Routledge Handbook on Early Islam [ebook ed.] 1315743469, 1138821187, 9781315743462, 9781138821187

Table of contents :
Introduction

Herbert Berg

Part I: The Qurʾān and Muḥammad

1.The Qurʾān

Nicolai Sinai

2. The Qurʾān and other scriptures

David Cook

3. The collection and canonization of the Qurʾān

Herbert Berg 4. Muḥammad

Stephen J. Shoemaker

5. The sīra, Pavel Pavlovitch

6. Ḥadīth and sunna

Jens Scheiner

7. Exegesis

Michael E. Pregill

Part II: Identities and communities in early Islam

8. Identity and social formation in the early Caliphate

Peter Webb

9. Pre-Islamic Arabia and early Islam

Ilkka Lindstedt

10. Early Muslims and peoples of the book

Fred M. Donner

11. Politics and economics of the early Caliphate

Fanny Bessard

12. The myth of the "Shīʿī Perspective”: identity and memory in Early Islam, Najam Haider

13. Mysticism in early Islam: The Pre-compilations phase

Sara Sviri

Part III: Modern and contemporary reinterpretation of early Islam

14.Modernists and their opponents: reading Islam

Simon Wood

15. The golden age and the contemporary political order: the Muslim Brotherhood and early Islam

Rachel M. Scott

16. Salafīs: past to present, present to past

Jeffrey T. Kenney

17. Feminist Muslim (re)interpretations of early Islam

Aisha Geissinger

Part IV: Revisioning early Islam

18. Early Islam: an alternative scenario of its emergence

Markus Gross

19. Qurʾānists

Daniel W. Brown

20. In search of authenticity: modern discourse over homosexuality through early Islam

Sara Omar

21. True history in black and white: reimagined origins in the Nation of Islam

Herbert Berg

22. Invocations of early Islam in US discourse(s) of Muslim pluralism

Justine Howe

Citation preview

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ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK ON EARLY ISLAM

The formative period of Islam remains highly contested. From the beginning of modern scholarship on this formative period, scholars have questioned traditional Muslim accounts on early Islam.The scholarly fixation is mirrored by sectarian groups and movements within Islam, most of which trace their origins to this period. Moreover, contemporary movements from Salafists to modernists continue to point to Islam’s origins to justify their positions. This Handbook provides a definitive overview of early Islam and how this period was understood and deployed by later Muslims. It is split into four main parts, the first of which explores the debates and positions on the critical texts and figures of early Islam. The second part turns to the communities that identified their origins with the Qurʾān and Muḥammad. In addition to the development of Muslim identities and polities, of particular focus is the relationship with groups outside or movements inside of the umma (the collective community of Muslims). The third part looks beyond what happened from the 7th to the 9th centuries CE and explores what that period, the events, figures, and texts have meant for Muslims in the past and what they mean for Muslims today. Not all Muslims or scholars are willing to merely reinterpret early Islam and its sources, though; some are willing to jettison parts, or even all, of the edifice that has been constructed over almost a millennium and a half. The Handbook therefore concludes with discussions of re-​imaginations and revisions of early Islam and its sources. Almost every major debate in the study of Islam and among Muslims looks to the formative period of Islam. The wide range of contributions from many of the leading academic experts on the subject therefore means that this book will be a valuable resource for all students and scholars of Islamic studies, as well as for anyone with an interest in early Islam. Herbert Berg is Professor of Religion in the Department of Philosophy and Religion, and Director of International Studies, University of North Carolina Wilmington. He holds a Ph.D. in the Study of Religion from the University of Toronto. His research focuses on Islamic origins, the Nation of Islam, and method and theory in the study of early Islam.

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ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK ON EARLY ISLAM

Edited by Herbert Berg

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First published 2018 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2018 Herbert Berg The right of Herbert Berg to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-​in-​Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-​in-​Publication Data Names: Berg, Herbert, editor. Title: Routledge handbook on early Islam /​edited by Herbert Berg. Description: New York, NY: Routledge, 2018. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017013807 | ISBN 9781138821187 (hbk) | ISBN 9781315743462 (ebk) Subjects: LCSH: Islam–​History. | Islam–​Doctrines–​History. Classification: LCC BP55.R68 2018 | DDC 297.09/​021–​dc23 LC record available at https://​lccn.loc.gov/​2017013807 ISBN: 978-​1-​138-​82118-​7 (hbk) ISBN: 978-​1-​315-​74346-​2 (ebk) Typeset in Bembo by Out of House Publishing

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Dedicated to Alfred Berg, whose encouragement put me on the path of learning, Daniel Sahas, whose teaching gave direction to my path, and Andrew Rippin, whose kindness and scholarship mentored me along that path.

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CONTENTS

Notes on contributors

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Introduction Herbert Berg

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PART I

The Qurʾān and Muh￱ammad

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1 The Qurʾān Nicolai Sinai

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2 The Qurʾān and other scriptures David Cook

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3 The collection and canonization of the Qurʾān Herbert Berg

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4 Muḥammad Stephen J. Shoemaker

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5 The sīra Pavel Pavlovitch

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6 Ḥadīth and sunna Jens Scheiner

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7 Exegesis Michael E. Pregill

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Contents PART II

Identities and communities in early Islam

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8 Identity and social formation in the early Caliphate Peter Webb

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9 Pre-​Islamic Arabia and early Islam Ilkka Lindstedt

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10 Early Muslims and Peoples of the Book Fred M. Donner

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11 Politics and economics of the early Caliphate Fanny Bessard

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12 The myth of the “Shīʿī perspective”: identity and memory in early Islam Najam Haider

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13 Mysticism in early Islam: the pre-​compilations phase Sara Sviri

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PART III

Modern and contemporary reinterpretation of early Islam

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14 Modernists and their opponents: reading Islam Simon Wood

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15 The golden age and the contemporary political order: the Muslim Brotherhood and early Islam Rachel M. Scott

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16 Salafīs: past to present, present to past Jeffrey T. Kenney

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17 Feminist Muslim (re)interpretations of early Islam Aisha Geissinger

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PART IV

Revisioning early Islam

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18 Early Islam: an alternative scenario of its emergence Markus Gross

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Contents

19 Qurʾānists Daniel W. Brown

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20 In search of authenticity: modern discourse over homosexuality through early Islamic thought Sara Omar

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21 True history in black and white: reimagined origins in the Nation of Islam Herbert Berg

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22 Invocations of early Islam in US discourse(s) of Muslim pluralism Justine Howe

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Index389

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NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Herbert Berg is Professor of Religion in the Department of Philosophy and Religion and the Director of International Studies at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. He holds a Ph.D. in the Study of Religion from the University of Toronto. His research focuses on Islamic origins, the Nation of Islam, and method and theory in the study of early Islam. Fanny Bessard is Lecturer in the History of the Middle East at the University of Bristol. She holds a Ph.D. in History of Art and Archaeology of the Muslim World from the École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris. Her research focuses on the changes in the economic activities of the ancient cities and the newly urban settlements after the Muslim conquests, with a particular focus on the role of the central power and the local elites in the growth of the production and the market economy and the emergence of a powerful mercantile bourgeoisie by the end of the 8th century. Daniel W. Brown is Director of the Institute for the Study of Religion in the Middle East, South Hadley, MA. He holds a Ph.D. in Islamic Studies from the University of Chicago. His research focuses on 19th-​and 20th-​century Islamic intellectual history in the Indian subcontinent. David Cook is Associate Professor of Religion at Rice University. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. His areas of specialization include early Islamic history and development, Muslim apocalyptic literature and movements (classical and contemporary), radical Islam, historical astronomy, and Judeo-​Arabic literature. Fred M. Donner is Professor of Near Eastern History in the Oriental Institute and Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago. He received his Ph.D. in Near Eastern Studies from Princeton University. His early research dealt with medieval Islamic social history, especially relations between nomadic and sedentary peoples, and aspects of Islamic law; more recently, his research has focused on the origins and rise of Islam, early Islamic historiography, and Qurʾānic studies. Aisha Geissinger is Associate Professor at Carleton University. Geissinger holds a Ph.D.  in Religious Studies from the University of Toronto, and does research focusing on the Qurʾān x

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and its exegesis, the ḥadīth literature and its interpretive tradition, and literary approaches, particularly gender and queer theory, to reading classical Muslim texts. Markus Gross is a linguist (with a focus on Phonetics and Phonology, Romance Studies, Indo-​ European Comparative Linguistics, Historical Linguistics, and Oriental Studies) and currently Professor at the University of Applied Sciences Kaiserslautern. He holds a Ph.D. in Phonetics and Phonology from Saarbrücken University and is the co-​editor of the Inârah series (together with K.-​H. Ohlig). Najam Haider is Professor in the Department of Religion at Columbia University. He completed his Ph.D. at Princeton University and M.Phil. at Oxford University. His research interests include early Islamic history, the methodology and development of Islamic law, and Shīʿislm. His current research focuses on the link between early Islamic historical writing and late antique and classical Rhetoric. Justine Howe is Assistant Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at Case Western Reserve University. She holds a Ph.D. in Religious Studies from Northwestern University. Her research focuses on contemporary Islam, with particular attention to Muslim communities in the United States. Jeffrey T. Kenney is the Walter E. Bundy Professor of Religious Studies at DePauw University. He received his Ph.D. in Religious Studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara. His research focuses on Islam in Egypt, with a special interest in Islamist movements, radicalization discourses, and religion–state relations. Ilkka Lindstedt is a Fellow at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies. He holds a Ph.D. in Arabic and Islamic Studies from the University of Helsinki. He has published articles on the transmission of Arabic historiography as well as early Arabic epigraphy. Sara Omar is a teaching Assistant Professor at American University. She received her Ph.D. from the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University. She holds an M.A. in Islamic Studies from Harvard University and an M.T.S. in Comparative Theology from Harvard Divinity School. Her research interests include issues pertaining to women, gender and sexuality, Islamic law, textual hermeneutics, early Islamic history, and religious authority. Pavel Pavlovitch is Associate Professor in Islamic Studies and Head of the Chair of Arabic and Semitic Studies at Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski.” He holds a Ph.D. in History and the degree of Doctor of Philological Sciences from Sofia University. His research focuses on the history of early Islam and ḥadīth science, and dating and reconstructing early ḥadīth in particular. Michael E.  Pregill is Interlocutor in the Institute for the Study of Muslim Societies and Civilizations at Boston University, where he is the coordinator of Mizan, a new digital scholarship initiative. He received his Ph.D. from Columbia University. His main areas of academic specialization are the Qurʾān and its interpretation; the origins of Islam in the late antique milieu; and Muslim relations with non-​Muslims. Much of his research focuses on the reception of biblical, Jewish, and Christian traditions in the Qurʾān and Islamic discourse. xi

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Jens Scheiner is Professor for Islamic Studies at Georg-​August-​Universität Göttingen. He received his Ph.D. from Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen. His research focuses on ḥadīth and the early and classical histories of Islamicate societies. Rachel M. Scott is Associate Professor in the Department of Religion and Culture at Virginia Tech. She holds a Ph.D. in Islamic Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Her research focuses modern Islamic political thought, Islamism, and the relationship between religion and state in Egypt. Stephen J. Shoemaker is Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Oregon. He holds a Ph.D. in Religion from Duke University. His research interests include the history of Christianity and the beginnings of Islam. Nicolai Sinai is Associate Professor of Islamic Studies at the Oriental Institute at the University of Oxford and Fellow of Pembroke College. He holds a Ph.D. in Arabic Studies from the Free University Berlin. His research interests are the Qurʾān, Islamic scriptural exegesis, and the history of theology and philosophy in the Islamic world. Sara Sviri is Professor Emerita at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She holds a Ph.D. in Arabic and Islamic Studies from Tel Aviv University. Her research interests include Early Islamic mysticism, Sufism, mystical philosophy, Ibn al-​ʿArabī, and the interaction between Islamic and Judaic mysticism. Peter Webb is a University Lecturer in Arabic literature and culture at Leiden University. He holds a Ph.D. in Arabic from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. His research focuses on the construction of Arab identity, Muslim memories of the pre-​Islamic past, and the social history of the medieval Middle East. Simon Wood is Associate Professor in the Department of Classics and Religious Studies at University of Nebraska-​Lincoln. He holds a Ph.D.  in Religion from Temple University. His research focuses on modern Islam and the comparative study of world religions.

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INTRODUCTION Herbert Berg

Leopold von Ranke charged historians with the task of discovering and presenting the past wie es eigentlich gewesen (“as it actually occurred”). This modern source-​based historical approach is the primary focus of scholars of Islamic origins and early Islam. That is to say, scholars of early Islam focus very much on determining what historical facts can be extracted or gleaned from the extant sources such as the Qurʾān, Sunna, sīra, and other materials in hopes of determining how Islam emerged. Not only are there competing presentations of early Islam, but there is also considerable disagreement about what these sources can tell us about Muḥammad, the origin, canonization, and interpretation of the Qurʾān, and the formation of the identities, communities, polities, and so forth that are traditionally described as “Islamic” or “Muslim.” A few scholars are so skeptical so as to doubt the historical value of all these sources (at least when it comes to the “wie es eigentlich gewesen”-​goal). For many Muslims, in contrast, the Qurʾān is believed to be the eternal word of God, though revealed to Muḥammad from 610 CE to his death in 11/​632. As such, it is eternal, but also rooted in temporality and locality. As the vast asbāb al-​nuzūl (occasions of revelations) material suggests, its verses were revealed at specific times and in specific circumstances that reflect the historical events of Muḥammad and his community. Thus when Q 3:123–​125 speaks of Badr, it refers to the Muslim victory over the Meccan forces at Battle of Badr in 2/​624 or when Q 33:37 mentions Zayd, it means Zayd b. Ḥāritha, Muḥammad’s adopted son whose divorced wife he married. This construction of early Islamic history is confirmed by the sīra (the biography of the Prophet) that purports to detail the major events of Muḥammad’s life. Moreover, the reports about the actions and words of Muḥammad (ḥadīths), particularly those that were largely fully vetted using the chains of transmitters (isnāds) attached to the reports and compiled within the canonical collections of the Sunna, confirm the same basic historical picture. Thus, it seems that there is little need to do much more than reproduce the traditional account: Muḥammad was born in 570 CE, and starting at the age of 40 and for the next 22 years he receiving revelations that called on the pagans of Mecca and later the Arabian Peninsula to worship the one true God (Allāh). Most of his interlocutors at least initially did not accept his message or recognize him as a Messenger of God. They opposed Muḥammad, so that he and his followers were forced to emigrate to Yathrib (later Medina), where Muḥammad was recognized as both a prophet and leader. In the next decade in a series of battles with the Meccans, Muḥammad and his followers eventually triumphed over the

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entire peninsula.Then shortly after the death of Muḥammad, the Qurʾān was collected by his early caliphal successors. As the nascent Arab empire expanded in the next decades, Muslims quickly realized the need to preserve the Prophet’s example (the Sunna) and sīra, and so started to preserve this material along with his and his Companions’ interpretation of the Qurʾān (tafsīr), and to apply and slowly codify Islamic law (the sharīʿa) as it had been during Muḥammad’s life. No essential religious evolution occurred, for as Q 5:3 states: “today I have perfected your religion for you.” That is to say, Islam as a religion was complete prior to Muḥammad’s death. Because the extant versions of the source materials used for constructing this narrative date to decades (some scholars would say centuries) after the events they purport to discover, because these materials sometimes contain conflicting accounts, and because they represent a sacred history, these sources cannot be employed as a mere historical transcript of what actually occurred. Nor is there much unity on how to approach the sources. Some scholars will argue that the sources are basically accurate, at worst affected by tendential shaping. Thus the scholar need only discern these adaptations and accretions to discover the historical kernel. Others will dismiss the whole edifice: the materials were developed over an extended period, were canonized relatively late, and/​or derive from materials unconnected to Muḥammad or even Arabia. The sīra and Sunna are complete fabrications or so much so that no such historical kernel can be discerned. As several chapters in this volume demonstrate, this skepticism about the sources extends to the Qurʾān. Even it is not historically sacrosanct. Some scholars argue that its materials may be earlier than the figure of Muḥammad and even derived from non-​Arab sources, and that its canonization may be later than the traditional accounts suggest. Further complicating the arguments, there are not merely two or three opposing camps of scholars, the skepticism or lack thereof is more of a continuum –​with some scholars doubting only certain parts of the traditional accounts. It is this complexity through which the first part of this volume sorts by explaining the debates and the positions on the critical texts and figures of early Islam. Nicolai Sinai begins by introducing the form and content of the Qurʾān, and then considers the text’s putative date of closure and its milieu of emergence. David Cook takes up the problematic issue to the relationship between the Qurʾān and other scriptures, including an evaluation of revisionist claims. Herbert Berg examines conflicting accounts and theories of the stages by which the Qurʾān was compiled and canonized.The figure of Muḥammad is the subject of Stephen J. Shoemaker’s chapter. Although the biography of Muḥammad has received political, economic, apologetic, theological, and eschatological treatments, recent approaches hold greater promise for the quest of the historical Muḥammad. Pavel Pavlovitch delves in the sīra (and maghāzī) literature, showing how even the latest historical methodologies have only brought us (with any certainty) to the 1st century AH. Jens Scheiner examines the development of ḥadīth and the concept of sunnas as it evolves through the 7th to 10th centuries into the Sunna. Michel Pregill focuses on the history of tafsīr’s development as both a discourse and a literary genre in early Islam, the later consolidation of classical tafsīr, and the implications for exegesis of revisionist accounts. The second part turns to the community or communities that identified their origins with the Qurʾān and Muḥammad. In addition to the development of Muslim identities and polities, of particular focus is the relationship with groups outside or movements inside of the umma (the collective community of Muslims). Peter Webb undertakes a historical survey of identity and social formation in early Islam, but highlights the critical issues and problematic terminology associated with social groups and ethnogenesis. Ilkka Lindstedt examines the connections between pre-​Islamic Arabia and early Islam, demonstrating how the epigraphic record and literature provide a different perspective from the tendentious Arabic literary sources of the

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Islamic era. Fred M. Donner argues that the relationship between Muḥammad’s community of “Believers” had a far closer and more complex relationship with Peoples of the Book (usually understood to mean Christians and Jews). The changing dynamics between political and economic forces of the early caliphate are discussed by Fanny Bessard, arguing that deliberate administrative policy brought about a major rupture and marked the beginning of a time of great agrarian reform and economic changes and growth in North Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia. Najam Haider argues that the emergence of two distinct religious orientations –​ a “Sunnī” and a “Shīʿa” –​is a myth, for it implies a coherence both between and within the categories that is absent from the sources themselves. Rather, it is a product of the theological influence on Shīʿī memory and identity. Sara Sviri examines the development of Islamic mysticism in early Islam, which emerged long before it became known as Sufism. These chapters cover the most central issues and developments in early Islam or Islamic origins. Early Islam, however, is so much more than what actually happened in Arabia and the surrounding region from the 7th to the 9th centuries CE. As already depicted in Part II, “early Islam” –​whether thought of as the time of Muḥammad and the Qurʾān, as the generations of Companions and Successors that succeed him, or as the halcyon days under the Umayyads and ʿAbbāsids –​is an idea (and often an ideal) that serves as a point of reference, a justification, as source of identity, and so forth. Wie es eigentlich gewesen is not what matters.What matters is what is believed to have happened. That is to say, the powerful and enduring concept of “early Islam” continues to shape the development of Islam. No examination of early Islam is complete without an examination of what that period, events, figures, and texts have meant for Muslims in the past and what they mean for Muslims today. In other words, “early Islam” is a legacy that is mutable and Muslims and even some non-​Muslims deploy or reimagine it to meet current needs. To begin Part III, Simon Wood explores how modernists such as al-​Afghānī, ʿAbduh, and Riḍā sought to engage the modern world by upholding the paradigm of early Islam in hopes of reforming the Islam of their own time that had focused on imitation and isolation that had led to its decline. As Rachel Scott shows, the Muslim Brotherhood also referenced the ideal past as exemplified by Muḥammad and the rightly guided caliphs, though how they understood that past is quite complex. Yet another group that explicitly models itself on the first generation of Muslims are the Salafīs –​even incorporating it into their name. Jeffrey T. Kenney shows that Salafī is a complex term that transformed from a vague notion of reform into a charged ideological assertion of living a comprehensive Muslim life, with all the exclusivism associated with such an assertion. Aisha Geissinger explores how feminist Muslims (and their opponents) also draw on early Islam to advance their arguments, by reinterpreting early Muslim female figures or classical texts. Not all Muslims or scholars are willing merely to reinterpret early Islam and its sources. Some are willing to jettison parts –​or even all –​of the edifice that has been constructed over almost a millennium and a half, as chapters in Part IV argue. Perhaps most controversial is Markus Gross’ argument for an alternative scenario for the emergence of early Islam. By ignoring the traditional accounts and focusing on “hard evidence” such as numismatics, arguments based on the Qurʾān’s script, and so forth, he argues for a later emergence of Islam outside of Mecca and, following Christoph Luxenberg, for a Syriac origin for the Qurʾān. A unique movement within the umma, the Qurʾānists, who seek to root their religion exclusively in the Qurʾān and forgoing the Sunna, ḥadīth, and other sources from early Islam, is explored by Daniel W. Brown. Sara Omar shows that modern discourse over homosexuality also invokes early Islam, particularly the Qurʾānic story of Lot and its exegesis. Herbert Berg demonstrates that at least one Muslim group, the Nation of Islam, is willing to completely reimagine the origins of Islam. Origins

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remain central to the ideology, but just not the one centered on Muḥammad and the Qurʾān. Justine Howe closes this volume with an examination of the continued invocations of early Islam in US discourse(s) of Muslim pluralism, including both Muslim and non-​Muslim historians of early Islam, Muslim theologians with academic appointments, and American Muslim public intellectuals. “Early Islam,” it seems, will continue to be relevant for future Muslims just as it has been for the Muslims who preceded them. The invocation of this period by at least some to justify positions or courses of action as new debates within the umma arise also seems highly probable. But this prediction highlights a serious theoretical concern associated with this focus on Islamic origins: the genetic fallacy. This fallacy is inherent in any study that focuses on origin of a religious traditions, but is particularly salient for this volume in general and more particularly for the chapters of Part III, which examine the still powerful impact of the formative period of Islam on modern and contemporary movements.

Islamic origins and the genetic fallacy1 The nature of the sources for reconstructing early Islam –​that is, the relative lateness of their extant forms, the theological and sometimes sectarian motivations that produced them, and so forth –​invites skepticism for some scholars and presents methodological issues for all scholars of early Islam. But just as important are the theoretical issues. Because the use of “Islamic origins” is a calque of “Christian origins” and because the latter term was meant to replace the confessional, anachronistic, and misleading “New Testament Studies,” this Handbook has preferred the term “early Islam” or the “formative period of Islam.” Many modern scholars of early Islam whether Muslim or not, were not approaching the texts of early Islam in an overtly confessional manner. The advantage of “Islamic origins” is that it provides merely a convenient term for those of us in Religious Studies who focus on the formative period of Islam (1) to convey to our colleagues what it is that we do in terms they would understand, and (2) to unite into one enterprise the disparate but overlapping activities of scholars of the Qurʾān and early Islamic history, law, Sunna, and exegesis –​a fact highlighted by the diverse disciplines of the contributors to this volume. That being said, both “Islamic” and “origins” are problematic. As for the former, it encourages us to read later understandings of classical Islam into early “Islam,” possibly obscuring what really happened.2 Moreover, if one sees Islam as rooted almost solely in the Qurʾān and/​ or Muḥammad (via the portrayals of him in the Sunna and sīra), one cannot help but recapitulate the basic position of Muslim theology. But since it is disguised in a scholarly voice, it is a form of crypto-​theology.Yet as the chapters in the second and particularly the third part of this Handbook make clear, Muslims themselves continue to focus very much on this early period. It is not surprising that scholarly interest continues in how the movement that came to be known as Islam was formulated. It is a valid, and I would say intriguing, avenue for scholarly exploration. But without an awareness of the often tacitly theological perspective at the heart of such explorations, it is not surprising that the methodologies used to investigate Islamic origins can be problematic. The chapters in Parts III and IV demonstrate how theological agendas shape the understanding and use of early Islam. It would be naïve to assume the competing scholarly perspectives discussed in the chapters of the first two parts are not similarly influenced. In fact, the very focus on “origins” in general is problematic. Tomoko Masuzawa points out that if one means “origin” in the strong sense, in the sense of absolute beginning, “it eradicates any possibility of precedent, preexisting condition or prototype –​in fact, anything other than 4

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itself –​that might in any way account for later developments.” Origin thus understood “is an essentially theological idea” (Masuzawa 2000: 209), thus negating “history.” Moreover, Nietzsche states “ ‘In the beginning.’ To glorify the origin –​that is the metaphysical aftershoot that breaks out when we meditate on history and makes us believe that what stands at the beginning of all things is also what is most valuable and essential” (Nietzsche 1996: 302). In other words, the focus on origin is a focus on essence and authenticity. Michel Foucault elaborates: Why does Nietzsche challenge the pursuit of origin (Ursprung) …? First, because it is an attempt to capture the exact essence of things, the purist possibilities, and their carefully protected identities. … We tend to think that this is the moment of greatest perfection, when they emerged dazzling from the hands of a creator. (Foucault 1977: 142–​143) This then is the genetic fallacy. One would have to be incredibly naïve to think that somehow the study of Islamic origins is immune to these tacitly theological concerns with essence, truth, identity, and authenticity. For the Qurʾān to claim “When he wants something, He says to it, ‘Be!’ and it is!” (Q 36:82) is not problematic. For a historian to employ such ex nihilo explanations is to cease to be a historian. Social theory requires us to explain individuals rather than simply posit them as the ground of our explanations.To posit self-​causing monads, even out of apparent respect for individuals, is to turn social theory into liberal ideology or, worse, theology –​for what is more theological than self-​causing agents, which escape causal fields yet make effects in the world? (Martin n.d.) The genetic fallacy is most obvious in the rhetoric of Salafīs and others discussed in this volume, who maintain that Islam was perfect and complete during the days of Muḥammad and his Companions. This perspective is also a version of the golden age fallacy. But this fallacy appears in the writings of those diametrically opposed to Salafīs, among them the secular polemicists of the New Atheists. Christopher Hitchens in his chapter “The Koran is Borrowed from Both Jewish and Christian Myths” (Hitchens 2009: 211–​237) looks to the Qurʾān and Muḥammad to find a negative essence of Islam. Scholars who study Islamic origins do not normally share the same positive or negative theologies, but they can share a remarkably similar approach when they focus uncritically on origins or dismiss any skepticism about the sources as an attack on Islam.3 No one (or at least no historian) would suggest if you wanted to understand contemporary American politics, social issues, its “culture wars,” etc., that all one needed to do was understand the Founding Fathers or the Revolutionary War. Similarly, we know not to fall prey to the genetic fallacy, by stating that to truly understand Islamic State, Elijah Muhammad, or the burkini-​ clad Muslim on the beach at Nice, all we really need to do is understand the first 150 years or so of the authentic or real Islam. The experiences and understandings of the Qurʾān and Islam of the 17th-​century African just sold in the American colonies as a slave and that of Ibn ʿAbbās in 7th-​century Medina are as equally authentic as they are completely different. To assume that there is some essence that connects all these people who call themselves Muslims is once again to adopt a theological position and fall into the genetic fallacy. 5

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Herbert Berg

These cautionary words are obviously not meant limit the study of Islamic origins or early Islam. That would be a bit too ironic for an introduction to a handbook on early Islam. Rather, my point is to suggest that though the quest to discover wie es eigentlich gewesen remains a valid and fascinating endeavor, it is fraught with danger if we allow that quest to determine how we understand Islam and Muslims.

Notes 1 Parts of this section were adapted from Berg (forthcoming). 2 As William Arnal points out, the Christian origins scholarship remains centered on the canonical writings of the New Testament, and that as such they serve as sources for, and stand in social, historical, and/​or conceptual unity with, the ecclesiastical structures and ideologies of the second century and later. In some respects, the language of “Christian Origins” actually exacerbates the problem, since in two words it manages to impute both an originary status to the New Testament writings, and to claim for those writings a specifically Christian identity. (Arnal 2011: 194) Although the sources for the study of Islamic origins are a bit larger (that is, the Qurʾān, the sīra, the Sunna, tafsīr, and so forth), a similar argument could be made about “Islamic origins.” It too implies an originary status to these texts and reflects a specifically Muslim identity that may have developed later. 3 That is not to suggest that skepticism about the sources of early Islam is necessarily an attack on Islam, though it often has been, and it often still is.

Bibliography Arnal, W.E. 2011. The Collection and Synthesis of “Tradition” and the Second-​Century Invention of Christianity. Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 23:193–​215. Berg, H. Forthcoming. Islamic Origins and the Question of Methodologies. In: Haleem, M.A. and Shah, M. eds. The Oxford Handbook of Qur’anic Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Foucault, Michel. 1977. Nietzsche, Genealogy, History. In:  Bouchard, D. ed., Bouchard, D.  and Simon, S. trans. Language, Counter-​Memory, Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 139–​164. Hitchens, C. 2009. God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. New York: Twelve Books. Martin, C. n.d. “Individuality is Zero”: Freedom and Ethnocentrism in The Division of Labor. Unpublished manuscript. Masuzawa,T. 2000. Origin. In: Braun,W. and McCutcheon, R.T. eds. Guide to the Study of Religion. London: Cassell, 209–​224. Nietzsche, F. 1996. Human, All Too Human. Hollingdale, R.J. trans. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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PART I

The Qurʾān and Muḥammad

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1 THE QURʾĀN1 Nicolai Sinai

According to traditional Islamic belief, the Qurʾān (“recitation”) records the divine revelations that were communicated to the prophet Muḥammad in Mecca and Medina prior to his death in 632 CE. By virtue of being the foundational text of Islam, the Qurʾān must play a pivotal role in the present volume, since coming to terms with it will form a crucial condition of adequacy for any interpretation of early Islamic history. This chapter accordingly aims to provide a basic introduction to the form and content of the Qurʾānic corpus and to some of the scholarly debates surrounding it.The first two sections take stock of the text’s principal literary and structural characteristics, mostly without reliance on substantial historical commitments.2 The third section then moves on to consider two issues that loom large in recent scholarship: the Qurʾān’s putative date of closure and the question of where we should locate its milieu of emergence.

I  General literary characteristics Surahs and verses The Qurʾānic corpus is a collection of 114 textual units commonly understood to be composed in desinentially inflected Arabic.3 These units, the so-​called surahs,4 are of extremely discrepant length. They are subdivided into a total of c. 6,200 verses (6,236 by the counting that is dominant today), traditionally called āyāt (sg. āya, “sign”).5 References to Qurʾānic passages are therefore made by surah and verse; the format that is most current in contemporary Western scholarship is “Q X:Y”, where X indicates the surah and Y the verse. The Qurʾān’s verses are normally demarcated by rhyme. However, the rules of Qurʾānic rhyme are considerably more flexible than those governing classical Arabic poetry, insofar as phonetically similar consonants like l, m, and n are often used interchangeably. Likewise in contrast with classical poetry, Qurʾānic rhyme normally requires that verse-​final words are given what is called a pausal pronunciation: the final short vowels of nouns and of verbs as well as the indeterminate nominal endings -​un and -​in must be omitted while the indeterminate accusative ending -​an becomes -​ā. Such a pausal pronunciation of verse endings also characterises the rhymed and rhythmic kind of prose (sajʿ) ascribed to pre-​Islamic Arabian soothsayers (Stewart 1990: 109–​110). The possibility of verse-​internal rhyme and also what appears to be the occasional presence of rhymeless verses generates some uncertainty in subdividing the Qurʾān into 9

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verses. As a result, classical Islamic scholarship transmits different systems of verse divisions, but it must be underscored that the Qurʾānic verse grid, unlike e.g. the New Testament one, is not merely a secondary imposition for convenience of reference (Neuwirth 1981: 3, 117–​118). Like the surahs, Qurʾānic verses, too, exhibit great divergences in length, ranging from two or three words to entire paragraphs. Interestingly, verse length within one and the same surah is much more uniform than across the Qurʾān as a whole. It can also be shown that differences in the surahs’ mean verse length converge with a considerable number of further lexical, thematic, and literary traits. This is plausibly accounted for by the traditional assumption that the Qurʾānic proclamations, or at least clusters of them, form a linear evolutionary sequence in the course of which various formal and contentual characteristics evolved simultaneously, one such development being a gradual increase of mean verse length over time (Sadeghi 2011 and Sinai forthcoming c; for an opposing voice, see Reynolds 2011).

The Qurʾān’s divine voice and its addressees Unlike the scriptural texts that are most familiar to a Western readership, such as the Book of Genesis or the New Testament gospels, the Qurʾān is not fundamentally a narrative document, although it does of course contain many narrative passages. Instead, its basic format is best described as a compilation of more or less extended units of divine speech treating a wide range of topics (eschatology, God’s workings in nature, episodes from past history, moral and quasi-​legal norms of behaviour) and employing an eclectic mixture of discursive registers, including narratives, hymns, polemics, and quasi-​legal prescriptions. While a detailed examination of these themes and registers is beyond the scope of the present chapter, the Qurʾān’s basic discursive constellation does deserve comment here: who is speaking to whom? That the Qurʾānic proclamations generally style themselves as divine utterances is reasonably evident, given that they are interspersed with numerous occurrences of the first person singular or plural, the vast majority of which clearly represent a divine voice.6 It is because this divine voice is apparently intended to be the default speaker in the Qurʾān that the Islamic scripture contains no equivalent to the biblical messenger formula “Thus says YHWH” or “Thus says the Lord God”. What complicates matters is the fact that God appears not only in the first person, but is also talked about in the third person, sometimes in immediate proximity to a first-​person reference (see Abdel Haleem 1992): “Or who has created the heavens and the earth and has sent down for youp water from the sky, through which We have caused to grow gardens full of beauty?” (Q 27:60). A small number of short surahs are even devoid of any occurrence of the divine first person (e.g., Q 98–​107 and 109–​114). At least in some cases, the Qurʾān’s blending of first-​and third-​person references to God may be due to the combination of partially discordant literary conventions: while the Qurʾānic proclamations generally present themselves as God’s ipsissima verba, some of the literary subforms they use –​forms that were already prominent in Jewish and Christian religious discourse –​are originally associated with a human voice. This applies most obviously to hymnic patterns of expression, which are quite frequent in the Qurʾān. Thus, it is perhaps no coincidence that Q 55, a predominantly hymnic surah, contains only one occurrence of the divine first person, which appears in an ominous threat more than a third into the text (v. 31). The divine voice constitutes one vertex in a triangular constellation that in some form or other underlies most of the Qurʾānic corpus.7 Its second vertex is formed by a human messenger, who is often addressed in the second person singular. It is true that some occurrences of the second person may be construed generically, similar to the way in which the second person is 10

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employed in biblical commandments such as “Thou shalt not kill!” (Rippin 2000). For example, such a construal is plausible for didactic questions such as “Have yous not seen how your Lord dealt with ʿĀd?” (Q 89:6) or universal assertions like “To yours Lord is your return” (Q 96:8). In many other cases, however, the second person singular clearly refers to a particular individual, who is frequently addressed with the vocative “O prophet” (e.g., Q 33:1) and whose personal and domestic circumstances are sometimes obliquely commented on (e.g., Q 33:37). Like the divine speaker, this messenger (rasūl) is also spoken of in the third person. This is the case, inter alia, in four verses that call him “Muḥammad” (Q 3:144, 33:40, 47:2, and 48:29). The third vertex of the Qurʾān’s discursive constellation corresponds to the messenger’s audience, made up both of those who submit to his prophetic authority, thereby qualifying as “believers” (al-​muʾminūn, alladhīna āmanū), and of various other collectives. The latter include a group accused of “associating” or “partnering” (ashraka) other beings with God and who are traditionally identified with Muḥammad’s pagan Meccan compatriots; Jews; Christians or “Nazoreans” (al-​naṣārā); and a faction within the Qurʾānic community that is castigated as lukewarm and unreliable (al-​munāfiqūn, customarily rendered “the hypocrites”).8 Like God and the messenger, the audience or specific subgroups within it can be referred to in the third person, a stance that may be coupled with second-​person addresses to the messenger. Alternatively, when the messenger figures in the third person, this may occur in the vicinity of second-​person addresses to the audience. In general, then, Qurʾānic discourse takes the form of a divine speaker alternately addressing an individual messenger and a more or less clearly defined collective audience. Furthermore, in many passages the messenger and the audience are themselves given an opportunity to have their say. This is reconciled with the Qurʾān’s implied divine speaker by means of explicit formulae of citation. For instance, utterances by the audience are often introduced with “they say: …” or functionally equivalent verbs, while utterances imposed on the messenger are normally preceded by the singular command “say (qul): …”. Generalising somewhat, one might say that while in the Hebrew Bible it is divine speech that requires an introductory formula, in the Qurʾān it is human speech that does so. In some surahs, particularly those with medium-​ length or very long verses, such quotation formulae serve to link together statements by the divine speaker, by the audience, and by the messenger into extended polemical sequences (e.g., Q 6:4–​73). Although such debates doubtlessly involve a considerable element of literary staging, it is difficult to avoid the impression that the Qurʾān addressed “a highly disputatious society” (Crone 2012: 466). Given the significant presence of polemical debates in many of the longer surahs, it is fitting that Qurʾānic Arabic should have a designated word for the activity of religious disputation: the text contains more than two dozen occurrences of the verb jādala and the corresponding nouns jadal and jidāl.

Metatextuality, self-​referentiality, and formulaic density It is worthwhile to briefly review some additional literary characteristics of the Qurʾānic corpus. The first one is a high frequency of parenthetical statements that seem to hover above a passage’s primary expositional layer (whether or not they are syntactically linked to it). Such parenthetical or metatextual portions of text, which have also been termed “clausulae” (Neuwirth 1981: 157–​170), often serve to close out a Qurʾānic verse or verse section but can also occur within verses. The general function of such metatextual interjections is mostly exhortatory. They often highlight various divine attributes (e.g., Q 4:11: “God is knowing and wise”), insist on the truth of the message that is being conveyed or highlight the communicative purpose it is meant to serve (e.g., Q 10:4: “The promise of God is true”; Q 15:77: “In this is a sign for the 11

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believers”), challenge the audience (e.g., Q 16:52: “Do youp fear something other than God?”; Q 36:68: “Do they not understand?”), or clarify the moral standing of protagonists figuring in the text’s primary thread (e.g., Q 38:30, referring to Solomon: “How excellent a servant! He was ready to do penance”). This constant stream of metatextual commentary can plausibly be linked to the Qurʾān’s repeated insistence on being eminently “clear” (mubīn; e.g., Q 5:15 and 12:1). This brings us to a closely related feature of the Qurʾānic proclamations, their self-​referentiality. Especially when compared to biblical literature, the Islamic scripture exhibits a conspicuous preoccupation with defining its own origin, function, and intended mode of reception (Wild 2006; Sinai 2006; Boisliveau 2014). By way of an example, one may point to the Qurʾānic self-​designation as a divine “reminder” (tadhkira) to man (e.g., Q 74:54–​55 and 80:11–​16) and as a “sending down (tanzīl) from the Lord of all beings” (e.g., Q 26:192), or to the Qurʾānic proclamations’ claim to stem from a written celestial archetype (Q 56:77–​80, 80:11–​16, 85:21–​22). Another illustration is provided by Q 6:155ff.: This is a blessed scripture that We have sent down. Followp it and be God-​fearing so that you may receive mercy! 156 Lest you say, “The scripture was sent down only to two communities before us, and we are ignorant of their studies.” 157 Or lest you say, “If only the scripture had been sent down to us, we would have been better guided than them.” Clear proof from your Lord and guidance and mercy has come to you. Who commits greater wrong than someone who dismisses God’s signs as a lie and turns away from them? We shall repay those who turn away from Our signs with evil torment, as a recompense for their turning away. 155

The quotation illustrates that the Qurʾān’s self-​referential statements share in the disputational quality of much of the text that was pointed out above: it appears to be in response to doubts and objections raised by a sceptical or hostile audience that the Qurʾānic proclamations are driven to broach such issues as their own origin and purpose and their relationship to previous revelations. Qurʾānic self-​referentiality is therefore appropriately described as “embattled” (Wild 2006: 3). A third general feature of the Qurʾān that bears pointing out is its highly formulaic character, which has recently been the subject of a computerised study (Bannister 2014). As the latter demonstrates, almost 22 per cent of the Qurʾān’s words belong to three-​word phrases that are repeated throughout the Qur’an at least five times with identical inflection (Bannister 2014: 146–​147). If one were to look only for a recurrence of the same word or even of the same root, the formulaic density of the Islamic scripture would be even more significant.9 Captivatingly, the surahs usually assigned to the Medinan stage of Muḥammad’s career display a measurably higher degree of formulaic density than the surahs normally dated to the earlier Meccan period (Bannister 2014: 141–​143). This suggests that the distinction between two principal textual strata of the Qurʾān, a Meccan and a Medinan one, is not just a traditional preconception. Incidentally, when the Qurʾān calls itself a “scripture self-​similar in its oft-​repeated parts” (kitāban muthashābihan mathāniya; Q 39:23), this could be interpreted as an explicit acknowledgement of its formulaic character.10 12

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II Structure The arrangement of the Qurʾānic corpus Most long and medium-​length surahs treat a range of different topics (although surah 12 is nearly exclusively taken up by the story of Joseph, while most of surah 20 is devoted to the life of Moses). At the same time, many topics are addressed in more than one surah; for instance, the story of the creation and fall of Adam appears in eight different Qurʾānic passages, which display numerous overlaps but also complement one another in crucial respects (Q 2:30–​39, 7:10–​25, 15:26–​43, 17:61–​65, 18:50, 20:115–​124, 38:71–​85, 55:14–​15).11 Due to the polythematic character of most longer surahs and the dispersal of many topics across different passages of the Qurʾānic corpus, making sense of the Qurʾān’s structure poses a considerable challenge. The Islamic scripture certainly does not follow a linear narrative trajectory like the Book of Genesis, nor does it exhibit a thematic arrangement like the Mishnah. In tackling the problem, it is appropriate to begin by taking a bird’s-​eye view of the Qurʾān as a whole. Surahs 1 and 112–​114 would appear to function as an outer frame around the corpus. Unlike the other surahs, they constitute brief prayers or creedal statements formulated from the perspective of a human believer, although Q 112–​114 are transposed into divine addresses by means of the prefatory command qul (“Say: …”). Surah 1, “The Opening” (al-​Fātiḥa), is followed by the longest text in the corpus, the “Surah of the Cow” (Sūrat al-​Baqara). Subsequently, surah length decreases steadily, although there are frequent exceptions to this general principle (Robinson 2003: 256–​270). Such exceptions seem partly to be due to the enigmatic clusters of isolated letters that open certain surahs, such as ʾ-​l-​m (Q 2–​3 and Q 29–​32) or ḥ-​m (Q 40–​46): the redactors of the standard recension of the Qurʾān seem to have preferred placing surahs that open with the same letters next to one another even if this entailed disrupting the decreasing-​length principle (Bauer 1921: 319). Other exceptions to the decreasing-​length principle appear to be due to considerations of thematic, structural, and terminological proximity. Already medieval Islamic exegetes observed that adjacent surahs often exhibit keyword concatenation, i.e., the occurrence of a conspicuous term or phrase towards the end of one surah and the beginning of the following one (Mir 1986:  17–​19; Robinson 2003:  266–​269). The standard recension of the Qurʾān also couples surahs exhibiting other formal or thematic similarities (e.g., Q 73–​74, 81–​82, 91–​92, 93–​94, and 105–​106).12 Finally, at least the received order of surahs 2 to 9, which shows several disruptions of the decreasing-​length principle, might be due to broader considerations of content. As pointed out by Amīn Aḥsan Iṣlāḥī, these texts fall into two thematic blocks: surahs 2 to 5 are primarily centred on polemics against the Jews and Christians and also contain miscellaneous quasi-​legal instructions, whereas surahs 6 to 9 are primarily devoted to confronting those opponents of Muḥammad who are accused of “associating” other beings with God (Mir 1986: 85–​ 87; Frolov 2002). Apparently, the redactors of the Qurʾān’s standard recension sometimes placed surahs displaying relevant commonalities adjacent to one another, although such clustering was only employed as a subsidiary ordering principle. Similar cases of concatenation have been identified in the Book of Psalms (Zenger 1998).

Surah structure: Q 82 as an example In turning from the structure of the corpus as a whole to that of individual surahs, we may begin with the observation that all but the shortest surahs admit of being subdivided into thematically defined verse clusters or paragraphs, a feature highlighted already in Müller (1896: 20–​60). Two 13

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widespread translations of the Qurʾān (Paret 2001; Abdel Haleem 2010) even impose such breaks on their rendering of the text. Although their paragraphing does not always concur, it shows enough agreement to inspire trust that the demarcation of such verse clusters is not irredeemably subjective. As a matter of fact, the paragraph-​like caesurae in question tend to be dictated not only be thematic transitions but are often also accentuated by formal markers. For instance, the section breaks in short-​verse surahs often coincide with, or are located near, rhyme changes (Neuwirth 1981: 91–​115), while in surahs with longer verses, such as Q 5 or Q 33, they are often signalled by means of vocatives (“O you who believe!”, “O prophet!”). Many paragraph borders are thus determined both by a caesura in content as well as by formal or phraseological markers. A good illustration for the paragraphical character of the Qurʾān is provided by surah 82. Below is an English translation of its nineteen verses, subdivided into five paragraph-​like sections (which are indicated by bold numerals). The translation is accompanied by an analysis of the surah’s rhyme structure (left-​hand column) and a form-​critical analysis (right-​hand column).13 Note how the borders between sections 1 and 2 and sections 2 and 3 coincide with rhyme changes and also with phraseological cues, namely, a vocative at the beginning of v. 6 and an emphatic interjection at the beginning of v. 9. Table 1.1 Surah 82 Rhyme 1–​5

3C(C)3rat

Translation

Form-​critical analysis

When the heaven splits asunder, when the stars are scattered, 3 when the seas are ripped open, 4 and when the graves are rummaged, 5 then a soul will know what it has put forward and what it has kept back! 2 6 O man, what has deceived yous concerning your noble Lord,

1 1–​5 series of eschatological temporal clauses (idhā series): 1–​2 celestial phenomena, 3–​4 earthly phenomena, 5 apodosis

1

1

2

6

 2n/​m 3C(C)3Cak

7–​8

who created you and formed you and proportioned you, 8 assembled you in whatever form He wished? 3  9 But no, youp deem the judgement 3 9 reproach (second person to be a lie! plural) 10 10–​12 Yet over you are set up guardians, warning 11 noble ones, record keepers, 12 who know what you do. 13 4 The virtuous will be in a state of bliss, 4 13–​16 antithesis: 13 the saved, 14 14–​16 and the sinners will be in a fire, the damned 15 in which they will roast on the day of judgement 16 and which they will not escape. 5 17 What will let yous know what the day of 5 17–​18 didactic question judgement is? (repeated) 18 Again: what will let yous know what the day of judgement is? 19 [The judgment will come to pass] on the day on 19 response: eschatological which no soul will be able to help another.14 temporal clause The matter on that day is up to God. 7

9–​18

2n/​m

19

li-​llāh

2 6 polemical question addressed to man (third person singular) 7–​8 affirmation of divine works (relative clause)

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Given the Qurʾān’s paragraphical physiognomy, the basic problem of surah structure may be stated as follows: is a given surah merely a haphazard conglomerate of free-​standing verse clusters, or can one discern relevant structural, terminological, or contentual links between its component sections? Arguably the most radical proponent of the former position is Richard Bell (Bell 1937). According to Bell, adjacent verse clusters often originated independently of one another, and in many cases owe their present textual sequence to the mere fact that they were transcribed on different sides of the same writing surface, which then caused the redactors of the Qurʾān to place them in a consecutive order. With regard to surah 82, Bell’s analysis is as follows: Section 2 is likely to be “considerably earlier” than section 1 and has “no connection with what precedes”.The second section’s initial verse, v. 6, originally ended with the phrase bi-​ rabbika (“concerning your Lord”) rather than bi-​rabbika l-​karīm (“concerning your noble Lord”), thus rhyming with vv. 7 and 8 (ending in ʿadalak and rakkabak). Section 2 was later expanded by sections 3 and 4, in the process of which the ending of v. 6 was assimilated to the rhyme of sections 3 and 4 through addition of the word karīm. At an even later stage, section 5 was added in order to clarify the phrase “day of judgement”. Bell’s general approach, as exemplified by his treatment of Q 82, is thus to invoke a host of redactional interventions to account for the present shape of many surahs, and to construe palpable shifts in theme and rhyme, such as between vv. 5 and 6, as editorial seams that betray the secondary joining of originally independent passages. Against such a molecular reading of the Qurʾān, Neuwirth 1981 shows that at least the short and medium-​length surahs, which are customarily associated with the Meccan phase of Muḥammad’s career, can largely be read as thematically and structurally unified compositions. Surah 82 again provides a useful illustration for what a holistic approach inspired by Neuwirth’s work might look like. To begin with, we should note that by virtue of its rhyme structure the surah naturally divides into two overarching parts, vv. 1–​8 and vv. 9–​19. Apart from v. 6, sections 1 and 2 display very similar rhymes and might even be said to conform to the shared rhyme scheme 3C(C)3CaC. Sections 3 to 5, too, are united by a common rhyme (-​īn/​-ī​ m/​-ū​ n). Against this background, the isolated rhyme of v. 6 (-​īm) serves both to anticipate the rhyme scheme of the surah’s second part, thus functioning as a literary tie between its two halves, and to underscore the caesura between sections 1 and 2. In terms of their content, both parts of the surah revolve around the end of the world and the eschatological judgement, endowing the text with a unitary thematic focus despite its divisibility into discrete paragraphs. Moreover, the surah’s progression of ideas is quite organic. The first section’s series of eschatological snapshots climaxes with the moment when “a soul will know what it has put forward and what it has kept back” (v. 5). As becomes increasingly clear throughout the text, this must be the moment of man’s “judgement”, dīn, a term which punctuates all three sections of the surah’s second part (vv. 9, 15, 17, and 18). Following on from v. 5, the second section’s direct address can be read either as turning to the text’s contemporary recipients or alternatively as anticipating the moment when man will be confronted by the divine judge and reproached for the ingratitude he has shown towards his gracious and omnipotent creator. Since the text’s addressees nevertheless refuse to give credence to the Qurʾānic message of an eschatological reckoning (v. 9), they are warned of the comprehensive celestial surveillance to which they are already subject (vv. 10–​12). The fourth section overlays this present state of affairs with a flashforward to the outcome of the judgement, the division of the saved from the damned. The fifth section delivers a concluding characterisation of the judgement, presented as a response to an iterated didactic question: every individual will be assessed solely on his or her own moral merits; and God will exercise complete and unbridled discretion. Structurally, the surah has several pertinent parallels in the Qurʾānic corpus. First, its introductory series of eschatological idhā clauses has counterparts in Q 81:1–​14, 84:1–​5, and 99:1–​6. 15

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Given that the surah thus commences in what appears to be a standardised manner, there is little reason to follow Bell in positing that section 2 was originally independent from section 1, which would strip the putatively original version of section 2 of a proper introduction. Furthermore, surah 84 resembles surah 82 insofar as both texts’ introductory idhā series is followed by a vocative addressed to “man” (cf. Q 82:6 and 84:6). An additional parallel is provided by surahs 90 and 100, where an introductory oath cluster (rather than a series of idhā clauses) is followed by general statements about man (Q 90:4ff., 100:6ff.). The sequence of sections 1 and 2 thus conforms to a recurrent Qurʾānic pattern, consisting in an introductory series of oaths or temporal clauses followed by a statement about, or an address of, al-​insān. In sum, there is no reason to invoke redactional hypotheses of any kind in order to make sense of the present shape of surah 82.

Holistic approaches to longer surahs Of course, the fact that a short text like Q 82 is amenable to a holistic reading does not by itself entail that the same will hold true for longer surahs. After all, the latters’ thematic range is normally far wider, involving not only eschatologically focused material but also, for instance, extended narrative and polemics. Still, as Neuwirth 1981 demonstrates in detail, many medium-​length surahs turn out, upon closer analysis, to conform to a tripartite compositional plan in which the middle part tends to be devoted to narratives about previous divine messengers, in particular biblical figures like Abraham or Moses. In a number of cases, this middle part even consists of an extended cycle of several such pericopes, which may be interspersed with refrain-​like formulae or exhibit other parallelistic traits (see Q 11:25–​99, 21:48–​96, 26:10–​191, 37:75–​148, and 54:9–​42). Sometimes it is even possible to observe quantitative proportions between different surah parts. For example, the first two parts of Q 51 both contain 23 verses, and the first and third part of Q 79 have at least approximately the same length (Neuwirth 1981: 204, 218–​219). Similar to the way in which the term dīn pervades surah 82, such longer surahs may also exhibit a recurrence of key phraseology (see, e.g., Sinai 2011: 13, on occurrences of the verb raʾā, “to see”, in Q 53). It is surely warranted to view a surah possessing some or all of these characteristics as a unitary composition, notwithstanding the fact that there may be tangible thematic shifts between its component paragraphs (Neuwirth 1981: 178). Despite the increasing popularity of surah holism in general, the jury is still out on the question whether a similar approach can be applied to the very long surahs located at the beginning of the Qurʾānic corpus, namely, Q 2–​9. At first sight, these surahs might seem to be “collecting baskets for isolated groups of verses” (Neuwirth 2014: 154); unlike the tripartite surahs just discussed, they do not at first sight appear to conform to multiply recurrent templates. Nevertheless, several studies of surahs 2, 4 and 5 have uncovered significant aspects of coherence, such as manifold terminological and phraseological correspondences between non-​adjacent surah sections.15 One strand of research, pioneered by Michel Cuypers, considers these long surahs (and many others as well) to exhibit a ring-​compositional arrangement, meaning that they are composed of chiastically corresponding sections frequently built around a central verse or passage and yielding the general structure A/​B/​C/​… /​X/​… /​C*/​B*/​A* (Cuypers 2009, 2011; Ernst 2011: 155–​204; Farrin 2014).Tempted though one might be by the prospect of a master key to surah structure, the tenability of the ring-​compositional approach “depends on whether the correspondences that are pointed out between different sections are sufficiently compelling (i.e., do not consist merely in general thematic proximity, but involve significant parallels in diction and structure) and exclusive (i.e. could not equally be found to 16

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obtain between other sections)” (Sinai 2012b).Whether ring-​compositional analyses really meet this condition is open to some doubt, although the matter clearly requires a more extensive assessment than is possible here.16

Interpolations and literary growth While the extent to which Bell invokes redactional explanations in order to account for thematic transitions and rhyme changes is surely exaggerated, a considerable number of surahs do undeniably contain secondary insertions (Sinai forthcoming a and c). Arguably the two most glaring cases are Q 73:20 and 74:31. Both verses stand out by virtue of an extremely conspicuous surge in verse length. For example, Q 73:1–​19 has a mean verse length of 41.1 transcription letters, while Q 73:20 runs to 497 transcription letters.17 Moreover, both Q 73:20 and 74:31 can be removed from their literary context without leaving behind a gap; and in both cases, one can easily hypothesise a motive for their putative insertion: Q 73:20 allays the expectation, articulated at the beginning of the surah, that members of the Qurʾānic community will spend a significant part of the night engaged in vigils; and Q 74:31 intervenes in a debate that was apparently triggered by the immediately preceding verse, according to which the fire of hell is guarded by “nineteen” –​a statement that is both puzzlingly precise (why not eighteen or twenty?) and puzzlingly enigmatic (nineteen what?). Finally, both Q 73:20 and Q 74:31, unlike their literary environment, employ diction that is absent from other short-​verse surahs and is instead characteristic of surahs traditionally associated with the Medinan phase of Muḥammad’s career. This applies, for instance, to the term “those in whose hearts is sickness” in Q 74:31 and the phrase “to fight in the way of God” in Q 73:20. Surahs 73 and 74 are usefully understood as particularly manifest benchmarks of secondary insertions in the Qurʾān. Further cases of textual expansion can be discerned, on the basis of similar criteria, in other short-​verse surahs (Neuwirth 1981: 201–​203). It is much more difficult, though, to extend the same kind of analysis to the long surahs 2–​9, where putative additions are often relatively inconspicuous; for example, they do not normally stand out by eye-​catching surges or drops in verse length. This difficulty is unfortunate, since the intricate structure of the surahs in question may well result from involved processes literary growth, similar to the manner in which the prophetic books of the Hebrew Bible reached their canonical shape. At least with regard to the opening passages of Q 5 and 9, the hypothesis of significant literary growth does actually stand up to scrutiny (Sinai forthcoming a). It remains to be seen whether similar redactional analyses can be carried out for other passages from the long surahs.

III  Two disputed questions Dating the closure of the Qurʾānic corpus According to Islamic reports that are likely to have been in circulation by the first half of the eighth century (thus Motzki 2001), the standard recension of the Qurʾān’s consonantal skeleton (rasm) was compiled under the first caliph Abū Bakr (r. 632–​634) and subsequently endorsed as the authoritative text of scripture by the third caliph ʿUthmān (r. 644–​656). In doing so, ʿUthmān is said to have championed the standard text above alternative versions of the Qurʾān, which reportedly arranged the surahs in a different order and exhibited a limited amount of 17

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textual variance from the standard text; one alternative recension, ascribed to the Prophetic companion ʿAbdallāh b.  Masʿūd, allegedly lacked surahs 1 and 113–​114, while another one, attributed to Ubayy b. Kaʿb, included two brief additional surahs (Jeffery 1937). Scholarly opinion on the historicity of the measures ascribed to ʿUthmān has long been divided. On the one hand, it has been surmised that the final redaction of the Qurʾān may only have occurred towards the end of the seventh century, perhaps under the caliph ʿAbd al-​ Malik, who reigned from 685 to 705 CE (e.g., Robinson 2005: 100–​104; de Prémare 2002; Shoemaker 2012: 136–​158). Other scholars, including the present author, have argued in favour of ʿUthmān’s promulgation of a standard recension of scripture (Sadeghi and Bergmann 2010; Sinai 2014). Until fairly recently, the academic conversation about the Qurʾān’s date of closure has mostly focused on a certain amount of epigraphic evidence (especially the inscriptions of the Dome of the Rock), the implications of various early Islamic and Christian literary sources that could be construed as contradicting the standard narrative of the Qurʾān’s codification, and the question whether the unanimous association of the standard text with ʿUthmān by all major Islamic confessions should be deemed to reflect a historical fact. A new development in the debate has been the carbon dating of an increasing number of sheets from early Qurʾānic manuscripts. It may be useful to briefly review recent findings. Arguably the most interesting early Qurʾānic manuscript is a palimpsest discovered in the 1970s in the Grand Mosque of Ṣanʿāʾ. While its upper layer conforms to the standard version of the Qurʾānic text, its lower layer, of which forty leaves have been edited (Sadeghi and Goudarzi 2012), diverges from the standard recension of the Qurʾān by omitting, transposing, or adding individual words and also by a different order of surahs. Still, it is fair to say that even this non-​ standard recension is recognisably a version of the Qurʾān as we know it.18 When subjected to a radiocarbon examination, the parchment of one sheet of this manuscript has been found to have a 95 per cent probability of having been produced (strictly speaking, of the animal having been killed) at some point between 578 and 669 CE, which translates into a one-​sided probability of 95.5 per cent of having been manufactured before 660.5 CE (Sadeghi and Bergmann 2010: 348, 353–​354). Furthermore, the carbon dating of a manuscript of seventy-​seven sheets kept at Tübingen and containing Q 17:37–​36:57 (Ma VI 165) has yielded a 95 per cent probability of the parchment having been produced between 649 and 675 CE, and the 95 per cent range for parchment samples from a manuscript containing substantial sections of Q 2–​6, 8–​11, 14–​15, 21, and 63–​64 has been established as 606–​652 CE (Marx and Jocham 2015).19 Most recently, the testing of two parchment leaves from Birmingham (Mingana 1572a) that document parts of Q 18–​20 and seem to belong together with another sixteen sheets from Paris has produced a 95 per cent range from 568 to 645 CE.20 In view of the results just rehearsed, a very considerable amount of the Qurʾān’s consonantal skeleton, whether in its canonical recension or not, would appear to have been around by 650 or 660 CE. There are flies in the ointment, though. The carbon dating of several folios of the Ṣanʿāʾ palimpsest at a laboratory in Lyons has in three cases returned stunningly early 95 per cent ranges in the fifth and sixth centuries (Robin 2015: 65). One of the three leaves in question was then sent to be tested at two further laboratories, one of which (Oxford) yielded results consistent with those obtained by Sadeghi and Bergmann, while the other (Kiel) produced a somewhat later yet still baffling 95 per cent range from 430 to 610 CE.To respond to such anomalies with a general suspension of belief in the applicability of carbon dating to Qurʾānic manuscripts, and thus to question an impressive body of well-​established science, seems hardly promising. The most reasonable stance is probably to keep calm and carry on, that is, to keep honing the radiocarbon examination of early Qurʾānic manuscripts, accumulate as substantial a collection of results as feasible, and disregard extreme outlier results (which might in some cases be due to 18

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faulty treatment procedures). The alternative, less attractive in my view, would be to accept that the Qurʾān, or at least parts of it, could be much older than the tradition tells us, as suggested in Reynolds 2015 in response to the very early date range obtained for the Birmingham leaves.

The Qurʾānic milieu The preliminary conclusion that much of the Qurʾānic rasm had crystallised by the mid-​seventh century does not require that the traditional Islamic account of its genesis must be accepted lock, stock, and barrel. For instance, even the latest round of carbon datings does not exclude the possibility of limited textual revision in the immediate wake of Muḥammad’s death. Another parameter that is bound to remain controversial is the geographical origin of the Qurʾān: did the corpus really originate in western Arabia? The evidence that is most immediately relevant to assessing this question is the Qurʾānic text itself, in particular its numerous links not only with biblical literature, but even more so with post-​biblical Rabbinic and Christian texts (the best overview of which remains Speyer 1961, originally published in 1931). Syriac literature has been found to be particularly significant. Not only does the religious terminology of the Qurʾān betray a very considerable Aramaic imprint (Jeffery 2007), but several Qurʾānic passages and narratives have now been shown to be closely related to Syriac texts (Griffith 2008; van Bladel 2008; Reynolds 2010; Witztum 2011). The same applies to what Tor Andrae has called the Qurʾān’s “eschatological piety”, which displays a host of conceptual and also literary overlaps with the metrical homilies (mimrē) of Ephrem and Jacob of Serugh (Andrae 1926 and Sinai forthcoming d). That the Qurʾānic milieu was deeply saturated with Judaeo-​Christian ideas is also corroborated by Patricia Crone’s attempts to discern the religious beliefs of the Qurʾān’s “associating” opponents (e.g., Crone 2010 and 2012). Already the fact that these opponents are able to dismiss the resurrection of the dead and the final judgement as “ancient fables” implies that they possessed considerable previous acquaintance with the idea (Crone 2012: 454–​455). The above findings pose a problem for the traditional portrayal of the pre-​Islamic Ḥijāz as dominated by crude forms of stone worship (see Hawting 1999).There would appear to be two general ways of resolving the problem (cf. Hoyland 2012: 1069–​1072). The first would be to relocate the Qurʾān’s birthplace from the Ḥijāz closer towards the late antique Fertile Crescent, for instance, to southern Palestine. In support of this contention, one might, for instance, cite significant parallels between the Qurʾānic account of the Nativity of Christ in Q 19 and Palestinian local tradition centred around the Kathisma church near Jerusalem (Shoemaker 2003) as well as the Qurʾān’s manifold agricultural references, at least some of which stand in puzzling tension with the ecology of the Ḥijāz (Crone 2005).21 In addition, the epigraphic record for a Jewish presence in the Ḥijāz is limited, although this admits of more than one explanation (Hoyland 2011). The second viable option would be to reimagine the pre-​Islamic Ḥijāz as a cultural space that was considerably more permeated by late antique traditions than the Islamic tradition would have us believe (Hoyland 2012: 1071–​1072) yet retain the traditional narrative’s general geographical and temporal scaffolding. After all, the latter fits the topographical references that are scattered throughout the Qurʾān well enough (cf. Robinson 2003: 30–​32): The text refers both to a pilgrimage sanctuary (the “inviolable house” or “inviolable place of prostration”; e.g., 2:144.149.191.196) that is identified with the Kaʿba (Q 5:97) and associated with the “valley of Makka” (Q 48:24–​25), as well as to a settlement designated as al-​madīna, “the town”, but apparently also called Yathrib (see Q 9:101, 33:13.60, 63:8). Miscellaneous passages presuppose that the Qurʾānic messenger and his adherents, who reside at the latter place, are battling the residents of the “inviolable place of prostration”, from where the Qurʾānic community has 19

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previously been expelled (see Q 2:191 or 22:40). Of course, familiar toponyms notwithstanding, this elusive tale of two cities could theoretically have played out elsewhere than in the Ḥijāz. Still, the basic framework of the traditional Islamic narrative is far from an alien imposition on the text. Moreover, despite its significant permeation by Christian and Jewish traditions, the Qurʾānic milieu also appears to have been home to pagan deities (Q 53:19–​20, Q 71:23) and cultic practices, including animal sacrifice (Q 2:196, 5:2.95, 22:32–​33.36–​37, 48:25, 108:2). Locating the Qurʾān’s formation at the periphery of the late antique Near East would also fit the observation that Qurʾānic appropriations of biblical and post-​biblical material often reflect “an oral intermingling of traditions, motifs, and histories” rather than literal dependence on specific texts (Griffith 2013: 54–​56, 89). Finally, the fact that the Ḥijāzī model does not require large-​scale rewriting of the standard version of early Islamic history –​an onerous task that may end up creating more potholes than it fills in –​is probably an advantage.22 This is obviously not the place to attempt to settle the issue. On both sides, further moves can be made in response to the arguments just intimated. For instance, a proponent of the Ḥijāzī scenario could attempt to explain parallels between the Qurʾānic account of the Nativity and Palestinian local tradition by proposing that Arab tribes north of the Ḥijāz may have functioned as a relay station for the dissemination of narrative lore that ultimately fed into the Qurʾān. Conversely, a critic of the Ḥijāzī thesis might attempt to show that the two-​city constellation implied by various Qurʾānic passages was only worked into the Islamic scripture at a late stage. One might even toy with composite scenarios that would relocate the birthplace of only some portions of the Qurʾān and envisage the secondary splicing together of a Hijazi corpus with a Palestinian one, although this would require a painstaking exercise in literary separation.23

Notes 1 Translations of Qurʾānic verses are freely adapted from Jones (2007). Like Jones, I sometimes employ superscript “s” and “p” in order to distinguish pronouns whose singular and plural forms are identical in modern English. 2 For a considerably more opinionated introduction to the Qurʾān, see Sinai (2016). The first section of this contribution and parts of the second are concise variants of material also covered in Sinai forthcoming e, ch. 1. 3 This claim is not undisputed. Luxenberg (2000) attempts to show that the Qurʾān was originally composed in an Arabic-​Aramaic mixed language, yet his approach and reasoning have repeatedly been criticised as flawed (de Blois 2003; Saleh 2010;Wild 2010; Sinai 2012a).Vollers (1906) argues that the Qurʾān was originally recited without desinential endings (iʿrāb). This claim, too, has not been widely accepted; see, e.g.,Versteegh (2001: 40–​41) and Holes (2004: 16–​17). 4 The etymology of the term sūra is obscure, the most likely derivation being Syriac surṭā (“line, letter, character”) (Jeffery 2007:  180–​182). The word is employed already in the Qurʾān itself, where its approximate meaning may be paraphrased as a “portion of revelation” of undetermined length (Ambros 2004: 141); see e.g. the superscript at Q 24:1. For a more extended discussion, see Boisliveau (2014: 82–​86). 5 The word āya, too, appears already within the Qurʾān, where it not only refers to manifestations of God’s power and justice in nature and history, but, like sūra, is used to designate portions of revelation (Ambros 2004: 32), possibly of a more limited extent than a sūra. For a more detailed treatment see again Boisliveau (2014: 68–​82). 6 A case where one might not consider a divine-​voice construal of the first person immediately obvious are first-​person oaths like Q 75:1–​2, but note that the following verse clearly employs the divine voice. 7 Marshall (1999: 165) also describes the Qurʾān as enacting a “triangular drama”, although he identifies its vertices differently. 8 On the identity of the naṣārā, see Griffith (2011), and on that of the “associators” Crone (2010 and 2012). 9 For thirty examples of formulaic systems in the Qurʾān, see Bannister (2014: 220–​236).

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The Qurʾān 10 The English rendering of the phrase is adopted from A.J. Arberry. For an alternative interpretation see Sinai (2006: 130–​131). That the phrase might be read as referring to the Qurʾān’s high formulaic density was argued in a presentation by Giuliano Lancioni at the 2014 Annual Meeting of the International Qur’anic Studies Association. 11 See in more detail Sinai (forthcoming b). 12 Amīn Aḥsan Iṣlāḥī, to whom I owe this insight, has claimed that all surahs are arranged in pairs (cf. Mir 1986: 75–​84). This strikes me as an over-​generalisation. 13 The left-​hand column is compiled from Neuwirth 1981, fold-​out table 1. Interchangeable components of rhyme endings are represented by means of a system of variables designed by Anton Spitaler and explained in Neuwirth (1981: 77). In addition to ordinary transliteration conventions, “2” represents the interchangeable long vowels ī or ū; “3” represents any one of the short vowels u, i, and a; “C” represents any consonant; “C(C)” means “either one or two successive consonants”; “n/​m” means “either n or m”. The form-​critical analysis in the right-​hand column is partly dependent on Neuwirth (1981: 221) and Robinson (2003: 132–​133). 14 The reading yawmu in the nominative (“the day on which …”) is also attested. 15 On Q 2 see Zahniser (2000), Robinson (2003: 201–​223), Farrin (2010), and Reda El-​Tahry (2010); on Q 4 see Zahniser (1997 and 2000); on Q 5 see Robinson (2001) and Cuypers (2009). 16 For an attempt to map out terminological correspondences in Q 5:1–​11, which do not yield a concentric shape, see Sinai (forthcoming a). 17 For details on how these values have been computed see Sinai (forthcoming c). 18 For an annotated list of variants see Sadeghi and Bergmann (2010: 417–​433). 19 A helpful overview is given in Marx and Jocham (2015: 37). The second manuscript consists of seven sheets now kept in the Staatsbibliothek Berlin (Or. fol. 4313) that apparently belong together with 31 further leaves photographed in Cairo by Gotthelf Bergsträßer (Qāf 47). For digitised copies, see http://​idb.ub.uni-​tuebingen.de/​diglit/​MaVI165 as well as http://​corpuscoranicum.de/​handschriften/​uebersicht. 20 See http://​vmr.bham.ac.uk/​Collections/​Mingana/​Islamic_​Arabic_​1572a/​table/​ and, again, the Corpus Coranicum website. According to Alba Fedeli, the Birmingham leaves are part of the same manuscript as BnF Arabe 328 c (see https://​iqsaweb.wordpress.com/​2013/​03/​18/​qmmc/​). 21 Shoemaker himself proposes that the relevant portions of the Qurʾān may have been composed “well after the death of Muḥammad” when the Muslim conquerors “had encountered the Kathisma church and its traditions” (Shoemaker 2003: 12).Thus, his article questions the traditional dating of the Qurʾān as much as its traditional localisation. 22 By saying this, I do not, of course, mean to discourage historians from upsetting believers. 23 Cf. Donner (2010: 56): “The markedly different style and content of diverse parts of the Qur’an may be evidence that the text as we now have it is a composite of originally separate texts hailing from different communities of Believers in Arabia.”

Bibliography Abdel Haleem, M.A.S. 1992. Grammatical Shift for Rhetorical Purposes: Iltifāt and Related Features in the Qurʾān. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 55:407–​432. ——​. trans. 2010. The Qur’an. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ambros, A. (with Procházka, S.) 2004. A Concise Dictionary of Koranic Arabic. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Andrae, T. 1926. Der Ursprung des Islams und das Christentum. Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksells. Bannister, A.G. 2014. An Oral-​Formulaic Study of the Qur’an. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Bauer, H. 1921. Über die Anordnung der Suren und über die geheimnisvollen Buchstaben im Qoran. Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 75:1–​20. Bell, R. trans. 1937. The Qurʾān. 2 vols. Edinburgh: T&T Clark. van Bladel, K. 2008. The Alexander Legend in the Qurʾān 18:83–​102. In: Reynolds, G.S. ed. The Qurʾān in Its Historical Context. Abingdon: Routledge, 175–​203. Boisliveau, A.-​S. 2014. Le Coran par lui-​même: Vocabulaire et argumentation du discours coranique autoréférentiel. Leiden: Brill. Crone, P. 2005. How Did the Quranic Pagans Make a Living? Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 68:387–​399. ——​. 2010. The Religion of the Qurʾānic Pagans: God and the Lesser Deities. Arabica 57:151–​200.

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Nicolai Sinai ——​. 2012.The Quranic Mushrikūn and the Resurrection, Part I. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 75:445–​472. Cuypers, M. 2009. The Banquet: A Reading of the Fifth Sura of the Qurʾan. Kelley, P. trans. Miami, FL: Convivium. ——​. 2011. Semitic Rhetoric as a Key to the Question of the naẓm of the Qur’anic Text. Journal of Qur’anic Studies 13:1–​24. de Blois, F. 2003. Review of Christoph Luxenberg, Die syro-​aramäische Lesart des Koran. Journal of Qur’anic Studies 5:92–​97. de Prémare, A.-​L. 2002. Les fondations de l’Islam: entre écriture et histoire. Paris: Éditions du Seuil. Donner, F.M. 2010. Muḥammad and the Believers:  At the Origins of Islam. Cambridge, MA:  Harvard University Press. Ernst, C.W. 2011. How to Read the Qur’an: A New Guide, with Select Translations. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Farrin, R.K. 2010. Surat al-​Baqara: A Structural Analysis. Muslim World 100:17–​32. ——​. 2014. Structure and Qur’anic Interpretation:  A  Study of Symmetry and Coherence in Islam’s Holy Text. Ashland, OR: White Cloud Press. Frolov, D. 2002. The Problem of the “Seven Long” Surahs. In:  Leder, S. et  al. eds. Studies in Arabic and Islam:  Proceedings of the 19th Congress, Union Européene des Arabisants et Islamisants, Halle 1998. Leuven: Peeters, 193–​203. Griffith, S.H. 2008. Christian Lore and the Arabic Qurʾān:  The Companions of the Cave in Sūrat al-​ Kahf and in Syriac Christian Tradition. In:  Reynolds, G.S. ed. The Qurʾān in Its Historical Context. Abingdon: Routledge, 109–​137. ——​. 2011. Al-​Nasārā in the Qurʾān: A Hermeneutical Reflection. In: Reynolds, G.S. ed. New Perspectives on the Qurʾān: The Qurʾān in its Historical Context 2. Abingdon: Routledge, 301–​322. ——​. 2013. The Bible in Arabic:  The Scriptures of the “People of the Book” in the Language of Islam. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Hawting, G.R. 1999. The Idea of Idolatry and the Emergence of Islam:  From Polemic to History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Holes, C. 2004. Modern Arabic:  Structures, Functions, and Varieties. Washington, DC:  Georgetown University Press. Hoyland, R. 2011. The Jews of the Hijaz in the Qurʾān and in Their Inscriptions. In: Reynolds, G.S. ed. New Perspectives on the Qurʾān: The Qurʾān in its Historical Context 2. Abingdon: Routledge, 91–​116. ——​. 2012. “Early Islam as a Late Antique Religion”. In: Johnson, S.F. ed. The Oxford Handbook of Late Antiquity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1053–​1077. Jeffery, A. 1937. Materials for the History of the Text of the Qurʾān: The Old Codices. Leiden: Brill. ——​. 2007. The Foreign Vocabulary of the Qurʾān. Leiden: Brill (originally published 1938. Baroda: Oriental Institute). Jones, A. trans. 2007. The Qurʾān. Cambridge: Gibb Memorial Trust. Luxenberg, C. 2000. Die syro-​aramäische Lesart des Koran: Ein Beitrag zur Entschlüsselung der Koransprache. Berlin: Das Arabische Buch. Marshall, D. 1999. God, Muhammad and the Unbelievers: A Qurʾanic Study. Richmond: Curzon Press. Marx, M.J. and Jocham, T.J. 2015. Zu den Datierungen von Koranhandschriften durch die C-​Methode. Frankfurter Zeitschrift für islamisch-​theologische Studien 2:9–​43. Mir, M. 1986. Coherence in the Qurʾān: A Study of Iṣlāḥī’‘s Concept of Naẓm in Tadabbur-​i Qurʾān. Indianapolis, IN: American Trust Publications. Motzki, H. 2001. The Collection of the Qurʾān: A Reconsideration of Western Views in Light of Recent Methodological Developments. Der Islam 78:1–​34. Müller, D.H. 1896. Die Propheten in ihrer ursprünglichen Form: Die Grundgesetze der ursemitischen Poesie erschlossen und nachgewiesen in Bibel, Keilschriften und Koran und in ihren Wirkungen erkannt in den Chören der griechischen Tragödie, vol. 1: Prolegomena und Epilegomena.Vienna: Alfred Hölder. Neuwirth, A. 1981. Studien zur Komposition der mekkanischen Suren. Berlin: de Gruyter. —​. 2014. Scripture, Poetry, and the Making of a Community: Reading the Qur’an as a Literary Text. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Paret, R. trans. 2001. Der Koran. 8th ed. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer. Reda El-​Tahry, N. 2010. Textual Integrity and Coherence in the Qur’an:  Repetition and Narrative Structure in Surat al-​Baqara. PhD thesis, University of Toronto. Reynolds, G.S. 2010. The Qurʾān and Its Biblical Subtext. Abingdon: Routledge.

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The Qurʾān ——​. 2011. Le problème de la chronologie du Coran. Arabica 58:477–​502. ——​. 2015.Variant Readings. Times Literary Supplement 7(August):14–​15. Rippin, A. 2000. Muḥammad in the Qurʾān: Reading Scripture in the 21st Century. In: Motzki, H. ed. The Biography of Muḥammad: The Issue of the Sources. Leiden: Brill, 298–​309. Robin, C.J. 2015. L’Arabie dans le Coran: Réexamen de quelques termes à la lumière des inscriptions préislamiques”. In: Déroche, F. et al. eds. Les origines du Coran, le Coran des origines. Paris: Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-​Lettres, 27–​74. Robinson, C. 2005. ʿAbd al-​Malik. Oxford: Oneworld. Robinson, N. 2001. Hands Outstretched:  Towards a Re-​reading of Sūrat al-​Māʾida. Journal of Qur’anic Studies 3:1–​19. ——​. 2003. Discovering the Qur’an: A Contemporary Approach to a Veiled Text. London: SCM Press. Sadeghi, B. 2011. The Chronology of the Qurʾān: A Stylometric Research Program. Arabica 58:210–​299. Sadeghi, B. and Bergmann, U. 2010. The Codex of a Companion of the Prophet and the Qurʾān of the Prophet. Arabica 57:343–​436. Sadeghi, B. and Goudarzi, M. 2012. Ṣanʿāʾ 1 and the Origins of the Qurʾān. Der Islam 87:1–​129. Saleh, W.A. 2010. The Etymological Fallacy and Qur’anic Studies:  Muhammad, Paradise, and Late Antiquity. In: Neuwirth, A., Sinai, N., and Marx, M. eds. The Qurʾān in Context: Historical and Literary Investigations into the Qurʾānic Milieu. Leiden: Brill, 649–​698. Shoemaker, S.J. 2003. Christmas in the Qurʾān: The Qurʾānic Account of Jesus’ Nativity and Palestinian Local Tradition. Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 28:11–​39. ——​. 2012. The Death of a Prophet: The End of Muhammad’s Life and the Beginnings of Islam. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Sinai, N. 2006. Qurʾānic Self-​Referentiality as a Strategy of Self-​Authorization. In:  Wild, S. ed. Self-​ Referentiality in the Qurʾān. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 103–​134. ——​. 2011. An Interpretation of Sūrat al-​Najm (Q. 53). Journal of Qur’anic Studies 13:1–​28. ——​. 2012a. “Weihnachten im Koran” oder “Nacht der Bestimmung”? Eine Interpretation von Sure 97. Der Islam 88:11–​32. ——​. 2012b. Review of Carl Ernst, How to Read the Qur’an. Times Literary Supplement 13(July):24. ——​. 2014. When Did the Consonantal Skeleton of the Quran Reach Closure? Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 77:273–​292 and 509–​521. ——​. 2016. Der Koran. In: Brunner, R. ed. Islam: Einheit und Vielfalt einer Weltreligion. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 132–​166 ——​. Forthcoming a. Processes of Literary Growth and Editorial Expansion in Two Medinan Surahs. In: Bakhos, C. and Cook, M. eds. Islam and its Past: Jāhiliyya, Late Antiquity, and the Qur’an. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ——​ . Forthcoming b. Two Types of Inner-​ Qur’anic Interpretation. In:  Tamer, G. ed. Exegetical Crossroads:  Understanding Scripture in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam in the Medieval Orient. Berlin:  de Gruyter. ——​. Forthcoming c. Inner-​Qur’anic Chronology. In: Abdel Haleem, M. and Shah, M. eds. The Oxford Handbook of Qur’anic Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ——​. Forthcoming d. The Eschatological Kerygma of the Early Qur’an. In: Amirav, H., Grypeou, E., and Stroumsa, G. eds. Apocalypticism and Eschatology in Late Antiquity: Encounters in the Abrahamic Religions, 6th–8th Centuries. Leuven: Peeters. ——​. Forthcoming e. The Qur’an:  A  Historical-​Critical Introduction. Edinburgh:  Edinburgh University Press. Speyer, H. 1961. Die biblischen Erzählungen im Koran. Hildesheim: Georg Olms. Stewart, D. 1990. Sajʿ in the Qurʾān: Prosody and Structure. Journal of Arabic Literature 21:101–​139. Versteegh, K. 2001. The Arabic Language. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Vollers, K. 1906. Volkssprache und Schriftsprache im alten Arabien. Straßburg: Trübner. Wild, S. 2006. Why Self-​ Referentiality? In:  Wild, S. ed. Self-​ Referentiality in the Qurʾān. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1–​23. ——​. 2010. Lost in Philology? The Virgins of Paradise and the Luxenberg Hypothesis. In: Neuwirth, A., Sinai, N., and Marx, M. eds. The Qurʾān in Context: Historical and Literary Investigations into the Qurʾānic Milieu. Leiden: Brill, 625–​647. Witztum, J. 2011. Joseph among the Ishmaelites: Q 12 in Light of Syriac Sources. In: Reynolds, G.S. ed. New Perspectives on the Qurʾān:  The Qurʾān in its Historical Context 2. Abingdon:  Routledge, 425–​448.

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Nicolai Sinai Zahniser, A.H.M. 1997. Sūra as Guidance and Exhortation:  The Composition of Sūrat al-​Nisāʾ”. In: Afsaruddin, A. and Zahniser, A.H.M. eds. Humanism, Culture, and Language in the Near East: Studies in Honor of Georg Krotkoff. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 71–​85. ——​. 2000. Major Transitions and Thematic Borders in Two Long Sūras: al-​Baqara and al-​Nisāʾ. In: Boullata, I.J. ed. Literary Structures of Religious Meaning in the Qurʾān. Richmond: Curzon Press, 26–​55. Zenger, E. 1998. Der Psalter als Buch: Beobachtungen zu seiner Entstehung, Komposition und Funktion. In: Zenger, E. ed. Der Psalter in Judentum und Christentum. Freiburg: Herder, 1–​57.

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2 THE QURʾĀN AND OTHER SCRIPTURES David Cook

Introduction Relating the Qurʾān to other scriptures and subject matter known from prior to the time of Muḥammad (d. 632) is a sensitive subject. The Qurʾān speaks of itself as a complete book (Q 6:38, allusion in 9:111), as one “revealed in clear Arabic” (Q 12:2, 16:103), and when citing the previous holy figures (in Islam mostly called messengers or prophets) speaks of books associated with them (e.g., Q 41:45, 53:36, 87:19). These “books,” however, are said to be superseded by the revelation of the Qurʾān. But there is said to be a relationship between these holy figures, such as Jesus, and Muḥammad, as in Q 61:6: And (remember) when Jesus, son of Mary, said: “Sons of Israel! Surely I am the messenger of God to you, confirming what was before me of the Torah, and bringing good news of a messenger who will come after me, whose name will be Ahmad.”1 Such a chain suggests that there is a relationship between the various messages. Muḥammad himself is said specifically not to bring a new message (e.g., Q 34:46, 88:21), but in fact to be part of that prophetic process going all the way back to Adam, the father of humanity. However, Muslims have not always found it easy to take the Qurʾān according to its plain meaning, and as a result of the doctrine of iʿjāz al-​Qurʾān (the inimitability of the Qurʾān),2 have traditionally sought to isolate the Qurʾān into a superior category of its own. Muslims understood that the Jewish and Christian communities had access to biblical knowledge, and were encouraged by early traditions to learn from them (Kister 1972), but this learning process is a considerable distance from actually accepting that there are literary dependencies from this literature inside the Qurʾān. Early exegetes such as Muqātil b. Sulaymān (d. 767) did use extensive Jewish and Christian material in order to comment on the Qurʾān; however, by the middle Islamic period (13th–​14th centuries) this practice was frowned upon, and the material previously culled was called “Isrāʾīliyyāt” and often rejected as un-​Islamic. Since the 19th century western scholars in ever increasing levels of radicalism have sought to penetrate the linguistic, historical and biblical, and conceptual-​thematic layers of the Qurʾān.

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Starting with the German scholars Theodor Nöldeke (d. 1930) and Julius Wellhausen (d. 1918), concurrently with similar work on the biblical text, there have been consistent attempts to isolate the influences upon the Qurʾān. These can be grouped into several tendencies: 1 Scholars who emphasized Jewish antecedents to the Qurʾān, a group which included Abraham Geiger (d. 1874) and Charles Torrey (d. 1956).3 In general, scholars who promoted this tendency were outsiders to the field of Islam coming from the tradition of biblical scholarship. 2 Scholars who emphasized the Syriac Christian background to the Qurʾān, a group which included Alphonse Mingana (d. 1937) and now Christoph Luxenberg. Insomuch as there is a consensus among scholars of Islam, the Syriac affinities to the Qurʾān has been the favorite. But there are considerable differences between these scholars, some seeing merely Syriac words, while others see a putative Syriac work or even scripture behind the Qurʾānic text. 3 Scholars who emphasized the Ethiopian connections of the Qurʾān, most especially David Margoliouth (d. 1940). During the period up till approximately 1960 the narrative of the various sub-​strata of the Qurʾān was not seriously challenged. The primary discussion between the scholars was the question of which of these tendencies one favored, rather than the question of whether the approach was legitimate at all. However, with an increasing Muslim presence in the field of Qurʾānic studies, it became less fashionable to divide the Qurʾān into its putative constituent parts, which were all dependent upon a biblical, apocryphal-​midrashic or patristic source, and instead to speak of all of these sources, including the Qurʾān, harking back to an unstated, perhaps oral source.4 Although this approach cannot be said to have been proven, it does have the effect of minimizing the cultural dependence of the Qurʾān on previous religious literature. By far the most provocative group of the Qurʾān’s interpreters have been the revisionists. The revisionists are a disparate group of mostly non-​Muslim scholars, iconoclasts for the most part, who in the words of Gabriel Reynolds “seem to agree on one basic precept: the link between the Qurʾān and the biography of Muḥammad is illusory” (2008: 9; with characterizations of their work, 8–​17). With regard to other scriptures’ relationship to the Qurʾān, revisionists have a tendency to privilege the other scriptures as opposed to the Qurʾān.The reasons for this privileging are the fact that other scriptures are known from the literate cultures of the Near East and the Mediterranean basin, while the Qurʾān is probably based upon an oral form, and thus is historically untrustworthy. Donner notes in his description of the revisionists that they tend to believe that there is no history behind the Muslim accounts, which admittedly are contradictory and unsatisfactory (1998: 23–​25). One should note that there are even occasionally Muslim radical revisionists who would look for non-​monotheistic sources for the Qurʾān, such as the Egyptian hieroglyphs (al-​ʿAdal 2001). Isolation of the affinities of the Qurʾān would allow the scholar to analyze the religious development of Islam at its birth moment. To date, however, the field of Islamic studies lacks a consensus, let alone a coherent methodology, for tackling the issue of the Qurʾān’s relationship with other scriptures. For the most part, Muslims see no need to go further than the classical sources did, while western non-​Muslim scholars are stymied because of a lack of sources by which to plausibly reconstruct this relationship.

Linguistic affinities One way to reconstruct the Qurʾānic relationship to other scriptures is through vocabulary. And indeed, probably the most obvious and widely accepted dependency apparent inside the 26

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Qurʾān is linguistic or semantic. In spite of its claim to be revealed “in clear Arabic” there are a large number of foreign words which have been isolated in the Qurʾān. The real question that scholars have is: does this linguistic dependency point to some type of intellectual or religious dependency as well, or does it merely indicate that Arabic, like many other languages, was receptive to foreign words? After all, the Quraysh, Muḥammad’s tribe, are said to have been traders, and the Arabian Peninsula, located next to the Red Sea, and in close proximity to Syria-​ Palestine, had been a nexus for trade and passage of travelers for centuries.We should expect the Arabic of the 6th and 7th centuries, exemplified in the Qurʾān, to reflect this fact. The most cogent summary of the foreign vocabulary of the Qurʾān was penned by Arthur Jeffery (d. 1959); indeed, so powerful was his book that there have been few additions to it during the years since. Jeffery takes three categories of words, (1) being entirely foreign vocabulary that bears no relationship to Arabic roots, (2) vocabulary where the roots existed in Arabic previous to the Qurʾān, but not in the sense in which the text uses them, and (3) vocabulary that is Arabic, but utilized in a new, religious sense that is dependent upon other languages (usually Syriac, Greek, Hebrew or Ethiopian) (1938). Of these three categories, the first is the easiest to identify, and indeed a number of Muslim exegetes, such as al-​Ṭabarī (d. 923) (2010: I 12–​16) and al-​Suyūṭī (d. 1505) (n.d.: II 136–​142), accepted these words as foreign (Kopf 1999). Jeffery catalogs about 300 foreign words, of which a number are interesting from the point of view of this chapter. Key words such as qurʾān (recitation), ṣalāt (prayer), zakāt (charity), bashshara (to proclaim good news), shirk (associating other entities with God), and a great many biblical names and various details from biblical stories are demonstrated by Jeffery to be foreign. However, Jeffery was not without his critics. It is apparent that Jeffery chose not to over-​emphasize any particular linguistic heritage inside the Qurʾān, which would have settled the debate raging between those who favored a Jewish as opposed to those who favored a Christian source (or sources). For him it seems to have been sufficient to point out that there were demonstrably large numbers of foreign words in the text. His reviewer, Margoliouth, took exception to his reticence concerning certain words, and emphasized the dependence of the Qurʾān upon Ethiopian (1939: 53–​61). However, because most of the linguistic evidence post-​dates the Qurʾān considerably, Ethiopian vocabulary is not seen as the primary focus of contemporary studies of the Qurʾān. Syriac is. Probably the most radical re-reading of the Qurʾān available at the present time is that of Christoph Luxenberg, The Syro-​Aramaic Reading of the Koran (2007).5 Luxenberg’s methodology was to focus upon those words, phrases and sections of the Qurʾān that posed difficulties to the Muslim classical exegetes, and to see whether Syriac meanings or words –​sometimes by repointing or vocalizing the Arabic letters –​would be a better fit. Although his treatment of the Qurʾān is atomistic, in the sense that he takes each instance separately and for the most part does not search for over-​arching connections, his methodology is consistent. Like other revisionists, Reynolds notes, however, that Luxenberg entirely ignores the range of Muslim exegesis and linguistic analysis of the Qurʾān. For Luxenberg the text exists merely to be probed at its weak points and ignored for the rest. His results, however, have been interesting, Three in particular involve the question of the Qurʾān and other scriptures. The first would be the radical re-reading of the tribal name Quraysh, the tribe of the Prophet Muḥammad, which Luxenberg reads as the Syriac qarīšē “meaning gathered together, i.e., foederati” –​the name of the Christian Byzantine allies that were located on the borders of Syria-​Palestine with the task of protecting the settled region (Luxenberg 2007: 236–​238). If this reading were to be taken for Q 106:1, “For the ilāf [uniting or agreements] of Quraysh …” could possibly refer to the location of the revelation being much closer to the region of Syria-​Palestine than is supported by the mainstream 27

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Muslim accounts. After all, the Byzantine foederati were located close to the region of Syria-​ Palestine. Such an understanding would be consistent with Luxenberg’s overall understanding of the Qurʾān as an originally Syriac Christian lectionary that has been overlaid with later Arabic content. Other Luxenberg readings, such as understanding the fabled ḥūr ʿīn (houris, women of paradise) of Q 44:54, 52:20 as being referents to “white grapes” in line with the numerous descriptions of a verdant and lush paradise that appear in the Qurʾān, follow this basic idea (Luxenberg 2007: 250–​291). He further proposes that the ghilmān “youths” of paradise are also a referent to a wine metaphor. In order to bolster his argument, he cites Ephraem the Syrian (d. 373), who utilizes this imagery (Luxenberg 2007: 258, citing Beck 1948).6 As a final example, Luxenberg tries to prove that the laylat al-​qadr in Q 97:1 “Surely We sent it down on the Night of the Decree [= laylat al-​qadr] …” is actually a reference to the birth of Jesus, with the “angels” and the “spirit” mentioned in 97:4 referring to the singing in his honor mentioned in the New Testament (Luke 2:13) (Luxenberg 2014: 446–​455). As stated previously these re-​readings are radical (and only a small selection among his dozens of re-​readings), and if accepted would necessitate the reinterpretation of the origin of the Qurʾān and the nature of its original language and sources.7 Reviews of Luxenberg have been cautious, as it remains to be seen whether his results will lead to any particular breakthroughs as far as the affinities of the Qurʾān go, and he is vulnerable to attacks because he uses Syriac dictionaries which are late, and thus might not reflect the reality of the language in the 6th and 7th centuries. In the words of one reviewer: “Whether or not Luxenberg is correct in every detail, with one book he has brought exegetical scholarship of the Qurʾān to the ‘critical turn’ that biblical commentators took more than a century ago” (Phenix and Horn 2003:164). However, from the point of view of isolating relationships between the Qurʾān and the Syriac Christian literary heritage for example, Luxenberg offers comparatively little evidence, other than the citation from Ephraem the Syrian above. Taking Jeffery as the baseline for foreign linguistic influences on the Qurʾān, the logical conclusion is that most of the religious terminology of the text is foreign. Unfortunately, there is no identifiable single cultural-​religious source visible in the list, so that Jeffery does not answer the question of whether we should be looking towards Jewish or Christian influences upon the Qurʾān. Although some scholars have added to Jeffery over the years, most notably David Powers (with regard to Q 4:12, 176) (2009), the words and concepts isolated are too atomistic to provide any definitive answers. It is possible at this point to dismiss the influence of Ethiopian upon the Qurʾān, other than for comparatively minor words, on the grounds that the available lexica date from centuries after the Qurʾān, and rather than having influenced the Arabic may have been influenced by it. If one accepts Luxenberg’s proposals, however, then there is an obvious Syriac direction to the influence. Not only that, but since Luxenberg manages to isolate whole phrases, and even short sentences, to achieve a radical re-​reading of the Qurʾān, this influence becomes paramount, and raises questions about the origin of the Qurʾān. Although one cannot say that this Syriac re-​reading of the Qurʾān decisively changes the actual message of the book (in the sense of a modification of monotheism towards Trinitarian Christianity), it does raise an inordinate number of questions with regard to the traditional interpretation of the text, and its sources, which could possibly be traced. Moreover, Luxenberg’s methodology is replicable, and could be expanded upon immensely. What Luxenberg does not do is find actual textual dependency upon identifiable texts that could plausibly be utilized in the context of 7th-​century Arabia.

