
> an article of clothing for women or men, rather it refers to a           These Qur
ic verses do not mention any parts of the women’s
> spatial curtain that divides or provides privacy. The Qur
an             body. No body parts of either men or women are mentioned
> instructs the male believers (Muslims) that when they ask of             in the modesty verses except the genitalia, which are to be
> anything from the wives of the prophet Muhammad to do so                 guarded (24:30–31). Guidelines for covering of the entire
> from behind a hijab, a curtain that creates a visual barrier             body except for the hands, the feet, and the face, are found in
> between the two sexes (33:53). The observance of this hijab is           texts of fiqh and hadith that are developed later.
> the responsibility of the men and not the wives of the
> Prophet.                                                                     Early in the twentieth century the tradition of veiling
> among Muslim women created controversy. Different ide-
> In later Muslim societies this instruction specific to the            ologies and attitudes, whether in Western countries or on the
> wives of the Prophet was generalized, leading to the segrega-            part of Muslims influenced by the West, challenged the
> tion of Muslim men and women not related to each other                   practice. Regimes in a few Muslim countries have legislated
> through family ties. It created a social and political division          the veil on or off Muslim women. In most Muslim countries
> between public male space and private female space with the              where Muslim women have the freedom of choice, some,
> effect of a political, social, economic, and psychological               especially in the modern urban centers, have discontinued the
> disenfranchisement of the women. The gender-segregated                   practice of veiling. Some of those who had discarded the veil
> space has also provided an intimate homosocial context con-              have returned to it. But this modern return to the hijab
> ducive to deep bonds between members of the same gender                  actually gives many women access to public spaces and jobs
> and inimical to bonds and commitments across genders,                    instead of secluding them. For many Muslim women, due to a
> including heterosexual relations.                                        complex of personal belief, social reenforcement, and public
> self-image, the use of the hijab is an integral part of their being
> Although the term for dress or garment in the Qur
an is              in the world and an outward expression of their inward faith
> libas, hijab has come to mean the headgear and outer garment             that dictates modesty and chastity.
> of Muslim women. Libas is used both literally to refer to
> physical/material dress and adornments and figuratively as a                 Beginning with the twentieth century, Western percepcovering of human shortcomings and vulnerabilities. (16:14;              tions also underwent change with regard to the image of the
> 35:12; 18:31; 44:53; 22:23; 35:33).                                      veiled Muslim woman. Originally perceived as being submissive or oppressed, some Muslim women are now being
> In the Qur
an the righteousness or taqwa of libas is mod-             viewed as being an embodied threat to Western culture. The
> esty. It is the correct balance between the function of libas as         custom of Muslim women to publicly cover themselves with
> protection and as ornamentation. Modesty concerns both                   garments that completely hide their body and hair creates a
> 
> Velayat-e Faqih
> 
> mystique regarding the wearer and challenges Western mo-               theory of scholarly authority. The term velayat in Shiism was
> dernity and feminism.                                                  normally associated with devotion to, and obedience of, the
> imams, and consequently was a defining aspect of Shiism
> Western perceptions of a stereotypical harem with trapped,          generally. Imami Shiite jurists, over time, developed a theory
> seductively veiled women were played out in the erotic                 whereby the obedience due to the imams, particularly in
> imagery of early twentieth-century films and paintings.                 matters of law, was channeled through the jurists (sing. faqih,
> pl. fuqaha
), who acted as representatives of the imam during
> This misrepresentation of Islam persisted until the sudden
> the occultation (ghayba). Until the nineteenth century, this
> decolonization of French Algeria. The dramatic events of the
> was phrased in terms of a general delegation (Per., niyabat-e
> Algerian war (1954–1962) marked a turning point in Western
> amma, Ar., niyaba amma) of the jurists. In the early nineperceptions of Islamic women when heavily veiled Muslim
> teenth century, the scholar Ahmad al-Naraqi (d. 1829) was
> female militants utilized their garments for the concealment
> probably the first to describe this obedience in terms of
> of weapons. The use of veiling by Muslim women now had
> velayat-e, signifying a further expansion of the authority of the
> politically sinister connotations of danger, fanaticism, and
> jurists during the ghayba.
> terrorism. In the West veiled Muslim women now may be
> seen both as oppressed and dangerous.
> The velayat of the jurist (velayat-e faqih) was not, at first,
> In the case of the woman who veils her face, gaze-reversal         viewed as entirely replacing the political and legal role of the
> is implied; instead of being scrutinized herself she is free to        imam by Imami jurists, and there were jurists (such as Murtada
> gaze upon men without their knowledge, a perception that               al-Ansari [d. 1864]) who viewed the idea of velayat-e faqih with
> thus may cause another degree of discomfort.                           some suspicion. The concept remained undeveloped in legal
> works, though the idea of the legal authority of the jurist was
> Any analysis of appearance must be viewed within the                developed in other areas. This all changed with the work of
> totality of the social environment. The Western analysis of its        the Iranian scholar Ruhollah Khomeini. In his lectures, he
> gaze on Muslim women is not capable of representing the                proposed a political theory in which a faqih took on political
> reality of the lived experience for each individual woman.             leadership, replacing existing forms of government with
> The Western and modern Muslim view of Islam and of                     Islamic government. The jurist who was to rule was conwomen has changed over the last hundred years or so.                   ceived not as the most learned (alam), but as one who had the
> Whether the hijab liberates or oppresses or is simply a part of        political skills to gain (and maintain) power. If a faqih was able
> one’s everyday clothing is not an issue that can be easily             to do this, Khomeini argued, all other jurists were dutyanswered because of the complexity of each individual situation.       bound to support his rule. This theory Khomeini termed
> velayat-e faqih, thereby making a link between his political
> See also Clothing; Gender; Harem; Law; Purdah.                         ideas and Imami traditional jurisprudence.
> 
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                              At first, Khomeini’s ideas were debated on a theoretical
> El-Guindi, F. Veil. Modesty, Privacy and Resistance. Oxford            level. However, in 1979 Khomeini was propelled into power
> U.K.: Oxford International Publishers Ltd., 1999.                   on a wave of public opposition to the rule of the shah. On his
> Hussain, F., ed. Muslim Women. New York: St Martin’s Press             return to Iran from exile, Khomeini set about putting his
> Inc., 1984.                                                          political theory into practice. In the referendum of March
> 1979, the Iranian population voted for the establishment of
> Mernissi, F. The Veil and the Male Elite. A Feminist Interpretation of Women’s Rights in Islam. Translated by Mary Jo               an Islamic republic. In October 1979, a constitution was
> Lakeland. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley Publishing                  adopted that included the famous article 5, stating that during
> Company, Inc. 1991.                                                  the occultation “the wilaya and leadership of the umma
> devolve upon the just and pious faqih.” This faqih was
> Watson, H. “Women and the Veil: Personal Responses
> to Global Process.” In Islam, Globalization and Postmodernity.       Khomeini. The principle of velayat-e faqih was, then, en-
> Edited by A. Ahmed and H. Donnan London:                             shrined in the constitution which theoretically gave the faqih
> Routledge, 1994.                                                     power, though, in a concession to democratic principles, the
> faqih was to share power with the (popularly elected) presi-
> Ghazala Anwar         dent and parliament (majlis). After Khomeini’s death in 1989,
> Liz McKay         the constitution was amended in order that his chosen successor, Ali Khamane
i, might take over this position. Since then
> there have been vigorous (and, as yet, unresolved) debates in
> Iran over the relative jurisdictions of the faqih, the president,
> VELAYAT-E FAQIH                                                        and the majlis.
> 
> Velayat-e faqih (Ar., wilayat al-faqih), literally “the authority of   See also Hukuma al-Islamiyya, al- (Islamic Governthe jurist,” refers to a development in the Imami Shiite              ment); Shi
a: Imami (Twelver).
> 
> 722                                                                                                 Islam and the Muslim World
> Vernacular Islam
> 
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                       Muslim practice in multiple cultural and geographic con-
> Ende, Werner, and Brunner, Ranier, eds. The Twelver Shia in        texts, and are keenly aware of an ideal of a “universal” Islam
> Modern Times. Religious Culture and Political Culture. Leiden    that may be seemingly threatened by this diversity, refer to
> and Boston: E. J. Brill, 2001.                                   these practices as cultural rather than religious and therefore
> not “real” Islam. The term “vernacular Islam” is less valueladen than “folk Islam” and more easily inclusive of both
> Robert Gleave
> textual and nontextual traditions. To understand Islam in
> practice, scholars need to pay attention to the various levels of
> interaction between vernacular and universal practices.
> 
> VERNACULAR ISLAM                                                       The practice of Islam may take regional shape and vernacular expression on multiple levels. For example, in some
> The central Islamic tenet of tawhid, the essential oneness and     regions, women are not allowed to pray in the mosque
> unity of God, contributes to a self-conception and represen-       (Pakistan, India, Morocco, for example), while in other countation of Islam as a universal and singular religious tradition.   tries (the Arab world, Malaysia, the United States, Canada,
> The idea of singularity is reinforced by the shahada, or witness   England), women do pray in the mosque, although each
> (“There is no god but God. Muhammad is the Messenger of            mosque varies in the architectural design for the separation of
> God”), and shared ritual practice obligatory for all Muslims       men and women in prayer. Another tangible regional/cul-
> (ibadat) in Arabic, often called the Five Pillars in English.     tural, vernacular expression of Islam is found in the levels and
> This ideology of singularity is based upon the authority of the    style of women’s head coverings and the meanings and
> Qur
an and hadith. The fact that one can hear nearly identical     historical and political motivations for these. Prior to the
> Arabic recitation of the Qur
an in New Delhi, Jakarta, and         revolution in 1979, many Iranian women adopted the veil
> Detroit, that South Asian, African, Arab, and Indonesian           (chador) to protest the rule of the shah; veiling was both a
> Muslims perform similar ablution rituals before they attend        religious and political act. Since the revolution, women have
> Friday prayers together in London or New Delhi, or that            been forced to veil and are under the surveillance of religious
> pilgrims from all over the globe gather at Mecca for the hajj      police. In the secular state of Turkey, where Muslims are
> are visible manifestations of a tradition shared across geo-       nevertheless a majority, women are forbidden to wear head
> graphic and social boundaries of difference.                       coverings in government buildings; in the Islamic state of
> Saudi Arabia, where the Wahhabi tradition that interprets
> Muslims, however, live in particular cultures, locales, and    Islamic law very literally is dominant, women are not permitgeographies that influence their practice and create local          ted to go out in public without veiling and all public buildings
> knowledge and variation. Knowledge and practice particular         and work spaces are gender segregated. In other contexts, the
> to a locality can be identified as vernacular Islam. In linguis-    practice of female veiling may become more prevalent as the
> tics, the vernacular is associated with the language or dialect    influence of “Islamization” becomes greater, such as in Egypt,
> where, for example, Bedouin women have begun to adopt a
> spoken in a particular geographic location; it is the common
> “standard” style of veiling as they become more educated in
> everyday language of ordinary people in a given locality. The
> state-supported schools (Abu-Lughod).
> vernacular may be juxtaposed to a language that is shared
> across geographic boundaries or locales. A. K. Ramanujan has           The vernacular expression of Islam also varies according
> distinguished, in the Indian context, the vernacular regional      to whether or not the culture is one of immigrants. For
> language as the mother tongue in contrast to the pan-Indian,       example, the diversity of ethnicities represented in many
> literary language of Sanskrit, which he calls the father tongue.   American mosques affects worshipers’ experience and prac-
> For Islam, Arabic is the father tongue that is known, at least     tices, which differ significantly from those of Muslims living
> for Qur
anic recitation purposes, across the globe; but Mus-       in more ethnically homogeneous cultures. Muslims living in
> lims speak numerous languages and dialects in everyday             multiethnic communities often begin to draw distinctions
> interactions, sermons, and rituals.                                between culture and religion. Those practices limited to
> specific regional contexts may be labeled as culture, or as
> Scholars of Islam have distinguished many local practices,      religious practice interpreted through and influenced by
> confined to specific cultural contexts, from pan-regional            culture. An example of such practices is the wedding ritual of
> (universal) Muslim practice and belief by calling the former       decorating the bride. While many Indian and Pakistani Muselements of “folk Islam” or “popular Islam.” If “folk” is used     lims may say that the ritual application of turmeric paste on
> simply to refer to practices that are local or nontextual, the     the new bride’s skin is a Muslim practice, it is not prescribed
> term is an accurate descriptor. However, in both lay and           in the Qur
an or hadith and non-Asian Muslims do not
> academic usage, the term often connotes a hierarchy of             practice this ritual. There are other practices, such as the
> practice and belief in which “folk Islam” is at the low end.       sacrifice of an animal at the Feast of the Sacrifice, which are
> Frequently, educated Muslims who have been exposed to              mandated in the Qur
an, but whose implementation may be
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                     723
> Vernacular Islam
> 
> interpreted differently in various cultural contexts. One rea-           The controversy over the veneration of saints and worship
> son for vernacular expressions of a shared sacrificial practice       at their tombs takes different forms and magnitude dependmay be something as “secular” as governmental public health          ing on local religious, cultural, and political circumstances
> regulations, which in American cities may differ significantly        and contexts. For example, according to Katherine Ewing, in
> from cities in the Philippines, India, or Indonesia.                 Pakistan (where Muslims are a majority, living under a
> Muslim state) certain movements (Ahl-e Hadith, Ahmadiyya,
> Veneration of Saints                                                 Jamaat-e Islami) have attempted to eliminate saint venera-
> References to “folk Islam” are most often associated with            tion and practices around the institution of the pir; and public
> specific kinds of vernacular practices—in particular, visita-         discourse is filled with debate about what is the correct
> tions (ziyarat) to the graves of local holy men or saints and        practice of Islam. Similarly, John Bowen describes a vigorous
> associated performance and healing traditions. In Morocco            debate in Indonesia over what constitutes proper Islamic
> the cult of saints is called maraboutism. The majority of these      practice, including whether or not rituals of farming, healing,
> saints are Sufi teachers, guides, or masters (pir, shaykh), who       and casting spells are acceptable. In India, while educated
> may be part of a lineage of authority within specific Sufi             Muslims may denounce veneration of the pir, the level of
> orders (tariqa), or they may be independent of an order.             public debate over these practices is much less vigorous than
> These saints are “friends of God” (awliya
 Allah) who embody         it appears to be in Muslim states such as Indonesia and
> particular spiritual powers (barakat) that may result in their       Pakistan. Furthermore, many educated Muslims who critiability to perform miracles. Many Muslims believe that even          cize such “folk” practices as visiting the shrine of a saint to ask
> after death, the barakat of the saint is accessible, and miracles    for miraculous intervention, may themselves access such
> may be performed at his grave site; for believers, the saint is      practices when their own family members are ill, infertile, or
> still alive and close to God and may serve as an intermediary        otherwise in distress. These practices are not limited to rural
> between worshiper and God. Women may visit the grave to              contexts or nonliterate participants.
> ask for fertility, for the health of a child, or resolution of a
> marriage negotiation; men may ask for business success or            Religious Healing
> success in an exam. Others visit the grave for general well-         Veneration of saints and local pilgrimage to their shrines are
> being, without a specific request, or simply to honor the saint,      often associated with religious healing traditions that address
> who may be one’s teacher, teacher’s teacher, or founder of the       illnesses caused by intervention by spiritual forces (including
> Sufi lineage to which one belongs. The presence of these              evil eyes, jinn, spirits of the dead, and ghosts) into the physical
> shrines sacralizes the land itself; they are local or regional,      human world. Many pirs are both teachers and healers. Their
> vernacular sites of power. In many Muslim cultures, the              healing practices are based on the assumption that illnesses or
> annual death anniversary of the saint is celebrated in grand         troubles caused by spiritual forces must be counteracted by
> fashion at his tomb, with large processions of pilgrims carry-       spiritual force. One method of diagnosis of a patient’s probing flags, musicians, and new cloth grave coverings that are          lem is called, in Urdu, abjad ka phal kholna (literally, opening
> gifted by the pilgrims. The anniversary is called an urs            the mystery of the numbers). According to these Sufi tradi-
> (literally, wedding), as the saint is not considered to have died,   tions, every Arabic letter is associated with a particular nubut to have simply left his worldly body and joined God.             merical value. The numerical value of the letters in the
> Dreams are a common idiom through which Sufi saints, both             patient’s name is determined by the healer and then that of
> living and dead, communicate to their disciples.                     the patient’s mother. These are added, along with the numerical value of the lunar day of the month. The total is
> Most Muslims worshipping at a saint’s grave site (called         divided by three or four (the four directions or the three
> dargah in South Asia; Ar. qabr) would draw a clear distinction       worlds) until a single digit remains, which determines what
> between honoring a saint and asking for his intervention and         kind of force is causing the illness. Other diagnostic rituals
> performance of miracles, and worshiping the saint, which             may include “reading” the ways in which a lemon shrivels
> would be shirk (idolatry or blasphemy through assignation of         over time, dreaming by the pir, visions obtained through
> partners to God). However, because the practice of worship           trance, or reflection in a surface of oil and kohl. The most
> at the tomb of a saint can be so easily misconstrued as worship      common prescription against spiritual forces that have caused
> of the saint (making offerings of flowers, incense, elaborately       illness is the written word of God; that is, amulets, on which
> decorated cloths, etc. at the grave, and taking back some of         are written the various names of God, his angels, and Qur
anic
> these offerings as embodiments of the barakat of the saint),         verses, are given to patients to wear as protection, to dip in
> many Muslim modernists and fundamentalists label this prac-          water to drink, to burn, bury, or hang from a doorsill. The
> tice as superstition, a cultural practice adopted from other         physical manifestation of the very word of God is inherently
> religious traditions rather than from Islam itself, or outright      powerful; it may call back a lost child, deflect a neighbor’s or
> shirk. Even if the critics of saint veneration accept that the       spouse’s argumentative words, soothe a child’s high fever, or
> saint is not being worshiped, they may critique the practice as      serve as a literal shield against the evil eye. Pilgrimages to
> placing an unnecessary intermediary between God and the              shrines of saints and given periods of time to be spent there
> worshiper.                                                           may also be prescribed by the pir.
> 
> 724                                                                                               Islam and the Muslim World
> Vizier
> 
> See also Arabic Language; Persian Language and Lit-              Fluehr-Lobban, Carolyn. Islamic Society in Practice. Gainesville:
> erature; Urdu Language, Literature, and Poetry.                     University of Florida, 1994.
> Geertz, Clifford. Islam Observed. New Haven, Conn.: Yale
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                       University Press, 1968.
> Abu-Lughod, Lila. Writing Women’s Worlds: Bedouin Stories.
> Hoffman, Valerie. Sufism, Mystics, and Saints in Modern Egypt.
> Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993.
> Columbia: University of South Carolina, 1995.
> Bowen, John. Muslims Through Discourse. Princeton, N.J.:
> Princeton University Press, 1993.                              Loeffler, Reinhold. Islam in Practice: Religious Beliefs in a
> Persian Village. Albany: State University of New York
> Bowen, John. Religions in Practice: An Approach to the Anthro-
> Press, 1988.
> pology of Religion. Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 2002
> Eaton, Richard M. The Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier,
> 1204–1760. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1994.                                             Joyce Burkhalter Flueckiger
> Eickelman, Dale. Moroccan Islam: Tradition and Society in a
> Pilgrimage Center. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1976.
> Ewing, Katherine. Arguing Sainthood: Modernity, Psychoanalysis, and Islam. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1997.     VIZIER See Wazir
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                   725
> W
> WAHDAT AL-WUJUD                                                           Knysh, Alexander D. Ibn 
Arabi in the Later Islamic Tradition:
> The Making of a Polemical Image in Medieval Islam. Albany:
> Wahdat al-wujud, which means “oneness of being” or “unity                   State University of New York Press, 1999.
> of existence,” is a controversial expression closely associated
> with the name of Ibn al-
Arabi (d. 1240), even though he did                                                          William C. Chittick
> not employ it in his writings. It seems to have been ascribed to
> him for the first time in the polemics of Ibn Taymiyya (d.
> 1328). Through modern times, critics, defenders, and West-
> WAHHABIYYA
> ern scholars have offered widely different interpretations of
> its meaning; in “Rûmî and Wahdat al-wujûd” (1994), William                The Wahhabiyya is a conservative reform movement launched
> Chittick has analyzed seven of these.                                     in eighteenth-century Arabia by Muhammad b. 
Abd al-
> Wahhab (1703–1792). It provided the ideological basis for
> Taken individually, the two words are among the most
> the military conquest of the Arabian peninsula that had been
> discussed in Sufism, philosophy, and kalam (theology). Wahda
> undertaken by the Sa
ud family, first in the late eighteenth
> or “oneness” is asserted in tawhid, the first principle of Islamic
> and early nineteenth centuries, and then again in the early
> faith. Wujud—being or existence—is taken by many authors
> twentieth century. Wahhabism is the creed upon which the
> as the preferred designation for God’s very reality. All Muskingdom of Saudi Arabia was founded, and it has influenced
> lims agree that God’s very reality is one. Controversy arises
> Islamic movements worldwide.
> because the word wujud is also employed for the “existence”
> of things and the world. According to critics, wahdat al-wujud               Muhammad b. 
Abd al-Wahhab began to preach a puriallows for no distinction between the existence of God and                tanical form of Islam during the 1740s in the small settlethat of the world. Defenders point out that Ibn al-
Arabi and             ments of the Najd, the arid province of north central Arabia.
> his followers offer a subtle metaphysics following the line of            His basic teachings are found in a small treatise titled Kitab althe Ash
arite formula: “The attributes are neither God nor                tawhid (Book of unity), and from it his followers took the
> other than God.” God’s “signs” (ayat) and “traces” (athar)—               name Muwahiddun (Unitarians). His Muslim opponents,
> the creatures—are neither the same as God nor different                   along with Westerners, initially used the term “Wahhabiyya”
> from him, because God must be understood as both absent                   and its anglicized form, “Wahhabism,” as derogatory referand present, both transcendent and immanent. Understood                   ences to what was depicted as a fanatical sectarian movement.
> correctly, wahdat al-wujud elucidates the delicate balance that           To this day, the term is often used pejoratively by critics of
> needs to be maintained between these two perspectives.                    the movement.
> 
> See also Falsafa; Ibn al-
Arabi; Sirhindi, Shaykh Ahmad;                      Ibn 
Abd al-Wahhab wanted to restore the pristine Islam
> Tasawwuf.                                                                 of the Quran and the Prophet by cleansing it of all innovations (bid
a) that challenged strict monotheism. Foremost
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                              among these was the cult of saints, which had developed over
> Chittick, William C. “Rûmî and Wahdat al-wujûd.” In Poetry                the centuries among both Sunnis and Shi
ites. Such popular
> and Mysticism in Islam: The Heritage of Rumi. Edited by                 practices as pilgrimages to the tombs of saints, beseeching the
> Amin Banani, Richard Hovannisian, and Georges Sabagh.                   dead for intercession with God, asking blessings upon saints
> Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1994.                      following the ritual prayer, and the construction of domed
> 
> Wahhabiyya
> 
> mausoleums for pious personalities were strongly condemned
> as shirk, or associating divinity to beings other than God.
> 
> Among the “innovations” condemned by Ibn 
Abd al-
> Wahhab was the centuries-long heritage of jurisprudence
> (fiqh) that coalesced into four Sunni schools of law and the
> many schools of Shi
ism. The Wahhabiyya considered themselves the true Sunnis and acknowledged their affinity to the
> Hanbali legal tradition. Yet they rejected all jurisprudence
> that in their opinion did not adhere strictly to the letter of the
> Quran and the hadith, even that of Ibn Hanbal (780–855)
> and his students. Consequently, Ibn 
Abd al-Wahhab, along
> with other Muslim reformers of the eighteenth century, such
> as Shah Wali Allah (1703–1762) in India, was one of the most
> important proponents of independent legal judgment (ijtihad)
> of his time. His ijtihad, however, was of a very conservative
> type, aimed at enforcing a literal reading of the Quran and
> hadith, especially in such matters as the punishment for
> adultery, theft, drunkenness, and failure to follow religious
> obligations like daily prayers and fasting during Ramadan.
> 
> Having been expelled from the first two towns in which he
> preached, Ibn 
Abd al-Wahhab settled around 1744 in Dir
iyya,
> an oasis controlled by Muhammad b. Sa
ud (r. 1746–1765).
> The religious teacher and tribal chieftain concluded a pact by
> which Ibn Sa
ud pledged to give military support for the
> propagation and enforcement of Ibn 
Abd al-Wahhab’s teachings. The alliance was cemented by Ibn Sa
ud’s marriage to
> the daughter of Ibn 
Abd al-Wahhab, the beginning of
> frequent intermarriage between the two families that continues to the present. Ibn 
Abd al-Wahhab’s sons would also
> participate actively alongside the Sa
ud family in the military
> 
Abdallah ibn Sa
ud, circa 1750. Wahhabism is the conservative
> expansion of the movement.                                           eighteenth-century reform movement upon which the current
> Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was founded. HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES
> By 1747, Ibn Sa
ud was at war with the neighboring ruler
> of Riyadh, a conflict that would continue for nearly thirty
> years. Conquest of territory was followed by the establishment of a fort and mosque, where Wahhabi preachers and               following year, when a Wahhabi force marched into the city
> judges were settled to propagate Ibn 
Abd al-Wahhab’s teach-         and proceeded to level the gravestones of those members of
> ings. Control over the entire Najd was achieved by 1780              the Prophet’s family and companions who are buried in the
> under the leadership of Muhammad b. Sa
ud’s son, 
Abd                cemetery adjacent to the Prophet’s tomb.
> al-
Aziz.
> By 1811, the Wahhabi domain extended over much of the
> Following the death of Ibn 
Abd al-Wahhab in 1792, the           Arabian Peninsula and north into Syria. The movement was
> movement advanced east toward the Persian Gulf and north             checked only when the Ottoman sultan authorized the goverinto Iraq. In 1802, Wahhabi tribesmen sacked the Shi
ite             nor of Egypt, Muhammad 
Ali (c. 1769–1849), to crush it.
> shrine city of Karbala, severely damaging a number of relig-         The Turco-Egyptian forces succeeded in taking Medina in
> ious buildings, including the gold-domed tomb of the Prophet’s       1812 and Mecca the following year. In the Najd, however,
> grandson, Husayn. To avenge this destruction, a Shi
ite from         Wahhabi forces fought fiercely until the death of Sa
ud in
> Karbala, who had infiltrated the Wahhabi camp as a convert,           May 1814. Sa
ud’s successor, 
Abdallah, tried to negotiate a
> killed 
Abd al-
Aziz in November 1803.                               settlement with Muhammad 
Ali, but in September 1818 was
> forced to surrender the capital of Dir
iyya and was later
> Under Sa
ud, 
Abd al-
Aziz’s son and successor, the               executed in Istanbul.
> Wahhabis advanced upon the Hijaz. In 1803, they entered
> Mecca after the city was abandoned by its Ottoman garrison,             The Wahhabi state was restored in the new capital of
> and quickly moved to purge the sanctuary of the Ka
ba of any         Riyadh under Turki, a cousin of Sa
ud’s, following the deparoffending ornamentation. Medina was not taken until the              ture of Egyptian troops from the Najd in 1822. By the time of
> 
> 728                                                                                              Islam and the Muslim World
> Wajib al-Wujud
> 
> Turki’s death in 1834, most of the tribes in northeastern          not adhering strictly to shari
a and for wasting billions of
> Arabia acknowledged Wahhabi rule. A power struggle within          dollars of the country’s wealth. By 2003, the presence of
> Wahhabism began after Turki’s death, when the Rashid clan          American military bases in the kingdom had become the
> of Hail began increasingly to challenge Sa
udi control. In        major source of conflict between Wahhabi activists and the
> 1891, Muhammad b. Rashid (r. 1872–1897) won a decisive             royal family. Although the government has not taken any
> victory over the Sa
udis and occupied Riyadh as the head of        concerted steps to shut down or curb private Wahhabi
> the Sa
ud family, 
Abd al-Rahman (r. 1889–1902), fled               organizations, it has jailed or exiled a number of dissident
> to Kuwait.                                                         scholars and activists.
> 
> The Sa
ud clan, now led by the young son of 
Abd al-               Saudi Arabia’s tremendous oil wealth has made possible
> Rahman, 
Abd al-’Aziz (1880–1953), reclaimed control of            the dissemination of Wahhabi ideas and influence through-
> Riyadh in 1902. In 1912 
Abd al-
Aziz founded the first of the      out the world, through religious propaganda and financial
> agricultural colonies known as dar al-hijra (abode of migra-       assistance to mosques and schools. During the Afghan war
> tion). These colonies would produce the Ikhwan, a group of         against the Soviet Union, many wealthy Saudis financed
> devoted Wahhabi loyalists who were prepared to fight for the        charities that educated and cared for Afghan refugees in
> Sa
ud family at short notice. The Wahhabi expansion in             Pakistan. The religious schools (madrasas) where poor Afghan
> Arabia was curtailed under British pressures during the First      boys were educated produced the foot soldiers for the Taliban,
> World War, but immediately afterward 
Abd al-
Aziz began           who seized control of much of Afghanistan during the 1990s
> to advance beyond the Najd. The Hijaz was conquered by the         and established a state grounded in Wahhabi doctrine. One
> end of 1925.                                                       wealthy Saudi, Usama bin Ladin, personally directed the
> recruitment, training, and fighting of Arabs coming to Afghani-
> Wahhabi doctrines have governed much of the legal and          stan to wage jihad against Soviet occupiers. This was the basis
> cultural life of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia since its founding    for the terrorist organization that developed in the 1990s into
> in 1932, even though followers of Wahhabism may be a               al-Qa
ida. Wahhabi groups in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and
> minority within the country. A Supreme Council of Ulema            other Gulf emirates are allegedly funding other militant and
> advises and oversees the government on the application of          terrorist organizations in such diverse parts of the Muslim
> Islamic law (shari
a), which from the period of Ibn 
Abd al-       world as Algeria, Sudan, Palestine, Chechnya, Kashmir, and
> Wahhab has been based largely on Hanbali jurisprudence.            the Philippines.
> While legal reform has taken place in certain areas—slavery
> and concubinage were officially outlawed in 1962, for               BIBLIOGRAPHY
> example—the ulema have resisted reform in such fields as            Lacey, Robert. The Kingdom. New York: Harcourt Brace
> personal, economic, and penal law. The courts enforce a              Jovanovich, 1982.
> largely unwritten legal code that permits capital punishment
> Layish, Aharon. “Saudi Arabian Legal Reform as a Mechafor murder, rape, drug smuggling and adultery, amputation            nism to Moderate Wahhabi Doctrine.” Journal of the
> of the hands for theft, and flogging for drunkenness. The             American Oriental Society 107, no. 2 (April-June 1987):
> mutawwa
in, a sort of religious police officially charged with        279–292.
> “commanding the right and forbidding the wrong,” enforce           Philby, Harry St. John Bridger. Arabia. New York: Charles
> Wahhabi societal mores, including “modest dress” for both             Scribner’s Sons, 1930.
> sexes and a ban on public displays by Muslims or non-
> Muslims of heterodox religious beliefs.
> Sohail H. Hashmi
> The rapid modernization of Saudi society has often led to
> clashes between the Sa
udi family and clerical establishment
> and the most zealous Wahhabi loyalists. The first major crisis      WAJIB AL-WUJUD
> came in the late 1920s, when 
Abd al-
Aziz crushed his own
> Ikhwan militias when they revolted against some of his             The concept of wajib al-wujud (necessary existence) is the
> modernization efforts. Later, dissident ulema challenged the       most central aspect of Ibn Sina’s (980–1037) philosophy and
> government over such matters as the introduction of radios,        the one on which his cosmology rests. In subsequent Islamic
> television, and automobiles into the country. Social reforms       thought, wajib al-wujud is synonymous with “God.”
> involving greater rights for women have provoked particularly severe reactions. The opening up of higher education to         Ibn Sina distinguishes between the necessary, the possiwomen in the 1970s led to riots in some cities; and at the start   ble, and the impossible. The necessary is that whose nonexistof the twenty-first century, women were still unable to drive       ence is impossible. The possible is that whose existence or
> their own automobiles, despite domestic pressure to lift this      nonexistence is not impossible. The impossible is that whose
> ban. In 1992, more than one hundred scholars circulated a          existence is impossible. Thus, the necessary existence of a
> petition criticizing the government for, among other things,       thing always belongs to that thing. This necessity of existence
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                   729
> Wali
> 
> is manifest either through the thing itself or through some-          range of Islamic topics in Arabic and Persian. The fact that his
> thing else. A thing whose existence is necessary through itself       writings are often characterized by a historical, systematic
> cannot be necessary through something else. The converse is           approach coupled with an attempt to explain and mediate
> true. A thing whose necessity of existence is through some-           divisive tendencies leads him to be considered a precursor to
> thing else cannot be necessary through itself. The name of            modernist/liberal Islamic thought.
> the latter type is “possible in itself, necessary through another.”
> From an early age his father, Shah 
Abd al-Rahim, trained
> What is possible in itself may not exist. But if it exists, it    him both in Islamic studies and Naqshbandiyya Sufism. In
> does so through an external cause that necessitates its exist-        1731, Wali Allah left India to perform the pilgrimage to
> ence. Since the chain of causes cannot be infinite, it must stop       Mecca and Medina, where he stayed for some fourteen
> with a thing whose existence is necessary through that thing          months. His most important and influential work, Hujjat
> itself and not through another.                                       Allah al-baligha, in which he aimed to restore the Islamic
> sciences through the study of the hadith, was composed in
> This first cause must be necessary in all respects. For if it
> Arabic sometime during the decade after his return to India.
> had an aspect that was possible in itself, then there would be
> need for something prior to it that could bring it into
> After Shah Wali Allah’s death in 1762, his teachings were
> existence, and so on.
> carried on by his descendants, in particular his sons, Shah
> Based on the fact that the first or uncaused cause is              
Abd al-
Aziz (d. 1823) and Shah Rafi
 al-Din (d. 1818), and
> necessary in all respects, Ibn Sina argues in ways beyond this        his grandson Shah Isma
il Shahid (d. 1831). Shah 
Abd albrief discussion, that, among other things, the first cause is         
Aziz was a noted scholar and teacher with a wide circle of
> also as follows. One, that is, nothing can share in it. Thus, it      pupils, some of whom are linked directly with the establishcannot have any differentiating characteristic (as rationality is     ment of the Deoband madrasa.
> for humanity), species (as humanity is for animality), or genus
> South Asian Muslims with an anti-Sufi, puritan outlook
> (as animality is for humanity). Therefore, it is indivisible in
> such as the Ahl-e Hadith, and even the followers of Maulana
> discourse and, hence, indefinable. For a definition is a discourse divided into genus, species, and difference.                   Maududi, find in Shah Wali Allah’s return to the fundamentals of shari
a and political rejection of alien influences a
> Wajib al-wujud, also called, among other things, the first,         precursor to their own reformist beliefs. Another group of his
> the first mover, the first manager, the principle of all, the           successors, best exemplified by his closest disciple and cousin,
> creator and Allah, is a desired intellect that knows itself and       Muhammad 
Ashiq (1773), seems to have pursued Wali
> knows other things in a universal manner inasmuch as it is            Allah’s mystical inclinations.
> their principle.
> See also Deoband; South Asia, Islam in; Tasawwuf.
> Ibn Sina’s concept of wajib al-wujud had a great influence
> on later Islamic and Christian thought (see, for, example, the        BIBLIOGRAPHY
> third Way of the five Thomistic proofs of God’s existence).
> Baljon, J. M. S. Religion and Thought of Shah Wali Allah.
> See also Falsafa; Ibn Sina.                                              Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1986.
> Hermansen, Marcia K., trans. The Conclusive Argument from
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                            God: Shah Wali Allah of Delhi’s Hujjat Allah al-Baligha.
> Hourani, George F. “Ibn Sina on the Necessary and Possible              Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1996.
> Existence.” Philosophical Forum 4 (1972): 74–86.
> Ibn Sina. Al-Najat. Edited by Majid Fakhry. Beirut: Dar al-                                                      Marcia Hermansen
> Afaq al-Jadida, 1985.
> 
> Shams C. Inati
> WAQF
> The common textbook definition of waqf (pl. awqaf) as a
> WALI See Saint                                                        “charitable and religious trust” only partly conveys the much
> richer history of these institutions. Awqaf always had familial
> and political dimensions along with, as well inseparable from,
> the purely pious ones. These dedications did provide ways of
> WALI ALLAH, SHAH (1703–1762)                                          organizing welfare and piety, but also ways of passing from
> one generation to the next wealth as well as the social power
> Shah Wali Allah was the most prominent Muslim intellectual            that wealth insured. Most endowments mixed private and
> of eighteenth-century India and a prolific writer on a wide            public dimensions.
> 
> 730                                                                                               Islam and the Muslim World
> Waqf
> 
> In technical terms, a waqf depends on the “stopping” (one     Managing relations with the power holders attracted by that
> basic meaning of the Arabic root verb, waqafa) of some piece      wealth was a second task falling to the overseers. In this case,
> of property. An owner surrenders his/her rights of possession     describing the history of a particular waqf gives insights into
> to God. The house or field or garden so dedicated should           the ways that political organizations shift. At Mazhar-e Sharif,
> never again pass to a human owner—unless replaced with            shrewd management brought a relatively smooth transition
> something of equal value. The person making the dedication        from the period of Uzbek domination to the era of Pushtun
> (the waqif) retains two important powers. He can distribute       ascendency marked by the creation of Afghanistan.
> the income of the waqf in any way that does not violate Islamic
> sensibilities (a waqf to support a tavern would be bad):             Several important studies by Carl Petry are founded on
> therefore, donors as well as their near relations can receive     information provided by the awqaf connected to the Mamluks
> the income from such a trust. Also, the dedicator appoints a      of Egypt and their families. Sultans and great emirs founded
> trustee (mutawalli) who administers the income of the waqf.       mosques and theological seminaries (madrasas). Since their
> Donors are free to appoint as mutawallis themselves, their        sons were not likely to inherit any political power, endowchildren, and grandchildren.                                      ments provided the only economic future the dependents of
> Mamluks could have. Therefore, women featured promi-
> Although permanent, in theory, the historical record          nently in the awqaf of Mamluk Egypt.
> shows that most awqaf were fragile. The earliest engraved
> The history of Mamluk women and their awqaf find
> announcement of a waqf so far discovered emerged from a
> analogies in the rest of the Muslim world. Women founded
> heap of rubble in Palestine. As the economic, social, and
> and managed many of their own endowments. Females in the
> political needs of people whose livelihoods depended on
> early modern Dar al Islam probably had more economic and
> endowments changed over time, succeeding generations insocial power than they possessed in more recent times.
> evitably altered the terms of the trusts until they ceased to
> resemble their founders’ dictates concerning the disposition          Mamluks had a peculiar place in medieval Egypt. They
> of real property and its income. For example, in postcaliphal     were of foreign birth. They were Central Asians or from the
> states such as Mamluk Egypt, rulers sometimes seized en-          Caucausus Mountains: Turks, Circassians, and the occasional
> dowments established by their predecessors and set about          Mongol. As martial artists, they differed in almost all social
> recreating them to suit a different understanding of their own    ways from the Arabic-speaking peasants of the Nile basin.
> epoch’s religio-political needs. Colonial regimes and the         Their status as warrior-slaves was not inheritable. Therefore,
> nationalist states that succeeded them followed the practice      many high-ranking Mamluks planned the economic and
> of “Islamic” states by renewing and reconstituting endowments.    social futures of their families, especially that of their womenfolk, with awqaf. Their wives and offspring could receive
> Muslim endowments acquired a kind of dual status in
> stipends guaranteed by endowments’ incomes. Egyptian realmost every region of the Dar al-Islam. On the one hand,
> ligious scholars (ulema) also figured in the Mamluk way of
> their status according to scholars of shari
a/fiqh (the terms
> waqf making. As educated members of the Arabic-speaking
> badly translated as Islamic law) was a constant source of
> majority, ulema were often go-betweens representing the
> debate although they generally agreed that awqaf should be
> rulers to their subjects. Scholars were, therefore, a favorite
> permanent. On the other hand, the institutions themselves
> choice when appointing custodians.
> continually evolved to suit the economic, social, as well as
> political circumstances of particular times and places. Of the       Other studies of single places in periods of transition can
> four madhahib of the contemporary Muslim world, the Hanifite       yield insights into the political as well as the social operations
> seems to have the most elaborate doctrines concerning             of awqaf. Miriam Hoexter’s study of the endowments manendowments.                                                       aged by ulema of Algiers city in the late seventeenth and early
> eighteenth centuries establishes a model for analytical social
> In a brilliant study of the shrine (Mazhar-e Sharif) of       dimensions of endowments. Most of the trusts in her study
> Hazrat 
Ali in what is now Afghanistan, Robert McChesney          were actually founded, under the Hanifi rite, in the interests
> has traced a series of awqaf over a period of four hundred        of the donors’ own families. But the urban population of
> years. Custodians (mutawallis) were the central figures in         Algiers suffered from violence that had both internal and
> Mazhar-e Sharif’s waqf complex. A few families managed to         external orgins. When creating a waqf, the poor of the Holy
> pass the guardians’ office along a direct line of descent. Such    Cities of Mecca and Medina were often the residual beneficicontinuity merely deepened a particular group’s commit-           aries of the income. The scholars of Algiers city honestly
> ment to the Mazhar. Custodians of 
Ali’s shrine concentrated      managed those endowments. Almost every year for nearly a
> on the management of a vast irrigation project watering the       century, they managed to forward a tidy sum in coin to poor
> fields dedicated to this holy place. McChesney shows that          Algerians living out their lives in Mecca or Medina.
> over time the valuable canals fell into disrepair. The total
> amount of land under cultivation declined. Even so, the value        Colonial regimes often thought of themselves as preservof the produce from the shrine’s lands remained considerable.     ing and reforming Muslim institutions. Gregory Kozlowski
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                     731
> Wazifa
> 
> describes some of the ways in which colonial governors in            meanings of wazifa explain why information on it is found in
> India not only changed the character of specific endowed              such a diversity of sources.
> establishments, but shaped all subsequent views, Muslim and
> non-Muslim alike, concerning the legal status of awqaf.                 Apart from the allusions to wazifa that are found in
> Because imperial regimes shaped the characters of the inde-          chronicles and biographical dictionaries, information on its
> pendent states that succeeded them, attitudes that were              meaning as a pension for the members of the religious
> colonial in origin have exerted some power on the present day        institution in Iran is found in Safavid administration sources.
> Muslim nation-states. In particular, colonial and post-colonial
> Wazifa was a state stipend given to deserving individuals
> regimes tended to suppress any awqaf primarily dedicated to
> or institutions, invariably religious in nature. In principle the
> the founders’ families. The second trend was to have a statestipend was attached to a function. For example, in late
> controlled bureacracy administer all public dedications.
> Safavid times in Iran, all leading members of the religious
> Government-controlled endowments were sometimes the
> establishment received a wazifa, which was paid out of the
> core of one or another officially endorsed versions of Islam.
> state treasury or royal endowments. Another kind of wazifa
> was paid to Armenian religious leaders from the income of
> In the years since 1950, old trends of the history of
> the Armenian Christian churches.
> endowments have continued. Particular institutions are still
> fragile and depend upon watchful managers. Circumstances                After the fall of the Safavid state, the payment of the wazifa
> of the moment still shape Muslim philanthropy. HAMAS                 by the state was discontinued. When the Qajar dynasty came
> began its life as a charitable trust for Palestinians. Much of its   to power in Iran, the state paid greater attention to religious
> work continues to be feeding the poor or tending to the sick         leaders, and resumed the payment of the wazifa to them.
> and wounded. New kinds of waqf that have a global focus have
> emerged as a prosletyzing tool for Saudis and Iranians.              See also Political Organization.
> Others with a less confrontational approach dedicate themselves to such noble tasks as preserving Islam’s architectural       BIBLIOGRAPHY
> heritage. Though their institutional shape may alter, awqaf          Floor, Willem. A Fiscal History of Iran in the Safavid and
> will be a feature of Muslim life in the years to come.                  Qajar Periods 1500–1929. New York: Bibliotica Persica
> Press, 1999.
> See also Economy and Economic Institutions; HAMAS;
> Law.
> Mansur Sefatgol
> 
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Hoexter, Miriam. Endowments, Rulers and Community: Waqf
> al-haramayn in Ottoman Algiers. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1998.         WAZIR
> Kozlowski, Gregory C. Muslim Endowments and Society in
> British India. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University               In medieval Muslim society, the wazir (Per., vazir) was the
> Press, 1985.                                                       prime minister who administered the central government for
> the caliph. The term wazir occurs in the Quran once (25:35),
> McChesney, Robert D. Waqf in Central Asia: Four Hundred
> where it has the meaning of “helper”—a meaning that is
> Years in the History of a Muslim Shrine, 1480–1889. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1991.                       loosely applied to political assistants in the early Umayyad
> period (661–750). The Islamic office of wazir developed in
> Petry, Carl F. Protectors or Praetorians? The Last Mamluk
> the early Abbasid Age (750–1258), probably during the reign
> Sultans and Egypt’s Waning as a Great Power. Albany: State
> of Caliph al-Mahdi (775–785). Historians believe the office
> University of New York Press, 1994.
> evolved out of the administrative functions of the chief scribal
> secretary (katib) whose duties, functions, and authority were
> Gregory C. Kozlowski       well established under the Byzantine and Sassanian governments that fell in part or in total, respectively, to Muslim rule
> in the seventh century. Thus, some of the earliest figures to
> serve in this important and powerful post in Baghdad and
> WAZIFA                                                               other capitals of government established by the Abbasid
> caliphs were chief secretaries trained under non-Muslim
> A wazifa, or pension, refers to a payment made to members of         governments who converted to Islam and continued to apply
> the religious institution in Iran. The term was employed by          their skills under the new Muslim rulers.
> Persian and Arab writers with a variety of meanings including
> task, duty, and office. But the term had a special meaning               A famous line of early wazirs came from the Barmakid
> exclusive to the administrative system of Iran, which differs        family, originally affiliated with a Buddhist temple in Balkh
> from the other Muslim administrative systems. The multiple           (Bactria) in Central Asia. A patriarch of the Barmakid family,
> 
> 732                                                                                              Islam and the Muslim World
> West, Concept of in Islam
> 
> Khalid ibn Barmak, joined the Abbasid revolution against the        By the late nineteenth century there was a growing con-
> Umayyad caliphate in the mid-eighth century, and he and his      ceptualization of Western Europe as an entity. Earlier Musson and descendants served as wazirs to Abbasid caliphs for      lim reformers had worked simply to adopt European techniques
> the next few decades. The main duty of the wazir was to run      and ideas within their own societies but by late in the century,
> the government for the caliph on a day-to-day basis. As the      some Muslim intellectuals, like Jamal al-Din al-Afghani (d.
> complexity and size of the central government grew in the        1897), began to argue that Muslim thought and societies
> eighth century and thereafter, so did the duties and executive   could be modernized without having to become culturally
> power of the wazir. Included among these duties was supervi-     European and that there were distinctive differences between
> sion over several subdivisions of administrative government      Christian-based European civilization and Muslim civiliza-
> (sing. wizara), such as the military, treasury, and post. The    tion. As this conceptualization developed, many Muslims
> actual power of the wazir began to diminish in the late ninth    began to define “the West” as a materialist civilization, as
> century, when military warlords in Central Asia (many of         distinguished from the spiritually strong “Eastern” civilizawhom accepted Islam) seized control of the Islamic lands         tions like Islam.
> beyond Baghdad and its immediate surroundings in Iraq. In
> later times the term wazir came also to mean an advisor              During the first half of the twentieth century, for many
> to a ruler.                                                      Muslims, the West became the model for reform and material development. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s vision of trans-
> See also Caliphate; Empires: Abbasid; Empires:                   formation of Turkey during the 1920s, for example, was
> Umayyad.                                                         explicitly based on a concept of the West as a model. These
> concepts of the West tended to be liberal in mode but by the
> Richard C. Martin      middle of the twentieth century the West also became a
> source for radical programs of societal transformation.
> Although radical Arab socialist movements like the Ba
ath in
> Syria made some symbolic gestures to Muslim identity, their
> WEST, CONCEPT OF IN ISLAM                                        programs of socialist revolution involved concepts of the
> West that reflected Marxist and other Western radical
> Muslim awareness of the region called “the West” reflects the
> ideologies.
> changing historical nature of the West itself over the centuries. In the early centuries of Islamic history, Muslims knew
> By the 1960s, many Muslims began to have new concepts
> of the existence of lands and peoples north of the Mediterraof the West. Influenced by major crises of Western civilizanean, but they were identified primarily in ethnic and geotion like the two world wars and the Great Depression,
> graphical terms and described as primitive. By the time of the
> Western self-criticism, and Muslims’ own sense of self-
> Crusades (the twelfth and thirteenth centuries), the most
> assertion following the decline of Western imperialism, many
> common term used by Muslims for Western Europeans was
> Muslims were more willing to be critical of the Western
> al-ifranj or “Franks.” This term implied a Christian and
> model, even in terms of material dimensions of life. The
> foreign identity and a relatively barbarian lifestyle.
> fixation with copying Western models was seen as weakening
> In the early modern era there was a growing awareness of     Muslim society, and an influential Iranian intellectual, Jalal
> European societies. However, there was not a single generic      Al-i Ahmad, called it the disease of being intoxicated by the
> cultural concept—like “the West”—that Muslims regularly          West (gharbzadeghi). New movements of Islamic resurgence
> used for European societies, although there was recognition      began to be explicitly anti-Western in both political and
> that Europeans (often still “Franks”) were Christians and        cultural terms, while arguing that modern Western technoltherefore unbelievers. Until the nineteenth century, what-       ogy and science were still important for Muslims. This new
> ever identifying labels were used, Muslim conceptualizations     type of position was already clearly articulated in the midof the West involved a sense of peoples and regions that were    1960s by the Egyptian militant ideologue, Sayyid Qutb (exeignorant infidels and inferior to the civilization of Islam.      cuted in 1966), in his book Milestones. Just as the concept of
> the success of the West was an important part of the logic of
> The situation changed dramatically in the nineteenth          Muslim modernizing reformers in the nineteenth and early
> century. As European states expanded control over much of        twentieth centuries, the concept of the failure of the West
> the Muslim world, Muslims’ visions of the West were filtered      was an important part of the ideological logic of the late
> through the lens of experiencing European imperialism. The       twentieth-century Islamic resurgence.
> West became identified with modernity. Muslim reformers
> sought European advisors and models as a part of their efforts      Late in the twentieth century a new concept of the West
> to modernize society. There was recognition of the greater       developed among some Muslims. As Muslim minority commaterial prosperity of European societies and of the stronger    munities became significant parts of Western societies, Euromilitary power of European states when compared with             pean and U.S. Muslims began to identify themselves as
> Muslim societies.                                                authentically “Western” as well as Muslim. Scholars like
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                  733
> Women, Public Roles of
> 
> Tariq Ramadan argued forcefully for the effective existence        early history of Islamic civilization. Muslim women in early
> of a legitimate “European Islam.” At the beginning of the          Islam had numerous public roles in such different fields as the
> twenty-first century, a new concept of the West as a location       economy, education, religion, and the military. For example,
> for truly Islamic life was emerging along with the more            Khadija b. Khuwaylid (d. 619), the Prophet’s first wife, was
> traditional concepts of the West as somehow being in opposi-       renowned among the Quraysh for her business acumen.
> tion to, and completely different from, Islam.
> During wartime, Muslim women participated in the mili-
> See also Crusades; European Culture and Islam; Islam               tary. Muhammad used to bring his wives to the battlefields.
> and Other Religions.                                               
Aisha b. Abu Bakr (d. 678) accompanied the Prophet to the
> wars and learned many military skills, such as initiating pre-
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                       war negotiations between combatants, conducting, and end-
> Ahmad, Jalal Al-e. Gharbzadeghi (Weststruckness). Translated       ing wars. It should come as no surprise that Muhammad’s
> by John Green and Ahmad Alizadeh. Costa Mesa, Calif.:            contemporaries and companions entrusted her military abil-
> Mazda Publishers, 1997.                                          ity to restore justice and the communal good. At the Battle of
> Haddad, Yvonne Yazbeck, and Smith, Jane I., eds. Muslim            the Camel, in 656, she led a force of 13,000 soldiers against
> Minorities in the West: Visible and Invisible. Walnut Creek,     the caliph 
Ali (d. 661) after he failed to punish the murderer
> Calif: Altamira Press, 2002.                                     of 
Uthman (d. 656). Muslim history is replete with the tales
> Hourani, Albert. Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 1798–1939.     of many other Muslim women warriors, such as Husayba (of
> Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1983.               the Battle of Uhud, in 625), Umm 
Umara (of the Battle of
> Lewis, Bernard. The Muslim Discovery of Europe. New York:          
Uqraba, in 634), al-Khansa (of the Battle of Qadisiyya, in
> Norton, 1982.                                                    636), and Hind bint 
Utba and Huwayra (of the Battle of
> Yarmuk, in 637).
> Voll, John O. “Islamic Renewal and the ’Failure of the
> West.’” In Religious Resurgence. Edited by Richard Antoun
> Women have also played important roles in the field of
> and Mary Elaine Hegland. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse Unireligious knowledge. 
Aisha was one of the most authoritaversity Press, 1987.
> tive sources in the transmission of the prophetic tradition.
> Von Laue, Theodore H. The World Revolution of Westernization:
> Hafsa, another Prophet’s wife, preserved the original collec-
> The Twentieth Century in Global Perspective. New York:
> tion of the Quran. And Fatima, the Prophet’s youngest
> Oxford University Press, 1987.
> daughter, played an equally important role in the transmission of the Prophetic tradition within the eminent Shi
ite
> John O. Voll
> circles.
> 
> Medieval Times
> Religious scholarship and outstanding personal devotion in
> WOMEN, PUBLIC ROLES OF
> life allowed these and other early Muslim women to insert
> There are religious and historical considerations concerning       themselves into the male-dominated public sphere. Rabi
a althe inclusion of Muslim women in the public sphere. The            
Adawiyya (d. 801) was famous for her mystical pursuits.
> Quran addresses women as individuals who are responsible          Sayyida Nafisa (d. 824), a female descendant of the Prophet,
> for their moral individuality. It states that no individual,       was respected for her piety and knowledge. Al-Qushayri’s
> regardless of sex, will be forced to bear hardship beyond his or   wife, the daughter of his master Abu 
Ali al-Daqqaq, was
> her capacity (2:233, 2:286); that each person is responsible for   renowned for her transmission of hadith as well as for her piety.
> his/her own account (6:164, 40:17, 20.15); and that any good
> In the medieval period, Muslim women achieved less
> deed returns to the one who performs it (2:272).
> public participation. Compared to the previous generations,
> Qur
anic Examples                                                  only a few Muslim women were well known for transmitting
> The Quran further associates the call for women’s individual      prophetic traditions. Among them were Khadija bint Muhampiety with communal participation in public good, as indi-         mad (d. 1389), Bay Khatun (d. 1391), and Khadija bint 
Ali (d.
> cated in verse 33:53. This verse invites human beings to           1468). Women’s participation also became less and less
> display their individual and communal virtues for the public       visible as their roles were subject to the general codification of
> good. It also establishes a common obligation for both men         Islamic law. The jurists generally agreed that the most honorand women to endow themselves with the ethical qualities,          able roles for women were those of wife, mother, and capable
> such as chastity, truthfulness, and patience, which work at        household manager. Less valued but acceptable was the role
> both personal and communal levels.                                 of religious teacher. The most inappropriate role for women,
> however, was generally held to be that of a judge or a head of
> Whereas the Quran provides the general principles gov-         the state. Nonetheless, jurists’ opinions varied greatly on
> erning a women’s participation in public life, concrete exam-      female leadership, and Abu Hanifa (d. 767) and Ibn Jarir alples of how they actually participated can also be found in the    Tabari believed that women could be appointed judges.
> 
> 734                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Women, Public Roles of
> 
> women supporting the male-only Nahdlatul Ulama (“Rise of
> Religious Scholars,” 1926) formed the N.U. Muslimat (1946).
> 
> The trend toward globalization presents ever-greater opportunities for Muslim women to engage in public life. More
> women find that public participation provides them with an
> avenue for self-expression and an opportunity to become
> affluent, whereas others are driven into the public sphere by
> necessity. Muslim women have availed themselves of the
> opportunity to contribute to the public good in a variety of ways, such as religious teachers, lawyers, doctors,
> teachers, farmers, laborers, and politicians. Some Muslim
> women have become the heads of Muslim states, for example
> Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan (prime minister, 1988–1990 and
> 1993–1996), Megawati Sukarnoputri of Indonesia (elected
> president in 2001), Shaykh Hasina Wajed of Bangladesh
> (elected prime minister in 1996), and Tansu Ciller of Turkey
> (prime minister, 1993–1995).
> 
> Although women have achieved important advances in the
> public sphere, the idealization of the proper Muslim woman
> as a mother and a wife has never died. Islamists, both male and
> female, continue to disseminate this idea in order to counter
> ideas of women’s roles that they see as having been imported
> from the West. Zaynab al-Ghazali (b. 1918), the founder of
> Islamic Women’s Association, set forth a critique against
> Benazir Bhutto, above, was Prime Minister of Pakistan from
> 1988–1990 and 1993–1996. AP/WIDE WORLD PHOTOS                     women who modeled themselves on the Western ways of life
> and images, even taking to task her own early mentor, Huda
> Sha
rawi.