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Prophetic experiences and messages Scholars have isolated only one passage in the Qurʾān that appears to be more or less a translation from the Bible, Q 21:105, “Certainly We have written in the Psalms, after the Reminder: The earth –​My righteous servants shall inherit it,” which is roughly equivalent to Psalms 37:29, “… the righteous will inherit the land ….” However, the genre of stories of the prophets in the Qurʾān is very significant, and many of these sequences bear some relationship to analogous sequences in the Bible, Christian folk literature, Jewish midrashim, and some other literary sources. There are twenty-​seven prophets listed by name in the Qurʾān, of whom the majority are biblical.8 However, one should note that the biblical and Qurʾānic categories of “prophet” overlap in only three people: Moses, Elijah, and Elisha. This difference in definition, if nothing else, should give one pause before actually seeking the sources for the Qurʾānic sequences. In order to more fully assess the relationship between the Qurʾān and other scriptures, each prophet’s account would have to be examined in turn, since each of them is has a different source-​base. To give the reader a sense of this relationship, selected prophets with one or two instances of relationship to other accounts will be discussed in this section. The most readily chosen prophet for comparison is Joseph, whose sequence in Q 12 as opposed to the account in Genesis 37–​47 is a rare example of a Qurʾānic literary unity. No other surah features Joseph, and his story is told in roughly chronological form, with minimal interpolations. But it is very rare that any verse sequence is an exact replication of the biblical ones. A good example of this is the dream that Joseph has of the sun and the moon and eleven stars bowing down to him (Gen. 37:9–​10), which in the Qurʾānic account (Q 12:4–​5) states: (Remember) when Joseph said to his father: “My father! Surely I saw eleven stars, and the sun and the moon, I saw them prostrating themselves before me.” He said: “My son! Do not recount your vision to your brothers or they will hatch a plot against you. Surely Satan is a clear enemy to humankind.” While it is true that in the biblical account Joseph does tell his father about his dream, it is only after he first tells his brothers, creating the picture of a favorite son enjoying his position vis-​à-​vis his father. But the Qurʾānic account emphasizes the innocence of Joseph towards his brothers, and his father’s attempt at preventing any misunderstandings (which he does also in the biblical account, but more in the form of a rebuke). So the emphasis, even when the dependency is fairly obvious, is quite different. An even more important figure, Abraham, the first monotheist in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, is frequently mentioned in the Qurʾān. One of the stories concerning Abraham is that of his visitation by the divine or angelic visitors, who are on their way to oversee the destruction of the city of Sodom (Gen. 18:15). While in the biblical account the divine visitors eat with Abraham (Gen. 18:8), in the Qurʾānic account the angelic visitors are revealed to him because they do not eat (Q 11:70). Shortly thereafter they foretell the birth of Abraham and Sarah’s future son, Isaac, whereupon Sarah laughs (see Reynolds 2010b). In the biblical account (Gen. 18:10–​12): Now Sarah was listening at the entrance to the tent, which was behind him. Abraham and Sarah were already old and well advanced in years, and Sarah was past the age of child-​bearing. So Sarah laughed to herself as she thought: “After I am worn out and my master is old, will I now have this pleasure?”

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In the Qurʾānic account (Q 11:71–​72): His wife was standing (there), and she laughed. And so we gave her the good news of Isaac, and after Isaac, Jacob. She said: “Woe is me! Shall I give birth when I am an old woman and my husband here is an old man? Surely this is an amazing thing indeed!” In both of the selections the key element of laughter (hence the name of Isaac) is present, as is Sarah’s thought that both she and her husband were too old to procreate. But the biblical context of the meaning of the laughter is lost, because the name Isḥāq in Arabic does not preserve the root “to laugh” (in Arabic the cognate would be ḍaḥaka). And although Sarah’s thought at hearing the news of Isaac’s forthcoming birth is almost an exact citation, the tone is immediately different in the aftermath.The biblical account is rather self-​serving, while the Qurʾānic account emphasizes wonder at the miraculous. Taking one of the many sequences with Moses, one of the rare biblical and Qurʾānic prophets, it is possible to see a wide range of parallels, especially with regard to the stories of the confrontation with Pharaoh, the leading of the Israelites out of Egypt into the desert, and the giving of the Law on Mt. Sinai. One such sequence is the question of whether Moses saw God in all of His glory.This is a fairly sensitive subject for monotheistic faiths, and ultimately Islam came to not accept that it was possible to see God, even for a prophet (al-​Daraquṭnī 1991).The biblical account reads: Then Moses said: “Now show me your glory.” And the Lord said, “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.” (Exod. 33:18–​20) In the end, Moses stands on a rock until the time when God passes by, and then is hidden by God in a cleft, so that he can see His back. And when Moses came to our meeting, and his Lord spoke to him, he said, “My Lord, show me (Yourself), so that I may look at You.” He said, “You will not see Me, but look at the mountain. If it remains in its place, you will see Me.” But when his Lord revealed Hs splendor to the mountain, He shattered it, and Moses fell down thunderstruck. (Q 7:143) In both accounts we have the very direct demand by Moses to see God, and in both cases a refusal by God, which turns into a qualified refusal in both cases, as Moses is allowed to see part of God (His back) in the biblical account –​as opposed to His face which cannot be seen (Exod. 33:23) –​while in the Qurʾānic account the emphasis is upon the inability of the elements to withstand the awesome power of God. This selection is a good example of the comparatively close relationship between the Moses accounts in the Bible and the Qurʾān. Another similarly close relationship exists with regard to the figure of Enoch and Idris. (It is not absolutely certain that these figures are identical, however (Erder 2001–​2006).) The biblical account is extremely enigmatic and has consequently been the locus for a number of Enoch apocalypses: “Enoch walked with God, then he was no more, because God took him away” (Gen. 5:24). The Qurʾānic account is similarly enigmatic, and merely states: “So remember in the Book Idris: Surely he was a man of truth, a prophet. We raised him up to a high place” (Q 30

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19:56–​57). In both accounts we have similar descriptions of the religious character of Enoch/​ Idrīs, and in both accounts there is a taking of him by God, without a sense of resolving his life through death. While the figures from the Hebrew Bible are usually roughly equivalent in their biblical and Qurʾānic accounts, when we consider Jesus there is an almost complete break between the New Testament and the Qurʾānic Jesus. Major themes such as the Virgin birth, the ministry to the disciples, and the crucifixion are indeed present in the Qurʾān, but the material concerning the birth of Jesus is more related to extra-​canonical gospels (below), the disciples and Jesus’ teaching are comparatively minor, and the doctrine of the crucifixion is rejected (Q 4:157).9 But at least one of Jesus’ miracles described in the Qurʾān can be found in the “Infancy Gospel of Thomas,” where the text states: “He made soft clay and fashioned from it twelve sparrows. And it was the Sabbath when he did this” (Cullmann 1963: I 393). Describing the function of Jesus, the Qurʾān (3:49) reads, “And (He will make him) a messenger to the Sons of Israel. ‘Surely I have brought you a sign from your Lord: I shall create for you the form of a bird from clay.Then I will breathe into it and it will become a bird by the permission of God’.”The other miracles of Jesus listed in this verse are those ascribed to Jesus in the gospels, such as healing the blind and the lepers, and raising the dead (Mark 1:40–​45, 5:37–​42, 8:22–​26). In general, the Qurʾānic Jesus serves to voice rejection of key Christian doctrines rather than harmonize with the New Testament account. The most widely accepted borrowed narrative in the Qurʾān is the material in 18:83–​98 which is analogous to the Alexander Romance. In both stories, Alexander (called Dhū al-​ Qarnayn in the Qurʾān)10 is said to be traveling the world (Q 18:84), traveling to its boundaries or edges (Q 18:86, the setting of the sun), a discoverer of sub-​human peoples (Q 18:93), and to be building a barrier against the non-​human peoples Gog and Magog (Q 18:94). These latter peoples, mentioned in Ezekiel 38–​39 and Revelation 20:8, are part of the apocalyptic future, and Alexander is said to build a wall of iron (useful to protect against demonic entities) against them “so they were not able to surmount it, nor were they able (to make) a hole in it” (Q 18:97). In spite of all of these parallels, it remains a very open question as to precisely which version of the Alexander Romance the Qurʾānic account should be compared to. Just like the Arabian Nights and many other popular folk stories, the Alexander Romance has both a textual side (attested in numerous languages) and a popular oral side, for which evidence is scattered. Presumably the Qurʾānic account should be associated with the oral Alexander Romance.11 One last example deserves to be mentioned, which is that of Luqmān (Q 31).The formulaic expressions of Luqmān, who bestows a large number of wisdom sayings upon his son (literally or perhaps a literary trope?), are very strongly reminiscent of the rich Near Eastern heritage of wisdom literature. However, the precise sayings or even the identity of Luqmān are completely unknown. One can say about this particular sequence that it has all the forms of a selection that could be isolated, but has not been. Whether this is because of random chance, in that the work from which it is cited did not survive or has not been discovered as yet, or simply the borrowing of a standard form known from the biblical Book of Proverbs, and Babylonian wisdom literature, and put into the mouth of the otherwise unknown Luqmān is unclear.What is clear is that there is a great deal of additional work to be done on isolating the Qurʾān’s sources. If one could summarize the relationship between the Qurʾānic stories of the prophets and the biblical stories, the most obvious conclusion is that there is a general literary dependency upon the biblical material. If there is a mediating source, then it would have to be a combination of Jewish midrash and Christian popular tellings of biblical stories (homilies). However, the Qurʾānic material’s emphasis is quite different from that of the biblical material. In the latter the semi-​historical narrative12 predominates, and there is little attempt during the course of the narrative to moralize (generally left up to the reader to deduce), while in the former the moral of 31

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the story is the story, and the particular details placing the story within a semi-​historical context are precisely the elements that are not cited. One could view the relationship of the Qurʾān to the other scriptures in terms of orality versus literary sequence, or in terms of moral tale versus semi-​historical tale, but the basic difference is apparent. The other obvious point is that there are virtually no literal dependencies here. The names and basic personalities of the figures are mostly the same in both the Qurʾānic and biblical accounts, but there are virtually no direct citations from the Bible in the Qurʾān (the only exception is that noted above from Psalms). Nor are there direct citations from the extra-​biblical literature, such as the cycle of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus or even the Alexander Romance (both from sura 18). Although the sequence of Luqmān (Q 31) has some of the form of a citation, its source, if so, is unknown. All attempts to compare Luqmān to Aesop or other literary figures have been unsuccessful (see Zahniser 2001–​2006). The same is true of minor allusions, such as that of the aṣḥāb al-​ukhdūd (Q 85:4–​8), which may be to the Martyrs of Najran (c. 524 CE), but equally may be to another group according to the hadith accounts associated with the sequence (see Cook 2008). For this reason the relationship between the Qurʾān and other scriptures with regard to the prophetic narratives is best described as idea diffusion.

Thematic relationships Major themes in the Qurʾān are demonstrably related to previous scriptures. The most obvious themes in this category are the legal and the apocalyptic and eschatological ones. Legal material inside the Qurʾān is mostly related to pre-​existing tribal law, with some small modifications. But there are striking similarities between the programmatic nature of Q 17:22–​38 and the Ten Commandments (Exod. 20:2–​17). In the Qurʾānic account, for example, not worshipping other gods, doing good to parents, telling the truth, treating the poor and the travelers well, not killing one’s children (for fear of poverty), do not commit adultery, do not kill, do not steal from the orphan, and give full measure, dealing fairly. Although the sequence and emphasis is not a precise analog, it is fairly close. Other legal prescriptions in the Qurʾān can be traced to Roman law (such as crucifixion, Q 5:33) or before (Robinson 2001–​2006). However, apocalypse and eschatology is a much more important dependent theme inside the Qurʾān. The standard form of the apocalypse, which is a journey to heaven (and hell), unlocking the secrets of the cosmos through angelic revelation and guidance in Islam is provided by the Night Journey and Ascension into Heaven (al-​isrāʾ wa-​l-​miʿrāj). However, inside the Qurʾān itself the locus for this story is not an apocalypse, but the relatively unclear sequence that merely mentions the Night Journey: “Praise to the One who sent His servant on a journey by night from the Sacred Mosque to the Distant Mosque, whose surroundings We have blessed so that We might show him some of Our signs” (Q 17:1). Thus, apocalypse in the Qurʾān is confined more to the appearance of the Hour, mentioned commonly in the Qurʾān (e.g., Q 12:107, 18:21, etc.), but even more to the eschatological future. Conceptually, the word al-​sāʿa (the Hour [of Judgment]), which appears in the holy book about forty-​five times, spread throughout the text, is the most significant. When one reads this selection, one learns the following things: there is no doubt that the Hour will come (Q 18:21, 22:7, 40:59, 45:32), it is very close (Q 16:77), and it will come very suddenly (Q 6:31, 12:107, 22:55, 47:18). Only God knows its exact time (Q 7:187, 31:34, 43:85), but He has promised that it will come (Q 18:21, 45:32). Unbelievers, who are the majority of the people (Q 40:59), say that it will not come (Q 22:55, 25:11, 34:3), and are said to be making a grave error (Q 42:18); they will see the punishment and the Hour which God has promised with their own eyes (Q 19:75). Some people are uncertain about what the exact meaning of “the Hour” is (45:32), 32

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while some others are said to be insensitive to its portents (Q 12:107), so they are encouraged to watch carefully (Q 43:66, 47:18), and to ask the Prophet: “When is it, and what are its signs?” (Q 7:187, 79:42). Its coming is heralded by the splitting of the moon (Q 54:1), and its arrival is likened to an earthquake (Q 22:1). Several times the audience is asked the rhetorical question: What makes you know that the Hour is close? (Q 33:63, 42:17). When the Hour does come, those unprepared for it will be the losers (Q 6:31, 45:27); each person will receive his due for his actions (Q 20:15). Similar words such as amr (in most apocalyptic contexts, the dispensation, or time period allotted for a revelation), which appears about seventy-​five times in the text. Of course, the vast majority of these occurrences have nothing to do with the apocalyptic meaning –​only about 14 of them are relevant –​and ajal also are expressive of Qurʾānic apocalyptic. Frequently the holy text speaks of completing the amr (Q 2:210, 19:39) and returning the umūr (pl.) to God (Q 2:210), or of the cataclysmic events of this return (Q 11:123), or the future when the amr of God will be apparent (Q 9:48). There is total confidence in the immediate appearance of the amr, and unbelievers are urged not to wish for its hasty appearance (Q 16:1) since they will be the losers when it comes (Q 40:78). Occasionally it is expected in conjunction with the appearance of angels (Q 16:33), and it is said to have clear signs (Q 45:17). Only once, however, is the word amr placed in conjunction with the Hour (Q 16:77) –​there its sudden blinding appearance is emphasized. It is almost impossible to supply one word which could translate all of these verses. One could speak in certain cases of the “direct rule or regime of God,” or His unconcealed sovereignty over the world. Certainly, whatever the amr is should be seen as a complete and fundamental change in the present world order: the end of the world as we now know it. God will reveal Himself in a way not previously seen in history. It is tempting to speak in these cases of amr as “dispensation,” mainly because of the use of the word to describe past history (in the sense of “finishing off the present amr”) as well as future history.13 Ajal, for example, is used much in the same manner as amr (Q 7:34, 10:49), where it is said that every community has an ajal. One would assume that in this context the meaning is “an end, finale.” Some of the key apocalyptic persons or groups, such as Gog and Magog (Q 18:94, 21:96), discussed above, are also related to biblical groups.This is true with regard to the dābbat al-​arḍ (Q 27:82), where the text states: “When the word falls upon them, We shall bring forth for them a creature from the earth.” Most likely this is an analog to the “beast from the earth” mentioned as one of the helpers of the Antichrist in Revelation 13:11. However, it is not clear that the function of the dābba and the beast of Revelation is at all similar. From the eschatological aspect, most of the seven names for hell in the Qurʾān are taken from Jewish and Christian sources, as is the primary word for paradise, janna. Ideas of the Day of Judgment (yawm al-​dīn), the Last Day (al-​yawm al-​ākhir) and the Day of Resurrection (yawm al-​qiyāma), which are all the primary loci for eschatological events, are all taken from biblical and post-​biblical sources. Neuwirth has isolated comparisons between the eschatological fragment of Q 78:1–​17 and Psalms 104:1–​8, 13–​23 that are quite striking (2014). Presumably there are more parallels of this nature to be made. The apocalyptic and eschatological materials are interesting because of what they say and what they do not say. While there are extensive examples of eschatological themes, and mentions of the Hour, the Day of Judgment and the Day of Resurrection in the Qurʾān, there are no examples of literary apocalypses of the type promoted in the Judaism and Christianity of Late Antiquity.The fragmented nature of the apocalyptic and eschatological sequences in the Qurʾān suggest that the audience was already basically aware of these genres, and that the communication of them to the audience was oral, and not literary. 33

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What we do not find in the Qurʾānic apocalyptic is sequences of portents, unless one takes Q 30:2–​4 “The Romans have been conquered in the nearest (part) of the land, but after their conquering, in a few years,” historically a reference to the Byzantines’ defeat at the hands of the Sasanian Persians in 614 (probably), to be a portent. But although “the portents” of the Hour are mentioned frequently (see above), they are nowhere enumerated, or expanded upon in any form reminiscent of the Jewish or Christian literary apocalypse.

Conclusions One of the dangers when listing off the literary relationships of a work is that it comes to be viewed as nothing more than a hodge-​podge of its sources. Obviously the Qurʾān, being a comparatively later religious document from the 7th century, is in a difficult position in this regard, as before it there are millennia of documentable texts from which to identify its sources. However, just as obviously, the Qurʾān is a unified text, and should not be seen as being some type of stitched-​together document, which for purely arbitrary reasons has become a holy book. The Qurʾān is very much the product of its milieu, but the question raised by examination of its sources is: what precisely is that milieu? Is it the traditional Islamic milieu of Mecca and Medina, the words associated with an unlettered prophet to a pagan people? Or is it the milieu of a trading Quraysh, familiar with Syria-​Palestine, intimate with monks and Christian wayfarers and traders, all of whom are convinced of the up-​coming end of the world? If we are to take the revisionists such as Luxenberg seriously, then perhaps we should look for some type of document or documents which underlie the Qurʾān, and place it/​them more within a Syrian Christian milieu. The fundamental problem with the ideas that the revisionists offer is not that they are implausible, but that they are untestable. In comparatively few cases have they been able to offer a comparison between the ur-​Qurʾān, whether it is a Syriac Christian document or something else, and a plausible source. Even in the case of the Alexander Romance, where the parallels between the Qurʾān and the original account seem convincing, trying to supply a datable text that could have been the source for the Qurʾān or a common source between the Qurʾān and the Syriac text is problematic. As it stands, the mainstream of early Islamic scholarship does not take the revisionist ideas very seriously. For most, it is sufficient to understand that the Qurʾān originally had an oral form, it contains a large number of foreign words, textual references to biblical and post-​biblical materials, and themes that are associated with the vast Jewish and Christian apocalyptic and eschatological heritage. Actual citations, however, from this heritage are comparatively few, which strengthens the belief that the transmission was oral, and not literary. We should be looking for the sources of the Qurʾān among the travelers and traders of Syria-​Palestine and the Ḥijāz, rather than among the scholars and texts.

Notes 1 All Qurʾānic translations are from Droge (2014). 2 See Radscheit (1996: 113–​123) for the idea that the Qur ʾān itself proves this doctrine. 3 See Ibn Warraq (1998:165–​226 and 293–​348), including a translation of Geiger’s classic. 4 See Waldman (1985: 1–​16). 5 English translation of Die syro-​aramäische Lesung des Koran (2000). 6 A full critique of his conclusions appears in Wild (2010: 625–​647, especially 635). 7 See also Patricia Crone (2010), where she questions the location and affinities of the Qurʾānic first audience without citing Luxenberg. 8 See ʿAbd al-​Bāsiṭ al-​Ḥanafī (1992) for the list.

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The Qurʾān and other scriptures 9 However, Suleiman Mourad (2011) notes that early Muslims were far from being united in rejecting Jesus’ death and even resurrection. 10 For problems with the identity of Dhū al-​Qarnayn, see Renard (2001–​2006). 11 Kevin van Bladel (2008) posits that the Syriac text of approximately 629/​30 is the influence upon the Qur ʾān. 12 Using this term with the meaning that the biblical narratives have the form of historical annals, not that they are purely historical or objective in their contents. 13 Note the discussion in Baljon (1959).

Bibliography al-​ʿAdal, S. ʿA.M. 2001. Al-​Hirughlifiya tufassir al-​Qurʾān al-​karīm. Cairo: Maktabat al-​Madbuli. Baljon, M.S. 1959. The “Amr of God” in the Koran. Acta Orientalia 23:5–​18. Beck, E. 1948. Eine christliche Paradise zu den Paradiesjungfrauen des Korans? Orientalia Christiana Periodica 14:398–​405. van Bladel, K. 2008. The Alexander Legend in the Qurʾān 18:83–​102. In: Reynolds, G.S. ed. The Qurʾān in its Historical Context. London: Routledge, 175–​203. Cook, D. 2008. The Aṣḥāb Al-​Ukhdūd: History and Ḥadīth in a Martyrological Sequence. Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 34:125–​148. Crone, P. 2010. The Religion of the Qurʾānic Pagans: God and the Lesser Deities. Arabica 57:151–​200. Cullmann, O. trans. 1963. The Infancy Story of Thomas. In: Hennecke, E. and Schneemelcher, W. eds. New Testament Apocrypha. 2 vols. Philadelphia: Westminster University Press, I 363–​417. Donner, F.M. 1998. Narratives of Islamic Origins. Princeton: Darwin Press. al-​Daraquṭnī, ʿA.b.ʿU. 1991. Ruʾyat Allāh. Mabruk, I.M. ed. Cairo: Maktabat al-​Qurʾān. Droge, A.J. trans. 2014. The Qurʾān: A New Annotated Translation. Sheffield: Equinox. Erder, Y. 2001–​2006. Idrīs. In: McAuliffe, J.D. ed. Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān. 6 vols. Leiden: E.J. Brill, II 484–​486. Geiger, A. 1998. What Did Muhammad Borrow from Judaism? In:  Ibn Warraq ed. The Origins of the Koran: Classic Essays on Islam’s Holy Book. Amherst, MA: Prometheus Books, 165–​226. al-​Ḥanafī, ʿA.B.b.Kh. 1992. Tāʾrīkh al-​anbiyāʾ al-​akābir. ʿAlī, M.K.D.ʿI.D. ed. Beirut: ʿAlam al-​Kutub. IbnWarraq.1998.The Origins of the Koran: Classic Essays on Islam’s Holy Book.Amherst,MA: Prometheus Books. Jeffery, A. 1938. The Foreign Vocabulary of the Qurʾān. Baroda: Gaekwar of Baroda’s Oriental Series. Kister, M.J. 1972. Ḥaddithū ʿan banī Isrāʾīla wa-​lā ḥaraja. Israel Oriental Studies 2:215–​239. Kopf, L. 1999. Religious Influences on Medieval Arabic Philology. Repr. in:  Rippin, A. ed. The Qurʾān: Formative Interpretation. Aldershot: Ashgate, 215–​242. Luxenberg, C. 2007. The Syro-​Aramaic Reading of the Koran: A Contribution to the Decoding of the Language of the Koran [Die Syro-​aramaeische Lesart des Koran: Ein Beitrag zur Entschlüsselung der Qurʾānsprache]. Mücke, T. trans. Berlin: Hans Schiller. ——​. 2014. Christmas and the Eucharist in the Qurʾān. In Ibn Warraq ed. Christmas in the Koran: Luxenberg, Syriac and the Near Eastern and Judeo-​Christian Background of Islam. New  York:  Prometheus Books, 411–​468. Margoliouth, D.S. 1939. Some Additions to Professor Jeffery’s Foreign Vocabulary of the Qurʾān. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland 71(1):53–​61. Mourad, S. 2011. Does the Qurʾān Assert or Deny Jesus’ Crucifixion and Death? In Reynolds, G.S. ed. New Perspectives on the Qurʾān: The Qurʾān in its Historical Context 2, Abingdon: Routledge, 349–​358. Neuwirth, A. 2014. Scripture, Poetry and the Making of a Community: Reading the Qurʾān as a Literary Text. Oxford: Oxford University Press in association with the Institute of Ismaili Studies. O’Shaughnessy, T. 1961. The Seven Names for Hell in the Qurʾān. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 24:444–​469. Phenix, R. and Horn, C. 2003. Review of Die Syro-​aramaeische Lesart des Koran: Ein Beitrag zur Entschlüsselung der Qurʾānsprache. Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies 6:164–​178. Powers, D. 2009. Muḥammad is Not the Father of Any of Your Men:  The Making of the Last Prophet. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Radscheit, M. 1996. In: Wild, S. ed. The Qurʾān as Text. Leiden: Brill. Renard, J. 2001–​2006. Alexander. In:  McAuliffe, J.D. ed. Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān. 6  vols. Leiden:  E.J. Brill, I 61–​62.

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David Cook Reynolds, G.S. ed. 2008. The Qurʾān in Its Historical Context. Abingdon: Routledge. ——​. 2010a. The Qurʾān and its Biblical Subtext. Abingdon: Routledge. ——​. 2010b. Reading the Qurʾān as Homily: The Case of Sarah’s Laughter. In Neuwirth, A., Sinai, N., and Marx, M. eds. The Qurʾān in Context: Historical and Literary Investigations into the Qurʾānic Milieu. Leiden: Brill, 585–​592. Robinson, N. 2001–​2006. Jesus. In: McAuliffe, J.D. ed. Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān. 6 vols. Leiden: E.J. Brill, III 7–​20. al-​Suyūtī, J.D.ʿA.R. n.d. Al-​Itqān fi ʿulūm al-​Qurʾān. Beirut: Dār al-​Fikr. al-​Ṭabarī, M.b.J. 2010. Jāmiʿ al-​bayān ʿan taʾwīl ayy al-​Qurʾān. Al-​Harastani, M.Sh. ed. 16 vols. Beirut: Dar Ihya al-​Turath al-​ʿArabī. Torrey, C.C. 1998. The Jewish Foundation of Islam. In: Ibn Warraq ed. The Origins of the Koran: Classic Essays on Islam’s Holy Book. Amherst, MA: Prometheus Books, 293–​348. Waldman, M. 1985. New Approaches to “Biblical” Materials in the Qurʾān. Muslim World 75:1–​16. Wild, Stefan. 2010. Virgins of Paradise and the Luxenberg Hypothesis. In: Neuwirth, A., Sinai, N., and Marx, M. eds. The Qurʾān in Context:  Historical and Literary Investigations into the Qurʾānic Milieu. Leiden: Brill, 625–​647. Zahniser, A.H.M. 2001–​2006. “Luqmān.” In McAuliffe, J.D. ed. Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān. 6  vols. Leiden: E.J. Brill, III 242–​243.

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3 THE COLLECTION AND CANONIZATION OF THE QURʾĀN Herbert Berg

Except in the case of some New Religious Movements, there usually exists a significant gap of decades, even centuries, between the time the words were first spoken, recited, sung, composed, and/​or written and the time they became encapsulated within a text that was (mostly) unalterable and recognized as “scripture.” That is, the processes of compilation and canonization are often chronologically distant from the origin of the material. The traditional accounts in Islam and even some theories put forth by scholars skeptical of those accounts place the origins, compilation, and canonization in close temporal proximity. Yet, an examination of these accounts and theories shows that the situation in early Islam was more complex, and more skeptical theories suggest those accounts are not just inaccurate, but were fabricated and circulated to mask the true processes that led to the Qurʾān.

Traditional accounts of collection and canonization Later Muslim theology, in identifying the Qurʾān with the “preserved tablet” (lawḥ maḥfūẓ) and “mother of the book” (umm al-​kitāb) (Q 85:21–​22 and 43:4, respectively), could be said to maintain that the canonization of the Qurʾān occurred with this original, eternal, heavenly archetype. The first revelation of the Qurʾān as given in the sīra, despite being a recitation (lit. qurʾān), did not speak of itself as a scripture nor was it understood as such by Muḥammad. On the one hand, the gradual and piecemeal revelation for over two decades also initially seems somewhat incompatible with the theological view. On the other hand, ḥadīths state that Gabriel used to meet Muḥammad every night of Ramadan to teach or review the Qurʾān with him (see, for example, al-Bukhārī n.d.: no. 6). A similar divine supervision could be inferred from Q 75:16–​17: “Do not move your tongue to hasten it, for indeed it is upon Us is its collection and its recitation” and from Q 13:39 “God effaces what He wills or establishes, and with Him is the Mother of the Book” (see also Q 2:160; 16:101). Taken together, these verses and accounts suggest divine editorial control, and perhaps even redaction –​though the Qurʾān contains no explicit command to put the revelations into writing or a specific order. Towards the end of his life, “the Prophet said, ‘Every year Gabriel used to revise the Qurʾān with me once only, but

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this year he has done so twice’ ” (al-Bukhārī n.d.: nos. 3623, 3624). Muḥammad understood this to portend his death, but it also suggests divine supervision, this time over a complete and final version (the textus receptus ne varietur) –​though not in the form of a written codex. If this was the case, after Muḥammad’s death all that was required was to convert the oral canon into a written one by writing down all the revealed materials and placing them in the order God had mandated via Gabriel, collecting them from what was preserved on parchments, shoulder blades, leaf stalks of the date-​palm, pieces of leather, and flat stones, and in “the hearts of men” (al-​Bukhārī n.d.: nos. 4679, 7191; see also al-​Suyūṭī 2011: 140–​141). Yet the collection and canonization process(es) seem a little more complex (and confused) according to the various traditional accounts of Abū Bakr’s, ʿUmar’s, and ʿUthmān’s roles in the collection of the Qurʾān. The divine archetype and the physical codex are distinct (in their production, if not in their content). The first collection of the Qur’an, according to the most popular version, was prompted by the battle of Yamāma (11/​632), and ʿUmar became concerned about the number of men who had died –​men who had memorized the Qurʾān and whose death might thus mean the loss of some part of the Qurʾān that they alone might know. The first caliph, Abū Bakr, acquiesced and set Zayd b. Thābit the task of collecting the materials from the aforementioned varied sources. The sheets (ṣuḥūf) upon which he wrote this “first” collection passed to ʿUmar upon his predecessor’s death, and to the second caliph’s daughter, Ḥafṣa,1 upon his death (al-​Bukhārī n.d.: no. 7191). W. Montgomery Watt has pointed out several problems and discrepancies in this account, including: (1) the assumption that there was really no attempt to order the revelations prior to Yamāma; (2) the existence of conflicting traditions variously identifying ʿUmar or Abū Bakr as having come up with the idea; (3) the accounts that make ʿUmar the first collector of the Qurʾān (and others ʿAlī) (see Ibn Abī Dāwūd n.d.: 16); (4) the fact that few of those who died at Yamāma would have known much of the Qurʾān by heart; (5) the odd lack of authority accorded to this caliphal collection; and (6) the even odder passing of this official copy to ʿUmar’s daughter and not his successor, ʿUthmān (Watt and Bell 1970: 40–​42; for a rebuttal of these objections, see Jones 1983: 237–​238). In any case, the exercise was repeated under the third caliph when differences in how the Qurʾān was being read or recited came to a head between troops drawn from Syria and those from Iraq during expeditions to Armenia and Azerbayjan. When ʿUthmān became aware of the disputes, he once again called upon Zayd and other prominent Companions to collect the Qurʾān. In cases of dispute, the Qurashī dialect was to be preferred. Ḥafṣa’s ṣuḥūf were consulted, five (or seven) copies were made, and distributed to the major cities of Islam –​“rival” copies, both ṣaḥīfas (individual leaves) and maṣḥafs (codices), were to be burned and subsequent copies based on this ʿUthmānic codex (al-​Suyūṭī 2011: 141–​144).The compilation became the textus ne varietur, and so the canonization process was also complete. As Watt maintains, “it is certain that the book still in our hands is essentially the ʿUthmānic Qurʾān” (Watt and Bell 1970: 44). But even based on traditional Muslim sources, the process of canonization was far more complex, both in terms of compilation and canonization of a ne varietur text. First, there are reports of an earlier collection made by Muḥammad himself. Ibn Shabba (d. 262/​876) preserves two traditions that support the production of a complete codex (lit. ṣuhūf) during Muḥammad’s lifetime and other reports suggest Muḥammad employed scribes to record the Qurʾān. ʿUthmān is said to have had ʿĀʾisha bt. Abū Bakr send him the parchment on which the Qurʾān was transcribed by the Prophet when God revealed it to Gabriel, and he revealed it to Muḥammad (Ibn Shabba 1979: III 997–​998). Al-​Suyūṭī comes to a similar though not so specific conclusion: the whole of the Qurʾān was written down during the life of Muḥammad, “but it was not collected all in the same place nor had its sūrahs been arranged” (2011: 137). Second, and perhaps more compelling, are the many reports of the pre-​ʿUthmānic codices, 38

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particularly those of ʿAbd Allāh b. Masʿūd (d. 32/​652–​653) –​who in one report is said to have been present when Gabriel checked Muḥammad’s recitation of the Qurʾān just before latter’s death (Ibn Abī Shayba 1989: VII 204) –​Ubayy b. Kaʿb (d. 19/​640 or 22/​643), and Abū Mūsā al-​Ashʿarī (d. 42/​662). Various ḥadīths argue that the ʿUthmānic not the Masʿūdic codex was first, and others the reverse (see for example, Ibn Ḥanbal 1895: I 362). In a tradition that seems to reflect an attempt to resolve this dispute: A man complained to the Prophet (pbuh), “ʿAbd Allāh b. Masʿūd taught me to recite a surah; Zayd taught me to recite it and so did Ubayy b. Kaʿb. Their recitations differed. Which recitation do I adopt?” The Prophet (pbuh) was silent. ʿAlī who was at his side said, “Everyone should recite just as he was taught. Each of the recitations is valid (ḥasan) and beautiful (jamīl).” (al-​Ṭabarī 1992: I 36 no. 14) Regardless of whether this occurred or is merely a projection of a later dispute going back to the time of Muḥammad, it is clear that multiple readings of the Qurʾān existed, and that some felt Ibn Masʿūd’s version to be more complete, correct, and authentic, and they supported his refusal to have his copy destroyed during the promulgation of the ʿUthmānic codex. Ibn Masʿūd’s and Ubayy’s codices differed not only in the order of the surahs, but also in content, with the former omitting Q 1, 113, and 114, and the latter including two additional short prayer-​like surahs similar to these three. Sean Anthony (forthcoming) argues that, based on legal and ḥadīth literature, the two surahs absent from the ʿUthmānic codex remained part of the oral, ritual canon, though in the written canon they remained liminal and disputed.2 Abū Mūsā al-​Ashʿarī is recorded as remembering two verses (or surahs) that are not in ʿUthmān’s codex (Muslim n.d.: no. 1050). Later Muslims would reject these doubts, hoping or stating that the verses in the surahs within the ʿUthmānic codex were divinely ordained (al-​Suyūṭī 2011: 144–​ 147), as was the arrangement of the surahs themselves. That is to say, all are identical to the final recited version approved by Gabriel (Ibn Saʿd 1957: II 195; al-​Suyūṭī 2011: 148). Here too Watt concurs largely with the Qurʾān’s completeness: “Whatever view is taken of the collection and compilation of the Qurʾān, the possibility remains that parts of it may have been lost. … There is no reason, however, to think that anything of importance has gone astray … with perhaps minor exceptions, we have the whole of what was revealed to Muḥammad” (Watt and Bell 1970: 56).3 Behnam Sadeghi and Uwe Bergmann, however, based on the recovered lower text of the Ṣanʿāʾ 1 palimpsest, make a strong case for the existence of non-​ʿUthmānic Companion codices (2010).

Alternative interpretations: Muḥammad as compiler John Burton argues that the accounts of the collection of the Qurʾān “are a mass of confusions, contradictions and inconsistencies” (1977: 225). For instance, Abū Bakr, ʿUmar, and ʿUthmān, the first three successors to Muḥammad, are identified with having instigated the collection of the Qurʾān. Attempts at harmonizing these disparate accounts involved claiming Abū Bakr to be the instigator and ʿUmar to be the completer of the project, ʿUmar to be an instigator and ʿUthmān also, or all three to be involved, with the first two caliphs making the first collection, and ʿUthmān making a final version. Other Western scholars have suggested that ʿUthmān was solely responsible, but his later unpopularity or his connection to the later unpopular Umayyad dynasty caused earlier Muslims to project the task of collecting the Qurʾān onto his 39

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two predecessors. Burton points out that the one thing that all these accounts share, however, is that they consistently exclude Muḥammad’s participation in the collection of the materials of the Qurʾān. Why would Muḥammad need to be excluded? According to Burton, “a safe and certain recension of the valid revelations was unthinkable” while Muḥammad was alive, since the abrogation (naskh) and withdrawal of any passage was a “daily possibility” (1977: 232). Naskh might involve a new revelation that results in an earlier revelation no longer having legal force nor appearing in the Qurʾān, or it might have a new revelation that removes the older revelations’ legal force, though both still appear in the Qurʾān. Even though it suggests that the Qurʾān is incomplete, the former occurrence is not problematic since Q 2:106 itself suggests that God can cause a verse to be forgotten and replaced by a better verse. He points out a third possibility, however, made by the infamous “stoning verse.” Q 24:2 states that the punishment for adultery is flogging, but several well-​attested ḥadīths insist (via ʿUmar) that the punishment is stoning –​ based on a passage revealed to Muḥammad, but somehow not present in the Qurʾān. In other words, there was a new revelation which overturned an earlier one, yet only the earlier one appears in the Qurʾān.This third form is problematic for it suggests that the Qurʾān as preserved is incomplete. Burton concludes that “the Muslims simply could not afford to be found or to find themselves in possession of a Qurʾān document that had been edited, checked and promulgated by its Prophet-​recipient” (1977: 232). Others (Abū Bakr, ʿUmar, ʿUthmān, Zayd b. Thābit, etc.) must therefore be the collectors of the document. The conflicting reports’ true purpose, therefore, is to obscure the true collector and collator of the Qurʾānic revelations: Muḥammad. In the 1930s, Richard Bell had also suggested that Muḥammad had a very significant role in constructing the Qurʾān. By looking at shifts in the grammatical construction, rhyming scheme, or content of a passage he concluded that almost all surahs originally consisted of numerous separate passages (with only rare unified compositions of any great length) and could be dissected into their component parts. Bell then argued that the Qurʾān was in written form when the redactors such as Zayd b. Thābit started their work; he entertained the possibility that the materials could have been written by Muḥammad himself, but thought it more likely that they were written down by others at his dictation (Bell 1937: I vi). Q 6:7 suggests that the idea of producing a book on papyrus was current and had at least entered Muḥammad’s mind. In addition, ṣūḥuf (that is, separate, unbound sheets used for writing) are connected with Qurʾānic revelation in Q 20:133, 53:37, 80:13, 87:18, and 98:2. Nor, when the accusation is made that the Qurʾān is written down (Q 25:6–​7), does it deny the charge. Bell’s framework for the proto-​canonization process is more intriguing. Using the development of ideas within the Qurʾān and references to historical events as guides, Bell suggested that the composition of the Qurʾān fell into three main periods. The early period (from which only fragments survive) consisted primarily of lists of “signs” and exhortations to worship God. The Qurʾān period covered the latter part of Muḥammad’s time in Mecca, and the first year or so in Medina. During this period Muḥammad sought to produce a qurʾān –​understood to be an Arabic “recitation” of the gist of previous revelations. The Book period, beginning near the end of the second year in Medina, is characterized by Muḥammad’s efforts at producing a kitāb or “book” that would be an independent scripture akin to the Torah and Gospels (Bell 1937:  I  vi). This task was cut short by Muḥammad’s death, and so the canonization process was left to his successors, Abū Bakr, ʿUmar, and ʿUthmān. Interestingly, though she would dispute many of Bell’s conclusions, Angelika Neuwirth also speaks of three modes or phases of the Qurʾān: the “oral Qurʾān” as it was first communicated by Muḥammad to the first listeners, the kitāb as excerpts from the heavenly book particularly in Medina, and the Qurʾān as codex, when it became the scripture of a community after the death of Muḥammad (Neuwirth 40

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2006: 145–​155). Neither Bell’s nor Neuwirth’s hypothesis is incompatible with the later compilation under the first three caliphs.

Changes to the canon Whether one holds that the collection of the Qurʾān was divinely guided, completed under the early caliphs, or a product of Muḥammad’s own efforts as both Burton and Bell suggest, the process of canonization took more time and only ended (albeit arguably) with Ibn Mujāhid (d. 324/​936). The ʿUthmanic codex or, as François Déroche and others prefer, the ʿUthmānic rasm (that is, the skeleton script without vowel markers or diacritics to distinguish the identically shaped consonants) would necessarily undergo changes to emend its defective script. Initially, a codex served mostly as an “elaborate mnemonic device” (Watt and Bell 1970: 47), but as the community rapidly expanded the extensive memorization could no longer be presupposed. The script needed to be improved with the addition of vocalization and diacritics to distinguish homographs if significantly divergent qirāʾāt (readings) were to be prevented. The ʿUthmānic rasm was by no mean yet ne varietur; whether the consonantal skeleton of the ʿUthmānic codex was open to change was another matter. During the time of the Umayyad caliph ʿAbd al-​Malik (r. 685–​705) the issue of defective script seems to have been addressed. Additions to the ʿUthmānic rasm were likely far more gradual (based on manuscript evidence), but the traditional accounts focus on two figures:  ʿUbayd Allāh b. Ziyād (d. 67/​686) and especially al-​Ḥajjāj b. Yūsuf (d. 95/​714). ʿUbayd Allāh b. Ziyād, an Umayyad who became the governor of Iraq in 56/​675, is credited with introducing 2,000 letters into the muṣḥaf, primarily alifs and the lengthened alifs for qālū and kānū (Ibn Abī Dāwūd n.d.: 129). Although doubts have been raised about this tradition, Omar Hamdan has argued for its authenticity (2010: 796–​800). Al-​Ḥajjāj b. Yūsuf, the governor of Iraq from 75/​694 to 95/​ 713, was responsible for more sweeping orthographical reforms –​not so much to end political disputes, but rather to burnish the image of the Umayyads. Moreover, “the main cause for the diversity of the Qurʾanic readings lies not in the written text, but rather in its orality” (Hamdan 2010: 799). Ibn Abī Dāwūd present a tradition that states al-​Ḥajjāj changed the muṣḥaf in eleven verses (n.d.: 130). This tradition does not reflect the scope of what Hamdan describes as the “Maṣāhif Project” (2006: 135–​174; 2010). For about 40 years until the time of ʿAbd al-​Malik b. Marwān, people recited the codex of ʿUthmān. Then, faulty readings multiplied and spread in Iraq. Al-​Ḥajjāj b. Yūsuf al-​ Thaqafī turned to his secretaries and asked them to put some signs on these ambiguous letters. It is said that Naṣr b. ʿAsim carried out this operation, placing single or doubled dots in different places. For a time, we therefore read the text with its diacritization. However, despite the use of dots, faulty readings still occurred. It was then that vocalization (iʿjām) was created. One now reads by following the system of dots and vowels. When careful attention was not paid to a word by not complying with this system, faulty readings occurred. Means to reduce them were sought, and no other way was found than to stick to the instructions from the experts in oral recitation. (Ibn Khallikān 1994: II 32) Under the instruction or with the consent of ʿAbd al-​Malik, al-​Ḥajjāj instructed a number of scribes to insert diacritics so consonants could be distinguished and to add vocalization.According to Hamdan the project occurred between 84/​703 and 85/​704, employed the private muṣḥaf of ʿUthmān, and involved the counting of all the consonants, words, and verses of the Qurʾān to 41

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ensure completeness and integrity (2010: 801, 806, 809–​815).That this was not an entirely novel concept is attested by the presence of diacritical marks to distinguish homographs in at least one papyrus and one inscription dated 22/​643 and 24/​645, respectively, though they appear less (but were not absent) in Qurʾānic manuscripts (Déroche 2014: 135–​136; Hamdan 2006: 146–​148). Once it was complete, al-​Ḥajjaj followed the ʿUthmānic model for standardization and had conflicting Qurʾānic recensions destroyed,4 starting in Kufa, where Ibn Masʿūd’s muṣḥaf remained in use, and the new codices were sent to the major cities of the Umayyad empire. ʿAbd al-​ʿAzīz, the governor of Egypt (r. 60/​680–​85/​704), rejected the copy sent to Egypt, favoring the ʿUthmānic codex.“The goal of al-​Ḥajjāj was not only a standardization of the rasm,5 but also of the oral tradition of the qirāʾāt” (Hamdan 2010: 825). In achieving the latter, he was less successful. In fact, the various readings or recitations, qirāʾāt, continued to develop unabated until Ibn Mujāhid. With the support of vizier Ibn Muqla (d. 328/​940), he sought to enforce greater uniformity, or rather stop the increasing multiplicity and complexity (Melchert 2000: 18, 22), by limiting the acceptable readings. In this, he was building upon the work of earlier grammarians and readers (Shah 2004). He argued that seven qirāʾāt, those of seven 8th-​century scholars, were equally valid. Each conformed to the ʿUthmānic rasm, was grammatically correct, and enjoyed the consensus of the community.These seven represented readings of different districts (Medina, Mecca, Damascus, Basra, and three from Kufa  –​though not Ibn Masʿūd’s, which had been prevalent in Kufa). This “oral canonization”  –​or more precisely, “limited agreement and manageability” (Melchert 2000: 22; see also Shah 2004: 94) –​was only possible because the text, that is, the rasm, had already been fixed. Differing but equally valid qirāʾāt have been supported using ḥadīths such as the report that ʿUmar heard a surah being recited differently than he had heard Muḥammad recite it. He dragged the reciter before Muḥammad, and the latter had the man and ʿUmar recite the surah. He then affirmed both as having been revealed that way, for “This Qurʾān was sent down in seven (different) ways [aḥruf], so recite from it whatever is easy for you” (Mālik b. Anas n.d.: no. 477).6 According to Viviane Comerro, initially this ḥadīth permitted the liturgical recitation of ancient qirāʾāt –​especially that of Ibn Masʿūd –​ because the Companions and Successors themselves had done so, even though these qirāʾāt did not conform to the ‘Uthmānic rasm. Although a minority position, it was accepted but eventually fell victim to Ibn Mujāhid’s reform (Comerro 2013), ironically using the same sets of ḥadiths.7 Christopher Melchert, however, sees no justification for a connection between aḥruf and qirāʾāt.8 Later this list of seven was expanded to ten and then fourteen, each also becoming canonical (Melchert 2008). That Ibn Mujāhid’s work became so prominent and that he could have Ibn Shannabūdh (d. 328/​939)9 punished for having used the version of Ibn Masʿūd in a liturgical context, confirms the establishment of a ne varietur textual norm accepted officially at the end of the 3rd/​9th century –​the culmination of the canonization process. Only minor, superficial changes took place afterwards, from the division of the text (e.g., into fifths or tenths, takhmīs and taʿshīr respectively) and the use of different scripts (e.g., ḥijāzī v. Kufic), different sizes and shapes (i.e., oblong v. vertical), and ornamentation and illumination, to the production of lavish editions for the elite (Déroche 2014: 140–​141; Hamdan 2006: 816–​821).

Revisionist accounts Although the likes of Burton and Bell may seem radical in the sense that they dismiss a large number of traditional accounts of the collection and compilation of the Qurʾān as largely inaccurate or even fabricated, they do, however, largely accept the basic timeline of those 42

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processes as given in tradition. In fact, they emphasize the role of Muḥammad in the process. Scholars termed “revisionists” are by and large far more skeptical and suggest not only a new timeline but sometimes even a new milieu for the origin of Qurʾānic materials, their compilation, and eventual canonization. This skepticism is born out of belief that “the sources on the rise of Islam are of questionable historical value” (Crone 1987: 203) and that “what we know of the seventh-​century Ḥijāz is the product of intense literary activity” (Wansbrough 1987: 14–​15). This skepticism has led some to conclude “we do not know and probably never can know what really happened; all we can know is what later people believed happened” (Rippin 1985: 157). Although skepticism about the compilation of the Qurʾān predated John Wansbrough (see below), it was his suggestion the Qur ʾān was “the product of an organic development from originally independent traditions during a long period of transmission” (Wansbrough 1977: 47) that was particularly radical.These independent pericopes or “prophetical logia” originated separately with communities within a Judeo-​Christian sectarian milieu (Wansbrough 1977: 50). This hypothesis breaks the connection between Muḥammad and the Qurʾān, though the biography of the former, the “Arabian prophet” (to use Wansbrough’s term), represents a historicization of the logia via exegesis. As for the canonization process, Wansbrough suggested that the style of the Qurʾān belies the claim to a single author or editor but rather seems to be “the product of an organic development from originally independent traditions during a long period of transmission” (1977: 47). Moreover, “it is of course neither possible, nor necessary, to maintain that the material of the canon did not, in some form, exist prior to that period of intensive literary activity,” but the ne varietur text occurred only “towards the end of the second century” (1977: 44).10 Wansbrough’s revision of Islamic history and in particular the late date for the canonization of the Qurʾān has been challenged on many fronts. For example, Harald Motzki (2001) and Gregor Schoeler (2010) defend the ḥadīths that underpin the traditional accounts, and Behnam Sadeghi and Hohsen Goudarzi (2012) seek to show the Ṣanʿāʾ 1 manuscript diverges from and predates the ʿUthmanic codex, proving that the aforementioned revision must be wrong.11 Günter Lüling and Christoph Luxenberg also revision the origins of the material that makes up the Qurʾān. The former argues that as much as a third of the Qurʾān –​the shorter, poetic surahs  –​originated as pre-​Islamic, Christian hymns. The incoherence of some Qurʾānic passages required later editing and so misinterpretation took place, aided greatly by the initially defective Arabic script in which these passages were recorded (Lüling 1974). Luxenberg goes further by focusing on problematic Qurʾānic terms and passages, seeking to find explanations in Aramaic. This could involve examining exegetical and lexicographical works for Aramaic readings, searching for Syro-​Aramaic homonyms that might better explain the passages, or even seeking possible Aramaic roots by altering the diacritical points and vocalizations (since neither appeared in the earliest written versions of the Qurʾān). Given this approach, it is perhaps unsurprising that Luxenberg often finds those Aramaic forerunners and so he concludes that the Arabic Qur’an, or much of it, was excerpted from a Syriac canonical and/​or proto-​scriptural Urtext. He suggests that Mecca was an Aramean settlement in which an Aramaic-​Arabic hybrid was spoken. Later, Arabic-​speaking exegetes and philologists unfamiliar with or unaware of this hybrid had only the written Qurʾān’s defective script to work with, which was standardized only in the second half of the 8th century (Luxenberg 2000). Luxenberg has convinced very few scholars (for an exception, see Chapter 18 in this volume).12 Not only do some scholars revision the compilation of the Qurʾān, but some the canonization. Paul Casanova’s argument that the Qurʾān was not closed with ʿUthmān but remained fairly fluid until ʿAbd Mālik and his governor al-​Ḥajjāj standardized and canonized it (1911–​ 1924: 103–​142) has more recently been championed by Alfred-​Louis de Prémare and Stephen 43

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Shoemaker (de Prémare 2002: 278–​306; de Prémare 2010: 189–​221; Shoemaker 2012: 146–​58). Chase Robinson summarizes some of the reasons to doubt the traditional account (Robinson 2005: 101–​104). A state-​sponsored distribution of a single official version as early as the reign of ʿUthmān seems atypical of the centuries-​long processes that led to scriptures in antiquity and late antiquity, especially considering that it is said to have gone from an oral text and one written on shoulder blades and stones to a canon on vellum or papyrus. Moreover, ʿUthmān’s rule was contentious and fairly short, and was a polity “that lacked many rudimentary instruments of coercion and made no systematic attempt to project images of its one authority –​no coins, little public buildings or inscriptions” (Robinson 2005: 102). ʿAbd al-​Malik had the motivation and means to impose such standardization, however. In addition, there are Qurʾānic texts datable to the caliph’s period that depart from the ʿUthmanic codex: for example, a letter by Ḥasan al-​Baṣrī (d. 728) in which he cites a “Qurʾānic passage” not in the Qurʾān and the deviations from the Qurʾān in the inscriptions on the Dome of the Rock. David Powers’ study of the passages in the Qurʾān and sīra about Zayd b. Ḥāritha, Muḥammad’s one-​time adopted son whose ex-​wife he married, also lends support to this hypothesis. Powers argues that certain passages in the Qurʾān were revised and others were added. These were not merely minor variations or a misreading of the unvoweled and non-​diacriticized ʿUthmānic rasm. Rather they were significant revisions and editions of the passages in question that were both theologically and politically motivated. The implication is that the Qurʾān remained open and fluid for three-​quarters of a century between the death of the Prophet and the caliphate of ʿAbd al-​Malik (Powers 2009). This “Marwānid hypothesis” has of course been strongly challenged by, for example, Sadeghi and Bergmann (2010: 343–​435). Given the evidence of early manuscripts of the Qurʾān (Sadeghi and Bergman 2010; Sadeeghi and Goudarzi 2012), Nicholas Sinai discusses the possibility of the “emergent canon model” in which the Qurʾānic text may have achieved recognizable form by 660 but thereafter was reworked until canonized by ʿAbd al-​Malik. The epigraphic evidence, the reports on al-​Ḥajjāj, and Christian sources used by de Prémare are argued to be unconvincing (Sinai 21014a). In favor of the closure of the Qurʾān instead in the mid-​7th century, Sinai adduces the unanimous ascription of the standard rasm to ʿUthmān and the burning of rival codices (acknowledged even by his opponents) and the aforementioned text-​critical arguments of Sadeghi, Goudarzi, and Bergmann. He points out that archaic Qurʾānic grammatical features were not made to conform to later usage and that no narrative contextualization crept into the Qurʾān despite its prevalence prior to the year 700. Sinai also expands on Fred Donner’s observation that in the Qurʾān “we find not a single reference to events, personalities, groups or issues that clearly belong to periods after the time of Muḥammad” (Donner 1998: 49), which makes sense only if the standard rasm is early. Although Sinai recognizes that his conclusion is not unassailable, given the preponderance of evidence in favor of the traditional dating of the standard rasm, that is, the ʿUthmānic rasm, it ought to be the default position (2014b). Even Patricia Crone, who is usually considered a revisionist because of her early work, accepts the evidence of the carbon-​dated manuscripts and so abandoned the mid-​Umayyad codification of the Qurʾān. She concludes that there is no longer a good reason to doubt the ʿUthmānic codification; that is to say, the Qurʾān existed when the tradition said it did (2016: xiii).

Conclusions Whatever else one thinks of John Wansbrough’s revisionist theories, he alerted scholars of early Islam that there is a marked difference between the origins of materials that become scripture and the canonization of those materials so that they become scripture.The confusion of those two processes in the case of Islam is not surprising. In Christianity and Judaism, material thought to 44

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be revelations from God were written decades or centuries later and certainly only canonized at least a century and a half later or more in the case of Christianity. And it was carried out by the Church. But the Qurʾān speaks of itself as God’s speech and both it and tradition could be read as implying that it was “divinely compiled and canonized.” There seems little doubt that the traditional account is problematic or at least the processes of compilation and canonization were somewhat more complex than they initially appear. Scholarship on these processes has not (yet?) come to a complete consensus that accounts for the contradictions and complexity. Scholars who address these issues cannot even agree on what constitutes a methodology or evidence. Thus, Burton dismisses the Islamic tradition, but so does Wansbrough –​yet their hypotheses could hardly be more different. Bell, in putting so much of the compilation at the feet of Muḥammad, may seem quite radical, but not that different from the theological tradition that had God directing the canonization process or at least the editorial part of the process via Gabriel. And while the Marwānid hypothesis has some appeal, it raises more issues than it solves. This debate about the compilation and canonization is likely to continue for the foreseeable future, for it is a long way from the first qurʾān or kitāb to a fully vocalized and diacriticized ne varietur text that comes in fourteen readings. That is as it should be; the centrality of the Qurʾān’s birth and growth lies at the very heart of the study of early Islam.

Notes 1 Ruqayya Khan (2014) suggests that Ḥafṣa had a significant editorial role in the compilation of the Qurʾān. Sean W. Anthony and Catherine L. Bronson (2016) raise strong objections to that claim. See also note 4 below. 2 Anthony is following Angelika Neuwirth’s assertion of two modes of simultaneous publication and codification: textual and ritual: In view of the fact that the creation of the Qurʾān’s scriptural corpus was completed within a singularly short space of time, and the authoritative codification and dissemination of the entire text … followed just as swiftly, it is easy to lose sight of a second parallel process: the emergence of the an oral canon which was tangible within live recitation and whose Sitz im Leben was the community’s service, the ritual … with its central prayer rite, the ṣalāt. (Neuwirth 2014: 141; see Anthony forthcoming) 3 For an in-​depth analysis of the historical sources about the compilation and transmission of the Qurʾān, see Viviane Comerro (2012). The two key sources for the reports on the compilation of the Qurʾān are the Ṣaḥīḥ of al-​Bukhārī (d. 256/​870) and the Tārīkh of al-​Ṭabarī (d. 310/​923), though there are at least six other competing narratives. She concludes that these reports reflect what the community idealized the Qurʾān to be, but not what really happened (Comerro 2012: 197). Using his isnād-​cum-​matn methodology, Motzki also attempts to undermine the Western skepticism about reports about the collection of the Qurʾān (particularly that of John Wansbrough and John Burton, for which see below). He concludes: We are not able to prove that the accounts on the history of the Qurʾān go back to eyewitnesses of the events which are alleged to have occurred.We cannot be sure that things really happened as is presented in the traditions. However, Muslim accounts are much earlier and thus much nearer to the time to the alleged events than hitherto assumed in Western scholarship. Admittedly, these accounts contain some details which seem to be implausible or, to put it more cautiously, await explanation, but the Western views which claim to replace them by more plausible and historically more reliable accounts are obviously far from what they make themselves out to be. (Motzki 2001:31) Gregor Schoeler also challenges the hypotheses of Burton and Wansbrough. He argues that the traditional reports that much of the Qurʾān was written down in some form at the time of Muḥammad’s

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Herbert Berg death are “not unbelievable” (2010: 782). As for the compilation of the Qurʾān under Abū Bakr and/​ or ʿUmar and the official edition under ʿUthmān, the reports are fairly consistent with each other and with how other texts were treated. Schoeler does not regard each tradition as authentic, yet does “believe in something like the authenticity of the overall picture that tradition conveys of the codification of the Qurʾān” (2010: 788). That is, “the compilation and redaction of the Qurʾān under ʿUthmān (unanimously supported by tradition) is, if not proven, then at least extremely probable” (Schoeler 2010: 789). 4 As for the muṣḥaf of Ḥafṣa, it had been destroyed much earlier by Marwān (d. 65/​685), who managed to obtain it from her brother after she had died. (Ibn Abī Dāwūd n.d.: 32). He feared that it might diverge from the ʿUthmānic codex. Anthony and Bronson discuss the possibility that it was destroyed even earlier by ʿUthmān, but neither may be the case; “the diverse accounts of Ḥafṣāh’s codex serve as a literary means to add testimonies to the veracity and success of ʿUthmān’s project” (2016: 113). 5 The process of improving the original defective orthography was certainly complete by the end of the 9th century, but the reports may be suspect since the early ʿAbbāsid caliphs sought to erase or take credit for Umayyad achievements. 6 For some of the various interpretations of aḥruf, see al-​Ṭabarī’s discussion (1992: I 53–​55). 7 Comerro adds: [T]‌he study of traditions informs us on some crucial elements of the history of the text:  the plasticity of its composition and oral transmission; the antiquity of its writing; the fixation of a model written under ʿUthmān; its gradual canonization; the preservation of textual variants as a reflection of the original oral diversity and then the philologists’ interest; the parallel theologizing of the history of transmission. (Comerro 2013; see also Comerro 2012). 8 Melchert argues: Western scholars have also asserted that Ibn Mujāhid’s choice of seven acceptable readings was related to the hadith report that the Qurʾan had been revealed in seven aḥruf …. Yet al-​Ṭabarī interprets it as referring to seven recensions of which only one had been preserved, the other six irretrievably lost in ʿUthmān’s codification. … He thought the seven aḥruf had nothing to do with the qirāʾāt. A little later, Ibn Ḥibbān (d. 354/​965) would write of thirty-​five to forty different explanations for the hadith report of seven aḥruf. … Al-​Suyūtī quotes half a dozen authorities against identifying the Seven Readings with the seven aḥruf of the hadith report. (Melchert 2000: 19) Elsewhere Melchert asserts that “premodern tradition of Qurʾan scholarship unanimously denies any equation of known readings with the seven aḥruf” (2008: 83). Even al-​Suyūṭī found about 40 different understandings of the seven aḥruf (2011: 104–​115). 9 Mālik b. Anas (d. 179/​795) found it “necessary to declare that the ruler had a duty to prevent the sale or recitation of the versou of Ibn Masʿūd” (Cook 2000: 121) and al-​Ḥajjāj likewise “would often threaten to kill the people of Kufa should they not cease following the reading of Ibn Masʿūd” (Hamdan 2010: 799). 10 On the basis of an example of exegetes unanimously misunderstanding a passage of the Qurʾān and an example of a discontinuity between Qurʾānic legislation and Islamic law, Crone argues that the traditional account of the Qurʾān’s origins and canonization seems very unlikely (1994). 11 For a concise defense of the revisionist position, see Koren and Nevo (1991). 12 Claude Gilliot is also an exception. He points out that Arabia had extensive interactions with the nearby Aramaic, Jewish, and Christian cultures, and suggests the Aramaic trail set by Lüling and Luxenberg may yet lead to the pre-​Qurʾānic lectionary (Gilliot 2010: 164).

Bibliography Anthony, S.W. Forthcoming. Two ‘Lost’ Sūras of the Qurʾān:  Sūrat al-​Khalʿ and Sūrat al-​Ḥafd between Textual and Ritual Canon (1st–​3rd/​7th–​9th Centuries). Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam. Anthony, S.W. and Bronson, C.L. 2016. Did Ḥafṣah edit the Qurʾān? A  Response with Notes on the Codices of the Prophet’s Wives. Journal of the International Qurʾanic Studies Association 1:93–​125. Bell, R. 1937. The Qurʾān: Translated, with a Critical Re-​arrangement of the Surahs. 2 vols. Edinburgh: T&T Clark.

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Collection and canonization of the Qurʾān ——​. 1953. Introduction to the Qurʾān. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. al-​Bukhārī, M.b.I. n.d. Ṣaḥīḥ al-​Bukhārī. Khan, M.M. trans. http://​sunnah.com/​bukhari. Burton, J. 1977. The Collection of the Qurʾān. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Casanova, P. 1911–​1924. Mohammed et la fin du monde: étude critique sure l’Islam primitive. Paris: P. Gauthier. Comerro,V. 2012. Les traditions sur la composition du muṣḥaf de ʿUthmān. Beirut: Orient-​Institut Beirut. ——​. 2013.The Traditions of the Composition of ʿUthmān’s muṣḥaf. International Qurʾanic Studies Association blog. https://​iqsaweb.wordpress.com/​tag/​viviane-​comerro/​. Cook, M. 2000. The Koran: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Crone, P. 1987. Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ——​. 1994. Two Legal Problems Bearing on the Early History of the Qurʾān. Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 18:1–​37. ——​. 2016. The Qurʾānic Pagans and Related Matters: Collected Studies in Three Volumes.Volume 1. Siurua, H. ed. Leiden: Brill. Déroche, F. 2006. Written Transmission. In: Rippin, A. ed. The Blackwell Companion to the Qurʾān. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 172–​186. ——​. 2014. Qurʾans of the Umayyads: A First Overview. Leiden: Brill. Donner, F.M. 1998. Narratives of Islamic Origins:  The Beginnings of Islamic Historical Writing. Princeton: Darwin Press. Gilliot, C. 2010. On the Origins of the Informants of the Prophet. In: Ohlig, K.-​H. and Puin, G.-​R. eds. The Hidden Origins of Islam. Amherst, MA: Prometheus Books, 153–​187. Hamdan, O. 2006, Studien zur Kanonisierung des Korantextes: al-​Ḥasan al-​Baṣrīs Beiträge zur Geschichte des Korans. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. ——​ . 2010. The Second Maṣāḥif-​ Project:  A  Step towards the Canonization of the Qur’anic Text. In: Neuwirth, A., Sinai, N., and Marx, M. eds. The Qurʾān in Context: Historical and Literary Investigations into the Qurʾānic Milieu. Leiden: Brill, 795–​835. Ibn Abī Dāwūd al-​Sijistānī. n.d. ʿA.A. Kitāb al-​maṣāḥif. Beirut: Dār al-​kutub al-​ʿilmīya. www.muhammadanism.org/​Arabic/​book/​dawud/​kitab_​masahif.pdf. Ibn Abī Shayba, ʿA.A.b.M. 1989. Al-​Muṣannaf fi al-​ḥadīth wa-​al-​āthār. Al-​Lahham, S. ed. 8 vols. Beirut: Dār al-​fikr. Ibn Ḥanbal, A.b.M. 1895. Al-​Musnad. 6 vols. Cairo: al-​Maṭbaʿa al-​maymanīya. Ibn Khallikān,A.ʿA.Ḥ.b.M. 1994. Wafayāt al-​aʿyān wa-​anbāʾ abnāʾ al-​zaman. ʿAbbās, I. ed. 8 vols. Beirut : Dār ṣādir. Ibn Saʿd, M. 1957. Kitāb al-​ṭabaqāt al-​kubrā. 8 vols. Beirut: Dār ṣādir. Ibn Shabba, ʿU. 1979. Taʾrīkh al-​Madina al-​munawwara. Shaltūt, F.M. ed. 4 vols. Mecca: Dār al-​turāth. Jones, A. 1983. The Qurʾān –​II. In: Beeston, A.F.L., Johnstone, T.M., Serjeant, R.B., and Smith, G.R. eds. Arabic Literature to the End of the Umayyad Period. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 228–​245. Khan, Ruqayya. 2014. Did a Woman Edit the Qurʾān? Hafṣa [sic] and Her Famed ‘Codex.’ Journal of the American Academy of Religion 84:174–​216. Koren, J. and Nevo,Y.D. 1991. Methodological Approaches to Islamic Studies. Der Islam 68:87–​107. Lüling, G. 1974. Über den Ur-​Quran: Ansätze z. Rekonstruktion vorislam, christl. Strophenlieder Quran. Erlangen: Lüling. Luxenberg, C. 2000. Die syro-​aramäische Lesart des Koran: Ein Beitrag zur Entschlüsselung des Koransprache. Berlin: Das Arabische Buch. Mālik b. Anas. n.d. Muwaṭṭā Mālik. http://​sunnah.com/​malik. Melchert, C. 2000. Ibn Mujāhid and the Establishment of Seven Qurʾanic Readings. Studia Islamica 91:5–​22. ——​. 2008. The Relation of the Ten Readings to One Another. Journal of Qurʾanic Studies 10:73–​87. Motzki, H. 2001. The Collection of the Qurʾān: A Reconsideration of Western Views in Light of Recent Methodological Developments. Der Islam 78:1–​34. Muslim b. al-​Ḥajjāj. n.d. Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim. Siddiqui, A.H. trans. http://​sunnah.com/​muslim. Neuwirth,A. 2006. Structure and the Emergence of Community. In: Rippin,A. ed. The Blackwell Companion to the Qurʾān. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 140–​158. ——​. 2014. Scripture, Poetry, and the Making of a Community:  Reading the Qurʾān as a Literary Text. Oxford: Oxford University Press in association with the Institute of Ismaili Studies. Powers, D.S. 2009. Muhammad is Not the Father of Any of Your Men:  The Making of the Last Prophet. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. de Prémare, A.-​L. 2002. Les fondations de l’Islam: entre écriture et histoire. Paris: Éditions du Seuil. ——​. 2010. ʿAbd al-​Malik b. Marwān and the Processes of the Qurʾān’s Composition. In: Ohlig, K.-​H. and Puin, G.-​R. eds. The Hidden Origins of Islam. Amherst, MA: Prometheus Books, 189–​221.

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Herbert Berg Rippin, A. 1985. Literary Analysis of Qurʾān, tafsīr, and sīra:  the Methodologies of John Wansbrough. In: Martin, R.C. ed. Approaches to Islam in Religious Studies. Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 151–​163. Robinson, C.F. 2005. ʿAbd al-​Malik. Oxford: Oneworld. Sadeghi, B. and Bergmann, U. 2010. The Codex of a Companion of the Prophet and the Qurʾān of the Prophet. Arabica 57:343–​436. Sadeghi, B. and Goudarzi, M. 2012. Ṣanʿāʾ 1 and the Origins of the Qurʾān. Der Islam 87:1–​129. Schoeler, G. 2010. The Codification of the Qurʾān:  A  Comment on the Hypothesis of Burton and Wansbrough. In: Neuwirth, A., Sinai, N., and Marx, M. eds. The Qurʾān in Context: Historical and Literary Investigations into the Qurʾānic Milieu. Leiden: Brill, 779–​794. Shah, M. 2004. The Early Arabic Grammarians’ Contributions to the Collection and Authentication of Qurʾanic Readings:  The Prelude to Ibn Mujāhid’s Kitāb al-​Sabʿa. Journal of Qurʾanic Studies 6:72–​102. Shoemaker, S.J. 2012. The Death of a Prophet:  The End of Muhammad’s Life and the Beginnings of Islam. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Sinai, N. 2014a. When Did the Consonantal Skeleton of the Quran Reach Closure? Part I. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 77:273–​292. ——​. 2014b. When Did the Consonantal Skeleton of the Quran Reach Closure? Part II. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 77:509–​521. al-​Suyūṭī, J.D. 2011. The Perfect Guide to the Sciences of the Qurʾān, vol. 1: Al-​Itqān fī ʿUlūm al-​Qurʾān. Algar, H., Schub, M., and Abdel Ḥaleem, A. trans. Reading: Garnet Publishing. al-​Ṭabarī, A.J.M.b.J. 1992. Tafsīr al-​Ṭabarī al-​musammā Jāmiʿ al-​bayān fī taʾwīl al-​Qurʾān. 12 vols. Beirut: Dār al-​kutub al-​ʿilmīya. Wansbrough, J. 1977. Quranic Studies:  Sources and Methods of Scriptural Interpretation. Oxford:  Oxford University Press. ——​. 1987. Res Ispa Loquitor:  History and Mimesis. Jerusalem:  The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities. Watt, W.M. and Bell, R. 1970. Introduction to the Qurʾān. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

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4 MUḤAMMAD Stephen J. Shoemaker

In the span of just over a century and a half, Muḥammad has gone from being a figure who was “born in the full light of history” to almost a complete cipher. This did not happen without a struggle, however, as many leading authorities on formative Islam have persistently sought to validate the historical worth of Muḥammad’s traditional Islamic biographies for reconstructing the earliest history of Islam. Even today a handful of scholars continue to labor intensively to prevent Muḥammad from completely vanishing in what amounts to a near total epistemological collapse regarding the beginnings of Islam. The sources themselves are at least partly to blame for this lingering confidence: the surfeit of information that they offer can be intoxicating for historians eager to know more about the past. Thus the New Testament scholar Ernest Renan boasted that it was possible to “follow year by year the fluctuations of [Muḥammad’s] thoughts, his contradictions, his weaknesses” (Renan 1851:  1025; Renan 2000:  129). Yet  alongside of Renan’s credulity a more critical perspective was simultaneously beginning to emerge, particularly in the work of Gustav Weil, whose contribution to the foundation of early Islamic studies is not always appreciated as much as it should be. For instance, Theodor Nöldeke’s prize-​winning dissertation on the Qurʾān owes a substantial debt to Weil’s earlier work on the topic, yet one imagines that Weil’s Jewish heritage has much to do with the fact that Nöldeke, rather than he, is remembered as the great father of Qurʾānic studies.1 Weil also published path-​breaking studies on Muḥammad’s early biographies and the early Islamic historical tradition, along with a translation of Ibn Hishām’s important early biography of Muḥammad (Weil 1843, 1846–​1851, 1864). With these works Weil, perhaps more than any other figure, laid the foundations for future critical study of Muḥammad and Islamic origins. Weil first introduced in a significant way the methods of historical criticism to the study of Muḥammad and formative Islam, and in the years to come this critical approach would find itself in a protracted struggle with more optimistic views of the early Islamic sources. Somewhat surprisingly  –​at least in comparison with parallel developments in Jewish and Christian studies, the more sanguine approach to the sources often held the upper hand against more critical investigations. It would take the better part of a century for the historical-​critical approach to assert itself in the study of early Islam as it had in other disciplines, and even still the merits of this approach remain much debated in current studies on Muḥammad and Islamic origins. Despite the ubiquity of the historical-​critical toolkit

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across most disciplines of the Humanities, many scholars of early Islam continue either to reject such methods outright as inappropriate for the study of formative Islam or to ignore them as largely irrelevant to the more important task of explaining the Islamic tradition on its own terms. The latter tendency in particular is often on display in many recent publications on Muḥammad and the beginnings of Islam that take a more apologetic tone. In this regard as well as others, then, scholarship on the historical Muḥammad has long suffered and continues to suffer from a crisis of method. Many modern biographies of Muḥammad still lack a critical methodology, and accordingly, their value for historians of early Islam remains highly questionable.

The quest for the historical Muḥammad In 1926 Arthur Jeffery published an excellent article on “The Quest of the Historical Muḥammad” that still holds some value today for approaching scholarship on this topic (Jeffery 1926; reprinted as Jeffery 2000). Most significantly, Jeffery identifies several different types of biographies (following Albert Schweitzer) to emerge since the middle of the nineteenth century, and by and large, many of these categories are still relevant, as we will see. These are, “Pathological Lives,” “Political and Economic Lives,” “Eschatological Lives,” and “Apologetic Lives,” a type that also includes efforts to interpret Muḥammad in light of the later Islamic mystical tradition. With the exception of the first category, which seems to have fallen out of fashion, much modern scholarship on Muḥammad can be fit into one of the three latter categories. Jeffery concludes with Richard Bell’s recent –​at the time –​lectures on “The Origins of Islam in its Christian Environment,” in which Bell argues that many of Muḥammad’s main religious ideas seem to derive from Syriac religious culture (Bell 1926). This theme has been very much in vogue in recent decades as well, and despite its limited results thus far in explaining Muḥammad and his religious movement, the approach nevertheless seems to hold much promise for further investigation. Jeffery also draws limited attention to medieval Christian accounts about Muḥammad, largely as something of a museum showpiece, it would seem, yet this is another important area of contemporary research. Only in the last several decades have scholars seriously begun to consider the potential value of the numerous non-​Muslim sources from the seventh and eighth centuries (many of which would have been unknown to Jeffery) for understanding Muḥammad and the earliest Islam. Here as well it seems that much important research remains to be done. The early “Pathological Lives” of Muḥammad generally sought to diagnose him at a distance of more than a thousand years with epilepsy, based largely on reports from the traditional Islamic biographies. Traditions describing the moment of the onset of revelation, the iqrā episode, particularly suggested this illness in the minds of some nineteenth-​and early twentieth-​ century scholars. An early ninth-​century Greek Christian historian named Theophanes seems to have been the first to propose this interpretation (de Boor 1883–​1885: I 333; trans. Mango and Scott 1997: 464–​465), but it was Weil who first introduced it to modern scholarship (Weil 1843: 42–​45 n. 48). Soon thereafter it was adopted by Nöldeke (Nöldeke 1860: 18 and 70) and, most famously, Aloys Sprenger, who had himself studied medicine and whose name came to be most closely associated with this idea (Sprenger 1861–​1865: esp. I 208). Perhaps this is because Sprenger’s diagnosis continued to note more explicitly that he was for some time a complete maniac; and that the fit, after which he assumed his office, was a paroxysm of cataleptic insanity. This disease is sometimes accompanied by such interesting psychical phœnomena, that even in modern times it has given rise 50

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to many superstitious opinions. After this paroxysm the fits became habitual, though the moral excitement cooled down, and they assumed more and more an epileptic character. (Sprenger 1861–​1865: I 208) Although this idea has since been largely discredited, it nonetheless found a following among some notable scholars of early Islam into the beginning of twentieth century, including most notably Frants Buhl (1930:  139; originally published as Buhl 1903:  145–​146) and David Margoliouth (Margoliouth 1905: 45–​46). Yet it is certainly presumptuous to assume the possibility of making an accurate medical diagnosis across the centuries, particularly given the literary qualities of the sources involved. No less importantly, the projection of modern cultural assumptions about disease back into late ancient Arabia does not in fact help much to understand Muḥammad and the beliefs of his earliest followers. For the earliest Muslims, these were signs of prophecy, not illness, whatever their cause may have been.2 Sprenger’s views on Muḥammad’s mental health were roundly criticized even by many of his contemporaries, including especially Hartwig Hirschfeld (1902: 20) and Snouck Hurgronje (1916:  42), both of whom played essential roles in developing the basis for a more critical approach to earliest Islam at the turn of the last century. Hirschfeld notably dared to challenge the Nöldekean orthodoxy that Qurʾān as we have it is a reliable record of Muḥammad’s teaching, free from any interpolation or revision by the earliest community (Hirschfeld 1902: 136–​ 142, esp. 137–​139). This was not a new suggestion, as Weil and others before him had proposed similar ideas about the Qurʾān’s potential development after Muḥammad’s death and during the process of its early transmission.Yet any discussion of this possibility was unfortunately cut short and discouraged, thanks largely to the influence of Nöldeke’s dogmatic dictum:  “der Koran enthält nur echte Stücke,” a pronouncement that long served to forestall serious historical critical analysis of the Qurʾānic traditions (Nöldeke 1892: 56). Paul Casanova similarly suggested that some parts of the Qurʾān had been added by Muḥammad’s followers after his death, in this case in order to soften Muḥammad’s fervent preaching of immanent eschatology. Casanova’s biography of Muḥammad is thus one of the first and most important (if also disregarded) eschatological lives of Muḥammad (Casanova 1911–​1924).3 Casanova’s proposals were met with stern rejection by his contemporaries, most of whom could not countenance any notion that the Qurʾān had been redacted significantly by the early community.4 Thus, this approach to the Qurʾān was long sidelined, in favor of the view that the Islamic sacred text was instead more or less a faithful transcript of what Muḥammad had taught. Historical criticism of the ḥadīth and the sīra traditions was more successful in taking hold, even as many scholars have nonetheless continued to resist its findings even up until the present. In this regard the work of Ignaz Goldziher was groundbreaking and transformative. Prior to Goldziher’s work, scholars of early Islam generally believed that there was a core of historical truth in what the Islamic tradition remembered about its founding prophet, and with proper, careful sifting it was possible to separate this wheat from the chaff.Yet Goldziher demonstrated that these traditions as a whole first took shape only in the second century of Islam, nearly one hundred years after Muḥammad had died. Moreover, even the very earliest traditions were more legendary than historical in character, recalling Muḥammad and the beginnings of Islam in a manner that suited the beliefs, practices, and concerns of the Islamic community in the middle of the eighth century (Goldziher 1967–​1971: II). Therefore no amount of sifting could yield historically reliable information about Muḥammad and his earliest followers from this corpus of pious legends. Indeed, the medieval Islamic tradition itself held a similarly dim view of these materials and their accuracy (Raven 1960–​2007; see also Brown 2014:  232). Works by Hurgronje, Leone Caetani, and especially Henri Lammens would quickly cement 51

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this view, demonstrating repeatedly the late and artificial nature of Islamic traditions regarding Muḥammad and the beginnings of Islam,5 so that even Nöldeke as well would eventually come to embrace this view of the biographical traditions as unreliable for reconstructing the history of earliest Islam (Nöldeke 1898, 1907). Jeffery observes that “the dominant note in this advanced criticism is ‘back to the Koran’ … in the Koran alone can we be said to have firm ground under our feet” (1926: 342). Nonetheless, this note often went unheard, as scholars would continue to write biographies of Muḥammad based largely in the traditional biographical materials. Even works by prominent scholars of Islam, after an initial acknowledgment of the many problems with the source material, continue to narrate the life of Muḥammad according to the traditional accounts.6 Most notable in this regard is the highly influential work of Montgomery Watt, whose biographies of Muḥammad have become something of a “secular vulgate,” particularly in the English-​speaking world (van Sivers 2003: 3). Although Watt makes obeisance to the devastating findings of Goldziher, Lammens, and others, he nonetheless persists in using the earliest biographical collections as the primary source for his Muḥammad at Mecca and Muḥammad at Medina. In order to justify this approach, Watt regularly invoked the existence of a historically reliable kernel of truth buried in the sīra traditions that can guarantee their “general framework” (Watt 1953, 1956, 1983; see also Jones 1957). Such reasoning allows Watt to reproduce essentially unaltered the traditional Islamic accounts of Muḥammad’s activities at Mecca and Medina. Nevertheless, despite his frequent invocation of this “authentic core,” Watt merely asserts rather than demonstrates its existence, amounting to little more than a petitio principi that fails to confront significant problems with the source material (see also Schacht 1949: 146–​147). Rudi Paret takes a similar approach to the life of Muḥammad, albeit with more of an effort to justify his reliance on the sīra traditions. Paret was willing accept the withering critique of Muḥammad’s traditional biographies, even as he recognized that the Qurʾān alone was not sufficient to reconstruct either the life of Muḥammad or the beginnings of Islam.The Qurʾān is, as Fred Donner notes, a “profoundly ahistorical” text (1998: 75–​85, esp. 80), and as Michael Cook observes, on the basis of the Qurʾān alone, “we could probably infer that the protagonist of the Koran was Muḥammad, that the scene of his life was in western Arabia, and that he bitterly resented the frequent dismissal of his claims to prophecy by his contemporaries. But we could not tell that the sanctuary was in Mecca, nor that Muḥammad himself came from there, and we could only guess that he established himself in Yathrib” –​a very minimal biography indeed (Cook 1983: 70). Accordingly, Paret determines that the Qurʾān is historically useful only when read in conjunction with the traditional biographies. Without these, we know very little about earliest Islam, even though, as he acknowledges, Goldziher and Lammens had shown that they were not reliable.7 Paret sought to remedy this problem by identifying what he believed to be a genuine student–​teacher relationship in the chain of transmission Ibn Isḥāq from al-​Zuhrī from ʿUrwa b. al-​Zubayr. According to Paret, traditions in the earliest collections with this isnād were in fact reliable, thus breaking through the chronological barriers identified by Goldziher and Lammens and anchoring this material securely at the end of the first Islamic century (Paret 1954: 151). Paret attempts to reach even further back into the mists of Islamic origins by appealing to ʿUrwa’s decent from one of Muḥammad’s initial followers, which would have possibly afforded him access to Muḥammad’s life and times. Nevertheless Paret does not make clear why the mere attachment of this isnād to a particular tradition can guarantee its origin in first Islamic century.8 If it seems somewhat likely that a good deal of Ibn Isḥāq’s material came from al-​Zuhrī, it is by no means certain that their attribution to ʿUrwa is always reliable. The alleged connection with ʿUrwa needs further justification and cannot simply be assumed. Yet these are questions 52

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and concerns that remain very much alive in contemporary studies on Muḥammad and formative Islam. As will be seen below, a more concerted attempt to surpass the boundary of the first century by recovering ʿUrwa’s teaching and a movement back to reading the Qurʾān alone are among the most active areas of current research on the historical Muḥammad and his religious movement.

Political and economic lives Political and economic lives of Muḥammad have a long pedigree, and this genre continues to be one of the most popular. Perhaps the most classic example of a political biography of Muḥammad is Margoliouth’s Muḥammad and the Rise of Islam. Margoliouth’s Muḥammad is above all else a political figure whose real genius lay in his ability to organize the Arabs into a state, so that they could meet and exploit the challenges that they faced in late antiquity for political and economic gain. Religion was little more than a tool that Muḥammad used in order to grow and galvanize this new Arab polity. Muḥammad’s closest contemporary analogue, according to Margoliouth, was Joseph Smith, who like Muḥammad employed “ ‘revelations’ as a political instrument.” All in all, this was a movement primarily about Arab nationalism and political power, so that Muḥammad was much more a political leader than a religious prophet. While Muḥammad clearly joined a religious message to his political agenda, religious belief should be seen as ancillary, rather than principal, in the growth of his movement (Margoliouth 1905: vii–​viii, 82, 90–​91, 134, 134, 139, 156, 471–​472). Other scholars of the early twentieth century expressed similar views, including most notably Caetani, who was perhaps the most cynical of all in regard to the role that religion played in the rise of the Arabs during the seventh century.The title of his “The Art of War of the Arabs, and the Supposed Religious Fervour of the Arab Conquerors” says it all: according to Caetani, the Arabs were interested in booty not in religion (Caetani 2008; originally published in 1911). Lammens similarly sees economic need, driven by climate change and famine, as the key motivation for the formation of Muḥammad’s new community (1914: 116–​121 and 174–​177). Carl Becker also believed the impulses behind Muḥammad’s movement “were economic, and the new religion was nothing more than a party cry of unifying power” (1909: 29; see also Becker 1924). Hubert Grimme took this one step further, interpreting the earliest “Islam” as a socialist response to conditions of economic inequity in the Ḥijāz, rather than a religious movement. In other words, Muḥammad led an uprising of peasants against an exploitative landed class, and only later did this movement develop into a religion (Grimme 1892). Although this strictly political and economic interpretation was more common around the turn of the last century, one still encounters it on occasion in contemporary scholarship. For instance, in James Howard-​ Johnston’s recent study of historiography during the seventh century, religion plays primarily a catalytic role in the emergence of Islam, so that “religion acted as a supercharger” and a “bonding agent” in the formation and expansion of the early Islamic polity (Howard-​Johnston 2010: 459–​460; see also Lewis 2002: 55). Nevertheless, it is famously difficult to separate religion from politics in Islamic culture, particularly in the pre-​modern period: as Patricia Crone rightly observes, Muḥammad was not “a prophet who merely happened to become involved with politics. His monotheism amounted to a political program” (Crone 1987:  241 and 244–​245; Crone 2004:  11; and Cook 1983: 51). Accordingly, more recent versions of the political and economic life have allowed more space for the positive role of religious belief than earlier exemplars. This is true especially of the most famous and influential of the political and economic biographies, Watt’s aforementioned studies on the life of Muḥammad. In many important respects, 53

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Watt’s Muḥammad is simply a more subtle and refined version of Grimme’s. According to Watt, Muḥammad’s prophetic mission was inspired by the unjust social and economic conditions of Mecca, where wealth and power had become concentrated in the hands of an elite merchant class. Muḥammad’s movement of social reform thus championed those newly disenfranchised by the emergence of a capitalist economy and promised them a new social order based on economic justice (Watt 1953: 1–​25; see also Watt 1961b: 7–​13). Not surprisingly, some of Watt’s early critics saw his biographies as presenting a Marxist version of Muḥammad. And Watt himself did not exactly object, suggesting that “an elementary knowledge of Marxism” had perhaps influenced his analysis (Watt 1961a:  2). But Watt’s Muḥammad is also seemingly sincere in his religious preaching, which was fundamental to his broader movement and not just a means to an end (Watt 1956: 146–​147). A version of this political and economic life remains ascendant in contemporary scholarship on Muḥammad and the beginnings of Islam, and one frequently finds it in university textbooks. In large part this remains a consequence, I suspect, of the pervasive influence of Watt’s general narrative on subsequent scholarship. Even in the absence of his class-​based analysis, a similar vision of Islam as a movement fueled by social and economic concerns prevails (e.g., Brown 2011: 85 and Safi 2009: 290) The biographies by Paret (1957), Alford Welch (Buhl [and Welch] 1960–​2007), F.E. Peters (1994 and 2011), Irving Zeitlin (2007), and Tilman Nagel (2008) all fit this mold. Many more popular narratives also hew to this line, including those by Lesley Hazleton (2013) and Karen Armstrong (1993). Nevertheless, these political and economic lives all require a great deal of confidence in the traditional Islamic biographies of Muḥammad. Their information regarding the politics and economy of Mecca and Medina derives exclusively from these sources:  without them, we know next to nothing at all about the Ḥijāz in the early seventh century.Yet as we have just seen, critical study of these biographical collections has repeatedly shown that their traditions cannot be dated earlier than the beginning of the second Islamic century  –​at least one hundred years after the events that they purport to describe. For this reason, we simply cannot rely on these early Islamic biographies to reconstruct the beginnings of Islam in the way that these modern biographies presume, at least in the absence of some critical method that can date individual traditions closer to the events in question. Presumably this is why Wim Raven predicts (incorrectly!) in his article on “sīra” in the Encyclopaedia of Islam (2nd ed.) that Watt’s work will be the last scholarly attempt at a biography of Muḥammad (1960–​2007: 662). In addition, Patricia Crone has severely undermined the foundations of this prevailing political and economic narrative of Islamic origins in her Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam (Crone 1987; see also Crone 2005 and 2007). Here Crone targets especially Watt’s reconstruction of Mecca’s economy on the eve of Islam, which he based almost entirely in the sīra traditions, failing even to interpret these correctly, according to her critique. Looking especially to evidence from outside of the Islamic tradition –​from the very peoples that the Meccans were allegedly trading with –​she finds no evidence to support the Islamic tradition’s memory that Mecca was a center for international trade in high-​value luxury goods. Rather, trade in this region from the Greco-​Roman period onward had been primarily by ship through the Red Sea, completely bypassing Mecca, which lies some 45 miles inland from the nearest port in Jeddah. To date Crone’s conclusions have not been successfully challenged, and they deal a devastating blow to the political and economic lives of Muḥammad. Indeed, despite its pervasiveness and persistence, it seems that this narrative of the beginnings of Islam has largely run its course.

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Apologetic and theological lives Already in the nineteenth century, Muslim and non-​Muslim writers alike began to produce apologetic biographies of Muḥammad that sought either to present him in a positive light or defend the truth of his prophecy. In many cases these works aimed to correct what were believed to be western “misunderstandings” of Muḥammad by replacing them with traditional Islamic views (Jeffery 1926: 344–​346; and Ali 2014: 39–​40, 53–​55).9 One of the most successful and significant apologetic biographies was published in 1936 by the Egyptian scholar Husayn Haykal (1976). In many ways Haykal’s life of Muḥammad straddles the boundary between political and apologetic biographies, inasmuch as he sought to present Muḥammad primarily as “a consummate statesman and role model for leaders in modern times” and “an able commander and social reformer” (Brown 2011: 126). Yet as much as Haykal’s biography is influenced by modernism, it is still a largely theological work that aims not to exhume the historical figure of Muḥammad but instead to offer an agenda for “true” Islam in the present era, using Muḥammad’s life as its canvas. Not surprisingly, the twentieth century saw a steady stream of many similar apologetic lives of Muḥammad produced, like Haykal’s, primarily for Muslim readers. More peculiar, however, and even troubling is the growing popularity of such apologetic lives among western non-​Muslim readers. Since 2001 there has been a rise of works about Muḥammad aimed at a popular audience –​some with more scholarly authors than others –​that have sought deliberately to present Muḥammad in a positive and sympathetic light. These biographies frequently lack any critical perspective regarding the traditional Islamic sources, which they treat as if they were entirely unproblematic records of Muḥammad’s life and teachings. Moreover, these biographies regularly ignore or whitewash some of the more unsavory elements of Muḥammad’s reported behavior and the violence perpetrated by him and the early Islamic polity. In some respects perhaps these works should be welcomed for their efforts to foster greater religious harmony. Yet when they are not represented or understood as the apologetic, theological writings that they are but instead as historical biographies, this is disquieting and also detrimental to genuine historical scholarship on Muḥammad and earliest Islam. If such writings were directly identified as theological works intended primarily for members of the broader Islamic community or those interested in contemporary Islamic theology, then that would be more than fine. But at best the boundary between history and theology is made unclear in these works, and at worst, it is occluded. Several of these works are by Muslim scholars of Islam, such as Jonathan A.C. Brown (2011),10 Omid Safi (2009),Tariq Ramadan (2007), among others, in which case, the impulse to apologize for the faith is not entirely unexpected. But again, problems arise when such works are presented not as the works of theological interpretation that they are but instead as historical biographies of Muḥammad. Take for comparison the three-​volume biography of Jesus recently published by Pope Benedict XVI (2007, 2011, and 2012). Obviously this is a work of Christian theology intended primarily for the edification of Christian believers. Yet none of these theological biographies of Muḥammad surpasses the historical-​critical standards of the previous Pope’s biography of Jesus, and most do not meet it. Despite their similarly theological agendas, these biographies of Muḥammad occupy a very different intellectual position in the academy than the Pope’s biographies of Jesus. Moreover, this comparison is certainly no insult, and I would question the prejudices of those who would take it as such. Joseph Ratzinger was, after all, a professor of historical theology at Bonn, Münster, Tübingen, and then Regensburg (where he became Vice President) before entering the Catholic Church hierarchy at the age of 50. Yet his scholarship on the history of Christian thought reflects the same theological

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impulses evidenced in the writers mentioned above. Perhaps somewhat more surprising is the frequent absence of historical criticism in many non-​Muslim authors who have written about Muḥammad in a similar vein, including Karen Armstrong (1993 and 2006),11 Lesley Hazelton (2013), Daniel Peterson (2007), again, among others. Their work stands in stark contrast, for comparison, to Reza Aslan’s recent historical-​critical biography of Jesus (2013), which, in all fairness, is the beneficiary of a long tradition of rigorous scholarship on the Historical Jesus.12 Biographies of this sort have their place, to be sure.Yet it is important for critical historians of early Islam to challenge these accounts and call them out for their historical deficiencies. For scholars of religious studies in particular, it is essential, as Russell McCutcheon reminds us, to be “critics not caretakers” (2001). Islam may be for many of its adherents a religion of peace and social justice, but it was not so in the time of Muḥammad and his earliest followers. Few things seem more certain than that it was a religion of conquest that often advocated violence in the name of religion, and this is certainly how it is recalled in the earliest narratives of Islamic origins (e.g., Jeffery 1926: 328–​329). In order for Islam to become a religion of peace and justice, it must also directly confront the more unsavory (to the modern mindset at least) aspects of its founder and its formative history, as Christianity, Judaism, and other religions have had to do in making their transitions to modernity and now postmodernity.