> 
> The legal assertion of a gender-based division of societal         Embedded in Islamist movements throughout the Musroles excluded women from much of the public sphere,              lim world is the ideal image of a veiled wife and mother as the
> resulting in their seclusion within the private sphere. This      pillar of social order and family. Some such movements praise
> exclusion coincided with the misogynistic assumption that         women’s roles as mothers and wives, but still permit them to
> women’s participation in public life invites evil and creates     engage in public life if need drives them to do so; others
> social disorder for society, largely because of the temptation    confine women to their own households, denying them more
> they pose to men.                                                 public roles, as in the case of the Taliban.
> 
> Modern Movements                                                  See also Feminism; Gender; Law.
> The influx of modernity to the Muslim world has changed the
> faith of many Muslim women. Opportunities for Muslim
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> women to receive education and get involved in nation
> building have multiplied. By early 1900, women had become         Ahmed, Leila. Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a
> Modern Debate. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University
> more socially and politically active. Egyptian women, such
> Press, 1992.
> as Huda Sha
rawi (1879–1947) and Malak Hifni Nassef
> (1886–1918), were among the first generation of Muslim             Hibri, Azizah Y al-. “An Introduction to Muslim Women’s
> women to promote education for women and discuss the                Rights.” In Windows of Faith: Muslim Women Scholar-
> Activists in North America. Edited by Gisela Webb. Syrapossibility that aspects of Western life might be appropriate.
> cuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 2000.
> The call for educating women was heard as far away as
> Indonesia. There, men’s political activist groups were quickly    Mernissi, Fatima. The Veil and Male Elite: A Feminist Interprejoined by women’s organizations, which provided collabora-          tation of Women’s Rights in Islam. Translated by Mary Jo
> Lakeland. New York: Addison-Wesley Publishing, 1991.
> tion and support. For instance, the Muhammadiya (“Way of
> Muhammad,” founded in 1912) had a women’s counterpart             Roded, Ruth. Women in Islam and the Middle East: A Reader.
> in the Aisyiah (“way of 
Aisha,” founded in 1917). Similarly,     New York: Taurus, 1999.
> the women’s counterpart to the Persatuan Islam (Islamic
> Union, 1923) was the Persatuan Islam Istri (1936), and                                                              Etin Anwar
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                  735
> Y
> YAHYA BIN 
ABDALLAH RAMIYA                                             Nimtz August, H. Islam and Politics in East Africa: the Sufi
> Order in Tanzania. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
> (1856–1931)                                                              Press, 1980.
> 
> Yahya bin 
Abdallah Ramiya was born named Mundu, in                                                             Hassan Mwakimako
> eastern Congo, in 1856. He became a house slave of Shaykh
> 
Amr bin Sulayman al-Lemki (d. 1901) at the age of eight,
> embraced Islam, and became a successful merchant, plantation owner, Sufi shaykh, and colonial administrator. Owing
> YOUNG OTTOMANS
> to the endogamous nature of the 
Ibadi sect to which Ramiya’s          A movement committed to constitutional reform in the
> master adhered, he became a Sunni. His religious studies               Ottoman Empire, the Young Ottomans were influential
> began at the age of thirty, and he completed the Quran under          between 1860 and 1876. After 1865 they were the leading
> Sharif 
Abdallah bin 
Alawi al-Jamal al-Layl around 1889. He           critics of the Ottoman state. They used the press to create
> continued studying jurisprudence (fiqh), mysticism (tasawwuf),          public opinion and introduced political concepts such as
> exegesis (tafsir), theology (tawhid), and logic (mantiq) under         nationalism, patriotism, and parliamentarianism into the Otto-
> Shaykh Abu Bakr bin Taha al-Jabri, matriculating around 1900.          man debates. They developed the first constitutionalist ideology in the Ottoman Empire. Civil and official leaders of the
> In 1911, Shaykh Ramiya received an Ijaza (certificate of            society embraced them.
> instruction) from Shaykh Muhammad bin Husayn al-Lughani,
> From the beginning of the seventeenth century, the Ottobecame a khalifa of the Qadiriyya Sufi order, and was selected
> man Empire gradually fell behind the emerging West. Disthe shaykh of Bagamoyo after the death in 1910 of his master,
> covery of America altered the economics of gold. Europe
> Shaykh Muhammad Ma
aruf bin Shaykh Ahmad bin Abu
> slowly became a bigger gold holder while the Ottoman
> Bakr. Shaykh Ramiya established the Maulid in Bagamoyo, to
> Empire began to lose its buying power. This was reflected in
> celebrate the Prophet’s birthday. This ritual became the most          its tax policies that made its subjects uncomfortable and later
> popular Muslim celebration on mainland Tanganyika during               rebellious. As Europe grew richer, it entered an era of
> the colonial period, equaled by that held at the Riyadha               technological development that was reflected in its military
> Mosque in Lamu. In 1916, he was appointed Liwali (district             and especially in its fleet power. European colonialism took
> governor) of Bagamoyo, making this former slave an influen-             off when the Ottoman Empire became less comfortable with
> tial personality throughout East Africa. He died on May 1931           its institutions of government. The growth of Europe, ineviand was succeeded both materially and spiritually by his son,          tably, happened at the expense of the only non-European
> Shaykh Muhammad Ramiya.                                                imperial power. Ottomans slowly lost their control of trade
> routes, and gave privileges to European traders in order to be
> See also Africa, Islam in; Tariqa.                                     able to keep them in their markets. Borrowing from the
> European bankers to keep the state intact was a short-term
> solution, which hastened the bankruptcy of the Ottomans.
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                           Modernization became an issue as the need for a better
> Cruise O’Brien, Donal Brian, ed. Charisma and Brotherhood in           military power to fight the Europeans rose during the eight-
> African Islam. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988.                        eenth century, and the entire nineteenth century was an
> 
> Young Ottomans
> 
> attempt to reach an Eastern style social-military-modernity.            As the alliance grew, three intellectuals became its leading
> This shaped the politics of the Middle East to the date.             figures: Namik Kemal, Ziya Paşa (1825–1880), and 
Ali Suavi.
> Under their guidance the Young Ottomans used Tasvir-i
> After losing many of its social estates in the eighteenth        efkar to communicate their ideas. Eventually, they were
> century, the empire started to reform itself. At the beginning       censored and in 1867 Kemal and Ziya had to escape to
> of the nineteenth century these reforms were intensified, and         Europe. They continued to communicate their work through
> after 1839, with the proclamation of the Hatt-i Şerif of             foreign post offices that were outside the scope of official
> Gülhane (The Rescript of the Rose Chamber), the period of            Ottoman censorship. In Europe, the Young Ottomans formed
> Tanzimat (Reformation) started. Hatt-i Şerif recognized equal        an opposition movement, based in London and Paris. An
> rights for Muslims and non-Muslims alike, promised security          Ottoman-Egyptian prince, Mustafa Fazil, who tried to use
> of life, and administrative, educational, and economic re-           the movement to pressure the Ottoman government for his
> forms. Another document, the Hatt-i Hümayun (The Impe-               own ends, sponsored them. Mustafa Fazil had also helped
> rial Edict) of 1856, reasserted the equal rights of non-             Ibrahim Şinasi, in 1861, with the establishment of Tasvir-i efkar.
> Muslims and Muslim Ottoman subjects alike. This edict also
> triggered some negative responses among Muslims. In 1859,                Later 
Ali Suavi also went to exile. Suavi represented the
> the so-called Kuleli Conspiracy took place when a religious          more Islamic reaction to the Tanzimat and it was essentially
> leader led a riot to which young officers and clerics also gave       after his arrival that the Young Ottomans became aware of
> support. Evidently, the Tanzimat generated political and             their differences. Kemal and Ziya’s understanding of parliacultural conflicts for it changed the millet (protected religious     ment and democracy had little resemblance to 
Ali’s concepcommunities) structures. Secular, ethnic, and nationalist ide-       tion of these institutions. Their newspaper, called Hurriyet
> als began to mobilize Ottoman subjects, first non-Muslims,            (Freedom), was closed due to the conflicts among the leaders
> then Muslims.                                                        of the movement. In 1870, most of the Young Ottomans
> returned to the Ottoman Empire and continued to express
> The Young Ottomans represented the first sound Muslim              their ideas. They were subjected to further censorship and exile.
> intellectual response to the Tanzimat. It was initiated by
> Although the Young Ottomans were liberals, they were
> Ibrahim Şinasi (1824–1871), a young Ottoman bureaucrat,
> often conservative in their criticism of Tanzimat leaders like
> and a protege of Mustafa Reşit Paşa, director of the Army
> 
Ali Paşa. They believed the reforms undermined Muslim and
> Arsenal (Tophane). Şinasi entered the Arsenal and rose within
> Ottoman identity. They admired European nations and parthe bureaucracy. He was sent to Europe by Reşit for further
> liamentary systems, but they argued that the Ottoman Empire
> education. In Paris he attended the literary soirées of Ernest
> was different from the European countries. They accepted
> Renan and Lamartine. In 1855, he was a leading Tanzimat
> that the subjects of the empire were heterogeneous, varying
> bureaucrat but his high profile threatened some of his colin race, religion, and language. For the future of the Ottoman
> leagues. As a result of internal conflicts, he was never allowed
> state, they argued, it was necessary to implement a constituto hold a significant position. He was especially disliked by
> tion, a parliament, and Ottomanism, an ideology that com-
> 
Ali Paşa, the grand wazir. After 1860, Şinasi became involved
> bined Ottoman culture and Islam with modern nationalism.
> in literature. He started his own paper Tasvir-i efkar (De-
> In their view a parliament would provide a political forum
> scription of Ideas, 1861–1870), which later became the news
> where these differences could be consolidated and governorgan of the Young Ottomans. In 1864, he asked for a
> ment policies developed. Participation in such a system would
> government post and was refused by 
Ali Paşa one last time.
> generate a feeling of belonging and emphasize the concept of
> He went into exile in Paris, leaving Tasvir-i efkar to Namik
> vatan (fatherland). Some of the Young Ottomans argued that
> Kemal (1840–1888), a member of his circle.
> the entire millet system had to be abolished in order to allow a
> The intellectuals who became associated with Şinasi and           full expression of Ottomanism.
> his paper were critics of the government. They accused 
Ali             Ironically, 
Ali Paşa and Fuat Paşa were modernizers too.
> and Fuat Paşas of using Tanzimat to establish the autocratic         They belonged to the same generation of reformists as the
> rule of elite bureaucrats, of undermining Islam and Ottoman          Young Ottomans but they believed that reforms had to be
> culture, and of not defending the empire against the influ-           achieved through a strong, centralized state. In their view,
> ences of the Western powers. In 1865, six men formed a               representative government would delay modernization and
> secret group called the Patriotic Alliance, to criticize 
Ali Paşa   undermine the power of the state.
> and act against him. Most of these men were former employees of the Translation Bureau of the Porte, and were thus                In part, it was the Young Ottomans who inspired the
> exposed to international developments. They shared a com-            civilian and military officials who dethroned Sultan Abdulaziz
> mon knowledge of European civilization and concern over              in 1876. In the same year, the first constitution and the first
> the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. Their names were              parliament were introduced in the Ottoman Empire, under
> Mehmet Bey, Nuri Bey, Reşat Bey, Namik Kemal, Ayatollah              Sultan Abd al-Hamid II (Ar., 
Abd al-Hamid II). These
> Bey, and Refik Bey.                                                   developments can also be attributed to the influences of the
> 
> 738                                                                                               Islam and the Muslim World
> Young Turks
> 
> Young Ottomans, who saw to it that the first constitution of        in Salonika. They joined the CUP in 1907 and because of
> the empire emphasized Ottomanism as its ideological basis.         their reputation for action these men became the ruling
> faction. From then on the new coalition was named the
> Among the leaders of the Young Ottomans, Namik Kemal            Committee for Progress and Union (CPU). In the same year,
> proved to be the most influential. Later generations, and           between 27 and 29 December, the Second Congress of
> especially the Young Turks who emerged after 1889, em-             Ottoman Liberals met in Paris and resolved to topple
> braced his image and his fervent patriotism.                       Abdülhamit II from power.
> 
> See also Pan-Islam; Reform: Arab Middle East and                       By the spring of 1908 those CPU members who had
> North Africa.                                                      served in the Ottoman army in Macedonia began to act more
> openly. They reacted to Abdülhamit’s efforts to discipline
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                       and spy on their activities by assassinating inspectors and
> Mardin, Serif. The Genesis of Young Ottoman Thought. Prince-       others loyal to the sultan. In July, Adjunct Major Ahmed
> ton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1962.                     Niyazi Bey and later Enver Bey renounced their loyalty to the
> Shaw, Stanford J., and Shaw, Ezel Kural. History of the            sultan and took their troops into the mountains to engage in
> Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, Vol. II: Reform, Revo-         guerilla activity. Later, the special military commander sent
> lution, and Republic: The Rise of Modern Turkey, 1808–1975.      to take control of the Macedonian army was assassinated by a
> London: Cambridge University Press, 1977.                        CUP member. The CPU further pressured the sultan with a
> series of telegrams threatening to occupy the capital if the
> Murat C. Mengüç        constitution were not reinstated. In July 1908, Abdülhamit
> felt obliged to reinstitute the 1876 constitution, inaugurating
> the second constitutional era, also known as the Young
> Turks’ revolution.
> YOUNG TURKS
> The event was celebrated by every ethnic group that stood
> Young Turks is the term generally applied to the opposition        to acquire greater security. Yet when the parliament began
> to the Ottoman sultan Abdulhamit II’s rule (Ar., 
Abd al-          meeting, the division among the Young Turks’s supporters
> Hamid, 1876–1908). Although the foundations of the move-           became clear. Two major factions were identified: unionists
> ment can be traced back to 1889, it only became politically        CPU and the liberals. The unionists favored a strong centralactive prior to the Young Turk Revolution in 1908. Its             ized state to achieve modernization and progress. The libermembers at the time forced the reinstatement of the constitu-      als wanted a decentralized and autonomous polity benefiting
> tion and the parliament after thirty years of autocracy. Between   non-Muslim and non-Turkish groups. The multireligious
> 1908 and 1918 it was the Young Turks who governed the              and multinational population of the empire eventually forced
> Ottoman Empire.                                                    the Young Turks to adopt a middle way, which has been
> called Ottomanism. Meanwhile, Turkist and Islamist think-
> The Young Turks belonged to the generation following           ers were still involved in the government.
> that of the Young Ottomans, whose legacy was the constitutional era inaugurated in December 1876. But when in                   In April 1909 an insurrection led by an Islamist organiza-
> February 1878 Sultan Abdulhamit II dissolved the parliament        tion made it clear that Muslim influences were strong among
> and embarked on absolute rule, an opposition slowly began to       the unionists. But in 1912 a military coup brought the liberals
> form underground. In 1889 a group of students from the             into power. Meanwhile the demographics of the empire were
> imperial Medical School formed an alliance called the Asso-        changing: the Ottoman army had suffered repeated defeats in
> ciation for the Union of Ottomans. By 1895 they had changed        the Balkans, and during its last withdrawal from 1911 to 1913,
> their name to the Committee for Union and Progress (CUP).          the empire lost almost all of its remaining European lands and
> The CUP was mostly active in Europe and Egypt. Its mem-            one-quarter of its population. The unionists took advantage
> bers came from diverse backgrounds, ethnically and profes-         of the political turmoil and in January 1913 took over the
> sionally. Due to Abdulhamit’s autocratic rule, many educated       government once and for all. By June, they had eliminated the
> Turks, Greeks, Kurds, Arabs, Albanians, and Armenians              liberal opposition.
> came to support the idea of Ottomanism, a nineteenthcentury ideology that combined Ottoman culture and Islam              Throughout World War I, with the deportation and
> with modern nationalism. In 1902 the First Congress of             ethnic cleansing of Armenians and the arrival of Turkish
> Ottoman Liberals was held in Paris where the opposition to         people from the Balkans and Caucasus, the empire populathe sultan came into the open.                                     tion became increasingly Muslim-Turkish and Arab. The
> unionists started to rely more on religion. Their pan-Islamism
> In 1906 some military officers and government officials           was often aimed at appeasing Arab constituencies who were
> formed another group called the Ottoman Freedom Society,           displeased with the empire.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                   739
> Youth Movements
> 
> In the prewar period, both the Turkish and the Arab          Lewis, Bernard. The Emergence of Modern Turkey. New York:
> nationalists were intent on forming a solid nationalist ideol-     Oxford University Press, 1961.
> ogy. Under the CPU, official and popular sentiment started
> to embrace Turkish nationalism. The Turkish Hearth (Türk                                                       Murat C. Mengüç
> Ocagi), founded after March 1912, was a side organization of
> the CPU whose original duty was to advocate Islamism and
> Ottomanism. But they were also trying to convince Turkish
> people that the only way for the empire to survive was to        YOUTH MOVEMENTS
> embrace Turkish nationalism. The Turkish Hearth was also
> responsible for propagating the use of Turkish instead of        Youth typically refers to the ages fifteen to twenty-four or
> other languages. Under CPU pressure, government officials         eleven to twenty-nine. Analysts view youths as intellectually
> increased the use of Turkish in government administration,       idealistic, psychologically impatient, practically inexperienced,
> and as the religious schools and courts came under state         socially liberal, and politically radical. Since they often lack a
> control, Turkish started to predominate. The immigrating         socially defined position in society, they tend to demand
> Caucasian and eastern European Turks participated in these       more far-reaching changes in society than their elders. Youth
> developments, and a project to unite all the Turks, or all the   movements also bear these characteristics.
> Turanian people, began.
> Although youth movements are modern phenomena,
> After 1914 the notion of Arab independence emerged,          youths’ collective involvement in politics is not new to the
> along with the possibility of the Ottoman Empire’s fall and      Middle Eastern societies. The futuwwa brotherhoods in methe inevitability of subsequent foreign hegemony. Many such      dieval periods consisted of semireligious, voluntary, urban,
> ideas were current in Beirut, Damascus, and Basra, where the     youth organizations engaged in acts of chivalry (javan-mardi)
> independence movements in the Balkans had already been           protecting the less fortunate, supporting public causes, and at
> noted and the Young Turks had been active. Triggered by an       times acting in parallel with official security forces. Though
> alliance between Sharif Husayn of Mecca and the British, in      not always viewed positively or engaged in benevolent acts,
> 1916, the Arab Revolt started the separation of Arab lands       the futuwwa groups represent early forms of collective action
> from the Ottoman Empire.                                         by youths in Muslim societies. These youth organizations
> imposed strict ethical standards on their members and re-
> During World War I, the Ottoman Empire proved incaquired strong group loyalty.
> pable of fighting on a scale equal to the European forces. The
> end of the war in 1918 also signaled the end of the Young            Youth movements in the Middle East emerge in the
> Turks era. After the ensuing war for independence, the new       context of politics or popular culture. Youths express them-
> Turkish republic was formed, owing much of its social            selves through sports, music, and dress. Because most Middle
> infrastructure to the Young Turks. Although under the CPU        Eastern states are undemocratic, officials have considered the
> the state ideology remained Ottomanist and Islamist, the         rise of independent social movements a threat to political
> emergence of non-Turkish Muslim nationalist movements            stability. Any issue that captures youths’ attention, even if
> among the Balkan and Arab populations strongly influenced         nonpolitical in nature, takes on a political character, and state
> Turkish intellectuals and statesmen. The major intellectual      officials respond accordingly, exerting control and resorting
> development of the Young Turks era was Turkish national-         to repression.
> ism. The secular ideas of Young Turks leaders like Ziya
> Gökalp found popular support long after the CPU.                     The region’s youth movements are usually connected to
> broader changes under way in society, especially political and
> See also Modernization, Political: Administrative, Mili-         cultural developments. Influenced by such developments,
> tary, and Judicial Reform; Revolution: Modern; Young             these movements in turn intensify the broader changes. For
> Ottomans.                                                        instance, in 1908, drawing young members of the military, a
> liberal opposition movement known as the Young Turks
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                     forced the Ottoman sultan, 
Abd al-Hamid II (r. 1876–1909),
> Ahmad, Feroz. The Young Turks: The Committee for Union and       to restore the constitution and parliament that he had sus-
> Progress in Turkish Politics, 1908–1914. London: Oxford        pended in 1878. Youths were also energetic partners in most
> University Press, 1969.                                        anticolonial struggles. In Iran, young people, especially uni-
> Hanioglu, H. Sukru. Preparation for a Revolution: The Young      versity students, were an important force in the push to
> Turks, 1902–1908. New York: Oxford University                  nationalize the oil industry in the early 1950s. Nowhere have
> Press, 2001.                                                   youths’ struggles been more intense and persistent as in the
> Kayali, Hasan. Arabs and Young Turks: Ottomanism, Arabism,       Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories, where they have borne
> and Islam in the Ottoman Empire. Berkeley: University of       the burden of two major uprisings, the Intifada (1987–1988)
> California Press, 1997.                                        and Al-Aqsa Intifada (2000–2002). Youths also fought most
> 
> 740                                                                                           Islam and the Muslim World
> Youth Movements
> 
> fervently during the Iran-Iraq war (1980–1988) and in the                In the political arena, the locus of Middle Eastern youth
> war that resulted in the withdrawal of the Israeli military from     movements is often universities. Where allowed, political
> south Lebanon in May 2000. In the 1970s and 1980s, both              organizations and parties establish subsidiaries in universities
> leftist and Islamic associations grew in countries as far apart as   for recruitment and mobilization. Where outlawed, opposi-
> Egypt and Pakistan, polarizing university campuses.                  tion groups still operate on campuses underground for political agitation and recruitment. In the absence of serious
> Having little stake in the status quo, young people join         political parties in many societies, student movements beopposition groups hoping to create an “ideal society.” Both          come the principal advocates of ideological and political
> governments and their oppositions exploit youth’s abundant           trends in society and a vanguard of change. In the 1980s and
> idealism and impassioned activism. Because oral traditions           1990s, a host of sociological variables has contributed to the
> are prevalent in Muslim societies, religious and political           rising expectations among the youth and created fertile grounds
> leaders use their speaking skills to establish credibility, culti-   for youth activism. In 1998, 40 percent of the Middle Eastern
> vate charisma, and recruit and mobilize followers, particu-          population was under fifteen years old, as opposed to onelarly youths. In the late 1950 Egypt, Jamal 
Abd al-Nasser’s         fifth for the developed world. The general decline in oil
> (1918–1970) powerful lectures drew youth support for his             prices around the world, coupled with increasing population,
> policy of Arab unity. During the 1970s, 
Ali Shari
ati’s             has led to economic decline in the Middle East. Unemploy-
> (1933–1977) oratory won over Iranian youths to his radical           ment, aggravated by the increase in the rate of rural-urban
> Islamic ideology. In the 1980s and 1990s, 
Abd al-Karim              migration and urbanization, has led to disenchantment among
> Sorush’s (b. 1945) deft use of language has similarly appealed       the youth making further demands for education, social
> to Iranian youths in the Islamic Republic, who sympathize            freedom, jobs, housing, and resources for establishing a
> with his liberal Islamic ideology. Often, religious leaders          family. These factors have delivered frustrated youth to
> attract youths to their political causes through mosques or          extremist ideologies, especially Islamic fundamentalism. The
> underground networks, as the Egyptian Muslim Brother-                1990s has witnessed massive recruitment among the youth by
> hood (al-Ikhwan al-Muslimin), founded in 1928, and the               Islamic radicals like HAMAS in Palestine, Hezbollah in
> Iranian Fedaiyan-e Islam, created in 1945, have shown.               Lebanon, the Jama
a Islamiyya in Egypt, the Mobilization
> (Basij) Forces in Iran, and al-Qa
ida in Afghanistan.
> In societies marked by limited upward political and economic mobility, student movements enable youths to crack                The most interesting demographic change has been a
> the system and open up spaces for participation in the               sharp increase in the number of young women in Middle
> politics. Many nationalist leaders began their political sociali-    Eastern universities outnumbering men in a number of fields.
> zation in student organizations. Realizing this fact, govern-        In the second decade of the revolution in Iran, more females
> ments also try to recruit students to their administrations. In      studied in various fields, despite official restrictions. In Syria,
> the early 1970s, the shah of Iran, Muhammad Reza Pahlevi             Turkey, Jordan, and Iraq, the governments encouraged fe-
> (1919–1980), undermined the growing power of the Confed-             male participation in most aspects of social and political life.
> eration of the Iranian Students in the United States and             Among the Persian Gulf countries, Kuwait, Yemen, and
> Europe by luring its leaders to lucrative government posts.          Oman have developed policies promoting female education
> The Saudi and Kuwaiti governments have likewise co-opted             and social participation, but except in Kuwait, success has
> their young opposition and with greater success than the shah.       been generally slow and limited.
> 
> The correlation between the emergence of youth move-                The dominant features of student movements in the
> ments and economic decline is not strong in the Middle East.         region are radicalism, intellectual idealism, anti-
> Since most youth movements are sociocultural and political,          authoritarianism, anti-imperialism, anti-Americanism, and
> they have arisen during both economic prosperity and de-             nationalism. The scope of these movements is national and
> cline. In the 1970s, a guerilla movement emerged in Iran as          the respective state apparati are their targets of attack. Iran’s
> the oil export boom brought new wealth. During the mid-              student movement exemplifies these characteristics the best.
> 1990s, proreform students formed a movement, reacting to             A close look at this movement will demonstrate the dynamics
> the last decade’s political developments rather than to poor         and diversity of the student movement in the region.
> economic conditions. The relationship between youth movements and the Iranian state has been discontinuous. When in          The Student Movement in Iran
> late 1940s, Mohammad Mosaddeq (1880–1967), then elected              Before mass protests erupted against the Pahlevi regime in
> prime minister, launched a campaign to end the British               1978, the Iranian student movement splintered into Islamic,
> control of the Iranian oil industry, students backed both his        liberal, and Marxist factions. The secular or non-Islamic
> stance as well as his antimonarchy efforts. However, once the        associations, the strongest and largest groups, had ties to the
> CIA-supported coup ended Mosaddeq’s government in 1953,              guerrilla movement operating outside of universities. The
> restoring the monarchy, the student movement opposed the             Muslim associations comprised a small segment of the stushah’s rule by using both violent and nonviolent tactics.            dent movement and had loose contacts with Ayatollah Ruhollah
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                       741
> Youth Movements
> 
> Khomeini (1902–1989) and the Freedom Movement of Iran.             These associations encouraged student participation in gov-
> All these associations cooperated to topple the regime. Dur-       ernment rallies, reported on antigovernment activities and
> ing the shah’s final years, students initiated the process that     faculty criticisms of the state ideology, and implemented state
> culminated in revolution. Student poetry readings, lecture         gender policies by monitoring male-female interactions on
> series, and political forums were catalysts in a chain of events   campus. In short, the student movement, formerly an active,
> that crippled the old regime. In 1977, when demonstrations         independent, creative, and antiestablishment force, was transagainst the shah became widespread, the student associations       formed into a watchdog of the state, alienating most students
> recruited many members, organized numerous rallies in              who feared religious vigilantism and spying by the governmajor cities, and became supporters of Khomeini’s call for         ment. These associations lost their appeal among students
> the shah’s departure.                                              who felt increasingly apathetic and disenchanted. Although
> these associations’ members were closely affiliated with the
> Once the revolution succeeded, students expanded their          regime and some occupied government positions, conservaactivities, joined revolutionary forces, and occupied numer-       tives still suspected some students whose nonconformity and
> ous properties belonging to the fleeing former officials. By
> radical outlook they found troubling. Conservative religious
> the time Khomeini returned to Iran, student associations had
> organizations established parallel Islamic student associaestablished de facto headquarters for their respective groups
> tions in the universities to discourage unfavorable and unprein universities. Faced with the tasks of institution and state
> dictable activities by others.
> building, the clerics considered student demands as obstacles
> to the consolidation of their power, using the Muslim Stu-            Sociological and political factors during the revolution’s
> dent Organization as an instrument to challenge its secular        second decade inspired another momentous rise in student
> counterparts.                                                      and youth activism. According to the Secretariat of the
> Supreme Council of the Youth, of 60,055,488 total popula-
> On 4 November 1979, after an earlier attempt by the
> tion in 1997, 40.4 percent, or 24,248,768, were eleven to
> Marxist organization, the Iranian Fedaiyan Organization, a
> twenty-nine years old—a 37.3 percent increase since 1987
> Muslim student group engaged in the boldest and most
> and more than 104.7 percent growth since 1977. With the
> consequential act in the history of student activism in Iran:
> doubling of the population between 1978 and 1996, the
> the seizure of the U.S. Embassy and the holding of American
> number of institutions of higher education increased as well.
> diplomats as hostages for 444 days. Khomeini endorsed the
> Alienation, disillusion, and frustration among youths intensitakeover, capitalizing on this event to undermine opposition
> fied. Islamic vigilantes constantly interfered in youths’ and
> to his new theocracy. In 1980, the secular student organizawomen’s lives, compelling them to obey strict religious codes
> tions were effectively outlawed and their members physically
> of behavior.
> attacked by the religious vigilantes. Muslim student associations identified and helped to arrest non-Islamic students,
> After 1988, Iran’s clerical establishment split into two
> sabotaging their political and cultural activities. This was the
> major factions. With the decline of the Islamic leftists’ for-
> first time ever that elements of the Iranian student movement
> tunes during the 1989 to 1996 period, the student organizaturned against each other. Later, Khomeini ordered universitions lost their influence within the government. Many of its
> ties closed until purged of un-Islamic elements and the
> influential members began careers in political journalism.
> grounds laid for their Islamization. He created the Council
> Radical individuals who had served in high-ranking positions
> for Cultural Revolution to review faculty and students’ actividuring Khomeini’s rule were isolated and pushed to the
> ties as well as university programs. Many activist students and
> background. President Mohammad Khatami’s election in
> faculty members were fired or arrested for their affiliations
> 1997 breathed new life into the student movement. An
> with political groups.
> unprecedented coalition of dissatisfied youths and women,
> When universities reopened two years later, leftist, na-       politically isolated supporters of the Islamic left, and other
> tionalist, secular, and opposition students and professors         segments of the public voted for Khatami. A new chapter in
> were gone, with new Islamic and ideological criteria defined        student activism had begun.
> for admission and recruitment. Female students were barred
> from studying certain disciplines. In addition to meeting              New student organizations emerged, and activists chaleducational criteria, students had to show commitment to           lenged the conservative faction’s authority within the Islamic
> Islamic values and have an untainted moral history. Until          Republic. Reacting to broad support for Khatami in universi-
> Khomeini’s death in 1989, these restrictions remained in           ties, the conservatives introduced measures to depoliticize
> force, although students and the faculty had devised mecha-        students and asserted more control over their organizations.
> nisms of resistance.                                               All these measures failed, ironically reinvigorating student
> activism. As the conservatives blocked Khatami’s reformist
> In the 1980s, numerous Muslim associations were formed         policies, students marched in his support. As student demonat colleges. New admission quotas for war veterans and the         strations against the judiciary and the conservative faction
> armed forces’ families enabled these associations to grow.         multiplied, one of the protests, on 8 July 1999, led to a deadly
> 
> 742                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Youth Movements
> 
> The Thai Muslim Student Association protesting in front of the Government House in Bangkok in September 2001. © REUTERS NEWMEDIA
> INC./CORBIS
> 
> attack on a student dormitory in Tehran by Islamic vigilantes       the ruling clerics have successfully crushed these protests,
> and the police. This attack provoked three days of student          despite their persistence, because the students lack organizauprisings in Tehran and several other cities in that month.         tion, goals, and leadership. At the end of February 2003, the
> students’ Office for Consolidating Unity finally expressed its
> After these uprisings, the government cracked down on           disillusionment with President Khatami by withdrawing its
> the students, leaving them alienated, agitated, and restless as     support for the reformist camp in the local elections. A
> they looked for any opportunity to express their frustrations.      number of student organizations have emerged since, de-
> Protests spilled over from the universities to the soccer fields,    manding an end to theocracy and the establishement of a
> cinemas, and music concerts. Disturbances in various cities         secular government based on the principles enshrined in the
> following the loss of an international soccer game by the           Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
> national soccer team in 2001 highlighted widespread discontent with the status quo. In November 2002, students started        Conclusion
> a series of mass protests at a death sentence passed against        During the 1990s, youths in the Middle Eastern countries,
> Hashem Aghajari, a reformist university professor, for al-          especially Iran, have shown a strong desire for Western
> leged blasphemous remarks about clerics in Iran. In early           cultural icons, music, and arts, as they reject the imposition of
> June 2003, students began a new round of protests in com-           undemocratic, traditional, and strict policies on their lives.
> memoration of an attack on a student dormitory on 9 July            Part of this desire for more freedom is due to the limitations
> 1999. Most of these irregular and spontaneous protests have         imposed by the states. However, part of it is a demonstration
> lacked a clearly articulated political agenda. The govern-          effect: The communications revolution and globalization of
> ment’s systematic efforts to weaken the student movement            local regional economies have stimulated youth’s attraction
> have led youths to become more spontaneous and momentum-            to a material lifestyle as well as to the cultural norms and
> driven. Most protests have begun as friendly gatherings             political freedoms typically identified with Western societies.
> rather than as a result of any organization or planning. In fact,   Government authorities have resorted to various means to
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                      743
> Yusuf Ali, 
Abdullah
> 
> limit these demands: In Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Syria, and   Yusuf Ali was the son of a police officer of Gujarati parentage.
> Yemen, state-sponsored programs are designed to respond to       With communal Muslim schooling in Bombay, he looked
> the youths’ demands by creating synthetic opportunities          beyond his Bohra Sh
ite origins and was extremely concerned
> where nonoffensive and nonpolitical forums are created for       about the fate of Muslims in British India and beyond. But he
> releasing youthful energy. While sport has been a successful     was very successful in achieving the highest rank in British
> means for this purpose, cultural and social programs have had    schooling. He earned a scholarship at Cambridge, and after
> little success in tempering these energies. The Iranian gov-     graduation won a place in India’s civil service. Yusuf Ali
> ernment has often resorted to moral campaigns against vice,      honored these two traditions, British and Muslim Indian,
> publicly arresting and flogging violators, thus furthering        with equal vigor. For his devotion to the British cause in the
> youth’s anger against the government. Interestingly, the         First World War, he was awarded the title of Commander of
> appeal of the West contradicts the rejection of the same         the British Empire. He was called upon to represent loyal
> culture during the Iranian revolution two decades ago. Cou-      British Muslims against pan-Islamic tendencies in India. Yet,
> pled with the sociological factors discussed earlier, these      he was still respected by Muslims like Muhammad Iqbal, who
> developments will surely give a new impetus to student           called upon him to head a Muslim school.
> activism in the years to come.
> Yusuf Ali, however, was more than an anglophile and
> See also Futuwwa; HAMAS; Ikhwan al-Muslimin;                     communal Muslim. His translation of the Quran represents
> Khomeini, Ruhollah; Muslim Student Association of                the kernel of his ideas on Islam, mysticism, and progress. In
> North America; Qa
ida, al-.                                      addition, he wrote a number of pamphlets and articles on
> Islamic issues in which he took a critical stance on both Sir
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                     Sayyid Ahmad Khan and Sir Muhammad Iqbal. His was a
> vision of Islam that stood on an equal footing with other
> Mahdi, Ali Akbar. “The Student Movement in the Islamic
> Republic of Iran.” Journal of Iranian Research and Analysis    religions, just as he viewed Indian Muslims on an equal
> 15, no. 2 (November 1999): 5–32.                               footing with the family of nations.
> Matin Asgari, Afshin. Iranian Student Opposition to the Shah.       In the closing years of the twentieth century, Muslims
> Costa Mesa, Calif.: Mazda Publisher, 2001.                     revisited the legacy of Yusuf Ali’s widely read translation.
> Meijer, Roel, ed. Alienation or Integration of Arab Youth:       Perturbed by the modernist and mystical tendencies in his
> Between Family, State and Street. Richmond, U.K.: Curzon       translation, Islamist groups have tried to expurgate his com-
> Press, 2000.                                                   mentary of so-called unorthodox leanings.
> 
> Ali Akbar Mahdi      See also Quran; Translation.
> 
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Sherif, M. A., Searching for Solace: A Biography of Abdullah
> YUSUF ALI, 
ABDULLAH                                               Yusuf Ali, Interpreter of the Qur
an. Islam in South Asia
> (1872–1953)                                                        Series. Islamabad: Islamic Research Institute, 2000.
> Yusuf Ali, Abdullah. The Holy Qur
an. Lahore: Sh. Muham-
> Author of the most widely read English translation of the          mad Ashraf, 1934.
> Quran, 
Abdullah Yusuf Ali presents a unique figure in
> Islamic modernism at the turn of the twentieth century.                                                      Abdulkader Tayob
> 
> 744                                                                                          Islam and the Muslim World
> Z
> ZAND, KARIM KHAN                                                         Perry, John R. Karim Khan Zand: A History of Iran, 1747–1779.
> Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1979.
> (c. 1705–1779)
> Karim Khan Zand was the ruler of western Iran from 1751                                                                   John R. Perry
> until 1779. A chieftain of the minor tribe of the Zand, of the
> Lakk branch of the Lors, Karim Khan led his contingent from
> the debacle of Nader Shah’s army in 1747 back to their inner-
> Zagros mountain ranges. In alliance with 
Ali Mardan Khan                ZANZIBAR, SA
IDI SULTANATE OF
> of the Bakhtyari, he established a puppet Safavid shah in
> Isfahan and consolidated the southwest under their rule. In              The Omani dynasty of Zanzibar, under the able leadership of
> 1751 he overthrew 
Ali Mardan, and subsequently defeated                 Sayyid Sa
id bin Sultan (1791–1856), inaugurated a new era in
> several other contestants for regional power among Afghan,               the commercial life of East Africa. Zanzibar had steadfastly
> Afshar, and Qajar leaders. By 1765 he had emerged as de facto            remained loyal to Omani rule whether under the Yarubi
> ruler of the whole of Iran except Khorasan, with his capital             dynasty, which had driven the Portuguese out of East Africa
> at Shiraz.                                                               by the end of the seventeenth century, or under the Yarubi
> successors, the Busa
idi dynasty, which came to power by the
> Karim did not assume the title of shah, even when the                 1740s. Sayyid Sa
id was able to assert his sovereignty over
> putative Safavid king predeceased him, but ruled as vakil al-            much of the East African coastal strip but not over the
> ra
aya, “people’s representative” (the term for a traditional            Mazru
i of Mombasa (his major competitor) who held out
> local ombudsman). He encouraged internal and foreign trade,              until 1837. He eventually moved his capital from Muscat to
> granting the East India Company a base at Bushire, and                   Zanzibar by the 1830s. The sultan was a master of intrigues
> rebuilt Shiraz (many of his fine buildings are still standing). A         and was able to deal with potential rivals such as Kimweri, the
> nominal Shi
ite, he practiced religious toleration, and did not          Kilindi ruler of Usambara, by disbursing gifts to Kimweri’s
> actively seek the endorsement of the ulema. In 1776, after a             officials, who were urged not to lose sight of the sultan’s
> year’s siege, he captured the port of Basra in Ottoman Iraq,             interests.
> but his death in 1779 brought a withdrawal.
> Major changes took place in East Africa after the arrival of
> The Vakil, as he is affectionately known, has left a reputa-          Sayyid Sa
id. In fact, East Africa experienced what can be
> tion as a strong but humane and unassuming ruler who                     termed as a commercial revival, brought about by expansion
> restored a measure of peace and prosperity to Iran. His                  in trading activities, new agricultural ventures (introduction
> successors were by contrast cruel , rapacious, and unpopular,            of clove plantations), reforms in currency and customs adexcepting the last, Lotf 
Ali Khan (1789–1794), and soon                 ministration, and encouragement of people with trading
> succumbed to the rising power of the Qajars.                             skills, such as Indians and Omani merchants, to settle in
> Zanzibar. The expansion in the coastal economy confirmed
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                             Zanzibar’s privileged position as the hub of the international
> Perry, John R. “Justice for the Underprivileged: The Ombuds-             trade with its control of coastal ports through which products
> man Tradition of Iran.” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 37            such as ivory and slaves filtered from the interior. The
> (1978): 203–215.                                                      sultan’s aggressive economic policies encouraged the trading
> 
> Zar
> 
> some of the leading Ibadhi families ended up following
> Shafi
i rites.
> 
> See also Africa, Islam in; Mazrui.
> 
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Farsy, Shaykh Abdalla Saleh al-. The Shafi Ulama of East
> Africa, ca 1830–1970. Edited by Randall Pouwels. Madison: University of Wisconsin, 1989.
> Pouwels, Randall. Horn and Crescent: Cultural Change and
> Traditional Islam on the East African Coast, 800–1900. New
> York: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
> 
> Abdin Chande
> 
> ZAR
> Zar refers to a type of spirits, the afflictions such spirits may
> cause, and the rituals aimed at preventing or curing these
> afflictions. It is one of the most widely distributed “cults of
> afflictions” in Africa and the Middle East. Its diffusion owes
> much to the slave trade and to the migration of people
> associated with the pilgrimage to Mecca. Zar spirits and zar
> Sayyid Bargash Bin Sa
id, the Sultan of Zanzibar, circa 1880 with   practices are found throughout eastern North Africa and in
> members of his court. The Zanzibar Sultanate fostered the growth    areas of East Africa and the Middle East, including Tunisia,
> of higher learning and of the intellectual community. HULTON        Algeria, Morocco, Sudan, Ethiopia, Egypt, Somalia, Arabia,
> ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES
> Iran, and Israel. The zar cult has also influenced other
> possession practices in East and West Africa. Little is known
> of the cult’s origins, but its presence has been documented in
> caravans to venture into the interior of East Africa, and           the Sudan since the mid-nineteenth century and in Ethiopia
> wherever the Arab and Swahili traders went Islam went with          since at least the eighteenth century. Etymologically, most
> them. This is how Islam gained a foothold in the interior of        scholars consider the term zar to derive, not from Arabic, but
> East Africa along the trading routes as far as Buganda, where       from Persian or, more plausibly, from Amharic.
> contact was made with the King of Buganda.
> Popularly, however, the word is believed to originate from
> The nineteenth century also witnessed the growth of             zara, “he visited,” an Arabic word that was later corrupted.
> Islamic higher education in the whole coastal region. This          The geographic distribution of the word zar has led researchgrowth was due primarily to the Omani presence and, in              ers to consider the many cults of spirit possession in northeast
> particular, the Zanzibar sultanate, which contributed to liter-     Africa as part of a single, historically connected phenomenon.
> acy and to the intellectual life of the community. Written          While zar practices exhibit considerable variations from
> texts became more readily available and this led to greater         place to place, it is nonetheless possible to identify some
> knowledge and adherence to the written orthodox tradition,          shared characteristics of the spirit-host relation. Involvement
> which was stimulated by the Sa
idi sultanate. Religious schol-      with the zar generally follows a period of illness, during
> ars from Arabia—mainly from Hadramaut and Oman, the                 which all medical options have been exhausted. Eventually,
> Comoros, and the Benadir coast—began to arrive in the               the sufferer is diagnosed as being afflicted by a spirit. Treatcoastal towns and especially in Zanzibar, which emerged as          ment involves initiation into the zar cult during a propitiatory
> the leading center of Islamic learning in East Africa. Later        ceremony in which the initiate will ideally enter a trance,
> some of the leading scholars in East Africa (such as Sayyid         allowing the spirit to possess her or his body so as to affirm its
> Smait and Abdalla Bakathir) traveled to the Middle East             identity and reveal its requirements. Once initiated, devotees
> where they supplemented their education. Moreover, the              must continuously negotiate the terms of their relationships
> Zanzibar sultans employed religious scholars, of both Shafi
i        with the possessing spirits. They express their commitment
> and Ibadhi rites, as Muslim judges. Nevertheless, Omani             to intrusive zar by attending ceremonies, making offerings,
> Ibadhi influence was very superficial on the mainland. In fact,       and fulfilling ritual, moral, and social requirements. Getting
> not only did the Ibadhis as a community lose Arabic as their        well thus becomes a lifelong exercise, much of which is part of
> first language (many had African mothers), but in addition           daily experience rather than being restricted to dramatic ritual.
> 
> 746                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Ziyara
> 
> In many areas, the zar cult has retained pre-Islamic or pre-      Messing, Simon D. “Group Therapy and Social Status in the
> Christian features. It has strongly been influenced by these            Zar Cult of Ethiopia.” American Anthropologist 60, no. 6
> two religions, and has influenced them, in turn. The complex            (1958): 1120–1126.
> and creative ways that zar has simultaneously competed with,         Young, Allan. “Why Amhara Get Kureynya: Sickness and
> adapted to, and borrowed from Islam or Christianity often              Possession in an Ethiopian Zar Cult.” American Ethnologist
> means that spirit devotees see no incompatibility between              2, no. 3 (1975): 567–584.
> their commitment to the zar and their identities as Christian
> or Muslims. To them, possession is part of a wider religious                                                    Adeline Masquelier
> enterprise.
> 
> Not everyone agrees with this assessment, however. Some
> see zar as being antithetical to Islam or Christianity. Such         ZAYTUNA
> divisions often follow gender lines. Thus, for northern Sudanese women, zar falls squarely within the purview of Islam,          Zaytuna, an important mosque and cultural institution in the
> whereas their male counterparts find that relinquishing con-          city of Tunis, was founded in 732 C.E. Zaytuna (in Arabic, “the
> trol of one’s body to a possessing spirit is simply sinful and un-   Olive Tree”) mosque became an organized Islamic university
> Islamic. Despite such condemnations, zar has continued to            in the twelfth century and thereafter was considered one of
> thrive in both rural and urban areas; in the latter it often         the most important centers of Islamic scholarship and inprovides supportive social networks for newcomers.                   struction in North Africa, together with Al-Azhar in Cairo
> and Al-Qarawiyyin in Fez. Quranic exegesis, Arabic gram-
> Men may criticize their wives’ practices of assuaging the         mar, and Islamic law (shari
a) were the main subjects offered
> spirits, but they rarely interfere when their womenfolk stage a      at Zaytuna. Among the many historical figures who taught at
> propitiatory ceremony. While they may want nothing to do             Zaytuna were Muhammad Ibn 
Arafa, one of the greatest
> with zar, men implicitly acknowledge the spirits’ role in the        scholars of Islam’s Maliki school, and the famous historian
> preservation of fertility and prosperity. Though in some             Ibn Khaldun.
> areas, men can become initiated, it is women whom zar most
> afflict, mainly with infertility. The preponderance of women              Zaytuna suffered from the Spanish entry in Tunis in 1534,
> has traditionally been explained as a strategy of redress for        following which the mosque and library were pillaged. But
> marginalized or powerless individuals in male-centered cul-          under the Ottoman rule it recovered some of its prestige, and
> tures. From this perspective, zar is nothing but a means to          in 1842 its programs and teaching methods were institutionbring public attention to one’s plight and achieve momen-            alized. After the establishment of the French Protectorate
> tary power.                                                          (1881), Zaytuna reformed its traditional programs to include
> a more modern and scientific system of instruction. In the
> More recent interpretations have pointed to the multiple         beginning of the twentieth century it bred a generation of
> ways in which zar participants distill the lessons of history,       Islamic reformist thinkers and played an important role for
> reflect upon their subordinate status, and assess the relevance       Tunisian and Algerian nationalist movements.
> of cultural values by conjuring up images of amoral, foreign,
> and powerful spirits. Far from constituting a refuge from               After the independence of Tunisia (1956), Zaytuna beoppressive reality, zar is seen as a cultural resource that          came part of the state university and its library was integrated
> transcends the context of illness and is drawn upon by people        within the National Library of Tunis.
> to make sense of certain problems and experiences of everyday life.                                                            See also Education; Law.
> 
> See also African Culture and Islam; Miracles.                        BIBLIOGRAPHY
> Abdel Moula, Mahmoud. L’Université Zaytounienne et la société
> BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                           Tunisienne. Tunis: Maison Tiers-Monde, 1984.
> Boddy, Janice. Wombs and Alien Spirits: Women, Men, and the
> Zar Cult in Northern Sudan. Madison: University of Wis-                                                          Claudia Gazzini
> consin Press, 1989.
> Lewis, Ioan M.; Al-Safi, Ahmed; and Hurreiz, Sayyid, eds.
> Women’s Medicine: The Zar-Bori Cult in Africa and Beyond.
> Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1991.                       ZIYARA See Pilgrimage: Ziyara
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                      747
> Glossary
> 
> Pronunciation Key
> 
> Symbol                             Sound                               Symbol                               Sound
> VOWELS            a                                sat            CONSONANTS             dh                        then
> ah                               father                                h                         horse
> au                               mouse                                 kh                        ch as in the German Bach
> ay                               pay                                                              or the Scottish Loch
> e                                feet                                  sh                        shake
> i                                in                                    th                        thin
> oo                               boot                                  
                         glottal stop, the sound
> u                                foot                                                             in uh-oh (between the
> uh and the oh)
>                          voiced pharyngeal fricative
> 
> The syllable stress is indicated by italics. A doubled vowel such as in the word “ke-taab” indicates that the vowel should be said twice
> as long as a vowel in English.
> 
> 
Abd (Ar., ahbd):                                                         scripture (the book), and specifically refers to Jews, Chris-
> “Servant.” Used with one of the names of God, such as 
Abd                tians, and Sabians (Q. 5:72 “Those who believe [in the
> Allah “Servant of God” or 
Abd al-Rahim, “Servant of the                  Quran] those who follow the Jewish [Scriptures] and the
> Compassionate One” or 
Abduh, “His servant.” 
Abd also                    Sabians and the Christians any who believe in Allah and the
> means “slave,” comparable to ghulam (Per.) or mamluk (Ar.)                Last Day and work righteousness, on them shall be no fear
> nor shall they grieve.”) Later Muslim rulers extended the
> Abu (Ar., ah-boo):
> interpretation of ahl al-kitab to include Zoroastrians, Hindus,
> “Father.” Used in the construct “Abu + son’s name,” such as               Mandaeans, and Buddhists, among others. As such, ahl al-
> “Abu Husayn,” to mean the father of Husayn. Often, it is the
> kitab have a specific protected status and freedom of religion
> kunya or the name by which a person is known. Abu can also
> within Muslim society, which the “pagan” Arabs did not
> mean “the place of,” such as Abu Dhabi (the place of the
> enjoy.
> gazelle) or “the one that has.” “Abu” can also be written as
> Aba or Abi, as in 
Ali b. Abi Talib.                                      Amir al-Muminin (Ar., ah-meer al-mu-min-een):
> Adhan (Ar., a-dhaan):                                                     “Commander of the Faithful.” This title was adopted by
> “Call to prayer.” The early Muslim community in Medina is                 
Umar ibn al-Khattab, the second leader of the Muslim
> said to have debated how to summon their worshippers;                     community after the death of Muhammad, and was used by
> Muhammad suggested the human voice. Thus, most mosques                    subsequent caliphs, heads of states, and sultans to signify their
> have their own muezzin, trained in the art of recitation, who             religiosity and religious authority.
> calls worshippers to prayer five times a day.
> Ansar (Ar., an-sahr):
> Ahl al-kitab (Ar., ahl al-ke-taab):                                       “The helpers”, a designation referring to the people of
> “People of the Book.” Mentioned in the Quran, this phrase                Medina who aided Muhammad following the hijra (emigraliterally refers to religious communities who have a written              tion) from Mecca to Medina.
> 
> Glossary
> 
> Aya (Ar., ah-yah pl., Ayat ah-yaat):                              status and the jiziya tax do not exist in contemporary nation-
> A verse in the Quran; a sign.                                    states.
> 
> Ayatollah (ah-yah-tul-lah):                                       Dhu-l-Hijja (Ar., dhul-hij-jah):
> A Shi’ite theologian who has completed the following: 14          The twelfth month of the Islamic calendar and the month in
> subjects of elementary study, independent study, and qualifi-      which the hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca, takes place.
> cations of a mujtahid (practitioner of independent legal rea-
> Emir/Amir (Ar., Per., ah-meer):
> soning) through oral examination. An ayatollah must also
> A prince, ruler or commander, but early usage also included a
> have attained a reputation amongst his peers, students and
> military commander.
> laity in knowledge and piety.
> Faqih (Ar., fa-keeh):
> Baraka (Ar., bah-rah-kah):
> A jurist, thus one who would be an expert in shari
a, especially
> Blessings of God.                                                 fiqh.
> Bid
a (Ar., bid-ah):                                              Al-Fatiha (Ar., al-fa-tee-hah):
> “Innovation.” A point of view or interpretation used in           The opening chapter of the Quran, consisting of seven ayat
> Islamic law or practice, but which is not present in the Sunna    (verses). This chapter is said in prayers as well as at significant
> of the Prophet, and is therefore unacceptable to “traditional-    times, such as marriage.
> ists” who rely on the traditions (hadith) of Muhammad.
> Fatwa (Ar., fat-wah):
> Bint (Ar., bint):                                                 “Legal opinion.” Issued by a mufti or some other recognized
> “Daughter.” Used to designate the father-daughter relation-       and qualified scholar, a fatwa is a legal or advisory opinion in
> ship, such as Fatima bint Muhammad, and abbreviated in            answer to a specific question or a broader issue facing the
> English as “bt.”                                                  community.
> 
> Caliph:                                                           Fiqh (Ar., fik):
> “Successor.” A title used by Muslim rulers to indicate their      “Jurisprudence.” The science of studying the shari
a.
> connection to Muhammad’s leadership over the Muslim
> Fitna (Ar., fit-nah):
> community. The title did not indicate, however, any sort of
> connection with the divine or spiritual supremacy.                First used to describe the violent factional dissension that
> took place in the early Islamic community, it denotes Mus-
> Companions:                                                       lims fighting Muslims, and as such signals the end of Muslim
> Most Sunni scholars believe that all those who converted to       unity, and the domination of chaos and irreligiosity. Fitna is
> Islam during Muhammad’s lifetime and who had contact with         also used to describe temptations that test believers’ religious
> him are to be considered among his “Companions” with an           commitments.
> ensuing righteous status. They are the primary transmitters       Futuhat (Ar., fuh-tuh-haat):
> of hadith, and it is to these people that the contemporary
> The conquest of territory by Muslim armies.
> Salafiyya movements look for guidance. Because of the contentious relationships among some of this first generation of      Hadith (Ar., ha-deeth, pl., ahadith a-ha-deeth):
> Muslims, Shi
a scholars are more selective in terms of who        The utterances, opinions, or rulings of the prophet Muhamthey consider a Companion.                                        mad. According to the methods through which they have
> been collected and verified in the three centuries following
> Da
wa (Ar., dah
-wah):                                            his death, two elements are essential to a reliable hadith: a
> “Call.” The missionary aspect of Islam in which Muslims           continuous, verifiable isnad (chain of transmitters), and a
> encourage non-practicing Muslims to practice again (or prac-      correspondence (or absence of contradiction to) the Quran.
> tice according to a particular ideological view) and encourage    The Hadith, along with the Sunna and the Qur’an are the
> non-Muslims to convert to Islam.                                  main sources for Islamic law. Sunnis and Shi
ites share many
> ahadith, but have different isnads.
> Dhikr (Ar., dhikr):
> “Remembrance.” An individual or collective ritual, usually        Hajj (Ar., haj):
> involving chanting, where participants invoke the names and       The pilgrimage rite to Mecca, one of the essential requireattributes of God. Dhikr is a central element in Sufi practice     ment of being a Muslim. Muslims come from all over the
> and spirituality.                                                 world to participate once a year in the Hajj, commemorating
> Abraham’s building of the Ka
ba and the difficult experiences
> Dhimmi (Ar., dhim-mee):                                           of Hagar and Isma
il. The Hajj is required of Muslims once in
> Protected groups of non-Muslims living under Muslim rule,         their lifetime, but only if physically and financially able to do
> primarily People of the Book (ahl al-kitab). Dhimmis were         so—they cannot leave behind debts, and they must have paid
> required to pay a tax (jiziya) and were not allowed to serve in   the zakat on the resources they use to go on Hajj. After a
> the army, although many rose to prominence as scholars,           person completes the pilgrimage, a man is called a Hajj or
> government advisors and officers, and physicians. Both dhimmi      Hajji and a woman is called a Hajja.
> 
> 750                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Glossary
> 
> Halal (Ar., hah-laal):                                              Ijma
 (Ar., ij-mah):
> Permitted according to Islamic law. The use of the word also        “Scholarly consensus,” and one of the main methods for
> signifies a slaughtering technique that sanctifies meat for           developing and interpreting Islamic law.
> Muslims.
> Ijtihad (Ar., ij-ti-haad):
> Hanafi (Ar., ha-na-fee):                                             “Independent legal judgement.” The interpretation of law
> One of the four Sunni schools of Islamic law, named after Abu       based on individual reasoning.
> Hanifa (699–767).
> 
Ilm (Ar., ilm, pl. 
Ulum, u-luum):
> Hanbali (Ar., han-baal-ee):                                         In religious terms, 
ilm means knowledge and also gives us the
> One of the four Sunni schools of Islamic law, named after           word “ulema” (religious scholars) meaning those who are
> Ahmad ibn Hanbal (780–855)                                          knowledgeable. In both the historical and contemporary
> Muslim world, 
ilm also means “science.”
> Haram (Ar., hah-raam):
> 
Ilm al-Rijal (Ar., ilm-ul-ri-jaal):
> Forbidden in Islamic law, such as the consumption of pork
> The study of the people who transmitted the hadith (sayings
> and alcohol are haram.
> and practices of Muhammad) and who are mentioned in the
> Haram (hah-ram):                                                    isnads (chains of transmission). Biographies of these early
> Muslims are the topic of many books and provides material
> A holy place, a sanctuary. Mecca is referred to as Masjid alfor judging the soundness or believability of each hadith.