Eschatological lives Eschatological lives of Muḥammad have been relatively rare during the past century, and this view seems to have fallen out of favor until only very recently. Nevertheless, this was not always the case, and many of the earliest critical lives of Muḥammad viewed him primarily through an eschatological lens. Perhaps the first was Hurgronje, who concluded that the early Muslims viewed Muḥammad’s appearance as the “seal of the prophets” itself a sign that the end of the world was at hand, and furthermore they did not believe that Muḥammad would die before the Hour’s arrival. Accordingly, Hurgronje and others following after him identified the swiftly approaching end of the world as the primary inspiration and the fundamental theme of Muḥammad’s preaching. Other elements of his message were “more or less accessories” to his pressing concern with the world’s impending judgment and destruction, which was “the essential element of Muḥammad’s preaching” (Hurgronje 1886b: 26; and 1894: 161–​162). Buhl likewise saw Muḥammad as motivated above all else by belief in an impending judgment. It was, writes Buhl, “the thought of the imminent Judgment Day that made such a forceful impression on his mind and filled his imagination with the magnificent and baroque images that he tirelessly evokes in the oldest parts of the Qurʾān,” and Muḥammad’s overpowering concern with the looming eschaton was the main impulse for his religious movement (Buhl 1930: 126–​127; see also Buhl 1998: 96–​97 and Buhl 1936). According to Buhl, Muḥammad initially had no intention of founding a new religion, seeking only to warn of the coming judgment announced before him by the Christian (and Jewish) scriptures. Only later did he develop an awareness of having himself been sent as a new prophet to warn the Arabs before the impending doom, and from this point on the swiftly approaching Day of Judgment “ruled all of his thoughts” and stood at the core of his message, even after his establishment in Medina (Buhl 1930: esp. 132–​ 133, 144–​145, 157, 196–​197; and Buhl 1998: 98, 104–​105, 113, 138–​139. Here Buhl is especially influenced by Hurgronje 1886a: 263). Tor Andræ also saw Muḥammad primarily as an eschatological prophet, concluding that “the basic conviction of Mohammed’s preaching, and the heart of his prophetic message … is the last day –​the day of judgment and retribution. For him the Day of Judgment is not an occurrence far off in the hazy uncertain future, belonging to a different sphere from that of 56

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mundane events. It is a reality that is threateningly near” (Andræ 1935:  53–​63, quotation at 53; originally published as Andræ 1932). While Andræ doubts that Muḥammad ever promised that the eschaton would arrive in his generation, he “often shows that he regarded it as possible that he himself might yet experience it” (Andræ 1935: 53). Nevertheless, the most important eschatological life of Muḥammad is Cassanova’s unfortunately neglected study, Mohammed et la fin du monde, mentioned above (Casanova 1911–​1924). It is unfortunate that Casanova’s ideas received such rough dismissal from his contemporaries, inasmuch as they occasionally manifest great insights regarding the eschatological themes of the Qurʾān and the early Islamic tradition that would not be equaled until the later twentieth century. Only now after many decades of dismissal has this monograph finally begun to receive the attention that it deserves, as a handful of scholars have recently begun to reconsider the unmistakable and pervasive evidence of imminent eschatological belief lying at the very heart of earliest Islam. As David Cook recently notes of Casanova’s work, “it is interesting to note that ideas not accepted at the time, like Casanova’s idea that Muḥammad and the early Muslims were driven by a belief in the imminent end of the world, are clear and obvious now” (Cook 2002: 30; see also Cook 1996: 66). More recent studies focused on Muḥammad as a prophet who preached the impending end of the world have tended to approach the topic in a piecemeal fashion, and there is no complete biography of Muḥammad that is written from this perspective. Articles on individual themes by Bernard Lewis (1950), Suleiman Bashear (1990, 1991a, 1991b, 1993), and Meir Kister (1962) laid important groundwork for interpreting the historical Muḥammad as a prophet of imminent eschatology. This theme also features prominently in Michael Cook and Patricia Crone’s Hagarism, where it is conflated, somewhat problematically, with Jewish messianism (Crone and Cook 1977: esp. 3–​15; but see also Donner 2001). More recently, David Cook (1996: 66; 2001; and 2002: 30), and Fred Donner (2002: esp. 10–​13; 1998: 30 n. 78, and 46; 2010, esp. 79–​82 and 97) have tentatively proposed that Muḥammad seems to have believed that he was living in the last days (see also Ayoub 2003: 145–​146; and Hoyland 2012: 1066).Yet the most thoroughgoing argument to date that Muḥammad was preaching the eschaton’s imminent arrival appears in my recent book The Death of a Prophet. There, using historical-​critical methods and perspectives developed in the study of the Historical Jesus, I argue that Muḥammad believed himself to be living in the last days just before the Final Judgment of the Hour, which he probably expected in his own lifetime (Shoemaker 2012a: esp. 118–​196).13 Muḥammad’s religious convictions also seem to have been profoundly shaped by a tradition of imperial eschatology that was widespread among the religions of the late ancient Near East on the eve of Islam. Therefore the political Muḥammad and the eschatological Muḥammad were essentially two sides of the same coin: like many of his contemporary religious rivals, it seems that Muḥammad along with his earliest followers expected the climax of history to be realized through the success and expansion of their divinely guided polity (Shoemaker 2014).14

Recent approaches One of the most important recent developments in study of Muḥammad and Islamic origins is the publication in English of two particularly important early biographies of Muḥammad, the Maghāzī, or Campaigns, of al-​Wāqidī (d. 822)  (Faizer 2011), and the Maghāzī from the Muṣannaf of ʿAbd al-​Razzāq al-​Ṣanʿānī (d. 827)  (Anthony 2014). Although the former has long been known to specialists on early Islam, the importance of the latter has come to light only relatively recently. Nevertheless, al-​Wāqidī’s rather large collection had never previously been translated into a modern western language, leaving those less expert in Arabic to rely on a German epitome. The biographical traditions of ʿAbd al-​Razzāq’s Muṣannaf have been 57

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less well known to western scholars until recently. Yet now Sean Anthony’s publication of the Arabic text with facing translation has made this important early biography widely available. ʿAbd al-​Razzāq’s Muṣannaf in particular provides an invaluable supplement to the biography by Ibn Isḥāq (d. 767), which long served as the main source of biographical information about Muḥammad. Ibn Isḥāq’s biography is itself late, compiled only around the middle of the eighth century. Compounding the difficulties with this source is the fact that it does not itself survive but is known primarily through two later revisions of Ibn Isḥāq’s biography by Ibn Hishām (d. 833) and al-​Ṭabarī (d. 923). Much of Ibn Isḥāq’s material is attributed to his teacher, al-​Zuhrī (d. 742); nevertheless, it is not always clear whether this attribution is in fact accurate, since al-Zuhrī was known to be Ibn Isḥāq’s teacher, and his reputation as a famed early scholar of Muḥammad’s life may have inspired later authorities to add his name. Al-​Wāqidī and ʿAbd al-​Razzāq even more provide invaluable supplements to the traditions from Ibn Isḥāq and can often validate his transmissions from al-​ Zuhrī. Both of these biographical traditions preserve extensive biographical traditions ascribed to a certain Maʿmar (d. 770), who was, like Ibn Isḥāq, a student of al-​Zuhrī. Accordingly, if these attributions are accurate, then potentially we have a second, independent line of transmission for al-Zuhrī’s early teachings on the life of Muḥammad. Although some serious questions remain about the transmission history of ʿAbd al-​Razzāq’s Muṣannaf,15 its collection of biographical traditions offers now the possibility to date some of these biographical traditions probably even earlier than Ibn Isḥāq, to al-​Zuhrī and the first part of the eighth century. This approach has been adopted especially by Gregor Schoeler and Andreas Görke, who together have sought to recover some of the earliest Islamic traditions about Muḥammad (Görke and Schoeler 2008; Görke 2000; Görke and Schoeler 2005; and Schoeler 1996, 2002, and 2003). Their work builds on a technique first developed by Joseph Schacht that compares all of the known transmission chains (isnāds) in order to identify their “common link,” that is earliest transmitter on whom all the highly varied chains of transmission converge (Schacht 1950:  esp.  163–​175). As Schacht reasonably concludes, this figure is most likely the person who first placed a particular tradition into circulation, since numerous isnāds all unanimously identify him or her as a source. Otherwise, it is difficult to explain how these highly variegated chains of transmission could possibly converge on this single individual as their earliest common source. Borrowing a refinement of this method developed by Harald Motzki for the study of legal ḥadīth, they also then compare the matn, the content of the tradition, across the different lines of transmission in an effort to discern meaningful patterns that could confirm the convergence of the isnāds. Schoeler and Görke are confident that this method enables them to identify a handful of traditions that can be assigned to al-​Zuhrī’s teacher, ʿUrwa b. al-​Zubayr (d. 712), himself a renowned early authority on Muḥammad’s biography. The method and its results are intriguing, if also controversial, and Schoeler and Görke (and Motzki) have been extremely vigilant in policing any criticism of their approach. While their identification of the traditions in question with al-​Zuhrī seems highly probable, the reach further back to ʿUrwa is generally much less persuasive. Schoeler and Görke also introduce the very problematic notion of “authenticity” to their evaluation of these traditions: even if they are in fact from ʿUrwa, this offers no guarantee of their authenticity. Likewise, their special pleading to push the traditions even further back to ʿĀʾisha is even less persuasive. But no less problematic is the fact that nearly all of the rather minimal information that this painstaking method purports to recover can already be shown to be historically probable on the basis of matn analysis alone. That is, the nature of the traditions’ content itself suggests that the information is likely from very early in the development of the tradition (Shoemaker 2009–​2011).16 58

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Finally, one especially notable recent development is a move “back to the Koran” much as Jeffery anticipated nearly a hundred years ago. In my opinion, this approach holds the most promise going forward, albeit in conjunction with historical-​critical investigation of the biographical traditions as well. By almost universal agreement, the Qurʾān is the oldest surviving piece of Islamic literature, and its traditions date to sometime in the seventh century. It is certainly not clear whether all of the Qurʾān comes from Muḥammad himself, and parts of it may be older while others are more recent. Yet in any case, this text presents a precious witness to Muḥammad’s religious beliefs as interpreted by his earliest followers. Both Gerald Hawting and Patricia Crone have been particularly successful in mining the Qurʾān for information concerning its religious context, and both offer very persuasive arguments that the Qurʾān first emerged in a context not of paganism but rather of monotheism. Its criticisms of the “associators” seem to be more about the limits of monotheism than a critique of paganism (Hawting 1999; Crone 2010, 2012, 2013). Likewise Fred Donner’s recent Muḥammad and the Believers is an excellent –​if controversial –​study adopting this back to the Qurʾān approach. On the basis primarily of the Qurʾān, Donner concludes that in its earliest stages Muḥammad’s religious movement was an interconfessional, Abrahamic monotheist community that welcomed both Jews and Christians as Jews and Christians, so long as they would confess their belief in one God and the impending Last Day and accept Muḥammad’s leadership of the community (Donner 2010). There are certainly problems with this hypothesis, particularly with the inclusion of Trinitarian Christians, as Donner himself is aware, but on the whole it offers a more persuasive explanation of early Islam, in my opinion, than reconstructions based more heavily in the traditional Islamic sources. Hopefully continued research using historical-​critical methods to analyze the Qurʾān can bring further refinements to these and other hypotheses in the near future. This approach, I believe, holds the most promise for arriving at a better understanding of the historical Muḥammad and the rise of Islam.

Notes 1 See Weil (1844: 54–​81), which is developed more fully in Nöldeke and Schwally (1909–​1919: I 74–​ 164). On Weil’s significance, see, e.g., Lawrence Conrad’s introduction to Horovitz (2002: xiv–​xv). 2 As, for instance, even such a strident critic of religion as Christopher Hitchens similarly concludes (2007: 135). 3 The study was published in three parts, the last two of which consist of extensive notes to the first thirty pages of the initial volume. 4 For example, Hurgronje (1916:  15–​ 18), Gottheil (1914), Z.  (1912), B.  (1913), McNeile (1915) Bergsträsser and Pretzl (1938: 6–​8), Bell (1958: 46–​47), and Bell and Watt (1970: 53–​54). 5 For eample, Hurgronje (1916: 23–​24), Caetani (1905–​1926: I 197), Lammens (1910; now translated into English as Lammens 2000b). See also Lammens (1912; and the English translation, Lammens 2000a). 6 On the persistence of this problem, with some specific examples, see Donner (1998: 7–​9) and Hoyland (2007: 597 n. 6). As a specific example, Marshall Hodgson notes that “On the face of it, the documentation transmitted among Muslims about his life is rich and detailed; but we have learned to mistrust most of it; indeed, the most respected early Muslim scholars themselves pointed out its untrustworthiness” (1974: 160). Nevertheless, Hodgson then proceeds to rehash the traditional account. Even F.E. Peters, who in one place writes, “Goldziher, Lammens and Schacht were all doubtless correct” with regard to our knowledge of Muḥammad’s life (1991: 303), later composed his biography of Muḥammad largely according to the accounts of the traditional sources (1994). 7 “Soweit Isnāde wesentlich über das Jahr 100 d. H. (718 n. Chr.) zurückreichen, haben sie für uns nicht die geringste Beweiskraft. Am Anfang der Überlieferung über den Urislam klafft eine Lücke” (Paret 1954: 150). 8 Paret frequently highlights traditions from ʿUrwa in his biography of Muḥammad (originally published in 1957), without much justification for their authenticity or importance (Paret 2005: 57, 66, 102–​103, and 106). Walid Saleh, in his review of Hawting’s Idea of Idolatry, scolds “revisionism” for its attacks on

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Stephen J. Shoemaker the “German school” (presumably not Goldziher, Schacht, and Noth, inter alios), observing that “it is no wonder that one of the major works of this school, Rudi Paret’s Mohammed und der Koran is always absent from their bibliographies” (Saleh 2005). Despite Saleh’s praise for this book, its absence from these studies seems largely excusable, inasmuch as this Taschenbuch biography of Muḥammad, like so many other examples of this genre, essentially adheres to the “basic framework” of the sīra, whose reliability has been sternly questioned, and not just by those in the “revisionist” camp. 9 The latter is a very interesting survey of different representations of Muḥammad, but unfortunately it does not engage critical scholarship on the Historical Muḥammad and Islamic origins in any significant way. The works surveyed are primarily either modern Islamic biographies or more popular Western biographies that are either hostile or sympathetic to Muḥammad. Most of the authors discussed thus far in this article receive rather minimal treatment in Ali’s study. Somewhat troubling is that the book engages only sources written in English, Arabic, and French: the absence of German is particularly problematic. 10 In all fairness Brown’s biography makes more of a gesture toward historical criticism. He at least acknowledges it and the problems that it raises. Nevertheless, once acknowledged, Brown then proceeds largely to ignore it and present Muḥammad’s biography more or less unadulterated from the traditional Islamic sources, yet at the same time rejecting it explicitly when it seems to raise uncomfortable issues concerning Muḥammad’s teaching (Brown 2011: 97–​99). 11 The fact that Armstrong (1991) goes to such great lengths to exculpate Muḥammad and the early Muslims, while elsewhere sharply condemning similar religious violence in the medieval Christian tradition, underscores her deeply apologetic agenda. 12 Despite the controversy that this work has generated, largely due to Aslan’s appearance on Fox News, the book actually adds very little to the conversation that had already been proposed many times before in New Testament scholarship. Had a non-​Muslim written the same book, I suspect that it would have garnered considerably less attention and sales. 13 This is argued more succinctly in Shoemaker 2012b: 1090–​9. 14 Presently I am working on a monograph entitled The Apocalypse of Empire: Imperial Eschatology in Late Antiquity and Early Islam that will explore this ideology and its relation to formative Islam in much greater detail. 15 See Hawting (1996:  142–​ 143), Conrad (1993:  261), Wansbrough (1977:  122–​ 148), and Calder (1993: 194–​195). Even Motzki acknowledges the problems with chronology, and he must assume that Isḥāq al-​Dabarī “probably received it in written form from his father, a pupil of ʿAbd al-​Razzāq, but skipped his father in the riwāya” (Motzki 1991: 2; and Motzki 2003: 182). 16 See the almost immediate collective response by Görke, Motzki, and Schoeler (2012), and likewise Nagel (2013) and again the almost immediate collective response by Görke and Motzki (2014) and Schoeler (2014).

Bibliography Ali, K. 2014. The Lives of Muḥammad. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Andræ, T. 1932. Mohammed, sein Leben und sein Glaube. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. ——​. 1935. Mohammed: The Man and his Faith. Menzel, T.W. trans. New York: Barnes and Noble. Anthony, S.W. 2014. Maʻmar ibn Rāshid:  The Expeditions:  An Early Biography of Muḥammad. Library of Arabic Literature. New York: New York University Press. Armstrong, K. 1991. Holy War: The Crusades and Their Impact on Today’s World. New York: Doubleday. ——​. 1993. Muḥammad: A Biography of the Prophet. New York: HarperSanFrancisco. ——​. 2006. Muḥammad: A Prophet for Our Time. Eminent Lives. London: HarperPress. Aslan, R. 2013. Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth. New York: Random House. Ayoub, M. 2003. The Crisis of Muslim History: Religion and Politics in Early Islam. Oxford: Oneworld. B., M. 1913. Review of Paul Casanova, Mohammed et la fin du monde: étude critique sur l’Islam primitif. Muslim World 3(2):202–​203. Bashear, S. 1990. The Title ‘Fārūq’ and Its Association with ʿUmar I. Studia Islamica 72:47–​70. ——​. 1991a. Apocalyptic and Other Materials on Early Muslim-​Byzantine Wars:  A  Review of Arabic Sources. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 1:173–​207. ——​. 1991b. Riding Beasts on Divine Missions: An Examination of the Ass and Camel Traditions. Journal of Semitic Studies 37:37–​75.

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5 THE SĪRA Pavel Pavlovitch

Sīra and maghāzī Modern scholars of early Islam use the terms sīra and maghāzī as the respective designations of works about the biography of the Prophet Muḥammad in general and his military expeditions in particular. In the parlance of Muslim traditionists who flourished in the first half of the 2nd century AH/​718–​768 CE, however, the term maghāzī likely encompassed the events from the lifetime of the Prophet and the reign of the first four caliphs (c. 570–​c. 661 CE). The famous historian Muḥammad b. ʿUmar al-​Wāqidī (d. 207/​822) inaugurated a narrower conception of maghāzī as the military expeditions and raids of the Prophet, including the political assassinations carried out on his behest (Hinds 1986). Al-​Wāqidī’s innovative conception of maghāzī coincided with ʿAbd al-​Malik b. Hishām’s (d. 218/​834) introduction of the term sīra as a title of his recension of Muḥammad b. Isḥāq’s (d. c. 150/​767) biography (Maghāzī) of the Prophet comprising the pre-​Islamic (mubtadaʾ), Meccan (mabʿath), and Medinese (maghāzī) periods (Sellheim 1965–​1966: 42–​43).Thus, the term sīra came to cover the entire life of the Prophet, whereas the meaning of maghāzī was applied specifically to his military endeavors. The rudimentary beginnings of maghāzī go back to the 1st-​/​7th-​century popular storytelling (qaṣaṣ). One of the earliest transmitters of stories about the Prophet might have been ʿUbayd b. ʿUmayr (d. 68/​687–​688) (Juynboll 1994: 160–​162). Other early collectors of maghāzī traditions include ʿUrwa b. al-​Zubayr (d. 93–​94/​711–​713), Abān b. ʿUthmān (d. 96–​105/​714–​ 724), ʿĀṣim b.  ʿUmar b. Qatāda (d. 116–​219/​734–​747), ʿAbd Allāh b. Abī Bakr al-​Anṣārī (d. 130/​747–​748 or 135/​752–​753), Hammām b.  Munabbih (d. 101–​132/​719–​750), and Mūsā b.  ʿUqba (d. 141/​758). Although fragmentary works associated with some of these scholars are extant, as the following examples show the authenticity of these ascriptions is a matter of debate. Whereas several Western scholars pronounced Hammām’s ṣaḥīfa authentic, Gautier H.A. Juynboll (2007:  29–​31) argued that the collection going under Hammām’s name was invented by ʿAbd al-​Razzāq al-​Ṣanʿānī (d. 211/​827). In like manner, Joseph Schacht (1953) disputed the authenticity of Mūsā b. ʿUqba’s citations of earlier authorities, mainly al-​Zuhrī (d. 124/​742), in the Berlin manuscript Ahlwardt No. 1554 with nineteen purported Mūsā traditions. Gregor Schoeler (2000) vindicated Mūsā’s transmissions by parallel reports found in other collections (e.g. the Muṣannaf of ʿAbd al-​Razzāq al-​Ṣanʿānī), thereby invoking the concept of the follow-​up isnād (mutābiʿ) used by classical Muslim scholars to back up their transmissions. 65

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After a meticulous study of isnāds on the authority of ʿUrwa b. al-​Zubayr, Görke and Schoeler (2008) were able to distill snippets of evidence about ʿUrwa’s traditions. To that end, however, they used sources that are considerably later than ʿUrwa, and they applied a method that loses much of its reliability when it comes to the 1st/​7th century (Shoemaker 2012: 80–​90; see also below). Similar problems obtain with Ibn Isḥāq’s famous Maghāzī. They have been preserved in the revised versions of Ibn Hishām (d. 218/​834) through Ziyād al-​Bakkāʾī (d. 183/​799), Aḥmad b.  ʿAbd al-​Jabbār al-​ʿUṭāridī (d. 272/​886) through Yūnus b. Bukayr (d. 199/​815), al-​Ṭabarī (d. 310/​923) through Salama b. al-​Faḍl (d. c. 191/​806), and other later collectors. The sīra–​maghāzī literature is far from being a homogeneous corpus governed by identical rules of composition and purposes of use. From the onset, sīra combined description of historical events with legal concerns, as evident from the original understanding of the plural form siyar as rules of war with internal and external enemies (Hinds 1986). Synoptic compositions, like Ibn Isḥāq’s biography of the Prophet, are characterized by thematic untidiness: they comprise tafsīr, jurisprudence, poetry, grammar, genealogy, tribal epic, and by including, excluding, or specifically arranging traditions they take political stances and address ideological concerns. Although we habitually describe the contents of sīra literature as narrative, one should bear in mind that, even if including considerably long narrative sections, this literature is composed of discrete textual units delineated by the use of isnāds –​individual or collective (Wansbrough 2006a: 36). This syncretism is salient in the chapters entitled Kitāb al-​Maghāzī found in 2nd-​and 3rd-​century ḥadīth collections. These chapters sometimes exhibit striking differences in the chronological ordering and thematic scope of the sīra traditions included (Zaman 1996: 3–​5). Although subjected to editorial interventions and composed under the sway of political and ideological commitments, the sīra literature has often been presumed to be able to yield –​when accessed from the vantage point of some critical methodology –​authentic information about what really happened in the Ḥijāz at the turn of the 6th century CE. In this chapter, I will present this positivist perception of early-​Islamic historiography against the background of skeptical approaches to the Islamic literary sources and compare it with external literary, epigraphic, and numismatic evidence. Even if the Islamic literary sources, which began to be composed at least a century after the death of the Prophet, may include hard historical data, this data would seem to reflect the circumstances of these sources’ composition and redaction more than it references events from the first quarter of the 7th century CE.

Sīra and Sunna Both sīra and Sunna deal with the same central subject –​the life of the Prophet and his closest Companions, and both make use of the same cognitive source –​the ḥadīth. But whereas the maghāzī and sīra constitute a historical narrative about the formation of the Muslim community (umma) through the Prophet’s deeds, the Sunna treats prophetic traditions as discrete legal precedents regulating the internal life of the umma and its interaction with external communities. The interplay between historical and legal discourse about the Prophet brought forth questions about their mutual dependence and chronological precedence over one another. At the beginning of the 20th century, Henri Lammens and Carl Heinrich Becker (1913: 263–​ 264) considered sīra as chronologically ordered exegetical and legal ḥadīth. By contrast, the comparison between the maghāzī works of Ibn Isḥāq and al-​Wāqidī, on the one hand, and al-​ Bukhārī’s collection of legal traditions, on the other, has led John Wansbrough (2006a: 70–​78) to posit a progression from sīra to Sunna whereby extensive but loose narrative transformed into concise exemplum, and mythic preoccupations became normative concerns. In accordance 66

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with this developmental sequence, Wansbrough described the movement from sīra to Sunna as stripping the precedent from its historical dimension. Although in tune with his evidentiary basis,Wansbrough’s sharp distinction between the historical and the legal modes of the Prophet’s biography becomes blurred once additional sources are drawn into the equation. Recall that the siyar chapters in early legal works treat the Prophet’s raids as normative precedents. At the same time, most sunnaic traditions are not bereft of historicity: they usually anchor legal precedents in specific historical settings (e.g. the Prophet’s farewell pilgrimage) and almost invariably associate them with historical actors (e.g. the Prophet and his Companions). Note also that while Wansbrough’s reductionist scenario is certainly a possible interpretation of al-​Bukhārī’s treatment of sīra narratives (Zaman 1996), one could argue for a reverse process, whereby originally abstract precedents took the form of historicized narratives associated with outstanding representatives of the early Islamic community. Based on various legal sources, Schacht (1950: 180–​189) has described the evolution, often accompanied by narrative expansion, of legal maxims from anonymous dicta to Companion and prophetic ḥadīth. Similarly, Schoeler has developed an argument against Wansbrough’s opinion that al-​Bukhārī borrowed and abridged Ibn Isḥāq’s version of the ʿĀʾisha slander story. According to Schoeler (2011: 83–​ 89, 98–​99), al-​Bukhārī stands very close to the short base version that was put into circulation by al-​Zuhrī, whereas Ibn Isḥāq expanded al-​Zuhrī’s tradition with material from other versions of the slander story. The possibility of movement in both directions, that is, from maghāzī to Sunna and the other way around, has been highlighted by Görke’s (2011:  178ff.) comparative study of traditions that occur in both types of literature. Along the same lines, Zaman has noted that not every collection of legal traditions exhibits the degree of fragmentation observed in al-​Bukhārī’s (d. 256/​870) Ṣaḥīḥ. When the early Muṣannafs of ʿAbd al-​Razzāq (d. 211/​827) and Ibn Abī Shayba (d. 235/​849) are added to the comparison, one observes an alternation between narrative and exemplum even from one legal work to another (Zaman 1996:  13), although, according to Wansbrough, such works in general should comprise exempla rather than narratives. The overlapping between sīra and Sunna goes back to their sharing a common source (ḥadīth), originally marked by considerable textual fluidity. Textual chunks were easily transferable between traditions, and they provided the transmitters of both legal and historical ḥadīth with typified building blocks for their traditions (Noth 1994: 109; Pavlovitch 2016: 142–​143, 212–​213). The functional dichotomy between sīra and Sunna was responsible for their uneven authority in the formative period of Islamic sciences. Transmitters of sīra reports often fitted out their material with authoritative lines of transmission (isnād, pl. asānīd), but these isnāds had questionable validity in the eyes of transmitters and users of legal ḥadīth. Thus, the renowned ḥadīth expert Yaḥyā b. Maʿīn (d. 233/​848) averred that al-​Wāqidī transmitted 20,000 strange traditions from the Prophet, whereas Ibn Ḥanbal accused al-​Wāqidī of concocting isnāds (Khaṭīb 2001: IV 20). Towards the end of the 2nd century AH/​816 CE, the famous legal theorist Muḥammad b. Idrīs al-​Shāfiʿī (d. 204/​820) accorded the Sunna the status of revelation (about the status of the Sunna in the 3rd century AH, see Melchert 2002: 84–​86). This doctrine placed the Sunna on a par with the Qurʾān with regard to legal authority, and it elevated the Sunna as a revelatory source of law above the sīra as historical reports largely devoid of normative effect. The ambivalent relationship between sīra and Sunna cast its shade on the technical terminology applied to the transmission of knowledge in either genre. Whereas sīra, and historical data in general, are contained in “reports” (khabar, pl. akhbār), sunnaic traditions are often designated ḥadīth (pl. aḥādīth) or athar (pl. āthār) (al-​Suyūṭī 2010: I 72–​73). Quite a few Muslim experts in the field of transmission of knowledge, however, treat khabar as synonymous with ḥadīth, which bears clear witness to the porosity of boundary between the conceptions of sīra and Sunna. 67

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Sīra and Qurʾān From sīra accounts we learn that divine revelation has been an integral part of Muḥammad’s life ever since he was called to prophethood on Mt. Ḥirāʾ near Mecca in 610 CE. Qurʾānic verses are believed to have often addressed specific social and legal circumstances encountered by the Prophet and his entourage. This mutual corroboration of the Qurʾān and Muḥammad’s sīra –​ reiterated in numerous works of Islamic jurisprudence, exegesis, and historiography –​embedded the Islamic kerygma into a specific historical context and played a crucial role in distributing the individual sections of the Qurʾān (sūras) over the twenty-​two years between the first revelation to the Prophet and his death in 632 CE.The most authoritative Western chronology of the sūras was worked out by Theodor Nöldeke in his Geschichte des Qorâns, first published in 1860, then revised and emended by Friedrich Schwally in 1909. Even if Richard Bell and other scholars departed considerably from Nöldeke’s conclusions, the basic notion has remained intact that the sīra accounts and the Qurʾānic codex as we know it are the textual precipitate of what actually happened between 610 and 632 CE (see Berg 2006: 192–​194).This notion forms the operative assumption of many Islamicists even at the beginning of the 21st century. In 1977 Wansbrough undertook the most radical departure from Nöldeke’s findings. Based on form-​critical criteria, Wansbrough reassessed the ways Islamic scripture emerged and interacted with narratives about the Arabian prophet. From the semantic insufficiency and the thematic and stylistic untidiness of the Qurʾānic sūras, Wansbrough inferred their dependence on originally diffuse orally delivered prophetical logia, in the form of reports about God’s utterances informed by four soteriological genres or “schemata of revelation” (retribution, sign, exile, and covenant).These logia underlie the scriptural pericopes, which, in the course of their subsequent codification and canonization, acquired the form of God’s direct speech (Wansbrough 2004: 38–​ 52, 65). The sīra–​maghāzī literature provided the historical framework for the prophetical logia. Once inserted into reports about the Arabian prophet, the logia acquired a historical dimension in the form of circumstances of revelation (asbāb al-​nuzūl) associated with the Prophet and his followers (Wansbrough 2004: 41; 2006a: 3ff.). In Wansbrough’s opinion, the occasions of revelation are an exegetical device that is arbitrarily related to Qurʾānic pericopes. They represent a genre of pseudo-​historical literature, which helped Muslim legal exegetes (halakhists) “to distribute meaningfully the Quranic revelation over a period of twenty/​twenty-​five years following the call of the Arabian prophet” (Wansbrough 2004: 38).The actual development of the logia traditions and their interaction with sīra reports took place in Mesopotamian Judeo-​Christian milieux during the second half of the 8th century CE (Wansbrough 2004: 43–​52). Although Wansbrough’s research reaffirmed the intimate relationship between the Qurʾān and prophetic biography, it nevertheless undid the link between these documents and the events in early 7th-​century Arabia they purport to describe. Does this relegate the sīra to a baseless fiction? How are we to distinguish genuine historical data from apologetic, political, legal, sectarian, and ethnic interpolations? May we date and reconstruct early sīra reports from later sources and determine to what extent they reflect historical events and intellectual currents from periods other than 570–​632 CE?

Sīra and literary forms Myth Towards the end of the 19th century, Ignaz Goldziher (1890: 28–​130, 153–​174) dealt a palpable blow to the historicity of Muslim legal traditions. He showed that many of them reflect 68

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political feuds, legal disputes, dogmatic controversies, and ethnic quarrels that unfolded from the end of the 1st/​7th century onwards. In the same vein, Schacht (1950: 156–​157; 163–​175) argued that legal traditions represent back projections of 2nd-​/​8th-​century doctrines on the idealized epoch of early Islam. Although Goldziher and Schacht did not take up sīra narratives systematically, the negative implications of their critical method on Islamic historiography were easy to infer. One had to find methodological keys to answering the question of authenticity with regard to sīra traditions. Rudolf Sellheim, to take an example, undertook a form-​critical attempt to classify the contents of Ibn Isḥāq’s Sīra into three substantive layers. The basic layer preserves genuine historical data about the early umma, such as its foundational “Constitution of Medina” (Sellheim 1965–​1966: 47–​48; 73–​78). The more recent first layer includes reports about various types of miraculous events that elevate the Prophet to the status of a superhuman being. This layer, often influenced by external religious narratives, was critical for the shaping of the Islamic identity in the course of intercommunal polemic during the conquests (Sellheim 1965–​1966:  53–​73; cf. Maghen 2008). The latest, second layer was shaped under the influence of intracommunal political and dogmatic disputes, as those between ʿAbbāsids, ʿAlīds, and Umayyads (Sellheim 1965–​1966: 49–​53). One notes that while Sellheim’s observations regarding the latter two layers are convincing, he struggles with defining a consistent benchmark for assessing the original layer’s historicity (Sellheim 1965–​1966: 78–​85). He draws extensively on the dissimilarity criterion: whenever the sīra preserves ideologically discomfiting data, such as the debacle at Uḥud, the Prophet ordering political assassinations, or dissent among the Companions, such data must pertain to the basic layer. This approach, however, is open to question. Ibn Isḥāq’s reports about the battles of Badr (2/​624) and Uḥud (3/​625), for instance, teem with so many details from the manipulative layers that one begins to wonder how many historical events they actually preserve (Jansen 2008: 269–​274; 285–​292). Moreover, the divine intervention motif –​Allah dispatches His angels to help the Muslims at Badr but refrains from doing so at Uḥud –​ refers to 2nd-​/​8th-​ century theological encounters with the intricacies of free will and predestination more than it reflects historical events from the first quarter of the 7th century CE. No wonder, then, that ʿUrwa b. al-​Zubayr (d. c. 93/​711) does not appear to have transmitted any substantial reports about the great battles between Muḥammad and the polytheists, which became so popular with Ibn Isḥāq and later historians and exegetes (Görke and Schoeler 2008: 259, 263). Unlike Sellheim, who assumed the partial historicity of the sīra reports, the skeptic Wansbrough argued forcefully that the Islamic kerygma in its historical aspects relating to the Arabian prophet is mythic, insofar as it enunciates the eternal, absolute, and unadulterated truth about God’s creation and salvific intervention in human affairs (Wansbrough 2006a: 4, 7, 23; cf. Jolles 1930: 101–​104). In his analysis of historical writing about the Arabian prophet, Wansbrough drew on André Jolles’ typology of basic narrative forms (einfache Formen) each of which is animated by a specific spiritual disposition (Geistesbeschäftigung). As noticed already at the beginning of the 1930s, shortly after Jolles’ work had made its first appearance, it promised tangible benefits in the field of ancient literatures, where the absence of recognizable authors makes the biographical-​historical method impossible to apply.Wansbrough (2006a: 3–​4) argued that sīra incorporates several of Jolles’ basic forms, and he tried to identify and expatiate on their working in Islamic salvation history. Wansbrough’s approach, often interpreted as denying the historicity of sīra reports, is not free from arbitrariness in the application of Jolles’ taxonomy of basic forms. Take, for instance, Wansbrough’s assertion that qaṣaṣ about the reaction of pagans, Jews, Christians, and ḥanīfs to Muḥammad’s preaching is mythic, because of the “translation of strange, often hostile phenomena into familiar categories” or his description of midrashic interpretation as a mythic 69

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activity (Wansbrough 2006a: 23, 31, 37). These notions are not part of Jolles’ typology, where the basic form Mythe signifies the narrative creation of things out of their inherent essence (“In der Mythe wird ein Gegenstand von seiner Beschaffenheit aus Schöpfung” [Jolles 1930: 101]). Knowledge of this essence, revealed and oracular rather than discursive and exegetically inferred, is a mythic activity (Jolles 1930:  96–​104). It represents a sibylline cognitive movement from things as they are to the knowledge of those who inquire about their intrinsic essence, and not, as presumed in Wansbrough’s above explanation, external cognitive categories brought to bear on things. It seems, thus, that the episodes referred to by Wansbrough may not be catalogued as myths, or, if one should insist on doing so, they may have at best the literary character of secondary myths (bezogener Mythus), in which a semi-​mythic interpretation is applied to things, which does not correspond to their intrinsic essence (Jolles 1930: 110–​112). It is worth noting that, as Wansbrough questioned the existence of historical referents behind Islamic soteriological narratives (2004: 50–​51; 2006a: 4, 24, 118–​119; and, famously, 2006b: 164), he need not have understood the process of “production of reality” as its creation from nothing. At least no such conclusion may be drawn from the working of the Geistesbeschäftigungen, which Jolles conceived of as a twofold process:  first, minimal elements of expression (Sprachgebärde) condense from specific life situations under the sway of the Geistesbeschäftigung, and second, these very condensations of reality generate, create, and represent new life situations (Jolles 1930: 47). Thus, we can speak of representation of reality, which does not negate the relation of each Sprachgebärde to real historical events. This relation seems to have found acknowledgment in Wansbrough’s statement, “[t]‌he material of which myth represents interpretation is seldom fictive,” as well as in his distinction between history as narrative and history as process (Wansbrough 2006a:  31, 91). Admittedly, the process of representation, which we may designate “fictionalization,” often substitutes for real events other, fictitious occurrences, as may be thought the narratives about the first revelation to the Prophet on Mt. Ḥirāʾ. And even when we deal with arguably real events, such as disputes between representatives of different monotheistic sects or tribal feuds (ayyām al-​ʿarab), these events may have been transposed from their actual context into another fictitious life-​setting, characterized by the appearance of specific dramatis personae, spatial relocation, and legal-​ exegetical reconceptualization (Wansbrough 2006a: 16–​17; 26–​27). It is the historian’s challenging task to uncover hard facts behind the layers of fictionalization. This is hardly possible with respect to the events that sīra narratives located in early 7th-​century Arabia, but one must be, nevertheless, careful not to interpret Islamic salvation history exclusively from the vantage point of Jolles’ Memorabile. This type of historical prose emerged in the West with the end of the Middle Ages, and it purports to depict past events as they actually happened.To use Jolles’ words, we run the risk of submitting reports about the Arabian prophet to the “tyranny of history,” a Geistesbeschäftigung that sees itself as an exemplary representation of historical truthfulness (Jolles 1930: 215–​216). According to Jolles’ definition of myth, the Prophet’s first revelation is a mythic answer to questions about the intrinsic meaning of prophecy, creation, and imparting of knowledge. Another mythic narrative defining the intrinsic meaning of prophecy, which has received much attention in recent scholarship, is the Prophet’s death without surviving male heirs. As argued by Powers (2014: 117–​123), this dogma emerged when the eschatological concept of the “seal of the prophets” (khatam al-​nabiyyīn), being the confirmation and fulfillment of previous prophecies, transformed into the political and sociological notion of the last prophet, whose office might be subject to no inheritance rights or claims. The understanding of the Prophet’s sonlessness may have impinged on the 2nd-​century perception of the battle of Muʾta, which, according to Powers (2009: 74–​93), is, at least in its putative date in 8/​629, a fictional datum informed by the 70

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exigencies of salvation history.The Prophet’s first adopted then repudiated son, Zayd b. Ḥāritha, had to predecease his adoptive father, because otherwise he may have become either a prophet or a caliph. To preclude this, Muslim traditionists set the date of Muʾta about three years before the Prophet’s death, and they transformed a rather insignificant border skirmish into a major clash involving Zayd and other important early Islamic figures who could have been, one way or another, successors to Muḥammad. Powers considers the martyrdom of Zayd, alongside Jaʿfar b. Abī Ṭālib and ʿAbd Allāh b. Rawāḥa, as the handiwork of Muslim historians who were active c. 75–​125/​694–​743. The story of their premature death would have served the theological and political interests of the ruling Marwānid clan and the ʿAlīd wing of the Hāshimite opposition. If these figures could be fictionally killed in pursuit of theological and political interests, one suspects that their entire biographies may have been historical projections of foundational myths informed by rival political and theological doctrines. Exegetical and mythical preoccupations may have been responsible as well for the early death of Muḥammad’s physical sons, and, possibly, for their very existence: the interpretation of Q 108:3 requires that Muḥammad had male offspring (Becker 1913: 266), while the finality of prophecy doctrine cuts in the opposite direction.

Legend In addition to mythic elements as the Prophet’s fatidic appointment of three commanders exactly in the sequence of their future death, and his oracular vision of events in the vastly remote battlefield, the Muʾta narrative exhibits paradigmatic concerns that bring to mind Jolles’ understanding of legend as imitatio (Jolles 1930: 34–​38). It encourages Muslims to emulate Zayd b. al-​Ḥāritha, Jaʿfar b. Abī Ṭālib, and ʿAbd Allāh b. Rawāḥa, all of whom preferred martyrdom (shahāda) to remaining alive in this world. Now, the specific details of the Muʾta narrative may have sprung into existence from the imagination of late 1st-​century storytellers (quṣṣāṣ), but one can hardly doubt that they have their Sitz im Leben in real historical events that took place during the numerous battles in the course of the 7th-​century conquests.

Saga Wansbrough (2006a: 33) has noted that sīra makes extensive use of the basic form of the saga, which, according to Jolles, stems from the Geistesbeschäftigung of blood relationship. Ibn Isḥāq’s Sīra begins as a saga, and many events in the history of early Islam are driven by considerations of consanguinity rather than the presumptive bond of religion as an organizing principle of the nascent umma. The concept of blood relationship permeates the Islamic understanding of prophecy and warrants the unity of revelation from Adam to Muḥammad. Muḥammad drew legitimacy as a prophet from the bloodline of the Abrahamic religion (Q 2:124–​129, 3:68) and the contiguity of prophecy in general (Q 3:81), but the same concepts may be thought to have fostered expectations that Muḥammad’s sons could inherit his vocation, or that another prophet may come to bring his mission to fulfillment. These possibilities were eventually offset by the doctrine that Muḥammad is God’s last messenger to humankind.

Sīra and poetry Despite the Qurʾānic denouncement of poets (Q 26:221–​226), verses of poetry pervade Ibn Isḥāq’s Sīra. Even in Ibn Hishām’s abridged recension, they make up about one-fifth of the 71

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text (Sellheim 1965–​1966: 47). In the 2nd/​8th century, many such verses served the political ends of emphasizing the Arabian origins of Islam and asserting Arabian identity as coeval with the cultural heritage of the conquered Persian and Mesopotamian communities (Wansbrough 2006a: 39; Sellheim 1965–​1966: 38, 41). In exegesis, poetry provides lexical explanation of the Qurʾānic vocabulary (Wansbrough 2004: 93–​99; 127) and justifies the presumptive Jāhilī origin of unclear Qurʾānic lexical units (Pavlovitch 2016: 5–​7). Poetry may function as an apologetic ornament: in the sīra literature, verses praise important historical events, glorify the Prophet and his Companions, and lambast their enemies. As a point of departure for a deeper understanding of the role of poetry in the sīra and the presumed ubiquity of poetic expression in the Jāhiliyya and early Islam, let us take the multilayered mythic narrative about Muḥammad’s first revelation. In the earliest version of that narrative, upon receiving the command “iqraʿ,” usually translated as “recite,” Muḥammad tells his angelic interlocutor, mā aqraʾu (I do not recite/​What shall I recite?). The syntactic ambiguity of Muḥammad’s statement is not fortuitous, as the meaning of qaraʾa evokes the disparate notions of reciting poetry and articulating God’s revelation. As Muḥammad eventually unravels the enigma of the angel’s command, he has answered the mythic question about the nature of revelation and those who receive it. If poetry is a human affair, albeit animated by non-​human agents, the jinn or shayāṭīn (satans, sing. shayṭān), prophecy is divine revelation about the intrinsic essence of things, delivered by an angelic mediator. The angel has ordered Muḥammad to convey the words of God, not mere human speech. The adversative relationship between the language of scripture and that of poetry is a basic property of both the Islamic understanding of prophecy and the attendant doctrine of the Qurʾān’s linguistic excellence. This doctrine, which probably began to develop in the first half of the 2nd century AH,1 postulates that the jāhilī Arabs, and especially the desert dwellers, had been the most poetic nation on earth. Despite their inborn eloquence, however, they could neither contest (ʿāraḍa) nor equal (qārana) the divine beauty of the Qurʾānic speech. In this manner, the Arabs being unmatched orators and connoisseurs of rhymed speech served as a foil to the notion of linguistic inimitability, whose emergence accompanied the elevation of the Qurʾān to canonical status. The interdependence between the concepts of the Arabian/​ Bedouin rhetorical-​cum-​poetic faculty (faṣāḥat al-​ʿarab/​al-​jāhiliyya) and the inimitable divine eloquence (iʿjāz al-​Qurʾān) suggests that the former was not the historical precedent to the latter but rather its indispensable theological complement. The polemical, hence synchronic, roots of both concepts are highlighted by al-​Jāḥiẓ (160–​255/​776–​868). God sent Muḥammad to the superbly eloquent Arabs, he maintains, just as He had sent Mūsā with his magic skills to the Egyptians, who were second to none in magic, and ʿĪsā with his ability to raise from the dead to the people of his age, who excelled in medicine (al-​Jāḥiẓ 2002: 156). Each prophet bettered his contemporaries exactly where they reigned supreme, thereby proving his status as God’s elect. This being so, despite the varying contextualization of poetry in the sīra, its basic function is theological and apologetic: the opposition profane poetry/​divine revelation makes it clear that Muḥammad is the true conveyer of God’s inimitable speech, which in every respect outshines human eloquence.

Dating and reconstructing early sīra texts Recent research has mapped several ways of dating and reconstructing sīra traditions, based on their substantive content (matn) and their lines of transmission (isnāds).

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Form-​critical and literary analysis Questions about the historicity of sīra have arisen not only because of its incorporation of mythic and paradigmatic elements. Many researchers of sīra narratives have noted their literary (fictional) character, signaled by the existence of a clearly distinguishable narrative plot and the employment of formulaic language and figurative speech. Sebastian Günther has developed the argument that sīra traditions are fictional narratives that “formulate things based on creative sovereignty” (Günther 1998: 441, 437). On the example of several sīra traditions, Günther has shown that they represent complex narrative structures comprising substantively different sections of acting delimited by elements of fictionalization such as changes in the narration perspective (e.g. first person to third person; eyewitness to omniscient narrator) and movement in time and space signaled by relevant key phrases at the incipit of each section. Paraenetic and paradigmatic elements are mixed with theological, legal, and soteriological concerns as well as divine miracles, thus underlining the fictional character of the narrative. At the structural level, historical narratives, including sīra, comprise typified expressions (topoi) and recurring motifs (schemata). These smaller and larger textual chunks are highly flexible and transferable between or within literary narratives (Noth 1994: 109–​218; Maghen 2008: 92–​93). Sometimes, these structural elements may relate to real historical events, to which they impart a specific literary flavor. On other occasions, however, they may be used to construct literary reports about fictitious events that never took place in history (Noth 1994: 137, 194). In either case, the accurate reconstruction of these events is a challenging task. Our predicament stems not only from the fictional character of the historical reports but also from the transmitters’ political, theological, exegetical, genealogical, and personal predilections that impinged on these reports (Sellheim 1965–​1966: 49–​53; Lecker 2014). Given the likelihood that changes accumulated in the course of the tradition’s passage between successive generations of transmitters, it is practically impossible to determine which sīra traditions might be related to historical events from the beginning of the 7th century CE. Despite the many difficulties, Western ḥadīth scholars have developed several methods of studying the literary content of matns. Thus, for instance, Sellheim’s first and second layers (see above) represent mostly fictional accretions to the presumptive historical core of the sīra. Christopher Melchert (2002) and Pavlovitch (2016: 39) have applied the criteria of semantic consistency and conceptual elaboration to trace the evolution of individual traditions and theological doctrines. The main disadvantage of literary analysis is its capability of producing only relative chronologies of cognate traditions. For an absolute dating, we must turn to the evidence of the isnāds.

Isnād-​cum-​matn analysis A shared property of the sīra and the Sunna is their interest in the genealogy of transmission, represented by the line of successive transmitters (isnād) who pass a ḥadīth from its original speaker to a later collector. Even if compilers of sīra works were less concerned to name their informants than were collectors of legal ḥadīth (Robson 1956:  451–​452; Görke 2011:  175, 177, 184), sīra narratives are not entirely devoid of isnāds, which qualifies them for the application of isnād-​critical methodologies that were originally developed for the study of legal ḥadīth. Most notably, in 1950 Schacht propounded the common-​link (CL) theory, which associates the circulation of a given tradition with the transmitter occupying the lowest point of convergence of its isnāds (Schacht 1950:  171–​175). This theory was heavily modified by

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Juynboll (2007: xviii–​xxviii), but nonetheless the isnād evidence alone has proved insufficient for the accurate dating of historical traditions, let alone reconstructing their original versions. The importance of a combined isnād and matn analysis was stressed as early as the middle of the 1950s (Robson 1956: 465), but several decades were to pass before ḥadīth scholars took full advantage of this procedure. In 1996 Harald Motzki and Gregor Schoeler formulated and successfully applied a promising, albeit arduous, method, which Motzki termed isnād-​cum-​matn analysis (ICMA). When the isnāds of a given tradition, found in as many published ḥadīth collections as possible, are collated in a graphic diagram, they usually intersect at several higher and lower points along the way of transmission from the collector to the level of the original speaker. The historicity of transmission at each point of intersection is determined by comparing the matn wording: the greater the overlapping of individual matns, the better the chance that they share a common source. If several transmitters at the higher levels of transmission are proven historical, they are considered partial CLs (PCLs). If their isnāds intersect at a lower level of transmission, while their matns, as reconstructed in the previous step, agree in a meaningful way, the point of intersection is considered the CL, that is, the historical transmitter of the shared parts of the PCL matns (for a detailed description of the ICMA procedure, see Pavlovitch 2016: 22–​40). Although ICMA allowed Schoeler and Motzki to date and reconstruct such important sīra traditions as those dealing with the first revelation to the Prophet, the “slander story” against his wife ʿĀʾisha, and the murder of the Jewish chieftain, Ibn Abī Ḥuqayq, anyone who wants to use it should attend to several notable limitations: First, several successive transmitters usually separate the CL from the purported original speaker.The authenticity of this single-​strand isnād is impossible to verify. Some scholars believe that the CL received the tradition from his immediate informant, while others refrain from going below the CL level.The most skeptical maintain that the CL is the product of retrospective projection of isnāds fabricated by vying parties of jurists and exegetes who flourished several generations thereafter (Görke 2003: 188–​195 neatly summarizes the different conceptions of the CL). Second, on many occasions the isnāds that sprout forth from an apparent CL are single strands of transmission spanning several generations of transmitters. Scholars disagree about the value of such isnāds, which may be either authentic or spurious. In the absence of PCLs, neither option may be convincingly proved or refuted. Third, textual variation between several cognate matns may be the result of inadvertent changes that accompanied the oral transmission of early ḥadīth, but, just as feasibly, it may have ensued from deliberate manipulation of the tradition’s content. Sometimes, the earliest formulation may be defined by text-​critical approaches (Pavlovitch 2016: 31–​40), but at other times there is no way of reconstructing the original text of a ḥadīth. It may nevertheless be possible to verify ICMA by comparing its results with the evidence of (a) non-​Islamic literary sources and (b) numismatic and epigraphic witnesses.

Sīra and non-​Islamic literary sources Non-​Islamic literary sources sometimes present well-​known sīra events in an unexpected light. Consider, for instance, Muḥammad’s birth, which reportedly coincided with the Expedition of the Elephant –​an obscure apocalyptic event alluded to in Q 105. To make that event clear, Ibn Isḥāq recounts how the Abyssinian viceroy in the Yemen, Abraha al-​Ashram, led an expedition against the Meccan sanctuary, which ended in God’s extermination of Abraha’s host. The

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History of the Persian War of the Byzantine historian Procopius suggests that Abraha’s expedition might have taken place c. 552 CE, and this timing is in tune with an important south Arabian epigraphic witness and other evidence (Conrad 1987: 227–​230). Thus, if Muḥammad’s birth coincided with the Year of the Elephant, it must have taken place eighteen years before its traditionally accepted chronology –​570 CE. The end of the Prophet’s life is a still more tantalizing story. Ibn Isḥāq describes Muḥammad’s death in Medina in 11/​ 632 in an artless and matter-​ of-​ f act manner that Sellheim (1965–​1966: 86–​87) interpreted as a token of factuality. All the same, several non-​ Islamic sources suggest, independently of one another, that the Prophet was still alive during the Arab conquest of Syria and Palestine, traditionally thought to have unfolded only after his death (Shoemaker 2012:  64–​72). Upon studying these sources, Shoemaker concluded that the earliest community of believers espoused a worldview that differed radically from that of the Islamic umma at the beginning of the 2nd/​8th century. The primitive community comprised Muḥammad’s followers along with Jews and probably Christians, its members believed in the impending coming of the Last Hour and considered Jerusalem as the topos of fulfillment of their eschatological expectations. Since the Judgement Day did not occur in the Prophet’s lifetime, the earliest eschatological community transformed itself into an imperial state under the Umayyads. The 2nd-​century maghāzī works reflect the ecumenical ideology of the expanding caliphate rather than the otherworldly visions of the early believers (Shoemaker 2012: 260–​277). Despite their undeniable value, the non-​Islamic literary sources should not be overvalued, precisely because they are literary. Just like the Islamic historical literature, they may have evolved under the sway of ideological preconceptions and undergone substantial changes in the course of transmission. An illustrative example is Doctrina Iacobi, so far the earliest non-​ Islamic document to mention the Arabian prophet. Believed to have been composed around the year 632, the Doctrina describes the Prophet as a rapacious warmonger who falsely pretends to have the keys of paradise. Despite the various possible interpretations of the latter phrase (Anthony 2014), it arguably incorporates the popular Islamic dictum, “swords are the keys to paradise.” If such a relationship did exist, then the chronology of the Islamic tradition would be indicative of the chronology of the respective part of Doctrina Iacobi. My experience with isnād-​cum-​matn analysis of the Islamic tradition suggests that it existed as an anonymous saying in the first half of the 2nd century AH. This would be then the period when it was absorbed in the text of Doctrina Iacobi, which, even if early, apparently expanded under the influence of external religious narratives.

Sīra and the epigraphic and numismatic evidence Numismatic and epigraphic evidence as well as dated administrative papyri are another important means of studying the history of early Islam. Unlike the literary sources, these witnesses represent objectively the political and religious conditions from the time of their minting/​ composition. It is striking in this respect that the phrase “Muḥammad is the messenger of God,” which is a key part of the Muslim creed, starts to appear on Islamic coins during the second civil war (60–​73/​680–​692). The first to mint such coins in the year 66/​685 were the supporters of ʿAbd Allāh b. al-​Zubayr, the Zubayrid caliph in Mecca (r. 64–​73/​683–​692), followed in the next few years by the khārijites under Qaṭarī b. al-​Fujāʾa (r. 69–​79/​689–​698) and the ultimately triumphant Marwānid caliph in Damascus, ʿAbd al-​Malik b. Marwān (r. 65–​86/​685–​705)

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(Heidemann 2010: 167–​170). This suggests that the conception of Muḥammad as God’s messenger gained in political significance and became a badge of religious identity no sooner than half a century after his death. To take another example, the literary sources assert that the second caliph, ʿUmar b.  al-​ Khaṭṭāb, implemented a calendar beginning with the Prophet’s emigration (hijra) from Mecca to Yathrib (Medina) in 622 CE. Arabic coins, gravestones, and papyri from the 650s begin to include references to a year count from c. 620 CE (Hoyland 1997: 689–​690; Heidemann 2010: 163–​165), but its foundational event is either unmentioned or occasionally identified as qaḍāʾ al-​muʾminīn (the dispensation of the protectors/​believers). The relative indeterminacy of the event may have been due to the eschatological immediacy of the early Muslim worldview, which precluded elaborate worldly chronologies (Shoemaker 2012: 101). Moreover, the concept of hijra during the first Islamic century could hardly have suited the establishment of a fixed era. As observed by Crone (1994: 377ff.), this concept was open, that is, every tribal migration in the course of the conquests constituted a hijra. It was only at the end of the Umayyad caliphate (661–​750), as the conquests came to a halt, that the Prophet’s flight from Mecca to Yathrib came to be considered as a unique event. Only this one-​of-​a-​kind hijra could fix the beginning of a new Islamic era. The vagueness of the early believers’ chronological perspective has impinged on the later maghāzī collections, which are notorious for their chronological inconsistency (Shoemaker 2012: 99–​106).

Conclusion Critical examination of the biography of the Arabian prophet during the last 150  years of Islamic studies has yielded results that are important, yet disheartening for the positivist historian. Although Wansbrough’s revisionist treatment of the sīra as mythical narrative should not be interpreted perforce as denial of historical reality behind the sīra’s constitutive reports, this does not vouch for the historicity of the 2nd-​/​8th-​century literary representations of the Prophet’s life. A stringent methodology of studying the literary sources such as isnād-​cum-​matn analysis has brought us to the end of the 1st century AH; attempts to cross this “magic threshold” have so far produced ambiguous results. Study of numismatic and epigraphic evidence suggests, quite objectively, that the figure of Muḥammad was infused with a new-​found religious and political significance in the 680s, but, unfortunately, the present state of our data and scholarly methods of studying early Islam can barely establish a bridge to the 620s or earlier. With reasonable certainty, we may conclude that c. 100/​719 the Islamic umma believed in Muḥammad as the messenger of God, that it knew stories about his seeing visions and hearing voices as well as reports about his personal life, and that it used a calendar beginning c. 620, albeit without associating it with an event named “hijra.” But these snippets of data are easily dwarfed by the volume of sīra reports that cannot be accredited as going back to the end of the 1st century AH, let alone a century before. What is more, as suggested by the study of non-​ Islamic sources, the above chronological gap is also a conceptual divide. At the present stage of our knowledge, we may assert that the Arabian prophet was a historical figure, that he unleashed sweeping conquests, and that he led an eschatological community of a hybrid nature, comprising his followers alongside Jews and possibly Christians. But this is probably the farthest point to which positivist inroads into the Prophet’s lifetime can presently take us. Further advance in the knowledge of what really happened at the beginning of the 7th century CE is contingent on developing a methodology that may adequately cull historical data from the layers of later manipulations and/​or discovering hitherto unknown documentary, epigraphic, and numismatic evidence. 76

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Note 1 Ibn al-​Muqaffaʾ (d. c. 142/​759) reportedly argued that people come to be convinced of the superior eloquence of the Qurʾān only by dint of its longstanding recitation (van Ess 1992: 35). If so, he would have questioned an emerging conception of the divine excellence of the Qurʾānic language.

Bibliography Anthony, S.W. 2014. Muhammad, the Keys to Paradise and the Doctrina Iacobi: A Late Antique Puzzle. Der Islam 91(2):243–​265. Becker, C.H. 1913. Prinzipielles zu Lammens’ Sīrastudien. Der Islam 4:263–​269. Berg, H. 2006. Context: Muḥammad. In: Rippin, A. ed. The Blackwell Companion to the Qurʾān. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 187–​204. Condrad, L.I. 1987. Abraha and Muḥammad: Some Observations apropos of Chronology and Literary topoi in the Early Arabic Historical Tradition. Bulletin of the School Oriental and African Studies 50(2):225–​240. Crone, P. 1994. The First-​Century Concept of hiǧra. Arabica 41(3):352–​387. Goldziher, I. 1890. Muhammedanische Studien. Zweiter Teil. Halle a. S.: Max Niemeyer. Görke, A. 2003. Eschatology, History, and the Common Link: A Study in Methodology. In: Berg, H. ed. Method and Theory in the Study of Islamic Origins. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 179–​208. ——​. 2011.The Relationship between maghāzī and ḥadīth in Early Islamic Scholarship. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 74(2):171–​185. Görke, A. and Schoeler, G. 2008. Die ältesten Berichte über das Leben Muḥammads. Das Korpus ʿUrwa ibn az-​ Zubayr. Princeton: Darwin Press. Günther, S. 1998. Fictional Narration and Imagination within an Authoritative Framework:  Towards a New Understanding of Ḥadīth. In:  Leder, S. ed. Story-​Telling in the Framework of Non-​fictional Arabic Literature. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 433–​471. Heidemann, S. 2010. The Evolving Representation of the Early Islamic Empire and its Religion on Coin Imagery. In: Neuwirth, A., Sinai, N., and Marx, M. eds. The Qurʾān in Context: Historical and Literary Investigations into the Qurʾānic Milieu. Leiden: Brill, 149–​195. Hinds, M. 1986. al-​Maghāzī. In: Bearman, P.J., Bianquis,T., Bosworth, C.E., van Donzel, E., and Heinrichs, W.P. eds. The Encyclopaedia of Islam. 2nd ed. Leiden: Brill,V 1161–​1164. Hoyland, R. 1997. Seeing Islam as Others Saw It. Princeton: Darwin Press. al-​Jāḥiẓ, Abū ʿUthmān ʿAmr. 2002. Kitāb ḥujaj al-​nubuwwa. In: ʿAlī Abū Mulḥim, ed. Rasāʾil al-​Jāḥiẓ. 3 vols. Beirut: Dār wa-​Maktabat al-​Hilāl. Jansen, H. 2008. Mohammed. Eine Biographie. Müller-​Haas, M. trans. Munich: C.H. Beck. Jolles, A. 2006 [1930]. Einfache Formen. Halle a. S.: Max Niemeyer. Facsimile of the first ed.Tübingen: Max Niemeyer. Juynboll, G.H.A. 1994. Early Islamic Society as Reflected in its Use of isnāds. Museon 107:151–​194. ——​. 2007. Encyclopedia of Canonical Ḥadīth. Leiden and Boston: Brill. al-​Khaṭīb al-​Baghdādī. 2001 [1422]. Tārīkh Baghdād. Bashshār ʿAwwād Maʿrūf, ed. 17 vols. Beirut: Dār al-​ Gharb al-​Islāmī. Lecker, M. 2014. Notes about Censorship and Self-​ Censorship in the Biography of the Prophet Muḥammad. Qanṭara 35(1):233–​254. Maghen, Z. 2008. Davidic Motifs in the Biography of Muḥammad. Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 35:91–​139. Melchert, Ch. 2002. Qurʾānic Abrogation across the Ninth Century: Shāfiʿī, Abū ʿUbayd, al-​Muḥāsibī, and Ibn Qutaybah. In: Weiss, B.G. ed. Studies in Islamic Legal Theory. Leiden: Brill, 75–​98. Motzki, H. 1996. Quo Vadis, Ḥadīṯ-​Forschung? Eine kritische Untersuchung von G.H.A. Juynboll: “Nāfiʿ, the mawlā of Ibn ʿUmar, and his Position in Muslim ḥadīth Literature.” Parts 1 and 2. Der Islam 73(1):40–​ 80; 73(2):193–​231. Noth, A. 1994. The Early Arabic Historical Tradition. A Source-​Critical Study. 2nd ed. in collaboration with Conrad, L.I. Bonner, M. trans. Princeton: Darwin Press. Pavlovitch, P. 2016. The Formation of the Islamic Understanding of Kalāla in the Second Century AH (718–​816 CE): Between Scripture and Canon. Leiden and Boston: Brill. Powers, D.S. 2009. Muḥammad Is Not the Father of Any of Your Men:  The Making of the Last Prophet. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

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Pavel Pavlovitch ——​. 2014. Zayd. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Robson, J. 1956. Ibn Isḥāq’s Use of the isnād. Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 38(2):449–​65. Schacht, J. 1950. Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ——​. 1953. On Mūsā b. ʿUqba’s Kitab al-​Maghāzī. Acta Orientalia 21:288–​300. Schoeler, G. 2000. Mūsā b. ʿUqbas Maghāzī. In: The Biography of Muḥammad: The Issue of the Sources, Motzki, H. ed. Leiden: Brill, 67–​97. ——​. 2011. The Biography of Muḥammad:  Nature and Authenticity. Vagelpohl, U.  trans. Montgomery. J.E. ed. New  York:  Routledge. First published in German as Charakter und Authentie der muslimischen Überlieferung über das Leben Mohammeds. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1996. Sellheim, R. 1965–​1966. Prophet, Chalif und Geschichte. Die Muhammed-​Biographie des Ibn Isḥāq. Oriens 18–​19:33–​91. Shoemaker, S.J. 2012. The Death of a Prophet:  The End of Muḥammad’s Life and the Beginnings of Islam. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. al-​Suyūṭī, J.D. 2010/​1431. Tadrīb al-​Rāwī fī Sharḥ Taqrīb al-​Nawāwī.al-​Sirsāwī, M. ed. 2 vols. Riyadh: Dār Ibn al-​Jawzī. van Ess, J. 1992. Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra. 2nd vol. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Wansbrough, J. 2004 [1977]. Quranic Studies: Sources and Methods of Scriptural Interpretation. Repr. with foreword, translations, and expanded notes by Rippin, A. Amherst, MA: Prometheus Books. ——​. 2006a [1978]. The Sectarian Milieu: Content and Composition of Islamic Salvation History. Repr. with foreword, translations, and expanded notes by Hawting, G. Amherst, MA: Prometheus Books. ——​. 2006b. Res Ipsa Loquitur. History and Mimesis. In: The Sectarian Milieu: Content and Composition of Islamic Salvation History. Amherst, MA: Prometheus Books, 159–​172. Zaman, M.Q. 1996. Maghāzī and the muḥaddithūn: Reconsidering the Treatment of “Historical” Materials in Early Collections of Hadith. International Journal of Middle East Studies 28(1):1–​18.

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6 ḤADĪTH AND SUNNA* Jens Scheiner

Introduction The famous Muslim scholar Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal (d. 855) reports the following: Yaḥyā related to us on the authority of Ismāʿīl: Wabara reported to me, saying: A man came to Ibn ʿUmar and said: “Is it permissible to circumambulate the House (i.e. the Kaʿba), while I am in the state of ritual consecration (muḥrim)?” He (i.e. Ibn ʿUmar) replied: “What stops you from doing so?” ’ [The man] answered: “Someone prohibited us from doing so until the pilgrims return from their stopping place(s). However, I deem him to incline to the worldly [affairs] by having spoken so, while you show astonishment for our [actions we do] because of him.” Ibn ʿUmar said: “The Messenger of God, s., made the pilgrimage, then circumambulated the House and [then] ran between al-​Ṣafā and al-​Marwa. And [know]: The habitual practices (sunna) of God the Almighty and His Messenger are more correct than following the habitual practice of someone else. [I wish] you would act rightly!” (Ibn Ḥanbal 1993–​2001: IX 170 no. 5194) This text deals with the correct ritual practice during the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca and its surroundings. An unnamed man reports his practicing of these rites and gets corrected by ʿAbd Allāh b.  ʿUmar, the famous son of the second ruling successor of Muḥammad, ʿUmar b.  al-​ Khaṭṭāb. Regarding its literary form, this text is a fictionalized short narrative that consists of three characteristic parts. First, we find a list of names that indicates the transmission of the narrative from the first narrator to Ibn Ḥanbal (Wabara → Ismāʿīl → Yaḥyā → Ibn Ḥanbal). The first narrator, i.e. Wabara, is depicted as eyewitness of the dialogue between the man and ʿAbd Allāh b.  ʿUmar. This first characteristic part of the narrative is called isnād or sanad (lit. “support,” pl. asānīd and asnād). Second, the text contains a narrative frame, i.e. the whole part about the man coming to Ibn ʿUmar, their dialogue and Ibn ʿUmar’s final statement in which he advised the man to act rightly.This narrative frame puts the third characteristic part in context.The third part is the core of this narrative: in it certain ritual acts of the “Messenger of God,” i.e. Muḥammad, * I would like to thank Ahmed El Shamsy for his comments on an earlier version of this chapter.

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are depicted. The latter two parts are called matn (lit. “written text,” pl. mutūn). In other words this narrative is a ḥadīth (pl. aḥādīth). This term is best rendered as “report” or “account,” but also “tradition” is used. More precisely, the narrative is a “prophetic ḥadīth,” because it recounts certain acts of Muḥammad. In other prophetic ḥadīths1 a statement of Muḥammad is quoted, his attitudes and judgments are presented and his reactions and tacit approvals or rejections are depicted. Often the verbal and non-​verbal level of Muḥammad’s communication are mentioned together. Apart from prophetic ḥadīths there are many traditions that report the words and actions of other prominent Muslims, such as Muḥammad’s Companions and Successors or later scholars. These narratives are then called companion’s ḥadīth, successor’s ḥadīth, etc. Very famous among the Companions whose words and actions are presented is the just-​mentioned second ruler ʿUmar b. al-​Khaṭṭāb. As synonyms for ḥadīth we find interchangeably the terms āthār (lit. “traces,” sing. athar) and akhbār (lit. “messages, stories,” sing. khabar) in Arabic sources.2 Hence, ḥadīth –​the first central term in the title of this c­ hapter –​denotes a certain type of text that shows the just-​mentioned three characteristics (chain of transmitters, narrative frame, core). On the basis of themes one can subdivide prophetic and other ḥadīths in theological and/​ or legal ḥadīths, like the one quoted above, in exegetical ḥadīths that explain certain verses of the Qurʾān, in eschatological ḥadīths about the end of the world and in historical ḥadīths that mention for example Muḥammad’s career as prophet, teacher, and statesman or the early Muslims’ military campaigns. However, there are no sharp boundaries; instead we have to acknowledge that, on the basis of its content, a ḥadīth can be assigned two or more categories at the same time. One can also subdivide ḥadīths on the basis of their narrative function: there are some that want to express prohibitions or orders; others want to ascertain or narrate a story with a moralizing aim. Thus, all ḥadīths want to influence the listener’s or reader’s behavior, i.e. they have a didactic objective. The above-​mentioned ḥadīth combines two of these functions: first Ibn ʿUmar ascertains what Muḥammad had done and then expresses an appeal (on the surface to the unnamed man, but on a second level also to everyone who listens to or reads the ḥadīth). This narrative function is usually coined by the “composer” of the ḥadīth. The “composer” is also responsible for the initial textual shape and literary form of the narrative. The literary form of a ḥadīth usually contains certain narratological elements, like the narrator’s perspective, a sequencing of events, the usage of known motives and topoi and various fictionalizations. In addition, when shaping a text the “composer” consciously or unconsciously adds subjective elements, such as religious, legal, political and social attitudes or personal judgments. Sometimes even the imaginary, i.e. supranatural phenomena, is included in the text of the ḥadīth. The “composer” of a tradition, i.e. the one responsible for most of its literary features, can theoretically be identified with the first narrator of a ḥadīth (in the case above: Wabara). However, this is often difficult to prove due to the characteristics of the modes of textual transmission during the 7th–​9th centuries (for this, see below) in which changes in the isnāds and matns may (and did) happen. The second central term mentioned in the heading of this chapter is sunna (pl. sunan) which is best rendered as “habitual practice, customary procedure.”3 Hence, sunna is not a type of literature, but a social concept about the past. According to this model of thinking things were done in the past in a way that influences present actions.4 In other words past actions are a positive model for present activities, because they were repeated over time and thus assessed as good or effective. One might call this model “backward looking” or “conservative.” However, it has the advantage of not reinventing the wheel, i.e. one uses past efforts in finding a solution for current problems.This means that this concept can bear a positive connotation because it is economical. This concept, however, can also have a negative form. In other words, since things were done in one particular manner in the past, they are expressly not done this way in the present, because 80

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they failed. Hence, the negative form of this concept has the advantage to protect from harm. Either ways, sunna includes a construction of the past, of past individuals, societies, activities, and approaches to problems. Whether this historical construction is authentic, i.e. accords with the historical events, is not important for the one who refers to sunna. The specific practice is accepted in the present, because the historical construction underlying it is convincing, i.e. fits the present image of the past. In addition, the notion of repetitiveness lends further credibility to the exemplary past action. What is habitually practiced cannot be too wrong. Hence, taking the past as a positive model for the present causes at the same time (at least some) aversion to change and the introduction of novelties (taking the past as negative model, however, enforces change). Thus, whichever of the two ways one follows, sunna rests on an image of the past and effects the assessment of present actions. Habitual practice needs a focal point in the past.Therefore, usually individuals or groups with whom a particular practice is associated are chosen as such. We speak of the habitual practice of our grandmother or, in Roman society, of the mos maiorum (lit. “the custom of the ancestors”). In the context of Arabic culture and Islamic religion, the expressions sunnat al-​nabī (lit. “the habitual practice of the Prophet”) or sunnat ʿUmar (i.e. the habitual practice of Muḥammad’s successor ʿUmar) are often used and hence both persons function as focal points. However, the concept of sunna is older than the Islamic religion and in fact was “an ancient Arabic concept” inasmuch as it referred to an Arab tribal community and to previous generations (al-​awwalūn).5 As all these examples show, the term sunna needs specification otherwise it is polysemous and hence ambiguous. Or to put it in the words of Gautier Juynboll: “sunna … is a concept subject to fluctuations in meaning” (Juynboll 1987: 117). In addition, because it is a concept, sunna (without specification) cannot be defined according to precise criteria as ḥadīth, but the meaning of sunna can only be understood through its discursive usage. People, mostly scholars, used the term according to time, place, and individual background (and certain other factors). Hence, sunna can only be properly understood if we analyze these individuals’ backgrounds and relate each person’s usage of the term to a general discourse of religious, legal, or political authority. This is a rewarding exercise that was partly undertaken by Joseph Schacht (1950: 58ff.; 1963) and Juynboll, but cannot be pursued here. Why then write a chapter on these two different issues: a type of literature and a social concept? As already indicated above with reference to Muḥammad and ʿUmar, both issues are connected to each other inasmuch as ḥadīths are the source for determining a specific sunna. In other words, one can construct Muḥammad’s sunna on the basis of prophetic ḥadīths; or on the basis of traditions about close Companions of Muḥammad, such as ʿUmar b. al-​Khaṭṭāb, one can discover the latter’s habitual practice and then transmit it to later generations. Muslims used to prefer (and still do) Muḥammad’s sunna to that of his Companions or that of other “pious forebears” (al-​salaf al-​ṣāliḥ), because of several Qurʾānic statements, the most important of which are: “Indeed in the Messenger of God you have a good example” (Q 33:21) and “He who obeys the Messenger (i.e. Muḥammad), has obeyed God” (Q 4:80). Hence, according to the codified Qurʾān God had ordained to act in accordance with what His Messenger, i.e. Muḥammad, demonstrated or mouthed. This makes sense, because one can argue that God’s chosen messenger knew best how to fulfill, exemplify, and teach God’s commands and prohibitions. In addition, there are several Qurʾānic verses in which Muḥammad is summoned to say that he follows God’s orders.6 Therefore, every Muslim who lives in accordance with Muḥammad’s habitual practice or, more generally, his way of life will not go astray and receive the rewards mentioned in the codified Qurʾān. Exactly this notion is also expressed in the ḥadīth quoted above when Ibn ʿUmar comments “The habitual practices of God the Almighty and His Messenger are more correct than following the habitual practice of someone else.” In this statement, God’s 81

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commands and prohibitions are conveyed by the same expression as Muḥammad’s enactment of them: habitual practice (sunna). Hence, the Qurʾānic term sunnat Allāh is correlated to the non-​Qurʾānic term sunnat al-​nabī. Through this intertextual relationship the latter term adopts some of the first term’s authority. As was noted above, in order to know what Muḥammad’s sunna was Muslims turn(ed) to the approximately 100,000 known ḥadīths in which his behavior and words are mentioned.7 However, these ḥadīths do not offer a coherent image. Each of them is a self-​contained narrative, and only some are directly related to others, most are not. For example, Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal reports a second, similar version of the ḥadīth quoted above in which the unnamed man asked Ibn ʿUmar whether he should circumambulate the House (i.e. the Kaʿba) after he has gotten in the state of ritual consecration for the pilgrimage (aḥramtu bi-​al-​ḥajj). After Ibn ʿUmar again expressed his astonishment the man said that Ibn ʿAbbās (i.e. another famous Companion of Muḥammad) prohibited that. Thereupon Ibn ʿUmar reported that he had seen Muḥammad getting in the state of ritual consecration, circumambulating the House and running between al-​Ṣafā and al-​Marwa (Ibn Ḥanbal 1993–​2001:VIII 106 no. 4512). No mention of a preferable sunna or an appeal to act rightly is made in this version of the ḥadīth. In addition, except for Wabara the isnād of this tradition differs from the above-​mentioned one.8 Hence, on the one hand one can recognize the similarities between both traditions on the basis of the isnād, narrative frame and core. Even the structure (i.e. a question–​answer scheme), some expressions, phrases (from the same Arabic root) and the description of Muḥammad’s actions are the same. On the other hand, however, the message differs insofar as the first tradition has a more appealing character and includes a normative statement about different values of various sunnas.9 This example then also shows the “atomistic character” (Leder 1992: 280) of the whole ḥadīth corpus and the difficulty in establishing Muḥammad’s sunna based on it. After these introductory remarks I will focus in the rest of this chapter on the historical development of ḥadīth and sunna in the 7th–​8th and the 9th–​10th centuries. Hence, I am discussing in the second part the transmission and collection of ḥadīth, the early argumentation with the various sunnas and the influential role al-​Shāfiʿī played in merging both phenomena. In the third part I will mention the development of ḥadīth scholarship after al-​Shāfiʿī (in particular putting the focus on prophetic ḥadīths, the evaluation of ḥadīths, and the blurring between ḥadīth and legal scholarship) and then turn to the shaping of Sunnī identity due to the interplay of ḥadīth, prophetic sunna, and theological treatises. All these intellectual and social processes can, however, only be described very roughly here for reasons of space.

Ḥadīth and sunna in the 7th–​8th centuries The textual development of ḥadīths started in the course of the 7th century. Although the whole process is difficult to describe in detail due to the characteristics of our Arabic sources, we can safely date several prophetic ḥadīths to the second half of the 7th century, while a few others date to the first half of that century. However, for most we cannot make such an argument convincingly. In addition, we have to assume that some were composed in the context of the diverse political, theological, and legal developments of the 7th to 10th centuries. Muslim scholars explain the origin of ḥadīths with the high interest that Muḥammad’s Companions (ṣaḥāba) had in their political and religious leader. Some of the Companions, such as Abū Hurayra, the above-​mentioned ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿUmar, or Muḥammad’s wife ʿĀʾisha bt. Abī Bakr, informed others about Muḥammad’s activities and directives and thus started the transmission of reports about the Prophet of Islam. Muḥammad’s Companions transmitted the information to their “Followers” (ṭābiʿūn), while the latter continued the transmission to the following generation 82

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(ṭābiʿū al-​ṭābiʿīn). Although this model is plausible, it has not been proven with certainty, in particular because in most cases we can trace back the transmission of ḥadīths with certainty only to the generation of the Followers’ followers. This group of early Muslims died between c. 710 and c. 740, while one of the most important scholars of this period is the Medinan Ibn Shihāb al-​Zuhrī (d. 742). In this time we can also convincingly prove the usage of the isnād as means of providing information about the provenance of the report’s text and thus as measure to authenticate it. Hence, ḥadīths achieved their characteristic shape in the first decades of the 8th century. Sometimes the first isnāds consisted only of one or two persons ending at the generation of the Followers’ followers. At other times in one long isnād several individual isnāds are merged (so-​called collective isnāds), while in some further cases isnāds also reached back to Muḥammad (but could still include gaps). Although Juynboll argued for the origin of the isnāds in the Ḥijāz in around 690 (Juynboll 1973: 158f.),10 which can be proven correct in some individual cases, we have to assume that the isnāds were introduced in the major centers of Muslim scholarship at various times and at different speeds. In the course of the 8th and 9th centuries, however, isnāds became widespread, were regarded as essential parts of ḥadīths, were sometimes textually changed according to existing paradigms (for example isnāds that stopped before Muḥammad were extended to him), and were categorized by ḥadīth scholars (ahl al-​ḥadīth): for example, the isnāds that continuously reached back to Muḥammad were called “complete” (marfūʿ, musnad), others that stopped at a Follower were called “cut off ” (maqṭūʿ). Until the first third of the 8th century ḥadīths were transmitted mostly orally, either by providing a verbatim form of the text (bi-​al-​lafẓ) or by expressing its meaning in similar words (bi-​ al-​maʿnā), while from sometime afterwards (that we cannot define precisely) “notebooks” (ṣuḥuf, sing. ṣaḥīfa) were written down by scholars in which some ḥadīths were preserved for further transmission. These notebooks can be regarded as the first type of ḥadīth collections that were written by scholars.11 Other ḥadīth collections are said to have been initiated by rulers, in particular by the Umayyad ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-​ʿAzīz (r. 717–​720). However, all these reports about early notebooks or collections cannot be verified, because the latter were not preserved.12 From the mid-​8th century onwards the transmission of ḥadīths developed with the help of written records (so-​called aural transmission) into a textually more stable form, although changes in the isnād, the narrative frame, and the core of the ḥadīth continued to occur due to lapses in transmission or due to intended rephrasing of the text. According to this “audible transmission” (al-​riwāya al-​masmūʿa) that became the standard mode of transmitting, ḥadīth traditions were either recited aloud by the teacher (shaykh) on the basis of his notebook and noted down by his disciples, or one of his disciples did the reading from his script, while the teacher indicated possible mistakes. By employing this method Muslim scholars compiled various works in the course of the 8th century in which ḥadīths feature prominently.Thus, they made available material that comprised various sunnas. Among these works were historical compilations about the life of Muḥammad (e.g. by Ibn Isḥāq, d. 767), exegetical collections explaining verses of the codified Qurʾān (e.g. by Muqātil b. Sulaymān, d. 767), legal compendia about religious law in various cities (e.g. for Medina by Mālik b. Anas, d. 795), or books that contained only ḥadīths, on which I will focus in the following paragraphs. All these compilations have to be regarded as “best-​of ” selections of the respective compiler-​author, since all compiler-​authors most likely knew of more ḥadīths than they quoted in their respective works. The second type of ḥadīth-only collections after the ṣaḥīfas that was compiled from the mid-​ 8th century onward was “the early muṣannaf” type. These ḥadīth works, to which Ibn Jurayj’s (d. 767) and Mālik b. Anas’ compilation belong, are “divided into chapters” (muṣannaf) which are dedicated to particular issues of Islamic law, for example ritual purity, prayer, fasting, pilgrimage, 83

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etc. In each of these chapters prophetic and other important persons’ ḥadīths (sometimes supplemented by the compiler-​author’s comments) are found that relate to the respective topic. Hence, the ḥadīths serve as textual reference for legal issues, which is one important point that indicates the close relationship between ḥadīths and classical Islamic law. Approximately in the final decades of the 8th century a third type of ḥadīth collections was established that is called “the musnad” type. In these collections mostly prophetic ḥadīths are listed according to the companion or first narrator in the isnād who reports something about Muḥammad. For example, the Muslim ḥadīth scholar al-​Ṭayālisī (d. 818), who compiled the oldest musnad collection, started with all ḥadīths reported by Abū Bakr and ʿUmar b. al-​Khaṭṭāb and then lists traditions from many more male and female Companions of Muḥammad. By the way, the above-​mentioned two traditions about the correct rites during the pilgrimage were taken from the famous musnad work by Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal (d. 855), who listed them in the section of the Companion ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿUmar. This brief overview of ḥadīth collection types shows the scholarly and societal interest in prophetic and other important persons’ ḥadīths during the 7th and 8th centuries. This social development was accompanied and influenced by the adoption and spread of the concept of sunna within the emerging Muslim societies. Although this statement is broadly correct, it is difficult to describe the process of adoption and spreading over the two centuries in detail. As in the case of the ḥadīths, the Arabic sources on which we base our conclusions regarding this development were written in the 8th and (mostly in) the 9th centuries and include later positions that may not necessarily reflect the earlier situations. In addition, the references in the sources to sunna are ambiguous, because they sometimes connect the word sunna to a person (i.e. sunnat al-​nabī, sunnat ʿUmar, etc.) and sometimes use the word alone. In the latter cases it is not clear whether sunna refers to the habitual practice of a person, the Islamic community, or the older Arabian tribal society. Modern scholars agree that the term sunna was used in the 7th century in debates on legal, ritual, polito-​religious, and administrative issues in order to refer to a good, older practice.13 Hence, from very early on we can observe a retrospective attitude within the nascent Muslim societies. This attitude seems to be an older tribal social practice that was sometimes modified (or adapted) from the 7th century onward and not a new Qurʾānic concept. For in the codified Qurʾān the term sunna is not used regarding a person’s, in particular not Muḥammad’s, habitual practice. Instead, it refers to God’s habitual practice (that never changes, Q 35:43) to send messengers (Q 17:77), and to His way of having dealt (equally) with bygone communities of believers (sunnat Allāh fī dīn khalaw min qabl; see Q 33:62, 33:38, 48:23). In addition, the Qurʾān sometimes refers to a people’s sunna, when stating that the habitual practice of the early communities has elapsed (khalat sunnat al-​awwalīn; see Q 15:13, 3:137 (where the plural sunan is used)) and more generally to the habitual practices of those people who lived before (sunan al-​lādhīna min qablikum; Q 4:26). Another problem is that it is not clear to whose sunna or sunnas 7th-​century Muslims used to refer exactly. Joseph Schacht, confirming Margoliouth’s view, argued that the early Muslims referred first to the sunnas of Abū Bakr, ʿUmar and the “pious forebears” and only later to the sunna of the Prophet (Schacht 1950: 58; and his argumentation in ch. 7 of that work).14 Bravmann instead argued against this view and stated that early Muslims used to refer first to Muḥammad’s sunna and then to the sunna of the Muslim community (Bravmann 1972: 155, 167).15 Juynboll adds that also “pre-​Islamic sunnas were accepted” (1960–​2007). I assume that early Muslims referred to all mentioned sunnas depending on the argument they wanted to make. If the argument was more convincing with a quotation from ʿUmar b. al-​Khaṭṭāb, they preferred that to the sunna of the Prophet (and vice versa). In addition, they may have left the 84

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term sunna undetermined on purpose and argued only with a general previous practice in order not to be criticized for having quoted someone wrongly. When arguing with sunna became en vogue the opposite concept, bidʿa (pl. bidaʿ), was also established. Bidʿa can be rendered as “innovation, novelty” and refers to any new approach or practice in the legal, religious, political, and administrative realm that was undertaken without an earlier proof, in particular with no precedent in the time of the Prophet. For when someone, or a whole society, argues with the habitual practice (sunna), he (or it) is averse to (at least some) innovation. Therefore, the term bidʿa was used to accuse one’s opponents (hence called ahl al-​ bidʿa, lit.“adherents of innovation”) of having introduced new, incorrect beliefs or rules. However, according to Goldziher, the concept of bidʿa was not used in its absolute form, but “from early on” modified into “good” (ḥasana) and “bad” (sayyiʾa) innovations, because otherwise “a free movement of the society would have become impossible” (1889–​1890: II 25–​26).16 To which period Goldziher refers here is not clear. However, in a 9th-​century ḥadīth compilations we find the differentiation between a good and bad sunna expressed in several prophetic ḥadīths.17 It is unclear since when exactly sunna and bidʿa were used as arguments, but as in the case of ḥadīths we have to assume that these concepts were introduced in the centers of learning at different times and with varying effectiveness. There is a ḥadīth according to which the early scholar Muḥammad b. Sīrīn (d. 728) explains that when ahl al-​sunna (lit. “adherents of the habitual practice”) are mentioned as informants of traditions the respective traditions should be accepted; however, when ahl al-​bidʿa are named the respective traditions should be rejected.18 Although a nice opposition between both groups is attributed to a very early scholar, we can safely date the tradition only to the ḥadīth compilation in which it is included, i.e. to the 9th century. Hence, it remains only a (likely) assumption that the concept of bidʿa with its variations was used as an argument shortly after the concept of sunna, i.e. from the late 7th or early 8th centuries onward. To argue with a sunna (as well as assessing someone’s actions as “novelty”) requires knowledge of the previous person’s behavior and a positive or negative assessment of this knowledge. In case knowledge is not extant, this inevitably leads to the question of what the respective person had said or done. Hence, the general attitude of continuous questioning about some people’s pasts by the early Muslims in addition to further stimuli from early converts of the grand Arabic empire might have triggered the above-​mentioned transmission and collection of prophetic and other important persons’ ḥadīth. Later Arabic sources singled out the Umayyad ruler ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-​ʿAzīz (r. 717–​720) as the first to have emphasized Muḥammad’s, Abū Bakr’s, and ʿUmar’s sunnas and de-​emphasized the sunnas of other Muslims.19 This fits neatly with the above-​mentioned ṣaḥīfa ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-​ʿAzīz is said to have ordered to be compiled. However, parallel to his ṣaḥīfa, ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-​ʿAzīz’s position regarding Muḥammad’s sunna cannot be verified. Therefore, we have to assume that in the course of the 8th century Muslim scholars still referred to the various sunnas they knew about. In addition, arguing with ḥadīths and sunnas was still regarded as distinct. For example, the famous Ḥanafī legal scholar Abū Yūsuf (d. 798), who used in his legal compendium on taxation various prophetic and other persons’ ḥadīths, is described as ṣāḥib ḥadīth wa-​ṣāḥib sunna, i.e. as “master of tradition(s) and master of the habitual practice” (Goldziher 1889–​1890: II 12).20 However, what exactly ṣāḥib sunna means is still unclear.21 Things changed at the end of the 8th and the beginning of the 9th centuries, when a legal scholar, Muḥammad al-​Shāfiʿī (d. 820), argued forcefully for accepting the codified Qurʾān and Muḥammad’s sunna as the sole sources of law, because they are divinely inspired references that complement each other and because their wide transmission allows for the establishment of certain knowledge or rulings.22 Making Muḥammad’s habitual practice the second root (aṣl) 85

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for deriving Islamic legal rules, al-​Shāfiʿī narrowed down the meaning of the term sunna and explicitly raised the status of Muḥammad’s sunna in relation to other sunnas. The close relationship between sunna understood only as Muḥammad’s sunna and Islamic law was now tied together in a legal methodology that not only defined but also codified this relationship very closely. Muḥammad’s sunna can be derived, according to al-​Shāfiʿī, from ḥadīths whose isnāds go back to the Prophet. Such a demand requires an already extant and wide enough pool of ḥadīths of this kind. Hence, al-​Shāfiʿī built his legal theory on the work of the many ḥadīth scholars that had collected and transmitted prophetic (and others’) ḥadīths over the past decades. Al-​Shāfiʿī’s theory was of practical usage as well, insofar as the several thousand prophetic and others’ ḥadīths contained more legal substance than the approximately 600 legal verses in the codified Qurʾān. Hence, more and more Muslim legal scholars were convinced of this theory and thus identified the previously ambiguous term sunna, in the course of time, as sunnat al-​nabī, i.e. the habitual practice of the Prophet. Furthermore, with the wide adoption of this theory, Muḥammad’s sunna achieved a normative and axiomatic function for many Muslims, scholars and laymen alike.23 Hence, we can translate Muḥammad’s sunna after al-​Shāfiʿī’s time also as “normative practice” when we want to stress this particular function of the habitual procedure.

Ḥadīth and sunna in the 9th–​10th centuries Al-​Shāfiʿī’s emphasis on Muḥammad’s sunna not only benefited from ḥadīth scholarship, but also had an immense backlash on it. This impact was mainly threefold: first, many ḥadīth scholars focused on prophetic (rather than on other persons’) ḥadīths which they specially searched for and transmitted more intensively than before; second, some ḥadīth scholars developed tools for evaluating ḥadīths in order to sift the more reliable prophetic ḥadīths from the less reliable ones; third, the boundaries between ḥadīth and legal scholarship blurred more and more, because some ḥadīth scholars engaged in legal discussions and because some legal scholars made use of Muḥammad’s sunna in their argumentation to a far greater extent than before. These three points will be presented in more detail in the following paragraphs. Regarding the first point, in the course of the just-​mentioned intensified search for prophetic ḥadīths a fourth type of ḥadīth compilation was established in the mid-​9th century called “the classical muṣannaf” type which is based on “the early muṣannaf” type. As the former, the classical muṣannaf compilations list ḥadīths in “main chapters” (kutub, sing. kitāb) and “sub-​chapters” (abwāb, sing. bāb) that accord with topics of Islamic law. In contrast to the former, however, the compiler-​authors of the classical muṣannaf works put more emphasis on prophetic ḥadīths, in particular on isnāds that were complete and assessed as good and on the exact(er) wording of the matns. The two classical muṣannaf collections compiled by Muḥammad al-​Bukhārī (d. 870) and Muslim b. al-​Ḥajjāj (d. 875) particularly focused on such “sound” (ṣaḥīḥ), i.e. historically true,24 prophetic ḥadīths and later gained such a reputation that from the early 11th century onward they received a canonical status among Muslim scholars and are venerated by Sunnī Muslims today as the most authoritative ḥadīth collections.25 Many more muṣannaf works were compiled in the 9th and 10th centuries, of which four particularly stand out.26 Together with the Ṣaḥīḥān (lit. “The Two Sound [Collections]”) compiled by al-​Bukhārī and Muslim these compilations became known as “The Six Books” (al-​kutub al-​sitta) and formed the Sunnī canon of ḥadīth from the 12th century onward. The four works hinted at are Abū ʿĪsā al-​Tirmidhī’s (d. 892) al-​Jāmiʿ al-​mukhtaṣar (lit. “The Abbreviated Collection”) and Abū Dāwūd al-​Sijistānī’s (d. 888), Aḥmad al-​Nasāʾī’s (d. 915), and Muḥammad b. Māja’s (d. 887) Kitāb al-​sunan. The title of the latter three compilations translates as “The Book on the Normative Practices” and has to be 86

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understood as referring to the habitual (and normative) practices of Muḥammad, because the content consists almost entirely of prophetic ḥadīths. These works (and their titles) therefore indicate that the term sunna was adopted by ḥadīth scholars and that the sunna of the Prophet was accepted as major focus within ḥadīth studies. Apart from these six most famous ḥadīth collections several more works of the musnad as well as of the muṣannaf types were compiled in the 9th and 10th centuries. To the first group belong for example Abū Bakr al-​Bazzār’s (d. 904–​905) and Abū Yaʿlā al-​Mawṣilī’s (d. 919)  Musnads (lit. “(The Collection of) the Supported (Prophetic Traditions)”) and Sulaymān al-​Ṭabarānī’s (d. 971) al-​Muʿjam al-​kabīr (lit. “The Grand Collection”), while one could mention as examples of the second group Ibn Khuzayma’s (d. 924)  and Ibn Ḥibbān’s (d. 965)  Ṣaḥīḥs. Some other ḥadīth collections in the 9th and 10th centuries had a topical focus, for example on asceticism (zuhd), warfare (jihād), or even on the prophetic sunna, like ʿAbd Allāh b. Aḥmad b.  Ḥanbal’s (d. 903) and Ibn Abī ʿĀṣim’s (d. 900) “Book about the (Prophet’s) Normative Practice” (Kitāb al-​sunna) or al-​Dāraquṭnī’s (d. 995) “(Prophetical) Practices” (Sunan). Ḥadīth scholars also continued to work on al-​Bukhārī’s and Muslim’s collections and hence promoted the process of the works’ canonization. A good example is al-​Ḥākim al-​Naysabūrī (d. 1014), who compiled a work in which prophetic ḥadīths are listed that meet the criteria of al-​Bukhārī and Muslim but were neglected by (or simply unknown to) them. Al-​Naysabūrī’s work is called al-​Mustadrak ʿalā al-​Ṣaḥīḥayn (lit. “The Rectifying Supplement to the Two Ṣaḥīḥs”). Furthermore, several other compilations were crafted in the course of these two centuries that are closely related to the field of ḥadīth studies:27 first, mustakhraj works like the one by Abū Nuʿaym al-​Iṣfahānī (d. 1038). In a mustakhraj (lit. “excerpted”) work one finds the ḥadīths of an earlier collection, in the case of Abū Nuʿaym the Ṣaḥīḥ of Muslim, supplied with the paths of transmission (isnāds) according to which the compiler-​author had received the respective traditions. Second, commentaries to existing ḥadīth collections, like Ḥamd al-​Khaṭṭābī’s (d. 998) “Notification of the (Prophet’s) Normative Practices: A Commentary on al-​Bukhārī’s Ṣaḥīḥ” (Iʿlām al-​sunan fī sharḥ Ṣaḥīḥ al-​Bukhārī). Third, works about the correct behavior and the code of conduct of ḥadīth scholars, like that by al-​Rāmahurmuzī (d. 971) entitled “The Ḥadīth Scholar Who is Divided between the One Who Transmits and the One Who Remembers” (al-​ Muḥaddith al-​fāṣil bayna al-​rāwī wa-​al-​wāʿī). Last, and with reference to the second point of this section, many works came into being in which biographical data combined with evaluations of scholars were presented. The oldest “biographical dictionary” (ṭabaqāt or taʾrīkh work) is the famous “Great Book of Generations” (Kitāb al-​ṭabaqāt al-​kabīr) compiled by Muḥammad b. Saʿd (d. 845). Of the same age is Khalīfa b. Khayyāṭ’s (d. 854) al-​Ṭabaqāt (lit. “The Generations”). Khalīfa b. Khayyāṭ was a ḥadīth scholar from Baṣra and one of the teachers of Ibn Ḥanbal and al-​Bukhārī.28 The latter also compiled an extant biographical dictionary entitled “The Great Biographical Dictionary” (al-​Taʾrīkh al-​kabīr) in which he listed c. 12,300 persons in alphabetical order and in which he sometimes also evaluated ḥadīth scholars and traditions.29 Besides al-​Bukhārī, Muslim (d. 875) also compiled a biographical work called “The Book of Patronymics and First Names” (Kitāb al-​kunā wa-​al-​asmāʾ) which is also extant today. In the 10th century two trends are discernible regarding biographical dictionaries: first, some compiler-​authors focused in their works on particular groups of transmitters, like Ibn Ḥibbān (d. 965), who was a ḥadīth and legal scholar (faqīh) and who presented one work on “The Trustworthy (Transmitters)” (Kitāb al-​thiqāt) and another one on “Those Who Were Declared Unreliable” (Kitāb al-​majrūḥīn). As was mentioned above, he had also compiled a collection of sound ḥadīths.30 Second, some compiler-​authors focused on the scholars of a particular town or region, such as Aslam b. Sahl Baḥshal (d. 905) in his “Biographical Dictionary of Wāsiṭ” (Taʾrīkh Wāsiṭ) or the above-​mentioned ḥadīth scholar al-​Ḥākim al-​Naysabūrī (d. 1014), 87

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who also compiled a biographical work about the scholars of Nishapur entitled Taʾrīkh Naysabūr (lit. “The Biographical Dictionary of Nishapur”). In all these works Muslim scholars and transmitters of ḥadīth are either listed according to tribes, generations, or alphabetically. The works served ḥadīth scholars to acquire some background information about the persons mentioned in the various isnāds. With the help of this information the scholars could then evaluate the isnāds which in the course of the 9th century had become the main criterion for deciding whether a tradition was reliable, less reliable, or unreliable for adducing a legal rule.31 At least from the 10th century onward, isnāds were examined according to two criteria: first, did the isnād connect the compiler and Muḥammad uninterruptedly, i.e. could every transmitter mentioned in the isnād have received the information from his alleged teacher? Second, were the transmitters mentioned in the isnāds known for their flawless conduct of life?32 However, already in the 9th century the personal, religious, and scholarly life of transmitters was assessed. To this end the biographical dictionaries were of help, too, because they included statements made by the compiler-​author or by a quoted earlier scholar about the trustworthiness (or untrustworthiness) of a given person. Thus, Ibn Saʿd (d. 845), for example, assessed the persons in his biographical work as “reliable” (thiqa), “sincere” (ṣadūq), “weak” (ḍaʿīf), or “lying” (kādhib).33 The “criticism and confirmation of ḥadīth transmitters” (ʿilm al-​jarḥ wa-​al-​taʿdīl; lit. “the science of declaring unreliable and just”) not only became the focus (and title) of another biographical dictionary compiled by Ibn Abī Ḥātim al-​Rāzī (d. 938), but also the major occupation of some ḥadīth scholars of the 9th and 10th centuries who did not compile a biographical dictionary. The often-​mentioned ḥadīth scholar and compiler-​author of the Musnad, Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, for example, together with his contemporary Yaḥyā b. Maʿīn (d. 847) started to assess many (but not all) ḥadīth transmitters either through positive and negative graded statements or comparatively (Lucas 2004: 307–​308).These two levels were, according to Scott Lucas, the main approaches of the earliest ḥadīth critics. In the 10th century scholars like Ibn Abī Ḥātim al-​Rāzī (d. 938), Ibn Ḥibbān (d. 965), or al-​Ḥākim al-​Naysabūrī (d. 1014), all of whom also compiled ḥadīth collections or biographical dictionaries, were well-​known ḥadīth critics. Through their works, these critics not only helped other ḥadīth and legal scholars to sift reliable from unreliable traditions, but also supported the development of what is to be later called “Sunnī Islam” (Lucas 2004: 21).34 The process of increasing “Sunnism” can also be observed within the various ḥadīth collections. In Aḥmad b.  Ḥanbal’s (d. 855) Musnad, for example, we find yet another version of the tradition quoted in the beginning of this chapter. In this tradition the relationship between Muḥammad’s religious practice and the above-​mentioned Qurʾānic verse according to which the Muslims have “a good example in the Messenger of God” (Q 33:21) is attested, as far as we know, for the first time.35 This tradition was first discussed by Juynboll (1987:  108)  and describes the problem of an unnamed man who wanted to meet his wife while performing the lesser pilgrimage (ʿumra) (Ibn Ḥanbal 1993–​2001: VIII 265 no. 4641). One Companion denied this request and said that the man has to accomplish the run between al-​Ṣafā and al-​Marwa first. Then Ibn ʿUmar was asked about this issue and said: “The messenger of God, s., came [to make the pilgrimage]. So he circumambulated the House seven times, prayed behind the maqām [of Ibrāhīm] and [then] ran between al-​Ṣafā and al-​Marwa.” To this he (i.e. Ibn ʿUmar) added “Indeed in the Messenger of God you have a good example.” Although the term sunna is not explicitly mentioned in this tradition, there is an obvious relationship between Muḥammad’s habitual practice and the cited Qurʾānic verse intended in this tradition. Regarding the third point mentioned above, ḥadīth scholars of the 9th and 10th centuries also started to engage in the field of Islamic law (fiqh) and vice versa. The ḥadīth scholar ʿAbd 88

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Allāh al-​Dārimī (d. 869), for example, compiled a muṣannaf work of the classical type in which prophetic ḥadīths are listed and which he therefore entitled Kitāb al-​sunan (lit. “The Book about the (Prophet’s) Normative Practices”). Therein he lists in his first main chapter (kitāb) several fundamental ḥadīths, some of which describe the relation between the codified Qurʾān and the prophetic sunna. Thus, he participated in a legal debate about the hierarchy and relationship of sources with the help of which legal rulings should be derived. The basic question was whether a divinely ordained text, like the codified Qurʾān, can be abrogated by a habitual practice of humans, whether it is the Prophet’s sunna or someone else’s. According to Juynboll, al-​Dārimī answered in the affirmative, basing his position on an earlier scholar’s statement according to which “the sunna (here understood by al-​Dārimī as prophetic sunna) determines the Qurʾān, but the Qurʾān does not determine the sunna” (al-​sunna qāḍiya ʿalā al-​Qurʾān wa-​laysa al-​Qurʾān bi-​kādin ʿalā al-​sunna).36 Juynboll is right in his interpretation of al-​Dārimī’s position, because the latter chose to call the sub-​chapter in which we find this tradition “The Chapter about the Sunna that Determines the Book of God” (1995: I 144 line 13: bāb al-​sunna qāḍiya ʿalā kitāb Allāh). In other words, al-​Dārimī implicitly argued for a very strong position of Muḥammad’s sunna, just as strong as the divinely ordained text. In support of this view al-​Dārimī quoted two more traditions: according to the first that which is allowed and prohibited is the same in prophetic ḥadīth and in the “Book of God,” while according to the second the prophetic sunna is said to have been brought to Muḥammad by the angel Gabriel as was the Qurʾānic revelation (1995: I 144 lines 14–​19, 145 lines 4–​6). Both ḥadīths speak in favor of an equal rank of the codified Qurʾān and Muḥammad’s sunna. Also other contemporaneous scholars supported the position that the prophetic sunna was of divine origin (e.g. Ibn Qutayba (d. 889)) or agreed with al-​Dārimī that the sunna mutawātira has the same epistemological value as the (collectively transmitted) codified Qurʾān (e.g. Qāḍī al-​Khaṣṣāf (d. 874)).37 Mutawātir transmission is a concept employed by ḥadīth scholars. Accordingly, a tradition can be called thus, when it was transmitted continuously without interruption by many scholars from the first generation until its preservation in one of the most famous ḥadīth compilations.38 Hence, the sunna mutawātira is that part of Muḥammad’s habitual practice that was transmitted in word or action (ʿamal) continuously by many people from the time of Muḥammad onward. In addition to ḥadīth scholars, like al-​Dārimī, engaging in legal discussions, legal scholars continued to think along the path established by al-​Shāfiʿī insofar as they systematically used Muḥammad’s sunna as argument for various legal norms. However, they did not make use of every extant prophetic tradition, but continued an earlier debate about which of the many prophetic traditions should be seen as obligatory or negligible from a legal point of view.39 A good example is Abū ʿUbayd al-​Qāsim b. Sallām (d. 838), who combined expertise in classical Islamic law (fiqh) with that of ḥadīth and linguistic studies40 and presented a consistent legal thinking that prioritized Muḥammad’s sunna. Therefore, some new insight into his legal approach is provided here. Abū ʿUbayd compiled a “Book on the Various Kinds of Imposts” (Kitāb al-​amwāl) in which he made use of the codified Qurʾān, the prophetic sunna,41 other early Muslims’ sunnas, and various argumentation techniques as part of his legal argumentation.42 The highest legal priority, according to Abū ʿUbayd, is that of the Qurʾān. Hence, he quoted various verses in which the three basic kinds of taxes (fayʾ, khums, ṣadaqa) are mentioned.43 The second priority is that of Muḥammad’s sunna as given in prophetic ḥadīths. According to Abū ʿUbayd, “the sunna (of the Prophet) explains revelation and makes its divine ordinances (ḥudūd) and legal derivation (sharīʿa) manifest” (1981: 541 lines 15–​16).44 If a rule was established on the basis of the Prophet’s habitual and normative practice, this constitutes legal proof that cannot be rejected (Abū ʿUbayd 1981: 351 lines 6–​7). Furthermore, Abū ʿUbayd summoned the people to “enliven the normative practices of the messenger of God (sunan rasūl Allāh), to follow his command, 89

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and to be rightly guided by his good leadership (hady)” (1981: 493 lines 14–​16). It is interesting that Abū ʿUbayd refers to Muḥammad’s habitual and normative practice sometimes in the singular (sunna) and sometimes in the plural (sunan). However, I doubt that this usage includes a difference in meaning (except for singular/​plural, of course).Third priority is given to traditions from “the leaders of right guidance” (aʾimmat hudā),45 i.e. some of the successors of Muḥammad who led the early Muslim community like Abū Bakr or ʿUmar, and traditions from “the pious” (al-​ṣāliḥūn), i.e. important Companions, Successors, and legal scholars of the 8th century (Abū ʿUbayd 1981: 464 lines 9–​10 [aʾimmat hudā], line 14 [al-​ṣāliḥūn]).46 In the latter term we have a slight allusion to the more common reference to this group as “pious forebears” (al-​salaf al-​ṣāliḥ). Although Abū ʿUbayd quoted many traditions from the two groups just mentioned, some of which have incomplete isnāds,47 he never referred to their precedents as sunnas, but reserved this term –​at least in the Kitāb al-​amwāl –​for Muḥammad’s habitual and normative practice.48 From Abū ʿUbayd’s typical argumentation techniques only one, i.e. “abrogation” (naskh), will be singled out here, because it relates to the question of the relationship between Qurʾān and prophetic sunna. In general such rational methods of argumentation should only be applied if there is no “extant normative practice (of the Prophet)” (sunna qāʾima) (Abū ʿUbayd 1981: 478 line 6). In addition, Muḥammad’s normative practice can only be abrogated by another example of his sunna or by Qurʾānic verses (Abū ʿUbayd 1981: 227 line 4). Whether Muḥammad’s sunna can abrogate Qurʾānic verses is not discussed in Abū ʿUbayd’s work.49 In conclusion, Abū ʿUbayd’s Kitāb al-​amwāl shows a clear hierarchy of legal arguments: first the Qurʾān, second Muḥammad’s sunna, third traditions from Companions, fourth from Successors, and fifth rulings from earlier scholars. Employing this hierarchy of sources that also includes some rational argumentation, the Kitāb al-​amwāl is the first (legal) work that adheres to al-​Shāfiʿī’s theory of prioritizing the Qurʾān and the sunna of the Prophet without ever referring to the latter or his Risāla (lit. “Epistle”).Wael Hallaq has questioned the role al-​Shāfiʿī presumably played as “the master architect of Islamic jurisprudence” in the early 9th century (Hallaq 1993). He argues that “there simply was very little … that Shāfiʿī offered in the way of founding principle of uṣūl al-​fiqh” and that “Shāfiʿī’s Risāla and the theory that it embodied had very little, if any, effect during the 9th century” (Hallaq 1993: 593, 588). Hallaq’s central arguments are that there was no other uṣūl al-​fiqh work and no commentary or abridgment of the Risāla written in this century (both e silentio arguments) and that only in the 10th century had the Risāla become a “constitutive part of certain uṣūl education” (Hallaq 1993: 588, 590, 595).50 Although Abū ʿUbayd did not present an uṣūl al-​fiqh theory proper in his Kitāb al-​amwāl we find many constituents of this theory already present in the work: the adherence first and foremost to Qurʾān and prophetic sunna, legal language, the praxis of abrogation, qiyās, consensus (of some scholars at least), and rational argumentation.51 Hence, instead of theorizing about a legal hermeneutical concept, Abū ʿUbayd presented a practical approach to legal problems of his time that embodies well-​ known legal principles. It seems as if the Kitāb al-​amwāl is an important work for the establishment of Muḥammad’s sunna in legal theory and practice that has not received the recognition it deserves.52 Whether Abū ʿUbayd’s legal thinking, however, developed, as Melchert argues, into that found in the Risāla (which according to Melchert was composed in the last quarter of the 9th century) remains a question of controversy and further debate (2002: 93–​95). The three intellectual processes of the 9th and 10th centuries detailed here so far, i.e. the intensive search and collection of prophetic traditions, ḥadīth criticism, and the interplay of ḥadīth and legal scholarship, were all major contributions to the complex process of shaping a dominant social group later called “Sunnī Muslims” that was to become identified with “orthodoxy”53 or with mainstream belief in Muslim societies.54 The final part of this chapter will

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complement this sketch by taking some theological characteristics of this process of identity shaping into account. Beside ḥadīth scholars (ahl al-​ḥadīth, muḥaddithūn) and legal scholars (fuqahāʾ, sing. faqīh, lit. “those who have knowledge”) also theologians (mutakallimūn, lit. “those who speak (about God)”) had their share in the emergence of mainstream Islamic belief;55 political rulers (khulafāʾ, sing. khalīfa, lit. “successors” and umarāʾ, sing. amīr, lit. “commanders”) or administrative personnel (kuttāb, sing. kātib lit. “writers”) played only a minimal and indirect role in this process when supporting the religious scholars (ʿulamāʾ, sing. ʿālim (lit. “those who know”)).The whole process can be described as one of adaptation and uniting of religious positions that were argued for by some groups and of rejection and criticism of other groups’ views. As just explained, ḥadīth scholars contributed to this process by providing an agreed-​upon corpus of mostly prophetic ḥadīths, some doctrinal conclusions on the basis of this corpus, and a source-​critical methodology for evaluating these texts all of which were refined in the 10th century. In addition, legal scholars used the ḥadīth corpus to establish firm rules in various fields of law that represented the legal practice in a specific social and geographical realm. In the course of the 10th century these legal rules were accepted, extended, and codified by several of the legal scholars’ disciples, which led to the establishment of the “classical” “schools of law” (madhāhib, sing. madhhab), the most important of which were (and still are) the Ḥanafī, the Mālikī, the Shāfiʿī, and the Ḥanbalī.56 From that period onward most Muslim legal scholars associated themselves with one of these schools. Theologians, in particular Muʿtazilī scholars, lastly, introduced rational argumentation into the debate about correct belief. Thus, they abstained from adopting normative statements or reports from the Prophet or other “pious forebears” and developed their own doctrinal views based on rational proof. This division in argumentation led to conflicts between them and ḥadīth scholars. One of the clashes with substantial impact on the further history of thought among Muslim scholars happened in the early 9th century, when theologians and ḥadīth scholars debated the question whether the Qurʾān was created (the Muʿtazilī position) or uncreated (the ḥadīth scholars’ position). Backed by the political authorities –​such as several ʿAbbāsid caliphs and officials –​civil servants, judges (quḍāt, sing. qāḍin) and ḥadīth scholars, like Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, were forced to swear an oath in favor of the createdness of the Qurʾān. This “trial” (miḥna) led to Ibn Ḥanbal’s (and others’) persecution and arrest, but was stopped after twenty-​ eight years with the acceptance of the view that the Qurʾān was uncreated. Hence, the ḥadīth scholars’ position prevailed over the Muʿtazilī view and Ibn Ḥanbal was later regarded by the broad mass of Muslims as staunch defender of correct belief. Muʿtazilī dogmatic positions were finally overcome in the 10th century by the views of Abū al-​Ḥasan al-​Ashʿarī (d. 935–​936), Abū Manṣūr al-​Māturīdī (d. 941), and their respective schools. Al-​Ashʿarī had used rational arguments to defend the ḥadīth and legal scholars’ theological and legal positions, in particular the view that the sunna of the Prophet can be derived from sound traditions and that it served as basic source for dogmatic, legal, and ritual views. In this context the so-​called ʿaqīda treatises (pl. ʿaqāʾid, lit. “creed”) and “heresiographical texts” (maqālāt, lit. “treatises, theses”; sing. maqāla) also played an important role. ʿAqīdas comprise first and foremost doctrinal or dogmatic positions that were formulated in the 9th and to much larger extent in the 10th century in order to unite Muslim believers to adhere to one particular interpretation and definition of Islamic belief. This sometimes went hand in hand with the mechanisms of exclusion of other groups who, according to the author of the ʿaqīda, followed incorrect dogmatic positions. Also the “heresiographical” texts that were written at the same period served this objective.57

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Regarding their content, ʿaqīdas mostly deal with theological positions about God and the afterlife and are so diverse that they cannot be dealt here in their entirety.58 By way of example, I will introduce here al-​Ṭaḥāwī’s (d. 933) ʿaqīda that is found in his Bayān al-​sunna wa-​al-​jamāʿa (lit. “The Declaration of the (Prophet’s) Normative Practice and the Community”), which, according to Schacht, is one of the oldest ʿaqīdas we know of and which stands in a Ḥanafī tradition (Schacht 1933: 288, 291).59 As its title already shows, the work also made statements about Muḥammad’s sunna and alludes to the self-​designation of the majority of Muslims, i.e. ahl al-​sunna wa-​al-​jamāʿa (lit. “adherents to the (Prophet’s) normative practice and members of the community”). Al-​Ṭaḥāwī’s ʿaqīda includes the fought-​for theologumenon of the uncreatedness of the Qurʾān (khalq al-​Qurʾān) and of the special status Abū Bakr, ʿUmar b. al-​Khaṭṭāb, ʿUthmān b. ʿAffān, and ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib held as “rightly guiding caliphs” (al-​khulafāʾ al-​rāshidūn).60 Regarding Muḥammad the ʿaqīda demands belief in his “intercession” (shafāʿa) and the finality of his prophethood (Elder 1933: 136, 134). In addition, al-​Ṭaḥāwī says therein that “we follow the Approved Way (al-​sunna) [i.e. of the Prophet] and the Community (al-​jamāʿa), and we shun that which deviates, is contrary and divisive” (wa-​najtanibu al-​shudhūdh wa-​al-​khilāf wa-​al-​ furqa) (Elder 1933: 140). Some lines earlier he had already formulated: “We call the people of our qibla [i.e. group, lit. “direction of prayers”] ‘Muslims’ and ‘Believers’ (muʾminūn), as long as they continue to confess that which the Prophet brought and assent to what he had said and narrated” (mā qālahū wa-​akhbara) (Elder 1933: 138).61 Hence, a close correlation between correct belief and basing one’s views on Muḥammad’s sunna that is visible in prophetic ḥadīths is discernible in these statements. Later al-​Ṭaḥāwī explains that he would only accept doctrinal views if they are based on the Qurʾān, the sunna (of the Prophet), and consensus (ijmāʿ) (Elder 1933: 143).62 All this shows the “orthodox-​catholic character” of al-​Ṭaḥāwī’s ʿaqīda, according to Schacht (1933: 291). In many of these treatises the majority of Muslims was referred to as ahl al-​sunna wa-​al-​ jamāʿa or in shorter form as ahl al-​sunna (lit. “adherents to the (Prophet’s) normative practice”) or ahl al-​jamāʿa (lit. “members of the community”). We find, for example, all these phrases in al-​Ashʿarī’s (d. 935–​936) Maqālāt al-​islamīyīn (lit. “Theses of Those Who Submit (Themselves to God)”), in which heresiographical and ʿaqīda elements are mixed.63 In contrast, theological opponents or competitors were often collectively and pejoratively called ahl al-​bidaʿ (lit. “adherents to innovations”) in order to express a rejection of their views. From among the above-​mentioned terms it was particularly ahl al-​sunna wa-​al-​jamāʿa and ahl al-​sunna that became to denote mainstream Muslim believers. Even before al-​Ṭaḥāwī the first term was already used, for example, by Ḍirār b. ʿAmr (d. 810), Ibn Ḥanbal (d. 855) (van Ess 2011: I 135 and II 1274), or Faḍl b. Shādhān (d. 874). However, according to van Ess, Ḍirār b. ʿAmr’s usage was not “setting a trend” and it was due to Faḍl b. Shādhān’s activities in Iran that ahl al-​sunna wa-​al-​jamāʿa became accepted as technical term for the Muslim majority in scholarly circles, first in eastern Iran in the second half of the 10th century and then in other regions (van Ess 2011: I 139 and II 1275–​1277, 1279). The designation ahl al-​sunna in contrast was used by al-​ Ḥākim al-​Samarqandī (d. 953) in his ʿaqīda to refer to himself and his group of believers (van Ess 2011: II 1273), from where it spread and became a synonym of ahl al-​sunna wa-​al-​jamāʿa. From these two terms ultimately the name Sunnīs (sing. Sunnī) was derived with which we describe the majority of Muslims today. Inherent in this name is the reference to the habitual and normative practice of the Prophet Muḥammad, which is expressed in thousands of ḥadīths, the establishment and development of which was recapitulated in the preceding pages.

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Notes 1 Rather than employing the Arabic plural forms, for ease of comprehension I use anglicized plurals. 2 Today ḥadīth is used when referring to prophetic traditions only, while āthār denotes a Companion’s tradition, while akhbār is often used for non-​prophetic traditions with a historical content. 3 For the etymology of the term and the development of its meaning, see Ansari (1992:  255–​300). Serjeant, who tried to distinguish sunna from ʿurf (lit.“custom, habit”), understood sunna in its narrower, legal meaning and defined it as legal precedent, see Serjeant (1995: 33–​34). 4 I understand “present” here as the time in which the concept of sunna is employed and not necessarily our contemporaneous time. Hence, “present” can refer to the 9th century if sunna was discussed back then (in fact it was, as we will see). 5 See Juynboll (1960–​2007); Bravmann mentions “setting aside the surplus of property (faḍl al-​māl)” as such a late antique Arab tribal concept (Bravmann 1972: 175–​177). Serjeant adds to this “a form of marriage … where a surrogate father is involved” called nikāḥ al-​istibḍāʿ (lit.“marriage by trade”) (Serjeant 1995: 35 n. 6). 6 See for example Q 10:15 or 39:13. 7 This figure represents the approximate sum of ḥadīths in the known collections. For approaching God’s sunna Muslims would turn to the codified Qurʾān. To recognize God’s sunna, i.e. the sharīʿa, is also the main objective of Muslim legal scholarship. 8 The isnād reads: Ibn Ḥanbal → Muḥammad b. Fuḍayl → Bayān → Wabara. 9 I am following Juynboll (and the medieval Islamic tradition) in using the plural sunnas as collective noun that refers to the habitual practices of various individuals (e.g. Muḥammad, Abū Bakr, ʿUmar, etc.) and groups (e.g. the late antique Arabs, the early Muslims, the later Muslim scholars, etc.). 10 For the same idea, see also Horovitz (1918: 43f.). 11 This typology follows that presented by Abdul Rauf (1983). In essence it is also taken over by Jonathan Brown (2009a). 12 Hence, to what extent Ibn al-​Bāghnudī’s (d. 924/​925) Musnad ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-​ʿAzīz contains tradition from the latter’s ṣaḥīfa is difficult to determine. 13 This was, however, not the only approach that was used in these debates. At the same time and sometimes on the same issue some Muslim scholars argued from their personal opinions (arāʾ) and formulated their individual judgments (raʾy). Hence, they were referred to as “adherents of individual judgment” (ahl al-​raʾy).The opposition between these two approaches, i.e. the sunna and raʾy arguments, lasted basically until the establishment of the classical schools of law in the 10th century. 14 See also Bravmann’s summary of Schacht’s theory (1972: 125). 15 This is also the opinion of Ansari (1992: 279–​280). 16 For some examples pertaining to both forms of bidʿa, see Robson (1960–​2007). 17 See, for example, al-​Dārimī (1995: I 130: “The Chapter about Those Who Establish a Good or a Bad sunna”). 18 For an English translation of the full tradition, see Juynboll (1973: 158). 19 See Juynboll (1987: 103, 103 n. 26), who quotes a tradition in this regard from Ibn al-​Jawzī’s Sīrat ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-​ʿAzīz. On ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-​ʿAzīz’s role as “the first theoretician of the sunna”, see also Juynboll (1983: 34–​38) and Nagel (1981: 290–​297). 20 Almost at the same time Ibn al-​Mubārak (d. 797) was, according to Juynboll, the first to be called ṣāḥib sunna (1960–​2007). 21 Juynboll found two definitions of the phrase mentioned by Ibn Ḥajar al-​ʿAsqalānī (d. 1449).Accordingly, a ṣāḥib sunna is either someone who believes in Abū Bakr, ʿUmar b. al-​Khaṭṭāb, ʿUthmān b. ʿAffān and ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib as legitimate rulers after Muḥammad, i.e. he is a member of “the sunna party”, or someone who loves Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal (Juynboll 1998: 322). However, the first explanation is not compatible with the literal meaning of the phrase here, while the second is anachronistic in relation to the late 8th century. For the most recent approach regarding the term, see Nawas (2016), who translates the expression as “man of the sunna” (2016: 3 n. 4). Nawas regards the ṣāḥibs sunna as a distinct Iraqi group of scholars that lived mostly in the 8th and 9th centuries and that committed themselves to the transmission of prophetical ḥadīth. In other words, they were regarded by ḥadīth scholars as experts on the constituents of Muḥammad’s habitual practise. 22 In contrast, ijtihād (lit.“exerting (oneself) in individual reasoning”) and qiyās (lit.“(reasoning by) analogy”) are methods for deriving rules from the Qurʾān and Muḥammad’s sunna which lead to uncertain knowledge and thus to disagreement, according to al-​Shāfiʿī. Lowry added on the basis of al-​Shāfiʿī’s Risāla to this list of sources for uncertain knowledge sunnas that are not widely transmitted (Lowry 2002: 43).

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Jens Scheiner 23 Contra Ansari, who regards the normative notion of the term sunna as an “essential ingredient” that was inherent in its meaning already in the early 7th century (1992: 261). 24 For an argument to understand ṣaḥīḥ as “historically true,” see Brown (2009b). 25 On details regarding this process of canonization, see Brown (2007). 26 The four most famous ḥadīth works by the Imāmī Shīʿī compiler-​authors al-​Kulaynī (d. 940), al-​ Qummī (d. 991), and al-​Ṭūsī (d. 1067) from the 10th and 11th centuries are not taken into consideration here. For them, see Kohlberg (1983) and Gleave (2001). 27 For a more comprehensive list, see Brown (2009: 49–​66). 28 On Khalīfa b. Khayyāṭ, see Zakkar (1960–​2007). 29 On the al-​Taʾrīkh al-​kabīr, see Melchert (2001: 8, 12). 30 On Ibn Ḥibbān, see Fück (1960–​2007). 31 Sometimes, however, also the matns were examined. On this issue, see Brown (2008). 32 These criteria were first mentioned by the 10th-​century ḥadīth scholar Ibn Khuzayma (d. 923), who was one of al-​Bukhārī’s and Muslim’s disciples, in his ḥadīth collection, according to Brown. See Brown (2009b: 271), referring to Ibn Khuzayma (1975: I 3). 33 For an analysis of Ibn Saʿd’s terminology and method, see Lucas (2004: 290–​297). 34 In addition to ḥadīth criticism, Lucas added the view of the collective probity of the ṣaḥāba and the continuous transmission of ḥadīths from the generation of the Companions to the one of the first ḥadīth critics as “fundamental principles” that premised later Sunnism. 35 How this tradition is related to the two versions already presented and what age it has, can only be found out with the help of a thorough ḥadīth analysis that takes isnāds and matns into account. 36 See Juynboll (1960–​2007), referring to al-​Dārimī (1995: I 145 l.1–​3). For a detailed discussion of this tradition that is ascribed to Yaḥyā b. Abī Kathīr (d. 747–​750), see Juynboll (1987: 109–​110). 37 For both examples, see Goldziher (1889–​1890: II 20–​21) with the respective references. 38 The opposite concept is called āḥād (lit. “singles,” sing. aḥad). This term relates to the majority of traditions that were transmitted from generation to generation by one or two persons only. 39 The latter ḥadīths may still have been used for personal piety, for exhortation, or as orientation for the personal lifestyle. However, they were omitted as argument for a certain legal norm. On the precursors of this debate, see El Shamsy (2015: 45–​55). 40 Abū ʿUbayd’s expertise in ḥadīth is visible in the many traditions he quoted and the comments he made on isnāds and mutawātir traditions (see Scheiner 2012:  327–​329). His expertise in linguistics can be deduced from his two works in which he discussed peculiar or foreign Arabic terms entitled Gharīb al-​ ḥadīth (lit. “The Peculiar (Words) in Tradition(s)”) and al-​Gharīb al-​muṣannaf (lit. “The Peculiar (Words Collected) in Chapters”). 41 That Abū ʿUbayd understood the term sunna as referring to Muḥammad’s normative practice was already observed by Juynboll (1987: 108). 42 On the transmission history of the work, see Görke (2003). On the content and the detailed legal argumentation, see Scheiner (2012). 43 Scheiner 2012: 317–​318. 44 For more examples that further substantiate the claim made, see Scheiner (2012: 318–​320). 45 According to Ansari, the phrase aʾimmat al-​hudā was also used by Ibn al-​Muqaffaʿ (d. 759) (1992: 266). 46 Later Abū ʿUbayd made clear that traditions from Muḥammad’s Companions are to be preferred from those of the Successors (tābiʿūn) (1981: 562 line 1). For Abū ʿUbayd’s reference to early scholars, see Scheiner (2012: 343–​346). 47 For examples, see Scheiner (2012: 321–​324). 48 Having studied Abū ʿUbayd’s Kitāb faḍāʾil al-​Qurʾān (lit. “The Book on the Merits of the (Codified) Qurʾān”), Melchert argued that Abū ʿUbayd used the term sunna therein as referring to “very ancient practice; that is, neither continuous local custom nor the precept and example of the Prophet alone” (2002: 85). 49 Also in his Kitāb al-​nāsikh wa-​al-​mansūkh he did not directly discuss this question. According to Melchert, Abū ʿUbayd saw the Qurʾān and Muḥammad’s sunna as equal “products of divine inspiration” (2002: 87). 50 Lowry later argues that al-​Shāfiʿī’s theory of bayān (lit. “declaration (of a legal rule)”) constitutes the Risāla’s overarching point (2002: 47–​50). See also El Shamsy’s critique of Hallaq’s ideas in El Shamsy (2015: ch. 8 and 196). 51 This list follows the points mentioned by Hallaq (1993: 600).

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52 A comparison between Abū ʿUbayd’s Kitāb al-​amwāl and Abū Yūsuf ’s (d. 798) Kitāb al-​kharāj (lit. “The Book of the (Land) Tax”) regarding the points addressed here seems beneficial in order to further assess the role al-​Shāfiʿī played in the development of classical Islamic law. 53 For the Christian background of this term, its variable nature in Muslim societies, and hence its limited applicability, see van Ess (2011: 1298–​1300). 54 For another brief sketch of this process, see El Shamsy (2009). 55 Other Muslim intellectuals like the littérateurs (udabāʾ, sing. adīb) or philosophers (falāsifa) did not take part in this process. 56 For a detailed study of this process, see Melchert (1997). 57 On the various “heresiographical” texts written in these two centuries, see van Ess (2011), who characterizes “heresiography as the art of verbal exclusion” (2011: II 1243). Van Ess is hesitant to call all maqālāt works heresiographical. They are more precisely compilations that contain “theological doctrines or theses the knowledge of which were useful for the respective compiler-​author’s or their successors’ work” (2011: II 1201). 58 For a good study of three important ʿaqīdas, see Wensinck (1932). A synopsis of various ʿaqīdas is presented by W. Montgomery Watt (1960–​2007). 59 Al-​ Ṭaḥāwī was a Ḥanafī scholar who compiled works of ḥadīth, law, and theology. On al-​Ṭaḥāwī, see Calder (1960–​2007). For an argument that Ghulām Khalīl’s (d. 888) Kitāb sharḥ al-​sunna is even older, see Jarrar and Günther (2003). 60 For the uncreatedness of the Qurʾān, see Elder (1933: 138, 135); for the special status of the four “rightly guiding” –​not “rightly guided” since “rāshidūn” is an active participle –​successors of Muḥammad, see Elder (1933: 142). 61 Similar statements can be found in other ʿaqīdas, like the Waṣīyat Abī Ḥanīfa (lit. “The Testament of Abū Ḥanīfa”) from the first half of the 9th century and the al-​Fiqh al-​akbar II (lit. “The Greater Understanding II”) that was composed in the (second half of) the 10th century. For both ʿaqīdas, see Wensinck (1932: 124–​247). 62 A similar statement is also found in al-​Ashʿarī’s ʿaqīda (Schacht 1931: 59). 63 For the references to these expression, see van Ess (2011: II 1274 n. 232, 1275 n. 237, 1278 n. 263).

Bibliography Abdul Rauf, M. 1983. Ḥadīth Literature –​I: The Development of the Science of Ḥadīth. In: Beeston, A.F., Johnstone, T.M., Serjeant, R.B., and Smith, G.R. eds. Arabic Literature to the End of the Umayyad Period. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 271–​288. Abū ʿUbayd al-​Qāsim b. Sallām. 1981. Kitāb al-​amwāl. Khalīl Harrās, M. ed. 3rd ed. Cairo: Dār al-​kutub al-​ʿilmiyya. Ansari, Z.I. 1992. Islamic Juristic Terminology before Šāfiʿī: A Semantic Analysis with Special Reference to Kūfa. Arabica 19:255–​300. Bravmann, M.M. 1972. The Spiritual Background of Early Islam: Studies in Ancient Arab Concepts. Leiden: Brill. Brown, J.A. 2007. The Canonization of al-​Bukhārī and Muslim: The Formation and Function of the Sunnī Ḥadīth Canon. Leiden: Brill. ——​. 2008. How We Know Early Ḥadīth Critics Did Matn Criticism and Why It’s So Hard to Find. Islamic Law and Society 15:143–​184. ——​. 2009a. Hadith: Muhammad’s Legacy in the Medieval and Modern World. Oxford: Oneworld. ——​. 2009b. Did the Prophet Say It or Not? The Literal, Historical, and Effective Truth of Ḥadīths in Early Sunnism. Journal of the American Oriental Society 129:259–​285. Calder, N. 1960–​2007. al-​Ṭaḥāwī. In: Bearman, P.J., Bianquis, T., Bosworth, C.E., van Donzel, E., and Heinrichs, W.P. eds. The Encyclopaedia of Islam. 2nd ed. Leiden: E.J. Brill, X 101–102. al-​Dārimī, ʿA. c. 1995. Kitāb al-​sunan. 2 vols. Beirut: Dār al-​fikr. Elder, E. 1933. Al-​Ṭaḥāwī’s “Bayān al-​sunna wa’l-​jamāʿa”. In: Shellabear, W., Calverley, E., Lane, E., and Mackensen, R. eds. The Macdonald Presentation Volume. A Tribute to Duncan Black Macdonald. Consisting of Articles by Former Students, Presented to Him on His Seventieth Birthday, April 9, 1933. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 129–​144. El Shamsy, A. 2009. The Social Construction of Orthodoxy. In: Winter, T. ed. The Cambridge Companion to Classical Islamic Theology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 97–​117.

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Jens Scheiner ——​. 2015. The Canonization of Islamic Law:  A  Social and Intellectual History. New  York:  Cambridge University Press. van Ess, J. 2011. Der Eine und das Andere. Beobachtungen an islamischen häresiographischen Texten. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Fück, J.W. 1960–​2007. Ibn Ḥibbān. In: Bearman, P.J., Bianquis, T., Bosworth, C.E., van Donzel, E., and Heinrichs, W.P. eds. The Encyclopaedia of Islam. 2nd ed. Leiden: E.J. Brill, III 799–​800. Gleave, R. 2001. Between Ḥadīth and Fiqh. The “Canonical” Imāmī Collections of Akhbār. Islamic Law and Society 8:350–​382. Gibb, H.A., Lewis, B., and van Donzel, J. eds.1960–​2004. Encyclopaedia of Islam. 2nd ed. 12 vols. Leiden: Brill. Goldziher, I. 1889–​1890. Muhammedanische Studien. 2  vols. Halle:  Olms. Repr. Hildesheim 1961; 1971. Muslim Studies (Muhammedanische Studien). Barber, T.C. and Stern, S. eds. and trans. New Brunswick, NJ: Aldine Publishing. Görke, A. 2003. Das Kitāb al-​amwāl des Abū ʿUbaid al-​Qāsim b.  Sallām. Entstehung und Überlieferung eines frühislamischen Rechtswerkes. Princeton: Darwin Press. Hallaq, W.B. 1993. Was al-​Shafiʿi the Master Architect of Islamic Jurisprudence? International Journal of Middle East Studies 25:587–​605. Horovitz, J. 1918. Alter und Ursprung des Isnād. Der Islam 8:39–​47. Ibn al-​Bāghnudī, M. 1986 [1406 AH]. Musnad ʿUmar b.  ʿAbd al-​ʿAzīz. Zaghlūl, M.S. ed. Cairo: Maktabat al-​Thaqāfa. Ibn Ḥanbal, A. 1993–​2001. Al-​musnad. al-​Arnaʾūṭ, S. ed. 50 vols. Beirut: Muʾassasat al-​Risāla. Repr. Beirut, 2008. Ibn Khuzayma, M. 1975 [1395 AH]. Ṣaḥīḥ. al-​Aʿẓamī, M. ed. 4 vols. Beirut: al-​Maktab al-​Islāmī. Jarrar, M. and Günther, S. 2003. Ġulām Ḫalīl und das Kitāb Šarḥ as-​sunna. Erste Ergebnisse einer Studie zum Konservatismus ḥanbalitischer Färbung im Islam des 3./​9. Jahrhunderts. Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 153:11–​36. Juynboll, G.H.A. 1960–​2007. Sunna. In: Bearman, P.J., Bianquis, T., Bosworth, C.E., van Donzel, E., and Heinrichs, W.P. eds. The Encyclopaedia of Islam. 2nd ed. Leiden: E.J. Brill, IX 878–​881. ——​. 1973. The Date of the Great Fitna. Arabica 20:142–​159. ——​.1983. Muslim Tradition. Studies in Chronology, Provenance and Authorship of Early ḥadīth. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ——​. 1987. Some New Ideas on the Development of Sunna as a Technical Term in Early Islam. Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 10:97–​118. Repr. 2008, Studies on the Origins and Uses of Islamic Ḥadīth. Aldershot: Routledge, 97–​118. ——​. 1998. An Excursus on the ahl as-​sunna in Connection with Van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft, vol. IV. Der Islam 75:318–​330. Kohlberg, E. 1983. Shīʿī Ḥadīth. In: Beeston, A.F., Johnstone, T.M., Serjeant, R.B., and Smith, G.R. eds. Arabic Literature to the End of the Umayyad Period. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 299–​307. Leder, S. 1992. The Literary Use of the Khabar. A Basic Form of Historical Writing. In: Cameron, A. and Conrad, L.I. eds. The Byzantine and Early Islamic Near East I. Problems in the Literary Source Material. Papers of the First Workshop on Late Antiquity and Early Islam. Princeton: Darwin Press, 277–​315. Lowry, J.E. 2002. Does Shāfiʿī Have a Theory of “Four Sources” of Law? In: Weiss, B.G. ed. Studies in Islamic Legal Theory. Leiden: Brill, 23–​50. Lucas, S.C. 2004. Constructive Critics, Ḥadīth Literature, and the Articulation of Sunnī Islam. The Legacy of the Generation of Ibn Saʿd, Ibn Maʿīn, and Ibn Ḥanbal. Leiden: Brill. Melchert, C. 1997. The Formation of the Sunni Schools of Law, 9th–​10th Centuries C.E. Leiden: Brill. ——​. 2001. Bukhārī and Early Hadith Criticism. Journal of the American Oriental Society 121:7–​19. ——​. 2002. Qurʾānic Abrogation Across the Ninth Century. Shāfiʿī, Abū ʿUbayd, Muḥāsibī, and Ibn Qutaybah. In: Weiss, B.G. ed. Studies in Islamic Legal Theory. Leiden: Brill, 75–​98. Nagel, T. 1981. Staat und Glaubensgemeinschaft im Islam. Geschichte der politischen Ordnungsvorstellungen der Muslime, vol. 1: Von den Anfängen bis in 13. Jahrhundert; vol. 2: Vom Spätmittelalter bis zur Neuzeit. Zürich: Patmos. Nawas, J. 2016. The Appellation Ṣaḥib Sunna in Classical Islam: How Sunnism Came To Be. Islamic Law and Society 23:1–22. Robson, J. 1960–​2007. Bidʿa. In:  Bearman, P.J., Bianquis, T., Bosworth, C.E., van Donzel, E., and Heinrichs, W.P. eds. The Encyclopaedia of Islam. 2nd ed. Leiden: E.J. Brill, I 1199. Schacht, J. 1931. Der Islām. Mit Ausschluss des Qorʾāns. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. ——​. 1933. Zur Geschichte des islamischen Dogmas. Der Islam 21:286–​291.

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——​. 1950. The Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ——​. 1963. Sur l’expression “Sunna du Prophète”. Mélanges d’orientalisme offerts a Henri Massé à l’occasion de son 75ème anniversaire. Teheran: University of Tehran Press, 361–​365. Scheiner, J. 2012. Steuern und Gelehrsamkeit in der frühen ʿAbbāsidenzeit. Das Kitāb al-​amwāl des Abū ʿUbaid al-​Qāsim b.  Sallām. Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 162:53–​93; 317–​352. Serjeant, R. 1995. Sunnah, Qurʾān, ʿUrf. In: Toll, C. and Skovgaard-​Petersen, J. eds. Law and the Islamic World. Past and Present. Copenhagen: Det Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab, 33–​48. al-​Ṭaḥāwī, A. 2006. Bayān al-​sunna wa-​al-​jamāʿa. Wentzel, ʿA. ed. and trans. Hellenthal:  Warda Publikationen. Watt, W.M. 1960–​2007. ʿAqīda. In:  Bearman, P.J., Bianquis, T., Bosworth, C.E., van Donzel, E., and Heinrichs, W.P. eds. The Encyclopaedia of Islam. 2nd ed. Leiden: E.J. Brill, I 332–​336. Wensinck, A.J. 1932. The Muslim Creed:  Its Genesis and Historical Development. Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press. Zakkar, S. 1960–​2007. Ibn Khayyat al-​Uṣfurī. In: Bearman, P.J., Bianquis, T., Bosworth, C.E., van Donzel, E., and Heinrichs, W.P. eds. The Encyclopaedia of Islam. 2nd ed. Leiden: E.J. Brill, III 838–​839.

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7 EXEGESIS1 Michael E. Pregill

Scriptural exegesis of one form or another has been a critical aspect of religious, intellectual, and social activity in the Muslim community since the time of its foundation. According to the traditional account, revelation and community were intertwined from the beginning: the Prophet gathered his earliest followers from among his family and close associates after the revelation of the Qurʾān began in 610 CE, and over the years, both the body of material that would eventually constitute the canonical Qurʾān and the body of believers who would constitute the first umma grew together. (Processes of revelation and communogenesis had not been so closely conjoined previously in the case of either the Hebrew Bible or the New Testament.) Under these circumstances, the Companions of the Prophet –​the first individuals to accept Muḥammad’s message and recognize the authority of the Qurʾān he revealed to them during his mission –​ had ample opportunity to discuss what they heard, puzzle over its implications, argue over its significance, and inquire directly with Muḥammad about its meaning. Thus, exegesis of the Qurʾān –​the proto-​Qurʾān, the Qurʾān as an emergent discourse and incipient scripture, the verses and chapters Muḥammad recited to the community in stages as Gabriel brought them to him piecemeal over the course of more than twenty years –​actually commenced years before the complete canonical Qurʾān, “the codex between two covers” (al-​ muṣḥaf bayn lūḥayn), had come into being.2 Here a comparison between the Qurʾān and the Jewish and Christian Bibles is more apt, since in all three cases, canons were established long after processes of exegetical engagement had begun. What some have called “inner-​biblical exegesis” –​the inclusion of the products of interpretation of earlier revealed materials alongside those materials within a single corpus –​is a widely observed and studied phenomenon in Biblical Studies.3 Similarly, as Neuwirth and others have noted, in the chronological development of the Qurʾān, certain passages appear to refer to those that preceded them in the revelatory process, recontextualizing or revising them significantly. Thus, in Islam, as in Judaism and Christianity, processes of interpretation are not external and secondary to scripture; rather, they are central to the formation of scripture itself. Aside from this “inner-​Qurʾānic” exegesis, copious oral traditions dealing with the interpretation of the Qurʾān were handed down from the first Believers and circulated orally among their descendants and followers alongside the transmission of the Qurʾān itself. These traditions played a crucial role in the process through which the religion of Islam took shape during the imperial expansion of Arab Muslim rule under the Rāshidūn or “rightly guided” caliphs. These 98

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traditions also circulated among the masses of converts who swelled the ranks of the umma, who then made substantial contributions of their own to the growth of exegetical lore in response to their experience of the Qurʾān and reflection upon its meaning.4 Thus, significant amounts of material from a wide variety of sources were brought to bear in the interpretation of the Qurʾān as the teachings of the Prophet and the lore of the early community mingled with the cultures and traditions of the far-​flung communities drawn into the caliphal empire. In the rich synthesis that resulted, the discipline of Qurʾān interpretation, most often called tafsīr, became one of the major Islamic religious sciences, central to what came to be known as the “sciences of the Qurʾān” (ʿulūm al-​Qurʾān), along with other disciplines such as the techniques of proper recitation (tajwīd) and the conservation and study of variant reading traditions (qirāʾāt).5 Today, hundreds of works of tafsīr in Arabic from the first several centuries of Islam’s history are extant, comprising thousands of volumes and hundreds of thousands of printed pages and manuscript folios devoted to the interpretation of the Qurʾān.6 Many of the works produced during the early and classical periods of the tradition’s development (from the later 8th to the 12th century) purport to represent the views of Muslims who lived during the age of the Prophet, Companions, and Successors –​the Salaf or “pious predecessors” whose example Muslims frequently strive to emulate. Much of the content of these works does plausibly date to the 7th and early 8th centuries, though it can be extremely difficult to discern what is authentically ancient and what later invention within them, due in large part to the dearth of surviving sources from the early period. When we adduce works in languages other than Arabic and widen the remit of our inquiry to embrace commentaries written from the high Middle Ages up to the present day, the number of texts of tafsīr available to the student of the Qurʾān becomes even more vast, reaching into the thousands, and the page count into the millions.7 What ties this massive literary corpus together is that, across the centuries, one of the most consistent features of Qurʾān commentary as a genre has been the symbolic appeal to the example of past generations as the basis of an authentic understanding of the Qurʾānic text. Alongside jurisprudence and the science of ḥadīth, exegesis has almost always been rooted in the precedent set during Islam’s prophetic age –​although the meaning of that precedent has often been contested.8 The history of tafsīr’s development as both a discourse and a literary genre is complex. During the early centuries of Islamic history, tafsīr was not an isolated discipline or a specialist enterprise. Rather, even after the earliest comprehensive commentaries were composed, tafsīr overlapped considerably with other genres. Reports on the interpretation of Qurʾānic verses are found not only in Qurʾān commentaries per se –​ tafsīr proper –​but in ḥadīth collections, historical and biographical sources, works on jurisprudence and theology, belles-​lettres (adab), and so forth. This is because the Qurʾān has been a touchstone of significance in virtually all cultural activities in which Muslims have engaged, at least before the modern period –​a fact that should encourage the would-​be student of exegesis to approach Qurʾān interpretation as a broad cultural phenomenon and not a narrow scholastic discipline.9 The diffusion of exegesis through multiple genres is also due to the fact that both the religious sciences that coalesced into formal disciplines in the classical period and more “secular” branches of literature drew on a common pool of orally transmitted material handed down from the formative period of Islam’s development. Genre divisions were not hard and fast at this stage, though some distinct genre conventions did emerge relatively early; further, even after such divisions had emerged, there was still considerable cross-​fertilization between genres.10 Tafsīr, most often manifest in the form of sequential, verse-​by-​verse commentary on the sacred text, became the preeminent literary genre in which Muslims engaged the text of the Qurʾān, but significant traces of genuinely early Muslim interpretation of scripture are to be found in works in a variety of different genres. Further, due to the impact of considerations of orthodoxy 99

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on tafsīr, sometimes it is actually those works outside of the field of Qurʾān commentary that preserve authentically early ideas and claims that disappeared from (or were suppressed within) the discourse of exegesis proper, especially after the consolidation of tafsīr as a formal scholastic discipline primarily practiced in the setting of the madrasa. The legacy bequeathed by early Muslims in their engagement with the Qurʾān was not entirely unproblematic for later generations. With the rise and consolidation of the madrasa system in the 12th through 14th centuries, tafsīr came to be institutionalized; well before this point, Sunnī commentators on the Qurʾān had reached a basic consensus regarding both the methods of exegesis and the range of possibilities of meaning of the Qurʾānic text, at least in its broad contours. However, this consensus was perennially challenged by other communities within the Islamic fold, particularly various schools of Shīʿī exegetes. Moreover, already by the later Middle Ages, some Sunnīs had begun to look back to the early period with an attitude of skepticism, seeking to reevaluate the legacy of early engagements with the Qurʾān with fresh eyes, and casting doubt on the integrity of at least some of the material that had been handed down from older interpreters.Thus, they accused some exegetes of the formative period of corrupting the pure knowledge of the Qurʾān’s meaning handed down from the Prophet and his Companions, particularly by adducing the lore of Jews and Christians in the interpretation of scripture. The Salafī quest for authenticity –​which resonates throughout Muslim communities to this day –​led to questionable attempts to discern and transmit only the “purest,” most quintessentially “Islamic” exegesis of the Qurʾān, free of corrupting influences that tarnish the true meaning of scripture as originally revealed by the Prophet to his Companions. Salafī debates over authority continue to inflect much contemporary Muslim reflection on the legitimate methods and results of interpretation. In what follows here, we will first examine the traditional account of the origin of exegesis in the early community among the Companions, subsequently handed down across the centuries and eventually collected in literary works of scriptural commentary. We will then address the coalescence of tafsīr as the predominant genre of scriptural exegesis among Sunnīs in particular in the classical period, taking note of dissenting approaches to the Qurʾānic text as well. Here it will be necessary to examine the emergence of the critique of received tradition articulated among those medieval commentators who accused their predecessors of transmitting so-​called isrāʾīliyyāt or corrupting Jewish traditions. Finally, we will proceed to examine the implications of some contemporary revisionist critiques of Islamic history and tradition for our understanding of exegesis and its role in early Islamic culture. Overall, we will find that differing approaches to exegesis of the Qurʾān and conflicting accounts of how traditions of interpretation originated and evolved are commonly grounded in competing images of the Islamic past, particularly the role the formative community is held to have played in shaping the understandings of the Qurʾān that were handed down across the centuries to posterity, as well as which individuals or groups within the community are seen as providing authoritative guidance in matters of faith. Major changes in hermeneutics have tended to entail (or at least imply) a commensurate change in the image of the early Islamic period and its significance for later Muslims –​a shift in the conception of how the past relates to the present and informs the way the sacred text should be interpreted. Strikingly, it is not only Muslim commentators whose understandings of the nature and role of scriptural exegesis are informed by particular conceptions of or investments in the Islamic past. This holds true of contemporary Western scholars as well, whose ideas about Islam’s origins and development, though often quite different from the conventional Muslim account, have similarly impacted their notions about how traditions of Qurʾānic interpretation evolved and how they relate to the Qurʾānic text. 100

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The traditional account of the origins of exegesis (and its shortcomings) As we have already noted, according to the traditional sources, the interpretation of the Qurʾān was a subject of debate among the Companions of the Prophet, its first audience. These sources attest to the various ways that Muḥammad clarified the meaning of the Qurʾān for his followers, or showed them how its rulings and precepts were to be applied.This so-​called “prophetic tafsīr” usually constitutes commentary of a concise and sometimes obscure sort. Unsurprisingly, some of these traditions serve to gloss opaque references, as in this tradition on a peculiar episode alluded to in Q 2:58–​59. In the midst of a long address to the Jews recounting the transgressions of their ancestors the Israelites, the Qurʾān asserts: And then We said, “Enter this town, and consume as much of its plentiful provisions as you wish; enter the gate prostrating, and say ḥiṭṭa, and We will pardon your sins, and make those who do good increase.” But the wrongdoers changed the word from what they had been told, so We sent a plague from heaven down upon them on account of their transgression. The Qurʾānic passage leaves both the literal meaning of the term ḥiṭṭa and the nature of the purported exchange that the Israelites made that provoked God unclear. One tradition found in the canonical ḥadīth does not gloss the word explicitly (which appears only here and in the parallel passage at Q 7:161–​162), but it does serve to shed light on the situation by illustrating the character of the Israelites’ deed: Abū Hurayra reported from the Prophet: “When it was said to the Jews, Enter the gate prostrating, and say ḥiṭṭa, and We will pardon your sins, they changed things around, and entered the gate dragging their backsides, saying, ‘Grain on the stalk!’ ”11 This tradition may seem to only compound the obscurity, but its import becomes clear through closer consideration. While the Israelites were instructed to act reverentially, bowing as they entered the town and speaking a word of respect or gratitude to God, they instead did the opposite, acting comically and saying something that distorted the term they were originally told to utter into something ridiculous. The odd reference to grain here suggests that the Israelites made a kind of punning joke based on God’s command, in specifically changing the word ḥiṭṭa, which may have meant something like “Forgive our sins” (perhaps connected somehow to Hebrew ḥaṭṭah, “sin”) into a similar-​sounding word:  ḥinṭa, that is, “wheat” (see Rubin 1999: 83–​99). God, we may surmise, was not amused. Not surprisingly, given the nature of the tafsīr material found in the ḥadīth corpus and its Sitz im Leben, some of these traditions depict how the verses of the Qurʾān were received in their immediate context in an extremely vivid way, as in another tradition that addresses the immediate repercussions of the changing of the qibla or direction of prayer from Jerusalem to Mecca (as Q 2:142–​145 is conventionally understood to legislate). Here there is no prophetic intervention in the form of a literal explanation of the pertinent verses; rather, the tradition appears to establish that the Prophet’s personal example served as an authoritative illustration of how the verse was to be obeyed in practical terms by everyone in the community: Some people were performing the morning prayer at Qubāʾ when someone came along and said: “A new revelation came down to the Messenger of God last night ordering him to face the Kaʿba when he prays, so you should do the same.” At that 101

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moment they were turned in the direction of Syria, but they immediately turned to face the Kaʿba instead. (al-​Bukhārī n.d.: no. 4490)12 At the same time, this anecdote does presuppose implicit tafsīr, insofar as the verses commanding the change of qibla refer only to “the qibla you [the Muslims] had before” (al-​qibla allatī kunta ʿālayha) and “a [new] qibla that you will find pleasing” (qibla tarḍāhā), with the latter specified as al-​masjid al-​ḥarām. While it is universally held in the tradition that the former qibla was Jerusalem and the latter was (and remains) Mecca, the tradition about the Muslims reorienting themselves in the midst of the morning prayer at Qubāʾ underscores this, for the very reason that these identifications are not explicit in the Qurʾān. Thus the reference to the community’s turning in prayer from Syria (al-​Shām, where Bayt al-​Maqdis or Jerusalem is located) to the Kaʿba at Mecca serves implicitly to clarify something that is uncertain in scripture –​tabyīn al-​mubham or “specification of the unknown” traditionally being understood as one of the primary functions of tafsīr. Still other traditions preserved in the ḥadīth corpus show the Prophet arbitrating disputes about the meaning of passages among his Companions, or otherwise seeking to guide their understanding of the Qurʾān’s general import. However, overall, prophetic tafsīr constitutes only a very small portion of extant Muslim commentary on the Qurʾān. In contrast to the relatively scant traces of Muḥammad’s own reflections on the meaning of the Qurʾān, the tradition much more frequently preserves what purports to be the opinion of the Companions, who heard the Qurʾān directly from him, as to how various passages of the Qurʾān should be interpreted –​the tacit understanding being that their interpretations must have come from Muḥammad himself. Thus, while the most authoritative –​and rather sizeable –​collections of Sunnī ḥadīth, Ṣaḥīḥ al-​ Bukhārī and Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim (both compiled in the mid-​to late 9th century) each contain only a few dozen unique reports classified as tafsīr (a very small percentage of the thousands of unique reports found in both; see Melchert 2017), much shorter commentaries collecting exegetical traditions transmitted from Companions and Successors may contain thousands and thousands of unique reports. There are different ways to explain the disjunction between the explosion of Companion and Successor reports pertaining to exegesis and the relative paucity of traditions of prophetic tafsīr. One might simply conclude that the Prophet had been more concerned to guide the practical affairs of his followers than to school them in the proper interpretation of scripture, except in cases when it directly impinged upon practical matters; as we have already seen, some of what was gathered as prophetic tafsīr is really about the Qurʾān’s relevance for practice rather than constituting explicit commentary per se. Alternatively, one might focus on the transmitters and collectors of prophetic ḥadīth, and speculate that it was they who were more concerned with practical matters than exegesis.13 However, a more skeptical-​minded observer of this phenomenon might reach a different conclusion, inferring that this disparity appears because there was simply much less at stake in the realm of exegesis than there was in ritual and juridical matters. Some have conjectured that the isnāds attached to traditions cited in juristic disputes over questions of practice were commonly subjected to tampering to elevate their ultimate sources from Companions and Successors to the Prophet himself. Hypothetically, exegetical traditions on the Qurʾān seldom merited similar tampering because they usually dealt with more abstract or recondite matters. That is, the vast majority of Companion and Successor reports commenting on the Qurʾān retain their attribution to Companions and Successors because they did not merit being transmuted into prophetic tafsīr at a later date.14 102

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The necessity of policing the exegesis of scripture, in particular of preventing overly fabulous or imaginative interpretations from overwhelming more sober approaches to the Qurʾān, is a concern reflected in many accounts of disputes between Companions. The ḥadīth corpus preserves another tradition in which Muʿāwiya b. Abī Sufyān (d. 680), the fifth caliph and founder of the Umayyad dynasty –​and a Companion –​refers to another Companion, Kaʿb al-​Aḥbār, a Muslim convert from Judaism who was a well-​known transmitter of pre-​Islamic lore: “Truly, [Kaʿb] was among the most reliable of those who related traditions from the Ahl al-​Kitāb (the ‘People of Scripture’); but even so, despite this, we used to test him for falsehood” (al-​Bukhārī n.d.: no. 7361).15 As if to elaborate on the test mentioned by Muʿāwiya here, another account portrays him quizzing Kaʿb about a fantastic interpretation of a particular Qurʾānic verse: “Muʿāwiya said: ‘Kaʿb, have you been telling people Alexander could hitch his horse to the Pleiades?’ Kaʿb replied: ‘Well, God Almighty does say: We have given him a rope that can reach anywhere …’!” (Ibn Kathīr 1997:V 190) The conventional interpretation of this verse (Q 18:84), from the Qurʾānic narrative of Dhū al-​Qarnayn (commonly interpreted as Alexander the Great), is “We have provided for him means (sabab) to accomplish anything,” seemingly an allusion to Alexander’s supernatural, God-​g iven knowledge. However, the critical term sabab here, “means” or “way,” can also be interpreted literally as a rope, and so the verse can be read as a seeming allusion to Alexander’s miraculous ability to hitch his famous horse Bucephalus to the stars.16 This tradition is quoted in the tafsīr of the 14th-​century commentator Ibn Kathīr as an illustration of how even those traditions that were handed down through reliable chains of transmitters from informants like Kaʿb may be suspect because the material was intrinsically spurious to begin with due to its origins among the scriptural communities that preceded Islam, especially the Jews. As we shall see, Ibn Kathīr was instrumental in initiating a comprehensive attack on such material, which he designated isrāʾīliyyāt, in a critique that has far-​ranging ramifications even today.17 The concern to police not only specific traditions of interpretation but particular types of exegesis is extremely prominent in some traditional accounts.This led Ignaz Goldziher, the foremost scholar of Islamic tradition of the later 19th century, to argue in his groundbreaking study Die Richtungen der islamischen Koranauslegung that exegesis of the Qurʾān was effectively prohibited well into the 8th century, specifically because of the excesses of storytellers in advancing fabulous interpretations like that ascribed to Kaʿb al-​Aḥbār above (1920: 55–​65; 2006: 42–​53). However, already in 1955, when he devoted a monograph to this subject, Birkeland recognized that traditions criticizing exegesis, or at least certain kinds of exegesis, actually emerged relatively late, but had been put into the mouths of earlier authorities and thus projected backward in time (a phenomenon with which Goldziher himself was entirely familiar). This occurred as traditionists sought to assert their dominance in the realm of commentary, insisting that tafsīr be disciplined according to the same rules and strictures that governed the transmission of juristic ḥadīth. Collectively, those traditions that Goldziher misread as representing a blanket prohibition on exegesis can instead be recognized as an attempt by the ḥadīth collectors to widen the scope of their authority, intervene into the discourse of Qurʾān commentary, and limit the parameters of exegesis. In any event, at least according to the thinking that has generally prevailed among Sunnīs for many centuries, mainstream Qurʾān interpretation rests upon the foundation of oral reports transmitted by reliable authorities from the early community, just as the legal and biographical-​ historical traditions do. Reports such as that cited above about Muʿāwiya and Kaʿb al-​Aḥbār serve to drive home the point that just a few short years after the Prophet’s passing, Muḥammad’s Companions sought to maintain the bounds of proper interpretation in his absence, if not always explicitly in his name. Their actual historicity aside, such traditions were undoubtedly 103

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compelling for later generations of Muslims who transmitted them because of their symbolic power: they project the idea that the true meaning of the Qurʾān had been safeguarded by the Companions, and that the traditions they passed down represented the most reliable approach to the interpretation of scripture, endowed as they were with the sanctity of Muḥammad’s inspired example. However, paradoxically, even concise Qurʾān commentaries preserve evidence of a vast array of completely contradictory opinions on the meaning of the Qurʾān recorded by the classical tradition. Exegetical diversity, what the tradition labels ikhtilāf or difference of opinion, is a central characteristic of Islamic scholarly discourse in general. Although in principle one can accept the general idea that the soundest interpretation of the Qurʾān is that which later generations received from the Salaf, in practice, ikhtilāf implicitly calls into question the idea of a core body of truth preserved in the tradition that goes back to Muḥammad and his closest associates. The principle of tafsīr being securely grounded in the religious knowledge or ʿilm handed down from the Companions of the Prophet is epitomized by the attribution of vast amounts of exegetical material to one Companion in particular: ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAbbās, the cousin of the Prophet Muḥammad. As many scholars have noted, Ibn ʿAbbās is the symbol of authoritative interpretation in Sunnī tradition par excellence, and thousands upon thousands of exegetical traditions are linked to his name in the extant sources.18 Here the specter of ikhtilāf rears its head again, as this massive corpus is every bit as diverse and contradictory as the tafsīr tradition in general. As Berg and others have shown, there is hardly enough internal consistency within the traditions associated with this figure’s name to justify understanding them as anything but pseudepigraphic.This should not be misunderstood as forgery, or as proof of fraud or conspiracy on the part of early Muslim traditionists and transmitters. Rather, it indicates the importance of Ibn ʿAbbās as a symbolic figurehead in the tradition, as well as the broader significance of the idea of prophetic warrant for exegesis of the Qurʾān in Muslim collective memory. The invocation of the name of Ibn ʿAbbās is not mendacious, but rather reflects the sincere conviction that if a given interpretation had the ring of truth, it naturally must have been passed down from Ibn ʿAbbās on account of his close relationship with the Prophet.19 We have emphasized the origin (or putative origin) of Qurʾān exegesis among the Companions and Successors here on account of the general predominance of what we might call a ḥadīth-​centric approach in the historiography of tafsīr, at least until relatively recently. According to the traditional model of the tafsīr genre’s development, the interpretation of the Qurʾān that came to be enshrined in literary sources by the later 8th century (that is, almost 200 years after the death of the Prophet) accurately represents the genuine views of the Salaf, who transmitted what was essentially the exegesis of the Qurʾān authorized by Muḥammad himself in the form of discrete reports handed down through chains of trustworthy transmitters. The same, or nearly the same, standards of probity that ensured the survival of sound ḥadīth across the generations safeguarded the interpretation of the Qurʾān, at least in broad terms.Thus, despite significant difference of opinion, we may be sure that the classical and medieval commentaries that now fill to overflowing the library shelves of modern scholars of this tradition basically preserve the authentic understanding of the Qurʾān that had prevailed in the time of Muḥammad himself –​just as we may be sure that the text of the Qurʾān itself is that which was compiled a few short decades after Muḥammad’s death. Reflecting this basic understanding of the origins of Qurʾān exegesis, until quite recently it was standard for scholars to casually repeat the claim that exegesis naturally falls into one of two categories: tafsīr bi-​al-​maʾthūr, or exegesis according to sound tradition, and tafsīr bi-​al-​raʾy, or exegesis according to personal opinion –​the latter being implicitly understood (or explicitly decried) as intrinsically inferior and insufficient for attaining a reliable interpretation of 104

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the sacred text. Some early Qurʾān commentators like Muqātil b. Sulaymān and Muḥammad b. Ṣāʾib al-​Kalbī (both d. c. 750) cited their sources only sporadically or not at all, leading many Sunnīs to abandon works like theirs in favor of those that did, ensuring the fidelity of the transmission of interpretations of the Qurʾān over time.20 Some would argue that even the commentaries of Muqātil and Ibn al-​Kalbī were based on exegetical ḥadīth channeled from the Salaf, and that these works were not truly based on their authors’ mere opinion, but rather stemmed from sound sources in the previous generations  –​meaning that these early exegetes, whose works were later criticized on account of lacking isnāds, were at most guilty of a procedural shortcoming. We may be justifiably skeptical about such apologetic claims, which have not had much traction in conservative circles anyway; most traditionalist scholars have avoided relying on the tafsīr of Muqātil in particular (which fortunately for historians survives to the present day despite its marginalization) out of anxiety about the unreliability or heterodoxy of his views. This is the basic view of the foundations of tafsīr promoted by many modern scholars. It is that Goldziher presents in his classic Die Richtungen der islamischen Koranauslegung (1920). It is also that which dominates in what is undoubtedly the single most important Arabic-​language treatment of the subject in the 20th century, al-​Dhahabī’s three-​volume al-​Tafsīr wa-​al-​mufassirūn (1976–​1989). More recently, in response to the many incursions against this perspective made in some circles in contemporary scholarship, Abdul-​Raof ’s study attempts to renovate the claim that tafsīr bi-​al-​maʾthūr actually was predominant in the early and classical tradition of exegesis, or should have been (2010). However, this tradition-​based model of tafsīr’s origins reflects above all the value system of the Ahl al-​Ḥadīth, whose point of view regarding legitimate religious knowledge began to be disseminated as early as the later 8th and early 9th century, and eventually came to dominate modern historiography on tafsīr, especially due to its aggressive promotion in Salafī circles. While some exegetes of the classical period surely would have preferred to rely on “pure” and authentically prophetic traditions in their interpretation (at least ideally), as Saleh has shown in a number of provocative studies, the distinction between authentic tradition and individual judgment is an artificial one that modern ideologues have projected back into history, thus radically oversimplifying the complexities of tafsīr’s development as a genre and discourse.21 The distinction between tafsīr bi-​al-​maʾthūr and tafsīr bi-​al-​raʾy can thus be recognized as a secondary imposition that is mainly ideological in nature, with little authentic connection to how approaches to Qurʾān exegesis actually evolved in the early centuries of Islamic history.22 The problem, in essence, is that the ideal of reliance on pure tradition, the claim that exegesis is legitimate only when it proceeds on the basis of prophetic precedent, has become –​and remains in the minds of many –​an historical concept, a conviction that exegesis had always necessarily proceeded in this way, transmuted into indisputable fact.Yet another analogy may be drawn here with both Jewish and Christian tradition, for the notion that exegesis is rooted in the quasi-​apostolic authority of the Companions parallels similar claims of rabbinic or patristic interpretation having been handed down across the generations until committed to writing centuries later. However, in Islam, as in Judaism and Christianity, the truth of the origins of the exegetical material handed down over the centuries is likely to be much more complicated and less streamlined. The most obvious critique of the traditionalist model of the sources of Qurʾān interpretation is that it privileges a sanitized view of the emergence and development of scriptural exegesis in the community and ignores the fact of the organic and natural growth of tradition in general. The lines between securely transmitted and authorized ḥadīth and more diffuse sources of meaning assigned to the Qurʾān, including adaptations of kitābī material, assimilations of folklore, popular exegesis, homilies and entertaining narratives of storytellers, and so forth, simply 105

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cannot have been cut and dried in the early community. The milieu of the storytellers or quṣṣāṣ in particular no doubt provided fertile soil for narrative expansions, impassioned sermons, creative glossing of obscure passages, folksy false etymologies, and tales of bygone days based on the Qurʾān. Classical commentators openly assimilated some of this material: for example, both the tafsīr and chronicle of al-​Ṭabarī (d. 923), the most renowned exegete of his time, preserve extensive quotations of narrative and other types of traditions from an individual named Ismāʿīl b.  ʿAbd al-​Raḥmān (d. c. 745), typically called al-​Suddī because of his tendency to frequent the threshold or suddah of his local mosque, engaging with the faithful and regaling them with narratives based on passages from the Qurʾān. His inclusion in classical religious sources as a trustworthy transmitter of ḥadīth indicates his acceptance as an orthodox source of reliable traditions, though this is exactly the type of activity that would later come under suspicion by scholars who saw these storytellers as transmitting spurious tales, and thus endangering orthodoxy.23 Early exegesis of the Qurʾān unfolded along diverse paths, but the mosque was undoubtedly the origin point for a vast amount of the material that was eventually conserved in the literary sources of the tafsīr genre. The mosque was the primary locus for conversion and socialization of populations drawn through conquest and settlement into the Arab-​Islamic empire. It was also the locus for the emergence of the religious sciences, as it was the main venue in which learned men of the community would congregate, their casual gatherings gradually evolving into the more formally constituted circles in which the scholars known as ʿulamāʾ taught and transmitted their knowledge.Thus, this social setting produced a variety of traditions of commentary –​long narrative complexes anchored to the exegesis of one or another Qurʾānic verse; concise glosses of a historicizing, contextualizing, or lexical sort; and the more refined doctrinal and linguistic reflections that would eventually coalesce into the disciplines of theology and grammar, as well as being absorbed into formal Qurʾānic exegesis.24 This is not to suggest that some distinctions in approaches to the Qurʾān did not emerge early on. It appears that one of the oldest discrete genres of Qurʾān commentary was that of philological analysis of the text. The Qurʾān was central to early attempts to systematize the rules of Arabic grammar and usage: being the literal Word of God, it was seen as the definitive exemplar of Arabic, and so formalization of the rules of Arabic reflected the promotion of the Qurʾān as the definitive linguistic standard. The linguistic sciences and grammatical analysis of the Qurʾān were thus deeply intertwined from the beginning. Some of the oldest genuine works of commentary on the Qurʾān are philological in nature and tend to focus primarily on technical or “scientific” linguistic matters. At the same time, as this genre developed, it came more and more to exhibit a more ecumenical or interdisciplinary disposition, precisely that embrace of narrativistic, historicizing, and homiletic reflection on the sacred text that is characteristic of classical tafsīr more broadly.25 In any event, given the clear diversity of the sources of early Qurʾān interpretation, the traditionist-​Salafī conception of “authentic” Qurʾān exegesis as stemming from the Companions and Successors –​from the apostolic origins of Islam itself –​simply cannot withstand critical scrutiny. This means that scholars can hardly be justified in repeating the tafsīr bi-​al-​maʾthūr/​ tafsīr bi-​al-​raʾy distinction presented in Salafī discussions of proper approaches to the Qurʾān, as if it was objectively meaningful or an accurate representation of the early development of the tradition. Nor can we accept accounts of the origins of exegesis in Islam that privilege Arabian (let  alone prophetic or apostolic) sources at the expense of recognizing the propensity for diverse materials to be absorbed into the commentary tradition during the period of Islam’s expansion into the Near East and Mediterranean, especially by being rendered into “orthodox” ḥadīth through ascription to Companions and Successors. 106

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It is also important to note here that the generally prevalent conception of the origins of exegesis we have presented here is not only Salafī, as Saleh has argued, but even more fundamentally, it is tacitly Sunnī in orientation.Various schools of Shīʿa approached the Qurʾān with a radically different hermeneutic, as well as promoting dissenting interpretations of specific passages in the Qurʾān, even contesting the “orthodox” account of the canonization process.26 Even within the Sunnī fold, schools other than the Ahl al-​Ḥadīth, especially the rationalist Muʿtazila, likewise often advanced radically dissenting interpretations of Qurʾānic terms and passages.27

The consolidation of classical tafsīr (and its discontents) The turn of the 10th century marked a critical stage in the history of Qurʾān interpretation. Throughout the 800s, some exegetes had sought to conform their works to the model promoted by the Ahl al-​Ḥadīth, shaping commentary in a tradition-​based mode; the oldest genuine example that survives today is likely the tafsīr of ʿAbd al-​Razzāq al-​Ṣanʿānī (d. 827), though tafsīrs organized according to other principles and guided by other methodologies continued to be produced. Over time, the weight of accumulated tradition and the need to organize the massive amounts of information that had been handed down over the decades and centuries led to attempts at producing authoritative compilations of tafsīr that would conserve the entire received tradition –​or at least what was judged to be its indispensable core –​for future generations. These two tendencies converge in the massive commentary of Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad b. Jarīr al-​Ṭabarī (d. 923), the Jāmiʿ al-​bayān ʿan taʾwīl āy al-​Qurʾān. Volumes could be (and have been) written about al-​Ṭabarī’s groundbreaking achievement in this work, which presents tens of thousands of exegetical traditions on the Qurʾān in sequential order, typically furnished with full isnād.28 The total effect of this encyclopedic text –​which survives today as a primary, though not unproblematic, witness to the exegetical tradition as it was known in al-​Ṭabarī’s day –​was to present tafsīr as an enterprise solely grounded in authentic ḥadīth handed down from the time of the Salaf. Hundreds of authorities in the realm of tafsīr are included in the work, but only insofar as they serve as chains linking the prophetic era to al-​Ṭabarī’s day; many of the great exegetes who actually authored discrete works that survive whole or in part from the centuries preceding al-​Ṭabarī are excluded, or mentioned primarily or exclusively as transmitters.29 By design, the work communicates the idea that after the time of the Salaf, individual insight, innovation, or achievement in commentary on the text of scripture was irrelevant; all that mattered was an exegete’s solicitude in learning and transmitting the received tradition properly, and thus in serving as a direct conduit to the prophetic age. (Ironically, much later, al-​Ṭabarī himself would be accused of improperly handling the traditions he selected in his work by transmitting unreliable ḥadīth, using methods other than relying on sound tradition, promoting the spread of isrāʾīliyyāt, and so forth.) In the centuries after al-​Ṭabarī, numerous other exegetes continued to develop tafsīr in a variety of different directions. Mention must also be made here of another compendious commentary, the Kashf al-​bayān of Abū Isḥāq Aḥmad b. Muḥammad al-​Thaʿlabī (d. 1035), whose work was deliberately intended to serve as a counterpart to that of al-​Ṭabarī, but expanding the encyclopedic remit of his predecessor significantly. Thus, al-​Thaʿlabī explicitly grounds his exegesis in ḥadīth transmitted from the Salaf, as al-​Ṭabarī had; however, he acknowledges the significant contributions of preceding generations of interpreters who authored literary works as well. He not only draws on works of the century intervening between al-​Ṭabarī and himself, but on earlier works al-​Ṭabarī had neglected. Finally, and most significantly, he extends the scope of material drawn into the orbit of tafsīr to include new genres.30 107

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The impact of the work of al-​Ṭabarī and al-​Thaʿlabī on future exegesis was decisive. Sunnī exegetes were now liberated from the necessity of comparing reports and conserving unwieldy chains of transmitters to validate the authority of the interpretations they presented. For centuries after, exegetes could telescope vast amounts of earlier tradition into a few short lines by simply making brief reference to al-​Ṭabarī’s summary statements; the exegetes of the school of Nishapur, the students of al-​Thaʿlabī, and then their students in turn did the same with his work, often not even bothering to cite him explicitly. Even when a later exegete sought to bear down on a specific textual problem and display their command of the full range of early debates on the matter in all their maddening granularity, reliance on the compendious collections of al-​ Ṭabarī and al-​Thaʿlabī allowed him to navigate a dizzying variety of opinions and relate them in abridged form with relative ease.31 By the early Middle Ages, the composition of ḥadīth-​based works of tafsīr died out, at least for a time, with new approaches coming to dominate the field. A stunning variety of other Sunnī commentaries of astonishing sophistication and breadth were composed between the 10th and the 13th centuries: among the most important, we might mention those of al-​Māturīdī (d. 944), al-​Qushayrī (d. 1074), al-​Zamakhsharī (d. 1143), Fakhr al-​Dīn al-​Rāzī (d. 1209), and al-​Qurṭubī (d. 1273). The authors of these works often favor one or another method of approach to the text –​philosophical, dogmatic-​theological, mystical, linguistic, juristic –​while incorporating a number of other methodologies as well. They commonly bring an extremely subtle and profound engagement with the intellectual and doctrinal debates of their day to their work as commentators.32 Explicit reference to political or social issues is far rarer, but these concerns can at times be detected in the great commentaries of this era as well. At the same time, shorter, more readily navigable works were produced for scholastic purposes –​for example, as teaching tools for the training of lower- and mid-​level ʿulamāʾ who might require serious but less specialized exposure to exegetical debates, as tafsīr would be only one of many disciplines of the religious sciences that they would be required to master before being certified for employment as a qāḍī or to serve some other official religious function.33 The account of the growth of exegesis from the earliest period to the Middle Ages we have provided here is the one that generally prevails in modern scholarship. However, it unduly privileges Sunnī tafsīr as the presumptive norm for exegesis of the Qurʾān, and tradition-​based Sunnī tafsīr at that. However, among the Shīʿa, alternative approaches to the Qurʾān were proposed and developed in their communities for some time. The various schools of Shīʿa hold the ʿAlid imāms to have possessed knowledge indispensable for the proper understanding of matters pertaining to individual and communal salvation; they received this knowledge either through private transmission from their predecessors (and thus, ultimately, from ʿAlī and the Prophet Muḥammad himself) or through direct inspiration from God. Thus, in the Shīʿī view, God has safeguarded the true interpretation of the Qurʾān by bestowing it upon the imāms, from whom it is passed on to their spokesmen and loyal followers. One distinctive method of Shīʿī Qurʾān interpretation is not called tafsīr at all; rather, among the early Shīʿa, an exegetical method called taʾwīl was preferred. Taʾwīl is a form of figurative or allegorical reading of scripture, frequently of an explicitly political and sectarian nature, grounded in esoteric knowledge derived from the ʿAlid imāms.34 Among the Ismāʿīlīs or Sevener Shīʿa, particularly the scholars and spokesmen of the Fāṭimids (who reigned as Shīʿī caliph-​imams in North Africa and Egypt for 200 years), taʾwīl persisted as a significant genre of Qurʾān exegesis for some time.35 In contrast, in the period after the onset of the ghayba or “occultation” of the Twelfth Imām in 873, the exegetes of the Imāmī or Twelver community adopted a form of exegesis that mimicked the ḥadīth-​based commentaries of Sunnīs, collecting exegetical traditions transmitted not from the Companions and Successors, but rather from the inspired imāms 108

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of the family of the Prophet, especially the Fifth and Sixth Imāms, Muḥammad al-​Bāqir (d. 743) and Jaʿfar al-​Sādiq (d. 765).Thus, although the theology and ecclesiology that inform them are completely different, the tafsīrs of such Imāmī authors as al-​ʿAyyāshī (d. 932) and al-​Qummī (d. 980) formally resemble the commentaries of their Sunnī contemporaries quite closely. In terms of content, the traditions found in later Shīʿī commentaries are largely indistinguishable from those in Sunnī works, except in the case of interpretation of Qurʾānic passages that were of particular sectarian concern. It should also be noted that there are many examples of Qurʾān interpretation maintained by Sunnīs and transmitted along conventional isnāds reaching back to the Salaf that nevertheless almost certainly originated among the Shīʿa, or else emerged in direct response to Shīʿī claims. Sectarian interpretation thus constitutes a subliminal strand in Sunnī exegesis, its true source and nature unacknowledged, but its sectarian contours and implications still dimly visible. Another such strand of tradition subsumed within the Sunnī mainstream is that of the Muʿtazila, a school that flourished in major centers in Iraq from the 8th to the 10th century that promoted a rationalist approach to theology and exegesis. The Muʿtazila exerted a huge impact on the formulation of what became the dominant doctrinal current of Ashʿarism in Sunnism; yet they were eventually deemed extreme and heretical by Sunnīs, and so their works fell into disuse and their views dropped out of circulation. Major Sunnī commentators such as Zamakhsharī were massively influenced by the Muʿtazila, but for the most part the commentaries written by Muʿtazila during the early and classical period of the tafsīr tradition’s development were not actively transmitted, and so survive only in fragments or quotations in later works, particularly by Twelver Shīʿī authors. Most significantly, the exegetical views of the Muʿtazila were not authorized through reference to received tradition, prophetic precedent, or the esoteric knowledge of inspired guides. Rather, the Muʿtazila approached issues of dogmatic concern in the Qurʾān through the lens of individual rational judgment, the only authoritative precedent cited being that of the esteemed thinkers of previous generations of the Muʿtazilite school itself. Although scholars have generally denied the presence of a Muʿtazilite strand in classical traditionist tafsīr of al-​Ṭabarī’s time, it is likely that their approach to scripture had at least an indirect influence on the approach to theological questions raised by the Qurʾān found in al-​Ṭabarī and other Sunnī commentators. Muʿtazilite exegesis is marked on the one hand by an attempt to interpret away the clear anthropomorphism and determinism of the Qurʾān, and on the other by a distinctly commonsense approach to certain issues that became doctrinally significant for Sunnī orthodoxy only later on. Further, the Muʿtazila served as both a model and a foil for certain later exegetes like Fakhr al-​Rāzī who approached exegesis through deploying philosophy as the primary means through which to effect a renovation of orthodoxy.36 In the 14th century, the attempt to develop an approach to the Qurʾān that relies predominantly or exclusively on authentic tradition was revived with the work of Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328) and Ibn Kathīr (d. 1373). These scholars lived in a time of considerable social and political tension. The Mamluk Empire in which they lived was ruled by a military oligarchy of converted Turkic slave soldiers of seemingly questionable religious integrity; moreover, the Mamluks were threatened by the Mongol empire of Iran, the Il-​Khanate, whose leaders had an even more tenuous claim to authentic Muslim credentials, though the dynasty had officially converted to Islam in the time of the khāns Ghazan and Öljeitü at the beginning of the 14th century. In an atmosphere of crisis, in which moral standards seemed (at least to them) to be lax and subversion by Jews, Shīʿa, and heretics seemed rampant, Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Kathīr sought to revive and reenergize what they saw as traditional or foundational Islam. Their quest to purge the received tradition of what they saw as an inordinate amount of unreliable material, particularly of Jewish 109

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and Christian origin, and thus of questionable interpretations of doctrine, law, and scripture, would exert an unparalleled impact upon modern constructions of Salafism.37 Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Kathīr are of particular relevance for our concerns here because of their profound dissatisfaction with what they saw as the dilution of the pure tradition of apostolic Islam, a process they saw as beginning even in the time of the Salaf themselves. These exegetes were the first to articulate a full-​throated critique of the so-​called isrāʾīliyyāt preserved in major works of tafsīr and other sources. Muslim interpreters of earlier periods had drawn freely upon the traditions of the Ahl al-​Kitāb in elaborating upon the Qurʾān; such reliance had even been given prophetic warrant in the form of a widely circulated ḥadīth in which Muḥammad enjoined his followers to “relate traditions from Banū Isrāʾīl, for there is no harm in it” (ḥaddithū ʿan banī isrāʾīla wa-​lā ḥaraja). This injunction had been formerly understood to authorize transmission of traditions from the Bible and lore of the Ahl al-​Kitāb as long as they are consonant with the Qurʾān and the Prophet’s own teachings.38 In contrast to the earlier attitude to such traditions, in the view of Ibn Taymiyya, Ibn Kathīr, and their followers –​and their work has been massively influential with the rise and global spread of modern Salafism –​the influx of lore from the scriptures and traditions of the Ahl al-​Kitāb was corrosive, slowly undermining pure Islam from within, eventually leading to the corruption of Muslim beliefs, practices, and morals. While scholars sometimes use the word isrāʾīliyyāt as if it were a neutral term for “borrowed” traditions drawn from biblical, Jewish, or Christian sources, it is clear that the term was employed unsystematically and only attested sporadically until the time of Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Kathīr, in whose works it suddenly occurs with significant frequency and a distinctly negative connotation. Thus, in the passage of his commentary in which he discusses the aforementioned tradition about Kaʿb al-​Aḥbār’s claim about Alexander, Ibn Kathīr describes isrāʾīliyyāt as the collective tradition passed down from Ahl al-​Kitāb, “most of which is altered, distorted, falsified, and fabricated; no proof is provided to us from reports coming from God or the Messenger of God for anything at all deriving from them; truly, they have been the source of great evil and widespread decline” (Ibn Kathīr 1997: V 190).39 The use of the term isrāʾīliyyāt by Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Kathīr to condemn a vague category of “foreign” traditions of a suspect nature that lack the authority of the authentic Sunna did not catch on immediately. But beginning at the turn of the 20th century, the polemic against corrupting kitābī traditions was naturalized and radicalized by modern authors who took up and popularized the ideals of ideological Salafism. Central in this regard was a lineage of Egyptian revivalists and scholar-​activists: Muḥammad ʿAbduh (d. 1905), Rashīd Riḍā (d. 1940), Maḥmūd Abū Rayya (d. 1970), and Muḥammad Ḥusayn al-​Dhahabī (d. 1977). For them, the promotion of Islamic revival and polemic against pernicious foreign influences went hand in hand: they saw the cultural, religious, and political threat posed by colonizing powers in their own day as basically similar to, or even a continuation of, the insidious infiltration of the Muslim community by Jewish, Christian, and Persian “influences” in the time of Islam’s origins. For Abū Rayya and al-​Dhahabī in particular, the critique of isrāʾīliyyāt takes on a specifically anti-​Zionist guise (see Nettler 1998). Despite the now-​common aversion to supposed foreign influences in the received tradition of tafsīr, for which many authorities of the early and classical period were condemned (including al-​Ṭabarī himself, as well as earlier authorities, even some among the Companions and Successors), the scope and essential characteristics of isrāʾīliyyāt remain vague and poorly defined. The assimilation of traditions from the Ahl al-​Kitāb was so pervasive and so fundamental in the growth of Islam, especially in the early period, that the call for a discourse of Qurʾān interpretation free of such influences can only be a symbolic gesture. The identification of 110

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traditions of purportedly kitābī origin by Ibn Taymiyya, Ibn Kathīr, and their followers is often quite arbitrary, reflecting most of all the modern imperative to sharpen boundaries between Muslims and others and cast Jews and Christians as contaminating and impure –​a predictable result of colonial intrusion, imperial domination, and, most recently, the pervasive infiltration of a globalizing Western culture and neoliberal political order into Islamic societies. Under such conditions, the quest for a direct and unmitigated line of continuity with Islam’s golden age –​especially in the realm of approaches to the sacred text –​is wholly understandable, albeit quixotic.