> Haram and the al-Haram al-Sharif in Jerusalem is the location of the Dome of the Rock and the Masjid al-Aqsa.                Imam (Ar., Per., ee-maam):
> Among Sunnis, an imam is a legal scholar or the prayer leader
> Hijra (Ar., hij-rah):
> in a mosque. Among Shi
ite communities, an imam is an
> “Emigration.” This term refers to the journey of Muhammad           infallible guide to the community, descended from the family
> from Mecca to Medina in 622 C.E. and marks the beginning of         of the Prophet. The Twelver Shi
ites believe that there were
> the Muslim (lunar) calendar, known by the same name,                twelve imams, the last one of which went into occultation
> abbreviated as A.H. (Arabic Hijra or Hegira)                        (hiding) and will return one day as the mahdi.
> Hizb (Ar., hizb):                                                   Imami (Ar., ee-maam-ee):
> A political party or movement, as in Hizb Allah (Party of           Twelver Shi
ites or Imamai Shi
ites. See Shi
ites.
> God) in Lebanon.
> Iman (Ar., ee-maan):
> 
Ibadat (Ar., e-baa-daat):                                          “Faith.”
> Devotional acts of worship.
> Islam (Ar., Is-lahm):
> h
> Ibadis (Ibadiyya) (Ar., e-ba -de-ya):                               The religion of Islam. Someone who follows Islam is a
> See Khawarij.                                                       Muslim, which means that he or she believes that there is no
> god but God and that Muhammad is the Messenger of God.
> Ibn (Ar., i-bin):                                                   The word Islam, meaning “surrender” comes from the Arabic
> “Son.” Used in the construct of names to indicate the son-          root (s-l-m) which denotes wholeness, peace, and safety,
> father relationship, thus Ibn Hasan is the “son of Hasan”.          suggesting that these are the qualities one achieves through
> Often it is the name by which people are known, their kunya,        surrendering oneself to God.
> although it does not necessarily reflect their father’s name,
> such as Ibn Sina or Ibn Rushd. In Arabic, when “ibn” occurs         Isma
ili (Ar., is-ma-ee-lee):
> between names it is pronounced or written as “bin,” as in 
Ali      Shi
ites who disagreed with the main body of Shi
a over the
> bin Abi Talib. “Ibn” is oftentimes abbreviated in English as        identity of the seventh Imam. The Isma
ilis followed Ja
far al-
> “b.” as in 
Ali b. Abi Talib.                                       Sadiq’s eldest son Isma
il, while the majority (called the
> Imamis or Twelvers) followed his younger son Musa al-
> 
Id al-Adha (Ar., eed-ul-ahd-hah):                                  Kazim. Because of the split over the identity of the Seventh
> “Feast of Sacrifice.” This celebration marks the end of the          Imam, the Isma
ilis are also called Seveners, and the Agha
> hajj (pilgrimage) when pilgrims sacrifice an animal as part of       Khan is the current head of the Nizari sect of the Isma
ilis.
> their hajj ritual, and which Muslims also do all over the world     Isra (Ar., is-rah):
> (and donate a portion of it to the poor). It falls on the 10th of
> Muhammad’s Night Journey (al-Isra wal-Mi
raj); see mi
raj.
> the month of Dhu-l-Hijja, and is also called al-
Id al-Kabir
> (the big Feast) or Bayram.                                          Jahiliyya (Ar., ja-hi-lee-yah):
> “Time of Ignorance.” The Arabic and Muslim way of refer-
> 
Id al-Fitr (Ar., eed-ul-fit-r):
> ring to pre-Islamic history in the Arabian peninusula.
> “Feast of Fast-breaking.” This occasion marks the end of the
> month of Ramadan, the month of fasting. Special 
Id prayers         Jami
 (Ar., jaa-mi):
> are offered in the morning, and children and adults often get       A congregational mosque for Friday prayers, as opposed to a
> new clothes. Also called al-
Id al-Saghir (the smaller Feast).      masjid or a musalla. Jami
s are usually quite large in order to
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                    751
> Glossary
> 
> hold the entire population who will pray and listen to the             Kunya (kun-yah):
> khitab or sermon of an imam.                                           Another name by which a person is known, which is often the
> more commonly used and well-known than the person’s
> Jihad (Ar., ji-haad):
> given name. In many cases the kunya will be the “Father of,”
> “Struggle.” Over time, the concept of a “jihad” has developed          “Son of,” “Mother of,” or “Daughter of” construction. For
> to include both the greater jihad, or the struggle by the
> example, the 11th century Persian scientist Abu 
Ali alindividual to be a righteous Muslim, and the lesser jihad, or
> Husayn ibn 
Abdallah ibn Sina is referred to only as Ibn Sina
> the struggle to fight oppression and defend the Muslim
> and the ninth century writer Abu 
Uthman Amr b. Bahr alcommunity. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries Asia
> Fuqaymi al-Basri is known as al-Jahiz (the bug-eyed).
> and Africa witnessed reform movements that embarked on
> jihads to reform the Muslim communities and to fight colo-              Madhhab (Ar., madh-hab, pl., madhahib):
> nial rule. More recently, certain groups have interpreted the          A school of thought in traditional Islamic scholarship, such as
> concept of jihad to mean to fight non-Muslims.
> in law and theology. Among Sunni Muslims, four schools of
> Jinn (or Jinni) (Ar., jin):                                            law are recognized, named after the eminent scholars whose
> Invisible, supernatural creatures, mentioned in the Quran,            juridical works they were based on: Hanafi, Maliki, Hanbali,
> and who can be good or bad.                                            Shafi
i. The Shi
ites follow the Ja
fari school, named after the
> sixth Imam, Ja
far al-Sadiq, along with the ijtihad of living
> Jum
a (Ar., joo-mah):                                                  scholars of eminence.
> “Friday.” The word also is used to describe the Jum
a mosque
> of a particular city (see Jami
) or salat al-jum
a (Friday prayers).   Madrasa (Ar., ma-dra-sa):
> “School.” Historically a madrasa refers to a Sunni Muslim
> Ka
ba (Ar., kah-bah):                                                  college where shari
a and other Islamic sciences were taught,
> The name of the sacred, cube-shaped building located in the            while currently a madrasa refers to any school, religious or
> Haram in Mecca. The Black Stone is set in a silver frame in            secular, private or public.
> one of the lower corners and the whole building is covered by
> an embroidered cloth (kiswa). Muslims pray towards the                 Maliki (Ar., maa-lik-ee):
> Ka
ba and circumambulate it during hajj. Muslims believe               One of the four Sunni schools of law, named after Malik Ibn
> that the Ka
ba was constructed by Abraham and Isma
il (see             Anas (715–795).
> Q.2: 127–129).
> Masjid (Ar., mas-jid, pl., Masajid) :
> Kalam (Ar., ka-laam):                                                  Mosque.
> “Theology.”
> Maulid (Mawlid) (Ar., mau-lid):
> Karbala (kahr-bah-lah):
> A yearly birthday celebration for the prophet Muhammad or
> The burial site of Husayn bin 
Ali, the grandson of Muhama famous saint, common in Egypt and North Africa.
> mad, located in southern Iraq, south of Baghdad, and a
> popular place of pilgrimage for Shi
ites.                              Mi
raj (Ar., mi-rahj):
> Khawarij (Kharajites) (Ar., kha-waa-rij):                              Part of the al-Isra wal-Mi
raj, Muhammad’s night journey
> An early sect of Islam that advocated a strict and puritanical         (Q. 17:1) that took him to the seven heavens.
> interpretation of religious dogma. They believed that any
> Mihrab (Ar., mih-rahb):
> Muslim was qualified to lead the community (in antithesis to
> The recessed arched niche in the mosque indicating direction
> Shi
a beliefs), but also held that mortal sins had the effect of
> making a Muslim into a non-believer and deserving of death.            of prayer towards Mecca. It is often highly decorated.
> A group of Kharajites murdered 
Ali, thereby inadvertantly             Minaret:
> facilitating the rise to power of the Umayyads, who sup-
> The tower or raised section of a mosque from where the
> pressed them. Although largely wiped out, a major branch of
> muezzin gives the call to prayer. Historically, these towers
> the Kharajite movement, the Ibadiyya, continue to exist today
> have staircases inside so that the muezzin could climb the
> in Oman and east Africa.
> stairs and issue the call to prayer from a balcony. Today, most
> Al-Khulafa al-Rashidun (The Rightly-guided Caliphs, Ar., al-          calls to prayer are broadcast from loudspeakers attached to
> khu-la-fa ar-raa-shi-doon):                                           the minaret.
> Sunni Muslims call the first four Caliphs who led the Muslim
> community the Rightly-guided Caliphs: Abu Bakr, 
Umar,                 Muezzin (Moo-az-zin, Ar., muadh-dhin):
> 
Uthman, and 
Ali. After these men, who were selected by the           The person who gives the call to prayer (adhan). Men or boys
> community, rule was taken over by the Umayyad dynasty                  are chosen for this position for a variety of reasons, among
> who assumed hereditary rule. Shi
a and Ibadis do not use the           them because of the quality of their voice; as an honor to that
> term “al-khulafa al-rashidun.”                                        person for their service; or as a means of employment.
> 
> Khutba (Ar., khut-bah):                                                Mufti (Ar., muf-tee):
> The sermon during Friday prayers that is often delivered by            Chief Islamic jurist and a scholar who can issue fatwas or legal
> an imam.                                                               opinions.
> 
> 752                                                                                                Islam and the Muslim World
> Glossary
> 
> Muhajirun (Ar., mu-haa-ji-roon):                                   mores in order to achieve the best society. Originally coined
> The Muslims who immigrated to Medina with Muhammad                 by Muhammad 
Abduh in the late 19th century, the term
> in 622 C.E., and who were helped by the Ansar, the Medinans        initially was meant as a reform movement to end corruption
> who aided them and became part of the fledgling Muslim              in society and to address the issues of the modern world.
> community.                                                         However, the term “Salafi” has come to have a much more
> extreme and coercive meaning, particularly as Wahhabi and
> Mujtahid (Ar., muj-taa-hid):                                       other groups have forced their own definitions of Salafi ideals
> A religious scholar who practices independent legal judge-         en masse on their populations (and others).
> ment and reasoning (ijtihad) to form a legal opinion.
> Salat (Ar., sah-laht):
> Muslim (Ar., mus-lim):                                             “Prayer.” Prayer is one of the pillars of Muslim devotional
> A follower of Islam.                                               life. Muslims pray five times a day, a practice which takes a
> Nabi (Ar., na-bee):                                                few minutes and can be done in a mosque or any clean place.
> In order to pray, Muslims must be in a state of cleanliness,
> A prophet of God. In Islam, this includes the prophets from
> achieved by doing wudu (ablutions).
> the Judeo-Christian tradition, such as Moses, Abraham, Jesus,
> among many others.                                                 Saum (Sawm) (Ar., saum, pl., Siyam):
> PBUH: See S.A.W.                                                   “Fasting.” For Muslims a fast from food and liquids takes
> place from sunrise to sunset, and occurs for a month during
> Qadi (Ar., kah-dee):                                               Ramadan as well as other special occasions and recommended
> A judge whose responsibilities are in the areas of religious       times. See Ramadan.
> law.
> Shafi
i (Ar., sha-fi-ee):
> Qibla (Ar., kib-la):                                               One of the four schools of Sunni law, named after the Imam
> The direction of prayer, i.e., the direction of Mecca. The         al-Shafi
i (d. 820).
> direction is often marked in a mosque by a mihrab, which
> traditionally takes the shape of an arched niche in the qibla      Shahada (Ar., sha-haa-da):
> wall.                                                              “Profession of faith.” The shahada is the major pillar of
> Muslim doctrine and must be said with intention in order to
> Qiyas (Ar., kee-yas):                                              become a Muslim: “There is no god but God and Muhammad
> Analogical reasoning used in Islamic law.                          is the messenger of God.”
> Quran (also written as Koran) (Ar., kuh-rahn):                    Shari
a (Ar., sha-ree-a):
> The Muslim Holy Book. Muslims consider the Quran to be            “Islamic law.” The Qur’an, Hadith (sayings of the Prophet),
> the divine revelation of God to humankind and the basis for        and the Sunna (practices) are the basis for scholars and judges
> living a right and just life as a Muslim. As the word of God, it   to determine shari
a. With no central authority deciding legal
> is untranslatable and is only the Quran in the language of        issues, four schools (madhhabs) have emerged in Sunni law,
> revelation (Arabic). Muslims recite portions of the Quran in      although most scholars warn against blind adherence to a
> their prayers. The Quran consists of suras (chapters) which       particular school (taqlid), and instead promote ijtihad (indeare arranged by length; therefore, the Quran does not follow      pendent reasoning and legal judgement) as a means to best
> a narrative or chronological order.                                understand shari
a at any particular time and situation. While
> Ramadan (Ar., rah-mah-dahn):                                       Shi
ites follow their own Ja
fari school, they do not follow a
> fixed canon of law because Shi
ite theologians continue to
> The lunar month in which Muslims fast from food, drink,
> practice ijtihad to this day. Among the Shi
a, there are a
> smoking, sex, and gossip (among other things) from sunrise
> number of living scholars of eminence among whom the laity
> until sunset. It falls on the ninth month of the Muslim lunar
> chose to follow in matters of shari
a to find fresh answers to
> calendar, and ends with the 
Id al-Fitr.
> current problems.
> Rasul (Ar., rah-suhl):
> Shaykh (Sheikh, Ar., shaykh):
> A messenger of God.
> Used as a title of respect, shaykh can refer to a religious
> S.A.W. (Sahl-allah 
ah-lay-he wa-sal-lam):                         scholar, the leader of a Sufi order, the head of a tribe or
> “Prayers and peace of God be upon him.” Muslim invocation          village, or an old man.
> after writing or mentioning the name of Muhammad. Also
> Shi
ite (she-ite):
> rendered in English as PBUH (Peace be upon Him).
> Derived from their name, shi
t 
Ali, or “the party of 
Ali”, the
> Sahaba (Ar., sah-hah-bah):                                         Shi
a are one of the major groups of Muslims; the other being
> See Companions.                                                    Sunni. The Shi
ite believe that rule of the community (led by
> an Imam) should be through 
Ali and the descendants of the
> Salafi (Ar., sa-la-fee):                                            Prophet through his daughter Fatima who was married to
> A term used by Muslims to denote a thinker or a movement           
Ali. They split into smaller divisions, over disagreements
> who idealizes the time of the Prophet and thinks that contem-      about the inheritance of the office of imam (see Isma
ili).
> porary Muslim societies must return to those standards and         Today they make up about 15% of the Muslim population
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                    753
> Glossary
> 
> and predominate or have significant minorities in Iran, Iraq,      Ulema (uh-lah-ma
 Ar., sing. 
Alim, pl., 
Ulama):
> Lebanon, Yemen, and other Arabian Gulf states.                    A scholar or learned person in the Islamic sciences, such as
> fiqh and shari
a.
> Sufism (Ar., Tasawwuf) :
> An understanding of Islam that emphasizes mystical or spiri-      Umma (Ar., um-mah):
> tual practice. A Sufi is a practitioner of Sufism, and different    The community of Muslim believers.
> groups or tariqas (“paths”) have different relationships with
> 
Umra (Ar., um-ra)
> orthodox practices, varying in time and place. Traditionally,
> A visit to Mecca outside of the hajj period, and thought of as a
> Sufi orders have been run by a shaykh (Ar.) or a pir (Per.),
> “lesser pilgrimage.”
> whom students (murids) follow closely. Also associated historically with Sufism are khanqas, zawiyas, and ribats, resi-      Wali (waa-lee):
> dences and centers of spiritual practice.                         “A friend of God.” The term is used by Shi
ites to describe
> 
Ali. Sunnis also use the term when talking about Muslim
> Sunna (Ar., sun-nah):
> holy men and women who they believe have intercessional
> The practices, actions, and behavior of the prophet Muham-        powers with God, a popular practice and condemned by the
> mad. These are stories about him recorded by his compan-          orthodoxy.
> ions and family in the same style as the hadith. The Sunna,
> along with the Hadith and Quran, comprise the main sources       Waqf (Ar., wahkf):
> of Islamic law. “Sunna” is also a legal term used to describe a   An endowment from which revenues from a particular prop-
> Muslim practice that is recommended (but not required), as        erty or business are allotted for a specific public service or
> in it is sunna to hold a celebratory feast (walima) for a         building, often set up by an individual or his or her family.
> wedding.                                                          Many medieval mosques, madrasas, hospitals and other buildings had endowments associated with them that provided
> Sunni (Ar., sun-nee):                                             their running expenses, salaries, etc., and the practice contin-
> The largest group of Muslim adherents, the Sunni emphasize        ues to this day.
> the Sunna (actions of Muhammad), the hadith (sayings of the
> Prophet) and the Qur’an. Through these sources they have          Wazir/Vizir/Vizier (Ar., wah-zeer, Per., vah-zeer)
> developed four schools of law (madhhabs). They are the            The advisor to a ruler, and usually a person with great power.
> largest percentage of Muslims, making up approximately 85         Wudu (Ar., wu-doo
):
> percent of worshippers today.
> “Ablutions.” Before prayer, Muslims must complete ablu-
> Sura (Ar., soo-rah):                                              tions, cleaning their hands, feet, face, ears, mouth, and nose
> (in a prescribed process). Being in a state of wudu can carry
> A chapter of the Qur’an. Each chapter is referred to by a
> over from prayer to prayer if nothing takes place to break the
> number (114 total), and by a name, as in Surat al-Qamr (the
> state of cleanliness, such as going to the bathroom, passing
> Sura of the Moon) or Surat Maryam (the Sura of Mary), and
> gas, or sexual relations, among other things. Following sexual
> contains any number of ayat (verses), ranging from 3 to 286.
> relations, menstruation, and childbirth, believers must per-
> Tafsir (Ar., taf-seer):                                           form ghusul, which requires the whole body to be cleaned.
> Interpretation of the Quran.                                     Zakat (Ar., za-kaat):
> “Tithe or alms.” Another of the five pillars required of
> Tahara (Ar., tah-hah-rah):
> Muslims, zakat is a tithe that is to be paid each year by all
> “Purification,” and can also refer to circumcision.
> Muslim adults in the amount of 2.5% of their income and
> Tariqa (ta-ree-ka):                                               wealth. Shi
ites also pay a khums or one-fifth on all excess
> wealth.
> “Path or way.” A term used in Sufi practices, to refer to a
> spiritual path or a specific discipline of Sufi thought following   Ziyara (Ar., Per., zee-yah-rah):
> a particular master.                                              Visits to a holy shrine, particular tombs of walis and holy
> people.
> Ta
ziyeh (Per., ta-zee-yah) (Ar., ta
ziya):
> Performances conducted among the Shi
ites commemorat-             Zuhd (Ar., zuhd):
> ing the martyrdom of Husayn ibn 
Ali at Karbala.                  Asceticism, a Sufi practice.
> 
> 754                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Appendix
> 
> Genealogies
> Umayyad Caliphs
> Tribe of Qaraysh (5th–8th centuries, C.E.)
> Early Tariquas (Sufi brotherhoods) and their Founders
> Isma’ili Imams
> Shi
a Imams
> 
> Timelines
> Islam in Central and East Asia 600–2003 C.E.
> Islam in Europe and Africa 600–2003 C.E.
> Islam in South and Southeast Asia 700–2003 C.E.
> Islam in Southwest Asia 570–2003 C.E.
> Life of Muhammad 570–632 C.E.
> 
> Genealogies
> 
> Umayyad Caliphs
> Umayyah
> 
> Harb                                                                                         Abu l-
As
> 
> Abu-Sufyan (c. 565–653; Meccan chief)                                               
Affan                              al-Hakam
> 
> Yazid                        2. Mu
awiya I r. 661–680                Umm-Habibah⫽Muhammad
> (Gov. of Syria, 639)                (Gov. of Syria, 639–661)                            the Prophet
> (d. 632)
> 
> 3. Yazid I r. 680–683
> 
> 4. Mu
awiya II r. 683                           Umm-Kulthum and Ruqayyah⫽1. 
Uthman r. 644–656                         5. Marwan I
> (figurehead)                                                                                                  r. 683–685 (chief aide
> to 
Uthman, 644–656;
> never generally recognized
> as caliph
> 
> Muhammad                                                                                              6. 
Abd-al-Malik r. 685–705                     
Abd-al-
Aziz
> (generally recognized from 692)                  (Gov. of Egypt)
> 
> 7. al-Walid I r. 705–715           8. Sulayman r. 715–717            10. Yazid II r. 720–724          11. Hisham r. 724–743
> 
> 15. Marwan II                                                                                                                                              9. 
Umar II
> r. 744–750                13. Yazid III r. 744                14. Ibrahim r. 744               12. al-Walid II r. 743–744                                 r. 717–720
> Mu
awiyah
> 
> 
Abd-al-Rahman I
> (emir at Córdova;
> ancestor of the
> Spanish caliphs)
> Claimants to the caliphate or caliphs are set in bold type, and are sequentially numbered.
> 
> SOURCE: Hodgson, Marshall G. S. The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a World Civilization. Vol. 1. Chicago: University of Chicago
> Press, 1974.
> 
> Genealogies
> 
> The Tribe of Quraysh (5th–8 th centuries, C.E.)
> 
> Qusayy (founder of Quraysh)
> 
> 
Abd-Manaf
> 
> Hashim (clan)                          Muttalib                           
Abd-Shams (clan)              Nawfal (clan)
> (clan associated
> with Hashim)
> 
Abd al-Muttalib                                                                   Umayya
> 
> Abu Talib                 Abu Lahab               
Abdallah⫽Amina                  
Abbas                   Hamza               Abu ’l-
As                        Harb
> 
> Muhammad ⴝKhadjah b. Khuwaylid                        
Abdallah                            
Affan            al-Hakam
> 
> ⴝ
Aisha b. Abu-Bakr b. Abu Quhafa of Taym clan                                                        Abu SufyanⴝHind
> ⫽Hafsa b. 
Umar b. al-Khattab of 
Adi clan
> ⫽Umm Habiba b. Abu Sufyan
> 
> Ja
far al-Tayyar            
Aliⴝ Fatima                       Zaynab                Umm-Kulthum and Ruqayyah⫽ 
Uthman                    Marwan             Mu
 awiya
> 
> Hasan                   Husayn                                                                                      
Abd al-Malik              Yazid
> 
> People influential in Muhammad's life, or who later became influential figures, are set in boldfaced type. Most of the men in the geneology had sons not
> mentioned here due to space considerations.
> 
> SOURCE: Hodgson, Marshall G. S. The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a World Civilization. Vol. 1. Chicago: University of Chicago
> Press, 1974.
> 
> 758                                                                                                                         Islam and the Muslim World
> Genealogies
> 
> Early tariqas (Sufi brotherhoods) and their founders
> 
> al-Junayd, d. 910
> 
> Ahmad al-Ghazali (d. 1126)
> 
> 
Abdallah al-Ansari         
Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani                                 
Abd al-Qahir al-Suhrawardi
> (d. 1089), Herat           (d. 1166), Baghdad;                                             (d. 1168)
> Qadiriyya
> 
> Abu-Hafs 
Umar
> al-Suhrawardi (d. 1234)
> Suhrawardiyya
> Yusuf al-Hamadani               Ahmad b. al-Rifa
i                                                                   Najm al-Din
> (d. 1140), "khwajagan,"            (d. 1182), Iraq:                                                                   Kubra (d. 1221)
> Transoxania                      Rifa
iyya                                                                        Kubrawiyya
> 
> Abu ’l-Hasan
> 
Abd al-Khaliq                                                          al-Shadhili
> Ghujdawani                                                             (d. 1258);                                                   Jalal al-Din
> (d. 1220)                                                             Shadiliyya                                                 Rumi (d. 1273);
> Mevleviyya
> Ahmad al-Yasavi (d. 1166)          Ahmad al-Badawi
> Yasaviyya; infl. on             (d. 1276), Egypt;
> Turkish Sufism                     Badawiyya
> 
> Mu
in al-Din Chishti
> (d. 1236), Ajmer; Chishtiyya
> Baha al-Din
> Naqshband
> (d. 1389);       Hajji Bektash (d. c. 1338);
> Naqshbandiyya              Bektashiyya
> 
> SOURCE: Hodgson, M. G. S. Venture of Islam. Vol. 2. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974. Quoted in Lapidus, Ira M. A History of
> Islamic Societies. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                                             759
> Genealogies
> 
> Isma
ili Imams
> 
> 
Ali (d. 661)
> 
> Hasan (d. 669)            Husayn (d. 680)
> 
> Zayn al-
Abidin (d. 714)
> 
> Muhammad al-Baqir (d. 731)
> 
> Ja
far al-Sadiq (d. 765)
> 
> Isma
il (d. 760)
> 
> Muhammad al-Mahdi and
> Concealed Imams
> 
> Fatimids                
Ubaydallah al-Mahdi (d. 934)
> 
> al-Qa
im (d. 946)
> 
> al-Mansur (d. 953)
> 
> al-Mu
izz (d. 975)
> 
> al-
Aziz (d. 996)
> 
> al-Hakim (d. 1021)
> 
> al-Zahir (d. 1036)
> 
> al-Mustansir (d. 1094)
> Assassins
> Hasan al-Sabbah (da
i) (d. 1124)                      Nizar                                  Muhammad                      al-Musta
li (d. 1101)
> Buzurg Ummid (d. 1138)
> Number of                              al-Hafiz (d. 1149)             al-Amir (d. 1130)
> Muhammad (d. 1162)                                    successors
> uncertain                                                        al-Tayyib (disappeared 1130)
> Hasan II (d. 1166)
> al-Zafir (d. 1154)
> Muhammad II (d. 1210)
> al-Fa
iz (d. 1160)
> Hasan III (d. 1221)
> al-
Adid (d. 1171)
> Muhammad III (d. 1255)
> Tayyibis, hidden imams
> Khwurshah, surrendered 1256                                                                                                     to present
> 
> modern Nizari imams
> 
> SOURCE: Hodgson, M.G.S. The Order of Assassins. New York: AMS Press, 1995. Quoted in Lapidus, Ira M. A History of Islamic Societies. New
> York: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
> 
> 760                                                                                                                Islam and the Muslim World
> Shi
i Imams
> 
> Ja
far                                                                                                               1. 
Ali                                                                       al-
Abbas
> (d. 661)
> 
> 
Abdallah                                                                                                                                                                                           
Abdallah
> (by Fatima)                                                                (by Fatima)                                                  (by Hanafi woman)
> 2. Hasan                                                                   3. Husayn                                                Muhammad b. al-Hanifiyya
> (d. 669)                                                                   (d. 680)                                                        (d. 700)
> 
Ali
> Mu
awiya
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World
> 4. 
Ali (Zayn al-‘Abidin)
> Abu Hashim
> (d. 714)
> (d. 716)
> Zayd                                           Hasan
> Muhammad
> 
> 
Abdallah                                 Ibrahim                              
Abdallah            5. Muhammad al-Baqir                           Zayd
> b. Mu
awiya                                                                    (d. c. 758)                 (d. 731)                               (d. 740)
> (d. 746)                                                                                                                                                                             Ibrahim        al-Saffah     al-Mansur
> (d. 748)       (d. 754)       (d. 775)
> Yahya         Ibrahim       Muhammad        Idris
> (d. 763)        al-Nafs                  6. Ja
far al-Sadiq            Yahya                      
Isa
> al-Zakiya                      (d. 765)                (d. 743)                  (d. 783)
> (d. 762)                                                                                                            The Abbasid Caliphs
> Ibrahim Tabataba
> 
> Ahmad
> (d. 860)
> Muhammad                                                         7. Isma
il                                 7. Musa al-Kazim
> b. Tabataba               al-Qasim                                (d. 760)                                      (d. 799)
> (d. 815)                (d. 860)
> 
> 8. 
Ali al-Rida
> (d. 818)
> Zayd
> Muhammad
> Husayn                                 al-Mahdi                                9. Muhammad al-Jawad
> (d. 835)
> 
> Hasan                Muhammad
> (d. 884)               (d. 900)                                                                             The Qarmatians          10. 
Ali al-Hadi
> (d. 868)
> Yahya al-Hadi                           
Ubaydallah
> (d. 911)                                (d. 934)
> Zaydi Imams                                                                                                           11. Hasan al-
Askari
> of Tabaristan                                                                                                               (d. 874)
> 
> 12. Muhammad al-Mahdi
> Zaydi Imams                             The Fatimid
> of the Yemen                              Caliphs
> 
> The "Twelver" or Imami Shi
a
> 
> Genealogies
> 
> SOURCE: Peters, F. E. Allah's Commonwealth. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1973. Quoted in Lapidus, Ira M. A History of Islamic Societies. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
> 
> Shi
a imam lineage.
> Timelines
> 
> ISLAM IN CENTRAL AND EAST ASIA 600–2003 C.E.                      737
> Death of the Khan in Tukharistan.
> Tang begin to unite China.
> Fall of the Western Turkish empire.
> 664                                                               741
> Arab conquest of Kabul.                                           Sogdians restored to their native land.
> 671                                                               742
> Arab armies cross Oxus (Amu Carya).                               Congregational mosque built in Balkh.
> 681                                                               743
> Arabs cross into Transoxania and spend winter.                    Partisans of 
Ali revolt in Khurasan.
> 683                                                               745
> Civil war in Khurasan.                                            Foundation of Uighur Empire in Central Asia (Chinese
> Turkestan, to 840).
> Eastern Turks invade Transoxania.                                 747
> Abu Muslim arrives in Khurasan.
> Umayyad rule restored in Khurasan.                                748
> Chinese destroy Suyab.
> Qutayba ibn Muslim marches into Khurasan.
> Defeat of Tang Chinese by Arab forces at battle of Talas
> 711                                                               River; end of Arab advances in Central Asia.
> Eastern Turks conquer western Central Asia.
> 712                                                               Prince of Ushrusana sends embassy to China.
> Arabs conquer Khwarizm; Eastern Turks take Samarkand.             753
> 713                                                               Walls and defensive towers constructed at Samarkand.
> Qutayba ibn Muslim reaches Ferghana; first mosque built in         763
> Bukhara.                                                          Tang China is invaded by Tibetans.
> 725                                                               766
> Restoration of Balkh.                                             Qarluqs occupy Suyab.
> 729                                                               783
> Muslim rule restored in Bukhara.                                  Defensive walls constructed near Bukhara.
> 733                                                               792
> Famine in Khurasan.                                               Qarluqs expelled from Ferghana.
> 
> Timelines
> 
> 794                                                           1090
> Subjugation of Ushrusana; new congregational mosque built     Shi
a Ismailis (of Alamut, Assassins) emerge as major force in
> in Bukhara.                                                   North Persia (to 1256).
> 
> 806                                                           1123
> Rafi
 bin Layth revolts in Samarkand.                          Rubaiyat (quatrains) of Omar Khayyam; also his Algebra, for
> which he is more celebrated in his homeland, Persia.
> Famine in Khurasan.                                           1188
> Nizami’s Layla and Majnun, a Persian recasting of perennially
> 819                                                           popular pre-Islamic love story in verse.
> Founding of Samanid dynasty in Khurasan and Transoxania
> (to 1005).                                                    1206
> Mongols united by Temujin, proclaimed Genghis Khan; The
> 820                                                           Great Yasa, law code of the Mongols promulgated by Gen-
> The Tughuzghuz take Ushrusana.                                ghis Khan; Mongols begin conquest of Central Asia.
> 830                                                           1211
> Tahirids proclaim independence at Khurasan.                   Mongols begin conquest of northern (Jin) China.
> 867                                                           1219
> Founding of Saffarid dynasty in east Persia (to 1495).        Mongol invasion of Khwarizm Empire.
> 868                                                           1227
> The Diamond Sutra, world’s oldest surviving printed work.     Death of Genghis Khan.
> 907                                                           1229
> End of the Tang dynasty in China, Arab disruption of trans-   Ogodai elected Great Khan.
> Asian trade.
> 1231
> 916                                                           Mongols reconquer resurgent Empire of the Khwarizm Shah.
> Foundation of Khitan Empire.
> 1233
> 947                                                           Mongols take Jin capital, Kaifeng.
> Khitans invade northern China, establishing Lao dynasty at
> Beijing.                                                      1235
> Walled city built at Karakorum as fixed Mongol capital.
> Foundation of Afghan Ghaznavid dynasty.                       1237
> Start of Mongol conquest of Russia.
> Paper money introduced in China.                              1253–1255
> William of Rubruck crosses Asia to Karakorum.
> Song dynasty unites China.                                    1256
> Il-Khanate established in Persia, successor state to Mongols
> 992                                                           (to 1353); Hulegu crosses Oxus.
> Establishment of Qarakhanid dynasty in Transoxania (to
> 1211).                                                        1258
> Sa
di’s Gulistan, major popular classic of Persian literature.
> 1020
> Firdowsi’s Shahnameh—Book of Kings, Persia’s national epic.   1259
> Great Khan Mongke dies.
> 1038
> Beginning of Seliuk dynasty, the first major Turkish Muslim    1264
> empire (to 1194).                                             Kublai defeats rival for title of Great Khan, ending civil war.
> 
> c. 1040                                                       1265
> Seliuk Turks conquer Afghanistan and East Persia.             Death of Hulegu.
> 
> c. 1045                                                       1271–1295
> Movable type printing invented in China.                      Marco Polo travels throughout Asia, returning by ship through
> Persian Gulf.
> 1077
> Seljuk governors in Oxus region establish separate state of   1274
> Khwarizm Shah (to 1231).                                      First Mongol attempt to invade Japan defeated.
> 
> 764                                                                                       Islam and the Muslim World
> Timelines
> 
> 1275                                                            1443
> Marco Polo reaches Kublai Khan’s summer palace at Shangdu       Great Library at Herat, Persia founded.
> (Xanadu).
> 1499
> 1279                                                            Rise to power of Safavids in Persia.
> Foundation of Yuan dynasty, Yuan take over Southern Song.
> 1500
> 1281                                                            Shaybanid dynasty, of Mongol descent, assumes control of
> Second failed Mongol invasion of Japan.                         Transoxania (to 1598).
> 1292                                                            1501
> Marco Polo given task of escorting Mongol princess to           Accession of Shah Isma
il I; beginning of Safavid dynasty in
> Hormuz.                                                         Persia (to 1732) .
> 1294                                                            1534–1535
> Death of Kublai Khan.                                           Safavid war with Ottomans, who capture Tabriz and Baghdad.
> 1295                                                            1553–1555
> Conversion of the Il-Khan Ghazan to Islam.                      Safavid war with Ottomans.
> 1320                                                            1557
> Outbreak of plague in Yunnan province.                          Foundation of Portuguese colony at Macao.
> 1320–1330                                                       1578–1590
> Mongol armies help spread plague throughout China.              Safavid war with Ottomans.
> 1330
> 1581
> Plague reaches northeastern China.
> Yermak begins Russian conquest of Siberia.
> 1335
> 1598
> Rebellions against Mongol rule in China.
> Anthony and Robert Sherley travel to Persia, where they
> 1335                                                            meet Shah 
Abbas.
> Mongol wazir Ghiyath al-Din in Tabriz commissions an
> 1603
> illustrated Shahnameh, a fine example of a Persian illuminated
> Foundation of Tokugawa Shogunate in Japan.
> manuscript (called the Demotte Shahnameh).
> 1627
> 1346
> Herbert’s travels in Persia.
> Plague reaches coast of Black Sea.
> 
> 1368                                                            1636
> Establishment of the Ming dynasty.                              Manchus establish Qing imperial rule at Mukden.
> 
> 1379                                                            1644
> Timur marches on Urgench.                                       Qing forces enter Beijing.
> 
> 1395                                                            1689
> Sack of New Sarai, capital of Golden Horde.                     Treaty of Nerchinsk agrees Russian and Chinese spheres of
> influence in East Asia.
> 1405
> Beginning of Ming admiral Zheng He’s seven voyages to           1722–1736
> Indian Ocean (to 1433).                                         Subjugation of Afghans by Persia.
> 
> 1405                                                            1730–1734
> The Rigistan, Samarkand, built by Timur and one of the          Suppression of Khazaks by Russia.
> glories of his capital; End of Ming campaign against Mongols.
> 1736
> c. 1433                                                         Nadir Shah becomes Shah of Persia.
> Construction of ocean-going junks banned by Ming.
> 1747
> 1439                                                            Foundation of Afghanistan by Ahmad Khan Abdali.
> Poggio Bracciolini records Asian journeys of Niccolo Conti.
> 1751
> 1449                                                            Tibet, Dzungaria, Turkestan, and the Tarrm Basin overrun
> Mongols defeat Chinese and capture the emperor.                 by Qing Chinese.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                             765
> Timelines
> 
> 1758–1759                                                        1945
> Qing campaigns against Kalmyks.                                  Stalin begins transfer of ethnic-minority peoples to labor
> camps in Siberia.
> 1786
> Start of Qajar dynasty in Persia.                                1946–1949
> Chinese Civil War between Nationalists and Communists.
> 1839–1842
> Afghans under Dost Muhammad defeat British in First Afghan       1955
> War.                                                             Afghan government supports movement for separation of
> Pakhtunistan from Pakistan.
> 1840–1842
> 1962
> Opium War, British attacks force trading concessions from
> China.                                                           Land reform in Iran reduces power and influence of religious
> establishment.
> 1850s
> 1973
> Widespread Muslim rebellions against Qing rule in China.
> Rebellion in Afghanistan.
> 1855–1873                                                        1979
> Jihad of Yunnan Muslims, ends 1873.                              Islamic revolution in Iran, deposition of shah, proclamation
> of Islamic republic.
> 1863–1873
> Northwest uprising in Uighur domains of Qing empire,             1979
> largest Muslim jihad in East Asia.                               Deposition of monarchy in Afghanistan, Soviet invasion and
> civil war.
> 1864
> Establishment of Russian control in Kalmykia (Semipalatinsk) .   1989
> Crushing of pro-democracy demonstrators in Beijing.
> 1868–1870
> Suppression of Muslim states of Bukhara and Samarkand by         1989
> Russia.                                                          Soviet troops withdraw from Afghanistan.
> 
> 1878–1879                                                        1990–1891
> Second Afghan War, British attempt to invade Afghanistan,        Collapse of U.S.S.R. creation of Central Asian republics;
> which is coming under Russian influence.                          Islamic revival throughout region.
> 
> 1909                                                             1995
> Anglo-Persian Oil Company (later British Petroleum) founded      Taliban militia reignites Afghan civil war.
> in Iran.                                                         1996
> 1911                                                             Taliban forces capture Kabul.
> Qing dynasty overthrown by Sun Yat Sen’s nationalists and        2001
> Republic of China declared.                                      Saudi millionaire Usama bin Ladin identified as mastermind
> behind al-Qa
ida attacks on New York and Washington on
> 1925
> 11 September; U.S. demands his extradition from Afghanistan.
> Reza Shah deposes last Qajar shah and is proclaimed ruler of
> Iran. He introduces Western-style reforms.                       2001
> U.S.-led coalition declares “war on terrorism,” coalition
> 1941                                                             forces attack and overthrow Taliban regime in Afghanistan in
> Abdication of Reza Shah, his son, Muhammad Reza Shah             response to al-Qa
ida terrorist attacks.
> Pahlavi, succeeds him.
> 2001
> 1945                                                             Reformist Iranian President Mohammad Khatami is relected
> Atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki force Japanese            with 77.4 percent of the votes, running on an Islamic democsurrender in World War II.                                       racy platform against hard-liners and conservative clerics.
> 1945                                                             2002
> (August) U.S.S.R. declares war on Japan.                         Chechen independence movement continues attacks on Russia; seizes theater with 700 hostages.
> 1945
> (August) Atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima.                         2002
> Afghani Loya Jerga, or grand council, elects Hamid Karzai as
> 1945                                                             interim head of state; he selects an administration to serve
> (September) Japanese surrender.                                  until 2004.
> 
> 766                                                                                          Islam and the Muslim World
> Timelines
> 
> 2003                                                              789
> Thousands fill the Iranian streets in wide scale anti-government   Idrisids establish power in Northwest Africa (Morocco, to
> protests of political and economic conditions.                    926).
> Adapted from: Lunde, Paul. Islam: Faith, Culture, History.        790
> New York: DK Publishing, Inc., 2002.                              Beginnings of Viking raids on western Europe.
> 
> ISLAM IN EUROPE AND AFRICA 600–2003 C.E.                          Start of Aghlabid dynasty in Tunis.
> 
> c. 800
> 624                                                               Emergence of trading towns such as Manda and Kilwa on
> Visigoths expel last Byzantine garrisons from southern Iberia.    East African coast.
> 626                                                               800
> Constantinople besieged by Sassanids, Avars, and Slavs.           Charlemagne crowned Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Leo
> III in Rome.
> 635–642
> Conquest of Egypt by Arabs.                                       827
> Crete and Sicily attacked by Aghlabids.
> Foundation of Fustat (Egypt) and Great Mosque by 
Amr ibn         830
> al-
As.                                                           Foundation of Great Mosque at Kayrawan.
> 647                                                               839
> Arab invasion of Tripolitania.                                    Swedes travel through Russia to Constantinople, opening of
> river trade from Baltic to Black Sea.
> Byzantine Emperor Constans II invades Italy and sacks Rome.       844
> Vikings attack Seville.
> Arab conquest of North Africa extended beyond Tripoli to          847
> the West.                                                         Muslim raiders burn outskirts of Rome.
> 
> 670                                                               862
> Annexation of Tunisia, founding of the city of Kayrawan.          Novgorod founded by Rurik the Viking.
> 
> 680                                                               863
> Arab armies reach Atlantic at Morocco.                            Saints Cyril and Methodius sent as Orthodox Christian
> missionaries to Moravia.
> Invasion of Iberian Peninsula by Tariq, conquest of Visigothic    868
> kingdom (by 714).                                                 Ahmad Ibn Tulun founds the Tulunid dynasty in Egypt (to
> 905), control spreads to Syria.
> Muslim capture of Toledo.                                         876
> Building of mosque of Ibn Tulun, Cairo, based on Great
> 714                                                               Mosque at Samarra.
> South and Central Spain effectively under Muslim control.
> 718                                                               Kiev becomes capital of new Russian state.
> Christian victory at battle of Covadonga temporarily halts
> Muslim advance in Iberian Peninsula.                              896
> Magyars start to settle in Danube basin.
> Arab armies halted at Poitiers, France.                           899–905
> 
Abbasid campaign against Egypt.
> Revived Umayyad dynasty established at Cordoba by 
Abd al-        c. 900
> Rahman (to 1031).                                                 Arab dhows (sailing ships) begin to ply the coastal routes of
> East Africa, as far south as Sofala.
> Foundation of Great Mosque at Cordoba, extended in four           c. 900
> phases (832–848, 929–961, 961–976, 987).                          First sighting of Greenland by Viking seamen.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                767
> Timelines
> 
> 905                                                            1076
> 
Abbasids take over Egypt.                                     King of Ghana converts to Islam.
> 
> 910                                                            1085
> Shi
ite Fatimids expel Aghlabids from Tunis, extend power to   Christian forces under Alfonso VI of Leon take Toledo.
> Egypt and Syria and claim caliphate (to 1171).
> 1086
> 928                                                            Almoravids enter Spain.
> Ruler of Cordoba, 
Abd al-Rahman III, takes title of caliph.
> 1091
> 936                                                            Completion of Norman conquest of Sicily.
> Cordoba palace complex of Madiniat al-Zahra begun.
> 1094
> 969                                                            Christian warlord El Cid takes Valencia.
> Fatimids conquer Egypt, founded city of Cairo.
> 1095
> 970                                                            Byzantine empire appeals for aid to pope, who preaches in
> Al-Azhar University established in Cairo.                      France to raise support.
> 972                                                            c. 1110
> Zirid dynasty, of Berber origin, rule Tunisia and E Algeria,   Onset of serious desiccation of Sahel region.
> based at Kayrawan (to 1148).
> 1126
> 976–1009
> Birth of Muslim philosopher Averroes (Ibn Rushd) in Cordoba.
> Decline of Arab power in Iberia.
> 1128
> Almohad religious revival order starts takeover of Almoravid
> Ghana captures Berber town of Awdaghost, gaining control
> dominions in North Africa and Iberia (1130–1269).
> of southern portion of trans- Saharan trade route.
> 1132
> c. 1000
> Palatine Chapel at Palermo, unique blend of Romanesque,
> Arab merchants begin to set up trading states in Ethiopian
> Byzantine, and Islamic architectural elements.
> Highlands.
> 1136
> 1015
> Independence of Russian state of Novgorod.
> Hammadids, offshoot of Zirids, rule East Algeria (to 1152).
> 1137
> 1025
> Union of Aragon and Catalonia.
> Death of great Byzantine emperor, Basil II (the Bulgar
> Slayer).                                                       1147
> 1031                                                           Almohads established in Morocco and southern Spain.
> Beginning of Christian reconquest (Reconquista) of Spain.      1147
> 1041                                                           Second Crusade; Lisbon taken from Moors; Holy Roman
> Zirids of Ifriqiya gain independence.                          Emperor Conrad defeated by Turks at Dorylaeum.
> 
> 1048                                                           1154
> Fatimids lose control of Ifriqiya (Tunisia).                   Building of Chartres Cathedral.
> 
> 1050                                                           1169
> King of Takrur converts to Islam.                              Shi
ite Fatimid dynasty in Egypt suppressed by Saladin.
> 
> 1054                                                           1171
> Final schism between Roman and Orthodox churches.              Founding of Ayyubid sultanate in Egypt (to 1260).
> 
> 1066                                                           1172
> Battle of Hastings, Norman conquest of England.                Great Mosque at Seville, intended to be the largest in the
> world, and the Giralda, a great square minaret.
> 1071
> Completion of St. Mark’s basilica, focus of public religious   1174
> life in Venice.                                                Saladin becomes Ayyubid sultan of Egypt and Syria (to 1193).
> 
> 1076                                                           1184
> Ghana falls to Almoravids.                                     Completion of citadel at Cairo.
> 
> 768                                                                                       Islam and the Muslim World
> Timelines
> 
> 1189                                                             1261
> Start of Third Crusade.                                          Michael Palaeologus recaptures Constantinople and restores
> Byzantine Empire.
> 1189
> Succession of Richard I the Lionheart.                           1269
> Marinids inflict final defeat on Almohads in Morocco.
> 1194
> Emperor Henry VI crowned King of Sicily.                         1270
> Death of Louis IX outside walls of Tunis.
> 1196
> Marinids take control of Morocco (to 1485).                      1273
> Foundation of Alhambra Palace at Granada.
> 1200
> Emergence of Hausa city-states, which come to dominate           1282
> sub-Saharan trade.                                               French driven from Sicily, which passes to Aragon.
> 
> 1200                                                             1306–1310
> Rise of Mali in West Africa.                                     Hospitallers conquer Rhodes, which becomes their base.
> 1204                                                             1312
> Fourth Crusade never reaches Holy Land; Crusaders sack           Knights Templar Order accused of heresy and suppressed by
> Constantinople; Venetian gains in Adriatic and Peloponnese.      Pope.
> 1208                                                             1324
> Crusade against Cathars, or Albigensians, in southern France.    Pilgrimage to Mecca by Mansa Musa of Mali.
> 1212                                                             1325
> Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa, decisive defeat of Almohads by    Ibn Battuta’s first pilgrimage to Mecca.
> Christians in Iberia.
> 1331
> 1226                                                             lbn Battuta’s voyage to the Swahili cities of East Africa.
> Creation of the Golden Horde, Mongol state in south Russia
> (to 1502).                                                       1347
> Marinids take Tunis.
> 1228
> Start of collapse of Almohad Empire in North Africa.             1348–135
> Black Death reaches Europe and North Africa.
> 1228
> Hafsid dynasty established at Tunis (to 1574).                   1352
> Ibn Battuta’s travels to the Mali Empire.
> 1230
> Establishment of Nasrid kingdom of Granada Muslim strong-        1354
> hold in southern Spain (to 1492).                                First Ottoman conquests in Southeast Europe at Gallipoli,
> Ottomans advance into Europe.
> 1230
> Establishment of the Mali Empire.                                1366
> Capture of Edirne (Adrianople) by Ottomans.
> 1236
> Christian reconquest of Cordoba.                                 1378
> Beginning of Great Schism in Catholic church (to 1417).
> 1241
> Mongols invade Poland and Hungary.                               1381
> Peasants’ Revolt in England.
> 1248
> Christian reconquest of Seville.                                 1389
> Battle of Kosovo, Ottomans gain control of Balkans.
> 1250–1254
> First of Louis IX’s crusades; Invasion of Egypt ends in defeat   1393
> at Mansura; Louis captured and ransomed.                         Ottoman conquest of Bulgaria.
> 
> c.1250                                                           1396
> Building of stone mosques in Swahili city-states.                Bayazid defeats crusader army at Nicopolis.
> 
> 1250                                                             1415
> Mali Empire at its greatest extent.                              Portuguese capture Ceuta in Morocco.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                    769
> Timelines
> 
> 1430                                                        1529
> Sultans of Kilwa begin grand building program.              Unsuccessful Turkish siege of Vienna.
> 
> 1442                                                        1538
> Al-Maqrizi writes detailed topographical survey of Egypt.   Holy League against the Turks formed.
> 
> 1453                                                        1540
> Constantinople falls to Ottoman sultan Mehmed II.           Portuguese come to the aid of Ethiopia against Ahmad Gran.
> 1459                                                        1543
> Annexation of Serbia by Ottomans.                           Death of Ahmad Gran, shot by a Portuguese musketeer.
> 1464                                                        1546
> Beginning of Songay expansion under Sunni Ali.              Songhay destroys Mali Empire.
> 1469                                                        1547
> Marriage of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile,    Negotiated peace acknowledges Ottoman control of most of
> union of Castile and Aragon (1479).                         Hungary.
> 1480                                                        1562
> Muscovy throws off Mongol yoke.                             After inconclusive skirmishes, Ottomans gain Transylvania.
> 1484                                                        1565
> Ottoman Turks capture Akkerman at mouth of Dniester.        Ottoman siege of Malta fails.
> 1492                                                        1571
> Columbus, in search of Asia, reaches Caribbean.             Ottomans take Cyprus from Venetians, at battle of Lepanto
> 1492                                                        Ottoman navy defeated by united Christian fleet off Greek
> coast.
> Muslim Granada falls to Spain.
> 1578
> 1494
> Treaty of Tordesillas divides western hemisphere between    Moroccans crush invading Portuguese.
> Spain and Portugal.                                         1580
> 1502                                                        Union of Spanish and Portuguese crowns.
> First slaves taken to the New World.                        1588
> 1505                                                        English defeat Spanish Armada.
> First Portuguese trading posts in East Africa.              1591
> 1511                                                        Moroccan invaders destroy Songhay Empire.
> Sadian dynasty comes to power in Morocco (to 1659).
> 1618
> 1517                                                        Thirty Years War in Europe (to 1648).
> Ottomans conquer Mamluks in Egypt.
> c.1660
> 1519                                                        Collapse of Mali Empire.
> Charles V elected Holy Roman Emperor.
> 1664
> 1519–1522                                                   Turkish advance on Vienna turned back at battle of St.
> Magellan begins and del Cano completes first global          Gotthard.
> circumnavigation.
> 1682
> 1521                                                        Peter the Great becomes czar of Russia.
> Sulayman takes Belgrade.
> 1683
> 1521                                                        Siege of Vienna ends in Ottoman defeat.
> Siege of Rhodes under Knights of St. John by Ottomans.
> 1698
> 1526                                                        Arabs from Oman capture Mombasa.
> Battle of Mohacs, Ottoman invasion of Hungary.
> 1699
> 1529                                                        Peace of Karlowitz confirms Austrian conquests from
> Ahmad Gran leads jihad against Ethiopia.                    Ottomans.
> 
> 770                                                                                    Islam and the Muslim World
> Timelines
> 
> 1701                                                              1852
> Start of Asante’s rise to prominence.                             
Umar Tal conquers the Senegal valley.
> 
> 1705                                                              1853
> Foundation of Husaynid dynasty in Tunis, which rules until        Russians defeat Turkish navy at Sinop.
> 1957.
> 1854–1856
> 1716–1718                                                         Crimean War, French and British support Ottoman Turks
> Further Austrian victories, including capture of Belgrade         against Russia.
> from Ottomans.
> 1861
> 1729                                                              
Umar Tal’s forces conquer Segu.
> Portuguese leave East Africa following attacks from Oman.
> 1861
> 1730                                                              Abolition of serfdom in Russia.
> Revival of Bomu Empire in central Africa.
> 1863
> c. 1730                                                           Al-Hajj 
Umar Tal clashes with French in Senegal Valley and
> Emergence of Fulbe confederation of Futa Jallon.                  creates a Muslim empire, invades Timbuktu.
> 1757                                                              1864
> Muhammad III becomes Sultan of Morocco.                           
Umar Tal is killed attemping to suppress Fulani rebellion.
> 1768                                                              1869
> War between Russia and the Ottomans.                              Opening of Suez Canal.
> 1776                                                              1877–1878
> Abd al-Qadir leads Muslims in jihad along the Senegal River.      Russia, Serbia, and Montenegro at war with Turkey.
> 1798                                                              1878
> Occupation of Egypt by Napoleon Bonaparte, defeat of              Treaty of San Stefano negotiated by Russia and Turkey.
> Egyptians at battle of the Pyramids Battle of the Nile, British
> fleet defeats French.                                              1878
> Berlin Congress independence of Serbia, Montenegro, and
> 1804                                                              Romania from Ottomans.
> Fulani leader, 
Uthman dan Fodio declares jihad and conquers Hausa city-states.                                          1881
> Tunisia occupied by French.
> 1804
> Muhammad 
Ali becomes Viceroy of Egypt.                           1882
> Revolt in Egypt, occupation by British.
> 1804
> Napoleon proclaimed Emperor of France.                            1882
> Beginning of major Jewish emigration from Russian Empire.
> 1807
> Hausa kings replaced by Fulani emirs.                             1884
> Berlin Conference on Africa; Samory Toure proclaims his
> 1816                                                              Islamic theocracy in West Africa.
> Inspired by 
Uthman dan Fodio, Amadu Lobbo launches
> jihad in Masina.                                                  1885
> Bulgaria granted Eastern Rumelia.
> 1820
> Egyptians invade Sudan.                                           1887
> Bulgaria independent of Ottoman empire.
> 1820
> 
Uthman dan Fodio establishes Sokoto Fulani Kingdom.              1893
> French conquer Dahomey.
> 1821–1833
> Greek War of Independence from Ottomans.                          1904
> French create federation of French West Africa.
> 1830
> French invasion of Algeria, Algiers occupied.                     1908
> Bulgaria declares full independence.
> 1840
> Ottoman Empire under threat from Egypt, saved by British          1908
> and Austrian intervention.                                        Bosnia-Herzegovina annexed by Austro-Hungarian Empire.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                771
> Timelines
> 
> 1911                                                           1954
> Libya occupied by Italy.                                       Algerian uprising against French rule.
> 
> 1912                                                           1960
> Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece, and Montenegro form Balkan           Fifteen African countries gain independence.
> League, First Balkan War.
> 1963
> 1912–1913                                                      Foundation of Organization of African Unity (OAU).
> Balkan Wars. Ottomans lose most of their remaining European lands.                                                    1974
> Revised Yugoslav constitution grants Kosovo autonomy.
> 1914
> Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo pre-     1981
> cipitates start of World War I (to 1918).                      President Sadat       of   Egypt    assassinated   by    Islamic
> fundamentalists.
> 1914
> (Oct) Turkey closes Dardanelles.                               1983
> Islamic law imposed in Sudan.
> 1915
> Gallipoli landings Establishment of Salonican front.           1986
> U.S. bombs Libya in retaliation for terrorist attacks.
> 1917
> U.S. declares war on Central Powers, Bolshevik revolution in   1987
> Russia.                                                        Famine in Ethiopia.
> 1918                                                           1989
> End of World War I.                                            Fundamentalists seize power in Sudan.
> 1919                                                           1989–1990
> Treaty of Versailles creates a new European order.             Collapse of Communism in Europe.
> 1920                                                           1991
> (Aug) Treaty of Sevres.                                        Islamic Salvation Front poised to win Algerian general election, army cancels second round of voting.
> 1920
> Inauguration of League of Nations.                             1991
> 1922                                                           Start of civil war in Yugoslavia.
> U.S.S.R. (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) is formed.      1991
> 1929                                                           Unsuccessful coup attempt in U.S.S.R., disintegration of
> Soviet Union.
> Wall Street Crash.
> 1991
> 1939
> Croatia, Slovenia, and Bosnia declare independence from
> (September) Invasion of Poland by Germany and Soviet
> Yugoslavia.
> Union, outbreak of World War II.
> 
> 1941                                                           1992
> Germans and Italians advance into Egypt.                       Civil war in Georgia, Bosnia-Herzegovina.
> 
> 1942                                                           1994
> British defeat Germans at El Alamein.                          Russian troops invade Chechnya.
> 
> 1942                                                           1995
> Plans for Final Solution agreed at Wansee.                     Peace agreement (Dayton Accord) ends the Bosnian war,
> U.N. troops remain.
> 1945
> (May) Germany surrenders.                                      1998
> U.S. bombs Sudan and Afghanistan in retaliation for al-
> 1945                                                           Qa
ida bombing of U.S. institutions in Kenya and Tanzania.
> Yalta Conference, origins of Cold War.
> 1998
> 1949                                                           Slobodan Milosevic sends troops into areas controlled by
> Formation of NATO.                                             Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).
> 
> 772                                                                                        Islam and the Muslim World
> Timelines
> 
> 1999                                                                1191–1193
> Kosovo Peace talks collapse NATO begins bombing campaign.           Afghan Ghurids defeat Raiputs and seize Delhi and much of
> North India.
> 2000
> Milosevic forced to step down.                                      c. 1200
> Muslim Sufi saint, Mu
in al-Din Chishti, founds first Sufi
> 2001                                                                order in North Indian subcontinent.
> Milosevic arrested to face charges of war crimes in Bosnia and
> Kosovo.                                                             1206
> Breakaway Mamluk (Slave) dynasty, under Aibak, establishes
> 2003                                                                Delhi Sultanate.
> European reluctance to support attack on Iraq; only Britain
> and Spain support the United States.                                1258
> First Mongol expedition to Annam.
> 2003
> Turkish parliament votes against the use of its soil for U.S.       c. 1280
> attacks on Iraq, despite the offer of $26 billion in aid and loan   Mongol invasions of Southeast Asia destroy Pagan and eclipse
> guarantees.                                                         Dai Viet.
> 
> 2003                                                                1283
> (March 19) United States launches massive air attack on Iraq;       Expeditions against Annam and Champa.
> U.S., British and Australian troops enter Iraq.
> 1287
> 2003                                                                Mongol expedition to Pagan.
> Enormous anti-war protests rock Europe reaching as high as
> 750,000 in London.                                                  1288
> Kublai Khan abandons attempt to subdue Annam and Champa.
> 2003
> Liberian government and rebels sign a peace deal; outside           1293
> forces enter the country to maintain stability and protect          Failed Mongol invasion of Java.
> civilians.
> 1295
> Adapted from: Lunde, Paul. Islam: Faith, Culture, History.          Conversion of Sultan of Achin (Sumatra) to Islam, which
> New York: DK Publishing, Inc., 2002.                                spreads over much of the East Indies.
> 
> 1320
> Muhammad ibn Tughluq succeeds to Sultanate of Delhi.
> ISLAM IN SOUTH & SOUTHEAST ASIA 700–2003 C.E.
> 1334–1341
> 711–712                                                             Ibn Battuta serves as qadi (judge) in Delhi.
> Arab conquest of Sind introduces Islam to South Asia.
> 1336
> c. 750                                                              Rebellion against Tughluqs marks beginning of Vijayanagara
> Muslim merchants establish Islam in Kerala, southwest India.        Empire.
> 
> c. 800                                                              1345–1346
> Arab ships sailing as far as China.                                 Ibn Battuta visits Southeast Asia and China.
> 
> 977                                                                 1345
> Founding of Ghaznavid dynasty in North India (to 1186).             Hasan Gangu, governor of Tughluq Deccani domains, revolts and founds Bahmani kingdom.
> Mahmud of Ghazni extends rule into northwest India.                 1398
> Timur’s invasion of India, sack of Delhi leads to fall of
> c. 1025                                                             Tughluq dynasty.
> Conquest of Punjab by Ghaznavids.
> 1445
> 1030                                                                Conversion of Malacca (Malaya) to Islam.
> Tower of Victory built by Mahmud of Ghazni, Muslim
> conqueror of North India.                                           c. 1450
> Islam spreads over much of East Indies.
> 1186
> Raids by Muhammad al-Ghur herald decline of Ghaznavid               1487–1489
> dynasty, and of Buddhism, in North India.                           Portuguese Pero de Covilha sails through Red Sea to India.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                 773
> Timelines
> 
> 1498                                                          1728
> Vasco da Gama rounds Cape of Good Hope and reaches            Marathas defeat Nizam of Hyderabad and gain supremacy
> India.                                                        over Deccan with subsequent territorial expansion.
> 1502                                                          1739
> First published map to show correct general shape of India,   Sack of Delhi by Persians and Afghans under Nadir Shah.
> by Alberto Cantino.
> 1744–1763
> 1507                                                          Anglo-French (Camatic) wars, eclipse of French power in
> Portuguese victory over Ottoman and Arab fleet at Diu.         South Asia.
> 1509–1516                                                     1749
> Portuguese voyages to Moluccas, Malacca, and Macao.           Mysore starts to become major power in southern North
> 1510                                                          India.
> Portuguese conquest of Goa; Goa made capital of all Portu-    1757
> guese possessions in Asia.                                    Expansion of Gurkha (Neiali) domains over much of
> 1511–1512                                                     Himalayas.
> Portuguese establish base in Malacca and reach Moluccas.      1757
> 1517                                                          Battle of Plassey, British victors, over combined French and
> First Portuguese trading mission to China.                    Mogul force establishes British power in Bengal.
> 
> 1526                                                          1761
> Babur conquers Delhi and founds Mogul Empire.                 Defeat by Afghans temporarily ends Maratha hegemony over
> northern North India.
> 1538
> Failure of Ottoman blockade of Portuguese at Diu.             1761
> British destroy French power in North India following sei-
> 1556                                                          zure of Pondicherry.
> Akbar becomes Mogul emperor (to 1605); reign marked by
> territorial expansion and cordial Hindu-Muslim relations.     1767
> Appointment of James Rennell as first Surveyor-General of
> 1600                                                          Bengal, beginning of Survey of India.
> Founding of British East India Company.
> 1775
> 1627                                                          First Anglo-Maratha war (to 1782).
> Shah Jahan becomes Mogul emperor.
> 1782
> c. 1647                                                       Treaty ending first Anglo-Maratha war results in territorial
> Completion of Atlas of India by Sadiq Isfahani.               losses for Marathas.
> 1653                                                          1788
> Completion of Taj Mahal for Shah Jahan’s wife.                Occupation of Delhi, Maratha territorial apogee, Mogul
> 1658                                                          rulers become puppets of Marathas.
> Aurangzeb becomes Mogul emperor; empire reaches maxi-         1799
> mum extent during his reign (to 1701).
> Conquest of Mysore ends challenge to British power in
> c 1660                                                        southern North India.
> Gujaratis make earliest known North Indian nautical charts.   1803
> c. 1700                                                       Second Anglo-Maratha war leads to British acquisition of
> Probable commencement of Mogul military mapping.              Delhi.
> 
> 1707                                                          1815
> Death of Aurangzeb heralds decline of Mogul power in          Victory in Anglo-Gurkha war extends British possessions
> North India.                                                  into the Himalayas.
> 
> c. 1720                                                       1818
> Marathas start to expand over most of India.                  Third Anglo-Maratha war ends in Maratha defeat.
> 
> 1724                                                          1819
> Independent rule over Deccan by Nizam of Hyderabad            Stamford Raffles, of the British East India company, founds
> hastens disintegration of empire.                             Singapore.
> 
> 774                                                                                      Islam and the Muslim World
> Timelines
> 
> 1849                                                            1945
> British annex Punjab after two Sikh wars.                       Sukarno and Ho Chi Minh declare independence for Indonesia and Vietnam respectively.
> 1857
> Last Mogul emperor, the Maratha puppet Bahadur Shah II,         1947
> dethroned and exiled by British.                                India and Pakistan gain independence.
> 
> 1857–1859                                                       1947
> Revolt (Mutiny) attempts to oust British from India May 30,     New independent dominions of India (Hindu) and Pakistan
> 1857: Lucknow mutiny. June 27, 1857 massacre of British         (Muslim) are born.
> evacuees at Cawnpore.
> 1947
> 1858                                                            Start of Indo-Pakistani War fought over Jammu and Kashmir;
> (March 22) British retake Lucknow after twenty-day siege.       U.N. ceasefire line agreed in 1949.
> 
> 1859                                                            1949
> Timor divided between Netherlands and Portugal.                 Indonesia gains independence from the Dutch.
> 
> 1873                                                            1952
> Dutch attack on Achin sultanate in Sumatra.                     First Indian general election won by Congress Party.
> 
> 1876                                                            1954
> Queen Victoria declared Empress of India, and a viceroy         Sukarno abrogates union with Dutch and declares unitary
> appointed as her representative.                                state of Indonesia.
> 
> 1956
> 1885
> Pakistan constituted as Islamic Republic.
> Foundation of Indian National Congress.
> 1957
> 1904
> Malaya granted independence from Britain, despite ongoing
> Partition of Bengal; nationalist agitation in North India.
> Communist insurrection.
> 1906
> 1958
> Foundation of All-India Muslim League.                          Abortive secessionist uprisings in Baluchistan, Pakistan.
> 1918                                                            1963
> Indian contribution to World War I earns it membership in       Federation of Malaysia incorporates Singapore, Sarawak, and
> League of Nations.                                              Sabah, along with Malaya.
> 1919                                                            1965
> Amritsar massacre leads to surge in North Indian nationalism.   Second inconclusive Indo-Pakistani war over Jammu and
> Kashmir.
> 1920
> Mahatma Gandhi gains control of Indian National Congress.       1965
> Failed Marxist coup and military countercoup in Indonesia
> 1920
> ends Sukarno regime.
> Start of civil disobedience campaigns by Gandhi in support of
> independence struggle.                                          1971
> Secession of East Pakistan leads to creation of Bangladesh;
> 1926–1927                                                       Third IndoPakistani war as India intervenes.
> Rebellion against Dutch rule in Java and Sumatra.
> 1975
> 1942                                                            Indonesia annexes East Timor.
> Indonesia, Indochina, Malaya, the Philippines, New Guinea,
> and Singapore seized by Japan.                                  1989–
> Revival of violent insurrection against Indian rule in Jammu
> 1942                                                            and Kashmir.
> (February) Surrender of British forces to Japan in Singapore.
> 1998
> 1942                                                            Economic crisis in Indonesia leads to overthrow of government.
> (March) Dutch surrender East Indies to Japan.
> 1999
> 1945                                                            Referendum in East Timor produces overwhelming vote for
> India becomes U.N. charter member.                              independence.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                  775
> Timelines
> 
> 2001                                                            637
> Attack on North Indian parliament by Muslim terrorists          Arab conquest of Mesopotamia.
> leads to increased tensionbetween North India and Pakistan
> over Kashmir.                                                   637
> Arabs capture Ctesiphon.
> 2002
> East Timor officially declares independence from Indonesia.      637
> Arabs defeat Persians at al-Qadisiya; Jerusalem seized.
> 2003
> Indian and Pakistan resume diplomatic, trade, and transpor-     638
> tation ties.                                                    Foundation of first mosque in Kufa.
> 
> Adapted from: Lunde, Paul. Islam: Faith, Culture, History.      641
> New York: DK Publishing, Inc., 2002.                            Arabs capture Nineveh and invade Armenia.
> 
> ISLAM IN SOUTHWEST ASIA 570–2003 C.E.                           Muslims invade Persia, Sassanid Empire falls.
> 
> 570                                                             Death of 
 Umar, 
Uthman appointed caliph.
> Birth of Muhammad in Mecca.
> 595                                                             Assassination of 
Uthman; 
Ali, son-in-law of Muhammad
> First marriage of Muhammad to Khadija, a merchant.              chosen as the fourth caliph but struggles for control of
> 610                                                             caliphate (to 661).
> Muhammad receives first revelation.                              660
> 611                                                             Mu
awiya proclaimed caliph in Damascus.
> Arabs invade Mesopotamia.                                       661
> 611–626                                                         
Ali assassinated; beginning of Umayyad Caliphate (to 750).
> Sassanid armies capture Jerusalem and overrun Asia Minor.       670
> 622                                                             Reconstruction of mosque in Kufa.
> Muhammad’s emigration with followers to Yathrib (Medina),       683
> the Hijra, and the start of the Islamic calendar.
> Anti-caliphate movement based in Mecca (to 693).
> Qibla oriented toward Jerusalem.
> Building of Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, completed 692.
> Muhammad’s rejection of links with Judaism.
> Burning of the Ka
ba; anti-caliph executed.
> Muhammad’s pilgrimage to Mecca.
> Great Mosques of Damascus and Medina built, al-Aqsa
> 630                                                             Mosque in Jerusalem.
> Orientation of qibla is altered toward Ka
ba in Mecca.
> 632                                                             Abbasid Caliphate established in Baghdad.
> Death of Muhammad in Medina, sucession of Abu Bakr (to
> 634), beginning of Arab expansion in Arabian peninsula.
> Umayyad Caliphate is overthrown in Damascus, succeeded
> 633–637                                                         by the Abbasid Dynasty (to 1258).
> Muslims conquer Syria.
> 634                                                             Al-Mansur becomes caliph in Baghdad (to 775).
> Caliphate of 
Umar (to 644), conquest of Palestine and Syria.
> 635                                                             Under Abbasid Caliphate, new interest in seafaring, focused
> Arab armies cross Euphrates.                                    on Persian Gulf routes.
> 
> 636                                                             762
> Byzantine army routed by Muslims on Yarmuk River.               Abbasid capital moved to Mesopotamia; founding of Baghdad.
> 
> 776                                                                                        Islam and the Muslim World
> Timelines
> 
> 786                                                            950
> Harun al-Rashid becomes caliph; Baghdad becomes center of      Death of philosopher al-Farabi.
> arts and learning.
> 809                                                            Al-Mas
udi’s major historical/geographical work The Mead-
> Death of Harun al-Rashid, start of civil war between al-Amin   ows of Gold.
> and al-Mamun (ends 813).
> 813                                                            Fatimids establish control of Damascus.
> Reign of al-Mamun, development of sciences and math in
> the Arab and Islamic world.
> Seljuk Turks enter lands of caliphate.
> Death of al-Shafi.
> Byzantine forces threaten to take Jerusalem.
> 1005
> Baghdad terrorized by Turkish slave troops. Abbasid Caliph
> Al-Sufi’s Geography, (now in St. Petersburg) probably oldest
> al-Mu
tasim builds new capital at Samarra.
> extant illustrated Arabic manuscript.
> 848                                                            1009
> Foundation of Great Mosque at Samarra with monumental          Destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.
> spiral minaret.
> 1055
> 860                                                            Seljuks capture Baghdad, ruling in the name of the Abbasid
> Zaidi Imams rise to power in Yemen; rule intermittently to     caliph.
> 1281.
> 1069
> 862                                                            Seljuks take Konya (Iconium).
> Qubba al-Sulaybiya mausoleum, Samarra; first monumental
> Islamic tomb.                                                  1071
> Seljuks under Alp Arslan defeat Byzantines at Manzikert.
> Byzantines annihilate Arab forces to stem Muslim advance in    1077
> Anatolia.                                                      Seljuk province established in Anatolia with capital first at
> Nicaea and then Konya, dynasty comes to be known as the
> 869                                                            Seljuks of Rum (to 1307).
> Revolt of black slaves in southern Iraq.
> 1078
> 892                                                            Seljuks take Damascus.
> Capital of Abbasid Caliphate shifts back from Samarra to
> Baghdad.                                                       1079
> Seljuks take Jerusalem.
> 1084
> Shi
ite Qarmatians establish power base in central Arabia.
> Fall of Antioch to Seljuks.
> 1092
> Shi
ite Buwayhids (Buyids) establish power base in Persia,
> Abbasid wazir Nizam al-Mulk murdered by Isma
ili assassin.
> Iraq; rule in name of Abbasid Caliphate (to 1082).
> 1094
> Seljuk dynasty of Syria founded with capital at Aleppo.
> Final text of Quran codified.
> 1096
> First Crusade.
> Turkic troops in pay of Buwayhids take effective control of
> Abbasid Caliphate.                                             1098
> Crusaders take Antioch.
> Persian Buwayhids conquer Baghdad but allow caliph to          1099
> reign as figurehead.                                            Jerusalem captured by crusaders, Godfrey of Bouillon elected
> King of Jerusalem.
> Hamdanids establish power base in Syria and Lebanon (to        c. 1118
> 1004).                                                         Crusading order of Knights Templar founded in Jerusalem.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                               777
> Timelines
> 
> 1124                                                             1204
> Crusaders capture Tyre.                                          Maimonides’ The Guide to the Perplexed.
> 
> 1127                                                             1206
> Zangid dynasty of Seljuk governors control Syria and             Citadel of Damascus completed.
> Mesopotamia to 1222, initiate Muslim counteroffensive against
> crusaders.                                                       1225
> Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II inherits Kingdom of
> c. 1130                                                          Jerusalem.
> Hospital of St John of Jerusalem (the Hospitallers) becomes
> military order.                                                  1229
> Frederick negotiates agreement which wins back control
> 1144                                                             over Jerusalem.
> Edessa conquered by Zangi, governor of Mosul.
> 1229
> 1145                                                             Rasulids control Yemen (to 1454).
> The Friday Mosque at Isfahan.
> 1237
> 1148                                                             Huand Khatun Mosque, mausoleum, madrasa, and baths at
> Crusaders abandon siege of Damascus.                             Kayser, central Turkey; major complex endowed by Seljuk
> noblewoman.
> 1151
> Last Christian stronghold in County of Edessa falls to Nur al-   1250
> Din.                                                             Mamluks, military caste from Caucasus, take over Syria,
> Egypt, and Hejaz (to 1517).
> 1163
> Iplici Mosque at Konya, probably the first to have a campa-       1256–1257
> nile (tower) minaret.                                            Assassins’ stronghold at Alamut falls to Hulegu.
> 
> 1174                                                             1258
> Saladin takes Damascus.                                          Sack of Baghdad and fall of Abbasid Caliphate, Hulegu
> founds Il-Khanate.
> 1183
> Saladin takes Aleppo.                                            1260
> Hulegu invades Syria; Mongols suffer first major defeat at
> 1187                                                             
Ayn Jalut.
> Saladin defeats crusader armies at Hattin, takes Jerusalem
> and Acre.                                                        1268
> Mamluks capture Antioch from crusaders.
> 1188
> Saladin completes conquest of Latin kingdoms in Levant,          1281
> Christians reduced to coastal enclaves.                          Succession of Osman I, beginning of Ottoman dynasty (to
> 1924) and first phase of expansion.
> 1188
> The Mosque at Rabat, like Seville, intended to be the largest    c. 1302
> in the world.                                                    Last Christian territory in Levant falls to Mamluks.
> 
> 1190                                                             1314
> Frederick I (Barbarossa) drowned in Anatolia on way to Holy      Rashid al-Din’s Jami
 al-tawarikh, Persian history of Mongol
> Land.                                                            conquest.
> 
> 1191–1192                                                        1326
> Third Crusade, Richard I of England recovers some of             Ottomans capture Byzantine city of Bursa and make it their
> territory taken by Saladin, including Jaffa and Acre, fails to   capital.
> take Jerusalem.
> 1336
> 1192                                                             Birth of Timur.
> Richard I of England makes treaty with Saladin.
> 1345
> 1193                                                             Ottomans annex Emirate of Karasi, empire reaches
> Death of Saladin.                                                Dardanelles.
> 
> 1197                                                             1347
> Order of Teutonic Knights established in the Holy Land.          Black Death reaches Baghdad and Constantinople.
> 
> 778                                                                                         Islam and the Muslim World
> Timelines
> 
> 1370                                                                  1514
> Beginning of Timur’s conquests, Timurid successors rule his           Selim defeats Safavids at Caldiran.
> empire to 1506.
> 1516–1517
> 1372                                                                  Ottomans conquer Syria, Egypt, the Hijaz, and Yemen.
> Kitab hayyat al-hayyawan by al-Damiri, encyclopaedic collec-
> 1517
> tion of tales traditions and scientific observations concerning
> Selim I orders construction of Ottoman fleet at Suez, Portuanimals.
> guese attack on Jedda repulsed.
> 1378                                                                  1520
> Foundation of Ak Koyunlu, state based on Turkoman tribes-             Sulayman the Magnificent becomes Ottoman sultan (to 1566).
> men in East Anatolia, Azerbaijan, Zagros mountains (to
> 1508).                                                                1525
> Ottomans defeat Portuguese fleet in Red Sea.
> c. 1380
> Foundation of Janissary corps by Ottomans.                            1528
> Safavids take Baghdad from Kurdish usurper.
> 1380
> 1534
> Timur launches series of attacks on Persia.
> Sulayman retakes Baghdad from Safavids.
> 1384
> 1538
> Herat rebels, Timur suppresses ruling dynasty.
> Ottomans subjugate Yemen and Aden and occupy port of
> 1387                                                                  Basra on Persian Gulf.
> Isfahan rebels, in reprisal, Timur kills 70,000 people, build-        1546
> ing towers with their skulls.                                         Ottomans retake Basra after revolt.
> 1388–1391                                                             1551–1552
> Timur wages war against Mongol Khanate of the Golden                  Ottomans fail to oust Portuguese from Hormuz.
> Horde.
> 1566
> 1389                                                                  Sulayman succeeded by Selim II.
> Accession of Bayezid I.
> 1588
> 1393                                                                  
Abbas I (the Great) becomes Safavid shah.
> Sack of Baghdad by Timur.                                             1592
> 1400                                                                  Zaydi imans regain control of Yemen, and rule until 1962.
> Sack of Aleppo and Damascus by Timur.                                 1598
> Isfahan becomes imperial Safavid capital.
> 1401
> Sack of Baghdad by Timur.                                             1603–1619
> Safavid war with Ottomans, in first year 
Abbas recaptures
> 1402                                                                  Tabriz.
> Ottomans defeated by Timur at Ankara.
> 1604
> 1405                                                                  
Abbas conquers Erivan, Shirvan, and Kars.
> Death of Timur.
> 1672
> 1406                                                                  Greatest extent of Ottoman Empire.
> Ibn Khaldun’s Muqaddima, the first attempt in any language
> c. 1750
> to elucidate the laws governing the rise and fall of civilizations.
> Emergence of Wahhabi reform movement in Arabia.
> 1461                                                                  1774
> Ottomans take Christian city of Trebizond.                            Ottoman decline follows Treaty of Kucuk Kaynarca.
> 1502                                                                  1806
> Italian Lodovico di Varthema visits Arabia disguised as an            Wahhabis take Mecca.
> Arab.
> 1812
> 1512                                                                  Burckhardt first European to find Petra, ancient capital of
> Accession of Ottoman ruler Selim I.                                   Nabataea.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                   779
> Timelines
> 
> 1812                                                           1916–1918
> Egyptian forces retake Mecca and Medina.                       Arab Revolt, Saudi tribes supported by British rise against
> Turks.
> 1814
> Burckhardt visits Mecca.                                       1917
> Balfour Declaration declares British support for creation of
> 1818                                                           Jewish state in Palestine; British take Baghdad; British take
> Sadleir is first European to make east-west crossing of Ara-    Jerusalem.
> bian peninsula.
> 1918
> 1818                                                           Battle of Megiddo; Collapse of Ottoman Empire, Turkish
> Wahhabi movement suppressed by Egyptian forces.                surrender.
> 1839–1861                                                      1919
> Sultan 
Abd al-Majid I makes series of liberal Tanzimat        Greek forces land at Smyrna; Kemal Pasha breaks away from
> decrees.                                                       authority of Istanbul government.
> 1843                                                           1920
> Fortunes of Sa
ud family restored by Faisal.                   Armenia cedes half its territory to Turkey.
> 1853                                                           1921
> Richard Burton visits Mecca and Medina in Arab disguise.       Turkish Nationalist government established in Ankara.
> 1876–1878
> 1922
> Doughty’s Arabian journeys.
> Turks recapture Smyrna.
> c. 1880
> 1923
> Birth of 
Abd al-
Aziz ibn Sa
ud in Kuwait.
> Foundation of modern Turkey by Kemal Ataturk.
> 1887
> 1923
> Riyadh taken by Rashidis, who dominate Najd.
> (July) Treaty of Lausanne recognizes Turkish sovereignty
> 1888                                                           over Smyrna and eastern Thrace.
> Publication of Doughty’s classic Travels in Arabia Deserta.
> 1926
> c. 1900                                                        Ibn Sa
ud crowns himself King of the Hejaz and Sultan of
> Baku oil fields in Azerbaijan producing half the world’s oil.   Najd.
> 
> 1902                                                           1927
> Ibn Sa
ud reclaims his patrimony by capturing Riyadh.          Oil discovered in Iraq.
> 
> 1905                                                           1932
> Jewish National Fund established to buy land in Palestine.     Kingdom of Saudi Arabia proclaimed.
> 
> 1908                                                           1933
> Ottoman sultan deposed in Young Turk Revolution.               U.S. company, Standard Oil of California, granted concession in Saudi Arabia.
> 1914
> Ottomans declare jihad, ally with Germany and Austria          1936
> (Central Powers) against Allies.                               Arab revolt in Palestine against British occupation and Jewish
> immigration.
> 1915
> About one million Armenians massacred or deported by           1938
> Turks.                                                         Commercial quantities of oil discovered in Saudi Arabia.
> 
> 1915                                                           1944
> (February) First Turkish attempt to capture Suez.              Standard Oil reformed as ARAMCO (Arabian American Oil
> Company).
> 1916
> (February) Russians take Erzurum.                              1945
> Foundation of Arab League.
> 1916
> (April) British surrender to Turks at Kut al-Amara in          1947
> Mesopotamia.                                                   U.N. partition of Palestine.
> 
> 780                                                                                       Islam and the Muslim World
> Timelines
> 
> 1948                                                             1990
> Foundation of state of Israel leads to war, invading Arab        (November 29) U.N. resolution authorizes members to use
> armies repulsed in Israel; some 725,000 Palestinians made        “all necessary means” against Iraq.
> refugees.
> 1991
> 1956                                                             (January) U.N. deadline for Iraqi withdrawal passes, Opera-
> Suez crisis, Israel, France, and Britain invade Egypt; fail to   tion Desert Storm begins with bombing of Iraqi troops and
> block Egypt’s nationalization of Suez Canal.                     installations.
> 
> 1958                                                             1991
> Oil strikes in United Arab Emirates.                             (February 24) Allied land offensive in Iraq.
> 
> 1961                                                             1991
> Foundation of Organization of the Petroleum Exporting            (February 28) Ceasefire in war in Iraq.
> Countries (OPEC).
> 1993
> 1967                                                             Oslo Accords between Israel and PLO based on principle of
> Egypt closes Gulf of Aqaba to Israel; Israel defeats Egypt and   “Land for Peace.”
> other Arab nations in Six Day War; Israel occupies Sinai,
> Gaza, Golan Heights, and the West Bank including Jerusalem.      1993
> Islamic countries issue Cairo Declaration to curb
> 1973                                                             fundamentalism.
> Arab states fail to defeat Israel in Yom Kippur War.
> 1995
> 1973                                                             Israeli-PLO agreement extends Palestinian self-rule within
> OPEC restricts flow of oil to world markets, raises price of      the West Bank.
> crude oil by 200%, oil crisis causes inflation and economic
> slowdown.                                                        2000
> Ariel Sharon’s visit to Dome of the Rock inflames Israeli-
> 1977                                                             Palestinian violence.
> Start of Middle East peace process.
> 2001
> 1978                                                             Sharon becomes Israeli premier, violence continues.
> Camp David summit between Egypt, Israel, and U.S.
> 2002
> 1979                                                             (February 17) Saudi Crown Prince 
Abdallah proposes full
> Egypt and Israel sign peace treaty based on Camp David           Arab normalization with Israel in return for withdrawal to
> accords.                                                         1967 boundaries.
> 
> 1979                                                             2002
> Islamic revolution in Iran, deposition of shah, proclamation     Iraq allows unconditional return of U.N. weapons inspectors.
> of Islamic republic.
> 2002
> 1980                                                             Elections in Morocco, dominated by the Socialist Union of
> Start of Iran-Iraq War.                                          Popular Forces (USFP). The king appoints a non-party
> figure, former interior minister Driss Jettou, as Prime Minister.
> 1981
> Fifty-two American embassy staff held hostage in Tehran          2002
> since 1979 are freed.                                            Parliamentary elections in Bahrain (the first in 30 years, and
> the first with female enfranchisement) are boycotted by the
> 1982                                                             four main opposition parties, after amendment by Shaykh
> Israel invades Lebanon.                                          Hamad for an appointed second chamber. The turn-out is 53
> percent with disproportionately low Shi
a representation.
> 1988
> End of Iran-Iraq War.                                            2003
> Turkish parliament fails to approve the use of its soil for U.S.
> 1990                                                             attacks on Iraq, despite the offer of $26 billion in aid and loan
> (August 2) Iraq invades Kuwait, U.N. demands Iraq’s imme-        guarantees.
> diate withdrawal.
> 2003
> 1990                                                             Yasser Arafat nominates Mahmud Abbas as Prime Minister in
> (August 7) U.S. troops sent to Gulf.                             Palestine, who is approved by the Palestine Legislative Council.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                   781
> Timelines
> 
> 2003                                                            615
> (March 19) U.S. and British invade Iraq and appoint an          Hamza accepts Islam. First Muslim migration to Abyssinia.
> interim government.                                             
Umar becomes a Muslim.
> 
> 2003                                                            616
> Bush administration announces the “Roadmap” for “a Per-         General boycott of Banu Hashim. Return of the first emigrants.
> manent Two-State Solution” between the Israelis and the
> Palestinians.                                                   617
> Second migration of Muslims to Abyssinia.
> Adapted from: Lunde, Paul. Islam: Faith, Culture, History.
> New York: DK Publishing, Inc., 2002.                            619
> Death of Abu Talib. Death of Khadija. Muhammad seeks
> tribal protection and preaches Islam in Taif.
> LIFE OF MUHAMMAD 570–632 C.E.                                   620
> Muhammad’s engagement to 
Aisha bint Abu Bakr. First
> 570 C.E.                                                        converts of Aws and Khazraj from Yathrib.
> Abraha, the Christian king in South Arabia, leads an abortive
> attack on Mecca, “The Year of the Elephant.” Death of           621
> 
Abdallah, the Prophet’s father. Muhammad’s birth (August       First meeting of al-
Aqaba. Al-Isra and al-Mi
raj (night
> 20).                                                            journey and ascent to heaven).
> 
> 570–575                                                         622
> Muhammad’s nurture by Halima and residence at Banu Sa
d.        Second meeting of al-
Aqaba. Attempted assassination of the
> Persian conquest of Yemen. Expulsion of the Christian           Prophet by the Meccans. July 16, the Hijra, the Prophet’s
> Abyssinians.                                                    migration to Yathrib, henceforth called Medina, from madinat
> al-nabiyy (the city of the Prophet).
> 575–
> Persecution of Christians in Yemen by the Jewish King Dhu       622 C.E.
> Nuwas.                                                          The Prophet builds a mosque and residence. Establishment
> of Islamic brotherhood as new social order. The Prophet
> 575–597                                                         founds the first Islamic state. The Covenant of Medina.
> Persian dominion in Yemen.                                      Muhammad marries 
Aisha. The call to prayer (adhan) is
> instituted. 
Abdallah ibn Salam accepts Islam. The Jews
> 576                                                             attempt to split the Aws-Khazraj coalition.
> Death of Amina, the Prophet’s mother.
> 578                                                             Hamza’s campaign against the Meccans near Yanbu
. Cam-
> Death of the Prophet’s grandfather, 
Abd al-Muttalib. Guardi-   paign of al-Kharrar.
> anship of the Prophet passes to his uncle Abu Talib.
> 582                                                             Campaign against Waddan. The incident of Finhas. Cam-
> Muhammad’s first journey to Syria. Meeting with Bahira, a        paign of Buwat. Campaign of al-
Ushayra.
> Christian monk.
> 586                                                             Institution of Ka
ba in Mecca as qiblah (direction of prayer).
> Muhammad’s employment by Khadija.                               Campaign of Badr (first Muslim victory). Campaign of Banu
> Qaynuqa
.
> Muhammad’s second journey to Syria. Muhammad marries            624
> Khadija.                                                        Campaign of Banu Sulaym. Campaign of Dhu Amarr. Campaign of al-Qarada.
> Muhammad helps rebuild the Ka
ba.                               625
> Muhammad’s marriage to Hafsa, widow, daughter of 
Umar.
> Beginning of the revelation of the Quran and the call to       625
> prophethood. Khadija, 
Ali, and Abu Bakr accept Islam in that   Campaign of Hamra al-Asad. Marriage of 
Ali to Fatima, the
> order.                                                          Prophet’s daughter. Treachery against Islam at Bir Ma
una.
> Campaign of Banu al-Nadir.
> Muhammad begins publicly preaching Islam. Confrontation         626
> with the Meccans.                                               Campaign of Uhud; martyrdom of Hamza.
> 
> 782                                                                                        Islam and the Muslim World
> Timelines
> 
> 626                                                               630
> First campaign of Dawmat al-Jandal.                               Campaign of Mecca. The Meccans accept Islam. Destruction
> of the idols and cleansing of the Ka
ba. Conversion of the
> Arab tribes in the Hijaz. Campaign of Hawazin at Hunayn.
> Campaign of al Muraysi
. Hadith al-Ifk (libel) against 
Aisha.   631
> Campaign of al-Khandaq (The Ditch). Campaign of Banu              Second Muslim pilgrimage (led by Abu Bakr).
> Qurayda.
> The Christian delegation of Najran (Yemen) visits Medina
> 628                                                               and is incorporated into the Islamic state as a constituent
> Second campaign of Dawmat al-Jandal. Campaign of Fadak.           umma in that state. The Year of Deputations: the Arab tribes
> Campaign of Khaybar. Al-Hudaybiya Peace Treaty with               enter Islam and pledge their loyalty.
> Mecca. The Prophet sends delegates to present Islam to the
> neighboring monarchs.                                             632
> Death of Muhammad’s son Ibrahim. Last pilgrimage of the
> Prophet. Completion of the revelation of the Quran.
> First Muslim hajj. Khalid ibn al-Walid and 
Amr ibn al-
As        632
> become Muslims.                                                   Death of the Prophet. The campaign of Muta.
> Adapted from: al-Faruqi, Isma’il R., and Lamya’ al-Faruqi ,
> 629                                                               Lois. Cultural Atlas of Islam. New York: Macmillan; London:
> Killing of Muslim missionaries at Dhat al-Talh.                   Collier: 1986.
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                               783
> Index
> Page links created automatically - disregard ones formed not from page numbers
> 
> Boldfaced page numbers indicate main article on the subject. Italicized page numbers reference photos or illustrations.
> 
> A                                            
Abd al-
Aziz (son of Muhammad b.               
Abdallah b. Ibrahim al-Najdi,
> Aaliyah, 45                                     Sa
ud), 728                                     Shaykh, 6
> Aaron, 37                                    
Abd al-Baha (
Abd al-Baha 
Abbas,            
Abdallah ibn 
Abbas, 672
> Abaqa, 701                                      also known as 
Abbas Effendi), 1–2,          
Abdallah ibn Sa
ud, 728
> 99, 100, 101                                 
Abdallah Khan, 135
> 
Abbas I, shah of Iran (Persia), 1,
> See also Bahaallah; Bahai faith          
Abd al-Malik b. Marwan, Umayyad
> 218, 437
> 
Abd al-Hamid Ibn Badis (also known                caliph
> See also Safavid and Qajar
> as Ben Badis), 2, 366                             and Dome of the Rock, 74, 118,
> Empires
> See also Reform: in Arab Middle                   125, 183, 223, 315
> 
Abbas II, shah of Iran (Persia), 218               East and North Africa; Salafiyya               monetary reforms of, 151, 195
> Abbasid Empire, 207–210                      
Abd al-Hamid II (
Abdulhamid II), 5,                silver box of, 78
> architecture of, 72–73                     153, 172, 341, 342, 376, 464, 465,                succession of, 223, 435
> caliphs of, 118–121, 654                   505, 520, 653, 656, 678, 738,                
Abd al-Nasser, Jamal, 4
> Christianity under, 144–145                739, 740
> da
wa network of, 173
> conversion during, 362                  
Abd al-Hamid Kishk (Shaykh), 2–3                    and foreign aid, 197
> decorative arts of, 79                  
Abd al-Haqq Dihlawi, 637                            influence on Arab League, 69
> end of, 134, 207–208                    
Abd al-Jabbar (Qadi 
Abd al-Jabbar b.               language use by, 61
> eunuchs of, 233                            Ahmad al-Hamadani), 3, 247                        pan-Arabism of, 412, 465, 519
> monetary policy of, 151–152                  See also Kalam; Mu
tazilites,                   and political modernization,
> poetry and literature of, 65, 242              Mu
tazila                                       460, 538
> political organization under,           
Abd al-Karim al-Jili, 51                            Soviet support for, 156
> 541–542                               
Abd al-Karim al-Maghili, 84                         youth support for, 741
> prosperity of, 98–99                                                                         See also Nationalism: Arab; Pan-
> 
Abd al-Karim al-Qushayri, 455
> rise of, 132, 207, 591, 623                                                                    Arabism
> 
Abd al-Karim Sorush (Hassan Haj-
> See also Byzantine Empire; Mahdi,                                                       
Abd al-Qadir (al-Jilani), 4–5, 344,
> Faraj Dabbagh), 3–4, 279, 469,
> Sadiq al-; Rashid, Harun al-;                                                            638, 682
> 471, 552, 578, 616, 628, 741
> Umayyad Empire                                                                             See also Tasawwuf
> See also Iran, Islamic Republic of;
> 
Abd al-
Aziz (d. 1801), 6                          Khomeini, Ayatollah Ruhollah             
Abd al-Qadir al-Jazairi, 469
> 
Abd al-
Aziz (d. 1823), 730                 
Abdallah, Shaykh Muhammad, 640                 
Abd al-Qahir al-Baghdadi, 83
> 
Abd al-
Aziz (d. 1824), 169, 170            
Abdallah, king of Jordan, 347                  
Abd al-Quddus Gangohi, 637
> 
Abd al-
Aziz ibn Baz (1910–1999), 108       Abdallah II, khan of Bukhara, 112               
Abd al-Rahim, Shah, 730
> 
Abd al-
Aziz ibn Sa
ud, 519, 609, 611       
Abdallah al-Mahdi, 628                         
Abd al-Rahman I (731–788), 46,
> 
Abd al-
Aziz Khan (r.                       Abdallah b. Mas
ud, 563                            65, 362
> 1645–1681), 135                           
Abd Allah b. 
Abbas, 36                        
Abd al-Rahman II (788–852), 362
> 
Abd al-
Aziz (son of 
Abd al-               
Abdallah b. Ahmad al-Nasafi, 9                  
Abd al-Rahman III (891–961), 46,
> Rahman), 729                              
Abdallah b. 
Ali, 445                             362, 587
> 
Abd al-
Aziz (son of Marwan), 435           
Abdallah b. Ibad al-Tamim, 390                 
Abd al-Rahman al-Awza
i, 406
> 
> Page links created automatically - disregard ones formed not from page numbers
> Index: Volume 1 pp. 1–416; Volume 2 pp. 417–747
> 
> 
Abd al-Rahman al-Sa
di, 694                Abu 
Abdallah al-Humaydi, 182                Abu Ishaq al-Shirazi, 8
> 
Abd-al-Rahman b. Muljam, 36                Abu 
Abdallah al-Qurtubi, 673                Abu Ishaq Ibrahim b. Muhammad al-
> 
Abd al-Rahman Kawakibi, 5, 342,            Abu 
Abdallah al-Shirazi, 105                  Sarifini, 8
> 469, 503, 577                            Abu 
Abdallah Muhammad al-                   Abu Ja
far, 591
> See also Modernization, political:       Khwarazmi, 139                             Abu Ja
far al-Mansur, 97
> Administrative, military, and        Abu 
Abdullah al-Basri, 3                    Abu Jafar al-Tusi, 674
> judicial reform; Modernization,      Abu Ahmad Nasr, 443                          Abu Ja
far Muhammad ibn Musa alpolitical: Authoritarianism and      Abu 
Ala al-Ma
arri, 455                      Khwarazmi, 130, 469
> democratization; Modernization,      Abu al-
Abbas (Abu ’l-Abbas al-Saffah),      Abu ’l-
Abbas, 591
> political: Constitutionalism;          Abbasid caliph, 97, 207                    Abul-
Abbas al-Qalanisi, 83
> Modernization, political:            Abu al-Faraj Runi, 528
> Participation, political                                                          Abu ’l-Fayz Khan, 135
> Abu 
Ali al-Farmadhi, 275
> movements, and parties                                                            Abu ’l-Fazl, 33
> Abu 
Ali al-Jubbai, 82
> 
Abd al-Rahman (r. 1889–1902), 729                                                       Abul-Fida of Hama, 659
> Abu al-Layth al-Samarqandi, 9
> 
Abd al-Raziq, 
Ali, 319, 470, 551, 577,                                                 Abu ’l-Ghazi Khan, 135
> Abu al-Muayyad Muhammad b.
> 614, 668                                                                              Abu ’l-Hasan al-Ash
ari, 82
> Mahmud al-Khwarizmi, 9
> 
Abd al-Razzaq al-San
ani, 286,                                                          Abu ’l-Hasan al-Bahili, 83, 105
> Abu al-Qasim al-Junayd, 38
> 287, 288                                                                              Abu ’l-Hasan 
Ali ibn al-Nu
man al-
> Abu al-Tabarsi (d. 1153), 674
> 
Abd al-Razzaq al-Sanhuri, 5–6, 461                                                        Qayrawani, 92
> Abu Bakr (Abu Bakr b. Abi
> See also Law; Modernization,             Quhafa), 7–8                               Abu ’l-Hasan al-Rustughfeni, 443
> political: Constitutionalism                                                      Abu ’l-Hasan Bani-Sadr, 9–10, 357
> as father of 
Aisha, 7, 33
> 
Abd al-Wahhab, Muhammad Ibn, 6,                on hijra, 299                                See also Iran, Islamic Republic of;
> 108, 389, 452, 468, 483, 536, 575,           succession of, 35, 117, 422, 481,               Revolution: Islamic revolution
> 580, 610, 676, 706, 727–728                    548, 573, 585, 621, 654, 667                  in Iran
> See also Wahhabiyya                        See also Caliphate; Succession           Abu ’l-Hassan al-Amiri, 225
> 
Abduh (Abdu), Muhammad, 6–7                Abu Bakr al-Asamm, 10                        Abu ’l-Hudhayl al-
Allaf (Muhammad
> and dialectical method, 385            Abu Bakr al-Baqillani, 83                      b. al-Hudhayl b. 
Ubaydallah alfollowers of, 5                        Abu Bakr al-Jassas, 409                        Abdi), 10, 247
> fundamentalism of, 262                 Abu Bakr al-Khwarizmi, 297                       See also Mu
tazilites, Mu
tazila
> on hadith, 286                         Abu Bakr b. Mas
ud al-Kasani, 9              Abu ’l-Husayn al-Basri, 3
> on Islamic unity, 342
> Abu Bakr Gumi, 8                             Abu ’l-Khattab, 369
> modernism of, 83, 433, 456, 609,
> See also Modern thought; Political       Abu ’l-Khayr Khan, 135
> 668, 674, 676
> Islam; Wahhabiyya                      Abu ’l-Mal
ali al-Juwayni, 274
> on nationalism, 503
> Abu Bakr Ibn 
Abd al-Rahman, 406             Abu ’l-Muin al-Nasafi, 443
> political philosophy of, 551,
> 575–577                              Abu Bakr ibn 
Umar, 475                      Abu ’l-Qasem Kashani, 10–11
> as publisher, 7, 13                    Abu Bakr Muhammad, 443                           See also Fedaiyan-e Islam; Iran,
> on Quranic interpretation,            Abu Bakr Qaffal al-Shashi, 139                      Islamic Republic of; Majlis;
> 267–268                              Abu Bilal Mirdas b. Hudayr b.                       Mossadeq, Mohammad
> reforms advocated by, 104,               Udayya, 390                                Abu ’l-Qasim al-Balkhi (al-Ka
bi), 443
> 172, 345                             Abu Bishr Matta, 182                         Abu ’l-Yusr al-Pazdavi, 443
> on welfare, 440                        Abu Dawud, 286
> Abu Mansur al-Maturidi, 83
> See also Afghani, Jamal al-Din;        Abu Dharr Ghifari, 35
> Abu Mansur ibn Tahrir al-
> Reform: in Arab Middle East          Abu Dulama, 321                                Baghdadi, 181
> and North Africa; Rida, Rashid;      Abu Hafs al-Bukhari, 139
> Salafiyya                                                                          Abu Ma
shar al-Balkhi, 86, 139
> Abu Hanifa (Abu Hanifa al-Nu
man b.
> 
Abdulaziz, 376, 738                                                                     Abu Musa al-Ash
ari (Abu Musa
> Thabit b. Zurti), 8–9, 11, 92, 406,
> 
Abdulhamid II. See 
Abd al-Hamid II                                                       Ash
ari), 36, 405
> 407–408, 417, 586–587, 734
> Abdullah b. Yasin, 475                                                                   Abu Mushir al-Ghassani, 449
> See also Law; Madhhab
> 
Abdullahi ibn Muhammad (Khalifa                                                         Abu Muslim, 132, 207, 223, 591
> Abu Hashim al-Jubbai, 3
> 
Abdullahi), 422–423                                                                  Abu Muti
 al-Balkhi, 9
> Abu Hayyan al-Tawhidi (d. 1023),
> 
Abdul Qadir Bedil, 643                       209, 225                                   Abu Naddara, 342
> Abida Parveen, 304                          Abu Ishaq al-
Ayyash, 3                      Abu Nasr Al-Farabi, 248
> Abortion rights, 227–228, 228, 566          Abu Ishaq al-Isfaraini, 83                  Abu Nuwas, 65, 209, 523
> Abraha, Abbyssinian ruler of Arabia,        Abu Ishaq al-Kazaruni, 680                   Abu Rashid al-Nisaburi, 3
> 55, 381                                  Abu Ishaq al-Mu
tasim, 208                   Abu Rayya, Mahmud, 286, 668
> Abraham. See Ibrahim (Abraham)              Abu Ishaq al-Nazzam, 10                      Abu Sa
id al-Khudri, 286
> Abu 
Abbas Ahmad al-Farghani, 139           Abu Ishaq al-Shatibi, 11, 226                Abu Sa
id al-Sirafi, 182
> 
> 786                                                                                           Islam and the Muslim World
> Page links created automatically - disregard ones formed not from page numbers
> Index: Volume 1 pp. 1–416; Volume 2 pp. 417–747
> 
> Abu Sa
id b. Abil-Khayr, 140                      See also Pan-Islam; Reform: in          Ahl al-kalam (speculative
> Abu Sa
id b. Abu l-Khayr, 141, 680                 Arab Middle East and North               theologians), 667
> Abu Sayyaf, 648                                     Africa                                Ahl al-kitab (people of the book),
> Abu Sufyan (Sakhr ibn Harb ibn               Afghan Interim Government                       27–29, 144, 162, 381, 452,
> Umayyah), 477                                (AIG), 490                                   534, 584
> Abu Sulayman al-Sijistani, 282               Afghanistan                                       See also Christianity and Islam;
> Abu Tammam, 65                                    mujahidin in, 490–491                          Islam and other religions;
> Russian occupation of, 108                     Judaism and Islam; Minorities:
> Abu Turab (Father of Dust), 37
> use of Arabic language in, 62                  dhimmis
> Abu 
Uthman 
Amr ibn al-Jahiz, 182
> women in, 509–510                       Ahl al-ra
y (people of considered
> Abu Walid Hisham, 78
> See also Taliban                           opinion), 27, 406, 667
> Abu Ya
la, 286
> Afghan Service Bureau Front (maktab          Ahl al-Sunna wa al-Jama
at, 389, 390
> Abu Ya
la b. al-Farra, 548–549                 al-khidma li-l-mujahin al-
arab,          Ahl al-sunna wal-jama
a, 82, 668
> Abu Ya
qub al-Shahham, 10                       MAK), 559                                 Ahl-e Hadis (Ahl-al Hadith, Ahl-i
> Abu Yazid al-Bistami, 455, 685               
Aflaq, Michel, 106, 460, 503, 519               Hadith), 26–27, 176
> Abu Yusuf, 9, 406, 408, 542, 654             “Afrabia,” 252                                    See also Deoband;
> Abu Zaid, Nasr, 178, 534                     Africa, Islam in, 13–19, 15, 16, 20, 21             Fundamentalism
> Abu Zakariya ibn Masawayh, 295                    See also Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-          Ahl-e haqq, 453
> Abu Zayd, Nasr Hamid, 298, 319                      Ghazi; Ahmad Ibn Idris; Hajj          Ahl-e Quran (people of the
> Aceh (Indonesia). See Acheh                         Salim Suwari, al-; Suyuti, al-;          Quran), 668
> Acheh (Indonesia), 507–508, 644                     Tariqa; Zar
> Ahmad, Bashir al-Din Mahmud, 30
> Adab (pl., udaba), 12                       African culture and Islam, 19–24
> Ahmad, Jalal Al-e (Al-i), 529, 733
> as “belles lettres,” 66                      See also Africa, Islam in; Bamba,
> Ahmad, Khurshid, 174
> development of, 225, 282                       Ahmad; Timbuktu; Touba
> Ahmad, Mirza Ghulam, 30, 32,
> as ideal court behavior, 47, 48                (Senegal); Zar
> 172, 453
> and moral pedagogy, 225–226             Afro-Islamic literature, 24
> See also Ahmadiyya
> multiple meanings of, 63                Afsaneh (Romance), 528
> Ahmad, Mirza Tahir (Hazrat Mizrza
> See also Arabic literature; Ethics      Aga Khan, 24–25, 26
> Tahir Ahmad Khalifatul Masih IV),
> and social issues                          See also Khojas; Nizari
> 31, 31
> 
Ada (custom), 11–12, 651                    Aga Khan III (Sir Sultan Muhammad
> Ahmad, Nazir, 716
> See also Africa, Islam in; American        Shah), 24–25, 25, 393, 629
> Ahmad, Qazi Husain, 371, 372, 372
> culture and Islam; Law; South         Aga Khan I (Imam Hasan 
Ali
> Asia, Islam in; Southeast Asian                                                    Ahmad al-Ahsai, Shaykh, 95, 620
> Shah), 24
> culture and Islam                                                                  Ahmad al-Badawi, 533
> Aga Khan II (Shah Ali Shah), 24
> Adalat Party, 156                                                                         Ahmad al-Bakkai, 402
> Aga Khan IV (Shah Karim al-
> Adam, 50, 50, 51                                Husayni), 25, 511, 629                    Ahmad al-Radhkani, 274
> Adhan (call to prayer), 13, 71, 178,         Aga Khan Development Network, 25             Ahmad b. Muhammad al-Quduri, 9
> 179, 428, 494, 708                        Aghajari, Hashem, 743                        Ahmad b. Muhammad al-Tahawi, 9
> See also Devotional life; 
Ibadat;      Agha Khan, Karim Khan, 351                   Ahmad b. Musa (Shah Cheragh), tomb
> Masjid                                Agha Muhammad Khan, 387                         of, 351
> Adivar, Halide Edib, 470                     Agriculture, 194, 195                        Ahmad Baba, 308
> Adoption, 229                                Ahaba (sahaba, Companions), 8, 231           Ahmad-e Jam, 140
> 
Adud al-Dawla, Buwayhid ruler of            Ahbash movement, 690                         Ahmad Gran (Ahmad ibn Gran; “the
> Iraq, 65                                                                                  left-handed”). See Ahmad ibn
> Ahl al-bayt (“people of the house”),
> 
Adud al-Din al-Iji, 83                                                                      Ibrahim al-Ghazi
> 25–26, 37, 121, 349, 624, 654
> Adultery, 33, 270                                                                         Ahmad ibn Abi Ya
qub al-Ya
qubi, 130
> See also Hadith; Imam; Imamate;
> Afaq Khwaja, 136                                    Karbala; Mahdi; Sayyid; Sharif;       Ahmad ibn 
Ali ibn Abu l-Qasm al-
> Affliction, rites of, 600                            Shi
a: Imami (Twelver); Shi
a:           Khayqani, 125
> Afghani, Jamal al-Din, 13                           Isma
ili                              Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi (Ahmad
> Ahl al-dhimma (people of the                    Gran; Ahmad ibn Gran), 14,
> fundamentalism of, 262, 341
> protective covenant), 144, 162, 361,         29, 231
> influence on 
Abduh, 7
> modernism of, 155, 456, 638, 733           362, 381                                       See also Africa, Islam in; Ethiopia;
> and pan-Islam, 520                      Ahl al-Hadith (people of the                        Jihad
> political philosophy of, 551               traditions), 27, 334, 406, 668            Ahmad Ibn Idris, 29–30
> reforms advocated by, 172, 578               See also Ibn Hanbal; Kalam;                  See also Africa, Islam in; Tariqa;
> revivalism of, 467, 609, 616                   Mu
tazilites, Mu
tazila;                     Tasawwuf; Wahhabiyya
> social philosophy of, 252                      Traditionalism                        Ahmad ibn Nasr al-Khuza
i, 449
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                     787
> Page links created automatically - disregard ones formed not from page numbers
> Index: Volume 1 pp. 1–416; Volume 2 pp. 417–747
> 
> Ahmadiyya, 30–32, 31, 46, 172,                Akhundzada, Mirza Fath Ali, 614              Al-Busa
idi, Sayyid Sa
id b. Sultan b.