Revisionist accounts of Islamic origins and their implications for exegesis In evaluating the origins, nature, and role of scriptural interpretation in Islamic culture, it is important to take a number of trends in contemporary scholarship on Islamic origins into account. We might begin by considering, at least briefly, the profound implications of current approaches to the question of how the Qurʾān and Muslim exegesis of the scripture relate to the biblical, Jewish, and Christian traditions –​how both the Qurʾān and its exegesis fit into the larger cultural and religious landscape of their time. Since the early 19th century, the thesis of a thoroughgoing influence of Arabian Jews learned in rabbinic tradition on Muḥammad advanced by Geiger (d. 1874) has had an enormous impact on modern approaches to the Qurʾān.40 The countervailing argument that it was some variety of late antique Christianity that had percolated into pagan Arabia before the time of the Prophet that exerted the necessary stimulus for the emergence of Islam has had less purchase in the field, though the pioneering work on this subject by Mingana (d. 1937) and Andræ (d. 1947) in the early 20th century has recently been revisited and revived.41 Today, most scholars reject the reductionist and narrowly mechanistic conceptions of debt and derivation that pervades older scholarship, regardless of whether it is Jewish or Christian vectors of influence, or some combination of the two, that are emphasized. It is clear that the relationships between the Qurʾān and formative Islam on the one hand and other scriptural traditions of the pre-​Islamic and early Islamic era on the other must be framed as a tripartite conversation between Jews, Christians, and the community of Believers (muʾminūn) who eventually came to call themselves Muslims. It is also clear that the monotheistic scriptural traditions of Late Antiquity and the proto-​Islamic period cannot be judged to have been totally foreign to the pre-​Islamic Arabs and the early Muslims. Rather, pre-​Islamic and early Islamic Arabia had a far more complex relationship to other communities of the Near East than earlier generations of scholarship imagined. Scholars now commonly recognize the numerous continuities between the religion, culture, politics, and society of Late Antiquity and that of early Islam. Islam’s emergence in Late Antiquity was a consequence of the imperial conflicts and intercommunal rivalries of its day; in this arena of conflict and convergence, both the pre-​Islamic Arabs and the early Muslims were often quite close to, and implicated in, the debates, disputes, and struggles of the age.Their ideas, idioms, ideals, and aspirations were quite close to those of their Jewish and Christian neighbors, although ironically, each religious community used similar language, concepts, and symbols to assert its uniqueness and difference as sole claimant to the status of God’s chosen people. In this light, it is abundantly clear that the once-​regnant assumption that both the Qurʾān and Muslim tradition are generally products of imitation of foreign borrowings from more developed scriptural cultures, and that Muslims’ relationship to other monotheist communities  in their ambit was generally marked by a position of cultural inferiority and dependence, simply cannot withstand close scrutiny. Much contemporary research reinforces 111

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the idea that the Qurʾān stands in close proximity to the Jewish and Christian scriptural traditions of its day, but most scholars now working in this field prefer to understand Qurʾānic discourse as the result of an active and deliberate engagement with those traditions. Moreover, as contemporary scholarship seeks to investigate the literary horizons of the Qurʾān and its place in late antique society and culture, it has also become clear that certain “classical” sources and traditions long believed to provide indisputable evidence of the Jewish influences on Islam in particular that were so meticulously catalogued by Geiger and his followers are likely to be later than previously thought, and thus may actually preserve textual artifacts of Jewish engagement with the Qurʾān and Islam rather those seminal traditions that had impacted the Qurʾān itself. Rather than taking for granted that the Qurʾān and later Muslim tradition are necessarily derived from and posterior to the more or less unified corpora of biblical tradition and post-biblical Jewish and Christian exegesis, many scholars now approach the shared stories of the Bible, Qurʾān, midrash, and tafsīr as closely interwoven threads of a gradually unfolding narrative tapestry; within this tapestry, individual threads must be carefully disentangled in order to discern the precise relationships between them. Thus, while the question of how both Qurʾān and tafsīr fit into the terrain of post-​biblical Jewish elaborations of biblical narratives has engendered a number of different approaches in recent years, few scholars would now simplistically attribute the resemblances between them to a unidirectional “copying” of rabbinic traditions by Muslim exegetes or the Prophet himself. The tendency for “biblical” material in both Qurʾān and tafsīr to be wrongly construed as the product of largely passive processes of incorporating “influences” channeled through Jewish and Christian informants is further exacerbated by a short-​sighted conception of what the Bible represented in Late Antiquity. Some contemporary scholars have challenged approaches to the transmission, reception, and reworking of narratives stemming from the patrimony of the ancient Israelites as “rewriting” or “reinterpretation” of the Hebrew Bible, since this encourages a common misconception of “the Bible” as a static, fixed text already in antiquity. A number of factors militate against a simple, monolithic conception of “the Bible” as it existed at the time of the rise of Islam: the relatively late date of the Masoretic text, often mistakenly privileged as the main and best witness to the canonical Hebrew Bible as it was supposedly universally known in the pre-​Islamic period; the fluidity of both the verbatim text of individual books within the canon and the canon itself; and the messy and frequently shifting boundaries between the “original text” and exegetical tradition. Given all these factors, it is arguably better to understand “Bible” as a genre rather than a fixed corpus, at least during the long centuries between antiquity and modernity.42 We must recognize that Qurʾān and tafsīr alike represent not mere borrowings or calques of older Jewish and Christian interpretations of a single, monolithic canonical text, but rather meaningful and deliberate contributions to the long development of the legacy of ancient Israel, particularly its distinctive traditions on cosmology, eschatology, prophetology, and communology, manifest in a variety of discourses and textual registers. These contributions are surely anchored in, inspired by, or otherwise presuppose manifold witnesses to that legacy, but “our” Bible is only one of them, and Qurʾānic and Islamic elaborations on these themes should not be dismissed as “borrowings” of Bible. Rather, in their own way, they constitute a new phase of the development of that genre –​which in turn stimulated further elaborations and rearticulations of their older scriptural patrimony by Jews and Christians. Untangling the threads that connect Bible and Qurʾān, we may even discover that exploration of the latter allows us to illuminate previously misunderstood or unrecognized aspects of the former.43 Thus, conceiving of the relationship of the Qurʾān to the traditions of other contemporary communities as secondary, derivative, and passive is problematic for a number of reasons. It 112

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is simply not plausible to think of the richness of Qurʾānic discourse, which so often engages contemporary biblical, Jewish, and Christian traditions with great subtlety, reframing those traditions into coherent and rhetorically effective forms, as the result of a haphazard borrowing of scattered foreign traditions and themes. It is also unrealistic to imagine that the Jewish and Christian communities whose religious discourse was so formative for the Qurʾān could somehow have remained unaffected by reciprocal processes of “influence,” especially as the Qurʾān and formative Islamic traditions spread and supplied the foundation of the dominant culture of the Near East and Mediterranean in the centuries after the Arab conquests. In turn, in accepting the notion that dynamic and reciprocal exchange between communities in the late antique and early Islamic periods was the norm rather than the exception, we must also recognize that the growth of Islamic tradition (ḥadīth, history, law, exegesis, and other forms of cultural and religious expression) in the centuries after the Arab conquests could itself not have been isolated from broader cultural currents either. The close intertwining of the culture of the proto-​Muslim community with that of the contemporary Jews and Christians with whom they intermingled continued after the time of the Prophet, and so Jewish and Christian lore had a significant impact in shaping Muslim tradition in the course of its growth during the expansion of the caliphal state. Just as the Qurʾān should not be seen as solely the by-​product of Jewish and Christian influence, the result of borrowings of foreign elements, neither can early Muslim discourse, including the tradition of Qurʾān interpretation, be seen as wholly insulated from processes of exchange and interaction either. One consequence of this insight is that the claim that tafsīr could or should have originated solely or primarily on the basis of orally transmitted reports from the early community, mainly the Companions of the Prophet and their followers, may be recognized as specious. There is simply no criterion available to allow us to cleanly distinguish “pure” Arab or Islamic tradition handed down from the Salaf from the lore of Ahl al-​Kitāb, at least not in the early period. Just as an isolationist approach to the Qurʾān can no longer be accepted as legitimate, neither can it be legitimate to view the emergence of the exegetical tradition in this fashion. Both were the results of a new scripturalist community coming into being in a complex and socially and religiously diverse environment. This is not to say that what survives of early Muslim tradition contains no genuine traces of the prophetic period; the early generations who first received and promulgated the scripture are quite likely to have sought to understand and explain it through reference to what Muḥammad and the Companions said about it. The problem, however, lies in our inability to distinguish material that is genuinely early. Though the veracity of specific reports is always debatable, traditions depicting Companions inquiring with the Prophet concerning the exegesis of particular revelations, or the Companions fielding such questions from their students and followers, are broadly plausible. At the same time, the emergence and establishment of ḥadīth culture in the 8th and 9th centuries –​and its eventual predominance as a major cornerstone of Sunnī identity in particular –​decisively shaped the development of tafsīr as a literary genre, in that exegetes sought to discipline received material according to the same professional and intellectual standards that prevailed among ḥadīth scholars. This meant in particular that the collective lore handed down from previous generations had to be sifted and reshaped, and at least some part of it elevated to the status of pure prophetic tradition transmitted through a conduit of reliable individuals of largely unimpeachable integrity. Although exegetical traditions were not subjected to the same level of scrutiny and criticism, the popularization of the ideals of the Ahl al-​Sunna led to the application of the ethos of the ḥadīth scholar to the enterprise of Qurʾān interpretation, and so to the composition of commentaries embodying the traditionalist approach. This encouraged the impression that 113

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exegesis of scripture achieved through the consultation and comparison of received reports from the Salaf or early generations of Muslims was inherently superior to or more authoritative than other approaches, and that the core task of the exegete was not the rational apprehension of scripture and its implications, but rather the gathering, collation, and evaluation of lore handed down across the generations from the prophetic period. The claim that tafsīr as a genre was founded primarily on the basis of authenticated traditions traceable back to the Prophet and his Companions, and that material in the tradition that originated in other ways is somehow inferior, alien, and corrupting –​the basic critique of isrāʾīliyyāt –​is self-​evidently political and ideological in nature, and does not stand up to a strictly historical analysis. It is clear that ideas and claims about the Qurʾān originated among early Muslims in a variety of settings and contexts, and were handed down over the generations in a variety of forms, and not just in the form of impeccably documented units of tradition from the Salaf. For example, as already noted, much material in the tafsīr corpus likely originated with the quṣṣāṣ or popular preachers, while other material came from circles of thinkers who attempted to grapple with the doctrinal implications of the sacred text such as the rationalist sect of the Muʿtazila, whose works were often shunned by Sunnīs, though many of their insights impacted mainstream Sunnī tafsīr.44 Some of the exegetical material in circulation in the early community was undoubtedly of Jewish and Christian origin, though it may not have been perceived as such at the time when it began to circulate among Muslims. The tradition records instances of members of the early community consulting learned men among the Ahl al-​Kitāb concerning the interpretation of scripture; though these portrayals inform the polemic against isrāʾīliyyāt, narratives of this sort arguably originated both as a way to account for material perceived as kitābī on account of having a certain biblical ambience and to validate such material as basically legitimate –​the exact kind of lore the Prophet had authorized his community to transmit in the ḥaddithū ʿan banī isrāʾīla tradition.45 Just as Jews, Christians, and others provided the human resources for the growth of the Muslim community (often in tangible ways, especially through physical labor, conversion, and slavery and concubinage), these groups also provided the cultural resources for the initial growth and development of Islamic tradition. Notably, there are instances in which the Qurʾān actually differs in its understanding of a particular theme or story from its biblical, Jewish, or Christian predecessors in significant ways, but tafsīr traditions subsequently reinforced the formerly dominant reading of the topos in question, sometimes adducing Jewish or Christian exegetical material in the process. A noteworthy example is the fall of Adam and Eve; the Qurʾān actually departs from the common misogynist reading of the Genesis account found in Christian sources, but this reading is reasserted in various ways in the tafsīr, in narratives that echo biblical, Jewish, and Christian tradition yet are cast as coming from Arab Companions. Thus, the assimilation of older exegetical material originating from outside the Muslim community far exceeds the boundaries of the discourse of isrāʾīliyyāt, pervading emergent tafsīr; the attempt to distinguish “native” and “foreign” material that informs Salafī criticism of the received tradition is, in the final analysis, about the construction of authority rather than an objective attempt at apprehending the past.46 Another area in which developments in contemporary scholarship directly impact our understanding of the role of exegesis in the early Muslim community pertains to questions of composition, canonization, and contradiction in the Qurʾān. At the beginning of this chapter, we noted the striking conjunction of the emergence of both revelation and community at the dawn of Islam. Thus, the traditional view of the origins of Muslim engagement with the Qurʾān recognizes that it stimulated attempts at interpretation by the Companions as it was revealed, long before the canonical text was assembled. However, it is more problematic from 114

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a traditional perspective to apply the basic premise that drives the study of inner-​biblical exegesis to the Qurʾān: the idea that passages of the Qurʾān that were revealed later were shaped by audience response to earlier passages implies, essentially, that the audience participated directly in the process of the scripture’s composition, which seems to clash with the idea that the Qurʾān represents the eternal Word of God. Among contemporary scholars, Angelika Neuwirth has perhaps been the most consistent advocate of the necessity of understanding the Qurʾān as an evolving discourse. In her view, what appear to be developmental strata visible within the Qurʾān are signs of diachronic growth, providing us with direct evidence that later materials engage exegetically with older materials. (This approach serves, in part, as a corrective to a polemical strain in older Western scholarship that saw inconsistency or vacillation in the Qurʾān as evidence that it is not genuine revelation, a sign of Muḥammad’s “confusion,” and so forth.) In numerous studies, Neuwirth has described the development of Qurʾānic discourse as a dynamic and dialogical process of revelation, audience response, and reformulation, often entailing a concomitant revision or even reversal of older rulings. Though Neuwirth remains characteristically agnostic regarding the nature of the Qurʾān’s origins in her work, her approach suggests that the message developed in direct response to both changing circumstances and audience feedback, which at first glance appears to be incompatible with the theological principles of the Qurʾān’s eternity and immutability.47 That said, as paradoxical as it may seem, Muslim tradition actually accommodates such a conception of the origins of the Qurʾān on some level, for it acknowledges quite openly that the divine message did develop dialogically through the process of its serial revelation through Muḥammad to the early community. Many Qurʾānic passages are understood as replies to questions posed to the Prophet by his contemporaries –​figures such as ʿĀʾisha bt. Abī Bakr, the Prophet’s favorite wife, or ʿUmar b. al-​Khaṭṭāb, a prominent Companion and future caliph. The questions of the Companions, like the changing circumstances of the Prophet’s mission, thus effectively served to stimulate the growth of the Qurʾān in the very process of its revelation.48 Moreover, the tradition has long dealt with the problem of apparent contradiction in the corpus through the mechanism of naskh or abrogation. Primarily a juristic device, naskh implies that different rules were necessary at different times according to the changing circumstances of the community; the exegete informed with the proper understanding of the chronology of revelation of different passages of the Qurʾān can thus assign the status of nāsikh (abrogating) or mansūkh (abrogated) to conflicting statements in the scripture. Therefore, what seem to the outside viewer to be the Qurʾān’s contradictory policies on significant practical questions are actually rendered into artifacts of the process of revelation  –​however impossible this may seem when speaking of scripture as an immutable and coeternal aspect of God, as the classical theology accepted by most Muslims holds. According to this principle, then, the Qurʾān was not only subjected to interpretation in the very process of its emergence into history, but the contours and contents of revelation actually developed in response to its audience’s changing needs. The classic example is the Qurʾān’s gradual prohibition on wine: according to the traditional chronology of the pertinent revelations, consumption of intoxicating beverages was initially tolerated, then strongly discouraged, then eventually prohibited outright.49 If one posits an omniscient deity who foresaw the growth of the early community from a dedicated few who hearkened to the Prophet’s warnings of eschatological destruction to a proto-​state governed by divine law and poised to spread its rigorously monotheistic faith beyond the Ḥijāz, then one can discern within (or impose upon) the Qurʾān a particular trajectory of development that explains not only contradictory rulings but the variety of literary genres exhibited by the scripture. That is, the different shapes Qurʾānic material takes –​apocalyptic 115

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and oracular, hortatory, narrativistic, juristic, and so forth –​can be construed as the consequence of historical exigencies, and even –​as with the various legal problems in the Qurʾān explained through the device of naskh –​attributed to Providence. This is not the only way to account for contradictions within the canon of scripture, however. Beginning in the 1970s, a number of scholars of a radically revisionist bent began to cast doubt on the reliability of the traditional sources for reconstructing Islamic origins and called into question many of the field’s most fundamental assumptions about where Islam came from and under what circumstances. Some of the most radical aspects of the revisionists’ arguments have been critiqued severely, but the enduring legacy of those scholars who first turned a skeptical eye towards the sīra, ḥadīth, and other sources –​Wansbrough, Crone, Cook, Hawting, Burton, Calder, Rippin –​is the infusion of a pervasive sense of caution into historical research into the proto-​and early Islamic periods.50 There have been a number of consequences to the widespread uncertainty about the reliability of the traditional sources on the life of Muḥammad –​indeed, to the suspicion that our whole frame of reference for the emergence of Islam may largely be fictitious, Muslim sources on the revelation of the Qurʾān and the life of the Prophet serving primarily as Heilsgeschichte, a sacred myth of origins, and not as objective history. One is the recognition that the tradition’s use of naskh to account for contradiction within the Qurʾānic corpus, and the assignment of a specific sequential order upon the chapters of the Qurʾān in general, serves to naturalize a chronological scheme of development of the early community and the revelation of the scripture that may, in the final analysis, not correlate to objective historical reality at all. That is, attempting to resolve apparent contradictions in the Qurʾān by assigning them to different points in time in the community’s early history, according to a timeline anchored to the conventional biography of Muḥammad, implicitly asserts a specific frame of reference for Qurʾānic material along one particular trajectory, deliberately obscuring other possibilities. This has many implications for our understanding of the Qurʾān and how it should be interpreted –​or rather, it allows us to see more clearly how the tradition of exegesis native to the Muslim community actually functions and what it achieves, and thus enables new insights about the historical background to Islam. One example is Firestone’s groundbreaking study of the Qurʾānic passages dealing with jihad. Here, he conjectures that the apparent diversity of positions exhibited in the Qurʾān pertaining to the treatment of outsiders to the community does not represent the evolution of the Prophet Muḥammad’s position on the question over the twenty-​two years of his ministry, as tradition holds; rather, the seemingly contradictory passages on this question express a plurality of positions originally held by different constituencies within the Qurʾānic community. That is, the different verses pertaining to outsiders correspond to the positions of different groups, which implies, quite evidently, that the Qurʾān stems from multiple points of origin and is the result of corporate authorship or redaction of diverse materials into a document that can only tendentiously be claimed to represent a solitary voice (Firestone 1999).51 The obvious conclusion that follows upon such a thesis is that the real function of exegesis in the early community is not simply to uncover the context that informed the text and unpack the allusions embedded in it, but rather to justify, normalize, and explain away contradictions between different passages in the scripture as a means of effacing what constitutes rather conspicuous evidence of composite authorship. Historicizing exegesis –​one of the main varieties of exegesis found in tafsīr –​disguises that evidence and cloaks the marks of synchronic diversity of perspective within the community that generated Qurʾānic material as indicative of diachronic evolution of the message revealed to Muḥammad instead. The original diversity of 116

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opinion expressed in seemingly contradictory passages is thus reduced to a temporal passage from a period in which the Prophet acquiesced in the face of strong opposition to one in which he actively resisted and eventually conquered those who rejected his message. Even if one cannot accept the radical proposal that the Qurʾān was collated from different sources representing different factions within the proto-​Islamic community, the fundamental insight we may glean from Firestone’s study is valid:  the traditional correlation of Qurʾānic verses to their specific revelatory context during the twenty-​two years of Muḥammad’s prophetic career quietly but decisively delimits the interpretive options the would-​be interpreter can bring to the text. Thus, the instrument of naskh functions to alleviate the tensions surrounding contradiction in sacred writ, making an implicit argument for the unity of scripture not only as the product of the divine mind but of specific historical moments. This is the only logical conclusion that can follow upon the notion that scripture reflects the direct experience of the Prophet and his community’s interactions with its various interlocutors and opponents during their struggle to establish their community and found the first Islamic state. This leads us to what is perhaps the most profound insight of revisionist approaches to the Qurʾān as they pertain to exegesis. Exegetes’ attempt to distinguish abrogating from abrogated verses is part of a larger enterprise of systematically embedding the Qurʾān in specific moments of revelation during the Prophet’s career. While actual works wholly dedicated to charting the asbāb al-​nuzūl or “occasions of revelation” are rare, the overarching tendency they embody is one that appears to go back to the earliest period of the Islamic tradition’s coalescence.52 In the end, the attempt to distinguish abrogating from abrogated verses and the cataloguing of asbāb al-​ nuzūl are only facets of a much broader attempt to anchor the ambiguous verses of the Qurʾān in an unambiguous (but at least partially constructed) context that both associates it with the historical Muḥammad and locates it in the pagan Arab milieu. In this sense, virtually all Muslim exegesis of the Qurʾān serves this historicizing function, which has been an ubiquitous imperative in tafsīr since the foundation of the tradition.53 Given the revisionists’ insights about the actual uncertainty of the Qurʾān’s relationship to the historical milieu described in the traditional sources, we can recognize that tafsīr quite clearly functions to embed understandings of the Qurʾān in the circumstances of the life and career of Muḥammad, to constrain interpretation of its verses so that they can only be understood as addressing a particular time, place, and social setting. Apart from the main theses advanced in revisionist historiography (e.g. that the proto-​Islamic movement may have been much more deeply embedded in the monotheistic cultures of Late Antiquity than the portrayal of its jāhilī setting may lead one to believe), acknowledging this function grants us new insights into the nature of exegetical activity in the Muslim community, particularly in the early period. As noted previously, the genres of tafsīr, ḥadīth, and sīra initially all drew from the same pool of oral traditions as the disciplines of exegesis, jurisprudence, and biography began to emerge as discrete fields of inquiry. Some scholars have therefore posited that traditions about the life of Muḥammad preserved and presented in works of supposed biography do not represent genuine historical memories about the Prophet, even hagiographically embellished ones, but rather developed to explain the Qurʾān, providing a largely fictional framework for interpreting the many obscure references found in scripture. Thus, some scholars (in particular G.R. Hawting) have postulated that the emphasis in the early sources of tafsīr and other genres on Islam’s origins in a pagan environment is ideological and not properly historical, the insistence that the Prophet’s opponents were idolaters being a form of polemic against fellow monotheists (Hawting 1999). If the circumstances under which the Qurʾān was revealed were in fact somehow significantly different from those described in the received tradition, then the portrayal of the Jāhiliyya as the primary setting for the Qurʾān 117

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functions to reconstrue those circumstances in keeping with the needs of a later time –​in particular, the needs of an audience living in rather different circumstances, under conditions in which it was necessary to articulate starker differences between Muslims and others.This served to conceal Islam’s original proximity to other communities through the construction and promotion of a myth of a pagan Arab past. Although they may appear to corroborate each other, to the skeptic, there appears to be a circular relationship between tafsīr and sīra: tafsīr builds upon the biographical traditions of sīra to concretize obscure references in scripture and tie them to circumstances that help define their meaning, but the origins of sīra traditions may actually lie in early attempts at tafsīr, at providing a context for the revelation of the Qurʾān that makes it meaningful in terms later generations of Muslims could understand. The relationship between Qurʾān and tafsīr here may thus be compared to that between the early sayings of Jesus and the emergence of the gospel genre: an early core of orally transmitted material came to be embedded in narratives that established a context for the teachings of Christ in keeping with the emerging community’s understanding of the founder’s life and the theological significance of his message; quite possibly the basic framework for knowledge of that context may itself have been built on the foundation of exegetical traditions that provided a (partially or totally fabricated?) basis for interpreting the original sayings, granted revelatory status by an emerging (and rapidly evolving) community. Thus, the most far-​reaching conclusion one might draw from revisionist understandings of Islamic origins is that the very historical tradition that is so often invoked to provide the context to the Qurʾān that permits it to be understood may itself have been exegetically generated. If one is inclined to accept that the Qurʾān presupposes a context radically different from the one described in classical Islamic tradition –​and it can hardly be denied that they are on some profound level incongruous –​then the whole attempt to discern an overarching historical trajectory to the evolution of the canon that informs the distinction between abrogating and abrogated, or allows Qurʾānic passages to be correlated to specific moments in the career of Muḥammad and the life of the early community, is exposed as nothing more than a hermeneutic tool imposed on the canonical text a posteriori. If one is not inclined to accept the premise that the Jāhiliyya as we know it from classical sources is a fabrication, however, at the very least, one might still acknowledge the degree to which the emphasis on the mission of Muḥammad in pagan Arabia as the exclusive locus for revelation of the Qurʾān serves to shape the possibilities for interpretation or even foreclose upon certain alternatives.

Conclusion Perhaps in reaction to the revisionist dismissal of tafsīr and related discourses of classical Muslim tradition as largely fictitious and of no value for understanding the actual historical context in which the Qurʾān emerged, in recent years the study of tafsīr as a discipline in its own right has advanced by leaps and bounds. Once the relationship between Qurʾān and tafsīr was complicated and the latter no longer upheld as an objectively verifiable guide to the circumstances under which the former was revealed (and thus to its “true” meaning), tafsīr was, in a sense, liberated. That is, absent a universal consensus about how Qurʾān and tafsīr actually relate to one another, tafsīr can be seen as an autonomous literary tradition of value for understanding Muslim thought, culture, politics, and religion in all its diversity and particularity –​a valuable vehicle for communicating Muslim perceptions of the past, as opposed to a direct and unmediated historical witness to that past. As some scholars attempt to foster a truly historical-​critical approach to the sacred text modeled on (or at least analogous to) the well-​established methodologies for analysis of the Hebrew 118

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Bible and New Testament, advancing an idea of the Qurʾān as an artifact of Late Antiquity that precipitated the emergence of a new religious community, others may focus on the Qurʾān’s place as an object of study and devotion by Muslims over the course of many centuries as the global community grew and developed. Today, both Qurʾāns –​the Qurʾān of the late antique “proto-​Islamic” community and the Qurʾān of the global Muslim community during the phases of its formative, classical, medieval, and modern history –​amply reward scholarly investigation. Thus, over the last ten years or so, academic inquiry into both the Qurʾān’s background and origins and the rich diversity of Muslim engagements with it has flourished. As De Gifis has notes in reviewing one of several recent publications on tafsīr, it seems to be a universal truism of texts that “the more beholders they have, the more complex, sometimes contested, and ultimately enriched their meanings become” (De Gifis 2014). Arguably, no text embodies this principle more than the Qurʾān. When viewed through the lenses provided by modern comparative and historical-​critical methodologies, it offers us one perspective onto the background to the rise of Islam.Viewed through the lenses provided by traditional exegesis, however, it offers us a different but complementary perspective on how Muslims have seen and portrayed their tradition’s origins from their own vantage point. Neither sort of interpretation can be deemed irrelevant or inferior; both are crucial for understanding the Qurʾān in all its richness.

Notes 1 I thank Andrew Rippin for graciously reading and commenting upon an early version of this chapter. For a comprehensive survey of scholarly resources in English for the study of the Islamic exegetical tradition, see Rippin (2011). 2 Al-​muṣḥaf bayn lūḥayn and similar phrases appear in traditions describing the process whereby the various early written witnesses to the revelations taught by Muḥammad to his Companions were gathered together and arranged in order to produce the canonical Qurʾān as it has come down to us today. The complexity of qurʾān as a term within Qurʾānic discourse itself, particularly the tension between its meaning as a particular manifestation of a dynamic and responsive process of oral-​aural revelation and the Qurʾān’s own self-​consciousness of its status as a written book and emergent canon, has been discussed by numerous scholars. See the classic study by Daniel Madigan (2001) and the essays collected by Stefan Wild (2006). 3 See the groundbreaking work of Michael Fishbane (1985). 4 Richard Bulliet’s elegant description of the impact of converts’ questions about the proper practice of Islam on the growth of what became orthodox ḥadīth (1994) has seldom been mined for its possible implications for the growth of exegetical lore, though the parallel is obvious. See my comments below on the assimilation of kitābī lore into tafsīr through a variety of means, including transmission by (or at least ascription to) converts. 5 For a comprehensive survey of traditional approaches to the Qurʾān, see Ahmad von Denffer (2004).The foremost medieval treatise on the subject is now available in English translation (al-​Suyūṭī 2011). 6 This is to say nothing of the massive amounts of Qurʾān commentary accessible online, with the availability of searchable databases compiling major and minor works of tafsīr effecting a revolution in the way researchers approach and handle this material. For the issues surrounding use of optical-​disc forerunners to contemporary web-​based tafsīr resources, Andrew Rippin’s concise discussion (1999) remains trenchant. The unsurpassed guide to authors and works of tafsīr remains Muḥammad Ḥusayn al-​Dhahabī’s al-​Tafsīr wa-​al-​mufassirūn (1976–​1989). Serviceable and convenient guides in English can be found in Helmut Gätje (1976) and Feras Hamza et al. (2010: 21–​65). 7 This is not to say that Muslims conducted tafsīr exclusively in Arabic in the early period, only engaging the Qurʾān in the medium of other languages in later centuries; Travis Zadeh’s seminal study (2012) has now corrected a number of longstanding misconceptions about the relationship of Persian to the study and translation of the Qurʾān in the early centuries AH. 8 This is true even for iconoclastic modernists, who break from tradition and the conventional imitation of scholarly precedent (taqlīd) but do so in order to revive what they see as the original spirit of the Qurʾān and the Prophet’s mission and example. Thus, a deeply “Protestant” impulse informs a variety of

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Michael E. Pregill modern commentators on the Qurʾān ranging –​despite the stark differences in their values and ideology –​from Sayyid Ahmad Khan (d. 1898) to Sayyid Quṭb (d. 1966), which is hardly surprising given that their approaches to the reinterpretation of the traditional sources of Islam were driven by the need to confront Western claims, thinking, and social patterns. It is perhaps only some contemporary feminist exegetes whose hermeneutics jettison claims to capture an original understanding of the Qurʾān, though there is significant diversity of opinion on this issue, some feminist or woman-​centric readings being grounded in an idea of reclaiming a liberationist impulse that lies at the core of the text. For a recent survey of this genre, see Aisha A. Hidayatullah (2014). 9 This point is made vividly in McAuliffe (2003). The study of the Qurʾān as it appears in Muslim discourses aside from the genre of formal commentary is still in its infancy. For contemporary explorations of this phenomenon, see, e.g., Wadad Kadi (1993: 285–​313),Vanessa De Gifis (2014); Bilal Orfali (2016: 498–​527), and the edited volume by Nuha Alshaar (2017). 10 On the complex interrelationships between the articulation of different literary genres, the transition from oral to written literature, and the emergence of the ʿulamāʾ as a professional scholarly class, see Gregor Schoeler (2009). For a recent reflection on tafsīr’s place in its larger intellectual landscape, see Karen Bauer (2011), as well as the collection by Andreas Görke and Johanna Pink (2014). 11 Literally “a grain in hair” (ḥabba fī shaʿaratin), seemingly a reference to the kernels embedded in the “beard” or cluster of threads that grow in the wheat spike at the end of a stalk of grain (Muslim n.d.: no. 3015). In ʿAbd al-​Razzāq’s tafsīr a similar tradition appears ad Q 2:58, but with somewhat different wording (ʿAbd al-​Razzāq al-​Ṣanʿānī 1989: I 47). 12 The setting of the tradition, Qubāʾ, is significant: on the outskirts of Medina, this was the location of the first prayer by the Prophet when he arrived there after his emigration from Mecca, and he remained there for several days waiting for ʿAlī to arrive after he escaped Mecca as well. Note that this is part of a whole complex of traditions on the changing of the qibla, with numerous parallels found in al-​Bukhārī and elsewhere. 13 In the aforementioned article, Melchert emphasizes that al-​Bukhārī’s main concern in the section on tafsīr in his Ṣaḥīḥ is to demonstrate the compatibility of the prophetic Sunna with the Qurʾān. This invites a comparison with a Jewish juristic-​exegetical analogue, insofar as the halakhic midrashim function similarly to demonstrate (however implausibly at times) the Bible as the ultimate source of rabbinic law. 14 The idea that ḥadīth were forged to advance one or another legal argument or partisan cause in the 8th century, well after the deaths of Muḥammad, the Companions, and most Successors, was first advanced by Goldziher (1967–​1971). Subsequently, it was the meticulous work of Schacht that demonstrated the frequency of rafʿ or the “raising” of isnāds in legal sources: what appears as a Successor tradition in one source of the early 8th century may resurface as a Companion tradition one or two generations later, eventually being cited in the name of the Prophet by 9th and 10th century authorities (1967). 15 The tradition is the first one in the section entitled “Chapter regarding the statement of the Prophet, prayers and peace be upon him, not to consult the Ahl al-​Kitāb about anything.” See discussion by G.H.A. Juynboll (1969: 123–​130). 16 On Dhū al-​Qarnayn, his identification with Alexander, and the complex relationships between the Qurʾān, tafsīr, and the fabulous narratives of the Alexander Romance tradition, see Brannon Wheeler (2002: 10–​36). On the Qurʾānic asbāb al-​samawāt, see Kevin van Bladel (2007b). 17 Ibn Kathīr explicitly designates Kaʿb’s fantastic story as isrāʾīliyyāt here, complaining that it is “unsound and has no factual basis, for no mortal being has any way of accomplishing anything of the sort, certainly not to ascend to the tent-​cords of the heavens in order to do such a thing” (1997:V 190). 18 See the classic treatment of Ibn ʿAbbās (referred to as the “superman” –​Übermensch –​ of tafsīr!) by Goldziher (2006: 42–​53). 19 The conception of Ibn ʿAbbās as a cipher or symbolic figurehead validating authentic exegesis was first articulated in a sophisticated way by Claude Gilliot (1985); see also the concluding remarks by Herbert Berg (2000). 20 Muqātil’s commentary includes an introduction in which his sources among the Salaf are listed, though this is often said to have been added by his student and primary transmitter, Hudhayl b. Ḥabīb, as a way to validate the contents of the tafsīr against Muqātil’s critics. On Kalbī, see Michael E. Pregill (2013). 21 Walid Saleh has expressed this critique vigorously in a number of publications (2010b, 2011, 2012). 22 Thus, the idea that the works of early exegetes such as Muqātil b. Sulaymān and al-​Kalbī were shunned because they were based in the opinion of the authors and not in reliable traditions handed down

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Exegesis through well-​known chains of transmitters is largely anachronistic, since the convention of the isnād was at most only beginning to be widely adopted in the mid-​8th century, the time at which both exegetes worked. 23 The paradigmatic example is Ibn al-​Jawzī’s treatise criticizing the excesses of the preachers (1971). 24 The most influential discussion of the different types of exegetical engagement with the Qurʾān has been that of John Wansbrough (2004 [1977]). Wansbrough’s evolutionary scheme of the sequential development of different types of exegesis in the Muslim community has been much critiqued in recent years, with most scholars agreeing that the different types likely evolved simultaneously or at least that they overlapped considerably in the development of the genre. 25 On early Arabic lexicology and lexicography and their relationship to tafsīr, see the classic study of C.H.M.Versteegh (1993); the current state of the field is explored from numerous perspectives in S.R. Burge’s collection (2015), though here the relationship between the technical study of Arabic and tafsīr in the early Islamic period is hardly explored. Overall, one cannot fail to notice the increasing penetration of non-​linguistic material into works on Qurʾānic lexicology and lexicography across the later 9th and 10th centuries. 26 The classic and still-unsurpassed survey of early Shīʿī exegesis is by Meir M. Bar-​Asher (1999). The magisterial new study by Mohammad Ali Amir-​Moezzi (2016) vividly demonstrates how different Shīʿī approaches have been not just to particular passages, but to broader conceptions of revelation, community, and tradition. 27 Because of the stigma that came to be attached to the school among Sunnīs, early and classical Muʿtazilī commentaries on the Qurʾān by and large survive only in quotation, or at most in partial manuscripts. Attempts to reconstruct Muʿtazilī tafsīr over the last twenty years have fundamentally changed our understanding of the school and how different its approach to the Qurʾān could be from that enshrined in mainstream Sunnī commentaries. 28 There has been significant scholarly interest in al-​Ṭabarī, but his activity as a historian and historiographer has been much more widely explored than his work as a commentator. The indispensable treatments of his exegesis remain those by Claude Gilliot (1990) and Berg (2000). See also the special issue of the Journal of Qur’anic Studies edited by Marianna Klar (2016) devoted to the topic. 29 On Ṭabarī’s informants and isnāds, see the systematic discussion of Heribert Horst (1953). 30 Walid Saleh observes that al-​Thaʿlabī’s citation of previous commentators by name, as well as his inclusion of a list of hundreds of works he consulted (often in multiple recensions) at the beginning of his work is invaluable for contemporary scholars attempting to write the history of the tafsīr genre (2004). 31 This is not to say that these or other encyclopedic collections are merely assemblages of transmitted material providing an unmediated window onto the past. Rather, as many scholars have recognized, collections such as those of al-​Ṭabarī and al-​Thaʿlabī offer deliberately constructed models of tradition that must be scrutinized carefully by contemporary scholars who wish to draw upon the resources they preserve. 32 Most of the great exegetes of this period have yet to receive the scholarly attention they deserve. Tariq Jaffer’s monograph on Fakhr al-​Rāzī carefully analyzes this commentator’s drawing upon different disciplines to forge a new methodology for interpreting the Qurʾān that incorporates not only traditional hermeneutics but such branches of knowledge as philosophy and science (2015). 33 On the distinction between “encyclopedic” and “madrasa” commentaries, see Saleh (2004: 16–​22). See also Rippin’s discussion of the background and composition of the so-​called Tafsīr Ibn ʿAbbās as a forerunner of the madrasa commentary produced as a kind of epitome of the tafsīr of Kalbī (1994: 62–​71) and compare my discussion (Pregill 2013: 402–​409). 34 It is important to note that the term taʾwīl did not have exclusively sectarian connotations until the Middle Ages; in the 10th century the Sunnī exegete al-​Māturidī (d. 944)  entitled his commentary Taʾwīlāt al-​Qurʾān, and distinguished between tafsīr as authoritative exegesis handed down from the Salaf of a basically semantic sort and taʾwīl as the attempt to uncover the text’s deeper implications. 35 See David Hollenberg’s monograph (2016). 36 Compare, for example, the question of miracles (Jaffer 2015: 104–​117). 37 On the context of Ibn Taymiyya’s thought, see Yossef Rapaport and Shahab Ahmed (2010); on his exegesis, see Walid Saleh (2010a); on the complex relationship between Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Kathīr, see Younus Mirza (2014). 38 See the classic discussion by M.J. Kister (1972). 39 The term isrāʾīliyyāt is often deployed even by well-​meaning scholars as if it is a category that can be rehabilitated, but it is impossible to extricate it from its polemical roots in the tradition. The concept

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Michael E. Pregill first began to be problematized in the 1990s; see Norman Calder (1993). Roberto Tottoli (1999) demonstrates that the term was not current in the early Islamic period and only began to circulate widely with the popularization of the ideas of Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Kathīr. 40 For a concise treatment, see Michael E. Pregill (2007). There has long been debate over the specific cultural and religious disposition of the Jewish informants who apparently “influenced” Qurʾānic discourse; scholars have sometimes been overly confident that we can extrapolate concrete historical conclusions about Arabian Jews of the Prophet’s time based on the Qurʾān’s implicit or explicit allusions to Jewish tradition (Mazuz 2014; Pregill 2016). 41 For a concise overview of the recent revival of interest in Syriac literature as a major –​perhaps even unparalleled –​source for comparanda for the Qurʾān, see Emran Elbadawi (2014). 42 On this, see James E. Bowley and John C. Reeves (2003) and Reeves (2010). 43 See John C. Reeves (2015), which provocatively demonstrates that a close examination of “later” textual traditions, including the Qurʾān, suggests that the prototype of the story of Cain and Abel may have been radically different from that now extant in the canonical book of Genesis –​despite our assumptions about the absolute priority of the latter as a witness to narratives about the antediluvian age. 44 On the ambiguous status of the tafsīr of al-​Zamakhsharī as a “Muʿtazilī” commentary, see Andrew J. Lane (2006). It is generally claimed that the positions of the Muʿtazila had little impact on Sunnī commentaries lacking a philosophical focus (e.g. that of al-​Ṭabarī), but close examination of various theological issues in traditional tafsīrs often yields the impression that the Muʿtazilī critique of the exegesis of the Ahl al-​Ḥadīth lurks somewhere in the background. 45 As Marion Holmes Katz notes, regarding specific juridical issues, it seems that Muslim traditionists deliberately located orthodox Muslim positions in relation to or juxtaposition with Jewish and Christian positions specifically in order to efface the resemblances between their practices and those of Zoroastrians. Here too attribution is a device employed symbolically: the “borrowings” are, if anything, Iranian, but the fiction of “influence” is directed at Jews, at least as a negative foil (2002: 1–​28). For a systematic treatment of Jews as a negative foil for Muslim practice, see Ze’ev Maghen (2006). 46 For more on the problematic nature of the conception of isrāʾīliyyāt as it continues to be deployed in contemporary scholarship, see Michael E. Pregill (2008: 237–​241); on the specific question of the portrayal of Eve in tafsīr see Catherine Bronson (2014). 47 Neuwirth’s scholarly output pertaining to the processes of composition, reception, and canonization of the Qurʾānic text has been massive. See the recent synthesis of her major insights (2014). 48 For ʿUmar as “an active partner in the revelation of the Qurʾān,” see Avraham Hakim (2006). 49 On the prohibition of wine and its broader cultural and religious context, see Kathryn Kueny (2001). 50 For a convenient overview of revisionist ideas, see Harald Motzki (2006). In light of the energetic growth of Qurʾānic Studies over the last decade, a new concise survey of recent developments in the field is a clear desideratum. 51 Reuven Firestone is not the only contemporary scholar to suggest that the Qurʾān is the product of composite authorship. As with the problem of internal contradiction within the corpus, the sheer diversity of material contained in the Qurʾān, hearkening back to a variety of literary precursors, as well as the different genres represented therein, suggests the possibility of composite origins for the final recension of the canonical text. At least two studies from the last decade have frankly asserted that the Qurʾān contains material that can be dated to after the traditional reckoning of Muḥammad’s floruit (Shoemaker 2003; van Bladel 2007a). 52 On the genre, see Andrew Rippin (1988). 53 There are countless examples of specific details of Muḥammad’s biography that shifted over time to accommodate not only developments in the exegesis of the Qurʾān but also dogmatic considerations and dialogue with biblical, Jewish, and Christian traditions: see Uri Rubin (1995).

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Michael E. Pregill Ibn al-​Jawzī, A.F.ʿA.R. 1971. Ibn al-​Jawzī‘s Kitāb quṣṣāṣ wa’l-​mudhakkirīn. Schwartz, M. trans. Beirut: Dar el-​Machreq. Ibn Kathīr, A.F.I. 1997. Tafsīr al-​Qurʾān al-​ʿaẓīm. al-​Salāmah, S.b.M. ed. 8 vols. Riyadh: Dār ṭayyibah. Jaffer,T. 2015. Rāzī: Master of Qurʾānic Interpretation andTheological Reasoning. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Juynboll, G.H.A. 1969. The Authenticity of the Tradition Literature: Discussions in Modern Egypt. Leiden: E.J. Brill. Kadi, W. 1993. The Impact of the Qurʾān on the Epistolography of ʿAbd al-​Ḥamīd. In: Hawting, G.R. and Shareef, A.-​K.A. eds. Approaches to the Qurʾān. London: Routledge, 285–​313. Katz, M.H. 2002. Body of Text: The Emergence of the Sunnī Law of Ritual Purity. Albany: State University of New York Press. Kister, M.J. 1972. Ḥaddithū ʿan banī isrāʾīla wa-​lā ḥaraja: A Study of an Early Tradition. Israel Oriental Studies 2:215–​239. Klar, M. ed. 2016. Exegetical Facets of Muḥammad b. Jarīr al-​Ṭabarī (d. 310/​923). Journal of Qur’anic Studies 18(2). Kueny, K. 2001. The Rhetoric of Sobriety: Wine in Early Islam. Albany: State University of New York Press. Lane, A.J. 2006. A Traditional Muʿtazilite Qurʾān Commentary: The Kashshāf of Jār Allāh al-​Zamakhshārī (d. 538/​1144). Leiden: Brill. McAuliffe, J.D. 2003. The Genre Boundaries of Qurʾānic Commentary. In: McAuliffe, J.D., Walfish, Barry D., and Goering, Joseph W. eds. With Reverence for the Word: Medieval Scriptural Exegesis in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 445–​461. Madigan, D. 2001. The Qurʾân’s Self-​Image: Writing and Authority in Islam’s Scripture. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Maghen, Z. 2006. After Hardship Cometh Ease: The Jews as Backdrop for Muslim Moderation Berlin: De Gruyter. Mazuz, H. 2014. The Religious and Spiritual Life of the Jews of Medina. Leiden: Brill. Melchert, C. 2017. Bukhārī’s Kitāb Tafsīr al-​Qurʾān. Journal of the International Qur’anic Studies Association 1:149–​172. Mirza, Y. 2014. Was Ibn Kathīr the “Spokesperson” for Ibn Taymiyya? Jonah as a Prophet of Obedience. Journal of Qur’anic Studies 16:1–​16. Motzki, H. 2006. Alternative Models of the Qurʾān’s Formation. In:  McAuliffe, J.D. ed. The Cambridge Companion to the Qurʾān. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 59–​75. Muslim b. al-​Ḥajjāj. n.d. Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim. Siddiqui, A.H. trans. http://​sunnah.com/​muslim. Nettler, R.L. 1998. Early Islam, Modern Islam and Judaism: The Isrāʾīliyyāt in Modern Islamic Thought. In:  Nettler, R.L. and Taji-​Farouki, S. eds. Muslim–​Jewish Encounters:  Intellectual Traditions and Modern Politics. Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1–​14. Neuwirth, A. 2014. Scripture, Poetry and the Making of a Community: Reading the Qur’an as a Literary Text. Oxford: Oxford University Press in association with the Institute of Ismaili Studies. Orfali, B. 2016. In Defense of the Use of Qurʾān in Adab: Ibn Abī l-​Luṭf ’s Rafʿ al-​iltibās ʿan munkir al-​iqtibās. In: Pomerantz, M.A. and Shahin, A.A. eds. The Heritage of Arabo-​Islamic Learning: Studies Presented to Wadad Kadi. Leiden: Brill, 498–​527. Pregill, M.E. 2007. The Hebrew Bible and the Quran: The Problem of the Jewish “Influence” on Islam. Religion Compass 1(6):643–​659. ——​. 2008. Isrāʾīliyyāt, Myth, and Pseudepigraphy: Wahb b. Munabbih and the Early Islamic Versions of the Fall of Adam and Eve. Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 34:215–​284. ——​. 2013. Methodologies for the Dating of Exegetical Works and Traditions:  Can the Lost Tafsīr of Kalbī be Recovered from Tafsīr Ibn ʿAbbās (also known as al-​Wāḍiḥ)? In: Bauer, K. ed. Aims, Methods and Contexts of Qur’anic Exegesis (2nd/​8th–​9th/​15th c.). Oxford: Oxford University Press in Association with the Institute of Ismaili Studies, 393–​453. ——​. 2016. Review of Haggai Mazuz’s The Religious and Spiritual Life of the Jews of Medina. Review of Qur’anic Research 2(2). http://​members.iqsaweb.org/​page-​18174. Rapaport, Y. and Ahmed, S. 2010. Introduction. In: Rapaport, Y. and Ahmed, S. eds. Ibn Taymiyya and His Times. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 3–​20. Reeves, J.C. 2010. Problematizing the Bible … Then and Now. Jewish Quarterly Review 100:139–​152. ——​. 2015. Some Parascriptural Dimensions of the Tale of Hārūt and Mārūt. Journal of the American Oriental Society 135:817–​842. Rippin, A. 1988. The Function of asbāb al-​nuzūl in Qurʾānic Exegesis. Bulletin of the School of Oreintal and African Studies 51:1–​20. ——​.1994. Tafsīr Ibn ʿAbbās and Criteria for Dating Early Tafsīr Texts. Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 18:38–​83.

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Exegesis ——​. 1999. The Study of Tafsīr in the 21st Century: E-​Texts and their Scholarly Use. MELA Notes 69/​ 70(1999):1–​13. ——​. 2011. Tafsir: Oxford Bibliographies Online Research Guide. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rubin, U. 1995. The Eye of the Beholder:  The Life of Muhammad as Viewed by the Early Muslims. Princeton: Darwin Press. ——​. 1999. Between Bible and Qurʾān: The Children of Israel and the Islamic Self-​Image. Princeton: Darwin Press. Saleh,W.A. 2004. The Formation of the Classical Tafsīr Tradition: The Qurʾān Commentary of al-​Thaʿlabī (d. 427/​ 1135). Leiden: Brill. ——​. 2010a. Ibn Taymiyya and the Rise of Radical Hermeneutics:  An Analysis of An Introduction to the Foundations of Qurʾānic Exegesis. In:  Rapaport, Y. and Ahmed, S. eds. Ibn Taymiyya and His Times. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 123–​162. ——​. 2010b. Preliminary Remarks on the Historiography of tafsīr in Arabic:  A  History of the Book Approach. Journal of Qur’anic Studies 12:6–​40. ——​. 2011. Marginalia and Peripheries:  A  Tunisian Historian and the History of Qur’anic Exegesis. Numen 58:284–​313. ——​. 2012. Review of Hussein Abdul-​Raof ’s Schools of Qurʾānic Exegesis: Genesis and Development. Journal of Islamic Studies 23:85–​87. Schacht, J. 1967. The Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Schoeler, G. 2009. The Genesis of Literature in Islam:  From the Aural to the Read. Toorawa, S.M.  trans. New York: Columbia University Press. Shoemaker, S.J. 2003. Christmas in the Qurʾān: The Qurʾānic Account of Jesus’ Nativity and Palestinian Local Tradition. Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 28:11–​39. al-​Suyūṭī, J.D. 2011. The Perfect Guide to the Sciences of the Qurʾān:  Al-​Itqān fī ʿulūm al-​Qurʾān. Algar, H., Schub, M., and Abdel Ḥaleem, A. trans. Reading: Muḥammad bin Hamad Al-​Thani Center for Muslim Contribution to Civilization in association with Garnet Publishing. Tottoli, R. 1999. Origin and Use of the Term Isrāʾīliyyāt in Muslim Literature. Arabica 46:193–​210. Versteegh, C.H.M. 1993. Arabic Grammar and Qurʾānic Exegesis in Early Islam. Leiden: E.J. Brill. Wansbrough, J. 2004 [1977]. Quranic Studies: Sources and Methods of Scriptural Interpretation. Rippin, A. ed. and trans. New ed. Amherst, MA: Prometheus Books. Wheeler, B.M. 2002. Moses in the Quran and Islamic Exegesis. London: RoutledgeCurzon. Wild, S. ed. 2006. Self-​Referentiality in the Qurʾān. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz Verlag. Zadeh,T. 2012. The Vernacular Qur’an: Translation and the Rise of Persian Exegesis. Oxford: Oxford University Press in association with the Institute of Ismaili Studies.

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PART II

Identities and communities in early Islam

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8 IDENTITY AND SOCIAL FORMATION IN THE EARLY CALIPHATE Peter Webb

The study of communal identities in the early Muslim-​era Middle East is perhaps the most direct pathway into the heart of pressing questions about the rise of Islam. Identity and community reflect the fundamental ways in which people express who they think they are, and in times of seismic political, doctrinal, and cultural changes, such as the shaping of the Caliphate following the Muslim Conquests, the ways in which groups organised themselves and articulated their characteristics are key barometers by which historians can track the practical everyday significance and effects of the wars and statecraft detailed in chronicles. Identity speaks to the culture and personal impact of Islam’s development, the soft factors of people’s quotidian lives underlying the economy and power politics of more traditional historiography. The purported march of Islam from the mid-​seventh century onwards can be substantiated once we understand how and the extent to which it changed Middle Eastern society, but the analysis needs to proceed cautiously, as there are substantial challenges to navigate. The first challenge is identifying the actual groups whom we seek to study. Traditional historiography presents early Islam as a world filled with Arabs, Persians, Copts, Berbers, Muslims, Jews, Christians, and a host of other emotive and potent labels for different kinds of communities. These labels are still used to define groups today, and most of these current peoples marshal memories of early Islam in order to explain their identities and their interrelations. As a practical matter, therefore, identities and their respective views on early Islamic history are politicised, sensitive and contested, and studies and opinions are laden with agendas, both patent and latent. Readers can review past scholarship and discern how colonialism, Orientalism, Arab nationalism, other nationalisms, political Islam, and apprehensions about Islam each exerted different pressures on the ways in which the histories of Middle Eastern populations have been written and their identities imagined.When seeking to understand how social groups operated in early Islam, our first port of call is thus to question ourselves to see if we are exporting present concerns to the past, if we are reconstructing historical groups as a reflection of today’s populations, and if we are accordingly misconstruing early Islamic identity and social formation. In the search for a better perspective, modern theoretical work in anthropology and memory studies offers some relief by proposing new ways of thinking about identity with the potential

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to change the field by recalibrating what we mean by “social groups.” The familiar names of “Arabs,” “Persians,” “Copts,” “Jews,” etc. were long marshalled in exclusive terms to create taxonomies demarcating races and nations, but anthropologists have undermined the fixedness of race as a matter of theory and demonstrated that identities are, at least to a substantial extent, intellectual constructs, and that much invention of tradition leads to their creation.1 An ethnicity is not defined by DNA particular to one set of inter​related peoples; rather it is the common set of ideas shared between a group of individuals from time to time that enables them to perceive unity, and, consequently, the boundaries between “Arabs,” “Persians,” and others were not necessarily so rigid as formerly imagined. Pushing further, memory studies theorists are now stressing that memory is pluriform and “transcultural” too, and so they also doubt that there can be any purely “national memory” as the exclusive property of one group.2 Memories seem to be freely shared, collective memory is mutable and mobile, and hence multiple groups can borrow from the same array of memories to articulate their identities. Groups are more interrelated than hitherto imagined, and cannot be conceptualised as occupying unique “containers” (Welsch 1999). Accordingly, it is facile to assume that a given group can be studied in isolation, or to imagine that any one group possesses perfect internal cohesion axiomatically distinguishing it from its neighbours. People always organise themselves into collectives, but that is perhaps the only constant: the lines between groups are fuzzy and the practical ramifications of social divisions are not fixed. As a consequence, it is unhelpful to think of the Middle East in early Islam as a world divided between readily distinguishable communities separated by impermeable battle-​ lines: instead it seems more reasoned to interpret the process of Conquest and Caliphal development as inaugurating a fertile period when everyone had opportunities to rethink who they thought they were, and in so doing, created powerful ideas and ethnic categories that remain vibrant and important to the present day. This chapter examines identity in the early Caliphate by first exploring theory in a little more detail to articulate what we mean by “social group,” “ethnicity,” and “ethnogenesis.” Second, we investigate early Arabic literature’s own terminology for describing social groups. The terminology reveals the conceptual categories early Muslims themselves used to imagine identities, and helps us interpret the contemporary sources about the Caliphate’s social composition. In our final two sections we undertake the historical survey of social formation, employing a long view of Middle Eastern societal development from the century before the Conquests and across the Caliphate’s first 150 years.

Social groups and ethnogenesis “Social group” can refer to a veritable myriad array of categories into which a population can be subdivided. People may be classified by religion, place of origin, place of domicile, language, class, profession, among other factors, and there is often substantial overlap of the traits marshalled to define who someone “is” and how he relates to others. The importance of social groups lies in the enduring value people attach to the binary relationship of “self ” and “other”: we constantly interact with people and want to know who is “like us,” and who is “outside,” and the boundaries drawn between groups who recognise mutual differences constitute the divisions between people and regulate the social relationships which essentially make life work and history happen. From the perspective of historical anthropology, ethnicity (sometimes called ethnos) is a key form of identity that connotes the very broad senses of shared community between individuals who consider themselves to be one “people.”3 The theoretical basis of ethnic theory springs 130

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from Max Weber’s celebrated 1922 essay, published posthumously, which rejected the paradigm of “race” and its implied objective fixedness of communal identity via bloodlines (1996).4 Weber proposed instead that an “ethnicity” is subjective because the passage of time and experience of events change people’s impressions of who they think they are, prompting them into new groupings (1996: 35).5 Kinship is accordingly symbolic, not biological: belief in shared ancestry between members of a group is imagined as a result of history’s vicissitudes, a consequence of collective action, not its cause. History’s vicissitudes are, of course, diverse: ethnic groups develop along sundry trajectories, and so there is no uniform touchstone defining an ethnos. Scholarship instead classifies a group as an ethnos where it exhibits at least several of an array of basic “ethnic” traits that include (1) a proper name expressing its identity, (2) a myth of common ancestry, (3) shared historical memories, (4) a link with territory, (5) elements of common culture, and (6) a sense of solidarity (Hutchinson and Smith 1996: 6–​7). Historians also note that the criteria are not fixed: the matrix of ideas that constitute an ethnic identity change as the group’s circumstances change, and novel circumstances can nurture brand new communities. Scholars thus speak of “ethnogenesis,” the process by which ethnic identities form and evolve over time, and many theories treat the history of a social group as the tale of a tradition and its evolving significations, thus making the historian’s task one of unpicking the traditions’ layers to show the dynamics of how historical events prompted groups to manipulate their identities.6 Models of ethnogenesis prompt students of the early Caliphate’s social history to scour the sources, listening to how individuals identified themselves, articulated their senses of community and changed the region’s social map over time. Theories of constructivism and instrumentalism, following Weber, offer several explanations as to how historical events prompt groups to redefine their senses of community,7 and the now large body of theory can be epitomised via the dual phenomena of consciousness and interaction. Ethnicities must be believed to become real, and “it takes two, ethnicity can only happen at the boundary of us” (Wallman 1979: 3). Consciousness of collective unity needs an outsider “other” whose alterity drives “us” to construct our own perceptions of unity, and people become aware of such “others” when undertaking transactions with neighbouring groups. Transactions assign particular roles to different parties (buyers vs. sellers, tax collectors vs. farmers, for example), and if such transactions persist, a stable “boundary” delineated by the different transactional roles can arise between groups (Barth 1969: 15). People perceive the boundaries and thence develop consciousness of “inside” and “outside” –​“us” and “them.” A functioning sense of ethnic unity could then coalesce on the “inside” if its members share common “cultural stuff ” (Barth 1969: 15; Barth 1994: 17–​18; Jenkins 2008: 25–​27): visible traits and physically performed actions such as language,8 religion,9 mythology, symbols, dress, and cuisine which distinguish them from those on the “outside” and which enable people to tangibly experience shared identity (Anderson 1991: 15; Hutchinson and Smith 1996: 6–​7; Jenkins 2008: 25–​27). Once aware of their commonality of interests and culture, people begin articulating the hallmarks of ethnic consciousness, adopting an exclusive name for themselves and generating a unifying set of genealogies and myths of origin to “feel ethnic” and maintain their communal cohesion and socio-​political status. As noted, the ethnic community is somewhat open-​ended: once an ethnicity forms, its subsequent history becomes a period of “maintenance and renewal”10 whereby both continuity and change exert pressures on the shape and meaning of the community. Changing boundaries and new transactional partners alter how a group articulates its identity, and as lifestyles and power relationships change, people will join the community if it is advantageous to do so, and people will cease expressing the identity if it loses its value as an asset in the wider social context. Groups are also subject to assimilation, since a stable and flourishing matrix of transactions 131

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breeds a common social context that can dissolve old consciousness of difference in the interests of mutual cooperation (Epstein 1978: xii; see also Vayda 1994). Ethnic groups thereby acquire new members (who will need to somehow fit themselves into communal genealogies and histories in order to integrate into the “family”), or groups can merge, becoming less dogmatic about old divisions (and new forms of communal history are created in turn). Whilst circumstances and the whims of human fancy exert significant influence on ethnogenesis, it is material to note that ethnicity has rigidities too. Individuals lack complete freedom to construct identities because ethnicity is “real,” it exists in real social/​historical contexts and it acquires a tradition constricting the ways it can be re-​imagined.11 Groups do not suddenly appear and disappear, but rather evolve slowly in reaction to changing circumstances. Caliphal decree cannot therefore be expected to “invent” identities, but power can bestow advantages to joining a community.12 This is significant, since people often shop around: an individual usually operates in society with multiple identities, and will articulate or try to assimilate into the most advantageous depending on context. Communities therefore are driven partly by institutions and/​or economic forces,13 but they are also “crowd-​sourced,” as they are populated by myriad individuals who bring individualised conceptions of self to the party. Group identity, especially before the advent of bureaucratic nation states and their potent capacities to drive homogeneous senses of national identity, is thus a most bifurcated idea, powerful and useful, but contested and mutable. It is aligned with political and socio-​economic forces, but it has no one controller and so evolves unevenly. A rich reconstruction of social history that grasps the meanings of “Arab,” “Persian,” and other identities as they were buffered through the varied circumstances and geographies of the early Caliphate thus needs both a long and panoramic view that spans the rise of Islam across the Middle East, and a microscope that peers into particular locales to see how traditions and identities were negotiated by groups and individuals across time and across towns. Students may apprehend that tracing ethnogenesis is a little akin to writing the biography of Tristram Shandy: we must begin long before the beginning, and the many details and relevant considerations long divert us from reaching the end. This is particularly the case for early Islam since discourses of ethnogenesis have only recently been introduced, and the field is in a nascent form. For our survey, we now switch to a second array of key foundational considerations: the conceptual categories which Arabic writers used when writing about social groups. Terminology shapes the way we conceptualise groups (witness, for example, the differing connotations of “race” and “ethnicity”), and thus we ought not take the Arabic terms for granted. Philological enquiry enables us to disengage from our present preconceptions about social groups and perceive what early Muslim-​era writers themselves thought the idea of “community” could mean, and how they imagined communal boundaries could be delineated.

Concepts of social organisation in early Islam Early Arabic literature possessed a rich vocabulary to describe social groups. Although theories of ethnogenesis and today’s Arabic idiom for “identity” (huwiyya) are modern, there were many words synonymous with “community,” and the involved commentaries on their meanings in early dictionaries indicate that notions of social identity were important, and much like the open-​ended ideas of identity held by theorists today, the variegated Arabic lexicon reveals an intriguing awareness in the early Caliphate of uncertainties involved in defining communal boundaries –​or at least the multiplicity of ways communities could be constructed. Here we examine the connotations of fifteen terms commonly encountered in texts describing social groups as defined in the earliest multi-​volume Arabic dictionaries: al-​Khalīl b. Aḥmad’s (d. 175/​ 132

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791) al-​ʿAyn,14 Ibn Durayd’s (d. 321/​933) Jamharat al-​lugha, al-​Azharī’s (d. 370/​980) Tahdhīb al-​ lugha, and Ibn Fāris’ (d. 395/​1004) Maqāyīs al-​lugha. As the early Caliphate inherited the intellectual traditions of Late Antiquity where concepts of identity were already well developed, a brief note on pre-​Islamic terminologies provides an advantageous backwards look into the legacies which Arabic writers negotiated. Latin described groups as gens or natio, words connoting “people sharing a single origin” distinguished from other such groups around them.15 The Latin terms conjure semantic affinity with “begetting” and “birth,” bestowing a distinct bloodline/​“racial” approach to identity –​the early seventh-​ century CE Iberian commentator Isidore of Seville reflects the typical methodology of dividing the world into kin-​groups (2006: 192), each of which had a proprietary language and one progenitor identified from the Bible (Genesis 10 offered the most popular ancestor list).16 Middle Persian also seems to have embraced a similar notion of kin/​race to divide world populations: the word tōhm (also attested as tom) derived from the meaning of “seed” (Dehkohdā 1998: 6530), and it passed into Near Eastern usage in the Syriac tūḥmā, used to connote “race, stock, family, lineage, origin” (Payne Smith 1903: 168). To an extent, such terminology suggests that Late Antique communities operated under the racialist belief that groups were distinguished by kinship, and that separate lineages gave rise to distinct “nations.” Other words in Late Antique usage, however, suggest alternative paradigms also operated. Greek has éthnos: originally a word connoting any “multitude, human, or animal,” it developed into the primary term to categorise peoples who were imagined to share a common nature, if not necessarily kinship (see Xenophon 2013: Oeconomicus VII 7.27).17 Greek authors used éthnos to identify peoples by the places which they inhabited: each éthnos had its particular homeland and cultural stereotypes in Greek writing, particularly opposed to Greek “Hellenes” (Aeschylus 2009 Persians: 43, 56; Aristotle 1932: 1324).18 Perhaps its lack of explicit connotation of blood-​ties/​kinship enabled the idea of éthnos to enter an intriguing transformation in Late Antiquity whereby Greek translations of the Bible used the singular éthnos to mean the Jewish people, distinctive through their faith (Lk. 7:5, Jn 9:50–​53), and the plural éthni to connote unbelievers generally –​i.e., a “multitude of heathens” (e.g., Mt. 4:15; Acts 28:28).19 Éthni thus adopted notions of “other” in terms of “heathenness,” indicating a role for confessional boundaries to conceptualise populations, and likewise, Syriac writers used the word ḥanpiā as a marker of both heathenness and ethnicity (Payne Smith 1903: 149). Paul also summoned éthni to label Gentile Christians (Rom. 11:13, 15:27) and to distinguish them from Jewish Christians (Gal. 2:14). The advent of Christianity appears to have oriented the word formerly employed for “nations” distinguished geographically or culturally onto a potential confessional trajectory too.20 When Arabic writers began to record their thoughts on social groups and nations, they introduced a host of new words into the ring. As was the case for a number of technical terms of art, some Hellenistic vocabulary was Arabised –​the Arabic jins presumably derived from the Latin gens, but the ways in which jins was interpreted and the new words Arabic writers introduced are significant. For example, the Arabic interpretations of jins did not reflect the meanings of “birth” embedded in the Latin, but rather the much broader notion of “similar type” to represent “kinds of things or people” (al-​Khalīl b. Aḥmad 1980: VI 55). Arabic jins better approximated the original connotation of the Greek éthnos, and, according to my readings of pre-​modern Arabic, jins remained a technical term of categorisation, and not the most common way to refer to peoples of the world. Thus, whereas the nearly contemporary Isidore in Iberia used gens to discuss the division of the world into kin-​races, and while early Muslims borrowed the same word, they did not import its racial connotations wholesale, and they more often used their own terminology. 133

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Arabic literature has a host of words to connote “groups,” e.g., jamāʿa, rahṭ, shīʿa –​these connote personal or ad hoc connections to “factions,” “bands,” or “cliques,” and while some, especially shīʿa, were emotive and developed sectarian connotations, such semantic shifts occurred relatively late (see Hodgson 1955). The words were not the type of broad-​based terminology used to delineate and categorise “communities” or “peoples”:  for the more weighty social groups, Arabic writers used other terms which can be analysed in two sets –​words for “peoples” and words to demarcate tribal divisions.

Terminology for “people” Alongside jins, the Arabic words used to articulate the idea of “peoples” were maʿshar, ahl, milla, umma, jīl, shaʿb, and qawm. Analysis of the ways in which Arabic lexicographers interpreted the words uncovers two immediate points. First, the terms were all read as connoting large and distinct collectives of world populations. Second, the bases for determining who was “in” the collective were varied. Maʿshar, umma, milla, and qawm were described as reflecting people united via collective action or interests (which articulate intriguing foreshadows of Weber) (al-​Khalīl b. Aḥmad 1980: I 248,V 231,VIII 324, 427; Ibn Durayd 1987–​1988: I 60; al-​Azharī 2004: I 369, VII 320, 324, XI 504; Ibn Fāris 2002: IV 324–​327); jīl and jins were used mostly in the more clinical sense of connoting distinct types/​g roups like the classical Greek éthnos (al-​Khalīl b.  Aḥmad 1980:  VI 55, 179; Ibn Durayd 1987–​1988:  I  495; al-​Azharī 2004:  VIII 219, 441; Ibn Fāris 2002: I 476, 499); shaʿb was defined in terms redolent with genealogy and descent, invoking the notion of peoples “splitting” (tashaʿʿaba) from ancient progenitors (shaʿb is the closest semantic equivalent to Latin gens) (al-​Khalīl b. Aḥmad 1980: I 263; Ibn Durayd 1987–​1988: I 343; al-​Azharī 2004: I 394; Ibn Fāris 2002: III 190–​191);21 ahl was said to connote proximity, people “close” to each other, either physically or metaphorically (al-​Khalīl b. Aḥmad 1980: IV 89; al-​Azharī 2004: V 68; Ibn Fāris 2002: I 150). Considering the dictionary definitions in the round, the terms had the potential to enable Arabic writers to think about “peoples” in a number of ways. The traditional notion of categorising people in terms of “race” via common descent was facilitated by shaʿb (and, to a lesser extent, ahl), but the array of terms referring to collective action/​purpose intersected closely with overt religious tones too. Most of the terms appear in the Qurʾān, and their interpretation was guided by exegetical needs to understand what God intended,22 and moreover, five of the eight “ethnicity” words were marshalled when dividing populations according to faith. (1) Maʿshar, connoting the intertwined life that united its members, appears in the formulas maʿshar al-​muslimīn vs. maʿshar al-​mushrikīn (the “Muslim people”/​“Polytheist people”). (2) Ahl implied life, habitation and familiar living, ahl al-​Islām became another synonym for “Muslim” connoting those united in their proximity to the faith, alongside ahl al-​taqwā and ahl al-​maghfira (the “people of faith” or “the pardoned ones” –​in a Late Antique apocalyptic sense, “the elect”?23 (al-​Khalīl b. Aḥmad 1980: IV: 89)). (3) Milla was unambiguously religious, implying the path of commandment, and referenced in the phrase millat rasūl Allāh (the people of God’s Messenger) (al-​Khalīl b. Aḥmad 1980:VIII: 324; Ibn Durayd 1987–​1988: I 168; al-​Azharī 2004: XI 291). (4) Umma was defined primarily as “a people with one religion,” and also merged faith and lineage in one definition as “a people related to a prophet” (al-​Khalīl b. Aḥmad 1980: VIII 427). (5) Some definitions of the technical jīl also incorporated reference to faith by the backdoor, defining jīl as equivalent to umma (al-​Khalīl b. Aḥmad 1980:VI 179,VIII 427; Ibn Durayd 1987–​1988: I 495; Ibn Fāris 2002: I 499). As a matter of philology, the Arabic terms for “people” equipped writers to conceptualise the boundaries between communities in terms of race and/​or faith, and it is noteworthy that the 134

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express terminology for thinking of people in terms of common ancestry was not dominant. Words related to blood-​descent, nasab and nasl alongside terms derived from “mother,” “father,” or “children” were not employed to describe “races” in the ways gens and natio operated in Latin imaginations,24 and while some tenth-​century writers compiled lists of world peoples by race traced via biblical ancestry from Noah, such efforts were not standardised and there was wide debate even concerning the father of the Arabs.25 Umma ostensibly could have derived from Arabic “mother” (umm), but the dictionaries insist it relates to the verb “to head for a place” (amma –​i.e., in this case, people on a common path) or from the idea of leader (imām), and while there was debate as to whether or not its members all had to possess common faith, definitions stressed umma’s theoretical confessional unity (al-​Azharī 2004: XI 504–​506).26 Perhaps a borrowing from the confessional notions of the Late Antique éthni is operating here, and the extent to which the semantics of thinking about groups along religious lines reflected broader social processes is considered in the next sections. The dictionaries intriguingly provide no express role for language in defining a people –​ only the much later Ibn Manẓūr’s (d. 711/​1311) Lisān al-​ʿarab accords place for a proprietary language in defining the boundaries of a jīl (1990: XI 139). And another means of dividing people is evidenced from the terminology’s usage: ahl, alongside its faith-​infused definitions, was also employed in Arabic literature as the preferred means to group people by their place of origins (or domicile) –​i.e., interpreting ahl as shared physical proximity (without presumption of kin-​interrelation). In sum, and in part aligned with modern theories of ethnicity’s pluriform nature, early Arabic’s vocabulary enabled Muslims to imagine communal boundaries in varied terms, most particularly via common descent, confession, and/​or place.

Terminology for tribes The early dictionaries include seven words applicable to tribal organisation: qabīla, banū, ḥayy, ʿīmāra, ʿashīra, baṭn, and fakhdh. The dictionaries restrict these words to discussions about Arabs, implying that early Muslim philologists considered Arabs as a group exceptionally marked by tribal structure.27 The words also have manifest connotations of body and birth: ḥayy relates to “life,” banū means “sons,” and baṭn and fakhdh refer to “belly” and “loins,” respectively, demonstrating the corporeal conception of descent and blood-​kinship conjured by tribalist terms. In tandem with the proliferation of tribal terminology, early Arabic literature contemporary with the dictionaries produced prodigious tribal genealogical compendiums, such as Ibn al-​Kalbī’s (d. 204/​819 or 206/​821) Jamharat al-​Nasab and Nasab Maʿadd wa-​l-​Yaman and al-​Balādhurī’s (d. c. 279/​892) Ansāb al-​ashrāf. Given such apparent attention to tribalism, modern scholars often suggest that Arab community is bounded by a “genealogical imagination,”28 under the proposal that genealogy was the central organising aspect of original Arab identity and communal consciousness in pre-​Islamic Arabia (see Khalidi 1994: 5; Rosenthal 1968: 21–​22, 99; al-​Duri 1987; al-​Azmeh 2014: 100, 128). Closer scrutiny of the material, however, reveals complexities that impact the traditional associations of Arab community with tribalism. In terms of the terminology, it is noteworthy that words’ precise meanings seemed to have been unclear to the early lexicographers. Qabīla was universally acknowledged as the main word connoting the boundaries of one kin-​group from others, but banū and ḥayy were equally applied to groups that could have been called qabīla (al-​Khalīl b. Aḥmad 1980: III 318, V 167; Ibn Durayd 1987–​1988: I 103, 372; al-​Azharī 2004: IV 148, VII 168; Ibn Fāris 2002: II 122, V 51). The dictionaries report that Arabs were composed of aḥyāʾ (the plural of ḥayy), but the difference between qabīla and ḥayy is not addressed; al-​Marzūqī’s philological discussion of Arabic poetry suggested that ḥayy was a synonym for qabīla, but Ibn Manẓūr’s later dictionary’s 135

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more detailed discussion suggests that ḥayy could be both larger and smaller than a qabīla, which corresponds to earlier attested usage (al-​Marzūqī 1968: II 914; Ibn Manẓūr 1990: XIV 315). Likewise a banū could take many forms, from connoting a small clan composed of two or three generations of descendants from one grandfather to massive confederations. To resolve the evident terminological flux, the genealogist Ibn al-​Kalbī again features on the scene: he is quoted as sorting the tribal words into a hierarchy of subdivisions from tribe down to immediate clan/​ family: qabīla –​ ʿimāra –​ baṭn –​ fakhdh (cited in al-​Azharī 2004: V 457), but the evidence is not as elegant as his linear model. The dictionaries disagree as to whether baṭn indeed connoted a larger group than fakhdh, some believe the latter conversely represented major groupings.29 The term ʿimāra is also unusual –​it appears in a pre-​Islamic poem to mean a grouping of tribes, but the poet is obscure as to its technical ambit, and the lexicographers never solved it either.30 Analysis of the genealogical literature and its lists of inter-​clan kinship interrelations adds further complication, as it seems probable (or perhaps almost certain) that ʿAbbāsid-​era writers between the late eighth and early tenth centuries invented the genealogical system which organised all major pre-​Islamic Arabian groups into one Arab family tree.31 The array of kinship terminology implies that many pre-​Islamic Arabian groups did conceptualise their communities as tribal kinship groups, but individual groups likely did not believe that they were related to other Arabians, and it is perhaps most accurate to conclude that a plurality of kinship systems with varied terminologies existed in pre-​Islamic times,32 and they were then synthesised into one “Arab system” several centuries afterwards by urban ʿAbbāsid-​era writers. More research into tribalism is needed, but we apprehend a fine balance. Traditional Orientalist impressions that Arabs are fundamentally a “tribal” people are exaggerated, but equally, ʿAbbāsid-​era Muslims did believe that Arabs were a people (shaʿb) whose organisation into interrelated tribes set them apart from others,33 so the notion of ‘Arab tribes’ is not purely European construct.34 Pre-​Islamic Arabian communities accorded an important role to lineage, but the terminological flux and the strikingly bold simplicity of the family trees offered to us in the later Muslim-​era texts suggests much construction, if not outright forcing of varied pre-​ Islamic and Umayyad traditions into one pan-​Arabian Arab mould.

Identity and social formation in Late Antiquity Heeding the advice of historical anthropology, we need a long view of Middle Eastern social history that starts in Late Antiquity to grasp how the rise of Islam affected communities and identity. Amongst the many debates surrounding Late Antique social formation, we focus here on two major questions: (1) the role of faith in establishing communal boundaries; and (2) the theories of Arab origins.

Faith and community Morony’s history of Late Antique and early Islamic-​era Iraq observed that the rise of Islam accompanied the transformation to a “society composed of religious communities,” which he identified as “the single most important distinction between Muslim and Hellenistic society” (Morony 1984: 277; see also Morony 2012). Morony’s sentiment accords with many reconstructions of the Late Antique Middle East whereby social groups are conceptualised as confessional communities –​i.e., where religious conviction constitutes the primary marker for group identity, instead of language, occupation, or geographical location. Herein, Middle Eastern history is distinctly contrasted with European, since Late Antique Europe is conceptualised as the period when Europe’s modern “nations” were born as Germanic groups occupied parcels of 136

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the former Roman Empire and developed distinct ethnic, not confessional identities (since they all eventually embraced Roman Christianity) as Anglo-​Saxons, Franks, Lombards,Visigoths, and others.35 The faith-​ first approach to appraise Late Antique Middle Eastern society has logic. Christianity emerged in the Middle East with a novel egalitarian message of global salvation, but Christianity’s signature openness had the ironic result of fragmenting populations along confessional grounds. If people believed there was only one path to salvation, then humanity can be conceptualised in a simple binary division of saved vs. damned, but when multiple notions of how to embrace Christianity arose across the early churches of Egypt and Syria, each different group developed different notions of who could be saved (or what one needed to believe in order to be saved), and sects emerged. Unlike the case of the Hellenistic pantheon where gods were shared and reinterpreted, an early Christian was theologically predisposed to consider his particular sect the correct path, which naturally could harden boundaries dividing members of one sect from the rest of the world. Ecclesiastical writers bolster our impressions that a proliferation of sects following the Council of Chalcedon in 451 CE created distinct communal identities, each convinced of their exclusive future salvation. The Council of Chalcedon debated the nature of Christ’s divinity, and in its wake, the Byzantine state emerged with its Diaphysite Christology (also called Chalcedonian), whereas many Middle Eastern groups disagreed, forming Miaphysite churches. In the fifth and sixth centuries these were divided into Egyptian (later called Coptic), West Syrian, East Syrian (later called Nestorian), and Armenian churches along with other Monophysite believers across what is now southern Syria and Jordan. Ostensibly, the churches divide Middle Eastern society, implying that domicile and faith merged to create separate regional confessional identities across the post-​Roman East, a sectarian fragmentation, contrasting the post-​Roman West’s dissolution into separate ethnicities.Violence between different sects is reported, suggesting that the churches were able to mobilise communities and harden senses of communal identity and solidarity.The semantic development of the word éthnos to connote confessional identity (discussed in the previous section) accords with such heightened awareness that communal boundaries were forming to ring-​fence religious sects. Ecclesiastical writers, however, may have overstated the rigidity of boundaries between churches. The writers of our sources were students of theology and understood the ramifications of their rarefied Christological debates, enabling them to articulate enmities against “heretics” and “unbelievers” (i.e., members of churches with different theologies). But to what extent did local populations or less-​educated clergy removed from major cities or monastic centres of learning interpret the varying Christological options available in the aftermath of Chalcedon? Recent appraisals of the actual strength of confessional boundaries divulge interesting results. First, the Byzantines do not appear to have embraced a specifically Chalcedonian identity. Constantinople had political power as the imperial centre, and its populations likely identified with Byzantine rule and the Christian emperor before delving into the details of Chalcedonian difference from others.Whilst Byzantine emperors occasionally expended efforts to promote the Chalcedonian Christological creed across the empire,36 peoples associated with the Byzantine state apparatus conceptualised their residence in the imperial homeland and/​or their connection to the state’s power as a primary source of personal identity and they did not usually express their identity in confessional terms as “Chalcedonians” or “Diaphysites” (Price 2010). Second, the divisions between different Eastern churches may not have been wholly operative before the Islamic period. Notwithstanding outbreaks of inter-​sect violence in some locales, Tannous, when tracing the spread of theological manuscripts, reveals much sharing between different sects, and anecdotal evidence also suggests that different sects sometimes (perhaps often) 137

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coexisted within towns and villages (2013: 85–​90; 2010). Evidence of syncretism at religious sites further supports the notion that different faith groups were able to cooperate, reducing the presence of boundaries would make different congregations feel independent.37 Third, the ingredients we deem characteristic of an ethnos are difficult to discern amongst fifth-​and sixth-​century sects.The proprietary names that now give them an ethnic feel, Egyptian “Coptic,” East Syriac “Nestorian,” and West Syrian “Syriac,” appear to be later developments. For example, the Nestorians take their name from a church father Nestorius (c. 386–​450), but Brock argues convincingly that it is anachronistic to label East Syriac Christians as “Nestorians” before the seventh century (1996). The specific doctrines of Nestorius do not appear to have established the identity of the church’s leaders in the fifth and early sixth centuries, and moreover the East Syrians shared a similar language and beliefs with the West Syrians, and hence the supposed division between the two Syrian churches may have more to do with geopolitics inasmuch as most East Syrians resided in the Sasanian Empire, whereas most West Syrians resided in Byzantium. And as for the West Syrians, the sorts of “national” genealogies, histories and attachment to land common to an ethnos became clearly articulated relatively late, i.e., after the rise of Islam (Romeny, Atto, van Ginkel, Immerzeel, and Snelders 2010). It is accordingly facile to generalise that Middle Eastern populations were simply one community of “Christians,” but equally it is premature to assume, prima facie, that the different churches were able to exert overwhelming pressure to determine individual identities and divide the Late Antique Middle East’s communal map. Churches were not society’s only powerful institutions, either. The Sasanian Empire controlled the Tigris and lands to the east, whereas the Byzantine Empire occupied the Euphrates westwards. As pre-​modern states, neither empire possessed the bureaucratic apparatuses to actively drive identity articulation like today’s nation state, but the Romans (especially after the edict of Caracella in 212 CE) made substantial progress in forging attenuated “Roman” identity across their empire. Whether the Byzantines were as successful in the Late Antique Middle East is debated. Fergus Millar argues strongly for the uptake of Greek amongst Levantine populations, which indicates substantial acculturation of the region’s Aramaic speakers towards a melded Hellenistic/​Byzantine identity, though a plethora of local languages survived and thrived (2013: 19–​62; see also Hoyland 2010). The Levant had sizeable communities of Palestinian Aramaic speakers alongside possible proto-​Arabic-​speaking communities,38 populations in the northern Fertile Crescent spoke interrelated Syriac Aramaics –​many spoke or understood Greek too, and the multi-​lingual environment makes it difficult to discern boundaries of clear-​cut ethnic groups. Fifth-​and sixth-​century Syriac speakers, for example, left scant evidence that they believed their language demarcated their éthnos (Romeny et al. 2010; Tannous 2010: 213–​368), and it is also difficult to extrapolate that Byzantine imperium constructed one enduring and deep-​rooted imperial identity. Senses of Byzantine identity likely did interact with questions of faith given the Byzantine emperor’s claims of sovereignty over all world Christians, and Byzantine emperors enacted some measures aimed at encouraging all Christians to think of themselves as Byzantine subjects within a “Christian commonwealth.”39 Hence Christians in the Sasanian Empire could have sensed potential Byzantine/​Christian identity, separating themselves from the Sasanian state, but it remains unclear how the attractiveness of Byzantium’s Christianity influenced actual populations. History records some relevant details evidencing dynamics of confessional politics, for example, when Byzantine emperors made overtures to Christians east of the Tigris, the Sasanian emperor seems to have realised the value in advertising his own pseudo-​Christian identity by making offerings to Christian shrines in his territory (Fowden 1999: 128–​141). Byzantine and Sasanian political-​economic competition in South Arabia 138

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during the mid-​sixth century also acquired confessional attributes when shaping alliances. The (Chalcedonian) Byzantines allied with the (Miaphysite) Ethiopic Aksumite kingdom against the Sasanians and pseudo-​Jewish monotheists of the South Arabian Ḥimyar kingdom. Though alliances navigated different sects, contemporary sources stress the Byzantine-​ Aksumite shared Christian-​ness, and while political and economic factors played a role in the following decades of South Arabian wars, the confessional difference was an emotive and effective layer in the conflict which is remembered for considerable violence, and even a mass martyrdom in al-​Najrān.40 Amongst the various interpretations of this fighting, one senses that “Christian commonwealth” was not sufficient to dictate feelings of solidarity amongst co-​confessionalists, but it was a form of identity around which social boundaries and battle lines could certainly form. Within the Sasanian Empire, there seems to have been less confessional identity manipulation. Elites constituted a mixture of landowning aristocrats and Zoroastrian priests, and while Zoroastrianism certainly had value in defining elite identity,41 expressions of civic and aristocratic identities were negotiated around Sasanian ethnic exclusivity as ērīh,42 and the Sasanian elite groups also divided regionally between dynastic families from Fars (southwest Iran) and Khurasan (northeast Iran).43 Whether or not these combined Sasanian elites, dynasts, and the wider population even felt one ethnic bond as “Persians” has recently been questioned,44 and hence the contours of community in pre-​Islamic Iran are debated. Subjects of the state may have spoken similar languages and shared the political alignment as being “not Byzantine,” but were populations living far from the Byzantine-​Sasanian frontier aware of the political significance of their domicile? The empire’s subjects also comprised of a wide array of religious groups of Zoroastrians, Christians, Mandeans, Buddhists, and Hindus leading to a further “pluralistic” aspect of Sasanian society (Daryaee 2010: 97). It may be that the most operative senses of communal belonging were tied to localised landowning aristocratic families who divided the Sasanian realm into discrete estates.45 Late Antiquity witnessed the emergence of a similar localised elite-​based identity in North Africa via the process of Berber ethnogenesis. Roman decline in the fourth century CE facilitated greater autonomy for local land​holding elites in the pre-​Sahara, who offered themselves as client-​overlords to the Roman administration and competed with each other, creating new alliances with groups in the interior. Vandal conquest of the coast in the fifth century little affected these North African populations: at this time the local groups began to call themselves “Berbers” and recognised a degree of similarity between an array of “Berber” elites across the region, and vigorous and sometimes quite stable Berber kingdoms emerged (Rushworth 2004; Brett and Fentress 1997: 50–​80). Berber ethnogenesis may have been more pronounced than pre-​Islamic Iranian cohesion: the relatively strongly felt “Berber” ethnicity that is visible in the early Islamic period is strongly rooted in a sense of place, language, and tradition of independence.46 In sum, Late Antique Middle Eastern communities negotiated an array of factors related to power, regional interests, and sectarian feeling which could influence their choices for conceptualising social groups. Labelling populations as “Byzantine” and “Sasanian,” or “Nestorian,” and “Coptic” is too one-​dimensional and imposes broader communal consciousness than many local populations could have felt. When Muslim armies spread across the Middle East they found multi-​linguistic, multi-​faith cities and quasi-​autonomous parcels of land managed by localised elites. Clergymen had been keen to construct rigid boundaries and make distinct social groups out of their flocks, and imperial administrators had hoped to engrain imperial ideologies and identities, but neither perfected their designs, and the advent of Islam inaugurated new opportunities. 139

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Arabia and “Arabs” What was the identity of those Muslim armies who entered the ethnically variegated population centres of the Middle East in the seventh century? The Muslim Conquests are often labelled “Arab Conquests,” and the Conquerors’ cohesive Arab identity is stressed in most medieval Arabic chronicles and modern reconstructions, fuelling conclusions that the Conquests were an ethnic migration.47 But the sources’ insinuation of the Conquerors’ unified Arab identity may be an anachronistic back-​projection by later Muslim writers.48 The traditional notions of Arab communal identity may thus be yet another misleading oversimplification of ethnicity, and a brief note on the Arabs is in order. In the light of anthropological theory and ethnogenesis, the history of Arab origins is more properly studied as the history of “Arabness” –​i.e., when and where did the idea of “Arab” become a marker for a sense of communal consciousness, and what did it mean? Assumptions that “Arab” is synonymous with the race of Arabian nomads whose genealogy/​history originates with the domestication of the camel circa the second millennium BCE are now outdated (ʿĀqil 1969: 52–​60; Carmichael 1967: 6–​7);49 likewise theories that postulate that Arabs were originally all Bedouin are critiqued (Macdonald 2009a: V 2, 20; Macdonald 2009b:VI 312–​313; Retsö 2003: 1–​8; Lecker 2010: 153–​154), as well as theories that “Arab” is identical to “Arabian” (Macdonald 2009a: 2; Potts 1990: 227; Hoyland 2001: 5, 8, 48; Robin 1991), since this fuses space and race in a rigid construct that ill fits the more fluid essence of ethnic identity. With early Arab identity now released from timeworn stereotypes, the new challenge is to determine which actual groups of Arabians can legitimately be called “Arabs,” and scholars adduce manifold proposals (see Webb 2016: 23–​24). Scholars have particularly debated two competing theories: did “Arabs” emerge as (1) a patchwork of Bedouin communities in the relatively remote northwest Arabian region of al-​Ḥijāz during the fifth and sixth centuries CE,50 or (2) was it the employment of Arabian groups as frontier guards that nurtured Arab ethnogenesis on the Syrian-​Arabian frontier in the sixth century CE?51 We lack conclusive answers, largely because there is an absence of any reference to “Arab community” in Arabian epigraphy or Late Antique literature. Thousands of pre-​Islamic inscriptions have been uncovered from the Syrian Desert, central Arabia, and Yemen, but only about a dozen are in a language resembling Arabic,52 and there are effectively no texts in which an individual identifies himself as an “Arab.”53 The accounts of Arabian society recorded in Late Antique Latin, Greek, and Syriac literature likewise make no indication that Arabian people constituted a gens or éthnos of “Arabs,” as they invariably refer to populations south of the Fertile Crescent as Saracens (Saraceni, Sarakenoi) in Latin and Greek, or as Ṭayyāyē (Syriac and Middle Persian). Ṭayyāyē refers to the tribal group of Ṭayyiʾ which bordered the Sasanian Empire; the origin of “Saracen” is less clear,54 but a study of references in writings from Byzantine Palestine indicates that “Saracen” was a generic label for outsider Bedouin, and did not constitute a communal consciousness linking populations across Arabia in one cohesive social group.55 To further evaluate questions of Saracen/​Arab communal identity, we can turn to ethnogenesis and considerations of Late Antique Arabian social boundaries. It has been proposed that Arabness flourished as the identity of a people stuck in the middle ground between the Byzantine and Sasanian Empires, an area Greek and Syriac writing labels the “Barbarian Plain.” Fowden suggests that wider geopolitics was abetted by the sectarian factor of common veneration of St. Sergius (whose martyrion was located in the desert outpost of Sergiopolis/​al-​ Ruṣāfa near the Euphrates) which helped a community of Arabs coalesce in the frontier region (1999: 139). St. Sergius veneration is a key aspect of Late Antique Middle Eastern society, but 140

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militating against the theory of its role in a specific Arab ethnogenesis is the rather stark absence of memory of St. Sergius in Arabic lore and literature. Some Greek writers seemed to think the “Saracens” in the “Barbarian Plain” were flocking to their saint, but those Saracens left scant record of such feelings. Instead, the “Barbarian Plain” was perhaps not so cohesive as the outsider observers imagined it to be: certainly at the northern edge of the Syrian Desert a frontier was strongly felt, but Arabia extended far to the south where different spheres of influence were at play. The evidence permits an alternative view of pre-​Islamic Arabian society as a divided patchwork of many independent communities. In the south, the mountainous and agrarian region was controlled by local elites (aqyāl) nominally (and sometimes effectively) controlled by the kingdom of Ḥimyar until the mid-​sixth century when it collapsed under the pressures of Ethiopian and then Sasanian invasion, leaving Ṣanaʿāʾ in Sasanian hands at the dawn of Islam, while the countryside devolved into local landholdings and tribal clusters (Robin 2015: 98; Korotayev 1995). In the northern Syrian Desert, two confederacies of Christian Ghassān and polytheistic Lakhm acted as frontier guards for the Byzantine and Sasanian empires, respectively, wielding coercive force against each other and undertaking campaigns to spread influence and control into central Arabia.56 Transactionist theory of ethnogenesis indicates that such political boundaries fragment senses of community, and explain why we do not find one sense of pan-​ Arabian “Arab” or “Saracen” communal identity, since Arabian groups were often in mutual conflict and scattered by divergent interests and allegiances. While Arabians were all generalised as Saracens by the Byzantines, it seems illegitimate to presume on the flip-​side that Arabians thought of their own community as “Saracen.” Pre-​Islamic poetry, inscriptions, and contemporary literature suggest the identity of an important group of central Arabian communities was articulated as “Maʿadd.” 57 The communal cohesion which emerges with the seventh-​century conquests seems to have had its germ in this pre-​Islamic Maʿadd, whose central Arabian domicile and mostly nomadic and semi-​nomadic communities, threatened by pressures from both the north and south, created a transactional boundary in which groups recognised common interests and culture as Maʿadd, nurturing a sense of shared community (and eventually kinship too) between the fourth and seventh centuries CE. Maʿadd excluded the peoples of South Arabia and the more powerful groups to the north, but a considerable number of central Arabians who spoke closely related “Old Arabic” languages articulated a Maʿaddite identity and left such sense of community and shared genealogy in the historical record, particularly in their poetry. In sum, the radical theories that suggest there was no “Arab” community in pre-​Islamic times bear more consideration.58 Just as we cannot divide the Late Antique Middle East into definite groups of Persians, Byzantines, and Syriacs, neither can we generalise about pre-​Islamic Arabia’s Arabness. The rise of Islam again emerges as a central event that enabled Middle Eastern communities to re-​imagine identities.