> 453, 708                                  Akiba, Rabbi, 53                                Sa
id, 664
> See also Ahmad, Mirza Ghulam;           Akram, Wali, 709                             Al-Busiri, 177
> Pakistan, Islamic Republic of;        Aksaray (Turkey), 666                        Al-Bustani, Butrus, 342
> South Asia, Islam in                  Aksum (ancient Abyssinia), 14, 55            Alchemy, 613
> Ahmadiyya Anjuman-e Isha 
at-e                
Ala, Husayn, 256                            Alcohol, prohibition of, 181
> Islam, 30                                 
Ala al-Din Khalji, 660                     Al-Dahhaq b. Ways al-Fihri, 435
> Ahmad Khan, Sir Sayyid, 32                    Al-
Abbas b. al-Ahnaf, 65                    Al-Darimi, 286, 337
> in Aligarh, 38, 39, 304, 469            Al-
Abbas (uncle of Muhammad), 224           Al-Dhahab, Suwar, 347
> on ethnic identity, 343                                                              Al-Dhahabi, Shams al-Din, 8, 9
> Al-Adab (periodical), 67
> on hadith, 286
> Al-
Adil, 658                                Al-Din, Ahmad Hamid, 350
> modernism of, 155, 433, 456,
> Aladza Mosque (Foca), 103                    Al-Din, Khwaja Kamal, 30
> 581, 609, 638, 668, 676, 716
> Al-Afghani, 
Abd al-Hakim, 9                 Al-Din, Maulvi Nur, 30, 32
> on rationalism, 468
> See also Aligarh (India);               Al-Ahkam al-sultaniyya (The                  Al-Din, Tahir Jalal, 582
> Education; Liberalism, Islamic;          ordinances of government), 548            Alem-i Nisvan (Women’s world), 265
> Modernism; Modern thought;            Al-Afghani, Jamal al-Din. See Afghani,       Alexander the Great, 54, 391, 526
> Pakistan, Islamic Republic of;           Jamal al-Din                              Alexius, Byzantine emperor, 145
> South Asia, Islam in; Urdu            Al-Ahmadnagri, 
Abd al-Nabi, 225             Al-Farabi, 35, 307, 550, 612
> language, literature, and poetry      Al-
Ali Ayyub, 658, 659                      Al-Farra, 280
> Ahmad Shah Abdali Durrani, 638                Al-
Allama al-Hilli, 34                      Al-Faruqi, Isma
il, 174
> Ahmad Shah Masud, 676                         Al-Amin, caliph (r. 809–813), 120, 259       Al-Fatiha, 562
> Ahmed Niyazi Bey, 739                         Al-Amin, Imam Jamil (H. Rap Brown),          Al-Furqan Islamic Heritage
> Ahmed, Qazi Husain. See Ahmad, Qazi              44, 45                                       Foundation, 694
> Husain                                    Al-Amin bin Ali Mazrui, 445                  Al-Gama
a al-Islamiyya (The Islamic
> AIG (Afghan Interim                           Al-Amir, 628                                    Group), 365, 466
> Government), 490                          Al-
Amir, Fatimid caliph, 152                Algeria
> Aini, Sadriddin, 528                          Al-Amjad Bahramshah, 659                          economy of, 634
> AIOC (Anglo-Iranian Oil Company),             Al-Aqsa Intifada, 740                             independence of, 425
> 476, 504                                  Al-Aqsa Martyr’s Brigade, 355                     Islamic reformist movement in, 2,
> 
Aisha (
Aisha bint Abu Bakr), 32–33        Al-Aqsa Mosque (Jerusalem), 314, 315                365–366, 417, 461, 466, 616
> on character of the Prophet,                                                              nationalism in, 2
> Al-Asad, Bashar, 347, 461
> 225, 320                                                                                political represion in, 463
> Al-Asad, Hafiz, 347, 460
> and gender constructs, 269, 734                                                           resistance to French colonialism
> Al-
Ashmawi, Muhammad Sa
id, 319
> married to the Prophet, 7,                                                                  in, 4–5
> Al-Ashraf Khalil, 166                             socialism in, 633
> 33, 479
> Al-
Attar, 
Issam, 346                            Sufism in, 682
> opposition to 
Ali from, 35,
> 
Alavi, Bozorg, 528                               veiling in, 722
> 260, 621
> See also 
Ali; Bukhari, al-; Fitna;     Alavid Shi
ism, 619                               waqf of, 731
> Muhammad; Shi
a: Early; Sunna         
Alawid dynasty (Morocco), 26                     See also Islamic Salvation Front;
> Al-Awza
i, 417                                      Reform: in Arab Middle East
> Aisyiah (“way of 
Aisha”), 735
> Al-
Ayn, Qorrat (Tahereh, “the Pure                 and North Africa
> 
Ajaib (“wondrous”) literary
> One”), 96                                 Algerian Muslim Congress, 2
> tradition, 129
> Al-
Aziz Billah, Fatimid caliph, 92          Al-Hadi, 207, 429
> 
Ajami (written) literature, 15
> Al-Azmeh, Aziz, 307                          Al-Hadi ila al-Haqq al-Mubin, 630
> Akbar (Jalal al-Din Akbar), 33–34, 73,
> Al-Babuya al-Qummi, 286                      Al-Hafiz, 628
> 213, 303, 342–343, 363, 637
> Al-Baghdadi, 297                             Al-Hajjaj b. Yusuf, 312, 390, 429
> See also Mogul Empire; South
> Asia, Islam in                        Al-Balkhi, Abu Zayd Ahmad ibn Sahl,          Al-Hakam, 30
> 130–131                                   Al-Hakam II, 414, 415
> Akhbariyya, 34, 627, 717–718
> Albania                                      Al-Hakim, 71, 203, 414, 452
> See also Law; Mu
tazilites,
> Mu
tazila; Shi
a: Imami                     independence of, 102, 103              Al-Hakim al-Shahid al-Marwazi, 409
> (Twelver)                                   Muslim population of, 103, 236         Al-Hakim al-Tirmidhi, 454, 607, 685
> Akhlaq (khuluq, manners, ethics),             Al-Bashir, Omar, 348                         Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, 453
> 34–35, 225                                Al-Battani (Albategnius), 612                Al-Hallaj (d. 922), 176, 685
> See also Adab; Ethics and social        Al-Bishri, Tariq, 577                        Al-Hallaj ibn Yusuf, 130, 151
> issues; Falsafa                       Al-Bitar, Salah al-Din, 503                  Alhambra (al-Hamra), 47, 47, 74, 376
> Akhund (Persian, "religious                   Al-Buhturi, 65                               Al-Haqq, Sami, 374
> leader"), 473                             Al-Busa
idi, Ahmad b. Sa
id, 664             Al-Haqqani, Shaykh Nazim, 44
> 
> 788                                                                                             Islam and the Muslim World
> Page links created automatically - disregard ones formed not from page numbers
> Index: Volume 1 pp. 1–416; Volume 2 pp. 417–747
> 
> Al-Haraka al-Islamiyya, 172                   Aligarh Zenana Madrasa (later Aligarh        Al-Malik al-Nasir Muhammad ibn
> Al-Haramayn al-Juwayni, imam,                     Women’s College), 39                        Qalawun, 662
> 83, 717                                   
Ali ibn al-
Abbas al-Majusa, 295            Al-Malik al-Salih, 165, 166, 662
> Al-harb al-muqaddasa (holy war), 158          
Ali ibn Abi Talib. See 
Ali                 Al-Manar, 7, 577, 597, 631
> Al-Harbiyya, 658                              
Ali ibn Talib. See 
Ali                     Al-Mansur (Abu Ja
far al-Mansur), 97,
> Al-Hariri, 79                                 
Ali Jalayiri, 308                              97, 120, 130, 207, 295, 408,
> Al-Hasan, Maulana Mahmud, 391                 Al-
Iji, 307                                    591, 678
> Al-Hasanat, Abu, 375                          
Ali Jurjani, 139                            Al-Maqrizi, 130, 389
> Al-Hasan b. Zayd, 630                         Al-ilah (“the god”), 39                      Al-Mas
udi, Abu ’l-Hasan 
Ali ibn al-
> Al-Humaydi, 286                               
Alim, emir of Bukhara, 113                     Husayn, 130
> Al-Hurr al-Amili, 34                          
Alim Khan, 136                              Al-Mawardi, 121–122, 444, 449, 548,
> Al-Husri, Sati
, 503, 518                     
Ali Mohammad, 95                               588, 652, 654–655
> Al-Husri al-Qayrawani, 320                    
Ali Muttaqi, 637                            Almohad dynasty (Almohades), 47, 362
> Ali, Muhammad (Cassius Clay), 44              
Ali Pasha, 678, 738                         Almoravid dynasty. See Moravids
> Ali, Noble Drew, 708                          
Ali Riza Bey, 88                            Alms, collecting of, 95
> 
Ali, Chiragh, 433, 668                       Al-Isbahani, 370                             Al-Mu
azzam, 658
> 
Ali, Hajji Mirza Sayyed, 96                  Al-Isfahani (d. 967), 66                     Al-Mubarrad, 280
> 
Ali, Maulana Muhammad, 30                    
Ali-Sher Nawai, 222                        Al-Muhallab, 390
> 
Ali, Muhammad (Albanian,                     Al-Islam (Malaya), 582                       Al-Mu
izz li-Din Allah, Fatimid caliph,
> 1769–1849), 60, 66, 196, 204,                                                             92, 130
> Al-Istakhri, Abu Ishaq ibn Muhammad
> 485–486, 575, 728                             al-Farisi, 130, 131                      Al-mulk lillah (dominion belongs to
> 
Ali, Muhammad (Indian, brother of                                                            God), 81
> 
Ali Suavi, 738
> Shaukat 
Ali), 39, 391                                                                 Al-Muntaqid (The critic), 2
> Al-Jahiz, 66, 209, 320
> 
Ali, Shaukat, 39, 391                        al-Jami
 al-sahih (The sound                 Al-Muntazar (“the Awaited One”), 625
> 
Ali (
Ali ibn Talib; 
Ali ibn Abi Talib),        collection), 114                         Al-Muqaddasi, Abu 
Abdallah
> 35–38, 36                                 Al-Jazeera, 463, 508                            Muhammad, 131
> as ahl al-bayt, 26, 350                 Al-Jazuli, 177                               Al-Muqanna
, 429
> followers of, 35, 117, 171, 390,        Al-Jilani, 
Abd al-Qadir, 177, 588, 682      Al-Muqtadir, 208
> 427, 585, 624                                                                      Al-Muslimin, 631
> al-Junayd (Junayd; of Baghdad), 275,
> grave of, 141                                                                        Al-Mustansir, 628
> 290, 685
> images of, 36                                                                        Al-Mutanabbi, 65, 211
> Al-Kamil, Ayyubid sultan, 152, 658
> monetary policy of, 151
> Al-Kassas, Sa
d, 711                         Al-Mu
tasim, 152, 428, 448
> opposition to, 33, 35–36, 223,
> Al-Kazimayn mosque (Baghdad), 209            Al-Mutawakkil, caliph of Baghdad, 72,
> 259–260
> Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad, 280                        84, 208, 387, 428, 449, 587
> succession of, 573, 621–628
> tomb of, 26, 36, 88                     Al-Khansa, 64, 734                          Al-Nabulsi, 185
> See also Caliphate; Imamate; Shi
a:     Al-Khu
i Foundation, 393                     Al-Nadim, 429
> Early; Succession                     Al-Kulini, 286, 369                          Al-Namara (Syria), inscription
> 
Ali al-Karaki, 511                           Al-Kunduri, Seljuk wazir, 83                    from, 58
> Ali al-Naqi, imam, 88                         Allah, 39–41                                 Al-Nasai, 286
> 
Ali b. 
Abdallah, 445                              attributes of (sifat Allah), 83        Al-Nasir, Mamluk sultan, 336
> 
Ali b. Abi Bakr al-Marghinani, 9                   future vision of (ruyat Allah), 83    Al-Nasir li-Din Allah (Al-Nasir,
> 
Ali b. Ibrahim al-Qummi, 455                       images of, 40, 78                         Caliph, li-Din Allah; r. 1180–1225),
> 
Ali b. Mitham Bahrani, 38                          pre-Islamic worship of, 55                120, 134, 264, 658
> 
Ali b. Muhammad al-Yunini, 114                     in Quran, 565                         Al-Nasir Muhammad b. alspeech of (kalam Allah), 83               Qalawun, 338
> 
Ali b. Musa al-Rida, 427, 623
> See also Asnam; Quran; Shirk          Alp Arslan, 665
> tomb of, 26, 436–437
> Al-Lakani, 83                                Al-Qadi al-Nu
man, 628
> Al-Idrisi, al-Sharif, 129
> al-Laknawi, 
Abd al-Hayy, 228                Al-Qadir, 120, 122, 449
> Aligarh (India), 30, 38–39, 469, 581
> Allat, 84, 85                                Al-Qahira. See Cairo (Egypt)
> See also Ahmad Khan, Sir Sayyid;
> Education; Modernism;                 Al-Latif, Qadi 
Abd, 374                     Al-Qaim, 120, 449
> Pakistan, Islamic Republic of;        Alliance Israelite Universelle, 205          
Alqamah Ibn Qays, 406
> South Asia, Islam in; Urdu            All-India Khilafat Committee, 374            Al-Qaradawi, Yusuf, 286
> language, literature, and poetry      All-India Muslim League, 343                 Al-Qasim b. Ibrahim al-Rassi, 630
> Aligarh movement, 155                         Al-Maghili, 17                               Al-Qushayri, wife of, 734
> Aligarh Muslim University, 39, 304            Al-Mahdi (r. 775–785), 207, 429              Al-Rabita al-Qalamiyya (The Pen
> Aligarh Scientific Society, 32, 38             Al-Malik al-Kamil, 164                          Club), 67
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                    789
> Page links created automatically - disregard ones formed not from page numbers
> Index: Volume 1 pp. 1–416; Volume 2 pp. 417–747
> 
> Al-Razi (al-Rhazes), Abu Bakr               Amelikites, 52                               Antiochus III, Seleucid king of
> Muhammed ibn Zakariyya, 295,             American culture and Islam,                     Syria, 54
> 446, 523                                    41–45, 245                                Anvari, 525
> Al-Sabah, Shaykh Jaber al-Almed, 466             See also Americas, Islam in the;        
Aoun, Michel, 412
> Al-Sa
di, 308                                      Farrakhan, Louis; Malcolm X;          Apollo (periodical), 67
> Al-Sahili, 430                                     Muhammad, Warith Deen;                
Aql (intellect), 38, 142, 398
> Al-Salimi, 185                                     Nation of Islam                       Aquino, Corazon, 648
> Al-Sanhuri, 
Abd al-Razzaq. See 
Abd        American Muslim Council, 713                 Arab (
arab), definition of, 51, 107
> al-Razzaq al-Sanhuri                     American Muslim Mission, 710                 Arabesque designs, 20–21, 79–80
> Al-Sattar, 
Abd, 375                        American Muslim Movement, 245                Arabia, definition of, 51
> Al-Sayyid, Ridwan, 160                      American Society of Muslims (ASM),           Arabia, pre-Islam, 50–58, 52, 144
> Al-Sha
bi, 8                                   43, 44, 712, 713                               See also Arabic language; Arabic
> Al-Shadhili (Al-Shadili), Abu ’l-Hasan,          See also Nation of Islam                       literature; Asabiyya;
> 178, 682                                 Americas                                            Muhammad; Sassanian Empire
> Al-Shafti, Muhammad Baqir, 310                   Islam in the, 45–46                      Arabian Nights, 66, 68, 292, 523, 572
> Al-Shahid al-Thani, 511                          use of Arabic language in, 62           Arabic alphabet, 124
> Al-Sharif al-Murtada, 717                        See also American culture and           Arabic language, 58–63
> Al-Shaykh al-Mufid, 549, 717                        Islam; United States, Islam                calligraphy in, 123–125
> Al-Shihab (The meteor), 2                          in the                                     development of, 51, 53, 57, 58,
> Al-Shiqaqi, Fathi, 365                      Amin, Qasim, 470                                    278–279, 591
> Al-Sibai, Mustafa, 346                     Amir al-muminin (commander of the                diglossia in, 61–62
> Al-Siddiq (“the truthful”), 7                  faithful), 4, 38, 113, 663                     dominance in Islam, 13, 51,
> Al-Sila, 189                                Amirshahi, Mahshid, 529                             60–61, 340, 586
> 
Ammar b. Yasir, 36                               and ethnic identity, 232
> Al-Siyalkuti, 83
> Islamic modes of thought
> Al-Sumatrani, Samsuddin, 651                
Ammiyya (darija, Low Arabic), 60
> expressed in, 23
> Al-Tabarani, 286                            
Amr b. al-
As (
Amr b. 
As), 36, 115             Jewish use of, 60
> Al-Tabarsi (d. 1158), 351                   
Amr b. al-
As al-Sahmi, 402                      in North Africa, 17
> Al-Taftazani, 655                           
Amr b. 
As. See 
Amr b. al-
As                   spread of, 58–60, 118, 223
> Al-Tahtawi, Rifa
a Rafi
, 66, 318, 342,      
Amr b. Dinar, 287                                as symbol of Arab nationalism,
> 551, 575                                 
Amr b. Luhayy, 84–85                               60–61
> Altaic (Turkic) languages, and ethnic       
Amr ibn al-
As, 36, 115                          used by Jews in al-Andalus, 48
> identity, 232                                                                              as world language, 62
> 
Amr Makki, 290
> Al-Taif, women of, 256                                                                       See also African culture and Islam;
> Amu Darya delta, 132
> Al-Tawhidi (d. 1010), 320                                                                       Arabic literature; Grammar and
> Amulets (talismanic charms), 18–19,
> Al-Tawwabun (the penitents), 623                                                                lexicography; Identity, Muslim;
> 20, 22, 51                                       Pan-Arabism; Persian language
> Al-Tayalisi, 286
> Anas b. (ibn) Malik, 8                              and literature; Quran; South
> Al-Thani, Shaykh Hamad bin
> Andalus, al-, 46–49, 65–66, 235–236,                Asian culture and Islam; Urdu
> Khalifa, 463
> 282, 362                                         language, literature, and poetry
> Al-Tibb al-Nahawi (Medicine of the
> See also European culture and           Arabic literature, 56–57, 63–68,
> Prophet), 446
> Islam; Judaism and Islam                 320–321
> Al-Turmidhi, 286
> Anecdotes (nawadir), 320                          See also Arabic language;
> Al-Tusi, al-Shaykh, 286, 351, 717
> Angels, 49–51, 50, 584                              Biography and hagiography;
> Al-
Umari, 429
> See also Mi
raj; Religious beliefs             Historical writing; Persian
> Al-
Urwa al-wuthqa (“The firmest                                                                 language and literature; Quran
> grip”), 7, 13, 597                       Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC),
> 476, 504                                  Arab-Israeli conflict, 198–199
> Al-
Uzza, 84, 85
> Aniconism, 78                                Arab-Israeli War (1948–1949),
> Al-Walid I, caliph, 72, 79, 118, 450                                                        105, 460
> Al-Walid II, caliph, 653                    Anis, 715
> Arab-Israeli War (1973), 197
> Al-Waqai
 al-Misriyya (Egyptian            Anjuman-e Sipahan-e Sahaba, 374
> Arab League, 68–69, 290, 503
> events), 7                               An-Na
im, 
Abdullahi, 471, 590
> See also 
Abd al-Nasser, Jamal;
> Al-Wathiq, 428, 448–449                     Anqarawi, Isma
il, 359
> Jami
at al-Duwal al-
Arabiyya
> 
Alyaiyya, 36                              Ansar al-Islam, 173
> (League of Arab States);
> Al-Ya
qubi, 233                             Ansar (helpers), 35, 340, 422, 719                  Organization of the Islamic
> Al-Zahrawi, Abu ’l-Qasim, 295, 447          Ansari, 685                                         Conference
> Al-Zawahiri, Ayman, 509, 559                Antiapartheid, 292–293                       Arab nationalism. See Nationalism:
> Al-Zuhri, 287, 406                          Antioch, Principality of, 163, 166              Arab
> 
> 790                                                                                           Islam and the Muslim World
> Page links created automatically - disregard ones formed not from page numbers
> Index: Volume 1 pp. 1–416; Volume 2 pp. 417–747
> 
> 
Arabshahid dynasty, 135–136                 
Askari, Hasan, 174                          Augustus, Roman emperor, 52
> Arab Socialist Union (Egypt), 4,             Askiya Muhammad (Muhammad b.                 AUMA (Association des Uléma
> 465, 633                                     Abi Bakr Ture, also known as                 Musulmanes Algériens), 2, 366, 609
> Arab Summit, 69                                 Askiya al-Hajj Muhammad), 17, 84          Aurangzeb (Awrangzib), 213, 303, 304,
> Arafat, plains of, 312                            See also Africa, Islam in; African         343, 637
> 
Arafat, Yasir, 355                                 culture and Islam                     Austro-Hungarian Empire, 102
> Aramaic language, 48                         ASM (American Society of Muslims),           Autobiography of Malcolm X, 426
> 43, 44, 712, 713                          Averroes. See Ibn Rushd
> Archimedes, 494
> See also Nation of Islam                Avicenna. See Ibn Sina
> Architecture, 69–75
> Asnam (“idols”), 84–85                       Awami (People’s) League, 90–92,
> basic components of, 69, 70, 70
> indigenous African, 20                       See also Allah; Shirk                      91, 640
> of madrasa, 418                         Assasins (Nizari Isma
ilis), 85–86                See also Pakistan, Islamic Republic
> in mosques, 70–73, 72, 440–441               See also Crusades; Shi
a: Isma
ili             of; South Asia, Islam in
> in Muslim Balkans, 103                  Association des Uléma Musulmanes             Awrangzib (Aurangzeb), 213, 303, 304,
> in North America, 42, 42, 43               Algériens (AUMA), 2, 366, 609                343, 637
> residential, 75                         Association for the removal of               A
yan-amir system, 292
> secular, 74–75, 78–79                      innovation and the establishment of       Ayat al-Kursi (Verses of the
> in shrines and mausoleums, 73–74           the sunna, 8                                 Throne), 563
> in South Asia, 643–644                  Association for the Union of                 Ayatollah (Ar., ayatullah), 92
> See also Adhan; Art; Dome of               Ottomans, 739                                  See also Hojjat al-Islam;
> the Rock; Holy cities; Jami
;         Association of Algerian Muslim Ulema                Khomeini, Ayatollah Ruhollah;
> Manar, manara; Mashhad                   (Association des Uléma                           Marja
 al-taqlid; Shi
a: Imami
> (mausoleum); Masjid; Mihrab;             Musulmanes Algériens, AUMA), 2,                  (Twelver)
> Minbar (mimbar); Religious               366, 609                                  Ayat (verses), 95
> institutions                          Association of Muslim Social                 Ayn al-Qudat al-Hamadhani, 226, 433
> 
Aref, 528                                      Scientists, 712                           Ayoub, Mahmoud, 174
> Aretas III, 53                               Association of Scholars of India             Ayyub, 657
> Aribi tribe, 58                                 (Jam
iyat-e 
Ulama-e Hind, JUH),
> Ayyubid sultanate, 74, 116, 164, 543,
> Aristotle, 35, 48, 234, 249, 252, 397,          177, 371, 374, 390, 443, 638
> 608, 657–660, 659
> 399, 401, 494, 612, 695                        See also Jam
iyat-e 
Ulama-e
> See also Cairo; Caliphate;
> criticism of, 359                              Islam; South Asia, Islam in
> Crusades; Delhi sultanate;
> Arkoun, Mohammed (Mohamed),                  Astarabadi, Muhammad Amin al-
> Education; Ghaznavid sultanate;
> 286, 327                                     (Muhammad Mumin), 34, 317,
> Mamluk sultanate; Saladin;
> Army of Islam, 344                              717–718
> Seljuk sultanate; Sultanates:
> Army of Pure (Lashkar-e Taiba                Astrology, 86, 613                                  Modern
> [Tayyiba]), 27, 490                            See also Astronomy; Science,            
Ayyuqi, 526
> Ar-Raniri, Nuruddin, 651                            Islam and
> Azad, Abu ’l (Abul) Kalam Maulana,
> Art, 75–82, 77, 78, 214, 302, 398, 400       Astronomy, 86–88, 87, 299–300,                  391, 639–640
> 612–613
> See also Architecture; Calligraphy;                                                  Azad, Muhammad Husain, 716
> Mihrab                                     See also Astrology; Biruni, al-;
> Azal, Subh-e. See Mirza Yahya
> Hijiri calendar; Science, Islam
> Arya Samaj, 304                                                                           Azalis, 96, 100, 453
> and; Translation
> 
Asabiyya (tribal loyalty), 82, 107,                                                      Azari, Farah, 627
> 
Ata b. Abi Rabah, 8
> 335, 699                                                                               Azhar, al- (Cairo), 92–93, 115, 171,
> 
Ata b. Rabah, 287
> See also Ibn Khaldun                                                                    205–206, 414, 416
> 
Atabat (exalted thresholds), 88
> Asad, Muhammad, 471                                                                            See also Education; Madrasa;
> See also Holy cities; Mashhad
> Asadi of Tus, 526                                                                                Zaytuna
> (mausoleum)
> Asante, Kingdom of, 18–19, 21                                                             
Azzam, 
Abdallah, 108, 559
> Ataturk, Mustafa Kemal, 88–90, 89,
> Asas (foundation), 37
> 103, 150, 205, 342, 419, 459, 505,
> Ash
ab, 320–321                                 512, 614, 690, 733                        B
> Ashab al-hadith, 667                              See also Nationalism: Turkish;          Baba Farid Shakarganj, 303
> Ash
arites, Ash
aira, 82–84, 105, 696               Revolution: Modern;                   Babangida, Ibrahim, 8
> See also Kalam; Mu
tazilites,                  Secularism, Islam; Young Turks        Baba Qasim, tomb of, 40
> Mu
tazila                             
Athman ibn 
Affan. See 
Uthman ibn          Baba Taher, 524
> Ash
at b. Qays Kindi, 36                        
Affan                                    Bab (“gate”), 95
> 
Asim, 432                                   
Auda, 
Abd al-
Aziz, 365                    Babiyya (Babi movement), 1, 95–96,
> Asim Degal, 386                              Augustine, Saint, 248, 251                      99, 100, 101, 453
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                    791
> Page links created automatically - disregard ones formed not from page numbers
> Index: Volume 1 pp. 1–416; Volume 2 pp. 417–747
> 
> See also Bab (Sayyed 
Ali              Bamba, Amadou, 21                            Bazargan, Mehdi, 106–107, 413,
> Muhammad); Bahaallah; Bahai        Bambara Kingdom of Segu, 17                     459, 578
> faith                                Bangladesh, independence of, 91,                   See also Iran, Islamic Republic of;
> Babri Masjid, 305, 640–641                     581, 640                                          Liberation Movement of Iran;
> Bab (Sayyed 
Ali Muhammad), 96–97,          Bangladesh Farmers, Workers, and                     Reform: in Iran; Revolution:
> 99, 100, 453                                People’s League (Bangladesh                       Islamic revolution in Iran
> See also Babiyya; Bahaallah;             Krishak Sramik Awami League,              Bedouin, 107, 161, 279, 699
> Bahai faith                            BAKSAL), 91                                     See also Arabia, pre-Islam;
> Babur, Zahir al-Din Muhammad, 135,          Bangladesh Krishak Sramik Awami                      
Asabiyya; Ibn Khaldun
> 212–213, 222, 637                           League (BAKSAL), 91                       Begin, Menachem, 605
> Badayuni, 
Abd al-Hamid, 375                Bangladesh National Party (BNP), 91          Behbehani, Simin, 528
> Baghdad, 97–99, 98                          Banna, Hasan al-, 104–105, 172, 262,         Bek, 134
> Arabization of, 59                        276, 345, 346, 433–434, 468, 537,         Bektashiyya, 26, 103, 682, 708
> capture by Safavids (1623), 1             551, 577                                  Belhadj, 
Ali, 366
> development of, 208                         See also Ikhwan al-Muslimin             Bell, Catherine, 598
> establishment of, 207                                                               Bello, Ahmadu, 8, 664
> Banu Hashim, 25, 273, 585
> inner city of, 98
> Banu Nadir, 361                              Bello, Muhammad, 664
> Mongol invasion of (1258), 99
> Banu Qaynuqa
, 361                           Ben Ali, Zine el Abidine, 112
> See also Abbasid Empire;
> Caliphate; Revolution: Classical     Banu Qurayza, 361                            Ben Badis. See 
Abd al-Hamid Ibn
> Islam; Revolution: Islamic           Baqi Billah (billah), Muhammad,                 Badis
> revolution in Iran; Revolution:         632, 637                                  Bengali language, 90
> Modern                               Baqillani, al- (Qadi Abu Bakr                Benjedid, Chadli, 366, 417
> Baghdad Pact (Central Treaty                   Muhammad b. al-Tayyib b.                  Berber tribes, 161, 223, 232
> Organization, CENTRO), 517                  Muhammad), 105–106                        Bergson, Henry, 250
> Baha al-Din al-
Amili, 320                       See also Ash
arites, Ash
aira;          Bernard, Calaude, 447
> Bahaallah (Mirza Husayn 
Ali Nuri),               Kalam                                 Bethlehem, 148
> 96, 97, 99–100, 100, 101, 453            Baqir al-Bihbihani, 718                      Bharata Janata Party (BJP), 640–641
> See also 
Abd al-Baha; Bab            Baqt (pact), 17                              Bhutto, Benazir, 518, 735, 735
> (Sayyed 
Ali Muhammad);              Bara Gumbad mosque (Dehli), 73               Bhutto, Zulfiqar (Zulfikar; Zulfiker)
> Bahai faith                         Baraka (blessing), 18, 22, 81, 254              Ali Khan, 90, 375, 517
> Bahadur Shah II Zafar, 214, 638, 715        Barelwi, Sayyid Ahmad. See Khan,             Bid
a, 6, 34, 107–108, 329, 533, 575,
> Bahai faith, 100–101, 310, 453                Reza of Bareilly (Ahmad Reza                 727–728
> See also 
Abd al-Baha; Babiyya;          Khan Barelwi)                                   See also Religious institutions;
> Bahaallah                           Barelwi (Bareilly) movement, 389–390,                Sunna
> Bahar, Mohammad Taqi, 528                      672, 683                                  Bidel of Patna, 528
> Bahira, 143                                 Barforush, Molla Mohammad 
Ali               Bikar al-anwar (The oceans of
> Bahmani dynasty, 636                           (Qoddus, “the Most Holy”), 96                lights), 626
> Bahrain                                     Bari, Maulana Abdul, 391                     Bilad al-Sudan (land of the blacks), 16
> economy of, 199, 201                   Bar Kochba, Simon, 53                        Bilal, 7
> independence of, 425                                                                Bilqis, queen of Sheba, 269
> Bashani, Maulana, 90
> Bahram I, 428                                                                            Bin Ladin, Usama, 365, 491, 509, 559,
> Bashir, Hasan 
Umar, 700
> Bahrani, Shaykh Yusuf al-, 718                                                              609–610, 674, 677–678
> Basri, Hasan (al-), 106, 685
> Bahshamiyya, 3                                                                                 See also Fundamentalism; Jihad;
> See also Kalam; Tasawwuf
> Bahu, Sultan, 303                                                                                Qa
ida, al-; Qutb, Sayyid;
> Bastami, Molla 
Ali, 95
> BAKSAL (Bangladesh Krishak Sramik                                                                Terrorism; Wahhabiyya
> Ba
th Party, 106, 156, 460–461, 503,
> Awami League), 91                                                                     Biography and hagiography, 109–110
> 519, 595, 633
> Balkans, Islam in the, 101–104, 102,                                                           See also Arabic literature;
> See also Nationalism: Arab                      Genealogy; Historical writing
> 236, 239
> Battle of the Camel (656 C.E.), 33, 260,     Birth control (contraception), 228, 229
> See also Europe, Islam in;
> Ottoman Empire                          435, 621, 734
> Birth rituals, 332
> Balkhi, Jalal al-Din Mohammad-e, See        Bawa Muhaiyuddin, tomb of, 683
> Biruni, al- (Abu ’l-Rayhan Muhammad
> Rumi, Jalaluddin                         Baybars, 166, 662                               ibn Ahmad al-Biruni), 87, 110, 129,
> Bälz, Kilian, 535                           Bayezid I, Ottoman sultan, 222                  139, 303, 523, 635
> Bamba, Ahmad, 21, 104, 694                  Bay Khatun, 734                                    See also Astronomy; Historical
> See also Africa, Islam in;             Bayt al-hikma (house of wisdom), 145,                writing; Knowledge; Science,
> Colonialism; Tariqa; Touba              203, 281, 282, 295, 414, 612                      Islam and
> (Senegal)                            Bayt al-mal (Treasury), 424                  Bishr b. al-Walid, 9
> 
> 792                                                                                           Islam and the Muslim World
> Page links created automatically - disregard ones formed not from page numbers
> Index: Volume 1 pp. 1–416; Volume 2 pp. 417–747
> 
> Bishr b. Ghiyas al-Marisi, 10                Burial, 175                                      See also Biruni, al-; Ibn Battuta;
> Bitar, Salah al-Din al-, 106                 Burqa, 556, 677                                     Ibn Khaldun; Persian language
> BJP (Bharata Janata Party), 640–641          Bush, George W., 44, 509, 692                       and literature
> Black Muslim movement, 241                   Buyid (Buwayhid) dynasty, 121, 207,          “Cassette preachers,” 2–3
> The Blind Owl, 529                              474, 542, 584, 587                        Caussin de Perceval, Armand-
> Blyden, Dr. Edward Wilmot, 696                                                              Pierre, 515
> Buyid family, 120
> BNP (Bangladesh National Party), 91                                                       Center for the Propoagation of Islamic
> Buyuk Millet Mejlisi (Grand National
> Truths, 619
> Body, significance of, 110–111                   Assembly, Turkey), 425
> Central Asia, Islam in, 132–138
> See also Circumcision; Gender;         Byzantine Empire, 210–211
> 
Ibadat                                                                               See also Central Asian culture
> architecture of, 70
> and Islam; Communism;
> Bolkiah, Hassanal, 647                            decorative arts of, 79
> Reform: in Muslim communities
> Bookmaking, 76                                    See also Christianity and Islam;
> of the Russian Empire
> Bopp, Franz, 515                                    Expansion, of Islam
> Central Asian culture and Islam,
> Bori (spirit possession) cult, 19, 21–22                                                    138–141
> Bornu, state of, 17                          C                                                See also Central Asia, Islam in;
> Borujerdi, Grand Ayatollah, 255              Cairo (al-Qahira, Egypt), 26, 92,                   Maturidi, al-; Pilgrimage:
> Bosnia                                          115–116, 116, 663                                Ziyara; Tasawwuf
> after the Dayton Peace                      See also Ayyubid sultanate;             Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
> Accords, 103                                Ghaznavid sultanate; Mamluk               covert funding of al-Qa
ida
> civil war in, 103                             sultanate; Seljuk sultanate                  by, 559
> Islam in, 102–103, 104                                                                  Iranian coup organized by,
> Cairo Genizah, 53
> Bourghiba, Habib, 111–112, 327–328                                                               592, 741
> Calendrical rituals, 331–332, 599–600
> See also Modernization, political:                                                      support of Afghan resistance
> See also Hijri calendar
> Constitutionalism; Secularism,                                                           by, 108
> Islamic                              Caliphate, 116–123, 474, 584–587,
> Central Treaty Organization
> 651–656
> Bouteflika, 
Abd al-
Aziz, 366                                                               (CENTRO), 517
> functions of, 121–122
> Bowen, John, 178                                                                          Ceramics, 77–78, 78,80–81
> genealogy of, 119, 484
> Brahmo Samaj, 304                                                                         Cevdet Pasha, Ahmad (Jevdet Pasha,
> universal, 153
> Brelwi, Ahmad, 344                                                                          Ahmet), 270, 376–377
> See also Abbasid Empire;
> British East India Company, 304, 638                                                          See also Modernization, political:
> Kharijites, Khawarij; Monarchy;
> Brown, H. Rap. See Jamil al-Amin,                                                                Administrative, military, and
> Ottoman Empire; Umayyad
> Imam (H. Rap Brown)                                                                           judicial reform
> Empire
> Brunei                                                                                    Chador, 556
> Calligraphy, 59, 123–126, 124,
> independence of, 647                                                                Chaghatay, 134, 212, 222
> 441, 673
> Islam in, 644                                                                       Chagri Beg, 665
> in books, 76, 125
> prayer in, 179                                                                      Chalcedonian Christianity, 143, 144
> in mosques, 73, 74, 191
> sultanate of, 474, 664–665                                                          Chand, Prem, 716
> in Quran, 59, 123, 125
> Buddhism                                                                                  Charlemagne, 572
> styles of, 81–82
> in Central Asia, 139                        See also Arabic language; Arabic        Charles Martell, 46
> in South Asia, 641                            literature; Art                       Chehab, Fouad, 412
> Bukhara, khanate and emirate of,                                                          Childhood, 141–142
> Camel (dromedary), 52, 54, 58, 107
> 112–114, 133                                                                               See also Circumcision; Education;
> Camp David peace accords, 69,
> See also Central Asia, Islam in;                                                           Gender; Marriage
> 290, 605
> Central Asian culture and Islam                                                   China, People’s Republic of
> Capitalism, 126–128, 214
> Bukhari, al- (Muhammad b. Isma
il al-                                                         Islam in, 136, 187–189, 188,
> Bukhari), 114, 139, 261, 268, 286,             See also Communism; Economy
> 190, 244
> 294, 370, 390, 668                               and economic institutions;
> Sufism in, 682
> Globalization
> See also Hadith                                                                         See also East Asia, Islam in
> Capital punishment (death penalty),
> Bulgaria                                                                                  Chinese Communist Party, 188–189
> 175, 227
> independence of, 102                                                                Chishtiyya, 632, 682
> Muslim population of,                  Caravanseries, 74–75
> Chisti, Mu
in al-Din, 682
> 103–104, 236                         Carlyle, Thomas, 516
> Chosroes, Sassanian emperor
> Bulleh Shah, 303                             Carnap, Rudolf, 400                            (Khosrow), 143
> Buraq, 49, 79, 114                           Carpet pages, in manuscripts, 80             Christianity and Islam, 142–148
> See also Mi
raj; Tasawwuf              Carpet weaving, 76–77                            in al-Andalus, 47, 362
> Burhan al-Din 
Ali al-Marghinani, 139        Carter, Jimmy, 592, 605                          in Arabia, 55
> Burhan al-Din al-Zarnuji, 202                Cartography and geography, 128–132               in Central Asia, 139
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                  793
> Page links created automatically - disregard ones formed not from page numbers
> Index: Volume 1 pp. 1–416; Volume 2 pp. 417–747
> 
> in Ethiopia, 14                         Constitutionalism, 463–465,                      See also Dar al-islam
> in Nubian kingdoms (Egypt), 17            470–471, 595                               Dar al-hijra (abode of migration), 729
> respect between, 27–28                      See also Majlis                          Dar al-hiyyad (land of neutrality), 231
> See also Balkans, Islam in the;         Contraception. See Birth control             Dar al-
ilm (house of knowledge), 415
> Crusades; European culture and        Conversion, 41, 160–163                      Dar al-islam, 28, 158, 161, 169–170,
> Islam; Islam and other religions;                                                    339, 361, 377, 379, 638
> of Christians and Jews, 47,
> Judaism and Islam; Religious
> 102, 362                                   See also Dar al-harb
> beliefs
> of Hindus, 303–304                       Dar al-kufr (realm of disbelief),
> Christian missionaries, 1, 146, 379              of Turkic peoples, 133                     18, 713
> Chubak, Sadeq, 529                               See also Da
wa; Expansion, of            Dar al-salam (Abode of Peace),
> Chuck D. (rapper), 45                              Islam; Minorities: dhimmis;              97, 376
> CIA. See Central Intelligence Agency               Tasawwuf                               Dar al-suhl (territory of peaceful
> (CIA)                                     Copernicus, Nicolas, 613                       covenant), 160, 378
> Ciller, Tansu, 224, 574, 735                 Corbin, Henry, 359, 656                      Dar al-
Ulum Deoband, 176, 206, 304
> Circumcision (khitan), 148–149, 330,         Cordoba (al-Andalus), 46, 47, 414            Dara Shikoh (Dara Shukoh; Dara
> 332, 436                                  Council for American-Islamic                   Shokuh), 213, 303, 363, 528, 637
> See also 
Ada; Body, significance          Relations, 712, 713                        Darius I, Archaemenid king of
> of; Gender; Law                       Council for Cultural Revolution, 742           Persia, 54
> Cisneros, Cardinal, 415                      CPU (Committee for Progress and              Darul Arqam movement, 690
> Cloning, 230                                   Union), 739–740                            Darul Islam, 373
> Clothing, 45, 111, 149–151, 150, 150,        Crusade for Reconstruction, 522              Dasht-e Qipchaq, 132
> 441, 677                                  Crusades, 17, 85, 145, 163–167, 165,         Dashti, 
Ali, 483
> See also Art; Body, significance of;       362, 382, 608, 657–658                     Daud b. 
Ajabshah, 629
> Khirqa; Veiling                           See also Christianity and Islam;         Daud b. Khalaf, 417
> Coca-Cola logo, 278                                Saladin                                Da
wa, 161, 170–174, 451, 538
> Coinage, 118, 151–152, 152, 195, 424         Cultural Revolution Council (Iran), 3            See also Conversion; Expansion, of
> See also Economy and economic           Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi (Republican                Islam; Jama
ate-e Islami; Shari
a
> institutions; Law; Networks,            People’s Party), 89, 459                   Da
wah Academy (Pakistan), 173
> Muslim                                CUP (Committee for Union and                 Dawat al Islam movement, 390
> Colonialism, 21, 152–155, 508, 645             Progress), 521, 595, 739                   Dawla, 174–175, 551, 590
> See also Fundamentalism;                Currency. See Coinage                            See also Hukuma al-islamiyya, al-
> Orientalism                           Custom. See 
Ada                                     (Islamic government); Ibn
> Color, use of, 80–81                         Cyprus, use of Arabic language in, 62              Khaldun; Political organization;
> Commerce. See Capitalism; Trade                                                                 Shari
a
> Commission of the International                                                           Dawla Islamiyya (“Islamic state”), 175
> D
> Crescent, 278                                                                          Dawud al-Isfehani, 410
> Da Afghanistan da Talibano Islami
> Committee for Progress and Union                                                          DDII (Dewan Dakwah Islamiyah
> Tahrik (The AFghan Islamic
> (CPU), 739–740                                                                           Indonesia), 646
> Movement of Taliban). See Taliban
> Committee for (of) Union and                                                              Death, 175–176, 565, 649
> Dabir, 715
> Progress (CUP), 521, 595, 739                                                              See also 
Ibadat; Jahannam; Janna;
> Dagh, 715
> Communication, rites of, 598                                                                     Pilgrimage: Ziyara
> Dahlan, Ahmad, 487, 582
> Communion, rites of, 600                                                                  Death penalty. See Capital punishment
> Daily rituals, 332
> Communism, 155–157                                                                          (death penalty)
> See also Salat
> See also 
Abd al-Nasser, Jamal;                                                      Declaration on Human Rights in Islam
> Dajjal (“the Deceiver”), 261, 421
> Ba
th Party; Political                                                               (Cairo, 1990), 278–279, 318
> organization; Political thought;      Dakwah movement, 647
> Decorative themes, in Islamic art,
> Socialism                             Dalang (shadowplay puppeteers), 649            78–82, 441
> Confederation of the Iranian Students        Damascus, 144, 313                           Deedat, Ahmed, 173
> in the United States and                       See also Umayyad Empire                 Delhi sultanate, 73, 243, 303, 474,
> Europe, 741                               “Damascus Covenant,” 53                        636, 660–661
> Conflict and violence, 157–160                Daneshvar, Simin, 529                            See also Ghaznavid sultanate;
> See also Fitna; 
Ibadat; Jihad;         Dante Alighieri, 455                                Mamluk sultanate; Seljuk
> Political Islam                       Daqiqi, 139, 525                                    sultanate
> Constantine I (“the Great”), Byzantine       Darabi, Sayyed Yahya, 96                     Democracy movements, 462–463
> emperor, 28, 53, 183, 314                 Dar al-harb (“house of war”), 28,            Democratic Front for the Liberation
> Constantinople, 210, 211, 223                   158, 169, 210, 339, 361, 377–378,           of Palestine (DFLP), 156
> Constantinus Africanus, 296                     452, 581                                  Democratic Party (DP), 459, 512, 513
> 
> 794                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Page links created automatically - disregard ones formed not from page numbers
> Index: Volume 1 pp. 1–416; Volume 2 pp. 417–747
> 
> Deoband (India), 30, 176–177, 227,          Dome of the Rock (al-Haram al-                    political modernization in, 460,
> 371, 420, 581, 638, 677                    Sharif), 70, 74, 118, 125, 183,                   462, 575
> See also Education; Jam
iyat             183–185, 184, 223, 315, 332                     Sufism in, 690
> 
Ulama-e Islam; Law; South               See also Architecture; Holy cities            use of Arabic language in, 61
> Asia, Islam in; Tablighi Jama
at     Domestic architecture, 75                         veiling in, 723
> Descartes, René, 248, 397                   Double-truth theory, 249, 337                     See also Fatimid dynasty; Mamluk
> Dowlatabadi, Mahmoud, 529                           sultanate
> Destour (constitutionalist)
> movement, 112                            DP (Democratic Party), 459, 512, 513         Egyptian Communist Party, 156
> Destourian Socialist Party, 112             Dreams, 185                                  Egyptian Feminist Union, 276
> Devine Styler (rapper), 45                  Druze religion, 453, 707–708                 Egyptian Land Reform Law of
> Du
a, 185–186, 332, 598                         1952, 196
> Devotional life, 177–179, 178, 179
> See also Devotional life; 
Ibadat        Elahi, Imam, 712
> See also Adhan; Dhikhj; Du
a;
> Dupuis, Joseph, 18                           Elahi nameh, 527
> 
Ibadat; Tasawwuf
> Durkheim, Émile, 597                         El-Bizri, Nader, 400
> Devsirme (forced recruitment), 102
> Durrani, Ahmad Shah, 136                     El-Fadl, Khaled Abou, 261
> Dewan Dakwah Islamiyah Indonesia
> (DDII), 646                              Dustour Party, 609                           El Zein, Abdul Hamid, 178
> DFLP (Democratic Front for the              Dutch East India Company, 426                Emir, 134
> Liberation of Palestine), 156                                                         Empires, 207–224
> Dhikr (chant) practices, 22, 687            E                                                 Abbasid (See Abbasid Empire)
> Byanztine (See Byzantine Empire)
> Dhikr (remembrance), 173, 178,              Early North Arabic language, 58
> Mogul (See Mogul Empire)
> 179–180, 389, 495, 673, 681,             East Africa, Islam in, 14–16, 20, 244
> Mongol and Il-Khanid (See
> 687, 688                                 East African Muslim Welfare
> Mongol and Il-Khanid Empires)
> See also Devotional life; 
Ibadat;        Society, 25
> Ottoman (See Ottoman Empire)
> Tasawwuf                             East Asia, Islam in, 187–190                      Safavid and Qajar (See Safavid and
> Dhimmi (protected) status, 28, 144,              See also East Asian culture and                Qajar Empires)
> 219, 340, 361, 378, 382–383,                    Islam; South Asia, Islam in;               Sassanian (See Sassanian Empire)
> 451–452                                         Southeast Asia, Islam in                   Timurid (See Timurid Empire)
> See also Minorities: dhimmis           East Asian culture and Islam, 190–193             Umayyad (See Umayyad Empire)
> Dhu al-Nun, 685                                  See also East Asia, Islam in            Empiricism, 469
> Dhu l-Qarnayn, 391                          Eastern Christianity, 143                    Engineering Association of Iran, 106
> Dhu Nuwas, Yusuf, 55                        Economy and economic institutions,           Ennahda (Renaissance Party, hizb al-
> Dietary laws, 180–181                          193–202                                      nahda), 273
> See also Fatwa; Ijtihad; Madhhab;           See also Capitalism; Coinage;           Enver Bey, 739
> Mufti; Shari
a                              Riba; Waqf                            Enver Pasha, 344, 521
> Dikka (platform), 71                        Edessa, County of, 163, 164                  
Eraqi, 528
> Dinar, Islamic, 152                         Education, 202–206, 206                      Erbakan, Necmeddin, 224, 238, 466,
> Din-e Ilahi (Universal Religion of               musical, 495                               512, 574
> of women, 22, 25, 39, 741
> God), 637                                                                                  See also Modernization, political:
> See also Azhar, al-; Deoband;
> Diocletian, Roman emperor, 53                                                                   Participation, political
> Knowledge; Madrasa;
> Diop, Sokna Magat, 22                                                                           movements, and parties;
> Modernization, political:
> Dirar b. Amr, 10                                                                                Political Islam
> Administrative, military, and
> Disciplinary Force (Niru-ye                                                              Esack, Farid, 471
> judicial reform; Science,
> entezami), 402                                                                        Esen Buqa, 134
> Islam and
> Dishonor killings, 257–258                  Egalitarianism, 469–470                      
Eshqi, Mirzadeh, 528
> Disputation, 181–182, 282                   Egypt                                        E
tesami, Parvin, 528
> See also Christianity and Islam;            Arab nationalism in, 503                Ethics and social issues, 34–35, 44,
> Kalam                                     British occupation of, 7                   224–231, 565–567
> Dissimulation. See Taqiyya                       communism in, 156                            See also Fatwa; Futuwwa; Ghazali,
> constitutionalism in, 464, 470                 al-; Homosexuality; Ibn
> Diversity. See Ethnicity
> economy of, 199, 200                           Khaldun; Law; Shari
a
> Divorce (talaq), 182–183, 266
> education in, 205–206                   Ethiopia
> See also Gender; Law; Marriage
> freed from Ottoman rule, 66                  Christianity in, 231
> Diwan Dawat al-Islam (Indonesia), 173                                                         Islamic jihad movement in, 29
> independence of, 425, 458
> Diwan group (poets), 67                          Islam in, 13, 14, 17                         Islam in, 14, 24, 231–232
> Diwan (military register), 117,                  music in, 493                                See also Africa, Islam in; Ahmad
> 118, 272                                      native courts in, 7                            ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi; Ottoman
> Diya al-Din Barani, 303                         political Arabism in, 342, 595                 Empire
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                  795
> Page links created automatically - disregard ones formed not from page numbers
> Index: Volume 1 pp. 1–416; Volume 2 pp. 417–747
> 
> Ethnicity (ethnic identity), 232–233,             See also American culture and               See also Africa, Islam in;
> 340, 533–534, 706                                Islam; Malcolm X; Muhammad,                  Sultanates: Modern
> See also Pluralism: Legal and                  Elijah; Nation of Islam; United      Fidais (devotees), 85–86
> ethno-religious; Tribe                       States, Islam in the                 Figural imagery, 78–79
> Euclid, 612, 695                            Farrokhi, 525                                Fiqh, 226–227, 397, 405, 613–614,
> Eunuchs, 233–234                            Farrokhzad, Forugh, 529                         618, 703, 704, 728
> See also Gender; Harem                 Farsi language, 522                          Fiqh al-nafs (discernment of the
> Europe, Islam in, 235–239, 237,             Faruqi dynasty of Kandesh, 636                  soul), 226
> 238, 245                                 Fasi, Muhammad 
Allal al-, 254, 705          Fiqh Council of North America, 712
> See also European culture and                See also Reform: in Arab Middle        Firangi Mahal (Lucknow), 581
> Islam                                        East and North Africa; Salafiyya      Firdawsi, 139, 343, 661
> European culture and Islam, 234–235         FATAH (harakat al-tahrir al-watani al-       Firoz Shah Tughlaq, 660
> See also Andalus, al-; Balkans,           filastini), 291, 355                       FIS (Front Islamique du Salut), 238,
> Islam in the; Europe, Islam in       Fateh 
Ali Khan, Nusrat, 689                    365–366, 417, 461, 466
> Euthanasia, 230                             Fath 
Ali Shah, 24                                See also 
Abd al-Hamid Ibn Badis;
> Everlast (rapper), 45                       Fatima, 254–255                                      Madani, 
Abbasi
> Exchange, rites of, 600                           as ahl al-bayt, 26, 349                Fitna (civil war), 33, 117, 158,
> Expansion, of Islam, 58, 75, 142, 161,            descendants of, 611                       259–261, 453, 590, 621, 693
> 237, 239–245, 243, 277                         titles of, 92, 254                     Fitrat, Abdalrauf (
Abd al-Ra
uf
> See also Conversion; Da
wa; Jihad;           tomb of, 26, 254                          Fitrat), 469
> Tasawwuf                                   on transmission of Prophet’s           FitzGerald, Edwqard, 524
> tradition, 734
> Expediency Council (Iran), 294                                                           Five Percenters, 45
> See also Abu Bakr; 
Ali; Biography
> Ezra (prophet), 28                                                                       Five Pillars, 142
> and hagiography; Hasan;
> Husayn; Shi
a: Early; Succession     Fiver Shi
a. See Shi
a: Zaydi (Fiver)
> F                                           Fatima al-Ma
suma (Fatimah al-               Fleischer, Heinrich L., 515
> Fadlallah (Fadl Allah), Ayatullah              Ma
sumah), tomb of, 26, 351, 562          FLN (Front de Libération Nationale),
> Muhammad Husayn, 227, 228–229,           Fatimi, Husayn, 256                             156, 366, 417, 461, 633
> 247, 309–310                             Fatimid dynasty, 115, 121, 171, 542,         Focolare movement, 712
> See also Political Islam                  587, 628                                  Foi et pratique, 238
> Faidherbe (French governor in                     eunuchs of, 233                        Folklore, folk Islam. See Vernacular
> Senegal), 17                             Fatwa al-qalb (dictates of the                  Islam
> Faith (iman), 703                              heart), 226                               Folk medicine, 294
> Faiz, Ahmad Faiz, 716                       Fatwa (legal opinion), 255                   Forqan, 476
> Fakhita bt. Abi Hashim, 435                       against Babi heretics, 95              Fosterage, 229
> Fakhr al-Din al-Razi (Fakhr al-Din                See also Law; Mufti; Religious         Foucault, Michel, 457
> Razi), 83, 249, 673                              institutions; Rushdie, Salman        Four-iwan mosque, 73
> Fakhr al-Din Gorgani, 526                   Faysal, king of Saudi Arabia, 173, 293,      Francis of Assisi, 145
> Fakhr al-Islam 
Ali b. Muhammad al-            515, 521                                  Frankincense, 54
> Pazdawi, 139                             Faysal b. Husayn, 99                         Franks (ifranj), 164
> Fakhreddin, Rizaeddin bin (Rida al-din      Fazilet Party. See Virtue (Fazilat) Party    Frederick I, emperor of Germany, 164
> bin Fakr al-din), 469                    Fedaiyan-e Islam, 11, 255–256               Frederick II, emperor of Germany,
> Falsafa, 247–253                                  See also Fundamentalism; Political        164, 658
> See also Ibn Rushd; Ibn Sina;                  Islam                                Freedom Movement of Iran, 742
> Kalam; Law; Tasawwuf; Wajib         Fedaiyan Organization, 742                   Free Officers movement (Egypt), 5,
> al-wujud                            Fedayin-e Islam (Devotees of                    346, 460, 538, 569, 595
> Falsafatuna (Our philosophy), 606              Islam), 594                               Free Verse movement, 67
> Family planning, 227, 229                   Federation of Islamic Association, 709       Freud, Sigmund, 597
> Fannon, Franz, 516                          Feminism, 256–258, 276                       Front de Libération Nationale (FLN),
> Faraj, Muhammad 
Abd al-Salam, 365                See also Gender                           156, 366, 417, 461, 633
> Fard, W. D., 709                            Ferdausi of Tus, 525                         Front Islamique du Salut (FIS, Islamic
> Farghana valley, 132                        Ferdinand II, king of Aragon, 47                Salvation Front), 238, 365–366,
> Farid al-Din 
Attar, 455, 527, 603          Ferhat Pasha Mosque (Banja                      417, 461, 466
> Farisi, 281                                    Luka), 103                                     See also 
Abd al-Hamid Ibn Badis;
> Farrakhan, Louis (Louis Eugene              Ferqeh-ye Komunist-e Iran, 156                       Madani, 
Abbasi
> Walcott), 44, 253–254, 505, 707,         Fez (headgear), 89, 150                      Fuat Pasha (Fuat Pasas), 678, 738
> 710, 713                                 Fez (Morocco), 258–259                       Fulfulde language, 697
> 
> 796                                                                                           Islam and the Muslim World
> Page links created automatically - disregard ones formed not from page numbers
> Index: Volume 1 pp. 1–416; Volume 2 pp. 417–747
> 
> Fundamentalism, 147, 155,                    Ghaliyun, Burhan, 319                        Ghulams (military slaves), 1, 218,
> 261–263, 536                              Ghana                                           542, 661
> See also 
Abduh, Muhammad;                  Islamic architecture of, 21              Ghunaimi, Muhammad al-, 160
> Afghani, Jamal al-Din al-;                 Islam in, 18                             Ghurak, Sogdian king, 132
> Banna, Hasan al-; Ghazali,             Ghannoushi, Rashid al- (Ghannouchi,          GIA (Groupe Islamique Armé), 366
> Muhammad al-; Ghazali,                   Rachid al-), 273, 577, 616                 Gibb, H. A. R., 696
> Zaynab al-; Ibn Taymiyya;                  See also Political Islam                 Gibb, Hamilton, 515
> Ikhwan al-Muslimin; Jama
at-e
> Ghassanids, 55                               Girls’ Secrets, 459
> Islami; Khomeini, Ayatollah
> Ghayba(t), al- (the hiding), 273–274         Glassware, 77–78
> Ruhollah; Maududi, Abu l-A
la;
> Political Islam; Qutb, Sayyid;             See also Imamate; Shi
a: Imami           Globalization, 147, 235, 276–279, 615
> Rida, Rashid; Salafiyya; Tablighi             (Twelver)                                   See also Internet; Networks,
> Jama
at; Velayat-e Faqih;              Ghazali, al- (Abu Hamid Muhammad                     Muslim
> Wahhabiyya                               bin Muhammad al-Ghazali),                  Gnawa (spirit possession) cult, 19
> Fusha (al-
arabiyya, High Arabic), 60          274–275
> Gnosticism, 397, 428, 620, 673
> Futuh al-Haramayn (The conquests of              accusations against ahl al-kitab
> God-Worshiping Socialists, 619
> the holy sites), 129                            by, 28
> Gokalp, Ziya, 505, 740
> Futuwwa, 120, 263–264, 740                       biography of, 109
> on birth control, 229                    Gok Tepe, massacre at, 137
> See also Youth movements                                                             Golestan, 527–528
> on conversion, 160
> criticism of Ibn Sina and al-Farabi      Gordianus III, Roman emperor, 55
> G                                                  by, 249, 274                           Gordon, Gen. Charles, 422
> Gabriel (Jibrail, Jibril), 49, 170, 455         criticism of philosophy by, 248          Government, Islamic. See Hukuma al-
> Gagnier, John, 516                               on disputation, 182                         Islamiyya, al- (Islamic government)
> Galawdewos, Ethiopian emperor, 29                ethical tradition of, 35, 226            Grammar and lexicography, 279–281
> Galen, 294, 446, 612                             on hadith, 286                                See also Arabic language; Arabic
> Gallus, Aelius, 52                               on hell, 370, 502                                literature; Quran
> Gandhi, Mohandas K. (Mahatma                     on knowledge, 397, 399–400
> Granada (al-Andalus), 47, 236
> Gandhi), 39, 304, 305, 391,                    on medicine, 296
> Grand Mosque, floorplan of, 532
> 458, 640                                       on political legitimacy, 122
> on renewal, 675                          Grand National Assembly, Turkey
> Garad Abun, amir of Adal, 29
> respect for, 310                            (Buyuk Millet Mejlisi), 425
> Gharbzadegi, 529
> on self, 250                             Great Mosque (Jami
 Masjid) of Delhi,
> Gasprinskii (Gaspirali), Isma
il Bay                                                         73, 439
> strict interpretation of shari
a
> (Bey), 265, 469, 579, 609, 676
> by, 270                                Great Mosque of Basra, 72
> See also Education; Feminism
> on succession, 655                       Great Mosque of Cordoba, 71
> Gazi Husrevbegova Mosque
> on Sufism, 685–686                        Great Mosque of Damascus, 70, 72,
> (Sarajevo), 103
> on sunna, 667, 668                          79, 118, 376
> GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council),                  as teacher, 83, 665                           tomb of John the Baptist in, 144
> 201, 519                                       on ulema, 704
> Great Mosque of Djenné, 73
> Gehenna. See Jahannam                            and Usuliyya, 717
> Gender, 22–23, 42–43, 265–272,                                                            Great Mosque of Fatehpur Sikri, 73,
> on welfare, 440
> 710–711                                                                                    74, 213
> See also Ash
arites, Ash
aira;
> See also Divorce; Feminism;                   Falsafa; Kalam; Law; Tasawwuf          Great Mosque of Isfahan, 73
> Ghazali, Zaynab al-; Marriage;         Ghazali, Muhammad al-, 275–276,              Great Mosque of Kufa, 72
> Masculinities                            388, 523, 577                              Great Mosque of Samarra, 72–73
> Genealogy, 272–273                               See also Political Islam                 Great National Assembly (Turkey), 89
> See also Biography and                  Ghazali, Zaynab al- (Zaynab al-              Greece
> hagiography; Historical writing;         Ghazali al-Jabili), 110, 178, 271,              independence of, 102
> Tariqa                                   276, 735                                        Muslim population of, 104
> Genghis (Chinggis) Khan, 112, 134,               See also Banna, Hasan al-; Ikhwan        Greek civilization, 281–283, 396, 427,
> 211, 236                                         al-Muslimin; Political Islam              612, 695
> Genizot (religious treasuries), 53           Ghazi, Ahmad b. Ibrahim al-. See                  See also Africa, Islam in; Americas,
> Geography. See Cartography and                 Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi                         Islam in the; Falsafa; Islam
> geography                                  Ghaznavid sultanate, 243, 528, 543,                  and other religions; South Asia,
> Geometric decorations, 79–80                   635–636, 661–662                                   Islam in; Southeast Asia,
> Gerard of Lombardy, 296                          See also Persian language,                       Islam in
> Ghadiri of Medina, 320                             literature, and poetry; Seljuk         Green Book, 557
> Ghadir Khumm, 37, 621                              sultanate                              Gregorian calendar, 89
> Ghalib, 528, 689, 715                        Ghiyas al-Din Balban, 660                    Groupe Islamique Armé (GIA), 366
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                     797
> Page links created automatically - disregard ones formed not from page numbers
> Index: Volume 1 pp. 1–416; Volume 2 pp. 417–747
> 
> Grunebaum, Gustave von, 515                  Halevi, Judah, 48                            Hasan al-
Askari, 88, 274, 625
> Guilds, rise of, 195                         Hali, Altaf Husayn (Husain), 457, 716        Hasan (Hasan ibn 
Ali ibn Abi Talib),
> Guinea, Islamic architecture of, 20          Halk Firkasi (People’s Party), 89               26, 254, 293, 619, 621
> Gulen Community movement,                    Hallaj, al- (Husayn ibn Mansur al-                See also Ahl al-bayt; Imamate;
> 512–513                                      Hallaj), 51, 289–290                              Shi
a: Early; Succession
> Guler, Fethullah, 512                             See also Heresiography; Kharijites,     Hasan Sabbah, 85
> Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC),                     Khawarij; Mahdi; Muhasibi, al-;       Hashemi-Rafsanjani, 
Ali-Akbar, 294,
> 201, 519                                          Tasawwuf                                 358, 402
> Gumi, Abu Bakr. See Abu Bakr Gumi            HAMAS (Hamas; harakat al-                         See also Iran, Islamic Republic of;
> Gunbad-e Qabus, 74                             muqawamat al-Islamiyyah, Islamic                  Revolution: Revolution in Iran
> Gundissalinus, Domenicus, 296                  Resistance Movement), 290–291,             Hashim, Yahya, 309
> Guru Nanak, 303                                355, 365, 366, 732, 741                    Hashimite dynasty (Iraq and
> Gwandu, emirate of, 664                           See also Arab League;                      Jordan), 26
> Fundamentalism; Intifada;             Hashish, 85–86
> Lebanon; Majlis; Martyrdom;           Hashishi (“low-class rabble”), 85
> H
> Terrorism
> Hachani, 
Abdelkader, 366                                                                 Hashwiya (promoters of farce), 695
> Hamdullahi, state of, 17
> Hadarat al-Islam, 631                                                                     Hassan b. Thabit, 64
> Hamid al-Din Kirmani, 248
> HADI (Human Assistance and                                                                Hassan Haj-Faraj Dabbagh. See 
Abd
> Development International), 354            Hamilton, Charles, 638                          al-Karim Sorush
> Hadith (traditions of the Prophet),          Hammad b. Abi Sulayman, 9                    Hathout, Maher, 712
> 285–288                                    Hammad Ibn Abu Sulayman, 406                 Hatim al-Tai, 317
> calligraphy of, 81                      Hammams (public baths), 69, 76               Hausaland (Nigeria), Islam in, 19,
> and education, 202                      Hamza, use of, 58                               21–22
> as history, 307                         Hanafi, Hassan (Hasan), 471, 577              Hausa language, 62, 697
> history of, 109, 286–288                Hanafi school, 8, 9, 11, 408, 410, 417,       Haykal, Muhammad Husayn, 67, 483
> reliance on, 27, 285–286,                 418, 534, 588, 686                         Hazarawi, Ghauth, 374
> 338–339, 668                               in Central Asia, 138, 139, 140          Hazhir, 
Abd al-Husayn, 11, 255
> systematic collection of, 120, 139,
> Ha-Nagid, Shmuel, 48                         Hazrat 
Ali, shrine of, 731
> 286, 335, 336–337, 496
> Hanbali school, 27, 410–411, 417, 450,       Healing, 22, 294–296, 650–651, 724
> transmission of, 33, 285, 286–287,
> 534, 588, 668, 686                              See also Medicine; Miracles; South
> 496, 631–632
> See also Succession                     Hanim, Sefika, 265                                   Asian culture and Islam;
> Hadramawt, kingdom of, 54                    Haqq al-
arab, 535                                  Southeast Asian culture and
> Hafez of Shiraz, 527                         Harakat al-Ansar (Movement of the                   Islam
> Hafizi Isma
ili, 628–629                        Ansar—Helpers of prophet                   Hebrew language, and ethnic
> Muhammad in Medina), 490                      identity, 232
> Hafsa, 734
> Harakat al-ittijah al-islami (Islamic        Hedayat, Sadeq, 529
> Hagar (Haggar), mother of Ishmael,
> Tendency Movement), 273                    Heidegger, Martin, 250, 400, 401
> 24, 299, 311, 312
> Hagia Sophia (Constantinople), 73            Harakat al-jihad al-Islami (Islamic          Heraclius, Byzantine emperor,
> Jihad Movement), 365                          143, 314
> Hagiography. See Biography and
> hagiography                                Harakat al-muqawamat al-Islamiyyah           Heresies. See Heresiography;
> (HAMAS, Islamic Resistance                    Kharijites, Khawarij
> Haidar, Qurratulain, 716
> Movement). See HAMAS                       Heresiography, 296–299
> Haifa (Israel), Bahai Shrine of the Bab
> in, 101                                    Harakat al-tahrir al-watani al-filastini           See also Bid
a; Hadith; Hallaj, al-;
> (FATAH), 291, 355                                 Historical writing; Islam and
> Haile Selasse, Ethiopian emperor, 231
> Harakat-e Inqilab-e Islami (Islamic                 other religions; Kalam; Quran;
> Haji Hassanatul Bolkiah Mu
izzidin
> Revolutionary Movement), 490                      Shari
a
> Waddaulah, 664–665
> Haram (coverd sanctuary), 71                 Herodotus, 52
> Hajj. See Pilgrimage: Hajj
> Hajj Salim Suwari, al-, 18, 289              Harem (haram), 74, 233, 291–292              Hezbollah (Hizb Allah, Hizbullah,
> See also Africa, Islam in; Islam             See also Gender; Marriage; Purdah          “party of God”), 247, 263,
> and other religions; Networks,        Harith al-Muhasibi, 83, 226, 275                309–310, 412, 522, 741
> Muslim                                Harith b. Hakam, 435                         Hicks, Col. William, 422
> Haj 
Umar al-Tal, al-, 289                   Haron, Abdullah, 292–293                     Hijab (veil). See Veiling
> See also Africa, Islam in;                   See also Africa, Islam in; Modern       Hijazi love poetry, 65
> Caliphate; 
Ibadat                           thought                               Hijra, 299
> Hakki, Izmirli Ismail, 83                    Hasan, Maulana In
amul, 672                      first, 14, 231, 479
> Halabi, Mahmood-e, 310                       Hasan, Riffat, 271                                of Muhammad, 7, 299
> 
> 798                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Page links created automatically - disregard ones formed not from page numbers
> Index: Volume 1 pp. 1–416; Volume 2 pp. 417–747
> 
> night journey (isra) of               Hizb (litany), 178                           Husayn, Taha, 67, 325–326
> Muhammad, 74, 114,                   Hizb Tahrir (Liberation Party), 713              See also Arabic literature; Modern
> 454–455, 673                         Hizbullah (Hezbollah, Hizb Allah,                  thought
> See also Astronomy; Mi
raj;               “party of God”), 247, 263,                Husayn Bayqara, Timurid sultan, 135
> Muhammad                                309–310, 412, 522, 741                    Husayn (Husayn b. 
Ali b. Abi Talib),
> Hijri calendar, 299–300, 300                 Hodgson, Marshall, 364–365, 584                322–325
> See also Astronomy                     Hojjat al-Islam (“Proof of Islam”),              as ahl al-bayt, 26
> Hikma, bayt al-. See Bayt al-hikma;             92, 310                                       birth of, 254, 322
> Education                                      See also Ayatollah (Ar., ayatullah);        martyrdom of, 317, 331, 433,
> Hikmat al-ishraq (The wisdom of                    Shi
a: Imami (Twelver)                       435, 574, 599, 623, 624–625,
> illuminationist dawning), 626             Hojjatiyya Society, 310–311                        643, 679, 691
> Hilli, 
Allama al- (Hasan b. Yusuf al-            See also Bahai faith; Revolution:          succession of, 118, 223, 260, 322
> Hilli), 301, 359, 510, 679, 717                 Islamic revolution in Iran                 tomb of, 26, 88, 293, 387, 728
> See also Hilli, Muhaqqiq al-; Law;                                                      See also Imamate; Martyrdom;
> Holidays, 43–44
> Shi
a: Imami (Twelver)                                                                  Shi
a: Early; Shi
a: Imami
> Holy cities, 311–316
> (Twelver); Succession
> Hilli, Ibn Idris al-, 717                         See also Caliphate; Dome of the
> Husayni, Hajj Amin al-, 325
> Hilli, Muhaqqiq al- (Muhaqqiq al-Hilli             Rock; 
Ibadat; Mi
raj;
> Husayn, Saddam. See Hussein, Saddam
> Ja
far b. al-Hasan), 301, 510, 549,             Muhammad
> 679, 717                                                                               Husayn Va
ez Kashfi. See Hosayn Vaez
> Homosexuality, 230, 316–317
> Kashifi
> See also Hilli, 
Allama al-; Law;           See also Eunuchs; Gender
> Shi
a: Imami (Twelver)                                                            Husayn Wa
iz al-Kashifi. SeeHosayn
> Hosayn, Safavid shah of Iran, 218, 219
> Vaez Kashifi
> Hilm (propriety), 320                        Hosayniyya, 317
> Hussain, Zakir, 39
> Hind bint 
Utba, 734                              See also Rawza-khani; Ta
ziya
> Hussayn, Shah, 637
> Hindu architecture, 73                             (Ta
ziye)
> Hussein, King of Jordan, 347,
> Hinduism and Islam, 27, 301–306,             Hosayn Vaez Kashifi (Hosein Va
ez-e
> 466, 475
> 342–343, 363, 640–641, 641–642               Kashefi), 527, 574, 626, 691
> Hussein (Husayn), Saddam, 26, 393,
> See also Akbar; South Asia, Islam      Hospitality and Islam, 317–318
> 460, 472, 501
> in; South Asian culture and          Housing, 75
> See also Ba
th Party;
> Islam                                Hoxha, Enver, 103                                  Modernization, political:
> Hindu Mahasabha, 304                         Hudud laws, enforcement of, 257–258                Administrative, military and
> Hip-hop culture, 45                          Hukuma al-Islamiyya, al- (Islamic                  judicial reform; Nationalism:
> Hirawi, Muhammad Sharif, 359                    government), 318                                Arab; Pan-Arabism
> Hisba (“reckoning”), 306, 490                     See also Political Islam                Huwayra, 734
> See also Ethics and social issues;     Hulegu (Hulagu; Il Khan), 134, 212,          Huxley, Julian, 597
> Law; Political organization             549, 701
> Hisham b. Abel al-Malik, 151                 Human Assistance and Development             I
> Hisham b. al-Hakam, 369                         International (HADI), 354                 
Ibadat, 177, 327–333
> Historical writing, 306–309                  Human rights, 277, 278–279,                        See also Devotional life; Law;
> See also Arabic literature;               318–319, 567                                      Shari
a
> Biography and hagiography;                See also Ethics and social issues;      Ibadis, 390, 453
> Heresiography; Ibn Khaldun;                Gender; Law; Organization of           Iblis (Satan), 51, 584
> Tabari, al-                                the Islamic Conference;
> Ibn 
Abbas, 280, 455
> History (tarikh). See Historical writing          Secularism, Islamic; Shari
a
> Ibn 
Abd Rabbih, 320
> Hitti, Phillip, 515                          Human sexuality, 230
> Ibn Abi al-Wafa, 8
> HIV/AIDS virus, 229                               See also Homosexuality
> Ibn Abi 
Amr, 336
> See also Political Islam               Humayun, 213, 637
> Ibn Abi Duad, Ahmad, 448, 449
> Hizb Allah. See Hezbollah                    Hume, David, 250, 401
> Ibn Abi Shayba, 286
> Hizb al-Mojahidin (Party of                  Humor, 319–322
> Ibn Abi Usaybi
a, 307
> Mojahidin), 490, 491                      Hunayn ibn Ishaq, 145, 185, 295, 695
> Ibn Abu Zayd al-Qayrawani, 105
> Hizb al-nahda (Renaissance Party,            Huq, Shamsul, 90
> Ibn al-
Adim, 307
> Ennahda), 273                             Hurgronje, Snouck, 178
> Ibn al-
Arabi (Ibn 
Arabi; Muhammad
> Hizb al-watani, al- (“National” or           Hurriyet (Freedom), 387, 738
> ibn 
Ali ibn Muhammad ibn al-
> “Patriotic” Party), 342                   Husain, 
Abdullah, 716                           
Arabi al-Tai al-Hatimi), 28, 48,
> Hizb-e Islami (Party of Islam), 490          Husain, Intizar, 716                             213, 303, 333–334, 339, 391, 607,
> Hizb-e Wahdat-e Islam-ye Afghanistan         Husain, Sayyid Nazir, 27                         683, 686, 727
> (Islamic Unity Party of                   Husayba, 734                                       See also Falsafa; Kalam; Tasawwuf;
> Afghanistan), 490                         Husayn, amir, 221                                    Wahdat al-wujud
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                    799
> Page links created automatically - disregard ones formed not from page numbers
> Index: Volume 1 pp. 1–416; Volume 2 pp. 417–747
> 
> Ibn al-Athir, 164                           Ibn Jinni, 281                                     ethical tradition of, 35
> Ibn al-Bawwab, 76                           Ibn Jurayi, 287                                    impact on European culture,
> Ibn al-Farid, 689                           Ibn Juzayy, 334                                      248–249
> Ibn al-Hajib, 717                           Ibn Kathir, 370, 555                               on knowledge, 398, 400–401
> on medicine, 295, 447, 613
> Ibn al-Hajj, 203                            Ibn Khaldun (
Abd al-Rahman [aron mi
raj, 455
> Ibn al-Hanafiyya, 260                           Rahman] b. Muhammad b.
> political philosophy of, 550
> Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen), 613                  Muhammad b. Abu Bakr
> as scientist, 203
> Muhammad b. al-Hasan), 335–336
> Ibn al-Jawzi, 320, 673                                                                         on self, 250
> on Bedouin, 107
> Ibn al-Mi
mar, 264                                                                             and theory of universals, 249, 338
> on dawla, 174
> Ibn al-Muqaffa
, 66, 400, 408,                                                                 on wajib al-wujud, 729–730
> on ethics, 226
> 523, 654                                                                                    writing in Persian, 523
> on folk medicine, 294
> Ibn al-Mutahhar al-Hilli, 549                                                                  See also Falsafa; Wajib al-wujud
> on history, 307, 469
> Ibn al-Nadim, 125, 131, 181, 612                                                         Ibn Sirin, 185
> and maps, 129
> Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyya (Ibn                   political philosophy of, 550–551        Ibn Taymiyya (Taqi al-Din Ahmad
> Qayyim al-Jawziyya), 226, 370, 410,           political thought of, 82                    Ibn Taymiyya), 338–339
> 446, 468                                      reputation of, 236                            on caliphate, 122, 655
> Ibn al-Zubayr, 
Abdallah (Ibn Zubayr,            and spread of Arabic language, 59             criticism of Ibn Sina by, 249,
> 
Abdallah), 118, 223, 260, 311–312,           on succession, 655                              339, 686
> 332, 435                                      unitarian views of, 251                       criticism of philosophy by, 248
> Ibn Arabi (Ibn al-
Arabi; Muhammad               See also 
Asabiyya; Falsafa                   on dhimmi, 452
> ibn 
Ali ibn Muhammad ibn al-            Ibn Khallikan, 307                                 fundamentalism of, 262
> 
Arabi al-Tai al-Hatimi), 28, 48,       Ibn Killis, Ya
qub, 92                             on intercession by shaykhs, 306
> 213, 303, 333–334, 339, 391, 607,                                                           neo-Hanbali doctrines of, 6, 410,
> Ibn Kullab, 83
> 683, 686, 727                                                                                 450, 668
> Ibn Maja (Abu 
Abdallah Muhammad
> on “oneness,” 727
> See also Falsafa; Kalam; Tasawwuf;        b. Yazid), 286, 336–337
> opposition to bid
a, 108
> Wahdat al-wujud                           See also Hadith                               political views of, 549
> Ibn 
Ata Allah, 688                        Ibn Mansur al-Hajjaj, 433                          reforms advocated by, 172
> Ibn Babuya, 369                             Ibn Manzur, 281                                    revivalism of, 468, 675
> Ibn Badis, 
Abd al-Hamid. See 
Abd al-      Ibn Mas
ud, 406                                    traditionalism of, 695
> Hamid Ibn Badis                          Ibn Mattawayh, 3                                   See also Fundamentalism; Law;
> Ibn Bahdal, 435                             Ibn Miskawayh, 35                                    Reform: in Arab Middle East
> Ibn Bajja, 48, 550, 612                     Ibn Mujahid al-Tai, 83, 105                         and North Africa;
> Ibn Battuta (Abu 
Abdallah                  Ibn Nubata, 395                                      Traditionalism
> Muhammad ibn 
Abdallah ibn               Ibn Nujaym, 9                                Ibn Tufayl, 48, 249
> Muhammad ibn Ibrahim Shams al-           Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya (Ibn al-              Ibn Tulun, mosque of, 115
> Din al-Lawati al-Tanji), 17, 109,           Qayyim al-Jawziyya), 226, 370, 410,       Ibn Tumart, 696
> 141, 162, 259, 334, 507, 696                446, 468                                  Ibn Yasin (
Abdallah Ibn Yasin al-
> See also Cartography and               Ibn Qudame, 410                                  Jazuli), 475
> geography; Travel and travelers                                                   Ibn Zubayr, 
Abdallah (Ibn al-Zubayr,
> Ibn Qutayba(h), 185, 320, 474, 672
> Ibn Ezra, Moshe, 48                         Ibn Rushd (Averroes), 337                        
Abdallah), 118, 223, 260, 311–312,
> Ibn Furak, 83                                                                                332, 435
> commentaries on works of
> Ibn Hanbal (Ahmad b. Muhammad                      Aristotle by, 48, 234, 249, 337       Ibrahim (Abraham), 25, 37, 80, 184,
> Ibn Hanbal), 27, 82, 286, 334–335,            impact of Ibn Sina on, 249                  311, 312
> 370, 410, 417, 448, 450, 489, 538,            impact on European culture, 234               circumcision of, 149
> 587, 668, 694–695                             reputation of, 236                            hospitality of, 317
> See also Ahl al-Hadith; Hadith;             as scientist, 203, 612                        as imam, 349
> Kalam; Law; Mu
tazilites,                 and Sunni theology, 83                        and monotheism, 84, 85, 530
> Mu
tazila                                 See also Falsafa; Law                   Ibrahim al-Nakhai, 8, 406
> Ibn Hawqal, Abu al-Qasim                    Ibn Sab
in, 433                              Ibrahim b. al-Mahdi, 449
> Muhammad, 131                            Ibn Sa
d, 109, 272, 307, 455, 554, 610       Ibrahim b. Zibriqan, 286
> Ibn Haytham, 295                            Ibn Shaddad, 307                             Ibrahim Lodi, 212, 637
> Ibn Hazm of Córdoba, 28, 297–298,           Ibn Shahin, 185                              Ice Cube (rapper), 45
> 345, 410, 717                            Ibn Sina (Abu 
Ali ibn Sina, Avicenna),      ICMI (Indonesian Muslim
> Ibn Hisham, 286, 287, 455                      337–338                                       Intellectuals’ Association), 646
> Ibn Ishaq, Muhammad (d. 767), 120,               on angels, 51                           ICP (Iraqi Communist Party), 156
> 286, 287, 307, 432, 455, 482, 672             in Central Asia, 139                    ICSC (Islamic Center of Southern
> Ibn Jama
a, 549                                  on dreams, 185                              California), 713
> 
> 800                                                                                           Islam and the Muslim World
> Page links created automatically - disregard ones formed not from page numbers
> Index: Volume 1 pp. 1–416; Volume 2 pp. 417–747
> 
> 
Id al-Adha, 599–600                               See also Falsafa; Shi
a: Isma
ili            Shi
a Nizari Isma
ili Muslims
> Identity, Muslim, 339–344                    Ilbars, sultan, 392                                  in, 26
> See also 
Abd al-Qadir, Amir;          Ilham (inspiration), 37                            spread of Islam in, 122–123, 552
> 
Abduh, Muhammad; Afghani,           Il-Khanid Empire. See Mongol and Il-               veneration of saints in, 724
> Jamal al-Din al-; Ataturk,               Khanid Empires                                 waqf of, 732
> Mustafa Kemal; Balkans, Islam                                                           See also Ahmadiyya; Mogul
> Ilkhanid Sultaniya mausoleum
> in the; Dar al-harb; Dar al-                                                              Empire
> (Iljeytu), 74
> Islam; Ethnicity; Kemal,                                                          Indian Congress of Islamic Scholars.
> 
Ilm al-akhlaq (science of innate
> Namek; Pan-Islam;                                                                     See Association of Scholars of India
> dispositions), 225
> Secularization; Shaykh al-Islam;                                                      (Jam
iyat-e 
Ulama-e Hind, JUH)
> 
Ilm al-jadal (science of
> Umma; Wahhabiyya; Young                                                           Indian National Congress (INC)
> disputation), 181
> Ottomans; Young Turks                                                                   allies of, 177, 640
> Idolatry, 78, 84–85                          
Ilm al-kalam (science of theology),
> formation of, 305
> 385, 611
> Idris b. 
Abdallah, 258                                                                         opposition to, 32, 39, 343
> 
Ilm al-rijal (science of the men),
> Idris b. Idris, 258                                                                       Indo-European languages, and ethnic
> 109, 611
> IFM (Iran Freedom Movement), 413                                                              identity, 232
> 
Ilm (knowledge), 202, 397, 566,
> Ifranj (“Franks”), 733                                                                    Indonesia
> 611, 703
> Iftar (meal at the end of the fasting                                                           colonization of, 645
> See also Knowledge
> day), 44                                                                                    independence of, 645–647
> Iltizam (political commitment), 67
> Ihy al-sunna, 668                                                                              Islam in, 161, 507–508, 644
> Iltutmish, 660
> IIIT (International Institute of Islamic                                                        money-changing in, 128
> Thought), 174                            Iltuzer, Inaq, 392                                 music in, 493
> Ijma
 (consensus), 11, 387, 407, 409,        Ilyas, Mawlana (Maulana) Muhammad,                 pancasila ideology of, 147
> 534, 535, 613                                172–173, 641, 671                              reform in, 582–583, 645
> Ijtihad (independent legal judgment),        Ilyas Shahi dynasty, 636                           socialist movements in, 470
> 344–345                                  Imam, Muhammad Jumat, 22                     Indonesian Muslim Intellectuals’
> and Arab revivalism, 5, 155, 608       Imama (leadership), 3                            Association (ICMI), 646
> of ayatollah, 92                       Imamate, 37–38, 350–351                      Industrialization, 194–195,
> criticism of, 34, 171–172                    See also Ghayba(t), al-; Mahdi;            196–197, 214
> and Islamic reform, 6, 172, 577,               Shi
a: Imami (Twelver); Shi
a:       Industrial Revolution, 234
> 580, 619, 675, 718, 728                      Zaydi (Fiver)                        Inheritance, 127, 142
> and legal pluralism, 534               Imami Shi
a. See Shi
a: Imami                      See also Genealogy
> in Libya, 557                              (Twelver)                                Insan-i kamil (perfect man), 33
> needed in present, 7
> Imamiyya, division of, 34                    International Association of
> and rationalism, 468–469
> See also Law; Madhhab; Reform:         Imam (leader), 37, 42, 349–350, 624              Sufism, 683
> in Arab Middle East and North        Imamzadah, 351–352                           International Covenant on Civil and
> Africa; Shari
a                            See also Devotional life; Dreams;          Political Rights, 279
> Ikhwan al-Muslimin (Ikhwan al-                       Imam; Pilgrimage: Ziyara;            International Institute of Islamic
> Muslimun; Muslim Brotherhood),                   Religious beliefs; Religious             Thought (IIIT), 174
> 345–348                                          institutions                         International Islamic Law
> affiliates of, 290                      Iman Mahfuz, amir of Zaila, 29                   Commission, 278
> and Arab nationalism, 519              
Imdadullah, Hajji, 638                      International Islamic University of
> and da
wa, 172                         IMF (International Monetary Fund),               Malaysia, 278
> in Egypt, 4, 471, 537                      152, 200                                 International Labor Organization,
> founding of, 104, 105                  Immigrants, legal status of, 238                 UN, 348
> fundamentalism of, 262, 676            Immigration. See Migration                   International Monetary Fund (IMF),
> politicization of, 466
> Imru al-Qays, “King of the Arabs,” 58           152, 200
> purpose of, 105
> Inalcik, Halil, 664                          Internet, 45, 62, 178, 276, 327,
> in Sudan, 700
> INC. See Indian National Congress                352–355, 364, 510
> women in, 276
> youth in, 741                          India                                              See also Globalization; Networks,
> See also Banna, Hasan al-;                   Ahl-e Hadis (Ahl-al Hadith) in,                Muslim
> Fundamentalism; Qutb, Sayyid;                26–27                                Interservices Intelligence (ISI),
> Reform: in Arab Middle East                British colonial influence in,              Pakistan, 676
> and North Africa; Turabi,                    33–34, 154, 169, 304                 Intifada (uprising), 290, 355–356,
> Hasan al-                                  customary law in, 12                       365, 740
> Ikhwan al-Safa ("Brethren of Purity,"              education in, 205, 206                       See also Conflict and violence;
> "Fellowship of the Pure"), 348–349             Persian literature in, 528                     HAMAS; Human rights
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                     801
> Page links created automatically - disregard ones formed not from page numbers
> Index: Volume 1 pp. 1–416; Volume 2 pp. 417–747
> 
> IOMS (Islamic Organization for                     constitutionalism in, 464              Islamic Charter Front (Jabbat al-
> Medical Sciences), 447                         economy of, 634                            Mithaq al-Islami), 347
> IPCI (Islamic Propagation Centre                   independence of, 425                   Islamic Communist Party
> International), 173                            political modernization in, 460            (Indonesia), 470
> Iqama, 13                                          religious legitimacy in, 26            Islamic Community. See Jama
at-e
> Iqbal, Muhammad, 252, 343, 345,                    revolution in, 595                         Islami (JI)
> 356, 457, 468–469, 528, 609, 638,              socialism in, 633                      Islamic Consultative Assembly
> 683, 716                                       youth programs in, 744                     (Iran), 425
> See also Liberalism, Islamic;                See also Ba
th Party                   Islamic Development Bank, 152, 278
> Persian language and literature;     Iraqi Communist Party (ICP), 156             Islamic Educational, Scientific, and
> South Asia, Islam in; Urdu           Irhab, 692                                       Cultural Organization, 278
> language, literature, and poetry           See also Terrorism                     Islamic Fiqh Academy (Islamic Figh
> Iqta
, 542, 658, 660, 662, 665               IRP. See Islamic Republic Party                  Committee). See Organization of
> Iqtisadune (Our economics), 606              Irrigation, 194                                  the Islamic Conference (OIC)
> Irada (free will), 83                        Isabella I, queen of Spain, 47               Islamic Foundation, 174
> Iran                                         Isfahani, Shaykh Muhammad                    Islamic fundamentalism. See
> Arab conquest of, 132                      Hasan, 718                                   Fundamentalism
> clothing of, 150                       Isfahan (Iran, Persia), 1, 218               Islamic Global Front for Combating
> communism in, 156                      Ishaq ibn Hunayn, 695                            Jews and Crusaders, 559
> constitutionalism in, 465,                                                          Islamic Group, The (al-Gama
a al-
> Ishraqi school, 359
> 470, 595                                                                              Islamiyya), 365, 466
> See also Falsafa; Ibn al-
Arabi;
> education in, 205                                                                   Islamic Horizons, 366, 712
> ethnic (national) identity in,                 Mulla Sadra; Tasawwuf; Wahdat
> al-wujud                             IslamiCity in Cyberspace, 354
> 343–344
> ISI (Interservices Intelligence),            Islamic Jihad, 365
> gender reform in, 271
> Pakistan, 676                                  in Egypt, 365, 466
> human rights in, 279
> fundamentalism of, 262
> independence of, 458                   Islah (reform), 575
> ideology of, 27
> madrasa of, 419                        Islam-shenasi (Islamology), 619
> militarism of, 346, 355
> modernization of, 458–459, 466         Islam, spread of. See Expansion, of                in Palestine, 309, 365
> nationalism in, 503–504                    Islam                                          See also Ikhwan al-Muslimin;
> reform in, 577–579                     Islam and Islamic (terminology),                     Political Islam; Qa
ida, al-
> Safavid rule of, 217                       359–360, 471, 712                        Islamic Jihad Movement (Harakat alspread of Islam in, 219
> See also Islamicate society                jihad al-Islami), 365
> student movement in, 741–743
> Islam and other religions, 23–24,            Islamic Law and Constitution, 444
> Sufism in, 683
> 360–364                                  Islamic Liberation Movement, 347
> use of Arabic language in, 62
> use of Persian language in, 60               See also Andalus, al-; Central Asia,   Islamic Mission to America (Brooklyn,
> veiling in, 723                                Islam in; Christianity and Islam;        NY), 709
> women’s rights in, 278                         Dar al-harb; Dar al-Islam; East      Islamic Organization for Medical
> See also Revolution: Islamic                   Asia, Islam in; European culture         Sciences (IOMS), 447
> revolution in Iran                           and Islam; Expansion, of Islam;      Islamic Propagation Centre
> Iran, Islamic Republic of, 9–10, 106,                Hinduism and Islam; Hospitality          International (IPCI), 173
> 146, 356–358, 357, 394, 425, 463,                and Islam; Internet; Judaism and
> Islamic Republic Party (IRP), 10, 358,
> 538–539, 577–579, 591–594, 596                   Islam; Modernism; Networks,
> 388, 594
> See also Abu ’l-Hasan Bani-Sadr;               Muslim; Orientalism; Science,
> Islamic Resistance Movement (harakat
> Hashemi-Rafsanjani, 
Ali-Akbar;              Islam and; South Asia, Islam in;
> al-muqawamat al-Islamiyyah,
> Khomeini, Ayatollah Ruhollah;                Theology; Umma; Vernacular
> HAMAS). See HAMAS
> Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlevi;                  Islam
> Islamic Revolutionary Movement
> Revolution: Islamic revolution       Islamic Amal, 522
> (Harakat-e Inqilab-e Islami), 490
> in Iran                              Islamicate society, 364–365                  Islamic Salvation Front (Front
> Iran Freedom Movement (IFM), 413                   See also Islam and Islamic                 Islamique du Salut, FIS), 238,
> Iranian Islamic Information                          (terminology)                            365–366, 417, 461, 466
> Organization, 173                        Islamic Brotherhood Party (Syria),                 See also 
Abd al-Hamid Ibn Badis;
> Iranian Women’s Solidarity                       346–347                                          Madani, 
Abbasi
> Group, 627                               Islamic Call Society (Jam
iyat al-           Islamic Society (Jam
iyat-e Islami),
> Iranian Writer’s Congress, 528                   Da
wah al-Islamiyya), 173                    238, 490
> Iraq                                         Islamic Center of Southern California        Islamic Society of North America
> autocratic state in, 462                   (ICSC), 713                                  (ISNA), 27, 43, 44, 366, 366–367,
> communism in, 156                      Islamic Charter Front, 700                       497, 711–712, 713
> 
> 802                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Page links created automatically - disregard ones formed not from page numbers
> Index: Volume 1 pp. 1–416; Volume 2 pp. 417–747
> 
> Islamic Tendency Movement (harakat            Ja
far, 678                                        See also Jam
iyat-e (Jam
iyat)
> al-ittijah al-islami), 273                Ja
far al-Khuldi, 632                                
Ulama-e Islam; South Asia,
> Islamic Union (Itihad-e Islami), 490          Ja
far al-Sadiq, 121, 169, 170,                      Islam in
> Islamic Union Party (Indonesia), 470              369–370, 625, 628                        Jam
iyat-e (Jam
iyat) 
Ulama-e Islam
> Islamic Unity Party of Afghanistan                  See also Imamate; Law; Succession          (JUI), 177, 374–375, 676, 677
> (Hizb-e Wahdat-e Islam-ye                 Ja
fari school, 369, 386, 625                      See also Deoband; Jam
iyat-e
> Afghanistan), 490                         Jahangir, Asma, 271                                  (Jam
iyat) 
Ulama-e Hind; South
> Islamic Work Party, 347                                                                            Asia, Islam in; Taliban
> Jahangir, Hina Jilani, 271
> Islamization. See Islam: spread of                                                         Jam
iyat-e (Jam
iyat) 
Ulama-e Pakistan
> Jahangir, Nur al-Din, 213, 302, 637
> Islamization of Knowledge                                                                      (JUP), 375, 390
> Jahannam (hell), 175, 370, 375, 501
> project, 147                                                                                 See also Deoband; Jam
iyat-e
> See also Calligraphy; Janna; Law;
> Islam noir (black Islam), 18                                                                       (Jam
iyat) 
Ulama-e Hind;
> Muhammad; Quran; Tafsir
> Isma
il, son of Ja
far, 350                                                                        Jam
iyat-e 
Ulama-e Islam;
> Jahiliyya (ignorance), 370–371, 397,                 South Asia, Islam in
> Isma
il I, Shah, 36, 99, 135, 217, 367,           444, 479, 538
> 386, 626, 637, 704                                                                     Jam
iyyat al-ikhwan al-Muslimin
> See also Arabia, pre-Islam;                (Society of the Muslim
> See also Safavid and Qajar                      Modern thought; Political
> Empires                                                                               Brothers), 345
> Islam; Qutb, Sayyid
> Isma
il b. Mis
ada al-Isma
ili, 274                                                        Jammu and Kashmir Liberation
> Jahm b. Safwan, 427, 448                         Front, 490
> Isma
il II, Shah, 218                         Jakhanke Muslims, 697–698                    Janna (paradise), 175, 375–376, 501
> Isma
ili Shi
a. See Shi
a: Isma
ili           Jalal al-din al-Suyuti, 84, 107                    See also Calligraphy; Jahannam;
> Isma
il Pasha, 116                            Jama
a Islamiyya, 741                                Law; Muhammad; Quran;
> Isma
il Samani, 133                           Jama
at-e Islami (JI, Islamic                        Tafsir
> Isma
il Shahid, Shah, 730                         Community), 262, 304, 371–373,           Jannat 
Aden (Garden of Eden), 376
> ISNA. See Islamic Society of North                372, 375, 444, 502, 641, 672, 676        Jannat al-Khuld (Garden of
> America                                         See also Maududi, Abu l-A
la;             eternity), 376
> Israel                                                Pakistan, Islamic Republic of        Japan, Islam in, 189
> creation of, 458                        Jama
at izalat al-bid
a wa-iqamat as-        Jariri school, 671
> defeat of Egypt by (1967), 4,               sunna (Association for the removal
> 460, 521                                                                          Javadi, Fattaneh Hajj Sayyed, 529
> of innovation and for the
> economy of, 199                                                                      Jawhar al-Siqilli, Egyptian general,
> establishment of the sunna), 8
> relations with Arab League, 69                                                           92, 115
> Jamalzadih, Mohammad-
Ali, 529
> Israfil, 49                                                                                 Jerusalem, 163, 164, 314–316,
> James, William, 250
> Istiqlal (Independence) Party, 254                                                             332, 362
> Jami, 527
> Ithna 
Ashari, 393                                                                              See also Dome of the Rock; Holy
> Jami
 (to gather), 71, 373, 437
> Itihad-e Islami (Islamic Union), 490                                                               cities
> See also 
Ibadat; Masjid; Religious
> Ittifak-i Muslumanlar (Union of                                                            Jesus Christ, 28, 554, 615
> institutions
> muslims), 265                                                                          Jevdet Pasha (Ahmet Jevdet Pasha;
> Jami
a Milli
a (Milliya) Islamiya,
> Ittisal (contact), 48                                                                          Cevdet Pasha, Ahmad), 270,
> 39, 639
> 376–377
> Iwan, 73                                      Jami
at al-Duwal al-
Arabiyya (League
> 
Izrail, 49                                                                                     See also Modernization, political:
> of Arab States), 68, 175
> Administrative, military, and
> 
Izz al-Din al-Qassam Briades, 291                  See also Arab League                           judicial reform
> Jamil al-Amin, Imam (H. Rap Brown),          Jihad
> J                                                 44, 45, 373–374
> as “cleansing of soul,” 30, 158
> Jabal 
Amil, 386                                    See also American culture and                and martyrdom, 432
> Jabbar, Kareem Abdul, 44                              Islam; Americas, Islam in the;             meaning of, 158–160,
> Jabbat al-Mithaq al-Islami (Islamic                   Nation of Islam                              377–379, 378
> Charter Front), 347                       Jami
 masjid (congregational mosque),              as obligation, 365
> Jabha al-Islamiyya li-l-inqadh, al-. See          71, 439                                        and spread of Islam, 239, 590
> Islamic Salvation Front                   Jamishid b. 
Abdullah, 664                         See also Conflict and violence;
> Jabha-e Nijat-e Milli-ye Afghanistan          Jam
iyat al-Da
wah al-Islamiyya                      Terrorism
> (National Liberation Front of                 (Islamic Call Society), 173              Jihad Organization (Tanzim al-
> Afghanistan), 490                         Jami
yat al-Da
wah wal-Irshad, 172               Jihad), 365
> Jabir al-Hayyan, 369                          Jam
iyat-e (Jam
iyat) Islami (Islamic        JI (Jama
at-e Islami, Islamic
> Jabriyya, 631                                     Society), 238, 490                           Community), 262, 304, 371–373,
> Ja
da, 293                                    Jam
iyat-e (Jam
iyat) 
Ulama-e Hind              375, 444, 502, 641, 672, 676
> Ja
d b. Dirham, 427                               (JUH), 177, 371, 374, 375, 390,                See also Maududi, Abu l-A
la;
> Jadidism, 137, 579–580, 609                       443, 638                                         Pakistan, Islamic Republic of
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                     803
> Page links created automatically - disregard ones formed not from page numbers
> Index: Volume 1 pp. 1–416; Volume 2 pp. 417–747
> 
> Jinnah, Muhammad 
Ali, 90, 304, 343,         Jurassic 5 (rapper), 45                      Kashmir, 27, 640
> 379–380, 380, 517, 640                   Jurjani, 281                                      See also Pakistan, Islamic
> See also Pakistan, Islamic             Jurjis Bukhtishu, 446                               Republic of
> Republic of                          Justice and Development Party,               Kasravi, Ahmad, 255, 683
> Jinn (invisible supernatural creatures),        460, 466                                  Katyan Minaret (Bukhara), 113
> 22, 39, 51, 55, 294                      Justinian I, 446                             Kawakibi, 
Abd al-Rahman. See 
Abd
> JIU. See JUI (Jam
iyat-e 
Ulama-e            Juula (traders), 18                             al-Rahman Kawakibi
> Islam)                                                                                Kay Kavus b. Voshmgir, 527
> Jizya (poll tax on non-Muslims), 138,                                                     Kazamayn, tombs in, 88
> K
> 157, 158, 161, 162, 213, 219, 240,
> Ka
ba (Kaaba; Ka
aba; of Mecca), 55,         Kebek, 134
> 361, 451, 542, 660
> 71, 183, 311, 311, 312, 370, 376,         Kefir, 233
> Jochi (the “Golden Horde”), 134
> 428, 478, 480, 530, 561                   Kelidar, 529
> John of Damascus, 28, 144, 181, 516
> schematic of, 129–130                   Kemal, Namik (Namek), 341, 342,
> Johnson, P. Nathaniel (Shaykh Ahmad               textiles of, 80                            387–388, 470, 738, 739
> Din), 708
> Kabbani, Shaykh Hisham, 683                       See also Young Ottomans
> Jones, Sir William, 523, 638, 684
> Kabir (died c. 1448), 303                    Kenya, Islam in, 14, 15
> Jordan
> Kabir of Benares (1440–1518),                Khadija bint 
Ali, 734
> economy of, 199, 200–201                  637, 642
> independence of, 425, 458                                                           Khadija bint (b.) Khuwaylid, 381,
> Kadri, Chereffe, 713                            478, 734
> Muslim Brotherhood in, 347
> Kafir (unbeliever), 30, 452                   Khadija bint Muhammad, 734
> opposition to socialism in, 634
> political modernization in,            Kahin (soothsayer), 279                      Khaki, 81
> 460, 462                             Kalam, 247, 385, 397                         Khalid, Khalid Muhammad, 388
> political opposition in, 463                See also Ash
arites, Ash
aira;               See also Ghazali, Muhammad alreligious legitimacy in, 26                   Disputation; Falsafa;                 Khalid b. Yazid, 295, 414, 435
> Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood, 290                   Knowledge; Murjiites, Murjia;
> Khalidi, Tarif, 307
> Josephus, Flavius, 148                              Quran
> Khalifa (successor), 30, 37, 116, 318,
> Judah, son of Jacob, 8                       Kalam allah, 83, 385
> 652, 653–654, 663
> Judaism and Islam, 380–384                   Kalila wa Dimna, 523, 527
> See also Caliphate
> in al-Andalus, 47, 48                  Kalyan Minaret, 113
> Khalili, Khalil Allah, 528
> in Arabia, 53                          Kandhalavi (Kandhlawi), Maulana
> Khalil ibn Ishaq al-Jundi, 597
> and heresy, 297                           Muhammad Zakariyya, 177, 672
> Khalil Jibran, Jibran, 67
> respect between, 27–28, 361            Kane, Big Daddy, 45
> Khalil-Sultan, 222
> See also Christianity and Islam;       Kano Chronicle, 20
> Khalwatiyya, 26
> Islam and other religions;           Kano (Nigeria), 385–386, 435
> Minorities: dhimmis                                                               Khamanei, Ayatollah Sayyed 
Ali, 358,
> See also Africa, Islam in; Marwa,
> Judeo-Arabic language, 48, 60                                                                388, 430, 627, 722
> Muhammad; 
Uthman Dan
> Judicial reform, 461, 557–558                       Fodio                                      See also Iran, Islamic Republic of;
> Revolution: Islamic revolution
> Juha, 321                                    Kant, Immanuel, 250, 401, 516
> in Iran
> JUH (Jam
iyat-e 
Ulama-e Hind), 177,         Karaki, Shaykh 
Ali (also known as Al-
> Muhaqqiq al-Thani), 386–387               Khamriyyat (wine poetry), 64, 65
> 371, 374, 375, 390, 443, 638
> See also Isma
il I, Shah; Safavid       Khan, 134, 388
> See also Jam
iyat-e 
Ulama-e
> Islam; South Asia, Islam in                 and Qajar Empires; Shaykh al-         Khan, 
Abd al-Ghaffar, 639
> JUI (Jam
iyat-e 
Ulama-e Islam), 177,               Islam; Shi
a: Imami (Twelver);        Khan, Hazrat Inayat, 44, 683, 689
> 374–375, 676, 677                               Tahmasp I, Shah                       Khan, Miza Malkom, 318
> See also Deoband; Jam
iyat-e           KARAMA (Muslim Women Lawyer’s                Khan, Reza of Bareilly (Ahmad Reza
> 
Ulama-e Hind; South Asia,              Committee for Human Rights), 43              Khan Barelwi), 176, 343, 375,
> Islam in; Taliban                    Karamokho Alfa, 697                             389–390, 581, 638
> Junayd (al-Junayd; of Baghdad), 275,         Karbala (Iraq), 323–325, 387, 433,                See also Jam
iyat-e 
Ulama-e
> 290, 685                                    599, 624, 691                                    Pakistan; Khilafat movement;
> Jund-e Shapur (Jundi-Shapur),                     pilgrimage to, 36                              South Asia, Islam in;
> 446, 695                                      tomb of Husayn in, 26, 88, 293,                Wahhabiyya
> JUP (Jam
iyat-e 
Ulama-e Pakistan),                 387, 728                              Khan, Sir Sayyid. See Ahmad Khan,
> 375, 390                                      See also 
Ali; Husayn; Quran;             Sir Sayyid
> See also Deoband; Jam
iyat-e                  Rawza-khani; Shi
a: Early             Khan, Gen. Yahya, 91
> 
Ulama-e Hind; Jam
iyat-e            Kartir, 428                                  Khanqa (Khanaqa, Khanga), 389
> 
Ulama-e Islam; South Asia,          Kashani, Abu ’l-Qasem, 255–256                    See also Architecture; Tariqa;
> Islam in                             Kashan pottery, 80–81                               Tasawwuf
> 
> 804                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Page links created automatically - disregard ones formed not from page numbers
> Index: Volume 1 pp. 1–416; Volume 2 pp. 417–747
> 
> Khans (inns), 69, 75                         Khudabanda, Ilkhanid sultan, 301             Kufr (unbelief), 143, 327, 492,
> Khaqani of Shirvan, 525                      Khudai Khidmatgar (“Servents of                534, 566
> Kharijites, Khawarij, 118, 121, 390,            God”) movement, 639                       Kuleli Conspiracy, 738
> 432, 453, 541, 548, 573, 585–586,          Khudi (individuality), 356                   Kumijani, Shihab al-Din, 359
> 621, 653                                   Khuluq. See Akhlaq                           Kunta Sidi 
Ali, 402
> See also Law                            Khurasan, 132                                Kunti, Mukhtar al- (Al-Shaykh Sidi-
> Kharja (quotation), 48                       Khushrow, emir of Delhi, 528                   Mukhtar al-Kabir al-Kunti),
> Khassaki Mosque (Baghdad), 450               Khusraw I Anushirwan, Sassanian king           402–403
> Khatami, Mohammad, 278, 358, 459,               of Persia, 55                                 See also Africa, Islam in; Tariqa;
> 579, 742                                   Khutba al-jum
a, 394                                Tasawwuf; Timbuktu
> Khatm al-nabuwwa (finality of                 Khutba (sermon), 71, 394–396, 396,           Kurdish separatism, 460
> Muhammad’s prophethood), 30, 32               437, 451                                  Kuttab (school), 142, 203, 205
> Khatmiyya, 29                                     See also Arabic language; 
Ibadat;      Kuwait
> Khayr al-Din al-Tunisi, 575                         Masjid; Minbar (mimbar);                  constitutionalism in, 464–465
> Khayyam, 
Omar, 524                                 Religious institutions                    independence of, 425
> Khidr, al-, 390–391, 680, 685                Khutbat al-bayan, 38                             Iraqi invasion of, 69
> See also Prophets                       Khwaja 
Abd al-Khaliq                            youth programs in, 744
> Khilafat movement, 177, 390,                    Ghijduvani, 140
> 391–392, 520, 638                          Khwaja 
Abd al-Samad, 643
> L
> See also South Asia, Islam in           Khwaja 
Ubaydullah Ahrar, 140
> Lahore (India), 30
> Khirbat al-Mafjar, 74                        Khwarazm, 132, 222, 392
> Lahuti, Abu ’l-Qasem, 528
> Khirbat al-Minya, 74                              See also Khiva, khanate of
> Lakhmids, 55
> Khirqa (cloak), 391, 392, 441                Khwarazmshah Muhammad, 133, 134
> Lakshar Jihad, 582
> See also Clothing; Khilafat             Killing, ethos of, 227, 566
> Land ownership, 196
> movement; Tasawwuf                    Kindi, al- (Abu Yusuf Ya
qub Ibn
> Ishaq al-Sabbah Al-Kindi), 248,           Lane, Edward W., 178, 515
> Khiva (Khwarazm), khanate of, 136,
> 392–393                                       396–397                                   Language
> See also Central Asia, Islam in;             See also Falsafa; Mu
tazilites,              and ethnic identity, 232
> Central Asian culture and Islam              Mu
tazila                                  grammar and lexicography,
> Kindi, Shurayh b. al-Harith al-, 558                279–281
> Khoi, Abo l Qasem (Sayyed Abo l-
> Kisa (people of the mantle), 26                  See also Arabic language; Persian
> Qasem Musavi), 393
> Kitab al-
ayn, 280–281                              language and literature; Urdu
> Khojas, 393
> language, literature, and poetry
> See also Aga Khan; Nizari; South        Kitab al-kharaj (Book of taxation),
> 542, 654                                  Lashkar-e Taiba (Lashkar-e Taybiyya;
> Asia, Islam in
> Kitab al-masalik wa al-mamalik (Book            Army of Pure), 27, 490
> Khomeini, Ayatollah Ruhollah,
> of roads and kingdoms), KMMS,             Lashkar Jihad, 647
> 393–394
> exile of, 10, 88, 394, 459                 129, 130, 131                             Last Day, 584
> fatwa against Rushdie of, 277, 603      Kitab al-sultan (Book of                     Latin America, Islam in, 45–46
> fundamentalism of, 263                     sovereignty), 474                         Law, 5–6, 11–12, 405–411, 405, 407,
> ideology of, 11, 430, 549               Kitab al-Sunan, 502                             408, 613–614, 668
> on interdependence of theology          Kitab al-tawhid (Book of unity), 727              See also Hanafi school; Hanbali
> and philosophy, 248                   Kitab Sibawayhi, 280                                school; Madhhab; Maliki school;
> and Iranian cultural revolution, 3      Kitchener, Sir Herbert, 422, 423                    Shafi
i school; Shari
a
> on martyrdom, 323                       Kiyais, 649–650                              Lawrence, T. E., 519
> opposition to Bahai, 310                                                            Lazar, Serbian prince, 102
> Kiyan Circle (halqe Kiyan), 578–579
> political philosophy of, 551, 552
> Knowledge, 202–203, 397–402, 566             League of Arab States (Jamai
at alreligious legitimacy of, 26
> See also Ghazali, al-; Ibn Sina;           Duwal al-
Arabiyya), 68, 175
> return to power of, 357, 358, 465,
> Mulla Sadra; Tasawwuf;                     See also Arab League
> 538, 593–594, 722
> on role of ulema, 704                          Theology; Tusi, Nasir al-Din          League of Nations, 25
> social philosophy of, 252               Komiteh (Komiteh-ha-ye Enghelab,             Lebanese Communist Party, 156
> youth support for, 741–742                 Revolutionary Committees), 402            Lebanon, 411–413
> See also Iran, Islamic Republic of;          See also Revolution: Islamic                 constitutionalism in, 464
> Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlevi;                  revolution in Iran                         economy of, 199–200
> Revolution: Islamic revolution        Korea, Islam in, 189                              independence of, 425, 458
> in Iran                               Kosovo, civil war in, 103                         political modernization in, 460
> Khomeinism, 146                              Kubra, Najm al-Din, 140                           Sufism in, 690
> Khosrow, 248, 636, 643, 661                  Kufic script, 125                                  use of Arabic language in, 61–62
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                     805
> Page links created automatically - disregard ones formed not from page numbers
> Index: Volume 1 pp. 1–416; Volume 2 pp. 417–747
> 
> See also Fadlallah, Muhammad          Madhhab (school of law), 34,                 Mahr (dower), 42, 182, 424, 431
> Husayn; Hizb Allah; Sadr,             417–418, 584, 731                               See also Divorce; Law; Marriage
> Musa al-                                See also Abu Hanifa; Ibn Hanbal;         Mahsati of Ganja, 524
> Leewenhock, Antoni van, 447                       Kalam; Law; Malik Ibn Anas;            Maimonides, Moses (Musa ibn
> Leibnitz, Gottfried von, 400, 516                 Shafi
i, al-; Shi
a: Imami                Maimun Maimonides), 48, 295, 382
> Lexicography (Arabic). See Grammar                (Twelver)                              Maitatsine. See Marwa, Muhammad
> and lexicography                        Madinat al-Zahira of Cordoba, 74             Majles-e Shura-ye Melli (National
> Liberal democracy, 462–463                  Madinat al-Zahra (al-Andalus), 46             Consultative Assembly, Iran), 425
> Liberalism, 413                             Madjid, Nurcholish, 614, 646                 Majlis al-shura (advisory council),
> See also Modern thought               Madrasa (seminary), 92, 203–204, 205,          105, 345
> 206, 373, 415, 418–421, 420,               Majlis (assembly), 278, 357, 425, 459
> Liberation Movement of Iran (LMI,
> 511, 588                                        See also Modernization, political:
> Nehzat-e azadi-ye Iran), 413–414
> See also Aligarn; Azhar, al-;                   Constitutionalism; Political
> See also Bazargan, Mehdi; Iran,
> Deoband; Education                            organization
> Islamic Republic of
> Maghazi, 451                                 Majlisi, Muhammad Baqir
> Libna Dingil, Ethiopian emperor, 29
> See also Military raid                     (Mohammad Baqer; Muhammad
> Libraries, 414–416
> Maghreb, Islam in, 13, 16                      Baqir b. Muhammad Taqi Majlisi),
> See also Education; Mamun                                                           37, 219, 293, 425–426, 626
> Magic (Ar. sihr), 178
> Libya                                                                                    Majlisi, Muhammad Taqi al- (d. 1659/
> Mahaz-e Milli-ye Islami-ye
> autocratic state in, 462                Afghanistan (National Islamic                1660), 34
> political modernization in,             Front of Afghanistan), 490                 Makassar, Shaykh Yusuf (
Ali Shaykh
> 460, 557                                                                           Yusuf), 426
> Mahdawi movement, 637
> revolution in, 595                                                                      See also Africa, Islam in; Southeast
> Mahdi, Sadiq (Siddiq) al-, 347,
> socialism in, 634                                                                         Asia, Islam in; Tariqa
> 421–422
> Sufism in, 682                                                                      Makhdum-e A
zam, 136
> Mahdi, tomb of the, 423
> Liebnitz, Gottried von. See Leibnitz,                                                    MAK (maktab al-khidma li-l-mujahin
> Mahdi (“rightly guided one”), 421
> Gottried von                                                                           al-
arab, Afghan Service Bureau
> Ghulam Ahmad as, 30, 32
> Life-cycle rituals, 332, 598                                                               Front), 559
> Muhammad (son of Hasan al-
> Lij Iyasu, emperor of Ethiopia, 14                
Askari) as, 274, 591                  Maktabi of Shiraz, 526
> LIKUD Party, 355                                prediction of, 261, 591                  Malaka, 226
> Lisan al-
Arab, 281                             return of, 274, 625                      Malawi, Islam in, 13, 22
> Literacy, 414                                   See also Fitna; Hadith; Imam;            Malay language, 651
> Literature. See Arabic literature;                Mahdist state, Mahdiyya;               Malay Muslim Monarchy, 665
> Persian language and literature;              Religious beliefs; Shi
a: Early;       Malaysia
> Urdu language, literature, and                Shi
a: Imami (Twelver)                      colonization of, 645
> poetry                                  Mahdist state, Mahdiyya, 155,                     independence of, 647
> Liwali Muhammad bin 
Uthman                   422–424                                         Islam in, 328, 644
> Mazrui, 445                                 See also Africa, Islam in; Islam              reform in, 582–583, 645
> LMI (Liberation Movement of Iran),                and other religions; Mahdi;                 Sufism in, 690
> 413–414                                       Muhammad Ahmad ibn                          sultanate in, 474
> 
Abdullah; Zar                         Malcolm, Sir John, 684
> Locke, John, 251
> Mahfuz, Nagib, 67, 68, 68                    Malcolm X, 44, 245, 426, 505,
> Logical positivism, 249
> Mahjar, 67                                     530, 709
> Lokman, Seyyid, 129
> Mahmoud of Ghazni (Mahmud of                      See also American culture and
> Lotf 
Ali Khan, 745
> Ghazna), 302, 303, 415, 525, 635                  Islam; Conversion; Farrakhan,
> Louis IX, king of France, 165, 658
> Mahmud, Mufti, 374                                  Louis; Muhammad, Elijah;
> Lull, Raymond, 145                                                                              Nation of Islam
> Mahmud (Afghan leader), 219
> Mahmud (Mahmut) II (Ottoman                  Malebranche, Nicolas, 247
> M                                             sultan), 150, 678                          Malekshah, 665
> Maccibo ibn Abubakar,                       Mahmud (Ghaznavid sultan), 139,              Malfuzat (records of audiences), 109
> Muhammad, 664                               661–662                                    Mali, Empire of
> Macedonia, Muslim population of, 103        Mahmud ibn 
Umar al-                              Islamic architecture of, 16, 20, 21
> Madani, 
Abbasi, 366, 417                     Zamakhshari, 673                                Islam in, 17, 18, 429–430
> See also Islamic Salvation Front;       Mahmud Ka
ti, 694                                 use of Arabic language in, 62
> Political organization; Reform:        Mahmut II. See Mahmud II                          See also Timbuktu
> in Arab Middle East and North          Mahomedan Anglo-Oriental College,            Mali, Republic of. See Mali, Empire of
> Africa                                   Aligarh (India). See Muhammadan            Malik, 148
> Madhdiyya movement, 22                        Anglo-Oriental College                     Malik (angel), 370, 502
> 
> 806                                                                                           Islam and the Muslim World
> Page links created automatically - disregard ones formed not from page numbers
> Index: Volume 1 pp. 1–416; Volume 2 pp. 417–747
> 
> Malik Ashtar, 36                             Maqamat (Seances or Sessions), 79            Masruq Ibn al-Ajda, 406
> Malik Ibn (b.) Anas, 11, 160, 286, 287,      Maqassari, Taanta Salmanka al-. See          Mass
ud Sa
d Salman, 661
> 313, 417, 426–427, 586–587, 667              Makassar, Shaykh Yusuf                     Mas
ud, 133, 139, 661, 665
> See also Africa, Islam in; Law;          Maraboutism, 724                             Mas
ud Sa
d Salman, 525, 528
> Madhhab                                Mar
ashi library (Qom), 416                  Ma
sum (impeccable), 37
> Maliki school, 11, 14, 183, 408, 417,        Marib, dam at, 54, 55, 56                   Material culture, 440–442
> 418, 427, 534, 588, 686                    Ma
rifa (knowledge), 397, 611                    See also African culture and Islam;
> Malik-Shah, 549                              Marja
 al-taqlid, 388, 430, 549,                   American culture and Islam;
> Malta, use of Arabic language in, 62           593, 718                                         Architecture; Art; Calligraphy;
> Mamluk sultanate, 662–663                        See also Shi
a: Imami (Twelver);               Central Asian culture and Islam;
> architecture of, 74                            Taqlid; Ulema                                Clothing; European culture and
> creation of, 166, 662                    Marrakesh                                          Islam; Music; South Asian
> decorative arts of, 80                       Almoravid mosque at, 80                        culture and Islam; Southeast
> in East Africa, 17                           Saadi capital in, 259                         Asian culture and Islam
> eunuchs of, 233                                                                       Mathematics, 613
> Marriage, 42, 266, 424, 430–431,
> political organization under,
> 510, 598                                   Matrilineal descent, 142
> 543, 544
> See also Divorce; Gender; Law;           Maturidi, al- (Abu Mansur Muhammad
> success of, 116, 121
> Mahr; Polygamy                           b. Muhammad), 139, 442–443
> use of Arabic language in, 60
> waqf of, 731                             Marsajawayh, 695                                 See also Ash
arites, Ash
aira;
> See also Delhi sultanate;                Marthiya (poetic dirge), 64                        Central Asia, Islam in; Kalam;
> Ghaznavid sultanate; Seljuk            Martyrdom, 387, 431–434                            Mu
tazilites, Mu
tazila
> sultanate                                  See also Banna, Hasan al-;               Maturidite school, 83, 442
> Mamun, al- (Abu ’l-
Abbas 
Abdallah               Expansion, of Islam; Husayn;           Maududi, Abu l-A
la, 172, 262, 286,
> al-Mamun), 427–428                              
Ibadat; Imamate; Jihad;                 304, 345, 366, 371, 372, 443–444,
> caliphate of, 207, 259, 587                    Kharijites, Khawarij; Ta
ziya            457, 468, 537, 551, 552, 641, 669,
> Christianity under, 145                  Marwa, Muhammad (Maitatsine),                  692, 716
> coinage of, 151                            434–435                                        See also Jama
at-e Islami; Political
> conquest of Central Asia by, 132             See also Africa, Islam in; Kano                Islam
> and education, 203                             (Nigeria); Mahdi                       Maulid (Mawlid), 737
> libraries of, 414                        Marwanid dynasty, 46, 118                    Mauss, Marcell, 226
> silver globe of, 130                     Marwan (Marwan b. al-Hakam b.                Mawarannahr (Transoxiana,
> succession of, 120                         Abi al-
As, Abu 
Abd al-Malik),              Transoxania), 132
> translations under, 281, 282               435–436                                    Mawdud, 661
> See also Caliphate; Fitna; Mihna;
> succession of, 118, 223                  Mawla (master, friend), 37, 473
> Mu
tazilites, Mu
tazila;