Identity and social formation in the early Caliphate Reflecting the absence of reference to “Arab” as a community in pre-​Islamic Arabia, there is also scarce indication that Muḥammad referred to his community as “Arabs” or that he pitched the message of Islam to an already cohesive pan-​Arabian community.59 The Qurʾān makes no statement about the Arab people, and instead articulates an open-​ended address to humanity in confessional terms, summoning the words umma and milla to speak of a righteous community of believers. The Qurʾān engages with the notion of kin groups through the celebrated verse Q 49:13 on the “peoples and tribes of the world” (shuʿūb and qabāʾil), but the verse concludes 141

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by categorising people according to faith. The identities of Islam’s first adherents will benefit from more research, but the Arabian situation seems much akin to the wider Fertile Crescent, where religious communities were composed of a patchwork of different groups. Even during Muḥammad’s lifetime, subjects of his fledgling polity were not wholly cohesive:  by the evidence of the Qurʾān, Bedouin converts (aʿrāb) outside of Muḥammad’s town of Medina were not granted equal status to the “believers” (muʾminūn) resident with Muḥammad.60 Processes of confessional-​driven ethnogenesis that could amalgamate adherents and induce them to apprehend senses of kinship to cement more robust unity as an ethnos were yet underdeveloped in the early seventh century. The term “Arab Conquests” accordingly seems inaccurate, as its leaders were not managing one ethnic group, and the identities and social standings of its units were diverse. The emphasis on righteous community in the early Arabic dictionary definitions of ethnic terms such as milla, umma, and maʿshar al-​muslimīn follows from this postulated concept of early Islamic society. The first converts were not all members of one kin-​shaʿb, and hence new terms for communal organisation reflecting aspirations that the faith system could potentially forge a community offered a useful bridge for early converts to think about what their community meant or could become. But notwithstanding the potentials for confessional unity, the forces of circumstance and ethnogenesis would not lead the early Muslims and their world into one tidy cohesion as their religious system rolled out into the wider Middle East. The immediate impact of Islam in the Middle East was in fact rather limited.The Conquerors constituted a tiny demographic minority compared to the conquered populations, the notion of “Islam” and what it meant to be a “Muslim” took time to develop,61 and the conversion of Syrians, Iraqis and other conquered populations was negligible in the seventh century.62 But indirect effects of the Conquests had major socio-​political and economic ramifications. The Conquerors rapidly eliminated the Byzantine and Sasanian political hegemons, thereby deconstructing the long-​subsisting frontier across the Euphrates, and the Conquerors chose to settle in new towns (sing. miṣr, pl. amṣār) which they constructed for themselves, as opposed to moving into the established population centres, thus redrawing the urban map of the Middle East too.63 Many major cities we know today, Cairo, Baghdad, Mosul, Basra, and others, trace their origins to the settlement of Muslim Conquerors, whilst many Late Antique metropoles either disappeared or shrunk to secondary status.64 In terms of ethnogenesis, the settlement of amṣār was decisive. The Conquerors possessed great political power, the right to tax and administer, and by virtue of their residence in new towns, Conqueror populations were segregated from the conquered. Almost all the Conquerors hailed from Arabia, spoke similar languages and adhered to new senses of monotheism emanating from the Qurʾān and Muḥammad, and whilst such senses of homeland, languages, and forms of Islamic belief may have differed between Conqueror groups, they were, in the round, distinct from the communal identities of conquered populations. Hence the key ethnogenic factor of consciousness of difference was operative when people were reorganising themselves in the post-​conquest Middle East, and the conceptual boundaries of difference self-​evidently manifested at the physical boundaries of the amṣār. The divide between Conqueror and conquered was moreover amplified by the parallel power differential between amṣār and surrounding countryside, abetting the potential of transactional catalysts for ethnogenesis. Unlike groups in the socially fragmented pre-​Islamic Arabia, therefore, the militarised Conqueror elites had newfound reason to maintain unity, and newfound awareness of an “other” in political, economic, social, and cultural senses. In such conditions, we are to expect that Conquerors would be prompted to experiment with new notions of community, and this materialises in textual traditions from early Islam. 142

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Conqueror community formation When evaluating what the Conquerors called themselves, there is some continuity with pre-​ Islamic communal labels: seventh-​century Greek and Syriac records often call the Conquerors “Saracens” and Ṭayyāyē, and Arabic texts frequently use “Maʿadd,” implying the social cohesion of that central Arabian group after the Conquests.65 But texts also evidence the emergence of a new term: muhājirūn (Emigrants).66 Versions of it appear in Greek and Syriac descriptions of the Conquerors as Magaritai and Mhaggrāyē,67 and indicate an intriguing connection between the movement of peoples out of Arabia, their embracing of a new faith from which the term muhājirūn derives,68 their settlement into new towns, and the adoption of the new name to articulate their identity. The muhājirūn name’s emergence and its delineation of an exclusive social group domiciled in the amṣār correspond with typical building blocks of an ethnos, suggesting a process of ethnogenesis was underway. The term muhājirūn is also more evident in textual records than the name “Arab” to describe the early Conqueror community,69 suggesting genesis of a confessional group, and that the Conquests could better be labelled “Emigrant Conquests” (Hoyland 2015: 102; Webb 2016: 141–​145);70 at least they underline a marriage of confessional belief and political power to engender a novel community from formerly dispersed Arabian groups. By the late seventh century, however, the word muhājirūn begins to decline in descriptions of the Conquerors, along with a concomitant rise in novel citations of the name “Arab.”71 It is proposed that after the pace of conquest slowed, and eventually reached a standstill in the late Umayyad period, the Muslim elites were no longer on the move and instead became sedentary in their amṣār. As such, third-​generation amṣār dwellers could no longer sustain an “Emigrant” identity, and herein their attempts to maintain elite status and communal cohesion in the new demographic landscape of a settled Caliphate seem to have engendered a new form of identity to demarcate the scion of the Caliphate’s elite –​herein the process of Arab ethnogenesis took tangible form. If this is correct, then the rise of Islam and the sweep of the next three generations of social change constituted the catalyst for the eventual emergence of Arab communities as the identity of Islam’s elite (Webb 2016: 126–​156). What is clear, at least, is that the organisation of the Caliphate bestowed vitality to confessional factors in defining the boundaries of social groups. The early Muslims employed the label umma to describe their community, constructing the boundaries of “us” around co-​ confessionalists. The faith-​based definitions of the terms qawm, maʿshar, and ahl noted above dovetail with impressions that some Muslims sought to delineate their community not around kinship and ethnos, but around monotheistic belief. In the first generation or two of Islam, the question of what that proprietary belief actually meant remains the subject of current debate: there is an argument that distinctions between Muslim and Christian were not so rigid as they would later become, and hence we could expect that communal boundaries would be unclear and the parameters of Conqueror community open to most monotheists.72 Such proposals of an early “ecumenical Islam” suggest early post-​conquest society was primarily monotheist-​defined and open to a wide array of members, irrespective of ethnic traits such as kinship, domicile, or other heritage. Howsoever open-​ended the parameters of nascent Conqueror society may have been, it is rather clear that through the course of the seventh century, the Conquerors were enabled to articulate new and broader notions of communal identity than any pre-Islamic Arabian groups had ever expressed. The impetus to organise early post-​conquest society on such confessional terms may reflect forces operating in Late Antiquity discussed above, but it was also (perhaps crucially) enhanced by political factors. The Caliphate’s elite hailed from various backgrounds, 143

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but they shared a common interest in ring-​fencing their identity to preserve their status. When seeking shared “cultural stuff ” to adhere their new identity, faith and language were two of the most readily identifiable commonalities given their otherwise diverse origins and cultures, and hence Muslim creed and Arabic language (also given status via the Qurʾān) offered the most mobilisable means for the militarised elite to construct a robust and proprietary sense of community to distinguish themselves from the conquered populace. The coincidence of faith and power enabled Conqueror elites to establish social cohesion by redefining the contours of communal boundaries. The increasing potency of faith to articulate communal boundaries also manifests amongst other post-​conquest populations. The emergence of self-​styled Nestorians in Iraq coincides with the reorganisation of Iraqi demographics following the settlement of the amṣār and the redrawing of political boundaries after the fall of the Sasanians (Brock 1996), and likewise, the articulation of West Syrian identity in more ethnic terms as a kin community is clearest in Islamic-​era texts (Romeny et al. 2010). In both cases, it seems that churches were empowered to re-imagine their congregations in an ethnic guise: those who attended a common church expressed feelings of belonging to one kin. But research on faith and ethnogenesis in the post-​conquest Middle East is ongoing –​alternative views express reservations as to whether confessional boundary hardening closely followed the Islamic Conquests,73 and issues of conversion are particularly intriguing as individual Christians and Jews seem to have converted and reverted, clouding the confessional map (Simonsohn 2015).74 There is, however, limited evidence of Conquerors reverting, which bolsters the notion that Conqueror elite status coupled with its religious affiliation was a valuable asset, and gave fledgling Muslim identity a tangible value. That asset value prompted Muslims to conceptualise faith as a primary means to categorise people, which we saw reflected in the Arabic “ethnic” terminology, and such religious “othering” to delineate Muslim society could then have prompted Christians to respond in turn, driving their consciousness of community into more confessional directions too, spawning new identities and ethnic groups in the process. Likewise, Boyarin proposes that the contours of Jewish identity took new forms via the changes of Late Antiquity and early Islam, offering another example of the ways in which social organisation in the Caliphate influenced all faith communities in the Middle East (1999, 2004). Notwithstanding the intriguing evidence considered so far, it is nonetheless imprudent to conclude that faith acquired hegemonic power to create communities in the first 150  years of Islam. Ethnogenesis is a slow and bifurcated process, and while the conditions of the early Caliphate inaugurated significant impetus to turn shared faith into “imagined communities,”75 many continuities from pre-​Islamic social organisation remained, and the Caliphate’s composition also introduced other catalysts for fragmentation and alternative strategies for identity formation across the Middle East.

Continuities and fragmentation In terms of Late Antique continuities, the small size of the Conqueror armies necessitated a delicate balance of power in the post-​conquest Caliphate. The early Muslims were spread too thinly to supplant all administrative and landholding structures, and accordingly, local elites, in particular agricultural landholders and tax collectors, retained pre-​conquest position and status. Furthermore, given that the Byzantine and Sasanian empires had not cemented their respective imperial identities with their subjects, their replacement by the new Caliphate did not entail a wholesale transformation of indigenous identities. From the perspective of conquered locales, the overlords changed from Byzantine and Sasanian elites to Muslim muhājirūn, but local 144

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communities had limited interaction with amṣār dwellers, and the Conquerors little interfered with indigenous languages, religious practice, legal codes, and social structures. Northern Iraq continued to be managed by shahārija (sing. shahrīj), notables appointed in the late Sasanian Empire to manage agricultural estates, and some shahārija survived into the ninth century (Robinson 2006: 90–​105). In Iran and southern Iraq, similar Sasanian-​era landed gentry, called dahāqīn (sing. dihqān), managed the land at least into the eighth century (Morony 1984: 187–​ 190, 204).Villages thus kept pre-​Islamic orientations in place, and Muslim Arabic writers refer to Iraqi provincials as nabaṭ, a term without confessional connotations, but instead a label for the culturally Iraqi agriculturalists as opposed to the Arabian militarised elite of the amṣār.76 Umayyad-​era management of the Egyptian countryside via Byzantine-​era elites seems to follow the Iraqi pattern (Sijpesteijn 2013); elsewhere, local autonomy was even more pronounced. North African Berber kingdoms were only partially brought within the Caliphate’s control, but here too there was a role for faith in developing Islamic-​era Berber identity. North African communities converted to Islam, but they soon embraced a form of Khārijism, opposed to the doctrine of the Caliphate. Berber groups were thus able to articulate autonomy through their ethnic and regional particularism that had developed in Late Antiquity, and via a proprietary and defiant novel form of faith that ring-​fenced their identity vis-​à-​vis Muslim rulers (Savage 1997; Brett and Fentress 1997: 120–​154). Whilst Muslim rulers across the Caliphate were engaged in unifying themselves within the amṣār, it nonetheless remains difficult to speak of Conquerors as one cohesive community since the processes of Arab ethnogenesis and the development of “orthodox Islam” were obstructed by new forms of communal and factional organisation enhanced via competition over the spoils of conquest. The Caliphate was slow in establishing universal and legitimate authority,77 and hence the pan-​Muslim/​Arab identity aligned with the interests of the Caliphs was challenged by regional identities of the Conquerors themselves. In Arabic literature, many of the inter-​Muslim wars in the first 150 years of Islam are described in stark regionalist terminology –​particularly as a conflict between Iraqis (ahl al-​ʿIrāq) and Syrians (ahl al-​Shām). These terms do not refer to the indigenous populations, but rather the Muslim elites who developed strong attachments to their land of settlement and manifested solidarity with their immediate neighbours to construct regional power blocs. The Umayyads were based in Syria, and Iraqi elites were resentful, resulting in major conflicts (fitna).Whilst early Muslims could thus imagine unity as muhājirūn or as “Arabs,” they also had ample opportunity to identify with their domicile (as Byzantine and Sasanian landed elites had done in Late Antiquity), and by the evidence of text, this was a popular and divisive option.78 Equally divisive was a form of factionalism expressed in tribalist terms.We noted the importance of Maʿadd as a community in pre-​Islamic Arabia and the continuation of Maʿaddite identity as a means to identify Conqueror elites in early Islam, but not all of the Conquerors hailed from Maʿaddite groups, the sense of Maʿaddite kinship itself was not watertight, and during the organisation of the Caliphate, rival factions formed.79 The factions drew their boundaries around the rallying cry of kinship, illustrating the conceptual attractions of tribal-​based alliance amongst the Conquerors. While the idea of tribal solidarity seems a continuity of pre-​Islamic Arabian social organisation, the Muslim-​era alliances were not simply replications of pre-​Islamic communal boundaries, as the genealogical boundaries of the factions were quite novel and fluid. The group Quḍāʿa changed its claimed blood-​relations to align better with political expediency in the political changes between the early and later Umayyad dynasty,80 the kin-​g roup Maʿadd devolved into permutations known variously as Nizār/​Muḍar/​Rabīʿa, alongside a more antagonistic offshoot of Qays, and an entirely new faction of al-​Yamāniya emerged to unite formerly disparate non-​Maʿaddite groups.81 Like other social groups discussed here, these factions did 145

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not enjoy complete solidarity, but they were effective, and kin-​g roup rivalries and violence known as ʿaṣabiyya were palpable in the Umayyad and early ʿAbbāsid periods. Kin-​ʿaṣabiyya had some regional aspects (al-​Yamāniya may have first formed around regional elites in Syria), but the value of kin-​ʿaṣabiyya as a social asset was its pan-​regional capacity to rally allies across the Caliphate’s widespread military bases, and the switching alliances of such groups was a direct cause for the Umayyad downfall.82 An amṣār dweller at the dawn of the eighth century could accordingly identify as a member of his particular town, his wider region, his immediate clan, his wider kin-​group ʿaṣabiyya, or as an “Arab” most inclusively –​and we can imagine that he would opt for any and all of the above, whenever most expedient.

Caliphate, assimilation, Persians, and conclusions As is the case of any societal development over time, the continuities from Late Antiquity gradually faded as new forms of social organisation wrought by the growing power of the Caliphate ascended, and the resultant meld of various trends produced new and hybrid identities which eighth-​century populations could embrace. The role of the Caliphate in forging such new senses of identity was material –​the consolidation of the state under ʿAbd al-​Malik (r. 685–​705) witnessed significant Arabisation, changing the Caliphate’s administrative language to Arabic and promoting Arabic script as a public text.83 ʿAbd al-​Malik’s initiatives may also have consolidated confessional identities to define a more closed-​ended notion of Islam as very distinct from Christian and Jewish forms of monotheism (Donner 2010: 206–​ 216). The momentum of these dual initiatives benefited from ʿAbd al-​Malik’s administrative consolidation and drive to impose Caliphal control and ideology across the empire, and the scope for changes in the composition of society is manifest. We could accordingly expect that the second half of the Umayyad period inaugurated major opportunities for change in the options available to individuals for determining their identities, and to this point, it is intriguing that the emergence of the name “Arab” as a form of self-​identity in Arabic poetry and other records dates to this period (Webb 2016: 85–​88, 144–​151). Given the likely clearer distinction between “Muslim” and “Christian” in the wake of ʿAbd al-​Malik,84 we can therefore also begin speaking at the dawn of the eighth century about the first earnest attempts and the first practical emergence of a broad and closed-​ended notion of Arab/​Muslim community as equivalent to the descendants of Arabian Conquerors, now articulated as excluding all other subjects of the Caliphate. Beyond Arab ethnogenesis, the effects of Marwānid Caliphate also trickled into regional locales. Post-​ʿAbd al-​Malik, local elites would have found themselves speaking more Arabic, interacting with more Conqueror functionaries, and encountering more coherent communities of Muslims. In these situations, the pre-​Islamic elites would find advantages in converting and embracing more Arabic “cultural stuff ” traits to curry favour with the administration, and the decline of the Sasanian military elite (asāwira) in Iraq as noted by Morony appears related to the process of assimilation (1984). In tandem, when the amṣār settlers ceased active campaigning, also in the late Umayyad era, their attention would be drawn to increased control over their locales, fostering both stronger regional particularism and a more pronounced Muslim presence in the local elite. Evidence suggests such hybrid Conqueror/​assimilating local elite identities emerged in each of the Caliphate’s regions.85 Yet another avenue to explore the wrinkles of community and identity in the post-​conquest Middle East investigates the role of legal practices. Law underpins the organisation of communities, and hence legal codes proffer insight into the societies that choose to be bound by them. Furthermore, the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim faiths each articulated complex legal 146

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frameworks to govern the lives of their adherents, reinforcing the role of law in shaping communal boundaries.86 As specific examples, papyri from Egypt reveal an array of legal practices as recorded by litigants and court officials: pre-​Islamic criminal law seems to have persisted in some regions into the eighth century, whereas laws influenced by Muslim jurisprudence are also referenced, though not always enforced (Reinfandt 2010). The results tend to mirror the local political and landholding patterns: local legal traditions remained strong in the Umayyad era, though the state continuously sought to assert a standardised Caliphal code, and we behold a permanent negotiation between local and Caliphal communal/​jurisprudential organisation (Tillier 2013: 198–​204). Simultaneously, clerical groups developed rulings to harden the boundaries between churches within regions, and hence populations again navigated a plurality of legal codes, each carrying potent connotations of political, confessional, and social identities.87 The complexities of law and social identity reveal yet again the shortcomings of conceptualising social groups in the early Caliphate in generalised terms of “Muslim vs. Christian” or “centre vs. periphery.” Clerics and caliphs clearly hoped to shore up the boundaries of their constituencies, but the efforts they expended to do so disclose the extent of the difficulties they faced in practice. The writers of our sources were predominantly the religious scholars –​ḥadīth narrators, priests, and rabbis –​they had clear notions of “orthodoxy” and sectarian boundaries, and their literature paints a tidy picture for us to categorise populations, but those populations actually enjoyed a wealth of options when considering how to identify themselves. To speak of “Muslim-​Christian relations” or “Jewish identity” in the early Caliphate thus risks imposing overly cohesive categories onto history,88 and we are amply warned by a poem composed by Caliph al-​Walīd ibn Yazīd (r. 125–​126/​743–​744): as caliph, he stood at the apex of Muslim-​ Arab identity, but those rigid boundaries he was officially supposed to uphold seem, by his own admission, to have been rather irksome when he once saw a pretty girl leaving a church: Your heart, oh Walīd, has fallen sick –​ Love-​sick, prey to a handsome one: Loving a supple, bright-​toothed beauty Appearing to us from the Church on Feast Day. There I gazed upon her, wide-​eyed, Until I saw her kiss the wood –​ The wood of the cross. Woe is me! Who has seen a cross so worshiped? I asked God that I may be in its place! And be for the Hellfire, kindling. (al-​Walīd b. Yazīd 1998: 33–​34, author’s translation) The broader ramifications of al-​Walīd b. Yazīd following his heart are articulated in another key aspect of ethnogenesis theory: the phenomenon of assimilation. In the right circumstances, people come together, and eighth-​century Middle Eastern society is a prime example. The amṣār initially were inhabited by Conquerors and drew remarkably clear transactional boundaries, but the political success of the Caliphate and the attendant economic growth of the amṣār turned them into attractive foci of opportunity for conquered populations, who, from the mid-​/l​ate seventh century onwards, began migrating into the new towns. The migrants were labelled mawālī (sing. mawlā), indicating “client” status to the Conquer kin-​g roups, and they became a major social group in Arabic literary descriptions of community.89 Not all mawālī necessarily converted to Islam (Crone 1980: 49 n. 358), but by the eighth century many Iraqi 147

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mawālī were Muslim, and they all needed to speak Arabic to survive in the amṣār. Mawālī influx and Arab ethnogenesis thus met in a shared transactional environment with declining cultural difference between the groups –​herein assimilation would begin creating cosmopolitan urban identities, neither wholly Arab nor non-​Arab, and these would flower from the third/​ninth century onwards as the most ready means to conceptualise medieval Middle Eastern social organisation. In the context of assimilation, we close this chapter with a consideration of Persian ethnicity. Traditional histories have stressed the ethnic cohesion of Iranians as “Persians” from the pre-​Islamic period onwards, but, akin to problematic generalisations about Arab and other Middle Eastern identities, “Persian” may also unduly homogenise the identity of Iran in the early Caliphate. Persian-​language literature before the tenth century is scarce (and non-​existent in the first centuries of the Caliphate), and Arabic texts are somewhat ambivalent about Persian-​ ness. Texts refer to people as aʿājim and/​or ʿajam: but the meanings are obscure –​etymologically, both words are related to the idea of incomprehensible sound, or silence, and when Arabic writers marshalled the words, they intended peoples possessing ʿujma, a confused/​unclear way of speaking. This was usually intended to contrast the clear eloquence of Arabic speakers, and aʿājim in particular could refer to any conquered populations of the Caliphate, whereas ʿajam adopted more specific connotations of “Persian ethnos” by the eighth or ninth century at the latest. The temporal congruence of the assimilation of early ʿAbbāsid-​era Iraq seems connected to the emergence of an ethnic term for “Persian” qua ʿajam and Arabic literature’s familiar binary discussions of Arabs vs. Persian. The indication would then be that senses of Persian ethnic identity took a new form in the assimilated and Muslim world order of the ʿAbbāsid Caliphate, fundamentally changing what it meant to be Persian as a result of the establishment of Islam.90 “Persian” identity as known from our source literature would then primarily exist in an Arabised guise: memories of Iran’s pre-​Islamic past were filtered through processes of Arabic-​ Muslim memorialisation, and emerged over the course of several centuries as new ingredients for a whole new kind of Persian identity. The Conquests and subsequent reorganisation of the Middle East thus appear as potent catalysts for varied ethnic developments, and while many modern notions of Middle Eastern identity –​Arab and Persian, Muslim and Syriac Christian, amongst others –​can trace their roots to post-​conquest communal consciousness, the pathways to define groups were bifurcated and manifold. Identities were changing as the value of different forms of social organisation evolved in response to political, economic and doctrinal factors. An Iraqi peasant in 640 may have little noticed the change in regime far above his rank in the social ladder, though by 700 his landlord may have converted to Islam and the peasant may have begun looking to the amṣār for better economic opportunities, opening up a world of a new faith, or a retrenchment of his own confession in response to Muslims around him. Likewise a Conqueror in 640 may have thought of himself as a “Maʿaddite” or “Emigrant,” but in 700 he may have changed the horizons of his community to “Arab” or “Muslim.” One senses that if we were able to ask any individual from the Early Caliphate who he thought he was, we would be confronted with a long pause as he endeavoured to gauge what sort of answer we were after.

Notes 1 Theories and methodologies employed to study social groups are outlined in the next section. 2 Nora’s seminal work on French national memory and identity (Nora 1996–​1998) is currently challenged by new efforts to refine its analytical scope: see Astrid Erll (2011) and Gavriel D. Rosenfeld (2009).

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Identity and social formation 3 Anthropological theory flows deeper than the level of “ethnicity”: theorists discuss “registers of identity,” noting that people present themselves and interact with neighbours in manifold ways, and accordingly each identity contains situational, performative, and constructive elements (Baumann and Gingrich 2004). Identity and Cultural Studies theory also opens methodological possibilities to consider the effects of slavery, employment, and gender (amongst other categories) on early Muslim society. This chapter’s focus will be ethnicity in the broad sense, given the pressing importance of reviewing stereotypes of “Arab,” “Persian,” and others that have exerted much influence on Islamic historiography to date. 4 Some call the race/​ethnicity distinction merely semantic (see Jenkins 2008: 23–​24), but Boas explains the difference as a paradigmatic contrast of “race and biology” vs. “ethnicity and culture” (1940). 5 Weber’s theory did not become widespread until after the Second World War. His initial champions were anthropologists, whose fieldwork tested his theory (see Vermeulen and Govers 1997; Banton 2007; and Jenkins 2008); historians and other sociologists also embraced the subjective notion of community (see Hobsbawm 1990; Smith 1986; Anderson 1991). 6 Reinhard Wenskus (1961) and the Vienna School initiated the diachronic historical approach to ethnogenesis, followed by Patrick Geary (2003; Walter Pohl and Helmut Reimitz 1998). The Vienna School has critics –​they are evaluated by Bas ter Haar Romeny 2012: 185–​194). 7 Instrumentalism is traced to Fredrik Barth (1969) and constructivism to Anderson (1991) and Hobsbawm (1990). There seems to be no “right” approach, and modern anthropologists marshal a mixture of the two (Vermeulen and Govers 1997: 19–​22; Jenkins 2008). 8 On the importance of common language in ethnogenesis see Kramsch (1998:  70–​72); but theorists stress that language should not be over-​emphasised: shared language does not drive ethnogenesis alone –​other social factors are equally, if not more, important (see Duranti and Goodwin 1992; Bucholtz and Hall 2012). 9 Cynthia Enloe (1980: 361) and Jenkins (2008: 111–​127) ascribe religion a determinative role in ethnic formation, especially for societies pre-​dating Europe’s secular nation states (which have received disproportionate attention in studies on identity). 10 For the division of ethnogenesis into “formation” and then “maintenance and renewal” stages, see Romeny et al. (2010: 9). 11 Ethnicity resembles history in its mediation between reality and fiction. As Ricoeur notes, history can be reinterpreted, but the underlying real events limit the realms of creativity in ways fiction writers do not experience (1988: III 154). Likewise ethnicity is an intellectual construct which can be reconceptualised only within boundaries imposed by social realities. 12 The tenacity of old identities and their interaction with changing power relations are explored in the key studies of Bain Attwood (1989) and Terrance Ranger (1993). 13 Weber (1996) privileges politics and economy, but also entertained other factors (see Raum 1995). 14 Al-​ʿAyn’s extant form may date to the early ninth century; for discussion of its date and authorship see Gregor Schoeler (2006: 142–​163). 15 See the definition of gens and natio by Isidore (2006: 192) and Lewis and Short (1894: 808, 1189). Gens continued to be translated as “nation” or “race” in twentieth-​century European scholarship, though Walter Pohl argues to orient its meaning to the more neutral “people” in order to dissociate gens from tribal paradigms (2012: 10–​13); gens does not connote a fixed kinship hierarchy which is the hallmark of tribe, rather it simply connotes common descent. 16 For the role of Genesis 10 in other Late Antique/​early medieval Latin traditions, see Gregory of Tours (1974: I 4–​7) and Bede (2008: 215–​227). 17 Consider also the “nomadic ethnos,” i.e., Bedouin peoples in Syria (Le Bas, Waddington, and Poucart 1847–​1870: 2203). Greek also has geneá, similar in connotation to the Latin gens, used for pedigree and royal lines, its use to define nations (e.g., Aeschylus 2009 Persians: 80, 516, 912, 1013) was “rare in prose” (Liddell and Scott 1925: I 342). 18 See discussions of barbarism and éthni by Erich Gruen (2011). 19 Éthni was the usual translation for the Hebrew Gōyīm, “Gentile nations” –​otherness constructed as a function of different faith. 20 In Late Antiquity, gentes also connoted the opposite to “Romans,” i.e., “foreigners,” and, in ecclesiastical writing, pagan nations, heathens –​hence “gentiles” (Lactantius 2004: II 13; Ps. 2:1). This usage was apparently rare (Lewis and Short 1894: 809), but gens seems to have been partially sectarianised in Late Antiquity in step with the increasingly sectarian connotation of éthnos.

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Peter Webb 21 Ironically, the South Arabian Semitic languages used shaʿb to mean “purely territorial entities” (Robin 2015: 98). 22 For example, the discussions of qawm are influenced by its unusually gender-​specific citation in Q 49:11 (al-​Khalīl b. Aḥmad 1980: V 231; Ibn Durayd 1987–​1988: II 977); and umma is also in part defined via its Qurʾānic citations (al-​Azharī 2004: XI 504–​506; Ibn Durayd 1987–​1988 I 60). 23 For apocalyptic and community, see Collins (1998) and Cook (2002). 24 Shaʿb, the closest to “race,” was not derived from fatherhood/​motherhood, but rather ‘splitting’ –​its definition followed the idea from Genesis that the world’s populations split into different peoples. Only one dictionary expressly defined shaʿb via “the father of the tribes from whom they descended” (al-​ Azharī 2004: I 394). 25 See al-​Masʿūdī (1966–​1979) for a particularly detailed account of world peoples and their ancestry; for the highly contested question of the “father of the Arabs,” see Webb (2016: 188–​197, 205–​222). 26 Ibn Fāris is clear that umma means “group and religion” (2002: I 21, see also I 27). The relationship between Arabic umma and Syriac ʾumthā “race or nation of people” (Payne Smith 1903: 6) could be explored. 27 Al-​Azharī (2004:  I  394) is explicit that non-​Arabs (ʿajam) are organised into shuʿūb, whereas Arabs have “tribes” (qabāʾil). Other Arabic writers followed suit, though other peoples were stereotyped as tribal too  –​particularly Kurds and Berbers (see, e.g., al-​Tanūkhī 1995:  I  176; al-​Masʿūdī 1966–​1979: §1104–​1118). 28 For the term and discourses in relation to modern tribal genealogy, see Andrew Shryock (1997). 29 al-​Khalīl b. Aḥmad 1980: IV 245–​246, 487; Ibn Durayd 1987–​1988: I 582; al-​Azharī 2004: V 457. 30 For the poem, see al-​Anbārī (2003: I 513). For the definitions, see al-​Khalīl b. Aḥmad (1980: II 136), Ibn Durayd (1987–​1988: II 772), and Ibn Fāris (2002: IV 441–​442). 31 Hugh Kennedy suggests that Ibn al-​Kalbī generated his genealogical models on a “must have been” basis (1997; see also Robinson 2003: 41; Szombathy 2002; Khalidi 1994: 50). Zoltán Szombathy pursues the ʿAbbāsid “invention” of Arab genealogy (1999). The varied ʿAbbāsid-​era attempts to identify the ‘first Arab,” also suggest the neat genealogies of later writers did not emerge from ancient Arab lore, but from ʿAbbāsid discourses (Webb 2016:  205–​222). For another critique of Orientalist paradigms associating Arabness with tribalism, see al-​Azmeh (2014: 127–​130) and Pohl (2012: 10–​14). 32 For example, Sabaic inscriptions from South Arabia use ʿs3rt (c.f. Ar. ʿashīra) for ‘tribes’, whereas words related to ḥayy and qabīla are not attested (Beeston et al. 1982: 21; Biella 2004: 388), thus demonstrating the varied lexicon used by different Arabian peoples to describe tribal groupings. 33 The contrast of “Arab”/​tribal with “Persian”/​regional social organisation in Muslim discourses is discussed by Roy Mottahedeh (1976; see also Szombathy 1999). 34 Andre Gingrich discusses the importance of tribalism and its positive connotations with freedom and autonomy in medieval thought (2012: 36–​38); it should be noted, however, that negative aspects of tribalism as a kind of primitivism were expressed in later ninth-​and tenth-​century Arabic (Webb 2016: 319–​332; see also Leder and Streck 2005). 35 For European ethnogenesis, see Geary (2003). 36 Religious policy, the enforcement of orthodoxy, and the important role of Justinian are introduced by Pauline Allen (2000). 37 Syncretism is anecdotally reported in various guises in the Late Antique Middle East: see the sharing of ritual sites at Mamre (Sozomen 1890: II 4) and at Sergiopolis (Fowden 1999: 97). 38 Important finds of Greco-​Arabic are revealed by Ahmad Al-​Jallad (2017). 39 Efforts to assert the Christian commonwealth into the Middle East are evidenced since the first Christian emperor, Constantine (Fowden 2006: 389). 40 The Ethiopic–​South Arabian wars are much discussed: for a recent survey, see Bowersock (2013). 41 Zoroastrian imagery features prominently on Sasanian coinage and rock-​hewn reliefs commemorating monarchs (e.g., Naqsh-​e Rajab near Persepolis), but Daryaee relates the difficulties priests and monarchs faced in establishing a sense of Zorastrian orthodoxy around which a stable confessional identity could be formed (2010: 71–​72, 84–​86). Moreover, orthodox Zoroastrianism was for the elite, and may have had more tenuous relations with the Empire’s subjects (Daryaee 2010: 92–​93). 42 Payne makes this argument for Sasanian Iraq in particular (2012: 220). 43 The “agnatic families,” the continued hegemony of the Arsacids in the Sasanian East, and a more de-​centralised notion of Sasanian kingship as “confederacy” is set forth by Parvaneh Pourshariati (2008: 27–​30, 37–​47).

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Identity and social formation 44 The absence of a defined pre-​Islamic “Persian-​ness” to unite peoples of the Iranian Plateau is the thesis of Sarah Savant (2013). 45 The pronounced autonomy of the Afrighids in Khwarazm (Bosworth 1982:  I  743–​745) and the Dabuyids in Tabaristan are cases in point (Melville 2000). Daryaee also discusses the role of class distinctions with the Sasanian realm (2010: 42–​50). 46 For Berbers and the Islamic era, see Elizabeth Savage (1997) and Brett and Fentress (1997: 81–​94). 47 Reading Islam as an “Arab movement” began in Enlightenment discourses, especially with Edward Gibbon (1776–​1789: IX 192–​314). Gibbon accorded substantial role to the “Arab” Conquerors’ religious motivation. The secularisation of interpretations to view Islam’s rise as a racial/​national movement of “Arabs” became the dominant paradigm by the mid-​nineteenth century, corresponding to the rise of secular nationalism in Europe (see Renan 1857; de Goeje 1900; Becker 1913; and later iterations by Crone and Cook 1977; Hoyland 2015). 48 The retrospective Arabisation of the past is discussed by Robert Hoyland (2001: 241–​244; 2015: 56–​60; Webb 2016: 249–​269). 49 See Greg Fisher for critique of the methodology (2011b: 248–​249). Even the Palmyrene and Nabataean trading kingdoms in Syria and Jordan, respectively, long classified as “Arab,” are now moving out of scholarly opinions about the Arab ethnos. 50 The proponents of the “Empty Ḥijāz” theory are discussed by James Montgomery (2006). Montgomery is critical of the theory; for further critique, see Webb (2016: 37–​42). 51 The proponents of the frontier theory are Robert Hoyland (2009) and Greg Fisher (2011a). For critical appraisal of the theory, see Webb (2016: 30, 78–​80, 111–​115). 52 For a summary of epigraphic evidence for “Old Arabic,” see Michael Macdonald (2008). Subsequent work refined the corpus somewhat, see Webb (2016: 60–​66); for new and important finds of Greco-​ Arabic, see Al-​Jallad (2017). 53 The epitaph of a “King of the Arabs” at al-​Namāra in southern Syria is a notable exception, but linking the expression to a sense of Arab communal identity seems incorrect (see Retsö 2003: 471, 485; Hoyland 2015: 26; Webb 2016: 75–​76). 54 For the origins of “Saracen” see Macdonald (2009a: 20–​21; Ward 2008). 55 See the detailed analysis of Saracen-​ness as a social label by Rachel Stroumsa (2008). 56 Ghassān (also called Jafnids in modern writing) and Lakhm (Nasrids) are much researched: see Fisher (2011a) and Genequand and Robin (2015). 57 Pre-​Islamic Maʿaddite identity is discussed by Zwettler (2000) and Webb (2016: 70–​85). 58 The emergence of Arabness as a form of communal consciousness only in the Muslim-​era was first postulated by D.H. Müller (1896:  II 344–​359). The theory was immediately rejected by Theodor Nöldeke (1899: I 272–​275), but recent scholarship cast renewed doubt on the notion of “pre-​Islamic Arabs” as an actual community or ethnos (Donner 2010: 217–​220; Millar 2013: 154–​158). Pre-​Islamic and Islamic-​era evidence is surveyed afresh by Webb, arguing that consciousness of an expressly Arab community is a Muslim-​era phenomenon (2016: 23–​156). 59 Traditional scholarship assumed the Qurʾān was addressed to Arabs. Close study of the Qurʾān’s ethnic Arabness reveals that tradition rests on problematic assumptions (Bashear 1997; Webb 2016: 115–​126). 60 Khalil Athamina discusses the second-​class status of aʿrāb Bedouin (1987); the Qur’anic citations of aʿrāb and their attendant social status are discussed by Sara Binay (2006: 55–​59, 78–​89). 61 The development of Islam into a fixed system of belief is the subject of academic debate concerning theology, but it impinges on notions of community, since it would be difficult to speak of “Muslims” as a distinct people before the faith of “Islam” had a fairly standardised articulation. 62 Most studies on conversion suggest a slow rate (see: Bulliet 1979; Dennet 1950; Levtzion 1979). Iraq may have had the fastest uptake, but Morony dates widespread conversion only to the later seventh century (1984: 178 n. 55, 199, 431). Bulliet dates it to the mid-​eighth century (1979: 87). 63 Donald Whitcomb refers to the construction of the amṣār as a “intentional reconstitution of the social organization of the conquered lands” (1994: 12). 64 The diminished importance of Alexandria, Nineveh and al-​Ḥīra in favour of Fusṭāṭ (Cairo), Mosul, and Kufa are examples; Syrian cities of Jerusalem and Damascus, however, obviously retained their importance, though new Syrian amṣār such as al-​Ramla and Ayla grew into important Umayyad-​era centres too. 65 For Greek and Syriac sources, see Hoyland (1997); for Maʿadd in the early Islamic period, see Webb (2016: 86–​96) and Webb (forthcoming). 66 Demonstrated by Patricia Crone (1994a) and Ilkka Lindstedt (2015).

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Peter Webb 67 For bibliography of studies of these terms in Syriac and Greek, see Webb (2016: 170 n. 119). 68 Hijra (emigration) as an exhortation to Muslims is invoked in the Qurʾān (Q 2:218, 4:89, 8:74, 16:41, 22:58; see also Crone 1994a; Athamina 1987). 69 Bashear dates the first cohesive records of Muslims as “Arabs” to the eighth century (1997); see Webb for a re-​evaluation of the significance of Bashear’s thesis (2016: 150–​151). 70 The legacy of the confessional-​tinged name muhājirūn again underlines the confessional lens grafted onto the “ethnic” terms in Arabic, such as umma and maʿshar considered above. 71 For survey of citations of “Arab” in poetry and prose, see Webb (2016: 85–​88, 144–​151). 72 The notion of nascent “ecumenical Islam” derives from Donner (2010:  56–​92, 217–​220; see also Borrut and Donner 2016). 73 Against the sectarian theories of Morony, see Tannous (2010: 431–​480). 74 For Syriac conversion issues, see Tannous (2010: 430–​451). 75 To borrow Benedict Anderson’s apt description of the nature of the cohesion between members of broad-​based social groups (1991). For further theoretical discussion of the nexus of faith and nationhood, see also Smith (2003). 76 See discussion and references to nabaṭ al-​ʿiraq by T. Fahd (1960–​2007). 77 The efforts to legitimise the Caliphate as a form of rule are widely studied: see, for example, discussions by Patricia Crone and Martin Hinds (1986) and Andrew Marsham (2009). 78 The question of regionalism is under-​studied: an important contribution is John Haldon and Hugh Kennedy (2012). 79 For the status of Maʿadd as a communal identity in early Islam, see Webb (forthcoming). 80 For lengthy discussion of Quḍāʿa and its contested genealogy, see Kister (1960–​2007: V 315–​218) and Crone (1994b: 44–​49). 81 Pre-​Islamic records do not evidence a budding “Yemeni” identity, even in inscriptions from pre-​Islamic South Arabia, where a land, “YMNT,” is only a small part of South Arabia. This author therefore believes the notion of Yemeni identity to be a Muslim-​era phenomenon; Christian Robin sets out the inscriptional evidence and interpretations (2013). 82 The tribal factions have been called “political parties” (Shaban 1971). The thesis was challenged by Crone (1994b).The factionalism does appear to have increased substantially by the end of the Umayyad dynasty –​ see al-​Dīnawārī (2001: 514) for revealing reports on the role of factions in the Umayyad downfall. 83 Chase Robinson describes the reforms and their effects (2005:  51–​ 80, 105–​ 28; see also Hoyland 2006). 84 The central thesis of Donner (2010). 85 Mathieu Tillier discusses the case of Egypt and Iraq (2013) and Robinson the Jazīra of northern Iraq/​ Syria (2006); Sijpesteijn gives the most detailed account of the implementation and effects of legal frameworks in Egypt in early Islam (2013). 86 For an introduction and bibliography on law and identity in early Islam, see Uriel Simonsohn (2013). 87 The role of confessional legal rulings in the ring-​fencing of identities is discussed by M.J. Kister (1989), Morony (1984: 454–​458), and Leor Halevi (2007). 88 Recent discussions of religious identities are collected by Borrut and Donner (2016) and Arietta Papaconstantinou, Neil McLynn, and Daniel Schwartz (2015). 89 The mawālī are the subject of many studies. Prominent contributions include those by Milka Levy-​ Rubin (2011), Monique Bernards and John Nawas (2005), and Patricia Crone (1980). In early literature, the mawālī were even classified as a shaʿb (ethnic group) to themselves (see al-​Khalīl 1980: I 263). 90 Ahmad Ashraf provides detailed discussion and full bibliography for Iranian identity studies from pre-​ Islam through the Islamic period (1982: XIII 501–​504, 507–​522); critiques of traditional discourses are developed by Savant (2013); Zia-​Ebrahimi (2016) further problematises the supposed “Arab/​Persian” dichotomy in pre-​modern social thought.

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Peter Webb Müller, D.H. 1896. Arabia. In: Paulys, A. et al. eds. Paulys Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft. Stuttgart: J.B. Meltzer Sohn, II 344–​359. Nöldeke, T. 1899. ʿArabia, Arabians. In: Cheyne, T.K. and Black, J.S. eds. Encyclopaedia Biblica: A Critical Dictionary of the Literary, Political and Religion History, the Archaeology, Geography and Natural History of the Bible. London: Macmillan, I 272–​275. Nora, P. ed. 1996–​1998. Realms of Memory. 3 vols. New York: Columbia University Press. Papaconstantinou, A., McLynn, N., and Schwartz, D. eds. 2015. Conversion in Late Antiquity: Christianity, Islam, and Beyond. Farnham: Ashgate. Payne, R. 2012. Avoiding Ethnicity: Uses of the Ancient Past in Late Sasanian Northern Mesopotamia. In: Pohl, W., Gantner, C., and Payne, R. eds. Visions of Community in the Post-​Roman World: The West, Byzantium, and the Islamic World, 300–​1000. Farnham: Ashgate, 183–​204. Payne Smith, J. 1903. A Compendious Syriac English Dictionary Founded upon the Thesaurus Syriacus of R. Payne Smith. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Pohl, W. 2012. Introduction: Ethnicity, Religion and Empire. In: Pohl, W., Gantner, C., and Payne, R. eds. Visions of Community in the Post-​Roman World: The West, Byzantium, and the Islamic World, 300–​1000. Farnham: Ashgate, 1–​23. Pohl, W. and Reimitz, H. eds. 1998. Strategies of Distinction: The Construction of Ethnic Communities (300–​ 800). Leiden: Brill, 1998. Potts, D.T. 1990. The Arabian Gulf in Antiquity, vol. 2:  From Alexander the Great to the Coming of Islam. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pourshariati, P. 2008. Decline and Fall of the Sasanian Empire: The Sasanian-​Parthian Confederacy and the Arab Conquest of Iran. London: I.B. Tauris. Price, R. 2010. The Development of a Chalcedonian Identity in Byzantium (451–​553). In: Romeny, B.t.H. ed. Religious Origin of Nations? The Christian Communities of the Middle East. Leiden:  Brill, 307–​325. Ranger, T. 1993. The Invention of Tradition Revisited: The Case of Colonial Africa. In: Ranger, T. and Vaughan, O. eds. Legitimacy and the State in Twentieth Century Africa: Essays in Honour of A.H.M. Kirk-​ Greene. London: Macmillan, 5–​50. Raum, J.W. 1995. Reflections on Max Weber’s Thoughts Concerning Ethnic Groups. Zeitschrift für Ethnologie 120:73–​87. Reinfandt, L. 2010.Crime and Punishment in Early Islamic Egypt (AD 642–​969): The Arabic Papyrological Evidence. In:  Proceedings of the Twenty-​Fifth International Congress of Papyrology, Ann Arbor 2007. Ann Arbor, MI: American Studies in Papyrology, 633–​640. Renan, E. 1857. Études d’histoire religieuse. Paris: M. Lévy. Retsö, J. 2003. The Arabs in Antiquity:  Their History from the Assyrians to the Umayyads. London: RoutledgeCurzon. Ricoeur, P. 1988 [1985]. Time and Narrative. 3 vols. Blamey, K. and Pellauer, D. trans. Chicago: University of Chicago. Robin, C.J. 1991. La pénétration des Arabes nomade auYemen. Revue du monde musulman et de la Méditerranée 61(1):71–​88. ——​. 2013. À propos de Ymnt et Ymn:  “nord” et “sud,” “droite” et “gauche,” dans les inscriptions de l’Arabie antique. In: Briquel-​Chatonnet, F., Fauveaud, C., and Gajda, I. eds. Entre Carthage et l’Arabie heureuse: mélanges offerts à François Bron. Paris: de Boccard, 119–​140. ——​ . 2015. Before Ḥimyar:  Epigraphic Evidence. In:  Fisher, G. ed. Arabs and Empires before Islam. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 90–​126. Robinson, C. 2003. Islamic Historiography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ——​. 2005. ʿAbd al-​Malik. Oxford: Oneworld. ——​. 2006. Empires and Elites after the Muslim Conquest:  The Transformation of Northern Mesopotamia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Romeny, B.t.H. ed. 2010. Religious Origin of Nations? The Christian Communities of the Middle East. Leiden: Brill. ——​. 2012. Ethnicity, Ethnogenesis and the Identity of Syriac Orthodox Christians. In: Pohl, W., Gantner, C., and Payne, R. eds. Visions of Community in the Post-​Roman World:The West, Byzantium, and the Islamic World, 300–​1000. Farnham: Ashgate, 183–​204. Romeny, B.t.H., Atto, N., van Ginkel, J.J., Immerzeel, M., and Snelders, B. 2010. Formation of a Communal Identity among West Syrian Christians. In: Romeny, B.t.H. ed. Religious Origin of Nations? The Christian Communities of the Middle East. Leiden: Brill, 1–​52.

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Identity and social formation Rosenfeld, G.D. 2009. A Looming Crash or a Soft Landing? Forecasting the Future of the Memory “Industry.” Journal of Modern History 81(1):122–​158. Rosenthal, F. 1968. A History of Muslim Historiography. Leiden: E.J. Brill. Rushworth, A. 2004. From Arzuges to Rustamids:  State Formation and Regional Identity in the Pre-​ Saharan Zone. In: Merrills, A.H. ed. Vandals, Romans and Berbers: New Perspectives on Late Antique North Africa. Aldershot: Ashgate, 77–​98. Savage, E. 1997. A Gateway to Hell, a Gateway to Paradise: The North African Response to the Arab Conquest. Princeton: Darwin Press. Savant, S.B. 2013. The New Muslims of Post-​Conquest Iran: Tradition, Memory, and Conversion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schoeler, G. 2006. The Oral and the Written in Early Islam. Vagelpohl, U.  trans. Montgomery, J.E. ed. London: Routledge. Shaban, M.A. 1971. Islamic History:  A  New Interpretation, vol. 1:  A.D. 600–​750 (AH 132). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Shryock, A. 1997. Nationalism and the Genealogical Imagination: Oral History and Textual Authority in Tribal Jordan. Berkeley: University of California. Sijpesteijn, P.M. 2013. Shaping a Muslim State: The World of a Mid-​Eighth-​Century Egyptian Official. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Simonsohn, U. 2013. Conversion to Islam: A Case Study for the Use of Legal Sources. History Compass 11(8):647–​662. ——​. 2015. Conversion, Apostasy, and Penance: The Shifting Identities of Muslim Converts in the Early Islamic Period. In: Papaconstantinnou, A. McLynn, N., and Schwartz, D.L. eds. Conversion in Late Antiquity: Christianity, Islam, and Beyond. Farnham: Ashgate, 197–​218. Smith, A.D. 1986. The Ethnic Origins of Nations. Oxford: Blackwell. ——​. 2003. Chosen Peoples: Sacred Sources of National Identity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sozomen, S.H. 1890. “The Ecclesiastical History of Sozomen, Comprising a History of the Church, from A.D. 323 to A.D. 425.” Hartranft C.D. trans. In: Wace, H. and Schaff, P. eds. A Select Library of Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers. Oxford: Parker, II 327–​698. Stroumsa, R. 2008. People and Identities in Nessana. Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, Duke University. Szombathy, Z. 1999. The Nassābah:  Anthropological Fieldwork in Medieval Islam. Islamic Culture 73:61–​108. ——​. 2002. Genealogy in Medieval Muslim Societies. Studia Islamica 95:5–​35. Tannous, J. 2010. Syria between Byzantium and Islam. Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, Princeton University. ——​. 2013. You Are What You Read. In: Wood, P. ed. History and Identity in the Late Antique Middle East. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 83–​102. al-​Tanūkhī, M.b.ʿA. 1995. Nishwār al-​muḥāḍara wa-​akhbār al-​mudhākara. Shāljī, ʿA. ed. 8 vols. Beirut: Dār Ṣādir. Tillier, M. 2013. Legal Knowledge and Local Practices under the Early ʿAbbāsids. In: Wood, P. ed. History and Identity in the Late Antique Middle East. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 187–​204. Vayda, A. 1994. Actions, Variations, and Change: The Emerging Antiessentialist View in Anthropology. In Borofsky, R. ed. Assessing Cultural Anthropology. New York: McGraw Hill, 320–​330. Vermeulen, H. and Govers, C. 1997. From Political Mobilisation to the Politics of Consciousness. In Vermeulen, H. and Govers, C. eds. The Politics of Ethnic Consciousness. London: Macmillan, 1–​30. al-​Walīd b.Yazīd. 1998. Dīwān. al-​Ṣamad, W. ed. Beirut: Dār Ṣādir. Wallman, S. ed. 1979. Ethnicity at Work. London: Macmillan. Ward, W.D. 2008. From Provincia Arabia to Palaestina Tertia: The Impact of Geography, Economy, and Religion on Sedentary and Nomadic Communities in the Later Roman Province of Third Palestine. Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, University of California, Los Angeles. Webb, P. 2016. Imagining the Arabs: Arab Identity and the Rise of Islam. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. ——​. Forthcoming. Ethnicity and Power in the Umayyad Era: The Case of Maʿadd. In: Marsham, A. ed. The Umayyad World. London: Routledge. Weber, M. 1996 [1922]. The Origins of Ethnic Groups. In: Hutchinson, J. and Smith, A.D. eds. Ethnicity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 35–​39. Welsch, W. 1999. Transculturality –​the Puzzling Form of Cultures Today. In: Featherstone, M. and Lash, S. eds. Spaces of Culture: City, Nation,World. London: Sage, 194–​213. Wenskus, R. 1961. Stammesbildung und Verfassung: Das Werden der frühmittelalterlichen gentes. Cologne: Böhlau Verlag. Whitcomb, D. 1994. Amsar in Syria? Syrian Cities after the Conquest. Aram 6:13–​33.

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Peter Webb Xenophon. 2013. Memorabilia. Oeconomicus. Symposium. Apology. Marchant, E.C.  and Todd, O.J.  trans., Henderson, J. rev. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Zia-​Ebrahimi, R. 2016. The Emergence of Iranian Nationalism: Race and the Politics of Dislocation. New York: Columbia University Press. Zwettler, M.J. 2000. Maʿadd in Late-​Ancient Arabian Epigraphy and Other Pre-​Islamic Sources. Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes 90:223–​309.

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9 PRE-​ISLAMIC ARABIA AND EARLY ISLAM Ilkka Lindstedt1

Introduction and the issue of sources Writing about the history and the religious map of Arabia in the centuries preceding the birth of Islam is not a simple task. This is especially true for the Ḥijāz, the region of the western Arabian Peninsula that the career of the Prophet Muḥammad (c. 570–​632 CE) is connected with. The reason for this is the paucity of evidence and the fact that, in many cases, the sources are much later than the events they depict. However, scholarly studies of recent years have furthered the field considerably and the benefit of a holistic approach, which takes into account all source types, has been understood. We are starting to get a picture of Arabia that is full of life, religious ideas, and historical phenomena and that is not isolated from the world of late antiquity but is, instead, an intrinsic part of it (Robinson 2010: 7–​11). The main powers in and around Arabia were the Byzantine Empire, Sasanian Persia, the kingdom of Axum in Ethiopia, and the kingdom of Ḥimyar in Yemen, all of which wielded influence at times on different parts of Arabia. The main religious currents in Arabia were forms of Christianity (Triningham 1979, Shahîd 1989:  148–​229), Judaism (Newby 1988), polytheism (Fahd 1968; Peters 1999) and, to a much lesser degree, Mazdaism (Zoroastrianism). This chapter deals with Arabia of the fourth–​sixth centuries especially (for the earlier history of Arabia and Arabians, see, e.g., Bulliet 1975; Bowersock 1983; Eph’al 1984; Shahîd 1984b; Ball 2000; Hoyland 2001; Young 2001; Retsö 2003). The Arab identity forms a vexing issue that scholars continue to argue about; no consensus has emerged as of yet. In the primary sources, there are only very few instances of someone claiming to be an Arab in the pre-​Islamic era:  rather, it is a term utilized from the outside. After the Roman conquest of the Province of Arabia in 106 CE, it seems that the appellation “Arabs” was used for all inhabitants of the Province regardless of their ethnic identity, which further muddies the waters (Hoyland 2009: 392–​393). As argued by Peter Webb in Chapter 8 of this book, the ethnogenesis of the Arabs should probably be placed in the Islamic period (see also Webb 2016, cf. Hoyland 2001:  229–​247; Hoyland 2007; Macdonald 2009a and 2009b). Averil Cameron notes: “The difficulty remains of matching modern notions of ‘Arab’, ‘Syrian’, ‘Semitic’ and other such terms, which are still entangled in a mesh of confusion and even prejudice, with the actual situation in our period” (2012: 179). Because of this, this chapter refers

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to the inhabitants of Arabia as “Arabians,” sometimes with the qualifying attributes “North” or “South.” The word “Arab(s)” is only used when it appears in the sources. Before proceeding any further, we have to deal with the issue of sources. The sources for pre-​Islamic Arabia fall into three categories: 1 Archaeological remains:  Excavations in Arabia have not been as numerous as one would hope but important archaeological work and field surveys have been carried out around the Peninsula and their results published (see, e.g., Potts 1990–​1991; Hoyland 2001: 167–​197; Finster 2009; Genequand 2015). However, there have been no archaeological excavations in or in the immediate vicinity of Mecca and Medina. 2 Documentary sources, in particular epigraphy: There are tens of thousands of published inscriptions written in Ancient North Arabian (ANA) and Ancient South Arabian (ASA) scripts and languages (Macdonald 2000). Nabataean Aramaic inscriptions are also very significant, especially the ones that are written in the late (transitional) variety of the script that was still used in the fifth century CE and from which the Arabic script is derived (Nehmé 2010). Old Arabic inscriptions, on the other hand, are fewer in number, if the ANA languages or dialects called Safaitic and Hismaic are not understood to be part of the Old Arabic continuum (Macdonald 2008; Al-​Jallad 2014). ANA and ASA inscriptions are very interesting because of their references to pre-​Islamic deities but the dating of the ANA inscriptions in particular is problematic. The received opinion is that the writing of ANA inscriptions dies out by the fourth century CE, but there is no definitive evidence to that effect (on the question of dating, see Al-​Jallad, forthcoming).2 In any case, almost all of the ANA inscriptions are undated by their writers and there are currently no tools for the researcher to endeavor to put forth dates.Thus the usability of this corpus for understanding nascent Islam is diminished until further proof of their dating emerges. The ASA inscriptions are often dated or datable and continued to be written at least until the sixth century CE (Nebes and Stein 2008: 145), but they hail from Yemen, which is culturally different from the northern parts of Arabia where Islam began (Robin 2001). ASA survives not only as rock inscriptions but also on wooden sticks written in a minuscule script (Ryckmans, Müller, and Abdallah 1994). Many more, perhaps tens of thousands, Arabian inscriptions still remain undiscovered and unpublished. 3 Literary sources: The Arabic and non-​Arabic (especially Greek and Syriac) literary corpus is one that is most often used by historians to trace the events and religious phenomena of pre-​Islamic Arabia. Islamicists have in the past relied almost solely on the Islamic-​era Arabic literary evidence when they explore the pre-​Islamic background of the Ḥijāz and the Prophet Muḥammad (e.g., Lecker 2005). It is, however, often tendentious and centuries later than the events: the first surviving specimens of Arabic historiographic and other literary texts stem from around the year 800 CE (on the development of Arabic historiography, see Donner 1998). Material remains show that many pieces of information contained in Arabic literary evidence are inaccurate; on the other hand, they establish other details. Arabic texts such as Ibn al-​Kalbī’s Kitāb al-​Aṣnām clearly have some authentic material about the religious beliefs of pre-​Islamic Arabia but separating the wheat from the chaff is difficult. To quote Robert Hoyland: “[It] must be borne in mind that the Arabic reports are not plain historical narratives, but rather of an epic and legendary nature, full of seductions, ambushes, eloquent speeches and heroic battles” (2009: 389). Nevertheless, the Islamic-​era Arabic texts can be studied from another point of view: namely, the narrative and Weltanschauung that they offer in which the pre-​Islamic jāhiliyya, “Age of Ignorance,” is seen as a complete opposite to the time of Islam (Drory 1996; Rippin 2012: 7–​17; 160

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Webb 2016).When studying empirical history, we must, however, give precedence to the material remains where they exist, and use literary sources with a critical eye. More research is needed on the question of transmission of pre-​Islamic information to the later Arabic literary sources (for some notes, see Hoyland 2009: 390–​391). Muslim authors who write on pre-​Islamic Arabia sometimes refer to written sources that they had at their disposal. For example, al-​Hamdānī (1963: I 118–​119, 131), an expert on South Arabian matters, refers to some kind of written books and records that he used, but the existence or character of these is unclear. Furthermore, the Middle Persian historical literature, different specimens of which were translated into Arabic (Hämeen-​Anttila 2013), might have included some information on North and South Arabia. However, it might be the case that the reports on Arabia were added during the translation process and thus postdate Islam. In connection with the Arabic sources one must also mention the originally oral Arabic poetry that is attributed to the pre-​Islamic era even if it was collected in the first centuries of Islam. Some earlier scholars (Margoliouth 1925; Ḥusayn 1926) dismissed the whole of this corpus of poetry as a forgery but a case can be made that the formal features of these poems (meter, rhyme) guaranteed that they were transmitted in a way that was more or less faithful to their original form(s) (see also Zwettler 1978). Most modern scholars are of the opinion that, if genuine, the pre-​Islamic poetry stems from the fifth–​sixth centuries CE, at the earliest. Study that compares this corpus to the epigraphic record, for example, is still in its infancy.

Languages of pre-​Islamic Arabia To show how at a loss the Islamic-​era Arabic literary evidence can sometimes be, one needs only to consider the linguistic situation of pre-​Islamic Arabia (on which see Macdonald 2000; Al-​Jallad 2015: 1–​25). The Muslim authors did not have an understanding of the variety of languages in the pre-​Islamic era, claiming that most of the inhabitants of Arabia were Arabic-​ speaking (Rabin 1951), whereas in historical reality Arabia was home to speakers and writers of forms of North Arabian (including but not restricted to Arabic), South Arabian,3 Aramaic (Nabataean, Syriac) and, to a lesser extent, Hebrew, Ge’ez, Persian, Greek, and Latin. In the Islamic tradition, not only Arabians but also major characters of the monotheist tradition such as Ismail speak Arabic (al-​Masʿūdī 1979: II 162). Furthermore, later Arabic writers had little grasp of the fact that the South Arabians did not see themselves as and could not be called Arabs in the pre-​Islamic era. The Muslim authors see Yemen as the original home of the Arabs and Arabic language –​an idea for which we do not have much evidence and that is most likely incorrect. To this is connected another myth, namely that the Arab tribes are divided into two sections: al-​ʿarab al-​ʿāriba, “True Arabic-​speaking Arabs,” and al-​ʿarab al-​mustaʿriba, “Arabized Arabs.” The ʿarab al-​ʿāriba are deemed to be the Southern tribes and the ʿarab al-​mustaʿriba Northern.4 But this is incorrect insofar as the Arabic language actually spread from the north to the south in the course of late antiquity, and not the other way around. The Islamic tradition pushes the importance of Yemen even further, for example claiming that the eponym of the Greeks,Yūnān, came from Yemen (al-​Masʿūdī 1979: II 5–​6). All of this probably reflects the Islamic-​era, post-​ conquest tendency of Yemenite Muslims to emphasize their significance, but further research is needed (Bashear 1989; Webb 2016: 177–​239). In the Muslim sources, the development and rise of the Arabic script is said to have happened in the Ḥijāz, al-​Anbār, or al-​Ḥīra (e.g., al-​Hamdānī 1963: I 77–​79). The suggestion of al-​Ḥīra is interesting, since it was the capital of the Lakhmids (see below) and, indeed, the first text that is written completely in Arabic is the Namara inscription dated to 328 CE; it is a 161

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funerary text for Marʾ al-​Qays ibn ʿAmr, who is usually identified with a Lakhmid king of that name (Bellamy 1985; Macdonald 2015: 405–​409).The script is a late variant of Nabataean, from which the Arabic script developed during the following centuries (Gruendler 1993). However, the Namara inscription is the only testimony for the Lakhmids’ ostensible written use of Arabic. As for the Ḥijāz, there is actually more evidence that the Arabic script evolved there. Based on epigraphy, the rise of the Arabic script seems to be more directly related to the longevity of Nabataean Aramaic, which was, according to new finds (Nehmé 2010), used in the western parts of the peninsula until the fifth century. The script of these inscriptions is Nabataean and the language is often a mixture of Aramaic and Arabic. In 2014, a French-​Saudi team found a new Nabataean Aramaic inscription dated 469–​470 CE as far south as Najrān, which sparked scholarly and media interest.5 The Old Arabic inscriptions of the sixth century (Zebed, Jabal Usays, Harran; see Macdonald 2008) seem to be a continuation of this epigraphic habit of late Nabataean inscriptions, even if they have been found to the north of the Ḥijāz, in Syria.Writing on perishable material, if it existed, has not been preserved.

Tribal groups There is a rather widespread misconception among the general audience that all or most of the inhabitants of Arabia, and especially the Ḥijāz, were nomadic (often called Bedouin) around the lifetime of the Prophet Muḥammad, that is, the sixth and seventh centuries CE (on nomadism in Arabia, see, e.g., Bulliet 1980; Donner 1981: 16–​20; Hoyland 2001: 89–​102; Lancaster and Lancaster 2004). But this is incorrect. As Fred Donner reminds us about the inhabitants of Arabia: “it is unlikely that nomadic peoples have ever formed more than a small fraction of its population …. Most Arabians, then, are, and have been, settled people” (1981: 11). It has to be remembered that according to the traditional narrative, Muḥammad himself was a town-​ dweller, not a nomad of the desert. Inhabitants of Arabia were divided along tribal lines that, if need be, could be flexible and negotiable. There is a sizeable secondary literature on pre-​Islamic Arabian tribal groups (e.g., Kister 1965 on Tamīm; Donner 1980 on Bakr ibn Wāʾil; Shahîd 1984a: 366–​483 on Tanūkh; Landau-​Tasseron 1985 on Asad; Lecker 1989 on Sulaym; Lecker 1994 on Kinda; Rihan 2014 on ʿĀmila). It can be assumed that the Arabic literary evidence did transmit some historically valid knowledge of the tribes on the eve of Islam. In a section below, the Banū Ghassān, Ṣāliḥ, and Lakhm will be discussed; on these, the Arabic literature has valuable material. But when it comes to earlier times, it probably does not have much authentic information, except perhaps genealogies, which have proven to be only somewhat accurate. The following two are extreme examples of the unreliability of Arabic literature: the extinct tribes, Thamūd and ʿĀd. They are treated here to remind students of pre-​Islamic Arabia that sacred history in particular is often of doubtful reliability. A critical examination of the Islamic sources (the Qurʾān and the later tradition) shows that Muslims did not have any information about the historical Thamūd (on which see Macdonald 1995). The Thamūd narrative in the Islamic source is, quite simply, a myth (Stetkevych 1996). It tells the story of the Thamūd that live in al-​Ḥijr (ancient Egra/​Ḥgrʾ, modern Madāʾin Ṣāliḥ), a city carved out of rock (Q 11:61–​68, 15:80–​84, 41:13–​17; al-​Ṭabarī 1879–​1901: I 244–​252). A prophet, called simply Ṣāliḥ, “Pious,” emerges from among them, but the Thamūd disbelieve and God’s punishment wipes them all out. But in historical reality, al-​Ḥijr was a Nabataean city (see, e.g., Nehmé 2005). Writing of Nabataean Aramaic in al-​Ḥijr survived the fall of the Nabataean state in 106 well into the fourth century CE. There is no evidence that Thamūd lived there before or after the Nabataeans. It should be pointed out, at this junction, that the varieties of Ancient North Arabian inscriptions 162

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called “Thamudic” do not have anything at all to do with the tribe Thamūd; “Thamudic” is merely a modern and unfortunate misnomer. The Islamic sources are correct, though, in that the Thamūd seems to have been an extinct tribe before Islam. The last mention of them is in the fifth-​century CE Byzantine military document Notitia Dignitatum (Shahîd 2000: 436a). Al-​ Ḥijr, a city that was probably more or less abandoned by the lifetime of Muḥammad, became connected in the minds of the people with a lost tribe, the Thamūd. But for the study of the historical Thamūd, the Islamic sources are of little value. Another extinct tribe, ʿĀd, is mentioned in connection with the Thamūd in the Qurʾān (e.g., 7:73–​4). In one passage the Qurʾān states: “Have you not seen how your Lord dealt with the ʿĀd of Iram of the pillars (iram dhāt al-​ʿimād)?” (Q 89:6–​7). The Arabic exegetical tradition speculates extensively on what this “Iram of the pillars” might have been. Usually it is stated that it was either a city, identified with Damascus, the ancient Aram, or a (non-​attested) place of that name in Yemen, or a tribe somehow connected with the ʿĀd. But a case can be made that the Qurʾānic Iram is nothing but the ancient Nabataean town of Iram, nowadays known as Wādī Ram, in Jordan (Healey 2001: 56). Iram (ʾrm) as a toponym is securely attested in the inscriptions from the area (Savignac 1933). For example, one Bar ʿAliyyū, writing on Jabal Ram, says that he wrote the inscription with his own hand in ʾrm (Hoyland 2010a: 39). Indeed, Jabal Ram is still called Iram in Islamic times (Yāqūt 1977: I 154–​155). But the epigraphic evidence can be pushed even further, since a Hismaic inscription found on a stone from the temple of Lāt in Iram/​Wādī Ram is written “by Ġṯ son of ʾSlh son of Ṯkm –​and he built the temple of Lāt (w-​bny bt lt) –​of the tribe ʿd” (Farès-​Drappeau 1996: 276–​277).6 The Hismaic ʿd could be interpreted as the Arabic ʿĀd (Hismaic does not write vowels, even long ones), which would then place the ʿĀd in the ancient Iram. The pillars (al-​ʿimād) mentioned in the Qurʾān could then be understood as the buildings or, perhaps more plausibly, as the rock formations of Iram (see also Gürsey, forthcoming). (See Figure 9.1.)

Figure 9.1  A view of Wādī Ram. Photograph by Hannu Aukia

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The Ḥijāz and polytheism In the Islamic-​era Arabic narratives, the pre-​Islamic history of Mecca is linked with the sacred history and, sometimes, the history of the Persian Empire. For example, Sāsān, the eponym of the Sasanids, is depicted as going to Kaʿba for a pilgrimage (al-​Masʿūdī 1979: I 283). The building of the Kaʿba is credited to Abraham, as is well known. But all this is of course nothing but pious fiction. This section discusses political events and religious beliefs in the Ḥijāz before Muḥammad based on documentary evidence. Epigraphy receives much space here, because many of the inscriptions are rather new finds and somewhat unknown to students of pre-​and early Islamic history. Mecca, the town where Muḥammad is said to have been born, was not suited for agriculture (Donner 1981: 15): it seems to have been an insignificant town in pre-​Islamic times and it is not referred to by any source before the coming of Islam (identifying Ptolemy’s Macoraba with Mecca is not credible).The first source to mention it is the Qurʾān (48:84; furthermore, in Q 3:96 a place called Bakka, often identified with Mecca, appears). It needs to be stressed that the trans-​Arabian trade routes did not pass through it (Crone 1987; cf. Bukharin 2009). Mecca seems to have been a minor town with a temple, the Kaʿba, to which some Arabians made pilgrimage. Even though we do not have pre-​Islamic references to Mecca or Kaʿba, we do have ample evidence of sacred enclaves (in Arabic, ḥaram, maḥram, or ḥimā), where violence was prohibited, in the Peninsula. These are attested in ASA and Nabataean Aramaic inscriptions as well as literary evidence (Nehmé 1998; Hoyland 2001: 157–​162). The sanctuary usually employed a priest of some kind and pilgrimage to the site could be made. From Yemen, we have epigraphic records that describe annual pilgrimages to different sanctuaries; during the pilgrimage and festival time, shedding blood and sexual relations were often forbidden (Hoyland 2001: 161). In the Arabic literature, we also have references to other kaʿbas (cubic religious buildings) of the Peninsula (Finster 2009: 75–​76, 85–​86). More significant than Mecca in antiquity was the other town that Muḥammad’s life is linked with, Medina, known before Islam as Yathrib. Yathrib is widely attested in both pre-​Islamic epigraphy and literature and was a stop along the trade route. What is more, monotheism (particularly Judaism) was rather strongly represented in Yathrib (Lecker 1995). Jews are also attested in epigraphy elsewhere in the Ḥijāz and Northern Arabia (Hoyland 2011). However, except the Qurʾān, we currently have very little tangible evidence for Christians in or around Mecca and Medina (Munt 2015: 252). The religious environment of the Ḥijāz around the time of Muḥammad seems to be one where older polytheism was mixed with and perhaps supplanted by newer strands of monotheism (Christianity and Judaism): “The Qurʾān crystallized in an environment of monotheistic debate, not in a pagan environment” (Donner 2011: 29). In fact, scholars (Hawting 1999; Crone 2010) have claimed that the Qurʾānic mushrikūn, usually translated as “polytheists,” were actually some sort of monotheists (or quasi-​monotheists). This is analogous to what the late antique scholars of the Graeco-​Roman world have noticed, namely, that there was a general tendency toward “pagan monotheism” (Athanassiadi and Frede 1999). Q 29:65, for example, says, “When they go on board a ship, they call on God (allāh), in sincere devotion to Him alone, but once He has delivered them safely back to land, they ascribe partners.” This could indicate that even the polytheists viewed Allāh as some sort of High God (Watt 1971). But there is not much evidence outside the Qurʾān for this (Bowersock 2013: 120–​133), so all views on the matter are somewhat tentative. It must be noted that the Qurʾān ascribes opinions and beliefs, often in a polemic vein, to the enemies of the Believers that they probably did not manifest: it not only describes religious groups and identities but also construes them. Discussing the characterization 164

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Figure 9.2  Safaitic inscriptions, among them KRS 1944 (left), quoted above. In the middle of the inscription, there seems to be a drawing of the sun disc which is very fitting since the invocation is addressed to “King of the sky.” Photograph by Geraldine King Source: from the open source Online Corpus of the Inscriptions of Ancient North Arabia, http://​krc. orient.ox.ac.uk/​ociana/​index.php/​database.

of Christianity in the Qurʾān, Sidney Griffith remarks: “the Qurʾān does not simply report or repeat what Christians say; it reproves what they say, corrects it, or caricatures it” (2011: 311). This serves as “a polemically inspired caricature, the purpose of which is to highlight in Islamic terms the absurdity, and therefore the wrongness, of the Christian belief ” (Griffith 2011: 311). In attributing the mushrikūn some monotheist tendencies, the Qurʾān is probably doing the same: it claims that even the polytheists acknowledge that Allāh is the only and real God when their lives are in peril but when the danger is over they resort to their false gods again. In fact, it is rather widely attested that polytheism was still practiced in parts of late antique Arabia, and we do not seem to have much reason to doubt that the Kaʿba of Mecca was a place where a pagan god, perhaps Hubal and possibly represented by the black stone, was worshipped (e.g., al-​Azraqī 1858: 31; the deity hblw is attested in a Nabataean inscription from Madāʾin Ṣāliḥ, Healey 1993: 154). The effect of the Mazdean (Zoroastrian) religion on the region before and during the life of Muḥammad was less significant than that of Christianity and Judaism, but scholars have suggested some influences. However, it is hard to say whether these influences are real or imagined: the evidence is slight. The Sasanian ruler Kavād I, who reigned in the late fifth and early sixth centuries, is said to have imposed Mazdaism upon the Arabians in Najd and the Ḥijāz (al-​ Masʿūdī 1979: I 75; Daryaee 2009: 27) but whether this is a reliable report is hard to judge. In Q 2:102, angels called Hārūt and Mārūt appear; the names seem to be influenced by the Mazdean divine concepts Haurvatat (Middle Persian hordad, lit. “perfection”) and Ameretat (Middle Persian amurdad, lit. “immortality”) that were among the Amesha Spenta (Rose 2011: 171). We have ample epigraphic evidence of Arabian polytheistic beliefs and rites in the ANA (especially Safaitic), ASA, and Nabataean inscriptions. The problem is that these are (often centuries) earlier than Muḥammad and the Qurʾān, making it unclear whether this corpus is always useful 165

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to study the context of early Islam. What is more, the epigraphic evidence stems mostly from the south and north of the Ḥijāz. However, it can be argued that the epigraphic record is nonetheless more valuable than the Islamic-​era Arabic literary evidence, which is centuries later than Muḥammad and composed after what was seen as a profound change in the world order: the coming of a new religion, Islam, and the conquest of almost all of the known world by its adherents. The Safaitic inscriptions are especially interesting because they are voluminous (over 50,000 are known so far), quite well understood, and paint a vibrant picture of the religious beliefs of their writers, the inhabitants of the Syro-​Jordanian ḥarra, the basalt stone desert. Their dating, however, is uncertain. The inscriptions attest religious rituals, such as sacrificing animals (ḏbḥ)7 or dedicating (qṣy) an animal in a rock drawing to a deity; the writers also mention going on a pilgrimage (ḥg) (Al-​Jallad 2015: 217). Quite a few deities feature, many of which are identifiable with the ones mentioned in the Qurʾān or later Arabic literature as being among the deities that the polytheists worshipped: for example, ʾlh, ʾlt, ḏs²r(y)/​ds²r(y), and rḍw/​rḍy (Al-​Jallad 2015: 210), corresponding in all likelihood to Allāh, Allāt, Dhū al-​Sharā, and Ruḍā in Arabic. The inscriptions reveal that the writers sought refuge in the deities when times were tough: By S¹ʿd son of S¹wʾt son of Lmʾ and may Rḍw help him through divine favor, as there is danger here, and may he bless him. (AWS 218 in Al-​Jallad 2015: 226)8 By {ʾnʿm} and O {Gdʿwḏ}, O Merciful One (h rḥm) and O One who causes death (h ymyt), and O Rḍw, may the people be established [in this place]. (C 4351 in Al-​Jallad 2015: 241) The deities (or attributes) rḥm and ymyt mentioned in C 4351 are especially interesting and should be compared with the divine attributes mentioned in the Qurʾān. By Mlk son of ʾḥwḍ of the lineage of ʿmn and he halted on account of a monitor lizard the year Mk announced (declared war?) for Rome; and he mourned for S¹yd, who was murdered, so, O Lt, may there be vengeance against his murderer; and he mourned for his paternal uncle’s captured son, whom Ṭayyiʾ have captured. (CSNS 1004 in Al-​Jallad 2015: 245) By Nẓr son of Ḥfẓ son of S¹wd and, O King of the sky (h mlk h-​s¹my), let there be water. (KRS 1944 in Al-​Jallad 2015: 262) Other Safaitic inscriptions speak of more worldly matters, such as: By Bṯ and he copulated with Grmh, as he had celebrated the sending of the bride and had been pleased. (C 285 in Al-​Jallad 2015: 229) By Whblh son of ʾḥrb son of Ykn of the lineage of Kkb and he rejoiced at Brkt because there was fresh herbage, and returned from a place of water the year the lineage of ʿwḏ pastured the livestock of the lineage of ʿbd; and he served with his father in a cavalry unit. (C 320 in Al-​Jallad 2015: 229)

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The inscriptions show that the inhabitants of the ḥarra were in the habit of naming years according to significant events, especially wars. This is analogous to what we read in Arabic sources, where years such as “the year of the elephant” (ʿām al-​fīl) appear. To give a couple of examples from the Safaitic corpus: By ʾnʿm son of Qḥs² and he raided in the year of the war of Nabataea. (C 3690 in Al-​Jallad 2015: 240) By Kḥs¹mn son of Gnʾl son of S²ʿr son of Gnʾl of the lineage of Kn and adversity was widespread in the year of Caesar and the Persians so, O Lt and Gdḍf, may he be secure; and may he who would efface this writing go blind. (HAUI 72 in Al-​Jallad 2015: 248) By Ẓʿn son of Grmʾl son of Ẓʿn son of Bnt son of Ẓʿn son of H̱ṭs¹t of the lineage of Kn and he found the writing of Grmʾl, for those who remain despair; and he feared the Romans in the year of the Jews so, O Lt … protection against misfortune. (HAUI 125 in Al-​Jallad 2015: 249) As is already clear from the above examples, the writers of the Safaitic inscriptions often mention the powers in the region: Nabataeans, Romans, and Persians. One could adduce one more inscriptions to this effect, in which erecting (nṣb) a sacred stone for a deity called ʾṯʿ is also mentioned. Sacred stones, representing deities, are widely attested in the archaeological, epigraphic, and literary evidence (Hoyland 2001: 183–​187). (See Figure 9.3.) By Tmʾl son of Qṭʿn son of Nʿmn son of Ms¹kʾl son of Bs²mt son of Ṯwr sοn of Ṭylt son of Rʿd son of H̱bn son of Qnʾl the Ḥwl-​ite and he fled from Rome/​Romans. (LP 87 in Al-​Jallad 2015: 265) By Nʿmn son of H̱byṯ son of Nṣr son of Nʿmn son of Nṣr son of {Grmʾl} son of Kn son of Nʿmn son of Wʿl son of Rbn son of S²ʿr son of Kn son of Ṭḥrt son of Hys¹r son of Bʾs² son of Ḍf and he erected (nṣb) [a sacred stone of] ʾṯʿ the year Caesar sent reinforcements to the province and restored order to the province and the lineage of ʾs¹hm was defeated, for the lineage of Mlk and ʿm the ʿbs²ite and ʾs¹ of the lineage of Frṯ and he/​those of the lineage of Yẓr had [all] made war upon them. (MISSD 1 in Al-​Jallad 2015: 273) Polytheism also features in the late Nabataean Aramaic inscriptions, meaning Aramaic inscriptions written in transitional Nabataean script and often with heavy influence of Arabic (what follows is based on Nehmé 2013: 69–​73).While we can often only guess the dates of the Safaitic corpus, these inscriptions are fairly securely dated to the first–​fifth centuries CE on the basis of explicitly mentioned dates and paleography. What is more, the late Nabataean inscriptions derive from the Ḥijāz. Four deities, all recognizable from the Qurʾān or later Arabic tradition, occur in them: the Nabataean main god dwšrʾ (Arabic Dhū al-​Sharā), ʾlʿzʾ (al-​ʿUzzā), ʾlt (Allāt), and mntw/​mnwt/​mnwtw (Manāt). In addition to these, two inscribers ask to be remembered “in

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Figure 9.3  An unusually long Safaitic inscription MISSD 1. Photograph courtesy of Michael Macdonald Source: from the open source Online Corpus of the Inscriptions of Ancient North Arabia, http://​krc. orient.ox.ac.uk/​ociana/​index.php/​database.

front of all the gods” (mn qdm ʾlhyʾ klhm). Highly interesting is the sole inscription that mentions Allāt, since it states dʾ ʾlt dy bnh ʿnmw, “this is [a stone representing] Allāt that ʿNmw built” (on Allāt, see Krone 1992).The inscribers mentioning the different deities ask to be remembered in front of one (dkyr PN mn qdm DN) or that the deity listen to or hear (the prayer of) PN (šmʿt DN l-​ PN). Polytheistic rites among North Arabians are also recounted in the pre-​Islamic literary evidence, such as the Latin Itinerarium written by the anonymous “Piacenza Pilgrim” probably in the 550s. The author mentions a sacred stone on Mount Sinai: And on this mountain, on a part of the mountain, the Saracens have set up their own idol, made of marble white as snow. Here also their priest resides, dressed in a dalmatic and a linen cloak. When the time of their festival arrives with the new moon, before the moon has risen on the day of their feast, the marble begins to change colour; as soon as the moon appears, when they begin to worship, the marble turns black as pitch. When the time of the festival is over, it returns to its original colour. We were totally amazed by this. (Piacenza Pilgrim, Travelogue [Itinerarium]: 38, translation in Caner 2010: 258) The point of this section was to show that polytheism of pre-​Islamic North Arabia is widely attested in the epigraphic record and literature and there does not seem to be at the moment enough evidence to suggest, as Patricia Crone (2010, 2012) has done, that the mushrikūn 168

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mentioned in the Qurʾān were monotheist or believers in the same god, Allāh, as the Prophet, even though in some instances the Qurʾān does use the word for people who were not deemed monotheist enough, such as some Christians and Jews (e.g., Q 9:30–​31). What is, in any case, true is that according to the pre-​Islamic documentary record Allāh is very rarely attested. The polytheist pantheon and rites in South Arabia differed from those of North Arabia and will be discussed in the next section.

Yemen Yemen is the only part of the Arabian Peninsula able to sustain dry-​farming (Donner 1981: 11–​ 12). Yemen was, before Islam, culturally very different from the more northern parts of the peninsula:  the Yemenites spoke and wrote forms of South Arabian languages whereas the inhabitants of the north spoke forms of North Arabian languages. The Yemenites did not view themselves as Arabs before the coming of Islam and neither should the modern scholarship call them that. (To be sure, it was suggested in the introduction to this chapter that the term “Arab” could also be inapplicable to North Arabians in pre-​Islamic times.) What is more, the Yemenites formed political units and states much earlier than they appear in the North. Their income was secured because Yemen produced frankincense and myrrh, valuable products in antiquity that were transported to, for instance, Rome (for the spice and incense trade in and from Arabia, see, e.g., Hourani 1979: 3–​50; Crone 1987; Young 2001). The trans-​Arabian trade is ultimately tied to the domestication and exploitation of the camel as a pack animal (Bulliet 1975). The Yemenite kingdom of Ḥimyar is characterized by its close, and sometimes hostile, relationship with the kingdom of Axum (Ethiopia) that had converted to Christianity by the 340s (Bowersock 2013: 67). Christianity had also spread to some parts of Yemen, especially Najrān, but, interestingly, and for reasons that we do not have a clear grasp of, towards the end of the fourth century, Yemen, or at least its ruling class, adopted Judaism with some peculiar characteristics (Robin 2003; Gajda 2010). Before this, the Yemenites were mainly polytheist, worshipping, among others, ʿAthtar, the sun goddess Shams, and the moon god Almaqah (Jamme 1947; Hoyland 2001: 140–​141). (The importance of astral deities in North Arabia is a debated question; see Macdonald 2012; interestingly, however, Q 53:49 calls God “the Lord of Sirius.”) The South Arabian deity Wadd is mentioned in Q 71:23 along with other deities, so it is possible to suppose that traditional polytheism was practiced until the time of Muḥammad, even though it vanishes completely from the South Arabian inscriptions that are dated between 380 and 560. The new monotheist God is called rḥmnn in Ancient South Arabian and often described as “Lord of Heaven and Earth” (Nebes 2009). The Qurʾānic name al-​Raḥmān is probably related to that. One interesting inscription ends, after mentioning rḥmnn, with the phrase rb hd b-​mḥmd, which is translated as “by the Lord of the Jews, by the Highly Praised” (Ja 1028 in CSAI = Corpus of South Arabian Inscriptions, http://​dasi.humnet.unipi.it/​index.php?id=42&prjId=1&corId= 0&colId=0), even though the similarity to the Prophet Muḥammad’s name is probably purely coincidental. In 518 or thereabouts, the Ethiopian Negus (king) raided Yemen, which led to a short Christian occupation (Bowersock 2013:  87–​93). But the staunchly Jewish Ḥimyarite king Yūsuf, known in Arabic tradition as Dhū Nuwās, fought against the Christianizing trend and, in 523, went so far as to massacre Christians in Najrān and other places (see, e.g., al-​Masʿūdī 1979: I 74–​75; Brock and Harvey 1987: 100–​121; Beaucamp, Briquel-​Chatonnet, and Robin 1999–​2000 and 2010). This led to a new Ethiopian attack on Yemen, possibly at the instigation

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of the Byzantines, in 525 (Bowersock 2013: 96–​97). The Ethiopian and Christian presence in Yemen was strengthened and the Ḥimyarite dynasty was supplanted. This led to a situation where other foreign powers also tried to exert influence in Southern Arabia. During the time of Khosrow I (r. 531–​579), Sasanian Persia was able to conquer areas in Eastern Arabia, reaching regions in Yemen as well (Daryaee 2009: 31). In the 540s–​550s, Yemen was ruled by a king of Ethiopian origin called Abraha. He launched many campaigns into parts of Arabia, celebrating his deeds in inscriptions (Bowersock 2013: 111–​118). One expedition, probably the one dated 552, was remembered later in Islamic tradition as “the year of the elephant” (ʿām al-​fīl), even if there is no evidence that Abraha raided Mecca, as the Arabic literature recounts. The Islamic tradition claims that Muḥammad was born in that year but this does not seem to be anything other than a confluence of two events that were later deemed highly significant (Conrad 1987). Ethiopians were not there to stay, however. By 575, the Persians had conquered the whole of Yemen and expelled the Ethiopian troops.

Ghassānids and Lakhmids Two North Arabian tribes, the Banū Ghassān and Banū Lakhm, rise to important positions as allies of and sort of buffer states between the Byzantine Empire and the Sasanian Empire toward the end of the third century CE (Shahîd 2002; Toral-​Niehoff 2014; Genequand and Robin 2015). In the scholarly literature, they are sometimes called Jafnids and Naṣrids, respectively, according to their ruling houses.The reason for their being employed as vassals of the two great empires is given by Hoyland as follows: “Rome’s struggle with a re-​energised Iranian Empire led by the Sasanian dynasty (inaugurated in 224 CE) meant that it had an increased need for military manpower and allies. Peripheral people were thus incorporated in the Empire in larger numbers, and consequently they could negotiate with Rome on better terms” (2009: 380). The Ghassānids first appear in two Ancient South Arabian inscriptions dated to c. 260 and 360 CE (Robin 2015: 111–​113). To these can be added a late Nabataean Aramaic inscription found at al-​Qaṭīʿa in the Ḥijāz that Robin dates to the third–​fourth centuries on the basis of paleography. It reads: bl dkyr nšyb ḥrtt br zydmnwtw mlk ʿšn, “Indeed be remembered the relative-​ in-​law of Ḥārithat son of Zydmnwtw, King of Ghassān” (2015: 114; his reading and translation require modification as given here).9 Thereafter, the Ghassānids appear in the epigraphic record and literary evidence. The Jabal Usays inscription, dated 528–​529, is written by a person that the Ghassānid king had sent for some sort of military activity: “I am Ruqaym son of Muʿarrif al-​Awsī; the king al-​Ḥārith [ibn Jabala] sent me to Usays as a guard [? mslḥh/​mtslḥh, the interpretation is uncertain] in the year 4 × 100 + 20 + 3 [of the Province = 528–​529 CE]” (Larcher 2010; Macdonald 2010). Al-​ Ḥārith’s son al-​Mundhir (phylarch of Byzantium c. 568–​581) is remembered in an inscription from Resafa, reading, in Greek, “the fortune of al-​Mundhir is victorious” (Cameron 2012: 174). It is important to note that while both the Ghassānids and Lakhmids were probably Arabic-​ speaking, they usually resorted to Greek or Syriac in writing. By the fourth century, Christianity had spread to the Northern parts of Arabia (al-​Masʿūdī 1979: I 76, 81; Hoyland 2001: 147–​150) as well as some places in the South, such as Najrān. The spread of Christianity can be documented not only from the literary evidence but also from the emergence of crosses in rock graffiti, for example in Kilwa in the northwestern Peninsula (Finster 2009:  72). The Ghassānids had also converted and were staunch supporters of Christianity. For instance, the Ghassānid king al-​Nuʿmān b. al-​Mundhir (phylarch of the Byzantine Empire c. 581–​602, not to be confused with the Lakhmid king of the same name 170

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who ruled around the same time) is characterized in the Greek and Syriac sources as “a zealous Christian man” (Hoyland 2010b: 48). At times, the Byzantines employed tribes other than Ghassānids as their allies and clients. One must mention especially the Ṣāliḥids in this connection (Shahîd 1989: 233–​324). One of their kings seem to be attested in a late Nabataean inscription found recently in the Ḥijāz that reads: “Indeed be remembered Pahmū son of ʿUbaydū for good and may he remain safe and sound; in the year 2 × 100 + 100 + 20 + 20 + 10 [of the Province = 455 CE] when they introduced ʿAmrū as king” (Nehmé 2009: 49–​52). This is an important and rare document that appears to refer to the Ṣāliḥid king ʿAmr ibn Ḍujʿum/​Zokomos who reigned in the fifth century and who is mentioned by Greek and Arabic authors (Shahîd 1989: 252–​255). The bilingual (Parthian–​Middle Persian) Paikuli inscription, dated 293 CE, is the first record of the Lakhmids (Toral-​Niehoff 2014: 30). There, the Lakhmid king ʿAmr (r. c. 270–​300) is mentioned among the vassals of the Sasanians. For the son of ʿAmr we also have epigraphic evidence: in the Namara funerary inscription of 328 CE, Marʾ al-​Qays b. ʿAmr claimed to have been the “King of all Arabs/​Arabia” and that he subdued various Arabian tribes, raiding as far south as Najrān (Macdonald 2015). It cannot be assumed that the Lakhmids were the submissive clients of the Persians for three centuries, but rather they maintained some independence. The Lakhmids seem to have remained pagan until the late sixth century, when they converted to Christianity (Toral-​Niehoff 2009). The Sasanians found a reliable ally in the Lakhmids, who built their capital at al-​Ḥīra, near Ctesiphon (on al-​Ḥīra, see most recently Toral-​Niehoff 2014). According to the Arabic sources, the relationship between the Sasanian ruling family and the Lakhmids was close and often amiable. It is, for instance, said that the Sasanian king Bahrām V Gūr (r. 420–​438) was brought up in the Lakhmid court of al-​Ḥīra (al-​Masʿūdī 1979: I 303; Daryaee 2009: 22–​23), but this might be an unreliable report. According to Isabel Toral-​Niehoff, “such legendary material should be read as symbolic cultural legends that personalize the Iranian-​Arab cultural contact” (2013: 123). In the early sixth century, the Lakhmids played an important role in Persian military operations; this is also attested in the non-​Arabic literature and is thus more strongly grounded in history (Hoyland 2007: 228–​229). According to the Arabic sources, the strong interaction of North Arabians with Sasanian Persia goes back to the early years of Shāpūr II’s reign (309–​379 CE), when North Arabians raided some provinces of the empire. Later, the king retaliated and the Arabian tribes of Taghlib, ʿAbd al-​Qays, Tamīm, Bakr ibn Wāʾil, and Ḥanāẓila are said to have been forcibly removed and resettled inside Sasanian Persia (al-​Masʿūdī 1979: I 295; Daryaee 2009: 16–​17). The presence of North Arabians in Mesopotamia had, of course, a long history (Eph’al 1984) but their number probably increased during the Sasanian period. The last Lakhmid king, al-​Nuʿmān III b.  al-​Mundhir, was killed by the Sasanians in 602 CE (Hoyland 2001: 30; Dayraee 2009: 33). The Lakhmids were replaced by another Arabian tribe, Ṭayyiʾ, which ruled in al-​Ḥīra for nine years. After this, al-​Ḥīra was directly ruled by the Persians. The decades before the Islamic conquests were characterized by the renewal of hostilities between the Byzantine and Sasanian empires in various clashes and wars, the last war occurring in the years 603–​630 (on these wars, see Howard-​Johnston 1995; Greatrex and Lieu 2002: 182–​ 228; Dignas and Winter 2007; Hoyland 2010b:  45–​85; Fisher 2011; Sarris 2011; Cameron 2012: 191–​198; Millar 2013). The inaptly named “Endless Peace” treaty of 561 between the empires came to an end when the Byzantine emperor Justin II opened hostilities in the year 572. He also planned a failed attempt on the life of the Ghassānid king al-​Mundhir, which led to the severing of ties between the Ghassānids and Byzantines. However, al-​Mundhir was soon 171

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once again on the Byzantine side, fighting with the general Maurice against the Persians. The fighting between the Byzantine and Sasanian sides was indecisive, however, with truces being called and then broken. The Arabian clients of Persians and Byzantines also conducted proxy wars against each other (on the importance of the Arabian allies, see Hoyland 2010b: 47–​48; Cameron 2012: 193). However, in the 610s things started to change. During the reign of Khosrow II (590–​628), the Persian armies advanced westward, conquering Syria, Egypt, and many cities of Asia Minor. Jerusalem was reduced in 614 and the True Cross taken, alongside the patriarch, to Ctesiphon, the Persian capital. The loss of land, goods, and prestige was a serious blow to the Byzantine Empire. The Byzantine Empire started to recover and launch counterattacks in the 620s, during the reign of Heraclius (r. 610–​641). This did not stop the Persians from threatening Constantinople, the Byzantine capital, in 626. But soon their fortunes turned. Forming an alliance with the Turks, Heraclius attacked Persian lands decisively, which made the Persian king sue for peace in 629. The True Cross was recovered and taken back to Jerusalem in the year 630. The Sasanian Empire fell into disarray, with different factions fighting each other and kings coming to the throne just to be unseated by the next (see al-​Ṭabarī 1879–​1901: I 1061–​1067 for a possible list of kings). No wonder, then, that when the early Muslims started to raid the Near East in the 630s, the resistance from the Byzantines and Persians was not strong enough to stop them.

Conclusions Today, we understand the religious phenomena of Arabia better than before. Epigraphy in particular has taken great strides, and we are no longer so dependent on the tendentious Arabic literary sources of the Islamic era. Arabia in general and the Ḥijāz in particular are regions where both polytheistic and monotheistic beliefs and practices are attested before Islam. Neither polytheism nor monotheism should be disregarded until we more fully understand the interaction or the power relations of the two and of nascent Islam. Monotheism was quickly advancing in the region but traditional polytheism, with all its variety, apparently still had its supporters. But not for long. An Arabian Prophet called Muḥammad was about to start receiving a new revelation that continued the monotheistic tradition. Islam should be seen as part of the tendency towards monotheism in late antiquity. After a millennia-​ long history, polytheism in the Near East came to its end with the career of the Arabian Prophet who himself had grown up in the pagan environment, perhaps worshipping the local gods (Kister 1970), but who proved in the end to be their staunchest opponent.

Notes 1 I have greatly benefited from discussions with Suleyman Dost and Nathaniel Miller about pre-​Islamic Arabia. I  am grateful to them as well as to Yusuf Gürsey, Professor Jaakko Hämeen-​Anttila, Jouni Harjumäki, and Kaj Öhrnberg, who read and commented on an earlier draft of this chapter. 2 There are a couple of indications that some ANA inscriptions could be contemporaneous with Islam. See, e.g., the Safaitic inscription CIS 4448 in Al-​Jallad (2015: 242), which is dated according to s1nt ḥrb h-​mḏy ʾl rm b-​bṣr[y]‌, “the year the Persians waged war against the people of Rome at Bostra.” The inscription could refer to the Sasanian–​Byzantine wars of the early seventh century CE, but this is in no way certain. 3 North Arabian and South Arabian are not genetic groupings but regional ones and the research on them is still ongoing. Ancient North Arabian, for example, is usually said to include Taymatic and Dadanitic, as well, but these are not linguistically part of the North Arabian group.

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Pre-Islamic Arabia and early Islam 4 Sometimes a third group, al-​ʿarab al-​bāʾida, “vanished Arabs,” is mentioned. Thamūd and ʿĀd (see the section “Tribal groups”) are among them. 5 See www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/​fr/​dossiers-​pays/​arabie-​saoudite/​la-​france-​et-​l-​arabie-​saoudite/​evenements-​ 4400/​article/​actualite-​du-​reseau-​culturel-​114654; and Robin, al-​Ghabbān, and al-​Saʿīd (2014). 6 I thank Yusuf Gürsey for this reference. 7 Animal sacrifices are attested in jāhiliyya poetry and the archaeological record, as well. One of the forms of animal sacrifice was that a camel was killed on the death of its owner (Stetkevych 1993: 40; Hoyland 2001: 163–​166, 175). 8 The readings of the Safaitic inscriptions are from Al-​Jallad (2015). The translations have been modified if deemed necessary. 9 I thank Nathaniel Miller for this reference.

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10 EARLY MUSLIMS AND PEOPLES OF THE BOOK Fred M. Donner

Introduction This chapter will deal with relations between the early Muslims and those who are designated in the Qurʾān as “Peoples of the Book” (ahl al-​kitāb) –​generally understood to mean Jews, Christians, and sometimes adherents of some other religious confessions, including Zoroastrians. Our chapter title is somewhat problematic. Contemporary documents from the seventh century CE show that the community founded by Muḥammad (d. 632 CE according to tradition) did not refer to its members as “Muslims,” or refer to its religion as “Islām,” until around 700 CE; nor are the members of Muḥammad’s movement called “Muslims” in surviving contemporary sources from outside the community (mainly, Christian sources written in Syriac, Greek, Coptic, or Armenian). For this reason, the present chapter will refer to the followers of Muḥammad as “Believers” (muʾminūn), the term that predominates in the Qurʾān and is what, at first, they seem to have called themselves; likewise, when dealing with the seventh century CE, it will refer to the “community of Believers” (see Donner 2002–​2003; Donner 2010).

Muḥammad’s community and Peoples of the Book The relationship of Muḥammad to Peoples of the Book is difficult to establish with certainty because we completely lack contemporary documentation (inscriptions, original letters, etc.) from the community of Muḥammad’s time. This means that the historian is forced to attempt a reconstruction on the basis of a variety of literary sources, which pose daunting obstacles. (1) Most important is the text of the Qurʾān, generally considered the earliest product of the nascent community of Believers and as such the best source to understand the outlook of its members, including their attitude toward Peoples of the Book. Using it is complicated by the fact that its early development and subsequent transmission remain shrouded in uncertainty. (2) Muslim traditions about Islam’s origins speak a great deal about Muḥammad’s relations with Peoples of the Book, but because these traditions crystallized long after the time of Muḥammad, mainly in the eighth and ninth centuries or even later, it is usually unclear in what measure they reflect conditions of Muḥammad’s time, as opposed to conditions of the period in which the reports were compiled. For this reason, this material will be utilized sparingly below, with the single exception of the document next described. (3) Embedded in the later literature about 177

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Islam’s origins is what appears to be an early document, often called the umma document or “Constitution of Medina,” that appears to be the text of an agreement drawn up between Muḥammad and the people of Yathrib (Medina) when he and his followers moved there from Mecca in 622 CE, establishing them as a new community (umma). Because of its content and archaic style, almost all scholars agree that this text must be largely authentic (e.g., Crone and Cook 1977).1 The first challenge we must confront is to establish just who were the Christians and Jews to whom the Qurʾān refers. (The Qurʾān [Q 22:17] refers to Zoroastrians, majūs, only once.) Some scholars have argued that the Qurʾānic naṣārā, generally translated “Christians,” cannot for various reasons be any of the “mainstream” Christian confessions familiar in the late antique Near East (e.g., Greek Orthodox [“Melkites,” “Chalcedonians”], Syrian Orthodox [“Jacobites,” “Monophysites,” “Miaphysites”], or Church of the East [“Nestorians”]); rather, they propose, the term must refer to “sectarian” Christians or Jewish Christians (Ebionites, Nazoreans, etc.) (Lüling 1981; de Blois 2002; Gallez 2005; Gnilka 2007). Other scholars, however, have argued just as forcefully that the Qurʾānic naṣārā does refer to “mainstream” denominations and point out that there is no evidence otherwise for the existence of Jewish-​Christian or other sectarian groups in Arabia in Muḥammad’s day (notably Griffith 2008 and 2013; Zellentin 2013). This question, like many others, must remain for the present unresolved. Another fundamental challenge is to establish just whether “Peoples of the Book” and “Believers” are mutually exclusive categories in Qurʾānic discourse. The Qurʾān addresses itself primarily to “Believers” (muʾminūn). It defines Believers as those who recognize the oneness of God, the reality of a coming Last Judgment, and the need to live righteously (i.e., in mindfulness of God the creator, with frequent prayer, giving of alms, humility toward others, and succor for the unfortunate).2 These characteristics are not at odds with Christian and Jewish belief and practice, and in fact several Qurʾānic passages state explicitly that at least some Peoples of the Book –​those who are deemed sufficiently righteous –​are to be reckoned among the Believers (e.g., Q 2:111–​112, 2:135–​137, 3:199, 5:65–​66; 16:114–​118; see Donner 2002–​–​2003). So it seems that, at some point in Muḥammad’s career, Believers were not considered categorically separate from Peoples of the Book (as our chapter title implies).3 That is, some Peoples of the Book seem to have been members of the Believers’ movement, while remaining Christians or Jews, etc. Since the phrase ahl al-​kitāb is not used in the Qurʾānic surahs assigned by the traditional chronologies to the earliest period of Muḥammad’s preaching, but only begins to appear in the late Meccan period (Vajda 1960–​2007), we can assume that this openness of the Believers’ movement to suitably pious Peoples of the Book endured at least until that time. How long this kind of overlap or confessional indeterminateness between Believers and Peoples of the Book endured –​in particular, whether it was still found in the decades following Muḥammad’s death –​remains an ongoing issue. The Qurʾān, however, is not consistent in its statements about the Peoples of the Book. Besides the verses just mentioned, which suggest that Peoples of the Book could be part of the Believers’ community, there are many more verses that criticize the Peoples of the Book generally, or Jews or Christians specifically; in some cases it even ranks them among the mushrikūn or kuffār, who effectively deny God’s oneness and hence are unbelievers (e.g. Q 2:105, 2:109, 3:70, 3:72, 3:98, 59:2, 98:1, 98:6). It is not clear how these contradictions in the Qurʾān’s position on Peoples of the Book should be reconciled. Do they represent development over time in Muḥammad’s life? Are some to be understood as responses to a particular historical moment, and hence perhaps not of general import? Are some passages interpolations inserted into the text at a later time, perhaps toward the end of the seventh century CE, when the Qurʾān was subjected to editorial review? These questions, like many others, remain open. 178

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As noted above, for the earliest community of Believers, besides the Qurʾān, we have no contemporary evidence, with the exception of the text of the umma document, preserved only in later literary sources but generally accepted as authentic. The umma document depicts Jews as full members of the umma alongside other clans or tribes of people in Medina who are not identified as Jews. (However, the umma document does not mention the three main Jewish groups described in the later biographies of Muḥammad’s life –​the Qaynuqāʾ, Naḍīr, and Qurayẓa. Whether these groups of Jews were never part of the agreement, as Lecker has proposed, or whether clauses relating to them were dropped from the document as irrelevant when the document was copied, long after their exile from Medina, remains another puzzle.) The idea that Muḥammad had close relations with Jews is also suggested by the report of the Armenian bishop Sebeos, who in the History attributed to him reports that Muḥammad’s movement began when Jewish refugees from Edessa, fleeing Byzantine oppression, arrived in Medina (Thompson 1999: 95–​97).4 Christians, on the other hand, are never mentioned in the umma document. Perhaps this should be taken as evidence that there were no clan groups in Medina that self-​identified as Christians, only isolated individuals. (This is essentially what later Islamic tradition contends.) But this is puzzling in view of the Qurʾān’s insistent criticism of several central doctrines of Christianity –​the Trinity, the divinity of Jesus, and the idea that Jesus was God’s son –​all of which might be taken to suggest that there was relatively strong Christian presence in the environment in which the Qurʾān was first preached, and to which the Qurʾān is reacting, despite the absence of Christians in the umma document. This contradiction is, like the Qurʾān’s inconsistent statements on the Peoples of the Book generally, something of which we must take note, but that has not, to date, been satisfactorily explained. Conversely, although the umma document explicitly includes Jews in the primordial Medinese community, the Qurʾān contains a number of statements that are strongly critical of Jews (esp. Q 5:82, “You shall find the most hostile people to the Believers to be the Jews and the mushrikūn”). Traditional narratives of later date also describe a number of events toward the end of Muḥammad’s life that many scholars have taken as evidence of an anti-​Jewish policy on Muḥammad’s part. These include the exiling of the Medinese Jewish clans of al-​Naḍīr and Qaynuqāʾ, the brutal liquidation of the Medinese Jewish clan of Qurayẓa, and the expedition to conquer the oases of Khaybar and Tabūk, which were occupied by Jews. But later tradition also includes accounts suggesting that Muḥammad’s movement was not in principle anti-​Jewish even near the end of his life: for example, a report that ten Jewish advisers accompanied Muḥammad on the Khaybar expedition (al-​Wāqidī 1966: 684). Although this is said to have occurred after the massacre of Qurayẓa, these Jews seem still to be in Muḥammad’s good graces. In any case, the reliability of all such later traditional reports is open to question, because they are usually intent on serving ideological agendas of the late eighth-​and ninth-​century Islamic community,5 and because we do not yet understand how later notions of “prophethood” may have contributed to the construction of the tradition’s depiction of Muḥammad as prophet (Rubin 1995). So the reconstruction of the past reality of Muḥammad’s relations with Jews from the narratives of the prophet’s life may not (or not yet) be possible, even though it is routinely undertaken.6

Peoples of the Book in the early expansion of the Believers’ movement As the Believers expanded their hegemony in the seventh century CE into areas outside Arabia following the death of the Prophet (traditionally dated to 632 CE),7 they came into contact with long-​established communities of Near Eastern Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians, 179

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and other religions. The first references to the Believers in written sources that are contemporary, or nearly contemporary, with the events of the conquest provide us with a gradually increasing basis of secure documentation on which to examine the Believers’ relations with Peoples of the Book. Some of these documents were produced by the Believers themselves (particularly coins, inscriptions, and papyri); others were produced by the populations subjected to the new regime established by the Believers in Syria, Egypt, Mesopotamia, and elsewhere.8 The initial contacts of the Believers with Peoples of the Book in Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Iran, and elsewhere were part of a process of state-​expansion, in the course of which the Believers seized and established a new government over vast areas formerly ruled by the Byzantine or Sasanian empires. The establishment of the Believers’ hegemony in these regions sometimes involved pitched military battles, the siege of towns, the taking of plunder and captives, and indiscriminate violence by soldiers or simple marauders taking advantage of unsettled conditions. The massacre of 4,000 peasants near Gaza in 634 mentioned by Thomas the Presbyter (written a few years after the event), or the slaughter of 1,200 Armenians in Dvin in 640 or 641, mentioned in the Zuqnīn Chronicle (written around 775 CE), are two salient examples (Palmer et  al. 1993: 19 and 57).9 The seventh century, furthermore, included two extended civil wars within the community of Believers (656–​660 and 680–​692), and during these periods of instability people of all communities suffered from violence perpetrated by bedouins and marauding bands of brigands taking advantage of the absence of established authority, as well as from contending armies and undisciplined soldiers.10 We should not, however, hastily assume that the expansion of the Believers’ movement was a singularly violent process. The tendency of some modern authors to make such an assumption is the result of their uncritical adoption of the testimony of later literary sources, Christian and Muslim, both of which tended for very different reasons to depict the ­expansion of the Believers’ movement primarily in terms of military conflict (Donner 2011b: 12–​13). In fact, it seems unlikely that the Believers’ expansion differed substantially in its violence from other instances of conquest of the time, such as the Sasanian conquest of Syria and Egypt, or the Byzantine reconquest of Syria and invasion of Mesopotamia a few years later. In discussing the Believers’ relations with the Peoples of the Book in the period after the death of Muḥammad, it makes sense to treat their relations with the three main communities –​ Jews, Zoroastrians, and Christians –​separately; and, because information on their relations with Christians dwarfs what is known of their relations to Jews and Zoroastrians, they will be treated below in the order listed above.

Relations with Jews As seen above, Muḥammad’s relationship with Jews was complex and is still debated, but at least we have some information about it –​from the later literary sources about Muḥammad’s life, from the Qurʾān, and, most reliably, from the umma document. After his death, however, our information drops off markedly. One very early source  –​the History attributed to the Armenian bishop Sebeos, which seems to date to the mid-​seventh century  –​reports that after the Believers conquered Jerusalem in the 630s, their first governor of the city was a Jew (Thomson 1999: 103).This report is not confirmed by any other early source, but if true, it may be that the Believers were continuing the practice of the Sasanians, who during their occupation of Jerusalem (614–​629) had reversed the centuries-​long Roman/​Byzantine prohibition on Jews living in Jerusalem (in effect since 135 CE).11 It may also help explain why the Jews 180

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gave the amīr al-​muʾminīn ʿUmar b. al-​Khaṭṭāb the sobriquet al-​fārūq, “the redeemer” (Bashear 1990: 47–​70). Later literary sources seldom mention Jews in describing the conquests; one exception is the report that the amīr al-​muʾminīn Muʿāwiya (r. 660–​680) settled a large number of Jews in Tripoli in Lebanon. This may have been to forestall a return to the city by the Byzantines, who had sent their navy to evacuate the Christian population when they called for aid (al-​Balādhurī 1866:  127). There are also intriguing references relating to the Dome of the Rock, built in Jerusalem in the early 690s CE on orders of the amīr al-​muʾminīn ʿAbd al-​Malik (r. 685–​705). The description of early rituals performed at the Dome of the Rock, described in the sixteenth-​ century author al-​Wāsiṭī’s account of the construction of the monument, has suggested to various authors that these rituals were related to earlier Jewish rituals in the Temple, and that some were performed by Jews (al-​Wāsiṭī 1979: 82–​83; El’ad 1992: 48–​49; Gil 1992: 72). In sum, these few reports hint that there may have been a fairly positive and close relationship between Jews and the early Believers as the latter expanded their hegemony over the Near East. Certainly there was no affection among Jews for Byzantine rule. It is a bit puzzling, however, that the later Islamic sources for the early conquests say so little about Jewish involvement in the movement, or their relationship to Jews; for there can be no doubt that the Believers, during their expansion, must have come into contact with the large and thriving Jewish communities in various parts of the Near East, particularly in Egypt, Iraq, and Palestine. The Jewish academies of Babylonia at Sura and Pumbedita were important centers of learning and continued to function for many centuries after the conquest. In Palestine, Roman repression had eliminated any significant Jewish presence in Jerusalem by the second century, but Tiberias housed an important academy and was the religious and communal center of Jewish life by the early seventh century CE, and like its Babylonian counterparts, continued to function in this role for many more centuries. Except for the few references noted above, however, we do not read of Jews playing an active part in the Believers’ movement; on the other hand, we also do not find reports (in either later Muslim or in Jewish tradition) of policies inimical to Jews, such as the destruction of synagogues. Archaeological evidence shows that some synagogues continued to function for many centuries after the conquests.12 It may be, then, that the Jewish populations of the Near East were essentially left alone during the first century or so of the of the Believers’ rule, required of course to pay taxes but otherwise not molested or coerced.13 It is important to remember, however, that we should not view the Jews of the Near East in the seventh century as a monolithic bloc; various “Jewish” communities in areas as dispersed as Egypt, Palestine, Iraq, and Iran (not to mention Arabia) may have displayed significant variation in ritual and doctrine, so that different Jewish communities may have had very different experiences with the expanding Believers’ movement.14 It is therefore probably futile, and misleading, to attempt a single, sweeping judgment on how the earliest Believers related to the Near East’s Jews.

Relations with Zoroastrians The information about Zoroastrian (Magian) communities and their relations with the early Believers’ movement is, like that for the Jews, very limited and unfortunately very little of it is of documentary character. As noted earlier, Zoroastrians are mentioned in passing only once in the Qurʾān. In later Islamic legal theory, Zoroastrians came to occupy a status intermediate between Peoples of the Book and mushrikūn (idolators) (Morony 1960–​2007), but during the seventh century they seem to have been subjected to the payment of tribute (jizya), like most conquered communities, but otherwise not generally abused. Although the later Islamic chronicles describe occasional instances destruction of Zoroastrian fire-​temples and persecution of Zoroastrian 181

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clergy (Morony 1960–​2007: V 1111), it seems that in most communities fire-​temples were left alone and remained in use. Indeed, the standard chahār-​ṭāq (four-​apse) construction characteristic of most fire-​temples, which appears first in the early Sasanian period, seems to flourish especially in the seventh century, although proper excavation has been undertaken only at a very few sites and buildings of this form could have many functions.15 Many areas of the Iranian plateau, with its predominantly Zoroastrian population, seem to have enjoyed significant autonomy under local rulers or landholders who had made a truce with the Believers.16 As far as one can tell, few Zoroastrians embraced Islam in the seventh century, except for those who sought to preserve their formerly privileged positions in the Sasanian hierarchy, such as some troops of soldiers (Choksy 1997: 70–​76). A trove of Middle Persian documents on leather and linen discovered in the 1980s offers a glimpse into the ordinary life of a community in the region of Qom in western Iran in the seventh century (Weber 2008). They seem to show life proceeding as in Sasanian times, with little change. The local dihqāns or landowners continued in their traditional roles, sometimes as tax collectors for the new regime, and sometimes inviting Arabian Believers to settle on undeveloped lands in their possession so that they might develop them and make them productive.17 The rapid conversion of Zoroastrians to Islam, and the transformation of fire-​temples into mosques, seems to begin in earnest only in the eighth and especially the ninth centuries CE (Choksy 1997: 76).

Relations with Christians The evidence regarding Christians and their relationship to the Believers’ movement is far more copious than what is available for any other group among the Peoples of the Book, and it is in some ways the inverse of that regarding Jews –​for whom, as we have seen, we have some information dealing with the life of Muḥammad but almost none for the seventh century. In the case of Christians, we have no trustworthy historical information on contacts between Muḥammad and Christian communities (although there are, as noted, many passages in the Qurʾān that criticize key Christian doctrines such as the Trinity and the divinity of Jesus), but for the period following Muḥammad’s death (i.e., the mid-​and later seventh century) we find a substantial number of reports, in both later Muslim literary sources and in contemporary or near-​contemporary Christian sources. These reports give us, as we move through the seventh century, increasingly full information about the Believers’ relations with Christian communities. Before examining this evidence, we must remind ourselves of the complexity of the Christian presence in the Near East in the seventh century. At the time of the conquest there were numerous Christian denominations in the region, each with its own distinctive theological positions and independent church hierarchy, and these engaged in bitter intersectarian polemic against one another. Moreover, the Arabian Believers came to power in the wake of changed relationships among these different churches. Chalcedonian Christians, backed by the Byzantine state, had long been politically dominant in Syria, but the Sasanian occupation of the Levant in the early seventh century shattered Chalcedonian dominance, as the Persians tended to back Jews and Miaphysite Christians there. Many Chalcedonians fled the Persian invasion, and while a number returned after Heraclius’ reconquest, when the Believers seized the region a few years later, the Chalcedonians were no longer the dominant element they had once been (Bowersock 2012a). Chalcedonians, moreover, were divided into Monothelite and Dyothelite factions. In Iraq, the Church of the East (“Nestorian”) had long been prominent.18 These doctrinal distinctions matter to us partly because the different theological perspectives of these communities led them to perceive the Believers’ presence differently (Brock 1982: 10). 182

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As noted above, many Christian accounts describe violence attendant on the conquests. Often this is taken as evidence that the conquerors were anti-​Christian. Moreover, those communities that came under the Believers’ hegemony were required to pay jizya, but in the seventh century jizya meant simply tribute, to be paid by any conquered community, and had not yet acquired the more negative overtones it came to have in later Islamic law, where it refers to a discriminatory “poll-​tax” levied on Peoples of the Book.19 A number of seventh-​century Christian writers, however, suggest that the Believers at first established constructive relations with the Christians and Christian communities they encountered. The patriarch of the Church of the East in Ctesiphon (al-​Madāʾin), Ishoʿyahb III (d. 659 CE), in a letter to one of his bishops, says about the new rulers “[Y]‌ou know well how they act towards us. Not only do they not oppose Christianity, but they praise our faith, honour the priests and saints of our Lord, and give aid to the churches and monasteries” (Hoyland 1997: 181; summarized in Brock 1982: 15). Equally striking is the description given by John Bar Penkāyē, writing in the late 680s, who describes the amīr al-​muʾminīn Muʿāwiya (r. 660–​680) as follows: Justice flourished in his time, and there was great peace in the regions under his control; he allowed everyone to live as they wanted. For they held, as I have said above, an ordinance, stemming from the man who was their guide (mhaddyānā),20 concerning the people of the Christians and concerning the monastic station. Also as a result of this man’s guidance (mhaddyānūtā) they held to the worship of the One God, in accordance with the customs of ancient law. At their beginnings they kept to the tradition (mašlmānūtā) of Muḥammad, who was their instructor (tarʿā), to such an extent that they inflicted the death penalty on anyone who was seen to act brazenly against his laws. (Brock 1987: 61) This passage suggests that the Believers enforced a policy of rigorous piety (or at least of obedience to “his laws”) for their own number, but like the letter of Ishoyahb III, it makes clear that this was not a regime of religious intolerance. Indeed, quite the opposite, for Bar Penkāyē complains that it was too tolerant for his taste: “There was no distinction between pagan and Christian … the faithful was not known from a Jew” (Hoyland 1997: 196).21 This evidence of the Believers’ apparent openness to, or even-​handedness in the face of, different religious confessions in the time of Muʿāwiya –​as long as they recognized only one God, that is –​brings us back to the question, raised briefly above, of the nature of the original Believers’ movement and the degree to which it was categorically distinct from other monotheistic faiths.

Conceptual boundaries of the Believers’ movement in the seventh century We have seen above that some Qurʾānic passages suggested that righteous Peoples of the Book could be reckoned among the Believers, and that the Constitution of Medina included Jews as members of Muḥammad’s primordial umma or community in Medina. We have also seen, however, that the Qurʾān contains a number of verses that are harshly critical of Christians and Jews, so that the historian is faced with the vexing question of how to resolve this glaring incongruity. One approach to this conundrum has been to argue that Muḥammad and the earliest Believers assumed a positive or tolerant attitude toward Peoples of the Book merely as a pragmatic, temporary concession from an underlying position of essential hostility. In this view, a tolerant policy toward Peoples of the Book was adopted by Muḥammad when he needed their 183

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support in his struggle against Quraysh of Mecca, but once Quraysh had been subdued he was able to sweep this tolerant policy aside and adopt policies fully in accord with the Believers’ basic principles.22 Another approach –​sometimes combined with the first –​has been to assume that the evidence of a tolerant attitude toward the Peoples of the Book expresses an early stage in the development of the Believers’ movement (that is, of Muḥammad’s outlook), reflecting a period when Muḥammad hoped or assumed he would win the Peoples of the Book over to his preaching, but it was eventually supplanted by a more negative view, at a later stage in his life. In this case, the key questions become: how long did the “tolerant” phase, during which righteous Peoples of the Book were included fully in the community of Believers, endure? And when, exactly, did the shift from the inclusive to the hostile attitude take place? A third option is to assume that the Believers, as a group, were inconsistent in their attitude toward the Peoples of the Book  –​that is, that policies espoused by the leadership (whether Muḥammad or his successors) were either not known to, not understood by, or known but not followed by, other members of the Believers’ movement. While these issues remain open, normally it is assumed –​since the Qurʾān includes some patently hostile verses regarding the Peoples of the Book  –​that the period when some Peoples of the Book were actively included in the Believers’ movement ended sometime during Muḥammad’s career. Our evidence of positive attitudes toward Christians in the time of Muʿāwiya, however, challenges this assumption. Bar Penkāyē, in fact, describes the Believers (mhaggrāyē in Syriac) as not only tolerant of some Christians, but as a group that unequivocally included Christians. He describes the first campaigns of conquest as follows: Their robber bands went annually to distant parts and to the islands, bringing back captives from all the peoples under the heavens. Of each person they required only tribute (madattā), allowing him to remain in whatever faith he wished. Among them were also Christians in no small numbers: some belonged to the heretics, while others to us. (Brock 1987: 61)23 Bar Penkāyē does not tell us exactly what the basis of the participation or role of these Christians in the conquests by the Believers’ movement may have been. But the remark seems to suggest that the early Believers’ movement did include some who considered themselves Christians, and were so considered also by other Christians. Moreover, there is much other evidence of close relations between the Believers and Christians, at least until around 700 CE (Donner 2010: 106–​118, 176).The first Umayyad ruler, Muʿāwiya, while still governor of Syria before his elevation to the office of amīr al-​muʾminīn in 660, married Maysūn, the daughter of the leading chief of the Christian tribe of Kalb of central Syria, Bahdal ibn Unayf (Lammens 1960–​2007; Donner 2010: 176). She was mother of Muʿāwiya’s son and successor, Yazīd I (r. 680–​683). The Kalb long remained Christian and provided important contingents for Muʿāwiya’s and Yazīd’s armies. The Umayyad armies also relied on other Syrian Christian troops (al-​Qāḍī 2016); a poem of their Christian court poet al-​ Akhṭal reports describes troops of the Christian tribe of Taghlib, which Yazīd dispatched against the rival amīr al-​muʾminīn Ibn al-​Zubayr in Mecca, marching behind the banner of St. Sergius (Lammens 1911–​1912: 229). There is also evidence of non-​Muslims, particularly Christians, serving in the growing bureaucracy of the Umayyad state. This included not only the many low-​level Coptic scribes in Egypt, whose documents in Greek and Coptic have survived in thousands of papyri, but also high administrators. The leading example is John of Damascus, scion of a family of Christian administrators who had served the Byzantines and the Sasanians before becoming part of the 184

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Umayyad administration; John effectively head of the civil administration in the 680s and 690s and perhaps beyond (Griffith 2016).24 Another example was Athanasius bar Gūmōyē, a Christian noble from Edessa (modern Urfa) who served for many years as chief adviser to ʿAbd al-​ʿAzīz b. Marwān, governor (and effectively, independent ruler) of Egypt for his brother the caliph ʿAbd al-​Malik.25 It seems likely that non-​Muslims –​whether Christians, Jews, or Zoroastrians we cannot know –​also served in the provincial administration of Umayyad Iraq, which was heir to a long tradition of Sasanian bureaucratic practice, but lacking documentary evidence, we cannot do more to do more than speculate in generalities.26 As noted above, one of the Umayyads’ court poets, al-​Akhṭal, was a Christian (Stetkevych 2016).The earlier Umayyads do not appear to have restricted the building of Christian churches, because the remains of numerous churches with dated mosaic floors laid in the decades after the conquest have been uncovered, especially in Jordan, where archaeological exploration of this period has been most intensive.27 Even the case of the famous Church of St. John (the Baptist) in Damascus, which was forcibly converted to a mosque by the amīr al-​muʾminīn al-​ Walid (r. 705–​715), is instructive:  traditional narratives tell us that when the Believers first came to Damascus in the 630s, they divided the prayer area in the Church of St. John with the local Christians, and the Frankish bishop Arculf, who visited about 670, observed that the two communities had separate sanctuaries in it (Geyer 1898, cited in Elisséeff 1960–​2007). Similar reports exist about churches in other localities, such as Ḥimṣ (al-​Balādhurī 1866:  125, 131; Bashear 1991:267–​282). Archaeological excavation of the Kathisma church, located between Jerusalem and Bethlehem, revealed that it was rebuilt in the Umayyad period with an east-​ facing apse and a south-​facing miḥrāb or prayer-​niche, showing again that the Believers and Christians were sharing prayer spaces (Di Segni 2003:  247–​267, esp.  248). It has even been observed that the Believers and Byzantine authorities cooperated for some years in the mid-​ seventh century: the bishop of Jerusalem, Sophronius, apparently received the amīr al-​muʾminīn ʿUmar cordially when the latter visited Jerusalem in the 630s,28 and several decades later, in 685, the amīr al-​muʾminīn ʿAbd al-​Malik concluded a treaty with the Byzantine emperor Justinian II that provided for an orderly division of tax revenues of Cyprus, Iberia, and Armenia between the two empires (De Groot 1960–​2007).29 We might also see in this light the surprising report in al-​Ṭabarī to the effect that the amīr al-​muʾminīn al-​Walīd (r. 705–​715) requested aid from the Byzantine emperor to restore the mosque of the prophet in Mecca following the second civil war, and in response received from him a shipment of a large amount of gold, skilled workmen, and mosaic materials (al-​Ṭabarī 1879–​1901: II 1194). The evidence summarized above suggests that under the early Umayyads, at least, the Believers were not hostile to Christians, and that Christians were willing to work with the Believers in a variety of ways, including advancing the military and administrative policies of the Umayyad regime. This evidence –​much of it documentary in nature –​does not, however, tell us exactly how closely Christians (and other Peoples of the Book) were involved with the Believers, or the exact nature of their cooperation or affiliation. Were they cooperating with the new rulers merely on the basis of a tactical decision to make the best of a new situation –​the political domination of a new group, the Believers –​a situation that, they perhaps hoped, might prove temporary? Were they (to use a normally pejorative term) simply “collaborators,” working with the new masters to further their own interests? And how did the Believers, for their part, view the Peoples of the Book? Were some Peoples of the Book accepted as full members of the Believers’ movement (whatever that might mean)? Was each side –​if we can distinguish them as two “sides” –​intentionally overlooking aspects of the other’s theology or practice with which they disagreed in the hope of eventually winning them over to their own view, or in the belief that they would “see the light”? Or was 185

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there simply a good deal of confusion on both sides, at the beginning, about what the others actually stood for? In considering the ways in which the Peoples of the Book may have related to the Believers in the first decades after the latter’s arrival in Syria, Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Iran, we must take two further possibilities into account. The first is the likelihood that the Believers’ theological principles were not yet completely formed in the seventh century, but were still crystallizing. The idea that there was only one God who was the creator and ultimate judge at the coming Last Judgment was doubtless already clear to all Believers, as was the need to act righteously and to be mindful of God in all things. But the earliest Believers may not have realized that Christians, in particular, espoused the idea that Jesus was divine and considered by them to be God’s son. Many Believers in the early years may not have been familiar with those passages in the Qurʾān that condemn the notions of the Trinity and of Jesus’ divinity, since most Believers had no written copy of the Qurʾān available to them and did not know the whole text by heart. Likewise, Peoples of the Book at first may not have understood exactly what the Believers’ principles were, beyond strict monotheism, a demand to behave piously, and belief in the final Judgment.30 On both sides, then, there may have been a perception that the other held beliefs that were actually quite similar to one’s own, and the sharp theological differences may have become more apparent to them only gradually. This is a difficult notion to prove historically, but the fact that the Christian disputational literature of the seventh century aims its theological criticism at Jews and at “heretical” forms of Christianity, but says nothing yet in criticism of the Believers (Reinink 1993: 165–​187; Donner 2002–​2003: 42–​43), offers a hint that, during the seventh century at least, the Believers’ theological ideas were not so clearly visible to Christian writers, even though those writers were very adept in theological argumentation. The second issue to consider is the likelihood that, even in cases where theological differences were well understood by some, there may have been intercommunal contact and cooperation on the grounds that people of another group were considered similar enough to people of one’s own group. It has been shown that in this period even Christians of different theological confessions (Chalcedonian and Miaphysite, for example) sometimes, for practical reasons, crossed confessional boundaries and had constructive dealings with one another (including such matters as intermarriage, eating foods prepared according to others’ rituals, and individuals who move back and forth from one confession to another), even though the leaders of those confessions regularly exchanged polemics and considered the others “heretics.”31 Such a climate of confessional fluidity, we can suggest, provided an environment in which some Believers might well have integrated themselves with existing communities, at least for a considerable time. This picture of a certain harmony between the early Believers and Christians (and perhaps other Peoples of the Book as well, about whom we cannot say enough to be certain) is overshadowed, however, by two bodies of evidence that suggest much more contentious relations between Believers and Peoples of the Book. First are the numerous verses found in the Qurʾān that voice sharply critical views about the Peoples of the Book, especially about the Christian doctrine of Jesus’ divine nature and status as God’s son. Second are reports found in later literary sources that describe purported treaty agreements during the conquest and supposed official decrees by Umayyad rulers that explicitly contain discriminatory features directed against the Peoples of the Book. We shall consider these two bodies of evidence below, in the conclusion to this chapter. Whether Jews, who were far fewer in number and about whom we know far less in this period, had a similar relationship to the Umayyads is unclear. Zoroastrians are also less known 186

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but at least their dihqans or petty gentry seem to have accommodated themselves to the early Umayyad regime.

Redefinition of community of Believers and changing relations with Peoples of the Book Relations between the Peoples of the Book and the community of Believers appear to have changed decisively, beginning in the 690s CE. About this time, the Believers’ movement  –​ apparently led by its leaders, the amīr al-​muʾminīn and his inner circle of advisers –​began to redefine itself (Donner 2002–​2003, 2010, 2011a). This redefinition emphasized the importance to the community of the Qurʾān as God’s revealed word, and of Muḥammad as the prophet to whom God had revealed the Qurʾān.The Believers also began to use a new terminology to refer to themselves: the earlier term muʾmin (“Believer”) continued to be used, but the term muslim (“Muslim”) was now increasingly favored, and the word islām begins to appear as an abstract terms for what can now clearly be considered a new religion, Islam. As noted at the beginning of this chapter, the words muslim and islām are used in the Qurʾān, but refer there to a process of inner change, the decision to submit oneself to God, and do not yet have the meaning of an independent religious confession (Donner forthcoming). In undertaking this redefinition of themselves, the Believers –​now Muslims –​established much more clearly than before that their community was separate and distinct from those of the Peoples of the Book; in particular, the rejection of the Christian doctrines of Jesus’s divinity and status as God’s son became much more pronounced. The earliest clear evidence of this shift is perhaps the inscriptions found in the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, built around 692 on the orders of the amīr al-​muʾminīn ʿAbd al-​Malik. These inscriptions emphasized, among other things, Jesus’ status as a prophet (but not God’s son) and criticized the concept of the Trinity (Kessler 1970: 2–​14 for a facsimile edition; Donner 2010: 233–​235 for a translation). Other hints of this shift are found in the numismatic record. Until the reign of ʿAbd al-​Malik, most coins issued by the Believers imitated either Byzantine or Sasanian prototypes, with minor additions or changes. ʿAbd al-​Malik, however, began to make more serious changes, eventually leading to the creation of a completely new type of coinage that had no images whatever, only Arabic text (including short phrases from the Qurʾān.) In a transitional phase of coinage, some coins were issued modeled on Byzantine types which had featured, on the reverse, a cross on steps, but in ʿAbd al-​Malik’s issue, the crossbar is removed so that the coins shows a pole or staff on steps instead.32 This reflects official rejection by the Umayyads of the symbolism of the cross. Disapproval of the cross seems to have been primordial among the Believers, as even Sophronius, Greek orthodox patriarch of Jerusalem whose sermons of the 630s lament the first invasions of the Believers, mentions that they mocked the cross.33 But clearly, this original distaste for the quintessential symbol of Christian faith was not translated into effective policy until the very end of the seventh century, for as we have seen, writers such as Ishoyahb III and Bar Penkayé describe the Believers in fairly positive terms, and make no mention of them proscribing the cross. So something seems to happen around 690–​700 CE –​a shift visible also in reports that ʿAbd al-​ʿAzīz b. Marwān, viceroy of Egypt (685–​705), ordered the destruction of crosses in Egypt,34 that ‘Abd al-​Malik ordered the breaking of crosses and the killing of all swine in Syria (Palmer 1993: 205; Chabot 1899–​1900: IV 447), and that ʿAbd al-​Malik’s son and successor al-​Walīd I (r. 705–​715 CE) ordered many churches in Damascus destroyed, and took over the former Church of Saint John to convert it into the Umayyad mosque (Palmer 1993: 208; Khalek 2011: 111–​116). Indeed, al-​Walīd inscribed in the Umayyad mosque a virtual Muslim creed: “Our lord is the one God, 187

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our religion [dīn] is Islam, and our prophet is Muḥammad” (Hoyland 1997: 550, 701–​702). Even more clearly than the Dome of the Rock inscriptions of a decade or so earlier, this statement draws a sharp line between the Believers –​whom we can now call Muslims –​and other religious confessions, including those of the monotheist Peoples of the Book. It is perhaps therefore not surprising that, as noted above, it is only in the early eighth century CE that Christian theological polemics against Islam begin to appear, among them the famous tract of John of Damascus, himself a former Umayyad administrator before his retirement to a monastery (see note 31). It seems that it was only around the turn of the eighth century that Islam emerged clearly as a distinct religious confession and decisively separated itself from the other Near Eastern monotheisms. Measures restricting the Peoples of the Book such as the ones noted above were not immediately imposed everywhere, and not always consistently sustained: ʿUmar II b. ʿAbd al-​ʿAzīz (r. 717–​720), for example, is said to have returned to Christian communities churches that had been taken from them (al-​Balādhurī 1886: 124–​125); but clearly a change to a policy that was harsher toward Christians, at least, and perhaps other Peoples of the Book, began to set in around 700.The new policy was to develop, intermittently at first, until its culmination in the mid-​ninth century with the stringent rulings of the caliph al-​Mutawakkil (r. 847–​661), which imposed harsh restrictions on the life of all Peoples of the Book and became something of a model for the policies of many subsequent Muslim rulers (Levy-​Rubin 2011: 99–​112).

Conclusion It is risky to make a general characterization of relations between the early Believers and the Peoples of the Book, because the evidence is spare, and what evidence we have is often inconsistent. As we have seen, however, a significant body of documentary evidence points to the likelihood that, once the violence and instability attendant on the initial conquest were over, the early Believers assumed a relatively benign stance toward the Peoples of the Book, requiring them to pay tribute or taxes to the government but otherwise leaving them alone to manage their own affairs without interference. Indeed, many Christians (and perhaps other Peoples of the Book, about whom unfortunately we know too little to say) seem to have been involved in various ways in the Believers’ movement and in the Umayyad government. This apparently tolerant and even inclusive policy gave way, however, to increasingly harsh policies of religious discrimination against the Peoples of the Book, starting in the 690s, when the Believers distanced themselves from the Peoples of the Book and redefined themselves as Muslims. This simple picture of a clear-​cut development (basically, from tolerance to intolerance) is obscured by two bodies of source material. One is the large corpus of literary texts, both Muslim and non-​Muslim, that purport to tell us what happened in the seventh century but were written in the eighth and mainly in the ninth and later centuries, when repressive policies toward the Peoples of the Book were being implemented by the ʿAbbāsid caliphs and correspondingly restrictive notions of how the Islamic state should relate to Peoples of the Book were being incorporated into the developing traditions of Islamic law. The so-​called “Pact of ʿUmar,” with its restrictive rules for the Peoples of the Book, is in fact not from the time of ʿUmar at all, but a product mainly of late eighth-​and ninth-​century jurists (Levy-​Rubin 2011: 58–​87). Some Byzantine sources of the ninth and later centuries also tended to project backwards into the history of the seventh century the hostile relations between Byzantines and Muslims that prevailed in their own day (see note 28). The result is that there is a discontinuity between information we receive from documentary and quasi-​documentary sources from the seventh century, and information we receive from literary sources of later date, when it comes to the question of the 188

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relationship between the early Believers and the Peoples of the Book. Perhaps the most obvious example of this is the question of Muḥammad’s relations with the Jews of Yathrib (Medina) and elsewhere in Arabia. The sīra famously describes Muḥammad’s brutal liquidation of the Jews of Qurayẓa and his harsh policies towards other Jewish groups in Arabia, but how do we reconcile this with the presence of Jews as integral members Muḥammad’s community, as reported in the umma document? And is it merely a coincidence that the massacre of Qurayẓa finds no echo in medieval Jewish tradition? It would be rash, in the present state of our knowledge of Islamic historiography, simply to dismiss the sīra reports as later fabrications; but we may wish to view the sīra reports with a healthy skepticism, and reserve judgment on the issue until further evidence is forthcoming.35 The later literary sources, in other words, often tend to portray things in a much harsher light than do the documentary sources; but can we trust this portrayal? The second body of source material that creates problems for the picture sketched in the first paragraph above is the Qurʾān. As we have seen, the Qurʾān is not consistent in its utterances on the Peoples of the Book.The presence of strongly anti-​Christian statements in particular makes it difficult to understand how later in the seventh century the early Believers could have been seen so positively by some Christians, and how the Believers, in turn, could have included Christians in important ways in their new regime. The apparently tolerant policies towards Christians of the mid-​seventh century accord much more naturally with the several Qurʾānic passages that express the notion that some among the Peoples of the Book could be counted as Believers, and that praise Christians for their piety. The existence of early Qurʾān manuscripts, dating probably to the mid-​and late seventh century, makes it beyond question that the Qurʾān already existed by this time as a text –​or perhaps better, as a family of closely related texts, since the existence of Qurʾānic variant readings is well known. But, how widely known was the full Qurʾān text in the late seventh century? Hardly anyone would have had a complete copy of it yet; most people probably learned only some parts of it by recitation, which is after all what the word qurʾān seems to mean. Is it possible that a few passages of the text we now have represent interpolations dating from the 690s, added during the preparation of an official edition? The Qurʾān’s stridently anti-​ trinitarian passages certainly would fit well into the program of ʿAbd al-​Malik and his advisers to emphasize Muḥammad and the Qurʾān, to make clear that Jesus was only a prophet, and boldly to proclaim Islam as a distinct religious confession.36 This suggestion is highly hypothetical and has, as yet, no solid basis in plausible evidence, but perhaps we should keep it in mind until more detailed work in the earliest Qurʾān manuscripts can provide a definitive answer.

Notes 1 The most detailed study of this text is by Michael Lecker (2004). His bibliography contains references to virtually everything else on the subject up to the time of its publication (see also Arjomand 2009). 2 The Qurʾān does use the word muslim, but it is used much less frequently than muʾmin (Believer) and refers to the act of submitting oneself to God’s will; it does not yet seem to be a designation for a distinct religious community, but rather refers to a religious attitude or personal decision that could be taken by people of various religious communities.Thus, Q 3:67 describes Abraham as ḥanīfan musliman, “a monotheist who has submitted himself to God” (see Donner forthcoming). It is worth noting that “Muslim” is used as a proper name in some pre-​Islamic north Arabian inscriptions (as MSLM); in that context, it clearly cannot mean a “follower of the religion of Muḥammad” but must denote someone who has submitted himself to his divinity –​whatever it may have been. Whether it was used solely for believers in a single god is not clear. 3 Griffith notes that the Qurʾān “never in fact directly addresses them [Christians and Jews] as Believers,” but rather calls them ahl al-​kitāb, “People of the Book” (2013: 29). However, we would not expect the Qurʾān to address the People of the Book as Believers tout court, because the above-​mentioned verses make clear that only some of the People of the Book were Believers  –​presumably those who were

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Fred M. Donner sufficiently pious. In other words, the categories “People of the Book” and “Believers” were not coterminous, so the former could not be simply addressed as if they were the latter; but the Believers included nonetheless some People of the Book. We shall see further evidence below of Christians being included among the Believers. 4 This passage led Crone and Cook to describe the first phases of Muḥammad’s movement as “Judeo-​ Hagarism” (1977: 3–​9). 5 See especially Fred Astren, who points out how such anecdotal reports are utilized by competing schools of modern historiography to produce either a “neo-​lachrymose” or a “utopian” interpretation of the status of Jews under Islamic rule (2009). 6 Astren judiciously concludes that “a kind of history that describes these Jewish encounters with Muḥammad late in his career is simply not available” (2009: 93). A more sanguine approach to these later sources is embraced by Mark R. Cohen (2013). 7 The traditional chronology of Muḥammad’s death has been questioned because of some sources that suggest that he was still alive when the Believers’ takeover of Palestine began (Crone and Cook 1977: 4, 24, 28; Shoemaker 2012). 8 For valuable compilations of many of the most important non-​“Muslim” sources, see Penn (2015), Hoyland (1997) and Palmer et al. (1993). 9 The evidence for these and other episodes is reviewed by Donner (2011b: 9–​29). 10 A contemporary description of some aspects of the second civil war (680–​692) is found in the Ktābā d-​rīsh mellē of John Bar Penkayē; see the translation by Brock (1987: 63–​65). 11 The supposed text of the treaty with Jerusalem notes that Jews are to be barred from residing there, but this text is preserved only in a later literary source (al-​Ṭabarī 1879–​1901: I 2406–​2407). Such treaty texts are thought to contain early elements reflecting actual conquest conditions, which was reworked in the course of later literary transmission (Noth 1973:  I  282–​314; al-​Qāḍī 1987:  193–​269; Levy-​ Rubin 2011: 32–​57). 12 Important mosaic floors survive from the Naʿaran (Jericho), Beth Alpha (Beʾersheva), and Saffuriya synagogues, built between the third and sixth centuries and in use for many centuries thereafter. 13 Bowersock argues that the Sasanians had favored the Jews in South Arabia, and suggests that for this reason the Believers may not have been favorably disposed to them (2012a: 31–​51). It seems more likely, however, that later Islamic tradition may have suppressed evidence of positive relations between the early Believers and the Jews, since the tradition was compiled in the ninth century and later, by which time much more hostile attitudes towards Peoples of the Book had taken hold in the Islamic community. See the conclusion to the present chapter. 14 I am grateful to Fred Astren for raising this issue (personal communication, August 2015). 15 I thank Richard Payne for this information; see also Huff and O’Kane (1983). 16 See, for example, Pourshariati on various local dynasties in Rayy, the Elburz region, Gurgān, and Khurāsān (2008: 249–​278) and Daryaee (2016). 17 I owe this observation to Richard Payne (personal communication, August 31, 2015). 18 The complexity of intra-​Christian rivalries is made clear by Suermann (2011: 89–​99). 19 For a brief summary, see Cahen (1960–​2007). The single reference to jizya in the Qurʾān (Q 9:29) already refers to ahl al-​kitāb as those subject to it. 20 Evidently a reference to Muḥammad. 21 As Hoyland notes, Brock for some reason omits this passage from his translation. 22 For example, Gil (1974). Lecker attempts to explain away the Jews’ membership in the umma by “correcting” a word in the text, although there is no evidence that this word is incorrect (2004). Cohen seems to adopt this view (2013: 62–​63). 23 In a footnote, Brock notes that the “heretics” and “us” refers to “notably the Ghassanids and Lakhmids respectively.” More basically, it would mean Jacobites and East Syriac (“Nestorian”) Christians. 24 Some authors think John left Umayyad service late in the career of ʿAbd al-​Malik (r. 685–​705); others believe he served the Umayyads until the reign of ʿUmar II b. ʿAbd al-​ʿAzīz (r. 717–​720), but the increasingly anti-​Christian attitude of the Umayyads after the 690s makes this seem unlikely. 25 On Athanasius and the Gūmōyē family, see Debié (2016), which also has much to say on the Manṣūr family of Damascus and other important Christian figures in the Umayyad administration. On ʿAbd al-​ʿAzīz’s reign in Egypt, see Mabra (2015). 26 The best overview, based mainly on literary evidence (and steadfastly reticent on the question of religious identities) is by Morony (1984: 51–​68).

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Early Muslims and Peoples of the Book 27 A useful survey, with lavish illustrations, is provided by Piccirillo (1992). 28 Maria Conterno shows that the report of Theophanes Confessor (d. 818) about ʿUmar’s visit is warped by later Byzantine-​Islamic polemic, distorting the positive view of his (now lost) Greek “Eastern source” for ʿUmar’s visit, and its Syriac and Arabic descendants (2014). See also Glen Bowersock, who relies on Conterno’s work in its original form as a 2011 dissertation at the University of Florence (2012b: 55–​77). 29 This treaty, however, may have been merely a tactical move by ʿAbd al-​Malik to neutralize the danger of a Byzantine attack while he was busy fighting his rival ʿAbd Allāh b. al-​Zubayr in Mecca, a struggle that required the first seven years of his reign (until 692) to conclude. 30 Frank van der Velden discusses early Christian perceptions of Believers’ Christological beliefs (2007). 31 See Jack Tannous, who draws especially on the Canons of Jacob of Edessa (2013: 83–​102). This is also touched on by Hoyland (1997: 149). 32 For example, American Numismatic Society Collection, online catalog of Islamic collection, no. 1970.63.1, gold dinar issued in Damascus in year 75 (694–​695 CE). http://​numismatics.org/​collection/​1970.63.1. 33 See the excerpt translated by Hoyland (1997: 72). 34 Robert Schick summarizes reports of the Believers’ hostility to the cross; it started early, but was long not consistent (1995: 163–​166). 35 Ahmad argues that the story of the massacre of B. Qurayẓa by Muḥammad is of doubtful authenticity (1979). 36 The idea that the Qurʾān text as it exists today may include material dating after the time of Muḥammad was advanced most famously by John Wansbrough (1977). The notion of later seventh-​century redaction or additions is proposed by Karl-​Friedrich Pohlmann (2012) and David R. Ross (2012); and, most pertinently to the question of Christianity in the Qurʾān, by Édouard-​Marie Gallez (2008).

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Early Muslims and Peoples of the Book Lüling, G. 1981. Die Wiederentdeckung des Propheten Muhammad. Eine Kritik am “christlichen” Abendland. Erlangen: H. Lüling. Mabra, J. 2015. The Almost Caliph:  Reconstructing the Political Life of ʿAbd al-​ʿAzīz ibn Marwān. Unpublished Dissertation, University of Chicago. Morony, M.G. 1984. Iraq after the Muslim Conquest. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Noth, A. 1960–​2007. Madjūs. In: Bearman, P.J., Bianquis,T., Bosworth, C.E., van Donzel, E., and Heinrichs, W.P. eds. The Encyclopaedia of Islam. 2nd ed. Leiden: E.J. Brill,V 1110–​1118. ——​. 1973. Die literarisch überlieferten Verträge der Eroberungszeit als historische Quellen für die Behandlung der unterworfenen Nicht-​Muslims durch ihre neuen muslimischen Oberherrn. In: Nagel, T. et al. eds. Studien zum Minderheitenproblem im Islam. Bonn: Selbstverlag des orientalischen Seminars der Universität Bonn, I 282–​314. Palmer,A. et al. eds. 1993. The Seventh Century inWest-​Syrian Chronicles. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. Penn, M.P. 2015. When Christians First Met Muslims: A Sourcebook of the Earliest Syriac Writings on Islam. Oakland: University of California Press. Piccirillo, M. 1992. The Mosaics of Jordan. Amman: American Center of Oriental Research. Pohlmann, K.-​ F. 2012. Die Entstehung des Korans:  Neue Erkentnisse aus Sicht der historisch-​ kritischen Bibelwissenschaft. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. Pourshariati, P. 2008. The Decline and Fall of the Sasanian Empire. London: I.B. Tauris. al-​Qāḍī, W. 1987. Madkhal ilā dirāsat ʿuhūd al-​ṣulḥ al-​islāmiyya zaman al-​futūḥ. In:  ʿAdnān al-​Bakhīt, M. and ʿAbbās, I. eds. Proceedings of the Second Symposium on the History of Bilād al-​Shām during the Early Muslim Period up to 40 A.H./​640 A.D. ʿAmman: Bilād al-​Shām Committee, II 193–​269. ——​. 2016. Non-​Muslims in the Muslim Conquest Army in Early Islam. In: Borrut, A. and Donner, F.M. eds. Christians and Others in the Umayyad State. Chicago: The Oriental Institute, 83–​127. Reinink, G.J. 1993.The Beginnings of Syriac Apologetic Literature in Response to Islam. Oriens Christianus 77:165–​187. Ross, D.R. 2012. The Arabs and Their Qurʾān. 5th ed. Self-​published via CreateSpace. Rubin, U. 1995. The Eye of the Beholder: The Life of Muḥammad as Viewed by the Early Muslims. Princeton: Darwin Press. Schick, R. 1995. The Christian Communities of Palestine from Byzantine to Islamic Rule. Princeton: Darwin Press. Shoemaker, S.J. 2012. The Death of a Prophet:  The End of Muḥammad’s Life and the Beginnings of Islam. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Stetkevych, S.P. 2016. Al-​Akhṭal at the Court of ʿAbd al-​Malik:  The Qaṣīda and the Construction of Umayyad Authority. In: Borrut, A. and Donner, F.M. eds. Christians and Others in the Umayyad State. Chicago: The Oriental Institute, 129–​155. Suermann, H. 2011. Contacts between Byzantium and Christians in the Arab State during the Monophysite Dispute. In: El Cheikh, N.M. and O’Sullivan, S. eds. Byzantium in Early Islamic Syria. Beirut: American University of Beirut; and Balamand: University of Balamand, 89–​99. al-​Ṭabarī, M.b.J. 1879–​1901. Kitāb al-​rusul wa-​l-​mulūk [Annals of the Prophets and the Kings]. de Goeje, M.J. ed. Leiden: E.J. Brill. Tannous, J. 2013.You Are What You Read: Qenneshre and the Miaphysite Church in the Seventh Century. In: Wood, P. ed. History and Identity in the Late Antique Near East. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 83–​102. Thomson, R.W. trans. 1999. The Armenian History Attributed to Sebeos. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. Vajda, G. 1960–​2007. Ahl al-​kitāb. In:  Bearman, P.J., Bianquis, T., Bosworth, C.E., van Donzel, E., and Heinrichs, W.P. eds. The Encyclopaedia of Islam. 2nd ed. Leiden: E.J. Brill, I 264–​266. van der Velden, F. 2007. Relations between Jews, Syriac Christians and Early Muslim Believers in Seventh-​ Century Iraq. Al-​ʿUṣūr al-​Wusṭā 19:27–​33, 42. Wansbrough, J. 1977. Quranic Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. al-​Wāqidī, M.b.ʿU. 1966. Kitāb al-​maghāzī. 3 vols. Jones, M. ed. London: Oxford University Press. al-​Wāsiṭī, A.B.M.b.A. 1979. Faḑāʾil al-​bayt al-​maqdis. Hasson, I. ed. Jerusalem: Magnes Press. Weber, D. 2008. Berliner Pahlavi-​Dokumente: Zeugnisse spätsassanidischer Brief-​und Rechtskultur aus frühislamischer Zeit. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz. Zellentin, H.M. 2013. The Qur’an’s Legal Culture:  The Didascalia Apostolorum as a Point of Departure. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck.

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Since Rebecca Foote’s pioneering thesis at Harvard in 1999 (see Foote 2000), the Islamic economic history has been the subject of increasing focus. The development of this discipline rested on the increase of archaeological digs in North Africa, the Middle East, Iran, and Central Asia over the last couple of decades.These field works led to the unearthing of remains of a highly sophisticated early Islamic economy, including advanced technologies in ceramic and glass-​making (Freestone 1999), textile (Baginski 2001), flour and oil production (Blanc 2007), the regular use of coined money, and active trade networks. This evidence helped to cast doubt on the accuracy of the theory of economic and urban decline after the Muslim conquests that had been forged under French colonial rule in North Africa (le Tourneau 1957) and Syria (Sauvaget 1941).1 Recently, the exploration of economic history also became less and less Eurocentric, and the contributions of the medieval Muslim empire in the growth of world trade (Norel 2004) a fashionable field of study. Western scholars have mainly examined early Islamic economic life in terms of “continuity and change” with pre-​Islamic Arabia and the Late Antique model (Walmsley 2000, 2007, and 2010). The growth of micro-​studies has helped to identify regional fluctuations and elucidate the medieval economy in the Middle East, Iran, and Central Asia in terms of the changing socio-​political context, from the Umayyads in 661 to the decline of the ʿAbbāsid unity in the tenth century. By way of contrast, the relationship between the economy and the new Muslim power, its ideology and the formation of Islamic law did not generate a similar scientific output due to the almost complete absence of contemporary sources. Its religious and legal aspects in particular, so far mainly explored by Abd al-​Aziz al-​Duri (2011), are still to be fully established. Still, the recent historiography has highlighted some fundamental features that resulted from the changing dynamics between political and economic forces in early Islam. A wider monetisation of the economy as well as an increased official patronage led to changing patterns of land use, urban trade, and production. In a society marked by a strong impulse to ensure continuity between the teachings of the Qurʾān and the concrete organisation of the social and political life, Islam and its morality increasingly influenced the regulation of the economic life.

Economic reforms and growth The end of the seventh century in the Middle East was marked by considerable changes in the fiscal and monetary system. The expansion of mining, coin production, and the famous reforms 194

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of Caliph ʿAbd al-​Malik (r. 685–​705) played an essential role in the transformation and growth of agrarian and urban economies. These transformations acted as powerful stimuli for imperial investments, affecting the redistribution of wealth in society and monetisation of the economy, which reached an unparalleled level.

Fiscal reforms and provincial development Although Arietta Papaconstantinou (2010) and Petra Sijpesteijn (2014) have investigated in some depth the evolution of the fiscal system in the Middle East immediately after the Arab conquest in the seventh century, much remains unknown. It seems that the Sufyānids were only concerned with levying a tax to assert their new sovereignty, as suggested in a Maronite chronicle of 680 (Palmer, Brock, and Hoyland 1993: 32). This situation evolved dramatically under the rule of Caliph ʿAbd al-​Malik (685–​705), who imposed a uniform fiscal policy, conducting systematic surveys of properties and censuses, using tokens to signal tax liabilities from 691–​692 (Robinson 2005). The end of the seventh century was therefore marked by transition from a system of irregular tribute-​taking to something approaching a systematic taxing of the non-​ Muslim populations (jizya) (Simonsen 1988; Johns 2003: 421–​423; Hoyland 2006: 400–​401) and lands (kharāj) (Lokkegard 1950: 72). Most evidence on Islamic taxation that can be gleaned in ninth-​century Arabic chronicles mentions how it occasionally led to severe discontent and revolts, such as in Lebanon under the governorate of Ṣāliḥ b.  ʿAlī b.  ʿAbd Allāh b.  ʿAbbās in 751 (al-​Balādhūrī 1866: 162), in Qumm in Iran during al-​Maʾmūn’s reign in 825 (al-​Ṭabarī 1964: III 1093), or again in Palestine among the Samaritan population under the governorate of Abū al-​Jārūd and the caliphate of al-​Muʿtaṣim (r. 833–​842) (al-​Ṭabarī 1964: III 1067–​1073). It is also frequently reported that fiscal abuses conditioned the exodus of peasants from rural areas into cities (al-​Ṭabarī 1964: III 1022), such as the Nabatean landowners of Wāsiṭ under al-​Ḥajjāj governorate in 702–​714 (Ibn Baḥshal 1967). However, levying regular taxes ensured the State received a steady stream of revenue and fiscal decentralisation contributed to the growth of the economy in the Middle Eastern region. From the late seventh century, converging literary evidence suggests that most local fiscal revenues were no longer transferred to Damascus, but administered by provincial governors, their quḍā’ and the fiscal officers of the dīwān al-​kharāj, as part of Caliph ʿAbd al-​Malik’s policy of delegating power to regional authorities (Bacharach 1996; Kennedy 1981). Tax revenues were henceforth allocated locally to pay the salary of officials and the army –​for instance, the maintenance of the military garrison in Basra at the time of governor Khālid al-​Qasrī (723–​ 737) is well known for its funding arrangements, as mentioned by al-​Yaʿqūbī. This programme of fiscal decentralisation fostered the growth of a thriving local patronage of fortifications and staves in Basra and Kufa in 771 (al-​Ṭabarī 1964:  III 373–​374), ʿĀqūlā in Jazīra in 772–​773 (Harrak 1999: 276–​277), of farming infrastructures –​such as the canals in Wasīṭ and Mosul (Abū Yūsuf 1921: 131), of new religious buildings –​for instance the Umayyad mosques in Kufa (al-​ Balādhūrī 1866: 286) and Damascus (Ibn Ḥawqal 1938–​1939: 175), as well as of artisanal premises and markets. This decentralisation assisted long-​term economic growth and development because provincial and local levels of the Umayyad and early ʿAbbāsid governments were better informed and had detailed knowledge of their localities as compared with the central authority. In the late seventh century, the evolution of Wasīṭ in Iraq, from a garrison to a city, rested on these fiscal decentralisation measures. Under the rule of governor al-​Ḥajjāj in 684–​685, when Wasīṭ began to expand, five years of Iraq’s revenues from the land tax would indeed have been consumed locally to promote peri-​urban farming and increase water supply. It is reported that agricultural infrastructures and dams were thus built to cultivate the surrounding marshlands, 195

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and the canals of Nahr al-​Ṣīn, Nahr al-​Nīl, and al-​Zābi were dug between the river Tigris and the new urban settlement (al-​Balādhūrī 1866: 290). Then, the foundation of the dār al-​ʿimāra, the mosque, the fortification wall and the markets (aswāq), which would have been ordered by the governor Yazīd b. Abī Muslim according to Ibn Baḥshāl (1967: 43), required the land tax revenues of the entire province of Iraq in 697. It is said that the governor would have decided to levy a tax for renting the sūqs, which would have been used to cover the cost of the army’s salaries during the rule of Khālid al-​Qaṣrī (r. 723–​737) (Kennedy 2001: 367). The development of Mosul in Jazīra in early Islam also exemplifies the positive contribution of fiscal decentralisation in economic growth in the eighth century. Under the rule of governors Ibn al-​Ḥakam, al-​Ḥurr b. Yūsuf, and Ismā‘īl b.  ʿAlī, Mosul expanded significantly. The sources mention that 8 billion dirhāms of local fiscal revenues were spent to pave the streets (al-​Balādhūrī 1866: 408; Forand 1969: 90–​91), build al-​Manqūsha palace, and dig the canal al-​ Nahr al-​Makshūf between 725 and 740 (al-​ʿAzdī 1967: 37). After the rebellion of 750 against the governorate of Ibn Ṣawl led to the sack of the city, Caliph al-​Manṣūr put Ismāʿīl b.  ʿAlī in charge of restoring the buildings that had been destroyed and reviving the local economy over the next decade (751–​760). The latter task was efficiently conducted by Ismāʿīl, who used the fiscal resources of the province to rebuild the markets damaged during the revolt. However, their location changed, as they were moved from the neighbourhood of the congregational mosque to the suburbs, where they could be further expanded.The markets were reconstructed around an abandoned Umayyad caravanserai that was built, according to Thomas de Margā, in the early eighth century by a certain Ayās al-​Dhuhl al-​Shaybānī (1893: 142/​294 and 198/​386). This change in the management of fiscal resources from the late seventh century thus became a vector for urban and economic growth in the Islamic Middle East and this was in contrast to what was happening in Byzantium. At the same time indeed, in the context of loss of their fiscal independence, as well as a redefinition of their role in the state, many Byzantine cities of Asia Minor became large villages or kastra (Haldon 1990:  96–​99). Archaeological surveys in Capadoccia, Paphlagonia, Psidia, and Lyci (Brubaker and Haldon 2011: 538–​544) have proved that antique monuments were abandoned, ruined by the passage of time or dilapidated by the people, public space was taken over by private constructions, and some cities were relegated to defended sites. By contrast, in the early Islamic Middle East, the urban centres remained in control of their dependent territorium and its fiscal revenues. Increasingly requested in a monetised form, these revenues were essential surpluses to be spent on urban, agricultural, and economic infrastructures. An active investment ethos thus developed in the Greater Syrian and Iraqi towns under the Umayyads.

Increasing monetisation of the economy In the second half of the seventh century, monetary changes also contributed to generating economic growth. Late Roman Syria and Sasanian Iraq had benefited from their own monetary systems. In Byzantine Syria, golden solidi struck in Constantinople and copper follis produced in Asia Minor (Constantinople, Cyzicus, Nicomedia) and Cilicia (Seleucia and Isaura) were in circulation (Goodwin 2005: 11–​32). By contrast, the Sasanian monetary system was based on silver drachmae that were struck primarily in Central Asia (Khuzistan, Fars, Sijistān, Kirmān) and additionally in Iraq, at Artashir-​Seleucia, Nahr Tire ,and Forāt (Sellwood, Whitting, and Williams 1985: 41–​49). After the Islamic conquests, the new rulers intensified the coinage production in the Middle East and Central Asia from the caliphate of ʿUmar b. al-​Khaṭṭāb (r. 634–​644). For this purpose, all metal resources available were exploited, beginning with the treasures of silver that belonged to the Sasanian aristocracy and were found during the conquest of 196

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al-​Madāʾin, Jalūlā, and Tikrīt in Iraq, as well as Nihāwand in the Jibāl. Thus, when the Arabs conquered al-​Madāʾin in 637, under the leadership of Saʿd b.  Abī Waqqāṣ, they would have seized a treasure including 1.5 billion drachma and silver objects in the palace of Sasanian king Yazdegard (al-​Ṭabarī 1964:  I  2436). A  fifth of these resources was distributed to the army (Hoyland 1997:  620). The rest was put back into circulation and the objects in silver were melted to produce coins. The development of coin production in the Bukhāra oasis in the early eighth century illustrates a similar phenomenon. The first coin-​manufacturing facility was built in 706 after the discovery of a huge golden idol in Paykand by the army of the general Qutayba b. Muslim. The idol was melted down to produce 150,000 mithqāls. According to Hugh Kennedy (2002: 155–​169), the distribution of Paykand’s treasure would have helped to distil new economic dynamism, as the coins produced from the melting of the idol would have been shared among the soldiers and spent in the local markets to purchase swords and coats-​of-​ mail (al-​Ṭabarī 1964: II 1188). Similarly, from the late seventh to the ninth century, the gold accumulated in the churches of Jazīra and Egypt was “dethesaurised,” in order to overcome the critical shortage of coinage after the conquests to supply the manufacturers of Damascus and Baghdad from 762.The clergy, who were exempt from taxes under the Sufyānids rule, became increasingly liable from the reign of ʿAbd al-​Malik b. Marwān onwards. The textual testimonies we possess indicate that churches and monasteries had to draw on their gold and precious furnishings to pay their taxes (Ebied and Young 1973: 195). For instance, the chronicle of Zuqnīn mentions that in 754, the gold and sacred ornaments of the churches and monasteries of Jazīra were registered and seized by Caliph al-​Manṣūr in part-​payment of their fiscal dues (Harrak 1999: 228–​229). This gold was highly beneficial for the State, to supply the manufacture of gold coinage that would have developed in Damascus from 693 (al-​Balādhūrī 1866: 469). Alongside releasing back into circulation the gold and silver resources that had been hoarded over the years, the Umayyad and early ʿAbbāsid rulers tried to intensify the exploitation of local mines, such as the gold mines of the Caucasus and Armenia, near Sper (Ghevond 1856: 149), of Egypt, Nubia, and Ethiopia (Ibn Ḥawqal 1938–​1939: 50–​51), as well as the silver mines of Iran and Central Asia in Khurāsān, Maʿdin Shāsh in Farghāna, and Maʿdin Benghir near Kābul (Dekówna 1971).This is evidenced in the tenth-​century chronicle of Agapius of Manbiğ (1912: 544–​545), which mentions that the mass of Persian workers employed to extract silver from the Khurāsāni mines grew to 30,000 under the reign of al-​Manṣūr (r. 754–​775). Part of the metal extracted was sent to the mints that developed in the most prominent urban centres of the Middle East after the conquests. The rest was melted locally, as evidenced by the discovery of dirhāms struck in the name of Hārūn al-​Rashīd in 805 that bear the mark of the mint of Maʿdin Shāsh in Farghāna. In parallel the early Muslim rulers brought to use unexploited or abandoned resources of gold and silver in Arabia and Tibet (Peli 2006). In the Ḥijāz, the Umayyads exploited the mines of Maʿdin al-​Nuqra, Mawān (Yāqūt 1955–​1957: III 349), and ʿAsham (al-​Hamdānī 2003: 120) in the first half of the eighth century, according to the archaeological surveys and excavations carried out in 1980.They would also have brought to use in Yemen the silver deposits of al-​Radrād, as mentioned by al-​Hamdānī (2003: 123; Benoit, Féraud, Micheau, and Téreygeol 2003: 50). Then in the Najd, the ʿAbbāsids extracted gold from the mine of al-​ ʿAqīq (al-​Samhūdī 1955: IV 15), where archaeologists have found artifacts dating from the ninth century (Hester et al. 1983). This influx of metal supplied the mints that developed in the Middle East from 680.The end of the seventh century was marked by an increase of local coin production, which constituted a true rupture with Late Antiquity. Up to the emergence of Baghdad in 762, the minting of coins developed in the most prominent urban centres of the Bilād al-​Shām and Iraq. Golden coins 197

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were struck exclusively in Damascus (Treadwell 2009), whereas the minting of silver dirhāms was spread across the Middle East.The analysis of the dirhāms found in the treasures of Ṣāhat al-​ Taḥrīr (Damascus), Qamishliyya (Jazīra), and Jazīra (Abū al-​Faraj 1972; Gyselen and Kalus 1983; Gyselen and Negre 1982) indicates that they were produced in both Iraq and Syria in the early eighth century. However, during the reign of the ʿAbbāsids, coin production in Syria decreased significantly. The minting of coins seems to have been progressively centralised in Baghdad, according to the textual sources and study of the silver treasures of Jazīra and Sinaw in Oman (Lowick 1990), which were hidden during the war that set Caliph al-​Amīn against his brother al-​Maʾmūn after the death of Hārūn al-​Rashīd in 809. By contrast, the production of copper fals remained always local. Lutz Ilish indicates that they were struck in each province of the empire from the late seventh century (2010). This opening up of new mints in the Middle East from 680 was accompanied by the development of a standard Arabic coinage from 691 during the caliphate of ʿAbd al-​Malik, to replace the imitations of the Byzantine solidus and Sasanian drachme, which had been used up to this time.The Islamic empire thus adopted the golden dīnār, the silver dirham, and the copper fulus of standard weight and design, purely epigraphic with an inscription giving the date, the caliph’s name, and a religious slogan. These ubiquitous Islamic coins acted as symbols and bearers of propaganda (Bacharach 2010). The changes to coinage after the Arab conquest has given rise to an abundance of literature, after the seminal work of John Walker in the 1950s. The chronology of the Arabisation process of the monetary types (the Byzantine gold solidi, semisses and tremisses, and the copper follis, as well as the Sassanid silver drachme) formed the heart of numismatists’ research. As for the historians and economists, they questioned the economic impact of a massive minting programme in the Middle East and Central Asia from 680 and of the monetary reforms of Caliph ʿAbd al-​Malik from 691. For Hugh Kennedy, this reform imposing weights, styles and thus values, may have been related to the professionalisation of the armies: the State needed a uniform currency to pay its soldiers. Other scholars demonstrated that the development of various mints producing coinage at the end of the seventh century generated an increase in the flow and quantity of currency in circulation, which probably favoured consumption and investment, on a quasi-​Keynesian model (Morrisson 1992; Ilish 2010). Furthermore, under the caliphate of ʿAbd al-​Malik, the production of a standardised coinage, as well as the minting of more manageable currency units, would have allowed more fluidity in exchange mechanisms (Grierson 1960). Researchers thus came to talk about a wider monetisation of the economy between Late Antiquity and the early Islamic era. This theory was based essentially on the evidence of a progressive expansion of regularised payments of land taxes in cash in Egypt, greater Syria, Iraq, and Iran (Morony 2004: 168–​169).

Land use and settlement patterns The archaeological exploration of agricultural landscapes from Late Antiquity to early Islam in the Middle East has been the focus of numerous studies from the middle of the twentieth century. In 1957–​1958, Robert Adams conducted archaeological field reconnaissance in the Diyala plains of Iraq, approaching the evolution of settlement patterns and agricultural systems over a period of six millennia (1962, 1965, 1974, 1981). However, from 1990, this field of study increasingly benefited from the multiplication of surveys in North Africa, Greater Syria (Tate 1992; Clauss-​Balty 2008; Taxel 2013), Jazīra (Bartl 1996), Iraq (Verkinderen 2015), Central Asia and Iran (Soroush 2013;Wilkinson 2000;Wilkinson 2003), as well as of research using old maps and aerial photographs. Also, the development of archaeobotany and geoarchaeology, up until

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then quite marginalised, contributed massively to advance our understanding of the history of agriculture from Late Antiquity to the early Caliphate. These new approaches, combined with the refinement of archaeological methods of dating (notably with Optically Stimulated Luminescence –​OSL) helped to explain the formation of rivers and aid the study of the evolution of agricultural water systems. The recent renewal of landscape archaeology thus greatly contributed to improving our knowledge of the historical patterns of Middle Eastern agriculture from Late Antiquity to early Islam. Combined with the literary testimonies of the medieval Arab geographers (Morony 1994), the material evidence has helped to demonstrate a continuous agricultural dynamism from the sixth to the ninth century in the Middle East, except in Cilicia and Lycia in Anatolia, where the economy dramatically declined (Wilkinson 1990: 117, 123, 126, 128), in the context of the Byzantine and Sasanian conflicts, which forced the populations to flee the areas. Landscape archaeologists have also pointed out that the coming of Islam was marked by noticeable changes in Mediterranean farming. It was suggested that the Umayyad and early ʿAbbāsid rulers patronised a more intensive exploitation of water resources and favoured the spread of peri-​urban irrigated agriculture, to the detriment of pastoralism (Geyer 2002). This may have been accompanied by the dissemination of new plants, as argued by Andrew Watson (1974, 1983). His “Medieval Green Revolution” thesis remains an influential piece of research, although some components have, since publication, been challenged (Decker 2009). From the middle of the seventh century, the Arab conquests led to the reoccupation of Late Antique towns and the emergence of new cities, such as ʿAqaba in Syria and Basra, Wasīṭ, and Kufa in Iraq. In the context of this expansion of urban settlements, the early caliphs promoted the cultivation of cities’ hinterlands. For that purpose, wide-​scale operations of draining marshes, exploiting groundwater reserves, digging new canals and qanats in the late seventh-​and eighth-​ century Middle East, Iran, and Central Asia were undertaken. The qaṭīʿa system, consisting of granting unused agricultural estates to worthy officials or Arab chieftains, allowed the central authority to share the costs of their development (Morony 1984). In northern Syria, the lands surrounding the boundaries of Salamya were subject to important agricultural investments from the early eighth century, when the city became a place of residence for Caliph ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-​Azīz (r. 717–​720) (al-​Ṭabarī 1964: II 1361). During his rule, the irrigation systems of the city and the surrounding lands were expanded (al-​Yaʿqūbī 1892:  324). The agricultural exploitation of the city’s hinterland thus increased significantly, to the detriment of the rural badiya of Salamya. Densely occupied in the Late Roman era and devoted to sedentary farming and nomadic herding, it was progressively abandoned after the Arab conquests, although some prominent Late Roman farms devoted to subsistence agriculture remained in use, according to surveys conducted by Bernard Geyer and Marie-​Odile Rousset (2011). The exploitation of Salamya’s immediate hinterland continued under ʿAbbāsid rule, in particular as the city became in 758 the headquarters of Ṣāliḥ b. ʿAbd Allāh b. al-​ʿAbbās, governor of southern and central Syria. Salamya became well known for the production of saffron (al-​Yaʿqūbī 1892: 324). These changes in farming, archaeologically evidenced in Syria, are also attested in Jazīra and Iraq in the eighth and ninth centuries. In eighth-​century Jazīra, the foundation of Meyādīn, Raḥba, and El Graiye under the Umayyads, as well as al-​Rāfiqa in 771, in the middle Euphrates valley, between modern Deir el-​Zor and Abū Kemal, was indeed marked by a similar cultivation of the lands surroundings the boundaries of the new settlements. Material data collected by Sophie Berthier between 1987 and 1990 have revealed that the development of agriculture was made possible by the digging of the canals of Nahr Saʿīd and Nahr Dawrīn (al-​Balādhūrī

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1866: 179). This zone, used as a frontier between Byzantium and the Sasanian Empire in Late Antiquity, therefore experienced a significant agricultural growth in the context of new geo-​ political realities from the eighth century. According to archaeobotanical analysis, a sophisticated agricultural regime was introduced, combining winter crops (barley, wheat, lentils, and peas) with cotton and rice in summer (Samuel 2001: 437). In Iraq, textual testimonies indicate that in early Islam, the late Rāshidūn, Umayyad, and early ʿAbbāsid caliphs and local governors reinforced, through the digging of canals and the qaṭīʿa system, the exploitation of the lands surrounding the new settlements of Basra, Wāsiṭ, Kufa, and later Baghdad and Sāmarrāʾ (Lapidus 1981). This marks a true rupture with the Late Sasanian economy, based on rural development and polyculture as shown by Robert Adams’ surveys of the Diyala plains in Iraq. For instance, the lands behind Basra, which had become infertile after the dramatic floods of the Euphrates in 628 that led to the formation of swamps (Ibn al-​Faqīh al-​Hamadhānī 1885: 189), were returned to agricultural exploitation during the second half of the seventh century, when the garrison of Basra began to expand into a real city. During ʿUmar b. al-​Khaṭṭāb’s rule and the governorate of Abū Mūsā al-​Asjʿarī (638–​650), two canals (the Nahr al-​Ubulla and Nahr al-​Maʿqil) were thus dug (Ibn al-​Faqīh al-​Hamadhānī 1885: 189–​190) to help drain the swamps and feed the lands and urban industries. The hinterland of Basra was then divided into agricultural domains that were granted (qaṭīʿa) to officials and the military elite, during the governorates of ʿAbd Allāh b.  ʿĀmir (661–​664) and Ziyād b.  Sufyān (666–​ 672). This process was designed as an incentive to cultivate these hitherto unused areas. In the ninth-​century description of the early history of Basra, as recorded by al-​Balādhūrī, it is indeed reported that those who were granted estates dug additional canals connected to the main Nahr al-​Ubulla and Nahr al-​Maʿqil to farm their land. In the early eighth century, the cultivation of Basra’s hinterland was further reinforced with the foundation of two new canals, the Nahr ʿAdī during the reign of ʿUmar II (r. 717–​720) and the Nahr Ibn ʿUmar under the governorate of ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿUmar in 744 (al-​Balādhūrī 1866: 357–​362). A similar process of return to cultivation of the unused lands surrounding Wasīṭ, during the rule of the governor al-​Ḥajjāj and Khālid al-​Qaṣrī in the second half of the eighth century, is attested in the chronicle of al-​Balādhūrī (1866: 286, 290, 293). According to literary evidence, the dynamism of peri-​urban agriculture in Basra, Wāsiṭ, and Kufa persisted after 750 under the reign of the ʿAbbāsids. Although the foundation of Baghdad and Sāmarrāʾ drew most of their attention (Heidemann 2011), the agricultural economy of southern Iraq, which was highly beneficial to the imperial authority through the tax system, remained thus a priority. Alongside changes in agricultural practices, new crops were introduced, including vegetables (aubergine, artichoke, and spinach), fruits (watermelon, melon, lemon, orange, and mango), as well as sugar cane (Ouerfelli 2008: 32–​37), cotton, indigo ,and saffron, which were acclimatised between Late Antiquity and the tenth century. These crops spread in the Middle East along the Khabur and the Middle Euphrates valley in Jazīra, as well as along the Orontes and the Jordan, where they would have been brought by Jewish families from Iraq and Persia that immigrated under the Caliphate of ʿUthmān b. ʿAffān (r. 644–​656) and Muʿāwiya (r. 661–​680) (al-​Balādhūrī 1866: 117). The acclimatisation of these crops would have led, according to Pierre Guichard, to an evolution of agricultural methods. Whereas the land was to lie fallow during the summer in Late Antiquity, the peasants in early Islam began to cultivate it in all seasons (2000: 178–​ 179). Furthermore, the introduction of cotton, indigo, and sugar cane in Jazīra (Masʿūdī 1861–​ 1877: 438–​439), as well as in Syria and Palestine (al-​Muqaddasī 1877: 175, 179; al-​Dīnawārī 1973: 283), affected the urban economy, leading to a greater diversification of the traditional artisanal practices and the emergence of new industries.

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Expansion and complexification of the urban economy After 700, the urban economy in the Middle East experienced substantial growth and underwent structural changes. Alongside most Late Antique economic premises, which remained in use, the Umayyad Caliphs and their governors patronised the foundation of new places of production and commerce in the pre-​Islamic cities and newly founded urban settlements. This phenomenon would have begun during the caliphate of Muʿāwiya b. Abī Sufyān (r. 661–​680). He initiated this practice by founding the covered markets of dār al-​qaṭirān and dār al-​nuqṣān in the Holy city of Medina and converting a pre-​existing residential property into a commercial one, the dār al-​tamārin (dried dates) (al-​Samhūdī 1955: 750). Muʿāwiya’s successors pursued his policy. In the Late Roman cities of the Levant, the Umayyad caliphs developed new market and artisanal areas within the “classical” urban order. Places of production began to be seen both at the heart of cities and outside the city walls, either as individual artisanal units (hānūt) or nucleated workshops (dār al-​ṣinā or raḥaba). In many cases these workshops, flourishing within the city walls, were set up in abandoned Roman buildings (hippodromes, temples, theatres, or baths), which were thus privatised and transformed to take on new economic functions. Places of commerce, such as rows of shops (sūq) or buildings specially dedicated to commerce (funduq, ẖān, dār, and qaysāriyya) also developed, although on a different pattern. The Muslims made use of ancient heritage. They reoccupied the markets of antiquity, before creating street-​front markets or converting both public and private ancient buildings into trading premises. These phenomena are clearly visible in the archaeological site of the Roman provinces of Arabia (Boṣra, Ammān, Jarash), Palestine (Pella, Baysan,Tiberias, Beit Eliezer) and Syria (Apamea, Raqqa, Bālis, Beirut, Tyre, Arsūf, Palmyra, Ruṣāfa). Additionally, these developing establishments of economic activities began to be organised in clusters according to functional requirements and, undoubtedly, the desire of leaders to facilitate the control of these establishments. Archaeological finds attest this official active investment ethos in the Late Roman urban centres of the early Islamic Middle East, such as the famous wall mosaic inscriptions on the entrance gate of the Umayyad market of Baysān in Palestine, which commemorates the foundation of a sūq along Silvanus Street in 737–​738, following an order given by Umayyad caliph Hishām b. ʿAbd al-​Malik (r. 724–​743) and his governor Isḥāq b. Qabīṣa (Khamis 2001, 2007). By fostering the growth of the market place, the Muslim powers were able to affirm their presence in a city that had remained predominantly Christian. A similar impulse to expand urban markets and industries in Iraq took place under the Umayyads in camp-​cities established during the Muslim conquests. Judging from the literary testimonies, this was not a spontaneous process, but the result of a deliberate and strategic initiative on the part of local governors certainly when it came to the evolution of the garrisons from campsites to cities. For instance, during the governorship of ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿĀmir (646–​657), Basra evolved from a transient camp to a permanent urbanised settlement and gradually grew to become a prosperous commercial city. His successor, Ziyād b. Abihi (664–​673), evidently rebuilt the mosque and the dār al-​Imāra using bricks and pebbles, instead of mud, and encouraged the establishment of permanent sūqs (al-​Balādhūrī 1866: 344–​345). Drawing from clues provided by the tenth-​century scholar al-​ʿAskarī, we can deduce that Ziyād built them out of bricks and covered the constructions with wooden roofs. He also ordered them to be fitted with a latch system so they could be locked at night to prevent the stock from being stolen (1975: 740–​ 741; Naji and Ali 1981). The urbanisation process therefore saw the emergence of fixed shops patronised by the local authority. The practice of officially patronising urban economic premises during the Umayyads continued under the ʿAbbāsids, who recognised the profitability of

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investing in shops and workshops. Both Baghdad and Sāmarrāʾ are exemplary cases of how the authorities acted as organising agents. Moreover, significant structural changes affected the urban economy in early Islam. This began with an evolution in the distribution of working areas within the cityscape, in the context of expanding urban settlements in the Middle East up to 950. Mostly scattered in the urban fabric in Late Antiquity, markets and production premises steadily became grouped into economic hubs. The Arabs reused and expanded the process of clustering, visible in its infancy in the Roman world in Pompeii, Sabratha, Tyritakè, or Chersonèse (Wilson 2002). Therefore, in Late Antique cities, most of the individual workshops, scattered throughout the urban fabrics, were abandoned, to the benefit of the growth of collective artisanal hubs. This process became the norm from the end of the seventh century, as attested in Jarash, Baysān, and Apamea. The growth of communal working areas created fiscal and ideological advantages. It enabled the elites to ensure trade and productive practices adopted the new Islamic values. These economic clusters were first located within the city walls, close to the gates due to their polluting nature. However, from the ninth century, they began to be excluded outside the city walls. The ʿAbbāsids introduced a deliberate policy of relocating them on virgin lands where the benefits of easier access to transport and more space to display and store goods favoured economic growth. These changes in urban planning were accompanied by structural reforms of the markets and modes of production. After 700, Late Antique individual production seemed to decline to the benefit of nucleated workshops, hosting in a common space independent production units. This workshop mode, originally identified in an embryonic form in the Roman world, developed in the sectors of ceramic, glass, and textile manufacturing (Bessard 2017). The markets also acquired their own specificities after the Muslim conquests as altered patterns of consumption and social changes emerged. Archaeological evidence shows that a differentiation emerged progressively between the activities of craft-​making and trading in the early Islamic Middle Ages. The passage from the Late Antique to the Islamic market was thus accompanied by the specialisation of the profession of shopkeeper. Most individual workshops for pottery, oil, and glass-making implanted in the heart of the Byzantine markets were thus abandoned after the Arab conquests in Baysan, Apamea, and Jarash. Research carried out in Apamea by Jean-​Charles Balty between 1975 and 1978 along the north side of the south decumanus revealed the existence of a row of Byzantine workshop-​boutiques, which served as areas for the production and sale of lamps. Over 300 lamps, many of which were intact and had never been used, were discovered in 1975, supposedly tossed aside on the pavement in front of these shops. In addition to remains of kilns (Balty 1981: 104), two ergastērion are believed to have provided dozens of the moulds for making them. In the early Middle Ages, the passage from the ergastērion to the sūq was again characterised by a distancing of the market areas from the industry itself and a specialisation in conservation and sales, testified by the dig of the insula of the Triclinos House. This has revealed that during the Umayyads, a pronounced differentiation was established between the street front sūq, running along the south side of the south decumanus, and the places of production regrouped further back on the remains of the Triclinos House (Balty 1969; Jourdain 1972).

Growing influence of Islam in economic regulation After the Arab conquests, the way the new Muslim rulers regulated economic behaviours in the Middle East remains obscure due to the almost complete absence of contemporary sources. Material evidence is scarce and the written testimonies are either from the early ninth century 202

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onwards or are indirect accounts, which were orally transmitted. It therefore remains to be fully established how the Muslim rulers exercised their authority on Muslim and non-​Muslims artisans and traders. It is most likely that in the late seventh and eighth centuries legal conflicts were considered on a case-​by-​case basis, in the absence of an imperial judicial system. Christians were given the choice to report unlawful practices to the Church or the local Muslim authority, if this only involved dhimmī. By contrast, any disputes involving Muslim believers had to be referred to the qāḍī. Trade and production may have been originally guided by fundamental principles and injunctions laid down in the Qurʾān and the Sunna, as well as inspired by the existing legal practices. They formed the basis of the economic life of the individual and the community, before being elaborated into a system during the ʿAbbāsid era. Islamic economic law indeed became formalised from the late eighth century, in the context of the emergence of fiqh and the growing conversion to Islam. Islamic morality and the concept of lawful (ḥalāl) and unlawful (ḥarām) played a growing role in determining the broad contours of medieval economic jurisprudence. The Islamic economic law, which was written down in the hisbah manual from the tenth century, covered a wide range of matters. Restrictions were put on charging monopoly prices, advertisement and publicity, on hoarding and speculation, as well as transactions involving prohibited commodities. Islamic law also regulated the practice of mortgage, partnership, insolvency, loans and credit, consumption, and savings. However, the system could be made flexible in practice. For instance, the hanafite legal advisers, such as Muḥammad Shaybānī (749–​ 805), adhered to a liberal vision of the economy, embracing an understanding of the interests of the merchants and of the necessities of commerce, considering with flexibility the practical problems and succeeding, by plotting subterfuges, in circumventing certain prohibitions, such as interest loans. Islamic influence on markets was reflected in the growing importance attached to the chief inspector’s role in enforcing the moral obligations of Islam in the market ​place. Textual sources use various different names to refer to the inspector: “ʿĀmil al-​sūq,” and later “Ṣāḥib al-​sūq” or “Muḥtasib” (Foster 1970). The tradition reported by ninth-​century scholars reveals that in seventh-​century Arabia, this function already existed. It is indeed in Mecca and Medina that Muḥammad is said to have appointed the first persons with jurisdiction over the market. These officials were to ensure the orderly running of business transactions. The traditions indicate that the Prophet appointed in Medina Saʿīd b. Saʿīd b. al-​ʿĀṣ in 629 (Ibn ʿAbd al-​Barr al-​Qurṭūbī 1960: 621) and Samrā bt. Nuhayk al-​Asadiyya (Ibn ʿAbd al-​Barr al-​Qurṭūbī 1960: 183; Buckley 1992: 60–​61), who most likely had jurisdiction over the women’s section of the market. The Rashīdūn would have perpetuated this practice of appointing inspectors at Medina and Mecca from 632 (al-​Balādhūrī 1936: 47). Under the Marwānids, the ninth-​century sources mention that the position of ʿĀmil al-​sūq evolved into a powerful judicial role and alluded to the orderly running of the market ​place, with regard to weights, scales, and measures. The market inspector maintained close relationships with judges or qāḍī and it appears that, in many cases, the ʿĀmil al-​sūq previously held a judicial function. When the market inspector of Wāsiṭ in Iraq, Mahdī b. ʿAbd al-​Rahmān, died in 723, he was succeeded by his grandson, Iyās b. Muʿāwiya, who then held the position of qāḍī in Basra (Wakīʿ1947–​1950: 353). During the early ʿAbbāsids, between the reigns of al-​Manṣūr (r. 754–​775) and al-​Maʿmūn (813–​833), the role of the market inspector further evolved. Renamed as “Muḥtasib,” his investiture became a ceremonial event and he acquired religious and moral obligations in addition to his prosaic duties in the market (Buckley 1992: 65–​67).The tenth-​to eleventh-​century ḥisba manuals of Zaydī and al-​Māwardī, as well as the Arab chronicles, attest to the evolution of the inspectors’ responsibilities from the ninth century (Rodinson 1977: 18–​30). He was now empowered to encourage the orderly and 203

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equitable running of the market as well as the correct execution of Islamic ritual. This included the prohibition of any individuals intending to export weapons to non-​Muslim lands or of those Muslims who sold objects considered impure, such as wine, pork, and animals where the rituals of slaughter had not been observed, along with the control of the activities of the money-​ changers (Buckley 1992: 87–​89). Another target of the Muḥtasib’s attention was the slave market (sūq al-​raqīq), where he ensured that slaves were correctly treated. He also had to ensure the clear passage of public highways (Serjeant 1981: 18; Buckley 1992: 92–​93). In summary, the early Caliphate brought about a major rupture and marked the beginning of a time of great agrarian reform and economic changes and growth in North Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia. From the early eighth century onwards, these changes were powered by a deliberate administrative policy. The minting of more currency units from the second half of the seventh century and the famous monetary and fiscal decentralisation reforms of caliph ʿAbd al-​Malik favoured a wider monetisation of the economy, a provincial enrichment, and the decline of an individual tradition of patronage to the benefit of imperial programmes.The Umayyad and early ʿAbbāsid rulers and local governors pursued an active investment policy to instil dynamism into the Middle Eastern cities and their hinterlands.This was used as a vehicle to cultivate power, strengthening the image of the caliphs and encouraging the allegiance of the subjected populations. The State investment decisions generated a reconfiguration of the urban economic and agrarian strategies. The early Islamic Middle Ages was marked by new patterns of land use, the spread of a peri-​urban irrigated and marketable agriculture, to the detriment of pastoralism, as well as an increased sophistication of urban shops and workshops. Scattered within the urban fabrics in Late Antiquity, the shops and workshops were henceforth grouped into clusters near the sites of power, reflecting the change in religious and administrative management of the economy.