> See also Caliphate; Succession           Mazahir-e 
Ulum (Saharanpur), 177
> Succession
> Masculinities, 436
> Manar, manara (minaret), 71, 428                                                          Mazalim, 444–445, 535
> See also Body, significance of;
> See also Adhan; Architecture;                                                             See also Caliphate; Law; Religious
> Feminism; Gender;
> Masjid                                                                                    institutions
> Homosexuality
> Manat, 84, 85                                                                             Mazhar ul Islam, 716
> Mashhad (Iran), 26, 436–437, 438
> Manchu Empire, 136                                                                        Mazrui, 
Ali A., 252
> See also Pilgrimage: Hajj;
> Mande, Islam among, 20                                                                    Mazrui (Ar., Mazru
i), 445, 745
> Pilgrimage: Ziyara; Shi
a: Imami
> Mandela, Nelson, 426                                                                          See also Africa, Islam in; Zanzibar,
> (Twelver)
> Mangistu Haile-Mariam, 231                                                                      Sa
idi sultanate of
> Mashhad (mausoleum), 74, 433
> Mani, 428, 429                                                                            Mbaruk bin Rashid, 445
> Masih-i maw
ud (promised
> Manicheanism, 139, 428–429                     Messiah), 32                               McMahon, Sir Henry, 519
> See also Islam and other religions       Masih (messiah), 30, 554                     Mecca, 55, 158, 311–312, 311, 332,
> Mansa Musa, 17, 429–430, 606                 Masina, state of, 17                           437, 531
> See also Africa, Islam in                                                                 See also Holy cities; Ka
ba (Mecca)
> Masjid, 71, 373, 437–440, 650
> Mansa Sulayman, 17                                                                        Media, perception of Muslims in, 44
> See also 
Ibadat; Khutba; Manar,
> Mansur, Hasan 
Ali, 256                            manara; Mihrab; Minbar                 Medicine, 445–448, 613
> Mansur al-Namari, 97                               (mimbar); Religious institutions           See also Body, significance of;
> Manteq al-Tayr, 527                          Maslaha (public interest), 7, 11, 226,             Ethics and social issues; Falsafa;
> Manto, Sa
adat Hasan, 716                      440, 577                                         Healing; Science, Islam and
> Manuchehri, 525                                  See also 
Abduh, Muhammad;               Medina (Yathrib), 52, 53, 54–55, 71,
> Maps. See Cartography and geography                Ethics and social issues; Ghazali,       312–314, 313, 361, 479, 705
> Maqama (rhymed prose), 66                          al-; Law; Shari
a                          Jews in, 381, 479
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                    807
> Page links created automatically - disregard ones formed not from page numbers
> Index: Volume 1 pp. 1–416; Volume 2 pp. 417–747
> 
> as model for political                     See also Ahmad, Mirza Ghulam;                authoritarianism and
> organization, 540                           Ahmadiyya; Babiyya; Bab                     democratization, 462–463
> Muhammad’s house in, 70–71,                   (Sayyed 
Ali Muhammad);                   See also Ataturk, Mustafa Kemal;
> 71, 437                                     Bahaallah; Bahai faith;                   Political Islam; Qadhafi,
> Prophet’s Mosque in, 313, 314                 Kharijites, Khawarij                        Mu
ammar al-; Reform: in Arab
> See also Holy cities                   Miqdad, 35                                         Middle East and North Africa;
> Mehmed Said Halim Pasha, 344                Miracles, 454                                      Reform: in Iran; Revolution,
> Mehmet II (Mehmed), Ottoman                                                                    modern
> See also Mi
raj; Muhammad;
> sultan, 130, 211, 340, 561                                                                constitutionalism, 463–465,
> Prophets
> Mehmet IV, Ottoman sultan, 216                                                                 470–471, 595
> Mi
raj (ascension of the Prophet),
> See also Majlis
> Memphis, 115                                   36, 38, 49, 114, 184, 331,
> participation, political
> Menilik, emperor of Ethiopia, 14               454–456, 599
> movements, and parties,
> Mernissi, Fatima, 110, 271, 483                 See also Buraq; Holy cities;                   465–467
> Messianism, 590                                    
Ibadat; Miracles                         See also Communism; Erbakan,
> Metal-working, 77–78, 80                    Mir Damad, 359, 386, 399                           Necmeddin; Ikhan al-Muslimin;
> Metatron, 49                                Mir Sayyid 
Ali, 643                               Nationalism: Arab; Nationalism:
> Mevlevi (Maulaviyya) order, 601, 602,       Mir Taqi Mir, 715                                  Iranian; Nationalism, Turkish;
> 682, 683, 686, 690, 708                  Miryam Begum, 219                                  Pan-Islam; Political Islam;
> Mian, Dudu, 581                             Mirza, 134                                         Socialism
> Michael (Mikail, Mikal), 49                                                                 political philosophy of, 551–552
> Mirza, Iraj, 528
> “Middle Arabic” language, 60                                                             Modern thought, 467–472
> Mirza Husayn 
Ali Nuri. See
> “Middle East,” 458                                                                           See also 
Abd al-Karim Sorush;
> Bahaallah
> Middle Persian language, 60                                                                    Afghani, Jamal al-Din al-;
> Mirza Yahya (Subh-e Azal), 96,
> Ahmad Khan, Sir Sayyid;
> Midhat Pasha, 376                              99, 100
> Capitalism; Communism;
> Migration, 155, 198, 236–237                Mirza-ye Qommi, 561                                Feminism; Gender; Iqbal,
> Mihna (religious inquisition), 27, 120,     Misbach, Hadji Mohammad, 470                       Muhammad; Liberalism,
> 427, 448–450, 587, 654, 694              Miskawayh, 225                                     Islamic; Modernism; Pluralism:
> See also Caliphate; Disputation;       MNLF (Moro National Liberation                     Legal and ethno-religious;
> Ibn Hanbal; Imamate; Ma
mun,            Front), 647–648                                 Pluralism: Political; Qutb,
> al-; Mu
tazilites, Mu
tazila;                                                           Sayyid; Rahman, Fazlur;
> Mobilization (Basji) Corps, 522, 741
> Quran                                                                                  Science, Islam and;
> Modarressi, Hossein, 547
> Mihrab, 20, 71, 438, 450                                                                       Secularization; Shari
ati, 
Ali;
> Modernism, 155, 456
> See also Architecture; Art;                                                               Wali Allah, Shah
> See also 
Abduh, Muhammad;
> Devotional life; Masjid                                                           Mo
ezzi, 525
> Afghani, Jamal al-Din al-;
> Military raid, 450–451                                                                   Mogul (Mughal) Empire, 32,
> Ahmad Khan, Sir Sayyid; Iqbal,
> See also Conflict and violence;                                                        212–214, 214
> Muhammad; Liberalism,
> Da
wa; Expansion, of Islam;                                                           architecture of, 73, 213
> Islamic; Modern thought;
> Jihad                                                                                 conversion during, 362, 363
> Rahman, Fazlur
> Mill, John Stuart, 251                                                                       and ethnic identity, 342–343
> Modernity, 456–458
> Millet system, 232, 340, 362, 383, 411,                                                      Islam in, 637–638
> See also 
Abduh, Muhammad;
> 534, 738                                                                                  miniature painting of, 80, 214
> Afghani, Jamal al-Din al-;
> Milli Gorus, 238                                                                             political organization under, 545
> Ahmad Khan, Sir Sayyid; Iqbal,
> Milli Nizam Partisi (National Order                                                          use of Persian language in, 60
> Muhammad; Liberalism,
> Party), 224                                                                               See also Political organization
> Islamic; Maududi, Abu l-A
la;
> Milli Selâmet Partisi (National                                                          Mohamed, Mahathir, 647
> Modern thought
> Salvation Party), 238, 460                                                            Mohammed, W. D. See Muhammad,
> Modernization, political
> Mina, campsite at, 312                                                                     Warith Deen
> administrative, military, and
> Minaeans (kindgom of Ma
in), 54, 58                                                      Mohammad al-Taqi, imam, 88
> judicial reform, 458–462
> Minaret. See Manar, manara                                                               Mohammad Khodabandeh, 218
> See also 
Abd al-Nasser, Jamal;
> Minbar (mimbar, “pulpit”), 71,                     
Abd al-Razzaq al-Sanhuri;            Mohammedanism, 360
> 437, 451                                        Ataturk, Mustafa Kemal; Iran,         Mojahedin-e Khalq (The People’s
> See also Masjid; Mihrab                       Islamic Republic of; Islamic            Warriors), 472
> Minorities                                         Salvation Front; Khomeini,                See also Iran, Islamic Republic of;
> dhimmis, 162, 303, 340, 378,                  Ayatollah Ruhollah; Mosaddeq,               Khomeini, Ayatollah Ruhollah;
> 451–452, 635                                Mohammad; Muhammad Reza                     Political Islam; Shari
ati, 
Ali
> See also Dhimmi (protected) status            Shah Pahlevi; Revolution:             Mojahidin. See Mujahidin
> offshoots of Islam, 452–454                   Islamic revolution in Iran            Mojrem, 526
> 
> 808                                                                                           Islam and the Muslim World
> Page links created automatically - disregard ones formed not from page numbers
> Index: Volume 1 pp. 1–416; Volume 2 pp. 417–747
> 
> Mojtahed-Shabestari, Mohammad,              Mosques, 42, 43, 70–73, 72, 148, 188,            defense of Islam by, 157–158
> 473, 578                                    192, 209, 235, 311, 313, 315,                  dreams of, 185
> See also Reform: in Iran                  440–441, 585, 635, 650                         ethical character of, 34
> Mollabashi, 473–474                             in China, 188, 191, 192                      favorite wife of, 32–33
> See also Molla; Nader Shah                  See also Adhan; Architecture;                hospitality of, 317–318
> Jami
; Manar, manara; Masjid;             house of, 70–71, 71
> Afshar; Safavid and Qajar
> Minbar (mimbar); Religious                humor of, 320
> Empires; Ulema
> institutions                              images of, 159
> Molla Hosayn Boshrui. See Mulla
> Mostar, bridge at, 103                           migration to Yathrib
> Hosayn Boshrui
> Motahhari, Mortaza, 476                            (Medina), 478
> Molla (religious leader), 473                                                                miracles of, 454
> See also Khomeini, Ayatollah
> See also Ulema                                                                           on poetry, 64
> Ruhollah; Reform: in Iran;
> Monarchy, 474–475, 541, 663                                                                  prophecies foretelling the coming
> Revolution: Islamic revolution
> See also Caliphate; Political                  in Iran; Velayat-e Faqih                    of, 28
> organization                                                                           recognition of, 28
> Mouride Brotherhood. See Muridiyya
> Money lending, 126                                                                           relics of, 111
> Brotherhood
> Mongol and Il-Khanid Empires,                                                                sira (biography) of, 66, 109, 120,
> Mourning, 175, 317
> 211–212                                                                                      143, 381, 482
> Movement of the Ansar—Helpers of
> and caliphate, 655                                                                       successors of, 116–123, 480–481,
> prophet Muhammad in Medina
> destruction by, 121                                                                        484, 541, 573, 584–587, 622,
> (Harakat al-Ansar), 490
> end of, 134                                                                                651–656
> Mozaffar, Shaykh Mohammad                        tomb of, 78, 233, 314
> political organization under, 542,        Reza, 718                                      virtues of, 225
> 543–544                               Mozambique, Islam in, 14, 23                     See also Arabia, pre-Islamic;
> rise of, 134
> MSA. See Muslim Student Association                Biography and hagiography;
> and spread of Islam, 236,
> of North America                                 Caliphate; Hadith; Holy cities;
> 363, 382
> Mtumwa, Shaykha Binti, 22                          Mi
raj; Quran; Shi
a: Early;
> See also Political organization
> Mu
adha al-
Adawiyya, 571                          Succession; Sunna; Tasawwuf
> Monophysite Christianity, 17, 143
> Muadhdhin (muezzin, “caller”),              Muhammad, Elijah (Elijah Poole), 43,
> Monotheism, 39, 252, 381
> 71, 178                                      245, 253, 426, 486–487, 505,
> See also Allah                                                                         709, 710
> Mu
allaqat (“suspended odes”), 57, 370
> Moorish Science Temple, 41, 708–709                                                          See also American culture and
> Mu
amalat (social ethics), 327, 430
> Moravids (Almoravid dynasty), 47,                                                              Islam; Americas, Islam in the;
> Mu
awiya b. Yazid (Mu
awiya II),
> 362, 475, 606, 696                          223, 435                                         Farrakhan, Louis; Malcolm X;
> See also Andalus, al-                   Mu
awiya (Mu
awiya b. Abi [Abu]                    Muhammad, Warith Deen;
> Moriscos, 45                                  Sufyan), 477                                     Nation of Islam
> Morocco                                         monetary policy of, 151                  Muhammad, Miyan Tufail, 371
> economy of, 199, 200                        opposition to 
Ali from, 35, 36          Muhammad, Warith Deen
> independence of, 425                        succession of, 118, 223, 260, 293,         (Warithudeen; Wallace D.;
> Islam in, 19, 254                              477, 623                                Mohammed, W. D.), 43, 44, 45,
> music in, 495                               See also Caliphate; Karbala;               253, 383–384, 487, 488, 505, 710,
> opposition to socialism in, 634                Kharijites, Khawarij; Succession        712, 713
> political modernization in,             Muaz Ibn Jabal, 406                             See also American culture and
> 460, 462                              Mubarak, Hosni, 200, 346, 464, 466                 Islam; Farrakhan, Louis;
> religious legitimacy in, 26             Mudanya Armistice (1922), 89                       Malcolm X; Muhammad, Elijah;
> ulema of, 705                           Mudros Armistice (1918), 89                        Nation of Islam; United States,
> veneration of saints in, 724                                                               Islam in the
> Mufti, 478
> Moro National Liberation Front                                                           Muhammad Ahmad ibn 
Abdullah
> See also Fatwa; Qadi (kadi, kazi)
> (MNLF), 647–648                                                                          (
Abhullah), 421, 422, 485
> Mughal Empire. See Mogul Empire
> Mosaddeq, Dr. Mohammad, 11, 106,                                                             tomb of, 422, 423
> Muhajirun (emigrants), 340, 371
> 156, 255–256, 310, 413, 459, 476,                                                          See also Mahdi
> Muhammad, 478–485
> 504, 592, 741                                                                          Muhammad al-Amin, 207, 427
> as ahl al-bayt, 26
> See also Nationalism: Iranian                                                        Muhammad al-Baqir, 625
> birthday (maulid; mawlid) of, 108,
> Mos Def, 45                                                                              Muhammad al-Darazi, 453
> 177, 191–192, 389, 482, 599,
> Moses, 390                                         649, 737                              Muhammad al-Hanifiyya, 421
> Mosque of al-Hakim, Fatimid                     changing image of, 481–483               Muhammad 
Ali, dynasty of, 485–486
> (Cairo), 71                                   and Christianity, 143                        See also 
Abd al-Nasser, Jamal;
> Mosque of the Mogul emporer Shah                cloak of, 38                                   Modernization, political:
> Jahan, 439                                    conversion of jinni by, 51                     Authoritarianism and
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                 809
> Page links created automatically - disregard ones formed not from page numbers
> Index: Volume 1 pp. 1–416; Volume 2 pp. 417–747
> 
> democratization; Nationalism:             See also Khomeini, Ayatollah             Muqatil ibn Sulayman (d. 804), 672
> Arab; Reform: in Arab Middle                Ruhollah; Modernization,               Murad, Khurram, 174
> East and North Africa;                      political: Authoritarianism and        Murad, amir of Bukhara, 113
> Revolution: Modern                          democratization; Revolution:
> Murad IV, Ottoman sultan, 99
> Muhammad al-Mahdi (died ca.                      Islamic revolution in Iran
> Muridiyya (Mouride; Murid)
> 874), 421                                Muhammad’s Army, 347
> Brotherhood, 21, 104, 694
> Muhammad al-Nafs al-Zakiyya                Muhammad Shah, 213, 664
> Murjiites, Murjia, 138, 492, 591, 653
> (Muhammad b. 
Abdallah b. al-            Muhammad Shibani Khan, 135
> See also Kharijites, Khawarij
> Hasan al-Muthanna), 486, 623             Muhammad (son of Hasan al-
> 
Askari), 274                              Murtada al-Ansari (Murtada Ansari),
> See also Ahl al-bayt; Imamate;
> Muhammad Speaks, 486                           430, 718, 722
> Mahdi; Succession
> Muhammad’s Youth, 346                        Muruwwa (manliness), 436
> Muhammad al-Shaybani, 9, 407,
> 408–409                                  Muhammad Tughluq, 660                        Musa al-Kazim, imam, 88
> Muhammadan (Mahomedan) Anglo-              Muhanna, Ahmad, 309                          Musa al-Sadr, Imam, 412
> Oriental College, Aligarh (India),       Muharram, 323, 324, 324, 331,                Mus
ab b. al-Zubayr, 435
> 32, 38–39                                  488–489, 599, 623, 715                     Musharraf, Gen. Pervez, 518
> “Muhammadan Paths” (turuq                      See also Husayn; Karbala; Ritual;        Music, 304, 441–442, 492–496,
> Muhammadiyya), 154                             Shi
a: Early; Ta
ziya (Ta
ziye)          688–689
> Muhammadan Union, 344                      Muhasibi, al- (Harith ibn Asad al-               See also Arabic literature; Persian
> Muhammad 
Ashiq, 730                         Muhasibi), 226, 290, 489                         language and literature; Quran;
> Muhammad b. 
Abdallah, 427                     See also Ibn Hanbal; Tasawwuf                  Umm Kulthum; Urdu language,
> Muhammad b. Ahmad al-Dhahabi, 227          Muhsin Fayd al-Kashani, 34                         literature, and poetry
> Muhammad b. Ahmad al-Sarakhsi              Muhtasib, 489–490                            Musical instruments, 493, 495
> (Shams al-Aimma), 9, 139                    See also Hisba; Political                Muslim American Society. See
> Muhammad b. 
Ali al-Sanusi, 537                  organization                             American Society of Muslims
> Muhammad b. 
Ali al-Shawkani, 537,         Muhyi al-Din ibn al-
Arabi (Muhyi al-        Muslim b. al-Hajjaj, 139, 451, 668
> 630, 668                                   Din Ibn Arabi), 455, 673                   Muslim Brotherhood. See Ikhwan al-
> Mu
izz al-Dawla, 691                           Muslimin
> Muhammad b. Isma
il al-Bukhari, 139
> Mu
izz al-Din, 115                           Muslim Brothers’ Society (Sudan), 347
> Muhammad b. Khalaf, 418
> Mujaddidi, Sibghatallah, 490
> Muhammad b. Kunta b. Zazam, 402                                                         Muslim Community Association, 497
> Mujaddid (reformer, renewer of Islam),
> Muhammad b. Makki (al-Shahid al-                                                        Muslim (d. 874), 286, 370
> 30, 32, 140, 453, 675
> Awwal), 386                                                                           Muslim Ibn al-Hajjaj, 496
> See also Tajdid
> Muhammad b. Musa al-                                                                        See also Bukhari, al-; Hadith
> Mujahedin-e Khalq, 594
> Khwarazmi, 139                                                                        Muslim Journal, 712
> Mujahid, 280
> Muhammad b. Muslim, 369                                                                 Muslim League
> Mujahidin (guerilla), 108, 490–491,
> Muhammad b. Rashid, 729                                                                     in Awami (People’s) League, 90
> 491, 676, 692
> Muhammad b. Sa
ud, amir, 6, 610, 728                                                        formation of, 305
> See also Political Islam; Taliban
> Muhammad Bey, 463                                                                           leadership of, 31
> Mujahidun. See Mujahidin
> Muhammad bin Qasun, 580                    Mujib, Shaykh (Bangabandhu), 91                  opposition to, 371
> Muhammad Ghawth Gwaliori, 637                                                               principles of, 39
> Mujtahids, 34
> Muhammad ibn Isma
il, 628                                                                   support for, 375
> Mujun (obscene poetry), 65
> Muhammad ibn (b.) Qasim, 635, 642                                                           on two-nation theory, 374,
> Mukhtar, al-, 251, 260, 421
> 375, 640
> Muhammad ibn Saud, 676                     Mukhtasar, 597
> Muhammadiyya (Muhammadiyah), 27,                                                        Muslim News (South Africa), 293
> Mulla (Molla) Hosayn Boshrui, 95,
> 29, 469, 487, 582, 645, 735                                                           Muslim Student Association of North
> 96, 97
> See also Reform: in Southeast Asia                                                    America (MSA), 45, 352, 354, 366,
> Mulla Muhammad Tahir Qummi, 34
> 496–497
> Muhammad Jayasi, 689                       Mulla Sadra (Sadr ad-Din Shirazi),
> See also Islamic Society of North
> Muhammad Mahdi (d. 1504), 421                248, 249, 351, 359, 401, 491–492,
> 626, 687                                         America; United States, Islam
> Muhammad 
Omar Mujahid, Mulla,
> in; Youth movements
> 676, 677, 678                                See also Falsafa; Ibn al-
Arabi; Ibn
> Sina; Ishraqi school                   Muslim Sunrise, 708
> Muhammad Rahim, khan of
> Bukhara, 113                             Munkar, 49, 432, 584                         Muslim (terminology), 360
> Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlevi                 Muqarnas, 74                                 Muslim Women Lawyer’s Committee
> (Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi),            Muqatil, 280                                   for Human Rights (KARAMA), 43
> 88, 205, 294, 357, 458, 465, 466,        Muqatil b. Sulayman al-Balkhi (d. c.         Muslim Women’s Association, 276
> 487–488, 504, 592–593, 741                 767), 454                                  Muslim Women’s League, 43
> 
> 810                                                                                          Islam and the Muslim World
> Page links created automatically - disregard ones formed not from page numbers
> Index: Volume 1 pp. 1–416; Volume 2 pp. 417–747
> 
> Muslim World League (Rabitat al-                 See also Holy cities; Karbala;           Nationalism
> 
Alam al-Islami), 8, 69, 173,                     Mashhad (Iran)                            Algerian, 2
> 444, 521                                   Najda b. 
Amir al-Hanafi, 390                     Arab, 60–61, 465, 502–503, 633
> Mustafa Fazil, 738                           Najib (Naguib), Muhammad, 4                      See also 
Abd al-Nasser, Jamal;
> Mustafa II, 561                              Najm al-Din al-Tufi, 226                            
Abd al-Rahman Kawakibi;
> Mustafa Na
ima, 308                          Nakir, 49, 432, 584                                
Abduh, Muhammad; Afghani,
> Mustafa Resit Pasha (Pasa), 376,                                                                Jamal al-Din al-; Arab League;
> Names, Islamic, 44–45, 272–273
> 678, 738                                                                                      Ba
th Party; Pan-Arabism; Pan-
> See also Genealogy
> Islam; Reform: in Arab Middle
> Mustamin, 452                               Nanak, 642, 661                                    East and North Africa
> Mutahhari, Morteza, 578                      NAP (National Awami Party), 374                  in art, 75–76
> Mutamar al-
Alam al-Islami, 521             Napoleon I (Napoleon Bonaparte), 66,             development of, 234–235
> Mutarrif b. Shihab, 630                        146, 363                                       in India, 374
> Mutarrifiiyya, 630                            Naqqash, Selim, 342                              Iranian, 503–504
> Mutasarrifiya, 411, 412                       Naqshband, Baha al-Din, 140                     See also Iran, Islamic Republic
> Mu
tazilites, Mu
tazila, 3, 10, 27, 335,     Naqshbandi brotherhood                             of; Mosaddeq, Mohammad;
> 427, 497, 586, 630, 703                      (Naqshbandiyya), 343, 513, 580,                  Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlevi;
> See also 
Abd al-Jabbar; Ma
mun,           632, 675, 680, 682, 683                          Revolution: Islamic revolution
> al-; Mihna                             Naraqi, Molla Ahmad (Ahmad al-                     in Iran
> Muthanna, Muhammad Ibn 
Abdallah,              Naraqi), 718, 722                              Turkish, 103, 341–342, 504–505
> al-. See Muhammad al-Nafs al-                                                               See also Ataturk, Mustafa Kemal;
> Nar (fire), 370, 375, 501–502
> Zakiyya                                                                                       Balkans, Islam in the; Nur
> See also Death; Ghazali, al-;
> Movement; Nursi, Said;
> Muwahiddun (Unitarians), 468, 727                   Jahannam; Janna; Muhammad;
> Ottoman Empire; Pan-Islam;
> Muwashshah (strophic poetry),                       Quran; Tafsir
> Young Ottomans; Young Turks
> 47–48, 66                                  Nasai, al- (Abu 
Abd al-Rahman b.               See also Pan-Arabism
> Muzaffar, Chandra, 469                         
Ali b. Shu
ayb), 502
> National Liberation Front (Front de
> Muzdallifa, 312                                  See also Hadith                            Libération Nationale, FLN), 156,
> Muzzafar al-Din, emir of Bukhara, 113        Naser al-Din Shah, 96, 691                     366, 417, 461, 633
> Myrrh, 54                                    Naser Khosrow. See Nasir Khusraw             National Liberation Front of
> Mystical poetry, 527                         Nasib (love poetry), 64–65                     Afghanistan (Jabha-e Nijat-e Milli-
> Mysticism, 248–249, 252–253                  Nasir bin 
Abdallah Mazrui, 445                ye Afghanistan), 490
> Nasir Khusraw (Naser Khosrow), 248,          National Liberation Movement
> N                                              250, 251, 525, 527                           (Iran), 106
> Nabataean culture, 52–53, 54                 Naskh script, 125                            National Order Party (Milli Nizam
> Nasr, Seyyed Hossein, 174                      Partisi), 224
> Nabonidus, 52, 381
> Nasr II, 525                                 National (Patriotic) Party (al-hizb al-
> Nader Shah Afshar, 136, 499
> Nasrallah, emir of Bukhara, 113                watani), 342
> See also Abbas I, Shah; Madhhab
> Nasrallah, Hassan, 310                       National Resurgence Party (Iran), 459
> Nadir Shah, 113, 212, 214, 392, 638
> Nasr Allah Monshi, 527                       National Salvation Party (Milli
> Nafaqa (maintenance), 431
> Nasralla Sfeir, Cardinal, 413                  Selâmet Partisi), 238, 460
> Nafi
, 8
> Nasr b. Sayyar, 132                          Nation of Islam (NOI)
> Nafi
 b. al-Azraq al-Hanafi, 390
> Nasrid dynasty, 47                               acculturation in, 44
> Nafud, 52                                                                                     beliefs of, 245, 253
> Nahda, al- (Arab Renaissance), 60, 66,       Nassef, Malak Hifni, 735
> description of, 505–506
> 345, 366                                   Nasser, Jamal 
Abd al-. See 
Abd aldevelopment of, 43, 486–487, 707
> Nahdlatul (Nahdatul) Ulama (NU),               Nasser, Jamal
> and hip-hop culture, 45
> 499–500, 645, 646–647, 735                 Nasserism, 460                                   mixing of Islamic and American
> See also Southeast Asia, Islam           Nasta
liq script, 125–126                          practices in, 41, 453
> in; Southeast Asian culture and       National Awami Party (NAP), 374                  opinion of Jews in, 383
> Islam                                 National Consultative Assembly, Iran             See also Farrakhan, Louis;
> Naini, Muhammad Husayn                        (Majles-e Shura-ye Melli), 425                   Malcolm X; Muhammad, Elijah;
> (Mohammad Hosayn),                         National Front (Iran), 10, 11                      Muhammad, Warith Deen;
> 500–501, 614                               National Islamic Community, 373                    United States, Islam in the
> See also Modernization, political:       National Islamic Front (NIF), 347,           Native Deen, 45
> Constitutionalism; Nationalism:         348, 700                                   Nawaz Sharif, Mian Mohammad, 518
> Iranian                               National Islamic Front of Afghanistan        Nawruz, 506
> Najaf (Iraq), 501                              (Mahaz-e Milli-ye Islami-ye                    See also 
Ibadat; Ritual; Vernacular
> tomb of 
Ali in, 26, 36, 88, 501           Afghanistan), 490                                Islam
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                    811
> Page links created automatically - disregard ones formed not from page numbers
> Index: Volume 1 pp. 1–416; Volume 2 pp. 417–747
> 
> Nazi, 324                                    NOI. See Nation of Islam                         production of, 197–198, 199, 460
> Nazzam, al- (Abu Ishaq Ibrahim b.            Non-Aligned Movement, 4                      Oman
> Sayyar al-Nazzam), 247, 506–507           Nongovernmental organizations                    independence of, 425
> See also Kalam; Mu
tazilites,             (NGOs), 278, 583                               Islam in, 15, 474
> Mu
tazila                             North Africa                                     sultantate of, 664
> N’Dour, Youssou, 689                             economy of, 200                          
Onsori, 525
> Nearchus of Crete, 54                            Islam in, 14, 16–17, 237, 244            OPEC (Organization of Petroleum
> Nehzat-e azadi-ye Iran (Liberation               reform in, 575–577                          Exporting Countries), 198, 710
> Movement of Iran, LMI), 413–414               use of Arabic in, 59, 61                 Organization of African Unity, 69
> Neo-Destour movement (and party),            North America, Islam in. See American        Organization of Afro-American
> 111, 112                                    culture and Islam                             Unity, 426
> Neoplatonism, 83, 396, 656, 695              North American Council for Muslim            Organization of Petroleum Exporting
> Nestorian Christianity, 143                    Women, 43                                     Countries (OPEC), 198, 710
> Nestorius, 446                               Northeast Africa, Islam in, 14               Organization of the Islamic
> Netton, Ian, 178                             Nu
aym b. Hammad, 261                           Conference (OIC), 515
> Networks, Muslim, 507–510                    Nuh al-
Ayyar, 263                               on cloning, 230
> See also Globalization; Ibn             Nu
mani, Shibli, 83, 109                         on euthanasia, 230
> Battuta; Internet; Qa
ida, al-;       Numayri, Ja
far al-, 421, 590, 700               formation of, 278, 521
> Travel and travelers                  NU (Nahdlatul Ulama), 499–500,                   on human rights, 317
> 645, 646–647, 735                              membership in, 278
> New Arabic language, 58–59
> and monetary policy, 152
> New Persian (Farsi) language, 60                 See also Southeast Asia, Islam
> on organ transplantation, 229
> Nezam al-Molk. See Nizam al-Mulk                   in; Southeast Asian culture and
> relations with Arab League, 69
> Nezami, 526–527                                    Islam
> on reproductive rights, 228
> Nichomachus, 613                             Nuqrashi, Mahmud Fahmi al-, 105
> See also Pan-Islam
> Nicolaus of Damascus, 695                    Nur al-Din b. Zangi d. 1174), 164,
> Organization of the Islamic Jihad,
> 608, 657
> Nietzsche, Friedrich, 251                                                                    310, 365
> Nur al-Din Raniri (d. 1658), 308
> NIF (National Islamic Front), 347,                                                            See also Islamic Jihad
> Nurani, Shah Ahmad, 375
> 348, 700                                                                               Organ transplantation and
> Nur b. al-Mujahid, Imam, 29
> Niger Buckle, Islam in, 17                                                                   donation, 229
> Nurcu. See Nur Movement
> Nigeria                                                                                   Orientalism, 146–147, 154, 363, 467,
> Nur (divine light), 37, 38                      515–516, 684
> British colonialism in, 17–18, 23
> Islamic reform movement in, 8           Nuri, Fazlallah (Hajj Shaykh Fazlallah           See also Colonialism
> Islam in, 20, 21–22, 23                   b. Mulla 
Abbas Mazandarani
> Origen, 55
> See also Kano (Nigeria); Sokoto,          Tehrani), 513
> Osman II, 545
> sultanate of                              See also Reform: in Iran;
> Ottoman Empire, 102, 214–217
> Nikah, 431, 510                                    Revolution: Islamic revolution
> architecture of, 73
> in Iran
> See also Marriage                                                                        banknote from, 152
> Nur Movement, 512–513
> Ni
mat Allah al-Jazairi, 320                                                                 carpet weaving of, 77
> See also Erbakan, Necmeddin;
> Ni
matollahi Sufi order. See Tasawwuf                                                          constitutional reform in, 737–739
> Nursi, Said; Secularization;
> Nimeiri (Numayri), Col. Ja
far, 347                                                           conversion during, 362
> Young Ottomans
> Niyabat-e 
Amma, 510–511                                                                      decline of, 89, 214, 458
> Nursi, Bediuzzaman Said, 512,                    decorative arts of, 80
> See also Hilli, 
Allama al-; Hilli,       513, 683
> Muhhaqqiq al-; Shi
a: Imami                                                            defeated by Safavids (1623), 1
> See also Nur Movement; Young                 economy of, 216
> (Twelver); Ulema; Velayat-e
> Ottomans; Young Turks                      and ethnic (national) identity,
> Faqih
> Nushuz (disobedience), 431                         340–341
> Nizam al-Din Awliya, 636
> Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, 304                       eunuchs of, 233
> Nizam al-Din Azami, Mufti , 228,
> expansion of, 102, 102, 145–146,
> 229, 230
> O                                                  214, 236, 237
> Nizam al-Mulk (Hasan b. 
Ali b. Ishaq                                                         historiography of, 308–309
> al-Tusi), 83, 275, 419, 511, 527,         Occasionalism, 247–248
> language reform during, 697
> 543, 549, 665                             Occultism, 51
> legitimacy of, 122–123
> See also Assassins; Education;          Office for Consolidating Unity, 743
> military technology of, 234
> Madrasa                               Ögodei (Ögedi), 134, 212                         political organization under,
> Nizari (Nizari Isma
ili Muslims),            OIC. See Organization of the Islamic               544–545
> 24–25, 511–512, 629                          Conference                                    rise of, 243
> See also Aga Khan; Khojas; Shi
a:       Oil (petroleum)                                  use of Ottoman Turkish language
> Isma
ili                                   dependency on, 201                            in, 60
> 
> 812                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Page links created automatically - disregard ones formed not from page numbers
> Index: Volume 1 pp. 1–416; Volume 2 pp. 417–747
> 
> See also Balkans, Islam in the;         Pan-Malayan Islamic Party (Partai                    hagiography; Biruni, al-;
> Christianity and Islam; Europe,           Islam Se-Malayasia, PAS), 539, 647                Ghazali, al-; Grammar and
> Islam in; Expansion, of Islam;         Pansuri, Hamzah, 651                                 lexicography; Hadith; Historical
> Judaism and Islam; Kemal,              Pan-Turanism, 521–522                                writing; Ibn Sina; Iqbal,
> Namek; Nur Movement; Nursi,                 See also Balkans, Islam in the;                 Muhammad; Libraries; Rumi,
> Said; Young Ottomans                          Central Asia, Islam in; Ottoman               Jalaluddin; Tabari, al-; Urdu
> Ottoman Freedom Society, 739                       Empire; Pan-Arabism; Pan-                     language, literature, and poetry;
> Ottomanism, 738, 740                               Islam                                         Vernacular Islam
> Ozbek Khan of the Golden                    PA (Palestinian Authority), 68, 355          Peter I (“the Great”), 392
> Horde, 134                               Papermaking, 123, 414                        Peter the Hermit, 145
> Paris Club, 200                              PFLP-GC (Popular Front for the
> P                                           Parsipur, Shahrnush, 529                        Liberation of Palestine-General
> Padwick, Constance, 177                     Partai Islam Se-Malayasia (Pan-                 Command), 156
> Pakistan, Islamic Republic of, 517–518         Malayan Islamic Party, PAS), 647          PFLP (Popular Front for the
> creation of, 39, 147, 305, 380,        Party for Unity and Development                 Liberation of Palestine), 156
> 444, 552, 581, 616                      (Partei Persatuan Pembangunan,            Philip II, king of France, 164
> education in, 206, 206                    PPP), 647                                 Philippines
> military jihad in, 27                  Party of Islam (Hizb-e Islami), 490                colonization of, 645
> opposition to, 177                     Party of Mojahidin (Hizb al-                       independence of, 647–648
> reform in, 581                            Mojahidin), 490, 491                            Islam in, 644
> Sufism in, 690                          Parwez, Ghulam Ahmad, 286, 668               Phillipus, M. Julius (Philip the Arab),
> veneration of saints in, 724           Pasdaran (Sepah-e Pasdaran-e                    Roman emperor, 55
> See also Awami (People’s) League;         Enghelab-e Eslami), 357, 358, 402,        Philo of Alexandria, 148, 385
> Jinnah, Muhammad 
Ali; South            522, 594
> Philosophical writers, 225–226
> Asia, Islam in                            See also Iran, Islamic Republic of;
> Philosophy
> Pakistan National Alliance (PNA), 375              Revolution: Islamic revolution
> political, 550–551
> Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), 90,                 in Iran
> 371, 375, 518                                                                               and theology, 248–253
> PAS (Partai Islam Se-Malayasia, Pan-
> See also Ethics and social issues;
> Palace of al-Qahira, 74                        Malayan Islamic Party), 539, 647
> Kalam; Knowledge; Science,
> Palaces, Islamic, 74                        Pate sultanate, 664
> Islam and
> Palaestina Salutaris (or Tertia), 53        Patriarchy, 22, 268, 480
> Pietist writers, 225–226
> Palestine Liberation Organization                See also Masculinities
> Pilgrimage
> (PLO)                                    Patrilineal descent, 142
> Hajj, 129, 311, 327, 329, 332,
> in Arab League, 68                     Patriotic Alliance, 738
> 480, 529–533, 531, 532,
> emergence of, 412                      Patriotic (National) Party (al-hizb al-
> 567, 568
> and HAMAS, 290                            watani), 342
> See also 
Ibadat; Ritual
> and intifada, 355                      Patriotism, 43–44
> Ziyara, 141, 312, 332, 351, 533,
> peace accords signed by, 198           Paul, Saint, 28, 53, 455
> recognition of Israel by, 355                                                               562, 650, 688
> Pen Club, The (Al-Rabita al-                       See also Ibn Hanbal; Saint;
> Palestinian Authority (PA), 68, 355            Qalamiyya), 67                                    Tasawwuf
> Palestinian Brotherhood, 290                People’s League. See Awami (People’s)              See also Holy cities; Travel and
> Pan-African Congress, 293                      League                                            travelers
> Pan-Africanism, 426                         People’s Party (Halk Firkasi), 89            Pirenne, Henri, 193–194
> Pan-Arabism, 4, 147, 462, 518–519           Periplus of the Erythraean Sea               Piri Reis, Muhyiddin, 129
> See also 
Abd al-Nasser, Jamal;           (anon.), 54
> Pir (sage), 38, 724
> Arabic language; Arab League;        Persatuan Islam Istri, 735
> Plato, 35, 250, 252, 282, 399, 400,
> Ba
th Party; Ikhwan al-              Persepolis, 343
> 494, 695
> Muslimin; Nationalism: Arab;         Persian language and literature,
> Pan-Islam; Pan-Turanism;                                                          PLO. See Palestine Liberation
> 522–529
> Revolution: Modern                                                                   Organization
> calligraphy in, 125–126
> Pan-Islam, 13, 155, 519–521                                                              Plotinus, 250, 252, 399, 401, 695
> development of, 60, 213, 241,
> See also Afghani, Jamal al-Din                523, 637, 689                         Pluralism
> al-; Caliphate; Khilafat                  figural representation in, 79                  legal and ethno-religious, 471,
> movement; Organization of the             and historiography, 307–308                     533–535
> Islamic Conference; Ottoman               in South Asia, 643                            See also 
Ada; Hadith; Law;
> Empire; Pan-Arabism; Pan-                 spread of, 62                                   Quran; Shari
a; Sunna
> Turanism; Young Turks                     See also Arabic language; Arabic              political, 535–536
> Panjantan pak (the five pure ones), 26              literature; Biography and             PNA (Pakistan National Alliance), 375
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                    813
> Page links created automatically - disregard ones formed not from page numbers
> Index: Volume 1 pp. 1–416; Volume 2 pp. 417–747
> 
> PNF (Progressive National                    Popular Front for the Liberation of               See also Fatwa; Law; Mufti;
> Front), 156                                  Palestine-General Command                        Religious institutions
> Pocock, Edward, 516                             (PFLP-GC), 156                            Qadiriyya, 8, 17, 22, 632, 682, 683
> Poetico-Quranic koine, 58                   Popular Front for the Liberation of          Qadiyan (India), 30
> Poetry                                          Palestine (PFLP), 156                     Qa
ida, al- (al-Qaeda), 27, 108, 146,
> modern, 67                              Porphyry, 695                                   365, 509, 559–560, 610, 674, 676,
> in Muslim Balkans, 103                  PPP (Pakistan People’s Party), 90,              678, 741
> Persian, 523–527                           371, 375, 518                                  See also Bin Ladin, Usama;
> pre-Islamic, 57–58, 63–64               PPP (Partei Persatuan Pembangunan,                  Fundamentalism; Qutb, Sayyid;
> status of, 63                              Party for Unity and                              Terrorism
> and Sufism, 688–689                         Development), 647                         Qa
im (the one who rises at the end of
> types of, 64–66                         Prayer                                          time), 95
> Urdu, 714–715                                call to (See Adhan; 
Ibadat)            Qajar Empire. See Safavid and Qajar
> See also Arabic literature; Persian          direction of (See Qibla [direction         Empires
> language and literature; Urdu                of prayer])                           Qala-e-Kuhna mosque, 73
> language, literature, and poetry           See also Salat                          Qalandar movement, 688
> Polisario (Saharan independence              Preaching. See Khutba                        Qalawan, Mamluk sultan of Egypt,
> movement), 607                            Predestination (qadr), 584, 703                 116, 166
> Political humor, 321–322                     Proclus, 695                                 Qalawun, 662
> Political Islam, 23, 363, 463, 536–540       Progressive National Front                   Qalmaqs (Kalmyks, Oyrats), 135
> See also Banna, Hasan al-;                 (PNF), 156                                Qanun, 534, 544, 560–561
> Fundamentalism; Ikhwan al-            Property, 553–554                                 See also Law; Modernization,
> Muslimin; Islam and Islamic                See also Economy and economic                  political: Administrative,
> law (terminology); Maududi,                  institutions; Waqf                           military, and judicial reform;
> Abu l-A
la; Qutb, Sayyid;            Prophet. See Muhammad                               Political organization; Shari
a
> Revolution: Islamic revolution        Prophets, 554–555, 565, 583                  Qanun al-dawla, 175
> in Iran; Salafiyya; Secularization;         See also Islam and other religions;     Qanun fi al-tibb (Qanun fi ’l-tibb; Ibn
> Shari
a                                      Muhammad; Quran                         Sina), 447, 560, 613
> Political organization, 540–545              Protestant fundamentalism, 147               Qarakhanid dynasty, 133
> See also Abbasid Empire;                Ptolemy, Claudius, 54, 86–87, 612            Qarmitiyya, 312
> Byzantine Empire; Caliphate;          Puberty, 141                                 Qasidas (odes), 56–57, 63, 64, 67,
> Delhi sultanate; Ghaznavid            Public Enemy (rapper), 45                       525, 715
> sultanate; Mamluk sultanate;          Pulpit. See Minbar (mimbar)                  Qasim, Gen. 
Abd al-Karim, 595
> Mogul Empire; Mongol and
> Punt, land of, 54                            Qasr al-Hayr, 74
> Il-Khanid Empires; Ottoman
> Purdah (female seclusion), 22,               Qataban, kingdom of, 54
> Empire; Qanun; Safavid and
> 555–556, 642                              Qatar, independence of, 425
> Qajar Empires; Sassanian
> See also Gender; Harem; Veiling         Qatari b. al-Fujaa, 390
> Empire; Seljuk sultanate;
> Timurid Empire; Umayyad               Purification (tahara), of the body,           Qatran, 525
> Empire                                   110–111, 148–149                          Qavami of Rayy, 527
> Pythagoras, 494                              Qaydu, 134
> Political rituals, 600
> Political thought, 282–283, 545–552                                                       Qays b. Sa
d b. 
Ubada, 36
> See also Caliphate; Imamate; Iran,      Q                                            Qayyum al-asma, 95, 97
> Islamic Republic of; Law;             Qabbani, Nizar, 67                           Qazaqs (freebooters), 135
> Modernization, political:             Qabila (tribe), 699                          Qibla (direction of prayer), 71, 87,
> Constitutionalism; Monarchy;              See also Tribe                              438, 450, 561
> Pakistan, Islamic Republic of;        Qaboos b. Sa
id, 664                              See also Devotional life; Law;
> Political Islam; Reform: in Arab      Qabus nameh, 527                                    Science, Islam and
> Middle East and North Africa;         Qada (court judgment), 255                  Qiblatyn Mosque (Medina), 314
> Reform: in Iran; Shari
a; Shi
a:      Qadariyya, 631, 653                          Qipcaq Turkic language, 60
> Imami (Twelver); Succession;          Qadhdhafi (Qaddafi), Mu
mar                    Qit
a (Persian poetry specimens), 126
> Ulema                                   (Mu
ammar) al-, 173, 462, 557              Qiyam (Islamic values) association, 417
> Polo, Marco, 85, 161, 244, 507, 511              See also Modernization, political:       Qiyas (analogical reasoning), 11,
> Polygamy (polygyny), 22, 479,                      Authoritarianism and                      344–345, 408, 409–410, 534,
> 552–553, 711                                    democratization                           613, 617
> See also Gender; Marriage               Qadi al-Baydawi, 83                          Qizilbash (redheads), 217, 218
> Polytheism, 55                               Qadi al-Fadil, 658                           Qoddus (Barforushi, Molla
> Poole, Elijah. See Muhammad, Elijah          Qadi (kadi, kazi), 478, 557–558                 Mohammad 
Ali), 96
> 
> 814                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Page links created automatically - disregard ones formed not from page numbers
> Index: Volume 1 pp. 1–416; Volume 2 pp. 417–747
> 
> Qom (Iran), 26, 561–562                     Quwwat al-Islam (Delhi), 73                        See also Abu Bakr; 
Ali; Fitna;
> See also Mashhad (Iran);                                                                    Imam; 
Umar; 
Uthman ibn
> Pilgrimage: Ziyara; Revolution:     R                                                    
Affan
> Islamic revolution in Iran          Rabbani, Burhan al-Din, 490, 676             Rashti, Sayyid Kazim, 620
> Qoqand (Khuqand), khanate of, 136           Rabi
a al-
Adawiyya, 734                     Rashtriya Swayamsevak (Svayamsevak)
> Q-Tip (rapper), 45                          Rabi
a of Basra (Rabi
a al-
Adawiyya),           Sangh (RSS), 304, 640
> Queen Latifah, 45                              571, 685                                  Rationalism, 468–469, 617
> Quli Khan, Imam, 135                             See also Saint; Tasawwuf                Ravanipur, Moniru, 529
> Quraishi, Asifa, 271                        Rabiat al-Ra
y, 406                         RAWA (Revolutionary Association of
> Quran, 562–568                             Rabin, Yitzhak, 355                              the Women of Afghanistan), 510
> content of, 564–568                    Rabitat al-
Alam al-Islami (Muslim           Rawdat al-shuhada
 (The garden of the
> and education, 206, 202                   World League), 8, 69, 173,                    martyrs), 626
> on gender, 265–267                        444, 521                                  Rawi (“reciter,” “transmitter”), 57,
> healing power of, 650–651              Rabwa (Pakistan), 31                             63, 293
> illuminated copies of, 76, 80, 125     Race and Slavery in the Middle East, 534     Rawza-khani, 574, 691
> interpretation of, 279–280             Racial categories, and ethnic                      See also Husayn; Ta
ziya
> islam in, 359–360                         identity, 233                                     (Ta
ziyeh)
> language of, 564                       Rafi al-Din, 638                              Ray (personal opinion), 8
> as oral discourse, 563, 695–696        Rafi
 al-Din, Shah, 730                       Raza Library (Rampur), 416
> original collection of, 279, 280,      Rafi
 b. Layth, 132                           Razmara, Hosayn (Hajji) 
Ali, 11, 255
> 482, 719
> Rafsanjani, 
Ali-Akbar Hashemi-. See         
rb tribes, 58
> passages addressing Christians
> Hashemi-Rafsanjani, 
Ali-Akbar            RCC (Revolutionary Command
> in, 143
> Raghib al-Isfahani (died c. 1108), 226           Council), 464, 503
> political thought in, 546
> Rahil (bucolic poetry), 64                   Reagan, Ronald, 44, 294
> precursors to, 27–28
> primacy of, 11                         Rahman, Ataur, 90                            Reconquista, of al-Andalus, 47, 65,
> recitation of, 493–494                 Rahman, Fazl al-, 374                            145, 362
> revelation of, 37, 58, 157, 279        Rahman, Fazlur, 286, 571–572, 609            The Reconstruction of Religious Thought
> structure of, 563–564                       See also Ahmad Khan, Sir Sayyid;            in Islam, 457, 609
> sword verse (ayat al-sayf) of,                Ibn Sina; Modern thought; Wali        Reconstructionalism, 249
> 157, 161                                   Allah, Shah                           Red Fort (Delhi), 74, 214
> women in, 734                          Rahman, Shaykh Mujibur                       Refah Partisi (Welfare Party), 224,
> as written word, 563                      (Mujibar), 90                                 460, 466, 470, 574
> See also Allah; Calligraphy;           Rahman, Ziaur, 91                                  See also Erbakan, Necmeddin;
> Devotional life; Ethics and         Rajae (president of Iran), 388                      Modernization, political:
> social issues; Human rights;        RajaI, 10                                           Participation, political
> 
Ibadat; Jahannam; Janna; Law;      Rajavi, Mas
ud, 472                                  movements, and parties
> Mihna; Muhammad; Pilgrimage:        Rajaz (meter poetry), 64                     Reform
> Hajj; Prophets; Ritual              Rakhi Bahini, 91                                   in Arab Middle East and North
> Quraysh (Qureish) tribe, 37, 55, 96,        Ramadan                                              Africa, 17, 575–577
> 118, 272, 349, 484, 564, 655                                                                 See also 
Abd al-Rahman
> end of, 44
> Qureishi, Asifa, 270                             fasting during, 327–328, 568                    Kawakibi; 
Abd al-Wahhab,
> Qurtubi, al-, 370                                observance of, 331, 567, 599                    Muhammad Ibn; 
Abduh,
> Qurun al-inhitat, 66                             purification during, 111                         Muhammad; Banna, Hasan al-;
> Qusayr Amra (Jordan), bathhouse             Ramadan, Tariq, 734                                  Ghazali, Muhammad al-;
> at, 79                                    Ramanujan, A. K., 723                                Ikhwan al-Muslimin; Qutb,
> Qushayri, 685                               Rashad, Ahmad, 44                                    Sayyid; Rida, Rashid; Salafiyya;
> Qutayba b. Muslim, 132                                                                           Tajdid; Turabi, Hasan al-;
> Rashid, Harun al-, 120, 132, 207, 208,
> Wahhabiyya
> Qutb, Muhammad, 108                            259, 427, 436, 572–573
> in Iran, 577–579
> Qutb, Sayyid, 3, 108, 262, 327, 346,             See also Abbasid Empire;
> See also 
Abd al-Karim Sorush;
> 371, 383, 452, 468, 537, 538,                    Caliphate
> Afghani, Jamal al-Din al-;
> 551, 560, 568–569, 577, 631, 674,         Rashid al-Din (d. 1318), 308
> Bazargan, Mehdi; Khomeini,
> 692, 733                                  Rashid al-Din Sinan (d. 1193), 85                    Ayatollah Ruhollah; Mojtahed-
> See also Banna, Hasan al-; Ikhwan      Rashid bin Salim, 445                                Shabestari, Muhammad;
> al-Muslimin                         Rashidiyya/Dandarawiyya, 29                          Shari
ati, 
Ali
> Qutb al-Din Aibek, 660                      Rashidun, end of, 36                               in Muslim communities of the
> Qutham b. 
ABbas, 141                       Rashidun (“rightly guided” caliphs),                 Russian Empire, 579–580
> Qu
ud (quietism), 261                          118, 481, 573–574, 623, 652                     See also Gasprinskii, Isma
il Bay
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                   815
> Page links created automatically - disregard ones formed not from page numbers
> Index: Volume 1 pp. 1–416; Volume 2 pp. 417–747
> 
> in South Asia, 580–582                      See also Modernization, political:      Ruh (spirit), 49, 227
> See also Ahmad Khan, Sir Sayyid;              Constitutionalism; Reform: in         Rumi, Jalaluddin (Jalal al-Din Rumi,
> Wali Allah, Shah                            Arab Middle East and North              Jalal al-Din Mohammad-e Balkhi),
> in Southeast Asia, 582–583                    Africa; Young Turks                     601, 601–602, 601
> Reformasi (reformation)                     Revolutionary Association of the                 biblical models in works by, 28
> movement, 583                               Women of Afghanistan                          on jihad, 158, 434
> Regionalism, Arab (iqlimiyya), 61              (RAWA), 510                                   life of, 601–602
> Religious affiliation, and ethnic            Revolutionary Command Council                    master of, 253, 391
> identity, 232                               (RCC), 464, 503                               mystical poetry of, 527, 686
> Revolutionary Council (Iran), 294                popularity of, 44
> Religious beliefs, 583–584
> Revolutionary Guards Corps. See                  as refugee, 666
> See also Angels; Kalam
> Pasdaran                                      tomb of, 683
> Religious institutions, development of,                                                      in work by Muhammad Iqbal, 356
> Reza Ruzbeh, 3
> 584–590                                                                                   works by, 602
> Reza Shah (Pahlavi; Pahlevi), 205, 310,
> See also Abbasid Empire; Arabic                                                         See also Persian language and
> 458, 504, 591, 596, 691
> language; 
Ibadat; Identity,                                                            literature
> Muslim; Islam and Islamic                 See also Modernization, political:
> Ruqayyah, 351, 719
> Authoritarianism and
> (terminology); Khirqa; Khutba;                                                    Rushdie, Salman, 238, 277, 394, 603,
> Democratization
> Masjid; Material culture;                                                           603–604
> Sassanian Empire; Umayyad            Riba, 596–597
> See also Arabic literature; Persian
> Empire                                    See also Economy and economic
> language and literature; South
> Renaissance Party (Hizb al-nahda,                  institutions
> Asia, Islam in; Urdu language,
> Ennahda), 273                            Richard I (“the Lionheart”), king of
> literature, and poetry
> England, 164, 608
> Renan, Ernest, 515                                                                       Russia, conquest of western Central
> Rida, Rashid (Muhammad Rashid
> Reproduction, modern technology of,                                                        Asia by, 136–137
> Rida), 5, 7, 104, 172, 262, 286, 342,
> 228–229                                                                               Russian Empire, Muslim communities
> 551, 577, 597, 609
> Republican Brothers, 590                                                                   of, 579–580
> See also 
Abduh, Muhammad
> See also Modernity; Reform: in                                                          See also Gasprinskii, Isma
il Bay;
> Riegl, Alois, 79
> Arab Middle East and North                                                              Reform: in Arab Middle East
> Rifai, Ken
an, 683                                 and North Africa; Reform: in
> Africa
> Rifa
iyya, 682                                     Iran; Reform: in South Asia
> Republican People’s Party (RPP,
> Rihla (book of travels), 698                 Rusva, Muhammad Hadi, 716
> Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi), 89, 459
> Ritual, 597–601                              Ruzbihan Baqli, 680
> Residential architecture, 75
> See also Circumcision; Death;
> Resurrected Nation, 253
> 
Ibadat; Khutba; Law; Marriage;
> Resurrection (barzakh), 176, 565                                                         S
> Pigrimage: Hajj
> Review of Religions, The, 30                                                             Saadawi, Nawal, 257
> Ritual calendar, 331–332, 599–600
> Revivalism, 467–468, 615                                                                 Saba, 526
> See also Hijri calendar
> Revival of the Religious Scholars                                                        Saba Banat (Fustat), 74
> Rituale Romanum, 597
> (Nahdlatul Ulama, NU), 499–500,                                                       Sabeans (kingdom of Sheba), 27,
> Roba
iyyat (quatrain), 524                      54, 58
> 645, 646–647
> Robertson-Smith, William, 597                Sabziwari, 359
> See also Southeast Asia, Islam
> Rodrigo, Visigoth king, 46                   Sa
d al-Din al-Taftazani, 83, 139
> in; Southeast Asian culture and
> Roger II, Norman king of Sicily, 129         Sadat, Anwar al-, 605
> Islam
> Romance literature, 526–527                       abolition of Arab Socialist Union
> Revolution
> Roman Empire                                        by, 4
> classical Islam, 590–591
> control of Arabia by, 52–53, 54              assassination of, 262, 346, 365
> See also Abbasid Empire;
> invasions of Arabia by, 52, 55               opposition to, 3
> Assassins; Fitna; Shi
a: Early;
> Romania                                           and political modernization,
> Succession; Umayyad Empire
> Islamic revolution in Iran, 9–10,           independence of, 102                           460, 538
> Muslim population of, 104                    See also 
Abd al-Nasser, Jamal;
> 106, 146, 356–358, 394, 425,
> RPP (Republican People’s Party),                    Reform: in Arab Middle East
> 463, 538–539, 577–579,
> 89, 459                                          and North Africa
> 591–594, 592, 594, 596
> See also Imamate; Iran, Islamic        RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh),           Sa
di of Shiraz, 527
> Republic of; Khomeini,                  304, 640                                  Sadiq, Ja
far al-. See Ja
far al-Sadiq
> Ayatollah Ruhollah; Majlis;          Rub al-Khali (“the Empty                    Sadiq, Muhammad, 708
> Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlevi;             Quarter”), 52                             Sadr, 605–606
> Velayat-e faqih                      Rudaki, 139, 525                             Sadr, Muhammad Baqir al-, 606
> modern, 595–596                        Rufus of Ephesus, 695                        Sadr, Musa al-, 606
> 
> 816                                                                                           Islam and the Muslim World
> Page links created automatically - disregard ones formed not from page numbers
> Index: Volume 1 pp. 1–416; Volume 2 pp. 417–747
> 
> See also Imamate; Lebanon;                     See also 
Abduh, Muhammad;             Saudi dynasty, 610–611
> Political Islam; Revolution:                   Ijtihad; Muhammadiyya                SAVAK (Iranian Ministry of Security),
> Modern                                         (Muhammadiyah); Nationalism:            459, 592
> Sadr al-Din, 642                                       Arab; Wahhabiyya                     Savushun, 529
> Safavi, Navvab-e (Sayyed Mujtaba Mir           Salah al-Din b. Ayyub. See Saladin           Sawm (abstention), 328–329
> Lauhi), 255                                Salar Jung Museum Library                    Sayf al-Dawla, prince of Aleppo,
> Safavid and Qajar Empires, 217–219                 (Hyderabad, Deccan), 416                    65, 211
> carpet weaving of, 77                    Salat (prayer), 71, 107, 160, 177–178,       Sayf al-Din al-Amidi, 83, 717
> conversion during, 362                       327, 329–331, 330, 437, 567–568,         Sayyed 
Ali Muhammad. See Bab
> legitimacy of, 95–96, 626                    598, 667, 696                               (Sayyed 
Ali Muhammad)
> origins of, 26                           Saleh bin Allawi, 610                        Sayyed Kazem Rashti, 95, 97
> political organization under, 545              See also Africa, Islam in; Tariqa      Sayyed Muhammad Reza, 96
> rulers of, 1                             Sales, Mehdi Akhavan-e, 528                  Sayyid, 26, 273, 611
> ta
ziya during, 691
> Salih b. 
Abd al-Quddus, 10                       See also Sharif
> use of Persian language in, 60
> Salihiyya, 29                                Sayyida Hurra, Sulayhid queen, 269
> See also 
Abbas I, shah of Iran
> (Persia); Isma
il I, Shah; Majlisi,    Saljuq. See Seljuk sultanate                 Sayyid 
Ajall Shams al-Din, 191
> Muhammad Baqir; Political              Salman al-Farsi, 35                          Sayyid 
Ali II, 664
> organization; Tahmasp I, Shah          Samanid dynasty, 60, 132–133, 139,           Sayyida Nafisa, 734
> Safavid Islam, 619                                 542, 543                                 Sayyida Ruqayya, mausoleum of, 74
> Safawiyya, 26, 682                             Samarkand                                    Sayyida Zaynab, 254
> Safi, Louay M., 160                                   mausoleum of Tamerland (Gur-e               tomb of, 26, 351
> Safi, shah of Iran (Persia), 218                        Amir) in, 222                        Sayyid Bargash Bin Sa
id, 746
> Safi al-Din, Shaykh, 217                              tile mosaic from, 77                   Sayyid Muhammad Jawnpuri, 637
> Sahabi, Ezzatollah, 414                        Samarqandi, al-, 370                         Sayyid Sa
id bin Sultan, 445, 745
> Sahabi, Yadollah, 413                          Samarra (Iraq), 79, 88                       Sayyid Sharif al-Jurjani, 83
> Sahara, 16–17, 606–607                         Sanai of Ghazna, 525, 527                   Sayyid Sultan, 637
> See also Globalization; Networks,        Sanhuri, 
Abd al-Razzaq, al-. See 
Abd       Sazman-e Mojahedin-e Khalq-e Iran
> Muslim                                     al-Razzaq al-Sanhuri                        (Organization of the Iranian
> Sahel                                          Sanjar, Seljuk sultan, 133, 665                 People’s Religious Warriors), 472
> description of, 20                       Sanusi, Sanusi Lamido, 353                   The School Principal, 529
> Islam in, 16, 17                         Sanusiyya, 29, 682                           Science, Islam and, 611–614
> Sahib b. Abbad, Buyid wazir, 3                 Sanyal, Usha, 178                                 See also Astrology; Astronomy;
> Sahl ibn 
Abdallah al-Tustari, 673             Sarakhsi, 409                                       Education; Falsafa; Ghazali, al-;
> Said, 
Ali Ahmad (Adunis), 67                  Sardar, Ziauddin, 353                               Ibn al-
Arabi; Ibn Khaldun; Ibn
> Sina; Ikhwan al-Safa; Law;
> Said, Edward, 154, 515–516                     Sarraj, 685
> Modernity; Quran
> Sa
id al-Su
ada (Cairo), 680                   Sartre, Jean-Paul, 516
> Scientific Society (of Aligarh). See
> Sa
id b. Mansur, 286                           Sassanian Empire, 55, 219, 219–221,
> Aligarh Scientific Society
> Sa
id Ibn al-Musayyab, 406                         220, 549
> SEATO (Southeast Asia Treaty
> Saint (wali), 108, 332, 607–608,                     See also Islam and other religions;
> Organization), 517
> 649, 724                                           Minorities: dhimmis
> Sebeos, Armenian bishop, 143
> See also Biography and                   Satuq Bughra Khan, 133
> Sebuktigin, 661
> hagiography; Ibn al-
Arabi;            Sa
ud, Shaykh, 387
> Secular architecture, 74–75
> Mi
raj; Silsila; Sunna; Tariqa;        Sauda, 715
> Tasawwuf; Ulema                                                                          decoration of, 78–79
> Saudi Arabia
> Secularism, Islamic, 614–615
> Saj
 (rhymed poetry), 57, 64                         constitutionalism in, 465, 470
> See also Modernism; Modernity;
> Saladin (Salah al-Din Yusuf b. al-                   education in, 205
> Secularization
> Ayyubi), 116, 121, 145, 164, 166,                independence of, 425, 458
> 166, 184, 315, 362, 389, 608, 656,                                                      Secularization, 615–616
> legal reform in, 461
> 657–659, 659                                                                                 See also Pakistan, Islamic Republic
> madrasa of, 419
> See also Crusades                                                                            of; Reform: in Arab Middle East
> opposition to socialism in, 634
> and North Africa; Reform: in
> Salafiyya, 608–610                                    political modernization in, 460
> Iran
> in Africa, 22                                  political repression in, 463
> Sufism in, 683                          Self-blame (malama), 688
> in Algeria, 2, 366
> and da
wa, 172                                 ulema of, 704–705                      Self-flagellation, 488, 489, 627
> origin of, 7, 468, 536–537,                    veiling in, 723                        Self-realization, 251
> 575–577                                      Wahhabi ideology in, 108, 729          Selim I, caliph, 340, 662
> in Southeast Asia, 582                         youth programs in, 744                 Selim III, caliph, 656
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                      817
> Page links created automatically - disregard ones formed not from page numbers
> Index: Volume 1 pp. 1–416; Volume 2 pp. 417–747
> 
> Selimiye Cami (Mosque of Selim,             Shahrukh, 134, 135, 222, 436                 Shi
at 
Ali (
Ali’s Party), 36
> Edirne), 73, 103, 235                    Sha
ir (poet), 63, 279                       Shibani, Muhammad, 112
> Seljuk sultanate, 665–666, 666              Shakur, Tupoc, 44–45                         Shihab al-Din Abu 
Abdallah
> architecture of, 73                    Shalah, Ramadan, 365                             Yaqut, 129
> control by, 120                        Shaltut, Mahmud, 160, 609, 618               Shihab al-Din Ahmad b. 
Abd allanguages used in, 60                        See also Reform: in Arab Middle            Qadir, 29
> political organization under, 543              East and North Africa                Shirazi, Fathallah, 359
> religious thought under, 139           Shamil, Shaykh, 682                          Shirazi, Qutb al-Din, 359
> rise of, 133, 587, 665                 Shamil of Daghistan, 344                     Shirk (association), 84, 143, 492, 583,
> See also Ghaznavid sultanate;                                                           630–631
> Shamlu, Ahmad, 528
> Nizam al-Mulk
> Shams-e Tabrizi, 253, 391                          See also Allah; Arabia, pre-Islamic;
> Seljuq. See Seljuk sultanate                                                                     Asnam; Modern thought;
> Shapur I, Sassanian emperor of Persia,
> Semites, Arabian origin of, 54                                                                   Political Islam; Qutb, Sayyid
> 55, 220
> Semitic languages, 52, 54                   Sha
rawi, Huda, 735                          Shirkuh, 657
> distribution of, 58                    Shari
a (Islamic law), 23, 35, 121–122,      Shi
r (periodical), 67
> and ethnic identity, 232                  407, 618–619                              Shi
r (poetry), 64, 397
> Senegal                                           See also Law                                 See also Poetry
> Islamic architecture of, 20            Shari
ati, 
Ali, 434, 472, 578, 619,         Shirazi 
Ali Muhammad. See Bab
> Islam in, 18, 20, 21, 22                  627, 741                                      (Sayyed 
Ali Muhhammad; Shirazi
> Senses, 398–399                                   See also Reform: in Iran                   
Ali Muhhammad)
> Sepah-e Pasdaran-e Enghelab-e Eslami        Shari
at-Shangalaji, Reza-Qoli, 578,         Shivaji, 213
> (Revolutionary Guards Corps). See           619–620                                   Shoghi Effendi Rabbani, 2, 100, 101
> Pasdaran                                       See also Muhammad Reza Shah            Shrines and mausoleums, 73–74, 555,
> Sepehri, Sohrab, 529                                Pahlevi; Reform: in Iran; Shi
a:         681–682, 683, 688, 724
> Seraj al-Akhbar, 528                                Imami (Twelver)                      Shura (consultation), 36, 318, 371, 463
> Serbia, independence of, 102                Shari
atullah, Haji (Hajji), 581,            Shurayh Ibn al-Harith, 406
> Seri Sultan Berkat, 664                        638, 643                                  Shu
ubiyya, 586
> Severus, Claudius, 53                       Sharif, 26, 619                              Siba
i, Mustafa al-, 631
> Seyyed 
Ala al-din Husayn, shrine                 See also Sayyid                              See also Ikhwan al-Muslimin
> of, 351                                  Sharif Husayn, 519                           Sibawayh (Sibawayhi; Abu Bishr 
Amr
> Shabib b. Yazid al-Shaybani, 390            Sharon, Ariel, 355                               ibn 
Uthman), 209, 280
> Shadhiliyya, 682                            Shaykh al-Islam, 544, 620, 636               Siddiq Hasan Khan, Maulana, 27
> Shafi
i, al- (Muhammad ibn Idris al-               See also Ottoman Empire; Safavid       Sidi Muhammad, 403
> Shafi
i), 9, 11, 107, 148, 407,                   and Qajar Empires                    Sikandar Lodi, sultan, 73
> 409–410, 411, 417, 586–587,              Shaykh al-ta
ifa, 700–701                    Sikhism, 363
> 616–618, 667                             Shaykhiyya, 620–621                          Silsila (chain of spiritual transmission),
> tomb of, 116                                 See also Shi
a: Early; Shi
a: Imami        140, 631–632, 680
> See also Law; Madhhab                          (Twelver)                                  See also Khilafat movement;
> Shafi
i school, 11, 14, 139, 417, 534,       Sheil, Lady, 691                                     Tariqa
> 588, 617, 686                            Sher Shah, 73                                Sinan ibn Thabit, 295
> Shagari, Shehu, 8, 664                      Sher Shah Sur (Suri), 33, 637                Sinasi, Ibahim, 738
> Shah. See Monarchy                          Shi
a                                        Sindh, conquest of, 635
> Shah, Idries, 321                                 Early, 171, 453, 585, 621–624          Sira (life of the Prophet), 381
> Shahab al-Din (Mu
izz al-Din                      See also Abbasid Empire; Shi
a:        Siraj al-Din Abu Hafs 
Umar Ibn al-
> Muhammad), 660                                   Imami (Twelver); Umayyad                 Wardi, 129
> Shahada (profession of faith), 39, 160,             Empire                               Sira (life of the Prophet), 66, 109, 120,
> 263, 327, 332, 432, 678, 723                   Imami (Twelver), 95, 121, 273,             143, 482
> Shahid, Syed Ismail, 581                            350, 351, 369, 418, 622,
> Sirhindi, Shaykh Ahmad, 343, 632,
> Shah Jahan (Shahjahan), 73, 74,                     624–628
> 637, 675
> and ahl al-bayt, 26
> 213, 637                                                                                    See also Falsafa; Ibn al-
Arabi;
> and Akhbariyya, 34
> Shah nameh (“Book of kings”),                                                                    South Asia, Islam in; Tasawwuf;
> See also Taqiyya; Usuliyya
> 525–526, 661, 675                                                                             Wahdat al-wujud
> Isma
ili, 350–351, 628–629
> Shahpur I, Sassanian ruler, 428                   See also Da
wa; Khojas; Nizari         Sister Clara Muhammad Schools, 712
> Shahrastani, 297, 298                             Zaydi (Fiver), 350, 629–630            Sister Souljah, 45
> Shahrazuri, Shams al-Din, 359                     See also Shafi
i, al-; Shi
a: Early;    Six Pens (al-aqlam al-sitta) scripts,
> Shahruhr (Shahrur), Muhammad, 279,                  Shi
a: Imami (Twelver); Shi
a:           125, 126
> 319, 577                                         Isma
ili                             Skirkuh, 164
> 
> 818                                                                                           Islam and the Muslim World
> Page links created automatically - disregard ones formed not from page numbers
> Index: Volume 1 pp. 1–416; Volume 2 pp. 417–747
> 
> Slametan (kenduri), 649                      Southeast Europe. See Balkans, Islam         Sulami, Abu 
Abd al-Rahman al-,
> Slave trade, 15, 45–46, 54, 162                 in the                                       455, 684
> SNCC (Student Non-Violent                    Spain. See Andalus, al-                      Sulami, 
Izz al-Din Ibn 
Abd al-Salam
> Coordinating Committee), 373              State Islamic Studies Institute                 al-, 226
> Socialism, 632–634                              (Indonesia), 583                          Sulayman b. 
Abd al-Malik, 653
> See also Communism;                     Straight Path, 352, 354                      Sulayman I. See Suleyman I (“the
> Modernization, political:             Student Non-Violent Coordinating                Maginificent”)
> Participation, political                 Committee (SNCC), 373                     Sulayman II. See Suleyman II
> movements, and parties                Styles of Beyond (rapper), 45                Suleiman, Shah (r. 1666–1694), 425
> Society of Iranian Calligraphers             Subhan Quli Khan, 135                        Suleyman I (“the Magnificent”),
> (Anjuman-e Khushnvisan-e                  Sub-Saharan Africa, Islam in. See               Ottoman sultan, 99, 102, 129, 184,
> Iran), 126                                   Africa, Islam in                             215, 387, 544
> Society of the Muslim Brothers               Succession, 116–123, 480–481, 484,           Suleyman (Sulayman) II (r.
> (Jam
iyyat al-ikhwan al-                     541, 573, 584–587, 622, 651–656              1620–1666), Ottoman sultan, 80
> Muslimin), 345                                                                         Suleymaniyyeh (Istanbul), 414, 416
> See also Abbasid Empire; Abu
> See also Ikhwan al-Muslimin                                                          Sultan. See Monarchy
> Bakr; Caliphate; Islam and other
> Society of the Muslim Brothers of                   religions; Tasawwuf; 
Umar;           Sultanates
> Syria, 631                                       Umayyad Empire                             Ayyubid. See Ayyubid sultanate
> Sokoto, sultanate of, 17, 664, 719           Sudan                                             Delhi. See Delhi sultanate
> Solayman, Safavid shah of Iran, 218                                                            Ghaznavid. See Ghaznavid
> European colonialism in,
> Solomon, 51                                                                                      sultanate
> 17–18, 23
> Somalia, Islam in, 14                                                                          Mamluk. See Mamluk sultanate
> Islam in, 16, 17, 23, 331, 461
> Sonbol, Amira, 271                                                                             modern, 663–665
> Mahdist state in, 155, 422–424
> See also Caliphate; Monarchy;
> Songhai (Songhay) Empire, 17, 84                  Muslim Brotherhood in, 347–348
> Succession
> Sophronius, 314                                   political modernization in,
> Seljuk. See Seljuk sultanate
> Sorcery, 22, 294                                    460, 590
> Sultan Husayn, Shah, 425, 473
> Sorush, 
Abd al-Karim. See 
Abd al-               revolution in, 595
> Sunan Kalijaga, 649
> Karim Sorush (Hassan Haj-Faraj            Suez Canal Company, 4, 197
> Sunna, 11, 107, 148, 285, 286–287,
> Dabbagh)                                  Suez Crisis (1956), 4
> 334–335, 666–669
> South Africa, Islam in, 13                   Sufi brotherhoods
> See also Bid
a; Hadith; Law;
> South America, Islam in, 45–46                    opposition to, 2, 8
> Modern thought; Muhammad;
> South Arabian language, 58                        spiritual lineage of, 26                       Quran; Religious institutions
> South Asia                                        in West Africa, 21
> Sunnat al-awalin (sunna of the
> architecture of, 73                          women in, 22
> ancients), 667
> Islam in, 243–244, 634–641, 639              See also Tasawwuf (Sufism)
> Sunnat Allah (sunna of God), 667
> reform in, 580–581                      Sufi Order (in) of the West, 44, 354
> Sunni. See Shi
a; Succession; Sunna
> See also Hinduism and Islam;            Sufism. See Tasawwuf
> Supreme Council of the Youth, 742
> South Asian culture and Islam         Sufi Women Organization, 710
> Supreme Muslim Council, 324
> South Asian culture and Islam,               Sufyan al-Thawri, 9, 160, 417, 571
> Suqs (marketplaces), 69, 75
> 641–644                                   Sufyani, 261
> Surat al-ard (Picture of the earth), 130
> See also Hinduism and Islam;            Suharto, 487, 583, 646, 647
> Surkati, Syeikh Ahmad, 469
> South Asia, Islam in; Urdu            Suhl (peace process), 158
> language, literature, and poetry                                                   Suwar al-aqalim (Pictures of the
> Suhrawardi, al- (Shaykh Shihab ad-Din           climes/climates), 130
> Southeast Asia                                  Yahya b. Amirak Suhrawardi), 249,         Suwarian tradition, 18–19
> Islam in, 244, 644–648, 646                252, 359, 399, 433, 626, 656–657,
> reform in, 582–583                                                                   Suyuti, al-, 370, 669
> 686–687
> See also Muhammadiyya                                                                     See also Arabic language; Hadith;
> See also Falsafa; Ishraqi school;
> (Muhammadiyah); Nahdlatul                                                                 Ijtihad; Tasawwuf
> Tasawwuf
> Ulama (NU); Reform: in South                                                       Swahili Islam, 20
> Suhrawardi, 
Umar, 264
> Asia; Southeast Asian culture                                                      Swahili language, 14–15, 23, 62, 697
> Suhrawardiyya, 632, 682
> and Islam                                                                          Syair poetry, 651
> Southeast Asian culture and Islam,           Suhrawardy, Husain Shaheed, 90
> Syr Darya valley, 132
> 648–651                                   Sukarno, 646
> Syria
> See also 
Ada; 
Ibadat; Southeast       Sukarnoputri, Megawati, 582, 735                  autocratic state in, 462
> Asia, Islam in                        Sukayna, 657                                      economy of, 201, 634
> Southeast Asia Treaty Organization                See also Ahl al-bayt; Law                    education in, 205
> (SEATO), 517                              Sukkari, Ahmad al-, 345                           independence of, 425, 458
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                     819
> Page links created automatically - disregard ones formed not from page numbers
> Index: Volume 1 pp. 1–416; Volume 2 pp. 417–747
> 
> Muslim Brotherhood in, 346–347               See also Mojahidin; Political Islam;            Muhammad; Mulla Sadra;
> political modernization in, 460                Qa
ida, al-                                   Persian language and literature;
> revolution in, 595                      Taliqani, Ayatollah, 434                             Pilgrimage: Ziyara; Rabi
a of
> socialism in, 633, 634                  Tamkin (submission), 431                             Basra; Rumi, Jalaluddin; Shi
a:
> use of Arabic language in, 61–62        Tangsir, 529                                         Imami (Twelver); Sufi
> withdrawal from United Arab                                                                  brotherhoods; Suhrawardi, al-;
> Tansen, 304
> Republic, 4                                                                                Tariqa; Urdu language,
> Tanzania, Islam in, 14, 15, 21, 22, 664
> youth programs in, 744                                                                       literature, and poetry
> See also Ba
th Party                    Tanzil (revelation), 37
> Tasvir-i efkar (Description of
> Syrian Communist Party, 156                  Tanzim al-Jihad (Jihad
> ideas), 738
> Organization), 365
> Tawhid (“unity” ideology), 49, 252,
> Tanzimat (Reformation), 204, 387,
> T                                                                                            402, 535, 575, 583, 630, 723
> 504, 678, 738
> Tabaqat (ranks or classes), 109                                                           Ta
wil (spiritual exegesis), 38, 672
> See also Modernization, political:
> Tabari, al- (Abu Ja
far Muhammad ibn                Administrative, military, and         Tayammum (ritual ablution with
> Jarir al-Tabari), 26, 129, 185, 210,             judicial reform; Ottoman                 sand), 8
> 286, 307, 370, 454, 523, 671,                    Empire; Young Turks                   Taym-Allah b. Tha
laba, 8
> 673, 734                                                                               Ta
ziya (Ta
ziyeh), 691
> Taqiyya, 678–679
> See also Historical writing; Quran                                                        See also Hosayniyya; Rawza-khani;
> See also Shi
a: Imami (Twelver)
> Tabatabai, Muhammad Husayn, 252                                                                  Taqiyya
> Taqlid (blind imitation), 679–680,
> Tabatabai, Sayyed Ziya al-Din, 596             703, 718                                  Temo, Ibrahim, 103
> Tabi
un (Followers), 8                            rejection of, 29, 155, 172, 608,        Tercuman (Interpreter), 265
> Tablighi Jama
at (Missionary Party),                619, 675                              Terrorism, 559–560, 609,
> 172–173, 177, 238, 262, 304, 635,              See also Ijtihad; Madhhab; Marja
          691–693, 710
> 641, 671–672, 683, 713                           al-taqlid; Muhtasib; Shi
a:                 See also Bin Ladin, Usama;
> See also South Asia, Islam in;                 Imami (Twelver)                               Conflict and violence; HAMAS;
> Traditionalism                        Taqrib (rapprochement), 627                          Intifada; Qa
ida, al-; Taliban
> Tadhkira (memorial), 109, 179                Taraqqi, Goli, 529                           Textiles, 76–77, 80, 441
> Tafsir (commentaries on the Quran),         Tarim basin (Chinese or East                       See also Clothing
> 131, 672–674                                 Turkistan), 132                           Thabit b. Qurrah, 695
> See also Calligraphy; Law;              Tariqa, 22, 29, 35, 584, 588,                Tha
lab, 280
> Muhammad; Quran                         680–684 681
> Tha
labi, 555
> Taha, Mahmud Muhammad, 590                        See also Dhikr; Khirqa;
> Thanawi, Ihtisham al-Haqq, 374
> Taha Husayn (Hussein). See Husayn,                  Pilgrimage: Ziyara; Tasawwuf
> Taha                                                                                   Thanawi, Maulana Ashraf 
Ali, 176
> Tariq b. Ziyad, 46
> Tahara (purity), 598                                                                      Thanvi, Ashraf 
Ali, 683
> Tarjama (biography), 109
> Tahereh (Al-
Ayn, Qorrat), 96                                                             Thaqafi, Mukhtar al-, 623, 693
> Tarjuman (The interpreter), 579, 609
> Tahir b. Husayn, 132                                                                            See also Muhammad al-Nafs al-
> Tarzi, Mahmud, 528
> Tahmasp I, Shah, 217–218, 386,                                                                    Zakiyya; Shi
a: Early; Succession
> Tasawwuf (Sufism), 684–690
> 526, 675                                                                               Theology. See Disputation;
> in al-Andalus, 48
> See also Safavid and Qajar                                                              Kalam; Law
> caliphs of, 481
> Empires                                                                            Theophrastus, 54
> in Central Asia, 140
> Ta
if Agreement (Document of                      criticism of, 18                        Third Reich, Muslims in, 236
> National Understanding), 412                   development of, 29, 684–688             Thomas Aquinas, Saint, 234, 248, 249
> Tajdid (renewal), 444, 575, 675–676               dhikr in, 180                           Tijaniyya, 8, 17
> See also Ijtihad; Reform: in Arab            ethical tradition in, 35                Tile mosaics, 77
> Middle East and North Africa;              and falsafa, 247                        Tillich, Paul, 473
> Reform: in South Asia; Taqlid              modernization of, 22, 689–690           Timar system, 215–216, 544
> Tajlu Khanum, 217                                 in North America, 44
> Timbuktu, 16, 23, 694
> Taj Mahal, 73, 74, 213, 376, 428                  practices of, 40, 688–689
> See also Africa, Islam in; Kunti,
> revivalism by, 21
> Takiya Dawlat (Tehran), 691                                                                       Mukhtar al-; Mali, Empire of
> spread of Islam by, 17, 102,
> Takwin (to bring into existence), 83                                                      Timekeeping, 299–300
> 161–162
> Talbi, Mohamed, 471                                                                       Timurid Empire, 221–222
> in the United States, 709–710
> Talbi, Mohammad, 174                              See also Arabic literature;                   driven from Bukhara, 112
> Taleqani, Ayatollah Mahmud, 413, 578                Ash
arites, Ash
aira; Basri,                metal-working of, 78
> Talha (Talhah), 35, 260, 621                        Hasan al-; Ghazali, al-; Hallaj,            rise of, 134
> Taliban, 177, 375, 420, 490,                        al-; Ibn al-
Arabi; Ibn Sina;               See also Delhi sultanate; Political
> 676–678, 735                                     Ibn Taymiyya; Jami
; Madrasa;                 organization
> 
> 820                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Page links created automatically - disregard ones formed not from page numbers
> Index: Volume 1 pp. 1–416; Volume 2 pp. 417–747
> 
> Timur (Tamerlane), 134–135, 139,                 socialism in, 633                       Umar Tal, 17
> 212, 221–222, 363, 528, 636              Turabi, Hasan al-, 347, 348, 539, 577,       
Umar (
Umar ibn al-Khattab), 705
> Titles, Islamic. See Sayyid; Sharif;          676, 700                                       on bid
a, 107
> Shaykh al-Islam                          Turanshah, 165–166                               caliphate of, 117, 223, 314–315
> Tolui, 212                                  Turgesh confederation, 132                       on Islamic calendar, 299
> Tomb of the Samanids (Bukhara), 74          Turkestan, jade mines in Khotan, 78              monetary policy of, 151
> Topkapi Palace, 74, 233                     Turkey                                           political organization under, 541
> Toqtamysh, 222                                   clothing of, 149–150                        succession of, 573, 667
> Torsonzadeh, Mirza, 528                          constitutionalism in, 465,                  treatment of dhimmi under,
> 470, 595                                    452, 623
> Touba (Senegal), 21, 104, 694
> economy of, 276                             welfare policy of, 440
> See also Africa, Islam in; Bamba,
> education in, 205                           See also Caliphate; Law;
> Ahmad; Tariqa
> independence of, 89, 425,                     Successiom
> Trade
> 458, 505                              Umayyad (Umayyid) Empire, 222–224
> in Arabia, 52, 53, 54
> legal code in, 431                          in al-Andalus, 46, 362
> and conversion, 161–162
> modernization of, 459–460,                  architecture of, 72, 74, 118
> in modern era, 195–196
> 462, 733                                  caliphs of, 118, 119, 223, 223,
> in Safavid and Qajar Empires,
> music in, 493                                 623, 652–653
> 1, 218
> nationalism in, 103, 341–342,               Christianity under, 144
> routes across the Muslim world,
> 504–505                                   end of, 132
> 509,
> Sufism in, 683, 690                          monetary policy of, 151
> and trading networks, 507
> tobacco production in, 196                  poetry of, 64–65
> trans-Saharan, 16, 20, 606
> Turkish language use in, 13                 political organization under, 541
> See also Slave trade
> use of Anatolian Arabic language            spread of Islam under, 242, 586
> Traditionalism, 617, 694–695
> in, 62                                    success of, 122
> See also Hadith; Ibn Hanbal; Ibn                                                        See also Abbasid Empire; Arabic
> veiling in, 723
> Taymiyya; Mihna                                                                         language; Arabic literature;
> Turki, 728–729
> Trajan, Roman emperor, 53                                                                      Byzantine Empire; Dome of
> Turkic (Altaic) languages, and ethnic
> Translation, 281, 282, 612, 695–698                                                            the Rock; Husayn; Islam and
> identity, 232
> See also Arabic language; Ibn                                                             Islamic (terminology); Karbala;
> Turkish Hearth (Türk Ocagi), 740
> Battuta; Persian language and                                                           Kharijites, Khawarij; Marwan;
> Turner, Victor, 598
> literature; Quran; Science,                                                            Mu
awiya; 
Umar
> Islam and                            Tusi, Muhammad Ibn al-Hasan
> Umayyid. See Mu
awiya; Umayyad
> (Shaykh al-Ta
ifa), 274, 501,
> Travel and travelers, 698–699                                                              Empire
> 700–701
> See also Biruni, al-; Ibn Battuta;                                                  Umma, 705–706
> Tusi, Nasir al-Din, 35, 248, 249, 250,
> Ibn Khaldun; Pilgrimage: Hajj                                                         call to, 170
> 401, 474, 550, 701
> Tribe, 699–700                                                                               changes in meaning of, 360
> See also Falsafa; Khojas
> See also 
Asabiyya; Bedouin;                                                            development of, 587
> Twelver Shi
a. See Shi
a: Imami
> Ethnicity                                                                             ethnic diversity in, 21, 533
> (Twelver)
> Trinity, Christian doctrine of, 28                                                           membership in, 138, 160–161,
> Tripoli, County of, 163, 166                                                                   340, 381
> U                                                in South Asia, 371
> True Path Party, 224, 574
> UAR (United Arab Republic), 519                  See also 
Ibadat; Modern thought
> Truth, 566
> 
Ubayd Allah b. Ziyad, 435                   Umm Kulthum (1904?–1975),
> Tuareg-Berbers, 22
> 
Ubaydullah, 135                               706–707
> Tudeh (Labor-Communist) Party, 156,
> 
Ubeydullah Ibn 
Utbah, 406                      See also Music
> 476, 522, 594
> 
Udhri (love poetry), 64–65                  Umm Kulthum (daughter of Fatima),
> Tughril Beg, 665
> Ulema, 202–203, 547, 703–705                   254, 719
> Tughtil III, 665
> See also Knowledge; Law;                 Umm Ruman, 33
> Tukolor Muslim empire
> (Senegambia), 289                              Madrasa; Qadi (kadi, kazi);            Umm 
Umara, 734
> Shari
a; Shi
a: Imami (Twelver);       UMNO (United Malay Nationalist
> Tunisia
> Shi
a: Isma
ili; Succession              Organization), 647
> constitutionalism in, 463, 470
> Ulugh Beg ibn Shahrukh, 135,                 Union and Progress Party, 505
> divorce in, 183
> 222, 469                                  Union of Muslims (Ittifak-i
> economy of, 199, 200
> Fatimid dynasty in, 115                
Umara b. 
Aqil al-Khatafi, 97                  Muslumanlar), 265
> independence of, 111, 112,             
Umar 
Ali Saifuddin III, 664                United Arab Emirates (UAE),
> 425, 747                             
Umar Ibn 
Abd al-Aziz, 406                    463, 676
> Marinids in, 336                       
Umar ibn Sayyid, 707                        United Arab Republic (UAR), 4, 342,
> political modernization in, 462        
Umar Khan, 136                                503, 519, 595, 632
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                821
> Page links created automatically - disregard ones formed not from page numbers
> Index: Volume 1 pp. 1–416; Volume 2 pp. 417–747
> 
> United Malay Nationalist                         See also Caliphate; Fitna; Khutba;       Wali Allah, 607
> Organization (UMNO), 647                        Religious institutions; Shi
a:         Wali Allah (Dihlawi; Dehlawi), Shah,
> United Nations, 69, 277, 315                       Early; Successiom                        26, 176, 468–469, 536, 580–581,
> See also International Labor            Uways al-Qarani, 680                           637–638, 643, 668, 675, 728, 730
> Organization, UN                      Uzbek era, 134–135, 140                          See also Deoband; South Asia,
> United Nations Charter of Human              Uzbekistan, use of Arabic language                 Islam in; Tasawwuf
> Rights, 318                                 in, 62                                     Walima (wedding banquet), 42
> United States                                                                             Wali songo (holy men), 649, 650
> embassy in Tehran, 357                  V                                            Waliullah, shah of Delhi, 343
> Islam in, 42, 43, 707–714,              Vahed (Unity), 95                            Wang Daiyu, 688
> 723–724                               Van Gennep, Arnold, 598                      Waqf (trusts), 127, 196, 233, 290, 419,
> opposition to communism by, 156         Varangians (Vikings), 195                      554, 730–732
> Sufism in, 709–710                                                                        See also Economy and economic
> Veiling (hijab), 111, 150, 358, 711,
> See also American culture and                                                              institutions; HAMAS; Law
> 721–722, 723
> Islam; Farrakhan, Louis;
> See also Clothing; Gender;              Waraqa ibn Nawfal, 143, 381
> Gender; Islamic Society of
> Harem; Law; Purdah                    Wasat (middle ground), 346
> North America; Malcolm X;
> Muhammad, Elijah;                     Velayat-e faqih, 263, 538, 552, 578,         Wasf (description), 64
> Muhammad, Warith Deen;                   593, 594, 627, 682, 722–723               Washington, D.C., Islamic
> Muslim Student Association of              See also Hukuma al-Islamiyya, al-;        architecture in, 42
> North America; Nation of Islam               Shi
a: Imami (Twelver)                Wasi (inheritor), 37
> Universal House of Justice (Bahai           Verband islamischer                          Wasil ibn 
Ata, 10, 247
> faith), 100, 101                             Kulturzentren, 238                        Wazifa (pension), 732
> 
Uqba b. Nafi
 al-Fihri, 402                  Vernacular Islam, 723–725                        See also Political organization
> 
Urabi Pasha, 342                                 See also Arabic language; Persian       Wazir (prime minister), 732–733
> language and literature; Urdu
> Urban II, pope, 145, 163                                                                      See also Abbasid Empire;
> language, literature, and poetry
> Urban bias, 197                                                                                 Caliphate; Umayyad Empire
> Via Trajana Nova, 53
> Urbanization, 195, 235                                                                    Weber, Max, 128, 663, 664
> Violence. See Conflict and violence;
> Urdu language, literature, and poetry,                                                    Welfare. See Maslaha (public interest)
> Terrorism
> 32, 90, 109, 213, 241, 637,                                                            Welfare Party. See Refah Partisi
> Virtue (Fazilat; Fazilet) Party, 224,
> 714–717 715                                                                            Wellhausen, Julian, 515
> 460, 466
> See also Pakistan, Islamic Republic                                                  West, concept of in Islam, 733–734
> Visigoths, 46, 48
> of; South Asia, Islam in; South                                                        See also Crusades; European
> Asian cuture and Islam                Visual anthropology, 178
> culture and Islam; Islam and
> 
Urwab (private area), 111                   Vizier. See Wazir
> other religions
> 
Urwa Ibn al-Zubayr, 406                                                                  West Africa
> Usul-e Jadid (“New Method” schools),         W                                                Islamic architecture of, 20, 73
> 469, 579                                  Wadud, Amina, 710–711                            Islam in, 17–18, 20, 244
> Usuliyya, 34, 549, 627, 717–718              Wadud-Muhsin, Amina, 268, 271, 471               use of Arabic language in, 62
> Usuman, 386                                  Wahdat al-wujud (“oneness of being”),        Westermarck, Edward, 178
> 
Uthman al-Batti, 9                            333, 401, 727                              Whitehead, Alfred North, 250,
> 
Uthman al-Tawil, 10                             See also Falsafa; Ibn al-
Arabi;           400, 401
> 
Uthman b. 
Ali al-Zayla
i, 9                      Sirhindi, Shaykh Ahmad;                Witchcraft, 22
> Tasawwuf
> 
Uthman b. Bishr, amir, 6                                                                 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 250, 251
> Wahhabiyya, 27, 108, 146, 161, 344,
> 
Uthman dan Fodio, 17, 22, 403, 537,                                                      Witu, sultanate of, 664
> 575, 676, 727–729, 728
> 664, 697, 707, 719                                                                     WLUML (Women Living Under
> See also 
Abd al-Wahhab,
> See also Africa, Islam in;                                                             Muslim Laws), 353, 509
> Muhammad Ibn
> Caliphate; Kano (Nigeria)                                                          Women
> Wahid, Abdurrahman, 646
> 
Uthmani, Shabbir Ahmad, 374                                                                  biographies of, 110
> Wahy (revelation), 37, 350, 667
> 
Uthman (
Athman) ibn 
Affan                                                                  in East Asian culture, 192, 192
> (
Uthman b. al-
Affan), 719               Wajed, Shaykh Hasina, 735
> education of, 22, 25, 39, 741
> caliphate of, 117, 435                  Wajib al-wujud (necessary existence),            public roles of, 267, 734–735
> collection of Quranic verses             40, 248, 401, 729–730                          rights of, 278, 353
> under, 279, 280, 482                      See also Falsafa; Ibn Sina                   in Southeast Asia, 651
> criticism of, 33, 35                    Wajid, Shaykh Hasina, 91                         in the United States, 710–711
> murder of, 35, 117, 223, 259, 435       Walaya (Institution of the Friends of            See also Feminism; Gender; Law
> political organization under, 541         God), 37                                   Women Living Under Muslim Laws
> succession of, 573                      Wali. See Saint                                (WLUML), 353, 509
> 
> 822                                                                                            Islam and the Muslim World
> Page links created automatically - disregard ones formed not from page numbers
> Index: Volume 1 pp. 1–416; Volume 2 pp. 417–747
> 
> Woodworking, 80                                 political modernization in,              Zakat (alms tax), 7, 161, 240, 327, 394,
> World Assembly of Muslim                           460, 462                                 422, 480, 553
> Youth, 173                                    political opposition in, 463             Zand, Karim Khan, 745
> World Bank, 200                                 revolution in, 595                       Zandaqa, 429
> World Community of al-Islam in the              socialism in, 633
> Zangi (Zengi), 164, 657
> West, 710                                     youth programs in, 744
> Zanjani, Molla Mohammad 
Ali Hojjat
> World Council of Churches, 173              Yohannes IV, Ethiopian emperor, 231
> al-Islam, 96
> World Council of Mosques, 173               Yom Kippur (Six Day) War (1967), 4,
> Zanzibar, Sa
idi sultanate of, 14, 15,
> 460, 521
> World Health Organization (WHO)                                                             664, 745–746, 746
> Collaborating Research Center, 447        Yongle, Chinese emperor, 187
> See also Africa, Islam in; Mazrui
> World Muslim Committee for Da
wah           Yoruba, 22
> (Ar., Mazru
i)
> and Relief, 173                           Young Ottomans, 155, 341, 737–739
> Zar, 746–747
> World Supreme Council for the                   See also Pan-Islam; Reform: in
> See also African culture and Islam;
> Affairs of Mosques, 8                            Arab Middle East and North
> Miracles
> Writing. See Calligraphy                           Africa
> Zar (spirit possession) cult, 22
> Young Turks, 1, 89, 103, 341, 344,
> 387, 505, 595, 739–740                    Zauq, 715
> Y                                                                                        Zawahiri, Ayman, 365
> See also Modernization, political:
> Yadigarid dynasty, 392                                                                   Zawiyas, 389
> Administrative, military, and
> Yahya, Bin 
Abdullah Ramiya, 737                   judicial reform; Revolution:          Zaydan, Jurji, 308
> See also Africa, Islam in; Tariqa             Modern; Young Ottomans                Zayd b. 
Ali, 286, 350, 625, 629
> Yahya b. Bishr, 10                          Youth movements, 43, 740–744                 Zayd b. Thabit, 7, 719
> Yahya b. Yahya, 286                             See also Futuwwa; HAMAS;                 Zaydi (Fiver) Shi
a. See Shi
a: Zaydi
> Yahya Hamid al-Din, 630                            Ikhwan al-Muslimin; Khomeini,            (Fiver)
> Yamin, Muhammad, 309                               Ayatollah Ruhollah; Muslim            Zaynab bt. 
Ali, 627, 691
> Yan Tatsine, 435                                   Student Association of North
> Zaynab (Sayyida Zaynam), 254
> Ya
qub Bek, 136                                    America; Qa
ida, altomb of, 26, 351
> Yaqut, 555                                  Yugoslavia, independence of, 103
> Zaytuna (Tunis), 747
> Yasavi, Khwaja Ahmad, 140                   Yunus Emre, 689
> See also Education; Law
> Yasin, Shaykh Amad, 291                     Yushij, Nima, 528
> Zeroual, Liamine, 366
> Yathrib. See Medina (Yathrib)               Yusuf, Maulana Muhammad, 672
> Zheng He, 187
> Yazdgard III, 219                           Yusuf Ali, 
Abdullah, 744
> See also Quran; Translation             Zia, Khaleda, 91
> Yazdi, Ebrahim, 414
> Yusuf ibn Tashufin, 475                       Zia ul-Haq, 31, 270, 372, 518
> Yazdi, Sayyed Mohammad Kazem, 718
> Yusuf of Balasahgun, 133                     Zib al-Nesa Makhfi, 528
> Yazdi, Ayatollah Tabatabai, 501
> Ziya Barani, 660
> Yazid I, Umayyad caliph, 118, 223,
> 260, 293, 311, 387, 435                  Z                                            Ziya Pasha (Pasa), 738
> Yazid III, Umayyad caliph, 653              Zafar Shahi dynasty, 636                     Ziyara. See Pilgrimage: Ziyara
> Yazid b. Harun, 9                           Zafrullah Khan, Sir Muhammad,                Zoroastrianism, 27, 55, 143,
> Yazid b. Walid, 27                             30, 31                                       219–220, 654
> Yazidis, 453                                Zahida Khatun, 666                           Zubayr (supporter of 
Ali), 35,
> Zahiri school, 410, 411, 417, 418, 668          260, 621
> Yemen
> civil war in, 4                        Zahra, Muhammad Abu, 160                     Zubd (asceticism), 109
> communism in, 156                      Zajjaji, 281                                 Zulla, 70–71
> independence of, 425                   Zakariyya
 ibn Muhammad al-                  Zurara b. A
yan, 369
> legal reform in, 461                      Qazwini, 129                              Zurti (Zuta), 8
> 
> Islam and the Muslim World                                                                                                    823
> Abbas I, Shah
> A detail from a miniature seventeenth-century
> fresco from Chehel Sotun's Palace depicts
> ‘Abbas I (1571–1629), the fifth Safavid Shah,
> who ruled Iran from 1587 until his death. He
> regained lands and authority in a period when
> invasion and tribal unrest had destabilized Iran.
> ‘Abbas I also made peace with the Ottoman
> Empire and reformed Iran’s military and financial system. The Art Archive/Palace of Chihil
> Soutoun Isfahan/Dagli Orti
> 
> Angels
> A sixteenth-century depiction of the
> angel Jibril guiding Muhammad to
> heaven on Buraq (a heavenly winged
> horse). This is from the Khamsa
> (Five poems) of Nizami, 1539–1543,
> and was made for the Safavid ruler
> Tahmasp I. © Art Resource, NY
> Arabia, Pre-Islam
> Alabaster stele, first century C.E. from
> Yemen, depicting camel drivers. The pre-
> Islamic invention of the north Arabian camel
> saddle around the beginning of the first millennium allowed for the control and extension of trade by the camel-breeding tribes
> and their integration into sedentary society.
> The Art Archive/Collection Antonovich/Dagli
> Orti
> 
> Architecture
> The courtyard of the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, also known as the Great Mosque, built between
> 706 and 714 by the Umayyad dynasty, who used Byzantine mosaic artists to decorate the architectural
> structures with images of plants, jewelry, and Qur’anic inscriptions. The small structure visible at the
> lower left is for performing ablutions prior to prayer. © Carmen Redondo/Corbis
> Cartography and Geography
> The Mediterranean Sea as depicted in
> an eleventh-century Arabic geographical
> manuscript (Kitab al-masalik wa almamalik) of al-Istakhri. By the thirteenth century, copies of maps proliferated and circulated all over the Islamic
> world. The Art Archive/National Library
> Cairo/Dagli Orti
> 
> Bukhara, Khanate
> and Emirate of
> The arched entrance to the
> Miri-Arab Madrasa, built
> circa 1536, in Bukhara,
> Uzbekistan. This structure is
> decorated with intricate tile
> mosaic set in floral and calligraphic designs. © Diego
> Lezama Orezzoli/Corbis
> Clothing
> Turkish man and woman wearing traditional attire from the Milas region of Turkey, as shown in this 1801 French print. The
> Turkish mode of dress for both men and women usually involved loose trousers and a shirt topped with various jackets, vests, and
> long coats: layering was an important element of the aesthetic. Collection of Charlotte Jirousek
> Clothing
> A Palestinian woman in traditional Arab dress, the thawb, which is based on the tunic, a common garment in the region since the
> Roman era. It is suitable for desert heat as it provides protection from the sun as well as ventilation. Cornell Costume and Textile Collection
> Conflict and Violence
> A mosque destroyed in the
> Bosnian war (1992–1995), in the
> central Bosnian village of
> Ahmici. In January 2000, after
> sixteen months of testimony
> from 158 witnesses, U.N. judges
> in the Hague, Netherlands, convicted five Bosnian Croat militiamen for participating in a killing
> spree in Ahmici which left more
> than one hundred Muslim men,
> women, and children dead, and
> every Muslim home burnt to the
> ground. AP/Wide World Photos
> 
> Empires: Mongol and Il-Khanid
> A page from Rashid al-Din's (d. 1318, wazir
> to Ghazan Khan) Compendium of Chronicles
> manuscript depicts Mongol leader Genghis
> Khan and his sons. Although the Mongols
> battled Islam in the early years of their rise to
> power, Mongol conquests ultimately spread
> Islam throughout Central Asia. © Art
> Resource, NY
> Empires: Safavid and Qajar
> A seventeenth-century painting of
> Shah Tahmasp, a long time leader of
> the Safavid Empire, receiving the
> Mogul Emperor Humayun. Shah
> Tahmasp’s court prioritized culture;
> illuminated manuscripts produced
> during his reign are of the highest
> quality known. © SEF/Art Resource, NY
> 
> European Culture and Islam
> Aristotle depicted with students of physical science in the manuscript The Best Maxims and
> Most Precious Dictums by al-Mubashshir, who composed it through 1048 and 1049. The
> manuscript was translated into Spanish in 1250, although al-Mubashshir's name was
> dropped, and from there into Latin, French, Provencal, and English. Until the sixteenth
> century, Europe was only familiar with the Greek philosophical tradition through the extensive Arabic descriptions, translations, commentaries, and analyses of these works. The Art
> Archive/Topkapi Museum Istanbul/Dagli Orti
> Falsafa
> This detail from a fresco by Filipino Lippi
> (1457–1504) depicts Ibn Sina (980–1037), a Persian
> mathematician. A major figure in Islamic thought, Ibn
> Sina was heavily influenced by Aristotle, and in turn
> influenced the Catholic thinker St. Thomas Aquinas,
> who in his own work mentioned Ibn Sina over five
> hundred times. © Scala/Art Resource, NY
> 
> Ibn Battuta
> Ibn Battuta (1304–1368/69) of Tangier, Morocco, traveled
> an estimated eighty thousand miles across three continents.
> It was the longest known overland journey until the steam
> engine came into existence. XNR Productions/Gale
> 
> EUROPE
> ATLANTIC                                                                   New Saray           Aral
> OCEAN                    Venice                                             Astrakhan         Sea                            ASIA
> Constantinople                                              Bukhara
> Erzerum                                                                            Beijing
> Konya                           Caspian        Samarqand
> Granada                                                Mardin    Tabriz Sea
> Tangier                  Tunis                           Aleppo
> Damascus                                      Gazna
> Fez                                                                  Isfahan
> Jerusalem        Baghdad
> Marrakesh                                                                           Shiraz                                                             Hangzhou
> Cairo              Basra                                               Delhi
> Hormuz
> Quanzhou
> Re
> 
> Medina                                                             Sylhet
> Guangzhou
> d
> 
> Cambay
> Chittagong
> Aydhab      Mecca                                         Daulatabad
> Arabian
> Sea
> 
> Timbuktu                                                       Zafar
> AFRICA                                                       Sea
> Aden
> Calicut
> 
> Male                                 Samudra
> Mogadishu
> ATLANTIC OCEAN
> INDIAN OCEAN
> Travels of Ibn Battuta
> 1325—1354                                            Kilwa                                                                 N
> 1325—26            1330—32         1345—46                                       0              1,000          2,000 mi.
> 1326—27            1332—33         1346—49                                       0       1,000     2,000 km
> 1328—30            1333—45         1349—54                                                                                                        AUSTRALIA
> Marriage
> A candid photo from the wedding ceremony of a Muslim couple in Karachi, Pakistan. © Charles Lenars/Corbis
> 
> Southeast Asian Culture and Islam
> Wayang, a traditional shadow play, on a wooden stage in Kota Baharu, Malaysia. In Indonesia, shadow
> play puppeteers, along with other specialists such as healers, spirit mediums, shamans, and midwives,
> combine ancient local religious customs with Islamic elements. © Goh Chai Hin/Corbis
> Miracles
> From the Fine flower of histories (Zubdat
> al-Tawarikh) by Luqman (1583), a depiction of the legend of the Seven Sleepers
> of Ephesus, referred to in the Qur'an
> (18:9–31) as the Companions of the
> Cave. The Qur'an states that the young
> men, having publicly declared their
> belief and faith in God, hid from
> persecution in the cave where God put
> them and their dog to sleep for 309
> years. The Art Archive/Turkish and
> Islamic Art Museum Istanbul/Dagli Orti
> 
> Mi‘raj
> A 1583 Turkish painting depicts Muhammad’s vision of
> Ascension or mi‘raj. In most versions of the night journey and
> ascension narrative, Muhammad is asleep in Mecca, awakened
> by angels, and borne to Jerusalem by the magical creature
> Buraq. In Jerusalem, Muhammad prays in the Temple with
> Abraham, Moses, and Jesus, before being accompanied to
> heaven by the angel Gabriel (Jibril). The Art Archive/Turkish
> and Islamic Art Museum Istanbul/Harper Collins Publishers
> South Asia, Islam in
> A late-eighteenth-century depiction of
> the Mogul Emperor Shah Jahan
> (1592–1666). Shah Jahan ruled from
> 1628 to 1658 and helped push Mogul
> rule as far east as Burma. The Art
> Archive/Victoria and Albert Museum
> London/Sally Chappell
> 
> Pakistan, Islamic Republic of
> The Badshahi Mosque (1674) in Lahore, Pakistan. When the British relinquished control of the Indian subcontinent
> on August 14, 1947, Pakistan (including what is now Bangladesh) achieved independence as a separate homeland for
> Muslims apart from India’s Hindu majority. © Arvind Garg/Corbis
> Pilgrimage: Hajj
> On a rocky hill known as the
> Mountain of Mercy (Jabal al-
> Rahma), near the holy city of
> Mecca, approximately two
> million pilgrims gather at the
> site of Muhammad’s last sermon fourteen centuries ago.
> AP/Wide World Photos
> 
> Qur’an
> Qur’an, with sura headings in Naskhi script. The Qur’an contains 114 suras or chapters, arranged by length,
> thus the text as a whole does not have a clear narrative pattern. It is also divided into thirty equal parts for
> reading over the course of a month. The Art Archive/Private Collection/Eileen Tweedy
> Qur’an
> A man in Chuinguetti, Mauritania, holding an old copy of the Qur’an. Muslims believe the Qur’an to be the divine revelations of
> God, and it is therefore unalterable and untranslatable. Muslim prayers require worshippers to recite verses of the Qur’an, such as
> the Fatiha (the opening sura) as well as other chapters. Muslim children learn to recite the short chapters at an early age and are
> taught their meaning and context from family members and teachers. © Nik Wheeler/Corbis
> Medicine
> Anatomical drawing of the body showing the heart, arteries,
> liver, and intestines from the 1390 Tashrih-e badan-e insan
> (Anatomy of the human body) by Mansur ibn Muhammad
> ibn Ilyas al-Balkhi. The Art Archive/British Library
> 
> Science, Islam and
> A yellow copper astrolabe from the fourteenth
> century. This medieval instrument was used to
> measure the height of stars from the horizon.
> The Art Archive/National Museum Damascus
> Syria/Dagli Orti
> Shi‘a, Early
> This Safavid fresco from the seventeenth century
> depicts Imam Shah Zayd (presumably Zayd b. ‘Ali)
> preaching during the seventh-century schism within
> Islam. © SEF/Art Resource, NY
> 
> Persian Language and Literature
> A Persian manuscript dating from
> 1650. Though the Arabic language is
> the most prestigious and commonly
> used language in Islam, by the tenth
> century the Persian language reemerged, after a period of disuse, as
> suitable for discussion of science, arts,
> and philosophy. Persian prose literature
> encompasses a huge number of texts,
> from serial picaresque adventures to
> world histories and philosophical and
> mystical treatises. The Art
> Archive/Museum of Islamic Art
> Cairo/Dagli Orti
> Sahara
> The Taghit oasis of the Sahara Desert. This
> oasis exists to the west of the Grand Erg
> Occidental, the second largest cluster of sand
> dunes in Algeria. © Jose Fuste Raga/Corbis
> 
> Travel and Travelers
> Part of a Catalan map of southern Spain and
> North Africa depicting king Mansa Musi of Mali
> and a Saharan merchant, by Abraham Cresques,
> circa 1375. By the time of the Empire of Mali
> (circa 1200–1400 C.E.), parts of Mali’s ruling class
> had adopted Islam, although earlier, local religions persisted as well. The Art Archive
>
> — *Encyclopedia of Islam and The Muslim World (Used by permission of the curator)*