Note 1 For a more recent discussion on French colonial historiography, see Avni (2014: 11–​13).

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Fanny Bessard Haldon, J. 1990. Byzantium in the Seventh Century: The Transformation of a Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. al-​Hamdānī, Ḥ.b.A. 2003. Kitāb al-​jawharatayn al-​ʿatīqatayn al-​māʾiʿatayn al-​ṣafrāʾ wa al-​bayḍāʾ. Ṣanʿā: Maktabat al-​Irshād. Harrak, A. trans. 1999. The Chronicle of Zuqnīn, Parts III and IV: A.D. 488–​775.Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies. Heidemann, S. 2011. The Agricultural Hinterland of Baghdād, al-​ Raqqa and Sāmarrāʾ:  Settlement Patterns in the Diyār Muḍar. In Borrut, A., Debié, M., Papaconstantinou, A., Pieri, D., and Sodini, J.-​ P. eds. Le Proche-​Orient de Justinien aux Abbassides, peuplement et dynamiques spatiales. Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 43–​59. Hester, J. et al. 1983. Preliminary on the Third Phase of Ancient Mining Survey South-​Western Province. Atlal: The Journal of Saudi Arabian Archaeology 8:115–​142. Hoyland, R.G. 1997. Seeing Islam as Others Saw It: A Survey and Evaluation of Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian Writings on Early Islam. Princeton: Darwin Press. ——​. 2006. New Documentary Texts and the Early Islamic State. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 69:395–​416. Ibn ʿAbd al-​Barr al-​Qurṭūbī,Y.b.ʿA. 1960. Al-​Istiʿāb fī maʿrifat al-​aṣḥāb. Cairo: Maṭbaʿat nahdat miṣr. Ibn Baḥshal, A.b.S. 1967. Tārīkh Wāsiṭ. Awwād, K. ed. Baghdad: Maṭbaʿat al-​Maʿārif. Ibn al-​Faqīh al-​Hamadhānī, A.B.A.b.M. 1885. Mukhtaṣar kitāb al-​buldān. de Goeje, M.J. ed. Leiden: E.J. Brill. Ibn Ḥawqal, A.Q. 1938–​1939. Kitāb ṣūrat al-​arḍ. 2nd ed. Kramers, J.H. ed. Leiden: E.J. Brill. Ilish, L. 2010. ʿAbd al-​Malik’s Monetary Reform in Copper and the Failure of Centralization. In: Haldon, J. ed. Money, Power and Politics in Early Islamic Syria: A Review of Current Debates. Burlington,VT: Ashgate, 125–​146. Johns, J. 2003. Archaeology and the History of Early Islam: The First Seventy Years. Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 46:411–​436. Jourdain, C. 1972. Sondages dans l’insula au triclinos, 1970 et 1971. In: Balty, J. and Balty J.C. eds. Apamée de Syrie. Bilan des recherches archéologiques 1969–​1971. Brussels: Centre belge de recherches archéologiques à Apamée de Syrie, 113–​142. Khamis, E. 2001. Two Wall Mosaic Inscriptions from the Umayyad Market Place in Baysān. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 64(2):159–​176. ——​. 2007. The Shops of Scythopolis in Context. In: Lavan, L., Swift, E., and Putzeys, T. eds. Objects in Contexts, Objects in Use: Material Spatiality in Late Antiquity. Leiden: Brill, 439–​472. Kennedy, H. 1981. Central Government and Provincial Elites in the Early ʿAbbāsid Caliphate. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 44(1):26–​38. ——​. 2001. The Armies of the Caliphs: Military and Society in the Early Islamic State. London: Routledge. ——​. 2002. Military Pay and the Economy of the Early Islamic State. Historical Research 75(118):155–​169. Lapidus, I.M. 1981. Arab Settlement and Economic Development of Iraq and Iran in the Age of the Umayyad and Early Abbasid Caliphs. In:  Udovitch, A.L. ed. The Islamic Middle East, 700–​ 1900. Princeton: Darwin Press, 177–​208. Lokkegard, F. 1950. Islamic Taxation in the Classic Period with Special References to Circumstances in Iraq. Copenhagen: Branner & Korch. Lowick, N. 1990. The Sināw Hoard. In:  Cribb, J. ed. Islamic Coins and Trade in the Medieval World. Aldershot: Variorum, 199–​230. Marcais, W. 1928. L’Islamisme et la vie urbaine. Comptes rendus de l’Académie des inscriptions et belles-​lettres 72(1):86–​100. de Margā,T. 1893. The Book of Governors: The Historia Monastica of Thomas Bishop of Margā A.D. 840. Budge E.A.W. ed. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co. Masʿūdī, ʿA.b.Ḥ. 1861–​1877. Les prairies d’or. de Meynard, C.B.  and de Courteille, P.  trans. 9  vols. Paris: Société Asiatique. Morony, M. 1984. Landholding and Social Change:  Lower al-​ ʿIraq in the Early Islamic Period. In: Khalidi,T. ed. Land Tenure and Social Transformation in the Middle East. Beirut: American University of Beirut Press, 209–​222. ——​. 1994. Land Use and Settlement Patterns in Late Sasanian and Early Islamic Iraq. In: King, G.R.O. and Cameron, A. eds. The Byzantine and Early Islamic Near East II:  Land Use and Settlement Patterns. Princeton: Darwin Press, 221–​229. ——​. 2004. Economic Boundaries? Late Antiquity and Early Islam. Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 47(2):166–​194.

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Politics and economics Morrisson, C. 1992. Le monnayage omeyyade et l’histoire administrative et économique de la Syrie. In: Canivet, P., Rey-​Coquais, J.P. eds. La Syrie, de Byzance à l’Islam: VIIe–​VIIIe siècles. Damascus: Institut français de Damas, 308–​317. al-​Muqaddasī, S.D. A.ʿA. 1877. Aḥsan al-​taqāsīm fī maʿrifat al-​aqālīm. de Goeje, M.J. ed. Leiden: E.J. Brill. Naji, A.J. and Ali, Y.N. 1981. The Suqs of Basrah: Commercial Organization and Activity in a Medieval Islamic City. Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 24(3):298–​309. Norel, P. 2004. L’invention du marché. Paris: Seuil. Ouerfelli, M. 2008. Le sucre: production, commercialisation et usages dans la Méditerranée médiévale. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers. Palmer, A., Brock, S., and Hoyland, R., trans. 1993. The Seventh Century in the West-​Syrian Chronicles. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. Papaconstantinou, A. 2010. Administering the Early Islamic Empire: Insights from the Papyri. In: Haldon, J. ed. Money, Power and Politics in Early Islamic Syria:  A  Review of Current Debates. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 57–​74. Peli, A. 2006. Les mines de la péninsule Arabique d’après les auteurs arabes (VIIe–​XIIe siècles). Chroniques Yéménites 13:1–​22. Robinson, C. 2005. Neck-​Sealing in Early Islam. Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 48(3):409–​441. Rodinson, M. 1977. Les conditions religieuses islamiques de la vie économique. Leiden: E.J. Brill. al-​Samhūdī, N.D.ʿA. 1984 [1955]. Wafāʾal-​wafāʾbī akhbār dār al-​muṣṭafā. Beirut: Dār al-​kutub al-​ʿilmiyya. Samuel, D. 2001. Archaeobotanical Evidence and Analysis. In: Berthier, S. ed. Peuplement rural et aménagements hydroagricoles de la moyenne vallée de l’Euphrate. Damascus:  Institut français d’études arabes de Damas, 347–​481. Sauvaget, J. 1941. Alep, essai sur le développement d’une grande ville syrienne. Paris: P. Geuthner. Sellwood, D., Whitting, P., and Williams, R. 1985. An Introduction to Sasanian Coins. London: Spink & Son. Serjeant, R.B. 1981. A Zaidi Manual of Hisbah of the Third Century (H). In: Serjeant, R.B. ed. Studies in Arabic History and Civilisation. Aldershot: Ashgate, item 7. Sijpesteijn, P. 2014. Shaping a Muslim State:  The World of a Mid-​ Eighth-​ Century Egyptian Official. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Simonsen, J.B. 1988. Studies in the Genesis and Early Development of the Caliphal Taxation System:  With Special References to Circumstances in the Arab Peninsula, Egypt and Palestine. Copenhagen: Akademisk Forlag. Soroush, M. 2013. Irrigation in Khuzistan after the Sasanians:  Continuity, Decline, or Transformation? www.academia.edu/​7444207/​Irrigation_​in_​Khuzistan_​after_​the_​Sasanians_​Continuity_​Decline_​or_​ Transformation. al-​Ṭabarī, M.b.J. 1964. Taʾrīkh al-​rusul wa-​l-​mulūk. Tertia series, 2nd ed. 15 vols in 3 series. de Goeje, M.J. ed. Leiden: E.J. Brill. Tate, G. 1992. Les campagnes de la Syrie du Nord du IIe au VIIe siècle: un exemple d’expansion démographique et économique à la fin de l’Antiquité. Paris: P. Geuthner. Taxel, I. 2013. Rural Settlement Processes in Central Palestine, ca. 640–​800 C.E.: The Ramla-​Yavneh Region as a Case Study. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 369:157–​199. Tchalenko, G. 1953–​1958. Villages antiques de la Syrie du Nord. Le Massif du Bélus à l’époque romaine. Paris: P. Geuthner. le Tourneau, R. 1957. Les villes musulmanes de l’Afrique du Nord. Algiers: La Maison des Livres. Treadwell, L. 2009. ʿAbd al-​Malik’s Coinage Reforms: The Role of the Damascus Mint. Revue Numismatique 165:357–​382. Verkinderen, P. 2015. Waterways in Iraq and Iran in the Early Islamic Period: Changing Rivers and Landscapes of the Mesopotamian Plain. London: I.B. Tauris. Wakīʿ, M.b.Kh. 1947–​1950. Akhbār al-​quḍāh. Cairo: al-​Maktabah al-​Tijārīyah al-​Kubrá. Walmsley, A. 2000. Production, Exchange and Regional Trade in the Islamic East Mediterranean:  Old Structures, New System? In: Hansen, I.L. and Wickham, C. eds. The Long Eighth Century: Production, Distribution and Demand. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 265–​343. ——​. 2007. Economic Developments and the Nature of Settlement in the Towns and Countryside of Syria-​Palestine, ca. 565–​800. Dumbarton Oaks Papers 61:319–​352. ——​. 2010. Coinage and the Economy of Syria-​Palestine in the Seventh and the Eighth Centuries CE. In: Haldon, J. ed. Money, Power and Politics in Early Islamic Syria: A Review of Current Debates. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 21–​45.

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Fanny Bessard Watson, A. 1974.The Arab Agricultural Revolution and Its Diffusion, 700–​1100. Journal of Economic History 34:8–​35. ——​. 1983. Agricultural Innovation in the Early Islamic World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wilkinson, T. 1990. Town and Country in Southeastern Anatolia. 2 vols. Chicago: The Oriental Institute. ——​. 2000. Regional Approaches in Mesopotamian Archaeology. Journal of Archaeological Research 8:219–​267. ——​. 2003. Archaeological Landscapes of the Near East. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. Wilson, A. 2002. Urban Production in the Roman World: The View from North Africa. Papers of the British School at Rome 70:231–​273. al-​Yaʿqūbī, A.b.I. 1892. Kitāb al-​buldān. de Goeje, M.J. ed. Leiden: E.J. Brill. Yāqūt al-​Ḥamawī. 1955–​1957. Muʿjam al-​buldān. 5 vols. Beirut: Dār Ṣādir.

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12 THE MYTH OF THE “SHĪʿĪ PERSPECTIVE” Identity and memory in early Islam Najam Haider

It is often assumed that the Shīʿa, informed by theological and soteriological concerns, hold an unreliable and skewed perspective on early Islam. The Shīʿa are described as partisans of ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib (d. 40/​660), who felt dispossessed when the community chose Abū Bakr (d. 13/​634) as Muḥammad’s successor in 11/​632.The group’s attachment to ʿAlī was ultimately transformed into a veneration of his family and descendants, producing an interpretation of Islam that differed from the community-​centric vision associated with Sunnī Muslims. In this narrative, the emergence of two distinct religious orientations (i.e., Sunnī and Shīʿī) was the consequence of a dispute over the leadership of the community. The above formulation implies a coherence both between and within the categories “Sunnī” and “Shīʿa” that is absent from the sources themselves. In the Shīʿī case, this assertion is problematic for a number of reasons. First, there are myriad Shīʿī communities with fundamentally different theological beliefs. They certainly share the view that ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib was the rightful successor to Muḥammad but they disagree over nearly every other issue tied to the succession. Was ʿAlī’s appointment formal and public or was it implicit? Did ʿAlī accept the community’s decision to bypass him in favor of Abū Bakr or was he steadfast in his claims? Did those Companions who disregarded his rights become apostates or did they simply make a mistake in independent judgment? Beyond these questions, there are significant disagreements over the basis for ʿAlī’s elevated standing and the purview of his authority. Second, the beliefs of Shīʿī communities are constantly evolving under the influence of contemporaneous circumstances. The Twelver Shīʿa of the 3rd/​9th and 6th/​12th centuries, for example, differed sharply in their legal methods, theological doctrines, and relationships to political power. There were also considerable regional variations. Even greater disparities among the Zaydī and Ismāʿīlī Shīʿ make the notion of a “Shīʿī perspective” largely meaningless. This chapter challenges the commonly held assumption that the death of the Prophet marked a clear and definitive split between Sunnī and Shīʿī which produced different perspectives on early Islam. The argument is made in two parts. The first part documents the development of Shīʿī identity through the first three centuries of Islam. Shīʿī communities emerged in a gradual process that involved a complicated interplay between ritual, sacred space, and theological

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appropriation. There was no definitive moment where the Muslim community split into two irreconcilable factions; such a perspective was anachronistically posited by later Sunnī and Shīʿī scholars. The second part of the chapter offers an alternative method for considering communal memory. Specifically, it focuses on the identity of the Imām as an example of the influence of later theological developments on Shīʿī historical writing. The resulting analysis provides insight into how the past is recast by later generations to make sense of contemporaneous circumstances. It is, in fact, this very process that inscribes sectarianism into early Islamic history.

Identity The 1st/​7th century: walāya (charismatic loyalty) The roots of the Shīʿī community lie in the nearly forty-​year period between the death of the Prophet in 11/​632 and the murder of ʿAlī in 40/​661.1 During the caliphal reign of ʿUmar b. al-​Khaṭṭāb (r. 13–​23/​634–​644), the young Muslim state was organized around the principle of sabiqa (precedence) whereby stipend allocations and political/​military appointments were predicated on date of conversion. In such a system, early converts with a low tribal status were favored over late-​converts from elite tribal backgrounds. This system was overturned by ʿUthmān b. ʿAffān (r. 23–​35/​644–​656), whose policies reinforced the power of tribal elites, significantly increasing tensions in newly established Muslim garrison cities such as Kufa (in Iraq) and Fusṭāṭ (in Egypt). The resulting social unrest led to ʿUthmān’s murder in 35/​656 and ʿAlī’s elevation to the caliphate. There is little evidence at this point for the existence of a “Shīʿī community” in any modern sense of the term. ʿAlī’s support principally consisted of the “piety-​minded” or the “pious opposition,” terms that encompass a range of disenchanted groups (Hodgson 1974: I 256–​260; Hinds 1972a: 361–​367). The most prominent of these were the (previously mentioned) early-​ converts who yearned for a restoration of the sabiqa system. They were joined by late-​converts from non-​elite tribal backgrounds who saw an Islamic order as providing greater opportunities for wealth and position. Finally, the piety-​minded included non-​Arab Muslims who were treated as subordinates within the new state and only permitted to convert after accepting client status from an Arab tribe. According to Marshall Hodgson, the piety-​minded were united around an agenda that advocated the construction of an egalitarian social order predicated on Islamic values (1974: I 252–​ 256). Among the potential candidates for the caliphate, they considered ʿAlī their best hope for reversing ʿUthmān’s policies and curbing the power of tribal elites. The piety-​minded contributed significantly to ʿAlī’s victory over Ṭalḥa b.  ʿUbayd Allāh (d. 36/​656), al-​Zubayr b. al-​ ʿAwwām (d. 36/​656), and ʿĀʾisha bt. Abī Bakr (d. 58/​678) at the Battle of the Camel (37/​657). Their role was more divisive at the subsequent Battle of Ṣiffīn (37/​657), where they turned on ʿAlī, first forcing him to accept an offer of arbitration from Muʿāwiya b.  Abī Sufyān (r. 41–​60/​661–​680) and later regretting this decision (Hinds 1972c; Madelung 1997: 232–​534). ʿAlī’s refusal to break the subsequent agreement and recommence hostilities fragmented the piety-​minded between those who declared him an apostate (e.g., the Kharijites) and those who remained loyal. Maria Dakake has emphasized the particular charismatic connection ʿAlī seemed to have with those who continued to support him.2 Given the lack of primary sources from the time, it is difficult to discern the basis of this charisma. Perhaps it derived from his actions as caliph (a restoration of early-​comer rights) or his idealistic unwillingness to negotiate with his enemies? In time, ʿAlī’s charisma evolved into “an all-​encompassing bond of spiritual loyalty” (walāya)3 that 210

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transcended politics and self-​interest (Dakake 2007: 7). It was this bond that distinguished those who backed ʿAlī for political reasons from those who eventually became the Shīʿa. These early Shīʿī sentiments were critically reinforced near the end of ʿAlī’s life when many of his partisans took an oath (bay’a) agreeing to obey his commands without question (Dakake 2007: 60–​3). The taking of this oath marks the actual starting point for a distinct Shīʿī identity. It is worth nothing that these Shīʿa were specifically committing themselves to the person of ʿAlī. There was no expectation that their loyalties would transfer to ʿAlī’s sons or his descendants. In fact, a lack of general support appears to have compelled Ḥasan b. ʿAlī (d. 50/​670) to conclude an agreement with Muʿāwiya b. Abī Sufyān after ʿAlī’s death in which the Umayyad was acknowledged as the legitimate caliph. There was some resurgence of support behind Ḥusayn b.  ʿAlī, who was urged by his father’s Kūfan supporters to lead an uprising. In the end, however, he too was abandoned and killed in Karbalāʾ at the hands of an Umayyad army in 61/​680. Ḥusayn’s death caused significant regret among ʿAlī’s original partisans, sparking a number of new movements (notably those of the Penitents [65/​684–​685] and Mukhtār b. Abī ʿUbayd [d. 67/​687]). Over the next few decades, these uprisings helped transform a charismatic loyalty directed towards ʿAlī into a more general veneration of his descendants (Haider 2014: 32–​38).

The 2nd/​8th century: ritual and sacred spaces By the early 2nd/​8th century, a diffuse, scattered Shīʿism had coalesced into discernible Shīʿī communities. A majority of the Shīʿa lived in Kufa, a garrison city known for its ethnic diversity and political volatility. Recent scholarship suggests that Kufans held multiple positions on divisive legal issues such as the permissibility of intoxicating substances and the structure of the daily prayer (Haider 2013b: 306–​346). In this respect, it differed from other important Muslim urban centers which displayed a relative uniformity in matters of law and ritual. At an earlier stage, it is likely that Kufans adhered to specific practices based on personal preference or tribal associations. This had changed by the early 2nd/​8th century as ritual practice became one of the primary means for ascertaining an individual’s reliability as a legal authority. In his Sunan, for example, al-​Dārimī (d. 255/​869) cites the opinion of the Basran scholar Muḥammad b. Sīrīn4 (d. 110/​728), who advocated “examining men” before relying on their opinions/​judgments on religious matters (al-​Dārimī 1987:  I  124–​125).5 Similar sentiments were ascribed to Muḥammad b. Sīrīn’s brother Anas6 (d. 120/​738) from Basra (Ibn Abī Ḥātim 1943–​1953:  II 15–​6), al-​Ḍaḥḥāk b.  Muzāḥim7 (d. 105/​724) from Khurāsān (Ibn Abī Ḥātim 1943–​1953: II 15), Ibrāhīm al-​Nakhaʿī8 (d. 96/​714) from Kufa (Ibn ʿAbd al-​Barr 1983: I 47), and Mālik b. Anas9 (d. 179/​795) from Medina (Ibn ʿAbd al-​Barr 1983: I 47).The regional distribution of calls for such “examinations” suggests that the idea was a common sentiment among early religious authorities. Once the need to “examine” transmitters and legal authorities was established, it was necessary to ascertain the actual form of the examination. Al-​Dārimī addresses this issue in a series of reports that document the investigative efforts of late 1st-​/​7th-​and early 2nd-​/8​ th-​century religious scholars and students. In one such account, Ibrāhīm al-​Nakhaʿī recalls that “if they [previous generations] wanted to narrate [traditions] from a man, then they would follow him, examining his prayer, his practice (sunna), and his appearance. [Only then] would they transmit from him” (al-​Dārimī 1987:  I  124). Variants of this tradition substitute the word “sima” (form) for “sunna”, further highlighting the importance of the form and manner of an individual’s prayer.10 That an opinion virtually identical to that of Ibrāhīm al-​Nakhaʿī in Kufa was ascribed to al-​Ḥasan al-​Baṣrī11 (d. 110/​728) (al-​Mizzī 1992: VI 95) in Basra indicates that it was 211

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prevalent across important Muslim urban centers (al-​Dārimī 1987: I 124).The issue is discussed in unambiguous terms in the following tradition quoting the Basran scholar, Abū al-​ʿĀliya Rufayʿ b. Mihrān12 (d. 90/​708): We would follow the man from whom we wanted to transmit [traditions] to observe him when he prayed. If he knew how to perform [the prayer] expertly, we would sit down with him and say,“He must be correct in other matters.” But if he performed [the prayer] incorrectly, we would move away from him and say, “He is wrong in other matters.” (al-​Dārimī 1987: I 124) Scholars in the late 1st/​7th and early 2nd/​8th centuries evaluated the veracity of individual transmitters by observing them in the mosque rather than questioning them on theological matters such as God’s justice or the Imāmate.13 The link between ritual and identity was critical to the polarization of the Shīʿī community in 2nd-​/​8th-​century Kufa.14 The Shīʿa performed a number of ritual practices that distinguished them from other Kufan social groups. The forebears of the Twelver Shīʿa, for example, recited the basmalah15 audibly at the start of each cycle of the daily prayer.16 Alone, this was not sufficient to identify a figure as Shīʿī since other groups in other cities upheld a similar practice.The Kufan Shīʿa, however, also inserted a qunūt17 into the second cycle of every prayer and inclined slightly to left of the qibla in the direction of their prayer. In addition to the ritual prayer, they held unique positions on issues ranging from dietary law and ablution to dress and inheritance. It was the uniqueness of this larger collection of practices that signaled an individual’s Shīʿī loyalties. The crystallization of Shīʿī ritual practice was eventually accompanied by a demarcation of Shīʿī sacred space.The interplay of ritual and space is reflected in the following report related by a student of the prominent Kufan jurist Sharīk b. ʿAbd Allāh (d. 177/​793): In our presence a man asked Sharīk, “What is your opinion regarding a man whose door is located near a mosque where the qunūt is not performed while behind that mosque is another mosque where the qunūt is performed?” He responded, “He should go to the mosque where the qunūt is performed.” (al-​Barqī 1992: II 46–​47) Sharīk’s response suggests the confluence of ritual and mosque in the middle 2nd/​8th century as well as its increasing association with communal (particularly Shīʿī) identity. The Shīʿa were singular in their insertion of the qunūt in all of the daily prayers and likely frequented those mosques where it was regularly performed (Lalani 2000: 124–​125).This was a conscious choice that involved a degree of hardship or, at the very least, annoyance as the Shīʿī population was not exclusively concentrated around appropriate mosques.The hypothetical supplicant discussed by Sharīk is instructed to bypass his neighborhood mosque to reach another in which the prayer is conducted in a proper fashion. Shīʿī literature abounds with evidence for the division of Kufan sacred space into mosques that were blessed/​friendly and others that were accursed/​hostile (al-​Ṭūsī 1993: 168–​169).18 The importance of each mosque was predicated on a combination of historical and religious factors. In these accounts, blessed mosques are associated with past prophets, tied to Muḥammad and ʿAlī, or ascribed a role in the end times. Accursed mosques, by contrast, are linked to problematic historical figures who exhibited a clear animosity towards ʿAlī or Ḥusayn. In some cases, it is noted that these spaces were renovated in celebration of Ḥusayn’s death in Karbalāʾ (Haider 2011: 241). These reports on sacred spaces indicate that mosques were important venues for 212

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the public articulation of communal identity. Venturing into Masjid Juʿfī (a blessed mosque), a worshipper could expect to hear a Shīʿī adhān (call to prayer)19 and participate in a group prayer that took a specifically Shīʿī form20 without fear of hostility or retribution.21 The next step in the elaboration of a distinct Shīʿī identity involved a practice that combined ritual with space, namely the performance of pilgrimages to sites of religious importance. The importance of pilgrimage is evident in the growth of an entire genre of literature designed to provide itineraries and instructions for location-​specific prayers and invocations.22 These itineraries include both mosques and shrines. In his Kitāb al-​mazār, for example, al-​Shaykh al-​ Mufīd (d. 413/​1022) directs pilgrims returning from a visit to ʿAlī’s grave to stay at the central mosque in Kūfa for an extended period before proceeding to a series of other blessed mosques (al-​Mufīd 1988: 88).23 Al-​Ṭūsī (d. 460/​1067) first recommends a visit to the Euphrates near Karbalāʾ, quoting al-​Ṣādiq’s observation that “I do not think anyone experiences the water of the Euphrates without developing a love for us –​the Family of the Prophet” (al-​Ṭūsī 1970: VI 39), before describing the merits of a particular set of Kufan mosques. The pilgrimage manual of the 6th/​12th century Shīʿī Ibn al-​Mashhadī details prayers for a wide array of Kufan mosques and ranks them according to their religious importance (Ibn al-​Mashhadī 1998: 111–​110).24 The tombs of ʿAlī (on the outskirts of the city) and Ḥusayn (at the battlefield of Karbalāʾ roughly 50 miles away) were revered as especially sacred locations, and every member of the community with the means and opportunity was expected to visit them. Large delegations would travel the short distance between Kufa and ʿAlī’s grave in an annual procession (al-​Ṭūsī 1970: VI 21, 39; al-​Mufīd 1988: 88). This often took place during the festival commemorating Ghadīr Khumm on the 10th of Dhū al-​Ḥijja. Ḥusayn’s tomb in Karbalāʾ held a similar significance. Located at a distance that made daily visits from Kufa difficult, it was close enough to serve as a semi-​regular site for lesser pilgrimages. In a number of accounts, Kufan Shīʿa are depicted as visiting Medina, where they are questioned by either Muḥammad al-​Bāqir (d. 114/​ 732 or 117/​735) or Jaʿfar al-​Ṣādiq (d. 148/​765) about the frequency of pilgrimages to Karbalāʾ. In one report, al-​Ṣādiq asks a Kufan visitor (identified as ʿAbd Allāh b. Ṭalḥa al-​Nahdī) if he has ever visited Karbalāʾ (yes) and then interrogates him as to the regularity of those visits (al-​Ṭūsī 1970: VI 21, 39; al-​Mufīd 1988: 88). When al-​Ṣādiq learns of the infrequency with which al-​ Nahdī (and the larger Shīʿī Kūfan community) undertakes the journey, he equates the reward for visiting Karbalāʾ with that of a greater and lesser pilgrimage. Some texts go so far as to make pilgrimage a foundational requirement of faith itself. In a typical variant, al-​Ṣādiq states: If one of you performs the ḥajj in the course of your lifetime and does not visit Ḥusayn b.  ʿAlī, then you have departed from one of the claims (ḥuqūq) of God and the Messenger of God, because the claim of Ḥusayn is a mandatory duty from God Exalted and Mighty and obligatory upon every Muslim. (al-​Mufīd 1988: 26) Here the act of pilgrimage is made a core tenet of faith and integrated into a larger set of rituals central to the lived experience of the Shīʿī community.25

After the 2nd/​8th century: the theology of the Imāmate At the end of the 2nd/​8th century, the Shīʿī community was characterized by a distinctive set of ritual practices and clearly demarcated sacred spaces. Pilgrimage reinforced these developments as (first) mosques and (then) shrines became avenues for the public expression of identity. This 213

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differentiation in ritual was not an arbitrary development. Rather, Shīʿī communities legitimized their practices through Imāms who functioned as authoritative sources for religious and legal knowledge. The scope of the Imām’s authority fell on a spectrum, with the Zaydīs minimizing and the Twelvers/​Ismāʿīlīs maximizing the Imām’s unilateral powers.The Imām’s position in the 2nd/​8th century, however, was not predicated on any systematic theological foundation. It was simply taken for granted as a consequence of his lineal connection to the Prophet through ʿAlī. Beginning no later than the 3rd/​9th century, Shīʿī communities began to elaborate their doctrines of the Imāmate on a theological (mostly Muʿtazilī) basis.This was done for a variety of reasons. In the case of the Zaydīs, it took centuries before a Muʿtazilī theological position won favor through the efforts of a number of important early advocates in Yemen (notably al-​Hādī Yaḥyā b. al-​Ḥusayn [d. 298/​911]) and the decline of the sharply anti-Muʿtazilī Zaydī community in the southern Caspian. The Twelver adoption of a modified Muʿtazilism occurred after the occultation of the twelfth Imām in 261/​874. The absence of the Imām allowed scholars significantly greater latitude to speculate on theological matters. Over the next two centuries, Twelver scholars in Baghdad adopted or adapted selective Muʿtazilī theological positions. The process was largely complete by al-​Sharīf al-​Murtaḍā’s death in 436/​1044.The Ismāʿīlīs, by contrast, retained a doctrine of the Imāmate largely free of theological formulations. This was likely due to the continued presence of an infallible Ismāʿīlī Imām who provided definitive religious knowledge. The remainder of this section will examine the theological foundations of the later Zaydī and Twelver Shīʿī doctrines of the Imāmate. This discussion will not take into account the gradual process through which successive generations of Shīʿī scholars continually renegotiated theological positions. Rather, it will focus on the ultimate end of this process, presenting the views that eventually prevailed within each Shīʿī tradition. The Ismāʿīlī Shīʿa are not discussed because their Imāms retained the ability to unilaterally determine (or alter) the theology of the community at any time.

The Zaydī Imāmate The Zaydīs restrict the Imāmate to the lineal descendants of Ḥasan or Ḥusayn (the sons of ʿAlī and Fāṭima). The first three Imāms (ʿAlī, Ḥasan, and Ḥusayn) hold a special significance because of their explicit designation to the office.26 The Zaydīs argue that after the death of Ḥusayn, the Imāmate became the collective trust of the descendants of the Ḥasanid and Ḥusaynid lines. These lineages provided a pool of potential candidates who had to fulfill a number of conditions to become Imām. The Zaydī view of the Imāmate draws on the Muʿtazilī principle of rational divine justice to argue that the Imām’s primary duty consists in fighting tyranny (forbidding wrong) and establishing a just political order (enjoining right). This understanding of the Imāmate does not preclude scholarly or moral criteria. In fact, Zaydī scholars require an Imam to possess the intellectual qualifications necessary for the administration of a just state governed by the principles of Islamic law. The Imām must also act with moral integrity and exhibit a pious fear of God. His primary role, however, is a political one. He must secure the oath of allegiance from his supporters and lead them in an uprising (khurūj) against a tyrant. It is through this act of open revolt against injustice that a contender’s genetic and scholarly potential is transformed into the charismatic authority of an Imām.27 His success in mobilizing support is evidence of his political acumen, whereas his defeat of an illegitimate government demonstrates his competence as a military leader. Once established in office, a Zaydī Imām is charged with numerous responsibilities, which include such practical tasks as caring for orphans, leading the congregational Friday 214

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prayers, and managing religious endowments. According to the Zaydīs, the Imām is not simply a scholar or spiritual figure; he must hold real power as the active head of state. The Zaydī emphasis on the political dimensions of the Imāmate is reflected in the restrictions placed on an Imām’s legal authority. As products of ijtihād (the application of reason to revealed sources), the Imām’s legal opinions are not considered intrinsically superior to those of other Zaydī scholars. Rather, they represent his “best guess” as to the will of God on a given issue. This leaves open the possibility that they might be wrong. The correctness of a given legal ruling is ascertainable only through the consensus of all the descendants of Ḥasan and Ḥusayn.28 In other words, the Zaydīs locate ultimate legal authority in the broader social category of ʿAlids (descendants of ʿAlī) as opposed to the person of the Imām. A Zaydī Imām retains the power to enforce his legal rulings throughout the state based on political considerations (i.e., the need for a single, cohesive legal code). After the death of a sitting Zaydī Imām, his successor may theoretically formulate his own legal code with no regard for his predecessor’s views. To summarize, the Zaydīs rest their view of the Imāmate on the political implication of the Mu‘tazilī doctrine of rational divine justice.The Imam is (i) any descendant of Ḥasan or Ḥusayn who (ii) possessed the requisite scholarly/​moral qualifications and (iii) successfully leads a rebellion against a tyrannical state. He is then charged with establishing a just order dedicated to enjoining right and forbidding wrong.

The Twelver Imāmate The Twelvers trace the Imāmate through a single genetic line. The first Imām is ʿAlī, who was explicitly appointed by the Prophet at Ghadīr Khumm, followed by his sons, Ḥasan and then Ḥusayn. The Imāmate is then limited to Ḥusayn’s descendants. It is passed from father to son through an explicit process of designation (naṣṣ). The necessity of designation is discussed in greater detail below. The Twelver Shīʿa legitimize the Imām through a particular elaboration of the Muʿtazilī doctrine of rational divine justice that emphasizes his role as the source of definitive religious knowledge. Specifically, they argue that God sends Prophets (with revelation) and Imāms (with interpretation) to humanity as an act of kindness/​g race (luṭf). The Imām must provide inerrant interpretations and correct legal rulings because otherwise there is a possibility that humanity might lose its connection to the divine. This is because no prophets will appear after Muḥammad to correct the interpretive mistakes or distortions of the Muslim community. The Imām serves as the proof (ḥujja) of God on earth, providing humanity with proper guidance and securing the link between God and humanity. The term used to describe the Imām’s inerrancy or (more accurately) protection from error is ʿiṣma. Cases in which an Imām’s ruling appears to disagree with past rulings are resolved by invoking dissimulation (taqiyya), the belief that one may conceal one’s true views in times of danger or political necessity.29 The scope of the Imām’s inerrancy was fiercely debated in Twelver circles. Some scholars extended it to cover all of his actions and thoughts, elevating him to an almost superhuman plane where he was protected not just from sin but from errors of any kind. Other scholars advocated a more limited version of inerrancy in which only the Imām’s legal rulings and interpretations were protected from error. This concept also complicated the process of identifying the Imām from a group of potential candidates. How could imperfect humans recognize an Imām whose claim to authority was predicated on his perfect knowledge?30 The answer was provided by the doctrine of naṣṣ (designation), whereby each Imām (or Prophet) explicitly designated his successor. In such a manner, a continuous line of divinely protected and inerrant 215

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leadership was traced back to the Prophet Muḥammad. The community had no voice in determining the identity of the Imām because the appointment was the exclusive purview of God.31 The Twelver Shīʿa establish the Imāmate on the basis of rational divine justice through the concepts of divine kindness/​grace (luṭf) and inerrancy (ʿiṣma). The legitimate Imām is the descendant of ʿAlī (Ḥusayn) who is identified as such through a formal designation (naṣṣ) by his predecessor. For the Twelver Shīʿa, the Imām is not required to seek power until such a time when conditions are propitious. After the occultation (ghayba) of the twelfth Imām in 874, the Twelvers adopted a quietist position in anticipation of his return.

Memory: the identity of the Shīʿī Imām The Shīʿī remembrance of early Islamic history (1st/​7th–​2nd/​8th centuries) was shaped by theological frameworks adopted in subsequent centuries (post 2nd/​8th century). This section provides an example of the impact of these theological developments on Shīʿī memory that focuses on the identity of the legitimate Imām.32

The Zaydī Shīʿa As detailed above, the Zaydī Shīʿa require potential Imāms to satisfy a number of conditions: lineal descent from Ḥasan or Ḥusayn, possession of exemplary characteristics such as piety and knowledge, and the organization of a successful uprising (khurūj) against a tyrant. The first of these conditions is addressed in historical works through a careful rendering of the lineage of every candidate while the second is demonstrated through anecdotes and testimonials.This type of material is ubiquitous in Zaydī biographical works but it also occurs, to a certain extent, in non-​Zaydī sources.33 The third condition (i.e., rebellion) is, by contrast, specific to the Zaydī Shīʿa and exerts a decisive influence on the community’s historical writing. A good example of this influence is found in the composite biographical work of Aḥmad b. Ibrāhīm (d. 353/​964) and ʿAlī b. Bilāl (fl. 5th/​11th century) entitled al-​Maṣābīḥ. The text opens with a profile of the Prophet followed by the illegitimate reigns (istiṭrād) of the first three caliphs. It then provides biographies of twenty-​two ʿAlids34 beginning with ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib and ending with al-​Nāṣir al-​Uṭrūsh al-​Ḥasan b. ʿAlī (d. 304/​917). The structure of these entries is relatively standardized in that they focus primarily on a given ʿAlid’s efforts to secure the oath of allegiance and lead an uprising. The biography of ʿĪsā b. Zayd (d. 166/​783), for example, begins with his participation in the rebellion of al-​Nafs al-​Zakiyya Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh (d. 145/​ 762) and his brother Ibrāhīm (d. 145/​763) (Aḥmad b. Ibrāhīm and ʿAlī b. Bilāl 2002: 487–​489). It then documents his own organizing efforts which involve the dispatch of agents to administer the oath of allegiance in distant parts of the Muslim world.The two decades ʿĪsā spent in hiding are justified as a period of relentless activity and preparation. The text ends with the assertion that ʿĪsā was hampered by tepid support and poisoned just prior to the planned launch of his rebellion against the ʿAbbāsids. It is worth noting that ʿAlī b. Bilāl (the author of the biography) does not refer to ʿĪsā as an Imām but rather attempts to fit his life into the general Zaydī prototype of the office.35 The central question here is whether a candidate’s uprising must succeed in order for him to achieve the rank of Imām. If so, how is success evaluated? Is it necessary to seize control of territory? That criterion would eliminate Ḥusayn b. ʿAlī, who died at Karbalāʾ without controlling any territory at all. But how tenable is a standard that rejects the Imāmate of a figure as seminal to Shīʿī identity as Ḥusayn? Aḥmad b. Ibrāhīm and ʿAlī b. Bilāl do not 216

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provide any clear answers to these questions but their desire to portray even passive figures as activists betrays their sympathies.36 These questions also offer insight into the ways in which theological debates over the Imāmate shaped the very content and structure of Zaydī historical narratives. Contrasting visions led to rival claims for the inclusion or exclusion of particular figures. A less ambiguous example of the theological underpinnings of Zaydī biography is found in al-​Nāṭiq bi-​al-​Ḥaqq Yaḥyā b. al-​Ḥusayn’s (d. 424/​1033) al-​Ifāda.This work covers the biographies of sixteen figures, all of whom are identified as Imāms. The structure of each entry is again quite consistent, with subsections that include: attributes, oath of allegiance, children, length of rule/​rebellion, governor appointments, and death. Every biography contains at least three to four of these subsections, thereby establishing the lineal, personal, and revolutionary credentials of a given figure. As in the previous example, the history of the community is here shaped by the necessities of the Zaydī doctrine of the Imāmate. The two texts differ in that al-​Nāṭiq provides answers to the questions that Aḥmad b. Ibrāhīm and ʿAlī b. Bilāl leave ambiguous.

The Twelver Shīʿa Given the theological foundation of their doctrine of the Imāmate, the Twelver Shīʿa require an Imām to formally designate his successor. This requirement is a consequence of the Imām’s primary responsibility, which consists of providing inerrant guidance on matters of religion. Only an inerrant Imām can verify the inerrancy of the next Imām. The impact of the designation requirement is felt throughout Twelver Shīʿī historical works. The best-​known example is that of ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib who, as mentioned above, was bypassed for the caliphate on three occasions before being elevated to the position in 35/​656.37 Twelver Shīʿī authors offer numerous proofs for ʿAlī’s designation, the most important of which centers on a speech given by Muḥammad during his last pilgrimage at Ghadīr Khumm (a marshy area between Mecca and Medina) in 10/​632. Al-​Shaykh al-​Mufīd’s Kitāb al-​irshād provides the archetypical Shīʿī version of this event. The account begins with ʿAlī returning from a delegation to Yemen and then partnering with Muḥammad for the annual pilgrimage. As they perform the various rites, the Prophet criticizes various Companions and repeatedly praises ʿAlī for his exemplary conduct. He eventually receives a revelation (Q 5:67)38 and orders the convoy of pilgrims to stop at Ghadīr Khumm, a notoriously hot and uncomfortable location. The text then reads as follows: He [the Prophet] then began to address the people. He praised and glorified God, and preached most eloquently. He gave the community news of his own death, saying, “I have been summoned, and it is nearly the moment for me to answer. The time has come for me to depart from you. I leave behind me among you two things; if you cleave to them, you will never go astray –​that is, the Book of God and my offspring from my family (ahl al-​bayt). They will never scatter until they lead you to me at the waters (Ḥawḍ).”39 Then he called out at the top of his voice: “Am I not more appropriate [to rule] you than yourselves?” “By God, yes!” they answered. He went on speaking continuously without any interruption and, taking both arms of the Commander of the Faithful [ʿAlī] and raising them so that the white of his armpits could be seen, said, “Whomever I am the master (mawlā) of, this man, ʿAlī, 217

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is his master (mawlā). O God, befriend whoever befriends him, be hostile to whoever opposes him, support whoever supports him, and desert whoever deserts him.” (al-​Mufīd 1988: 91–​95) For the Twelver Shīʿa, this speech constitutes an unambiguous designation of ʿAlī as Muḥammad’s legitimate successor. This view rests on reading the term mawla as “master” as opposed to alternate (Sunnī) readings which take it to mean “friend.” Al-​Mufīd then dispels any lingering doubts about the incident through a further anecdote. According to this report, Muḥammad is later presented a poem depicting the events at Ghadīr Khumm in which he is quoted as saying, “I am content that you [ʿAlī] should be Imām and guide after me” (al-​Mufīd 1988: 94–​95).The Prophet approves of this poetic elaboration, thereby clarifying the actual meaning of his words. The theological requirement of formal designation fundamentally influences the manner in which the Twelver community remembers transition between Imāms. Nearly every Twelver Shīʿī biographical work includes large numbers of reports that verify the designation of one Imām by their predecessor.40 In most instances, these are quite straightforward, with an Imām either explicitly referring to one of his sons as his successor or implicitly identifying him through a gesture or description. Other factors also serve as shorthand for designation. For example, the burial rites for an Imām can only be conducted by his successor. This idea led to a proliferation of traditions in which the new Imām unexpectedly arrives from a great distance to subvert efforts at burying his predecessor.This is particularly striking in Ibn Bābawayh’s description of the burial of the seventh Imām Mūsā al-​Kāẓim (d. 183/​799), in which the eighth Imām ʿAlī al-​Riḍā (d. 203/​818) is able to travel instantly from Medina to Baghdad (Ibn Bābawayh 1970b: 82–​85). He then buries his father, while God prevents the body from being touched by other hands.

Conclusion The examples of theological influence on Shīʿī memory provided in the previous section are far from comprehensive. In addition to the importance of rebellion, Zaydī historical works reflect a series of theological shifts that characterized the community in the 2nd/​8th century and continue into modern period.The early Zaydī Shīʿa, for example, held views that were quite similar to those of the traditionist movement and were later identified with Sunnī Islam. Over the next two centuries, however, the community adopted positions that took a more recognizable Shīʿī form.41 This process left an imprint on Zaydī historical writing, with the lives/​biographies of Imams serving as venues for theological contestations. It also led to the production of dissonant histories.42 These tensions remained embedded in Zaydī historical works after the establishment of Zaydī states in the Caspian region and Yemen as the larger community oscillated between rival (Sunnī and Shīʿī) theological positions (Haider 2014: 103–​122). In Twelver Shīʿī historical works, the need for formal designation was accompanied by a debate over the nature of the Imām’s knowledge. It was understood that the Imām was inerrant but was that knowledge learned or was it endowed directly by God? In addition, was it limited to the legal/​theological sphere or did it extend into other areas such as the language of animals and trees? Twelver Shīʿī biographies were further influenced by the political circumstances of the community. In the late 3rd/​9th and early 4th/​10th centuries, the theme of loyalty to the Imām permeated Twelver Shīʿī works as the community struggled to make sense of a disappeared Imām while experiencing severe persecution. After circumstances changed in the mid-​4th/​10th century with the Shīʿī Būyid conquest of Baghdad, Twelver Shīʿī scholars offered a different portrait of the Imāms that highlighted their confident opposition to political power. 218

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These narratives continued to reflect the community’s material conditions, adopting new forms under the Twelver Shīʿī Safavid dynasty in the 16th century and in the aftermath of imperial interventions in the late 19th and 20th centuries. This chapter has focused on the communal memory of Shīʿī groups but its conclusions are equally applicable to non-​Shīʿī groups. Sunnī historical works evince a similar tendency to change over time under the influence of polemical concerns, evolving belief structures, and political expediency. Sunnī chronicles (both local and universal) provided a justification for the historical development of the Muslim community and often re-​inscribed the authority of the ʿAbbāsids and other dynastic families.43 The notion of four “rightly guided caliphs” was a later idea intended to bridge societal fissures by validating the reigns of both ʿUthmān and ʿAlī. The rise of institutions such as law schools and Sufi orders was reflected in biographical works that either (i) claimed a legitimacy through a connection to the Prophet44 or (ii) documented the lives of archetypical figures.45 All communities endow their past with a meaning that speaks to their present circumstances. Historical memory is in a perpetual state of flux and irreducible to categories such as Sunnī or Shīʿī. The dominant contemporary discourse on the origins of the Sunnī-​Shīʿī divide rests on each community’s memory of the succession to the Prophet. In these narratives, the Shīʿa represent the dispossessed while the Sunnīs advocate for communal unity. Rather than providing any information about the emergence of Sunnī or Shīʿī identity, these narratives offer perspectives that only coalesced hundreds of years after the events in question. They are merely the latest iteration in the perpetual construction and reconstruction of the past.

Notes 1 For the narratives in this section, see Hodgson (1974: I 241–​72) and Hinds (1972a, 1972b). 2 The discussion of walāya that follows draws heavily on Dakake (2007: 1–​69). 3 An individual who exercises political authority on behalf of a superior power (e.g., God) is called a walī, whereas an individual who holds spiritual authority is often referred to as a walī of God (walī Allāh). 4 For biographical information, see Fahd (1960–​2007). 5 Variants of these traditions citing Muḥammad b. Sīrīn are found in numerous works, including one account in Muslim (1955–​1956: I 14), four accounts in Ibn Abī Ḥātim (1943–​1953: II 15), two accounts in Ibn ʿAbd al-​Barr (1983: I 46), and one account in Sulaymān b. Khalaf b. Saʿd (1991: I 267). These traditions are implicitly referencing Q 49:6 “O you who believe, if an evil-​doer comes to you with a report, look carefully (tabayyanū) into it, lest you harm a people in ignorance, then be sorry for what you have done.” 6 For biographical information, see al-​Mizzī (1992: III 346). 7 For biographical information, see al-​Mizzī (1992: XIII 291). 8 For biographical information, see al-​Mizzī (1992: II 233) and Lecomte (1960–​2007). 9 For biographical information, see al-​Mizzī (1992: XXVII 91) and Schacht (1960–​2007). 10 For variants of this account which include the term sima, see: Ibn ʿAbd al-​Barr (1983: I 47), Sulaymān b. Khalaf (1991: I 268), al-​Khaṭīb al-​Baghdādī (1938: I 157; 1983: I 128). A number of variants are also cited by Ibn Abī Ḥātim (1943–​1953: II 16), including a hybrid which combines the words sunna and sima into a single formulation. A similar text is quoted in the biographical entry on Ibrāhīm al-​Nakhaʿī by Abū Nuʿaym (1932–​1938: II 224). The use of “appearance” in these texts may refer to disputes over the permissibility of praying in certain clothes (and other forms of dress). 11 For biographical information, see also Ritter (1960–​2007). 12 For biographical information, see al-​Mizzī (1992: IX 214). 13 This is not to say that theological views were irrelevant, but rather to suggest that in the late 1st/​7th and early 2nd/​8th centuries ritual practice was useful shorthand in ascertaining an individual’s communal self-​identification. This dynamic changed in later centuries with a decline in anecdotes of scholars being followed to the mosque and a rise in systematic norms for evaluating transmitter veracity. This framework can be found (among other works) in that of al-​Dhahabī (1990: I 29–​30).

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Najam Haider 14 This statement is specific to the forebears of the Twelver and Ismāʿīlī Shīʿa. For reasons outside the scope of this study, Zaydī Shīʿī ritual practice may have resembled that of non-​Shīʿī communities in the 2nd/​8th century before evolving into a more discernably Shīʿī form (Haider 2011: 189–​214; 2007). 15 This refers to the recitation of the phrase “In the name of God, the Beneficent the Merciful.” 16 For more on this issue and the prevalent Shīʿī practice, see Haider (2011: 57–​94). 17 This refers to the recitation of an invocation or a curse with hands raised at a certain point in the ritual prayer. For more on this issue and the prevalent Shīʿī practice, see Haider (2011: 95–​137). 18 A similar tradition is found in al-​Kūfī (1975: III 482–​483).While ʿAlī is the most commonly mentioned authority for this account, a number of variants cite either al-​Bāqir or al-​Ṣādiq (al-​Kulaynī 1983: III 489–​490; Ibn Bābawayh 1969: 300–​301, where the text has Masjid al-​Khamrāʾ in place of Masjid al-​ Ḥamrāʾ; Ibn al-​Mashhadī 1998: 119). 19 There are important differences between the Sunnī and Shīʿī law schools regarding the proper form of the call to prayer (adhān). The most prominent concerns the Shīʿī use of the phrase “Hurry to the best of works,” a practice ascribed to the Prophet, confirmed by ʿAlī, and supported by subsequent Imāms. Among Sunnī juristic circles, there are additional disagreements regarding the use of the phrase “Prayer is better than sleep” (referred to as tathwīb) before the dawn prayer. For the Shīʿī view, see al-​Mufīd (1988: 102), Ibn Bābawayh (1970a: I 283–​284, 288), and al-​Ṭūsī (1970: II 59–​69). For the Sunnī view, see Ibn Qudāma (1986: II 61). In the 16th century, the Ṣafavids institutionalized a number of new Shīʿī ritual practices including the insertion of a confirmation of ʿAlī‘s wilāya within the adhān (Takim 2000). 20 For a summary of these differences, see Lalani (2000: 119–​126). 21 Although much of this section focuses on the identification of mosques frequented by Shīʿa, there are also accounts which associate specific non-​Shīʿī Kufans with particular mosques. For a typical example, see Ibn Saʿd (1991: VI 331). 22 Additional evidence for the importance of pilgrimage is found in traditions that include the practice among the signs of a true believer. In a representative example, the eleventh Twelver Imām Ḥasan al-​ʿAskarī (d. 260/​874) asserts that “[t]‌here are five signs of a believer: fifty-​one cycles of prayer, the pilgrimage to Ḥusayn’s tomb forty days after the anniversary of his death, the wearing of a ring on the right hand, the sprinkling of dust on the forehead, and the audible recitation of the basmalah” (al-​Mufīd 1988: 53; al-​Ṭūsī 1970: VI 52). The Imām’s mention of pilgrimage testifies to its growing significance through the 2nd/​8th and 3rd/​9th centuries. 23 The same text emphasizes the importance of the Kufan mosques by enjoining pilgrims to visit them before proceeding to the grave of ʿAlī, especially if they fear that they will not have the opportunity to do so afterwards. 24 Ibn al-​Mashhadī provides the location of and appropriate invocations for each masjid within Kufa proper (1998: 111–​180). 25 Ibn Qulūyah provides a collection of traditions outlining the virtues and benefits of a pilgrimage to Karbalā’, which epitomizes the centrality of the practice to Shīʿī identity (1937–​1938). 26 There are two Zaydī views as to the means of this designation. The first holds that the Prophet identified ʿAlī, Ḥasan, and Ḥusayn as the first three Imāms. The second asserts that each was appointed by his predecessor: ʿAlī by the Prophet, Ḥasan by ʿAlī, and Ḥusayn by Ḥasan. 27 Bear in mind that there is no basis for revolting against a government that is just. There are other avenues for elevating an Imām in Yemen during periods of Zaydī rule. 28 This assessment masks a heated controversy among Zaydī scholars regarding the characterization of Zaydism as a formal school of law (madhhab). For a more detailed analysis of this issue, see Haykel and Zysow (2012). 29 Contemporary Twelver scholarship offers a typology of situations in which Imāms practiced taqiyya. These include instances in which they tried to protect their followers from persecution or distance themselves from extremist groups. 30 This matter is less problematic for the Zaydīs because the Zaydī Imām (who does not possess ʿiṣma) establishes his legitimacy through battlefield success and just administration of the state. 31 Designation opens the door to a number of potential complications. For example, an Imām may not possess a male heir, or the heir may not have reached the age of maturity at the time of his accession. The designation may be further compromised by the political situation. In many instances, the current Imām might delay the announcement until he is near death to protect the life of his heir from the ruling dynasty. He may also entrust knowledge of the designation to a handful of supporters in a private setting, inevitably leading to disputes and rival claims.

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The myth of the “Shīʿī perspective” 32 The Ismāʿīlī perspective on the identity of the Imām is restricted to establishing a lineal connection to ʿAlī. A majority of Ismāʿīlī literature focuses on the Imām of the time as opposed to examining or re-​examining the lives of past Imāms. 33 See, for example, al-​Khaṭīb al-​Baghdādī (1938). 34 The title of Imām is only given to a subset of these ʿAlids for reasons that are not entirely apparent. 35 A similar tendency informs the biographical works of other Zaydī scholars who collect evidence for oaths of allegiance and then provide descriptions of rebellions or justifications for delays. 36 For more on the activist and quietist depictions of ʿĪsā b. Zayd, see Haider (2013a). 37 The Zaydī Shīʿa, who do not require formal designation, establish ʿAlī’s Imāmate through Qurʾānic arguments in which Prophets are succeeded by their relatives. For this argument, see Madelung (1997: 1–​18) and Haider (2014: 63–​65). 38 “O Messenger, deliver that which has been sent down to you from your Lord; for if you do not, you will not have delivered His message. God will protect you from men. God guides not the unbelievers” (Q 5:67). 39 According to the Muslim tradition, the term ḥawḍ refers to a basin of water at which Muḥammad will meet his community on the day of resurrection (Wensinck 1913–​1936). 40 These traditions also counter potential schisms by rejecting the designation claims of the rivals of the twelve Imāms. 41 These two positions are commonly referred to as “Batrī” and “Jārūdī.” For more on this issue and the argument for evolution, see Haider (2011: 189–​214; 2007). 42 For an example of this process, see Haider (2008: 459–​475). 43 See, for example, Borrut (2011). 44 See, for example, Makdisi (1993) and Robinson (2003: 72–​74). 45 See, for example, Cooperson (2000).

Bibliography Abū Nuʿaym al-​Iṣfahānī, A.b.ʿA.A. 1932–​1938. Ḥilyat al-​awliyāʾ. 10 vols. Cairo: Maktabat al-​Khānjī. Aḥmad b. Ibrāhīm and ʿAlī b. Bilāl. 2002. al-​Maṣābīḥ. al-​Ḥūthī, ʿA.A.b.ʿA.A.b.A. ed. Amman: Muʾassasat al-​ Imām Zayd b. ʿAlī al-​Thaqafiyya. al-​Barqī, A.b.M. 1992. al-​Maḥāsin. al-​Rajjāʾī, S.M. ed. Qumm: al-​Muʿāwiniyya al-​Thaqafiyya. Borrut, A. 2011. Entre mémoire et pouvoir: l’espace syrien sous les derniers Omeyyades et les premiers Abbassides (v. 72–​193/​692–​809). Leiden: Brill. Cooperson, M. 2000. Classical Arabic Biography:  The Heirs of the Prophets in the Age of al-​ Maʾmūn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dakake, M.M. 2007. The Charismatic Community: Shiʿite Identity in Early Islam. Albany: State University of New York Press. al-​Dārimī, ʿA.A.b.ʿA.R.b.F. 1987. Sunan al-​Dārimī. Zamarlī, F.A. and al-​ʿAlīmī, Kh.S. eds. 2 vols. Beirut: Dār al-​Kitāb al-​ʿArabī. al-​Dhahabī, M.b.A. 1990. Mīzān al-​iʿtidāl fī naqd al-​rijāl. al-​ʿAṭṭār, Ṣ.J. ed. 4 vols. Beirut: Dār al-​Fikr. Fahd, T., 1960–​2007. Ibn Sīrīn. In:  Bearman, P.J., Bianquis, T., Bosworth, C.E., van Donzel, E., and Heinrichs, W.P. eds. The Encyclopaedia of Islam. 2nd ed. Leiden: E.J. Brill, III 947–​948. Haider, N. 2007. Batriyya. In: Fleet, K. Krämer, G., Matringe, D. Nawas, J., and Rowson, E. eds. Encyclopaedia of Islam, Three. Leiden:  E.J. Brill. http://​brillonline.nl/​entries/​encyclopaedia-​of-​islam-​3/​batriyya-​ COM_​25257. ——​. 2008. The Community Divided: A Textual Analysis of the Murders of Idrīs b.  ʿAbd Allāh (d. 175/​ 791). Journal of the American Oriental Society 128:459–​475. ——​. 2011. The Origins of the Shīʿa: Identity, Ritual, and Sacred Space in Eighth-​Century Kūfa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ——​. 2013a. The Contested Life of ʿĪsā b. Zayd. Journal of Near Eastern Studies 72:169–​178. ——​. 2013b. The Geography of the Isnād. Der Islam 90:306–​346. ——​. 2014. Shīʿī Islam: An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Haykel, B. and Zysow, A. 2012. What Makes a Madhhab a Madhhab. Arabica 59:332–​371. Hinds, M. 1972a. Kūfan Political Alignments and Their Background in the Mid 7th Century A.D. International Journal of Middle East Studies 2:346–​367. ——​. 1972b. The Murder of the Caliph ʿUthmān. International Journal of Middle East Studies 3:450–​469.

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13 MYSTICISM IN EARLY ISLAM The pre-​compilations phase Sara Sviri

Historical overview Mysticism in Islam emerged earlier than customarily acknowledged, long before Islamic mysticism became known as Sufism. The presence and teachings of early Muslim mystics are attested in original literary works from as early as the later part of the second/​eighth century. Ever since, Islamic mysticism has been alive and active in literature and among practicing individuals, centers, and brotherhoods. Conventionally referred to as Sufism, in Arabic taṣawwuf, Islamic mysticism is a complex cultural-​religious-​spiritual phenomenon, which, in one form or another, has been present and active alongside other Islamic fields, such as jurisprudence (fiqh), theology (kalām), and philosophy (falsafa).1 Since the sixth/​twelfth century, Sufis have tended to identify themselves as adhering to “brotherhoods” (ṭuruq, sing. ṭarīqa). Affiliates of a ṭarīqa in any given generation see themselves as connected via an uninterrupted chain (silsila) to their ancestral founding fathers from whom they had received a “hidden” or “inner” knowledge (al-​ ʿilm al-​bāṭin). These ancestral founding fathers, in their turn, are believed to have received this esoteric teaching directly from the illustrious and pious personalities of the first generations –​the Prophet’s Companions (al-​ṣaḥāba) or even the Prophet himself. Thus, for example, the Naqshbandi brotherhood (al-​ṭarīqa al-​naqshbandiyya), named after the eighth/​fourteenth century Bukharan master Bahāʾ al-​Dīn Naqshband, sees itself and its eponymous founder as transmitters of the inner teaching which had been bequeathed to them by Abū Bakr, the first Caliph. Sufi Brotherhoods emerged during the sixth/​twelfth century and went on propagating and diversifying. This historical point marks the transformation of Sufism from a rather local phenomenon into a global, organized, and established movement. This process, largely, was facilitated by the Sufi compilatory and hagiographical literature that had accumulated since the later part of the fourth/​tenth century. Still the mine for most of our information concerning medieval Sufism, this genre, usually referred to as “the Sufi compilations,” was the product of Sufi authors of the fourth/​tenth century onwards, stemming from different geographical centers and adhering to different schools. In these compilations, they had collected and redacted a vast array of hagiographical material, anecdotes, sayings, teachings, mystical exegesis, terminological notes, poetry, exchange of letters, and more. By means of such literary activity, these authors had sketched, for their disciples as well as for posterity, a variegated and nuanced picture of the mystical trends in medieval Islam prior to the emergence of the ṭuruq, the Sufi Brotherhoods. 223

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Hence, no history of Islamic mysticism can be sketched without resorting to such works as Becoming Acquainted with the System of the Sufis (Kitāb al-​Taʿarruf li-​madhhab ahl al-​taṣawwuf) by al-​ Kalābādhī (d. 380/​990), one of the earliest extant compilations;2 The Book of Scintillating Lights (Kitāb al-​Lumaʿ fī al-​taṣawwuf) by Abū Naṣr al-​Sarrāj (d. 378/​988); The Generations of the Sufis (Ṭabaqāt al-​Ṣufiyya) by Abū ʿAbd al-​Raḥmān al-​Sulamī (d. 412/​1021); The Epistle on Sufism (al-​ Risāla fī ʿilm al-​taṣawwuf) by Abū al-​Qāsim al-​Qushayrī (d. 465/​1074); or The Gifts of Mystical Knowledges (ʿAwārif al-​maʿārif) by Abū Ḥafṣ al-​Suhrawardī (d. 632/​1235) (Mojaddedi 2001). However, as said, literary works authored by Muslim mystics can be traced back to as early as the later part of the second/​eighth century, long before Islamic mysticism became identified as Sufism, prior to the compilatory genre and before the emergence of the Brotherhoods. This early corpus includes writings by Shaqīq al-​Balkhī (d. 195/​810), al-​Muḥāsibī (d. 243/​857), Sahl al-​Tustarī (d. 283/​896), Abū Saʿīd al-​Kharrāz (d. 286/​899), al-​Ḥakīm al-​Tirmidhī (d. early fourth/​tenth century), Abū al-​Qāsim al-​Junayd (d. 298/​910), and a few others, whose mystical writings, apparently original, survived.These early works, written mostly by stand-​alone mystics and pietists, allow a wide-​angle perspective on the early phases of mystical culture in Islam and its formative period, namely, the third/​ninth and fourth/​tenth centuries. When we observe themes, practices, and formulations, as well as the emerging mystical vocabulary, through the genuine words of early authors, we can assess the surprising maturity of Islamic mysticism at this early stage. Moreover, through their original writings, we become acquainted with personalities whose sayings, somewhat sparsely and second-​handedly, were preserved in the hagiographies and compilations of later generations. In this chapter, therefore, the tracing of the main contours of the formative period of Islamic mysticism will be attempted through the works and teachings of a number of early authors: Shaqīq al-​Balkhī, al-​Muḥāsibī, al-​Ḥakīm al-​Tirmidhī, and Abū Saʿīd al-​Kharrāz. During this era in the history of the formative period of Islamic mysticism, we also witness the activities of the early mystical centers of Baghdad and Nishapur (Sviri 2005). In these centers, in addition to the observation of the normative, canonical acts of worship, teachers taught their disciples inward-​looking practices, such as reflection (tafakkur, tadhakkur, iʿtibār) and self-​ observation (murāqabat or riʿāyat al-​nafs). In the Nishapuri center in particular, self-​observation and the acute acquaintance with the egocentric aspects of the nafs led to the development of practices such as self-​blame (malāma) and giving precedence to one’s fellow men (īthār) (Sviri 1999a: 609–​613).These practices became part of the training methods by which seekers in pursuit of God’s nearness were educated; they paved their mystical path.

The spiritual hierarchy: abdāl, awliyāʾ, ṣiddīqūn Ever since the earliest beginnings of Islamic mysticism, one theme stands out: the belief in the existence of a spiritual human hierarchy. According to this belief, the world cannot exist without the presence of a certain number of exemplary men, chosen by God to transmit, teach, and perpetuate the sacred knowledge.3 Evidently, the concept of a ubiquitous spiritual hierarchy is bound up with the doctrine of the cessation of prophecy (khatm al-​nubuwwa). The Prophet Muḥammad, indeed, was the “seal of the prophets” (khātam al-​anbiyāʾ), but, for pious men and mystics, the link between God and a number of chosen ones has not been cut off after his demise but has remained alive and constant.The existence of the world, as well as its well-​being, depend on the presence of these chosen ones known as awliyāʾ, abdāl, ṣiddīqūn, and other appellations. This belief is attested in a wide variety of texts. For example, in a work by al-​Ḥakīm al-​Tirmidhī, a third-​/​ninth-​century mystic from Transoxiana, we find the following tradition (ascribed to Abū al-​Dardāʾ, one of the Prophet’s companions): 224

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When prophecy stopped, God replaced [the prophets] (abdala makānahum) with men named abdāl from among the congregation of Muḥammad ….They are the successors of the prophets … these are forty righteous men (wa-​hum arbaʿūna ṣiddīqan) …. By them the woes and sorrows of the denizens of the earth are removed, by them rain falls and sustenance is provided. Whenever one of them dies, God brings forth another one to succeed him. (1988: I 383–​384)4 We also find similar traditions in early adab literature. Thus, Ibn Abī al-​Dunyā (d. 281/​894) –​a prolific adīb and educator of some of the sons of the ʿAbbāsid caliphs –​in a work titled Kitāb al-​Awliyāʾ (The Book of the Friends of God) –​cites the following version in the name of Sufyān b. ʿUyayna, a pious Kūfan of the third post-​prophetic generation: When prophecy ceased –​and they [the prophets used to be] the pegs of the earth (awtād al-​arḍ) –​God replaced them with forty men from the congregation of Muḥammad. They are called abdāl. Whenever one of them dies, God brings forth another one in his stead. They are [now] the pegs of the earth. (1993: 27; compare Jāḥiẓ 1955: 28) And in the introduction to his voluminous hagiographic compilation Ḥilyat al-​awliyāʾ (The Ornament of the Friends of God), Abū Nuʿaym al-​Iṣfahānī (d. 430/​1038) cites the following version in the name of the Prophet: The Apostle of God –​May God’s prayer and blessing be on him –​said: “In each generation there are in my congregation five hundred virtuous men (akhyār) and forty abdāl. Neither the [number of] five hundred nor of the forty ever decrease: whenever one of the [forty] dies, God replaces him with one of the five hundred and he becomes one of the forty.” (1997: I 39)5 The perpetuation of the human link with God is thus given legitimacy by a post-​prophetic “follower of the followers” (tābiʿ al-​tābiʿīn), an immediate companion (ṣāḥib) and finally the Prophet himself. In another version cited by Abū Nuʿaym, the vision of a spiritual hierarchy, structured as a human pyramid, comes through clearly: There are three hundred men whose hearts are modelled on the heart of Adam; forty whose hearts are modelled on the heart of Moses; seven on the heart of Abraham; five on the heart of Gabriel; three on the heart of Michael; and one on the heart of Isrāfīl. If the ‘one’ dies, God replaces him with one of the three; if one of the three dies, God replaces him with one of the five –​and so on; and if one of the three hundred dies, God replaces him with one of the ordinary people (al-​ʿāmma). (1997: I 39–​40) The features of the “holy men” –​or “The Friends of God” (awliyāʾ Allāh), the proper Arabic term  –​and the stature of “Friendship” with God (wilāya / walāya) were described in depth by the aforementioned Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b.  ʿAlī al-​Ḥakīm al-​Tirmidhī, one of the 225

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most prolific and original Muslim mystics of the third/​ninth century. His teaching on wilāya is his main and lasting contribution to the Islamic mystical tradition.6 In visualizing the apex of the hierarchical pyramid, al-​Tirmidhī went as far as laying down the controversial, though influential, doctrine of “the Seal of the Friends of God” (khatm/​khātam al-​awliyāʾ), a unique position which, according to him, exists alongside the “seal of the prophets” and will be revealed in an eschatological context (Chodkiewicz 1993: 27–​34).7 Thus, in his work The Path of the Friends of God (Sīrat al-​Awliyāʾ), al-​Tirmidhī writes: When the number of the Friends is exhausted, and the end of the world arrives, God will send forth a “friend” (walī) whom He has chosen and elected, brought close and drawn near Him.To him He will give [all that] He gave to the Friends (al-​awliyāʾ), [but] he will be distinguished by [being given] the Seal of Friendship (khātam al-​wilāya). On the Day of Resurrection he will be the proof of God (ḥujjat allāh) vis-​à-​vis the rest of the Friends. By this seal he will possess the most sincere friendship (ṣidq al-​wilāya), as Muḥammad possessed the most sincere prophethood (ṣidq al-​nubuwwa)… In every place, he is the first among the friends, as Muḥammad was the first among the prophets. He stands by Muḥammad’s ear, while the [other] friends [stand] by the nape of his neck. (1992: 44–​45, 93–​94; see also 1988: I 618–​623) Al-​Ḥakīm al-​Tirmidhī did not belong to any group or center and did not follow a particular spiritual teacher.8 Nevertheless, he corresponded with some of the malāmātī teachers of Nishapur and a few of his letters have survived (Radtke 1980: 117–​126; Sviri 1999a: 609–​613). His letters are written in an authoritative style. His stature as a spiritual teacher is corroborated in his short autobiographical work, Buduww shaʾn (The Beginning of the Affair), from which we gather that a group of seekers (murīdūn) convened around him in Tirmidh. From a collection of short answers to spiritual questions sent to him by people from Sarakhs –​a town some 500 kilometers west of Tirmidh –​it transpires that he had acquired a far-​reaching reputation in Khurāsān. Nevertheless, from his short autobiography he comes across as a lone aspirant of God, whose closest companion is his wife, with whom he shares the spiritual journey by means of teaching dreams and inspirational visions bestowed on both of them.9 Among his many works, the following should be mentioned: The Precious [or Rare] Prophetic Traditions (Nawādir al-​uṣūl fī maʿrifat aḥādīth al-​rasūl); The Path of the Friends of God (Sīrat al-​Awliyāʾ); The Science of the Friends of God (ʿIlm al-​awliyāʾ); The Beginning of the Affair (Buduww shaʾn); The Book of Training [of the Self] (Kitāb al-​Riyāḍa); The Education of the Self (Adab al-​nafs); The Stations of Nearness [to God] (Manāzil al-​qurba); The Book on [Semantic] Differences and the Impossibility of Synonymy (Kitāb al-​ Furūq wa-​manʿ al-​tarāduf); On the Wise and the Delluded (Kitāb al-​Akyās wal-​mughtarrīn), and more (Radtke 1980: 39–​58;Yahya 1957).

Mystical psychology and spiritual physiology10 Al-​Tirmidhī’s teaching of wilāya and the path to God’s nearness is built upon a comprehensive and critical observation of human nature and its psychological makeup. The main constituents of human interiority, according to his analysis, are the “self ” (nafs, the ego) and the heart (qalb).11 This analysis, which was expounded also by other early authors, revolves around the strife between the self and the heart. In contrast to the rebellious and control-​seeking nafs, the heart, by its innate nature, is submissive, receptive, faithful, and sincere. God designed it to become the abode of His lights and the place where mystical knowledge unfolds and reveals itself. Accordingly, the spiritual progress, which takes place in the heart, is constantly impeded by the 226

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intricate, cunning mechanisms of the self.The heart is a complex entity, made of an organic shell within which subtle layers reside one within the other in concentric spheres. As the mystical path progresses, these inner layers open up and expand and afford knowledge of the Divine and visions of the transcendental, invisible realm. Mystical awareness is gained through inner ears and eyes located in that layer of the heart which al-​Tirmidhī names fuʾād. The innermost layer he names “kernel” (lubb) as well as “secret” (sirr).This is where true faith, sincerity, knowledge of God, and love of Him reside (Ḥakīm al-​Tirmidhī 1947: 116–​117; 2003; compare Nūrī 1969). In this physio-​psychological image, a constant combat is taking place within man’s chest (ṣadr). This is the battlefield where the heart’s “troops” (junūd al-​qalb) –​faith, knowledge, love, discernment, self-​observation –​pitch themselves vis-​à-​vis the armies of the nafs, “the adversaries” (al-​aʿdāʾ):  the inclination (al-​hawā), the appetites (al-​shahawāt), attraction to this world (al-​mayl ilā al-​dunyā). These join forces with the arch-​adversary, Iblīs (Satan, al-​shayṭān). In this struggle, the seeker must at all times practice abstention (zuhd), self-​observation (riʿāyat al-​nafs), trust (tawakkul), content (riḍā), and remembrance (dhikr).12 Self-​observation and constant reckoning (muḥāsabat al-​nafs) are the hallmark of an even earlier mystic whose works are extant. He is Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-​Ḥārith al-​Muḥāsibi (d. in Baghdad 243/​857).Al-​Muḥāsibī can be said to have laid down systematically the psychological principles for the understanding and treatment of the fallible and ailing human interiority, torn between the self and the heart. His very nickname, whose meaning is “the one who reckons,” points to the centrality of self-​observation in his thought.13 Self-​knowledge, reflection, and reckoning are seen by al-​Muḥāsibī as religious duties, which he labels “the acts of the heart” (aʿmāl al-​qulūb). These he distinguishes from “the acts of the organs” (aʿmāl al-​jawāriḥ) and sees in them essential religious duties without which the negative, dark elements in human makeup cannot be transformed and enlightened. In The Epistle for the Seekers of Guidance (Risālat al-​Mustarshidīn), for example, he writes: “The root of the decline of the heart is the neglect of self-​reckoning …. If you wish to cure your heart, then inhibit wanting and futile thoughts, hold on only to what belongs to God and let go of everything that does not” (1964: 110). The significance of “interiorization” for the true worship of God became intrinsic to all subsequent generations of Muslim mystics. That it has carried the stamp of al-​Muḥāsibī, can be gleaned from what al-​Sulamī, the well-​known compiler and hagiographer (d. Nishapur 412/​1021), culls from his sayings: He who strives (man ijtahada) in matters of his interiority (fī bāṭinihi), God grants him a fine behaviour in his exteriority (fī ẓāhirihi); and he whose exterior behaviour is fine and he strives also in matters of his interiority, God grants him guidance towards Him, as He said: “Those who strive for Us, We shall guide them in Our ways” (Q 29:69). (1960: 50) This passage articulates the understanding, profusely attested in early writings, as well as in the later Sufi literature, that true jihād signifies the psychological-​spiritual struggle; and that it is this jihād that constitutes the “greater jihād” (al-​jihād al-​akbar), whereas the militant jihād constitutes the lesser one (al-​jihād al-​aṣghar).14 In sum, the knowledge of the self is a prerequisite for the knowledge of God (maʿrifat Allāh), and this, after all, is the aim and goal of seekers and mystics. This nexus is articulated in a saying ascribed to Sahl al-​Tustarī: “Only he, who knows his self, will be released from her (i.e., the self ’s) slavery, trickery and control; and when he truly knows his self, he knows his Maker” (Abū Nuʿaym al-​Iṣfahānī 1997).15 Hence, mystical psychology consists of both “the science of the self ” (ʿilm al-​nafs) and “the science of the heart” (ʿilm al-​qalb). 227

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Whereas al-​Muḥāsibī focuses mainly on the former, al-​Ḥakīm al-​Tirmidhī focuses on the latter. Nevertheless, for most, if not all, Muslim mystics, the heart has become the foundation of all mystical experiences and the root from which the spiritual path unfolds. The journey, more often than not, starts with a longing felt in the heart to reach God while in this life. Love as an ardent thirst for the divine beloved is boldly expressed in the poetry ascribed to Rābiʿa al-​ʿAdawiyya (d. 185/​801), an early woman mystic from Baṣra, a town renowned from early on for its pious men and women (Melchert 2005). Here, for example, is one of the love poems to God ascribed to her: Deep in my heart you are my companion Though in the company of my body a guest is allowed; My body accompanies he who sits with me, But you, my heart’s beloved, resides deep within me. (al-​Rakhāwī 1925: 3, trans. S. Sviri)16

Asceticism (zuhd) and the training of the self (riyāḍat al-​nafs) The hierarchical vision considered above stems from, and leads to, an idealized distinction between ordinary believers, al-​ʿāmma, and a special category of chosen ones, al-​khāṣṣa, as well as a distinction between commonplace overt knowledge (al-​ʿilm al-​ẓāhir) and a special esoteric knowledge (al-​ʿilm al-​bāṭin, al-​ʿilm al-​khafiyy).Yet practically, and before any spiritual attainment can be actualized, Muslim mystics, early as well as late, have been seeking God’s nearness from a position of a humble self-​perception and from an acute understanding of human nature and its shortcomings. From this position, the quest for God is seen as a long journey of transformation and ascent through stations of internal as well as external struggles with one’s innate nature.The vision of those journeying on the path of transformation bore, therefore, appellations such as wayfarers, travelers, roamers (sālikūn, sāʾirūn, sāʾiḥūn), as well as poor or miserable ones (fuqarāʾ, masākīn), and, eventually, also wool-​wearers (ṣūfiyya) –​appellations which challenge the elitist aspect of “the chosen ones.” As we have seen in the previous section, the transformative process on the path to God is replete with inner and outer struggles.These are perceived as necessary in the battle that sincere seekers must wage against the “Adversary” (al-​ʿaduww, Iblīs, al-​shayṭān) and the self (al-​nafs). This inner war is named, as we saw, mujāhadat (or jihād) al-​nafs. One of the main strategies of this war is to turn the back to the world and its pleasures (al-​zuhd fī al-​dunyā) and to shut off all awareness of the tempting whisperings of Iblīs and the manipulation of the nafs (wasāwis al-​waswās wa-​makr al-​nafs). By these acts, the self, in a program known as riyāḍat al-​nafs, is trained to abstain from its innate and earthly desires and to cut itself off from worldly concerns and attachments (qaṭʿ al-​ʿalāʾiq). In this respect, seekers are also known as renunciants (zuhhād), albeit their renunciation (zuhd), rather than an ideal pious mode of life in its own right, is seen as a stage on the path to God.17 The training of the nafs by methods of renunciation in the process of mystical transformation comes through clearly in an early treatise ascribed to Shaqīq al-​Balkhī, a second-​/​ eighth-​century mystic from Transoxiana.18 In a short piece entitled Rules of Conduct for Acts of Worship (Ādāb al-​ʿibādāt),19 this early mystic uses a rudimentary yet paradigmatic terminology and structure which sketches the discipline of self-​transformation. By “acts of worship” (ʿibādāt), he does not refer to acts prescribed by the religious law, but to supererogatory acts

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that “the people of sincerity” (ahl al-​ṣidq) take upon themselves voluntarily.20 It transpires that the religious law in itself does not provide, or does not insist on, a sufficient transformative discipline.21 In his treatise, Shaqīq outlines with precision and authority the different practices to be exercised at each of four progressive stages (manāzil):  renunciation (zuhd), fear (khawf), longing for paradise (al-​shawq ilā al-​janna), and, ultimately, love of God (al-​maḥabba li-​Allāh). A clear pattern emerges from Shaqīq’s plan. For each phase of the transformative journey, a different discipline is prescribed; the period assigned for each stage is limited to forty days, at the end of which the practices pertaining to it may be abandoned; each practice leads to the attainment of inner lights that shine within the heart; in correspondence with the inner transformation, a change in the practitioner’s character and behavior also occurs; the inner transformation results also in a change in the social status of the seeker (compare al-​Muḥāsibī 1993: 45); higher stages override, but do not cancel out, the effects of the lesser ones; the transformative process starts off as an act of will but reaches its completion as an act of divine grace. This early text, alongside other early sources such as the works of al-​Muḥāsibī, al-​Tirmidhī, and others, attest to the early beginnings of the psychological and ethical features of Islamic mysticism, as they transpire also from later Sufi sources. Thus, by the third/​ninth century, the main contours by which Islamic mysticism can be typified have already been laid down on paper and in practice. There is no need, therefore, to postulate, as has become “a scholarly commonplace” (Melchert 1996: 51), a linear, diachronic paradigm, according to which the fully fledged mysticism of the Sufi way has developed gradually from the ascetical, or as some prefer to name them, the renunciant, trends of the early centuries. This simplistic linear paradigm obscures the complex and mature picture that the early era of Islamic mysticism presents. The study of early mystics, such as al-​Ḥakīm al-​Tirmidhī or the malāmatīs of Nishapur (Sviri 1999a, 2005), provides a perspective of early Islamic mysticism, which is more variegated and detailed than this paradigm allows for. The confusion between the seemingly successive phases of zuhd and mysticism may have arisen, partly, because the early mystics were not named Sufis,22 whereas some of those named Sufis, probably due to the habit of wearing rough wool (ṣūf) which was associated with them, were not mystics but hard-​core ascetics (Sviri 2012). As observed above, mysticism in Islam had existed before it became known as Sufism. As for ascetical trends and groups, they had existed in Islam from very early on and went on to exist alongside Sufism when the latter became established as Islamic mysticism under this name. To sum up this complex question, we may say that asceticism (or renunciation) and mysticism represent two separate and independent trends within Islam, at times at odds with one another and at times interwoven into one another. Each trend has created its own literary corpora, its own social affiliations, its own theoretical and practical paradigms, and its own ethical and moral codes. In fact, each one of these trends is itself versatile and can be divided into various branches and typologies which may, or may not, be associated with one another. Hence, the ambiguity of terminology, particularly where zuhd is concerned, may stem from the fact that, in early Islam, three different types of zuhd were at play: extreme ascetical behavior, which included, among other practices, wearing rough woolen garments;23 “mild” asceticism, which advocated an inward attitude of rejecting worldly things out of religious piety (Kinberg 1985; Hurvitz 1997, Gobillot 1960–​2005); and, lastly, zuhd as a station (maqām, manzila) in a process of mystical inner transformation leading towards an intimate nearness to God. This last type is the zuhd of Muslim mystics as evinced from the earliest literary documentation available to us and beyond.

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The path: stages and experiences One of the achievements of the Sufi compilations was the formation and crystallization of a Sufi language. By the fourth/​tenth century, thanks to the literary and redactive activity of the Sufi compilers, the Muslim mystical path had acquired both a “name” –​taṣawwuf, ṣūfiyya –​and a terminology. Whereas Sufi compilers refer to this terminology as “the terms current in the discourse of the Sufis” (alfāẓ, iṣṭilāḥāt) (e.g., al-​Sarrāj 1914: 333–​374; al-​Qushayrī n.d.: 31–​150) contemporary scholars, in the wake of Louis Massignon, refer to it as “the technical lexicon of Islamic Mysticism.”24 In this terminology, mystical experiences are named aḥwāl (sg. ḥāl), a term that relates to their ephemeral and fluctuating nature.25 Experiences, or “states”, are typically complemented by “stations”, maqāmāt, the halting places on the path (e.g., al-​Sarrāj 1914: 335; al-​ Hujwīrī 1976: 181–​183; al-​Qushayrī n.d.: 32). Al-​Kalābādhī, one of the earliest compilers, goes as far as to identify “the science of the mystical states” (ʿilm al-​aḥwāl) with “the science of the Sufis” (ʿilm al-​ṣūfiyya); namely, to him, the manifestation of “states” is commensurate with mystical life. In addition, he writes that, in their discourse concerning mystical states, Sufis employ “allusions” (ishāra, ishārāt), for the revelations of the hearts and the disclosures of the innermost cannot in truth be articulated; rather, they are known by “occurrences” (or “positions”: munāzalāt) and elated manifestations (mawājīd). And they are known only to one who has been positioned in those mystical experiences (aḥwāl) and placed in those stations (maqāmāt). (1986: 86–​87) Al-​Kalābādhī offers here a succinct depiction of the Sufi journey and its polar, complementary facets: the “stations” arrived at by means of effort and discipline –​these he names munāzalāt and maqāmāt; and the “mystical experiences” bestowed upon the traveler effortlessly, which he names mawājīd and aḥwāl. Ever since, the terms maqāmāt and aḥwāl in most Sufi compilations came to designate the complementarity of states and stages on the mystical path (al-​Sarrāj 1914: 41–​72; al-​Qushayrī n.d.: 35; al-​Hujwīrī 1976: 180–​183; al-​Suhrawardī 1999: 273–​276; Sviri 1987). In the earlier, pre-​compilatory works, which concern us in this chapter, although the terms maqāmāt and aḥwāl as complementary opposites had not yet become standardized, authors presented their own fluid attempts at coining a discourse concerning the transformative process, and at describing the mystical experiences that occur on it. To name the stages, they used a variety of terms: maqāmāt, manāzil, munāzalāt, mawāqif, darajāt, marātib.Thus, whereas the notion of the stages of progress was established early on, the polarity between “horizontal” successive stations (maqāmāt) versus “vertical” fleeting mystical states (aḥwāl) can be gleaned only in the later compilations. The earliest description of successive “stations” on the path is presented, as we saw, in Shaqīq al-​Balkhī’s Rules of Conduct for Acts of Worship (ādāb al-​ʿibādāt), where Shaqīq marks four successive “locations,” manāzil (Nwyia 1973: 17; 1970: 213–​216, 223).26 In this short treatise, Shaqīq also describes mystical experiences and revelations, for which he uses the term “lights” (anwār, sing. nūr). Thus, at the end of the treatise, he writes: The light of longing (nūr al-​shawq) with the light of love (nūr al-​maḥabba) resemble the rising moon. When the sun rises while [the traveler] is looking at [the moon], the former will extinguish the latter –​yet the moon has not moved away from its location, nor has its light diminished. Likewise the light of the love of God –​it is the strongest and the loftiest light in worship. (Nwyia 1973: 21) 230

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A bold description of lofty mystical states is found in The Book of Sincerity (Kitāb al-​ṣidq) by Abū Saʿīd al-​Kharrāz, a third/​ninth century mystic from Baghdad: Know that those who have attained God and are near Him (al-​wāṣilūn ilā Allāh ahl al-​qurb minhu), who have truly tasted the love of God (dhāqū ṭaʿm maḥabbat Allāh) have [gone through the stages of] piety (waraʿ), abstinence (zuhd), perseverance (ṣabr), sincerity (ṣidq), truthfulness (ikhlāṣ), trust (tawakkul), love (maḥabba), longing (shawq), intimacy (uns) and other good qualities (akhlāq jamīla). All this is with them, dwelling in their natures, hidden in their heart of hearts. Having attained [all these stages and qualities], they no longer feel worship and practice to be an effort (kulfa), since it dwells within them at all times and in every state. Even in performing the religious duties, they experience neither heaviness nor exertion, for their hearts have become overwhelmed by God’s nearness. Thus, they worship Him without burden or labor …. Their hearts are occupied with God alone, for they have been overcome by God’s nearness and love, by their longing for Him, their fear of Him, their reverence [for Him] and their exaltation of Him. (1937: 61–​62, 76–​77) Al-​Kharrāz offers here a list of “qualities” (akhlāq) or “characteristics” (ṣifāt), which will later become classified as maqāmāt (stages). These he amalgamates with a list of mystical experiences, such as those that will be later classified as aḥwāl. To end this section, here is a captivating first-​hand description of a mystical experience from al-​Ḥakīm al-​Tirmidhī’s short autobiography: One night, we assembled at one of our brethren to perform the “remembrance of God” (dhikr Allāh). Late at night I went back home, and on the road my heart opened in a manner that I cannot describe. As if, while I was walking the distance home, something descended upon my heart; something that delighted my “self ” and made her greatly joyous …. It seemed to me that the sky with its moon and stars came close to the earth, and all the while, I was calling to my Lord. I felt as if something was installed within my heart, and because of the sweetness which I  found, my bowels twisted and contracted … This sweetness spread within my entrails and blood vessels. I felt as if I was close to the place of the vicinity of the Throne. (Ḥakīm al-​Tirmidhī 1965: 19) In sum:  although early literature does not exhibit the conventional complementary terminology, which places mystical stages vis-​à-​vis mystical experiences, early authors are aware of, and offer descriptions of, both the progressive stations on the path and the mystical experiences arising on it. Awareness of the dual facets of progress through effort and the effortlessness of mystical experiences are thus present in the mystical literature from early on, although the terminological structures have not yet been fully formed.

Iḥsān: ethical mysticism and the vision of God We have seen that early Muslim mystics, such as Shaqīq al-​Balkhī, al-​Muḥāsibī, Sahl al-​Tustarī, and al-​Tirmidhī, emphasized the requirement to watch over the nafs carefully and at all times. 231

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This requirement developed into a program of “training the self ” (riyāḍat al-​nafs) or “educating the self ” (adab al-​nafs). But the portrayal of both early mysticism in Islam as well as its later stages should be amplified by highlighting also the significance it assigns to the ethical aspect of the mystical life: acquiring excellent qualities (makārim al-​akhlāq), ethical behavior (adab, tahdhīb al-​akhlāq), and preference of the other (īthār), even at one’s own expense. It can be said that, according to most Muslim mystics, the vision of God in His nearness cannot be attained without accomplishing the ethical-​behavioral dimension of the seeker’s characteristics. According to them, the ethics of good qualities complement and validate religious observance and piety (ʿibāda, waraʿ, taqwā); ascetical practices (al-​zuhd fī al-​dunyā); and mystical experiences such as longing, love, and intimacy (ḥubb, uns, shawq). In his commentary to Q 79:40, for example, Sahl al-​Tustarī gives expression to the supreme and rare rank of he who possesses excellent qualities and conduct. He writes: No one is safe from his ‘inclination’ (hawā) except a prophet and some of the extremely righteous ones (wa-​baʿḍ al-​ṣiddīqīn), not all of them. Only he who imposes right conduct (adab) on his self, is safe from the [tempting] ‘inclination’ (hawā). Only the prophets and some of the righteous acquire [such] purity of conduct and good qualities.” (al-​Tustarī 2002: 115; compare 2008: 266) And al-​Ghazālī, the fifth-​/e​ leventh-​century encyclopaedist of Sufi lore, makes the following statement: “Good character (al-​khulq al-​ḥasan) is the quality of the Master of all Apostles, and the best act of worship of the righteous” (n.d.: III 47). Such understanding is anchored in a tradition, often referred to as ḥadīth al-​iḥsān (the tradition concerning goodness), or the tradition concerning the three principles of faith (Chittick 1992: 1–​23). In this tradition, the angel Gabriel, in the guise of an unknown man, asks the Prophet Muḥammad, who is sitting with his companions, three questions: what is īmān (faith); what is islām; and what is iḥsān. To the bewilderment of those present, the stranger accepts and confirms the Prophet’s answers to all three questions. The answer to the third question concerning iḥsān is this: “Goodness (iḥsān) is that you worship God as if you see Him, for even if you do not see Him, He sees you” (al-​Bukhārī 1993: I 18). From this formulation, mystics inferred that between goodness and the experience of seeing God there must be a relationship. Al-​Ḥakīm al-​Tirmidhī, for example, in his The Education of the Self (Kitāb adab al-​nafs), expounds: The light of mystical knowledge (maʿrifa) resides in the heart until it goes out to the eye of the heart. The “inclination” stands as a veil in front of the heart. When a man struggles with his “inclination” truly (ḥaqq al-​mujāhada), then God’s assistance guides him to His path. That is to say, God opens from his heart a path to Him, till the eye of the heart sees Him as it were (ka-​annahu yarāhu) without quality (bi-​lā kayfiyya). And this is what the Angel Gabriel said [confirming] the Apostle of God when he had asked him what goodness (iḥsān) was and the Prophet replied “that you worship God as if you see Him (ka-​annaka tarāhu). (1947: 150) From the same perspective, in Nawādir al-​uṣūl, al-​Tirmidhī cites a tradition concerning Moses, which echoes the maxim, known from Judaic as well as Christian sources, “Love thy neighbor as yourself ” (Lev. 19:18; Mt 19: 16–​19; Rom. 13:8).27 Al-​Tirmidhī cites it from that literary topos known as Munājāt Mūsā (intimate discourse of Moses with God) (Sadan 1986, 2005). In one 232

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of his discourses, writes al-​Tirmidhī, Moses asks God how he can treat his kinfolks with compassion and love while they are dispersed in faraway places. God tells him: “O, Moses, love for their sake what you love for your own sake.” Expanding the boundaries of this ethical message towards the mystical dimension, al-​Tirmidhī expounds: Who can withstand this, if not one from whose heart the regard for the self and the world has fallen off and who does not pay attention to them anymore? Such a one feels passionate love for his Lord. He wakes up from the sleep of heedlessness and is awakened. Light shines in his chest; in his heart, he stands in front of God’s glory, magnificence, beauty, splendor, grandeur and might.Then his world shrinks in his eyes and becomes less than a gnat’s wing, and his self becomes in his eyes no more than a handful of dust. Love of God and the sweetness that he finds in it descend upon his heart, intoxicate him and detach him from the love of his self and his world. Only a believer whose heart God has tested for faith believes in these –​how small is their number! (1988: 686–​687)28 The themes contained in this passage mark the ethical contours of Islamic mysticism at large and it is worthwhile recapitulating them: love for the other reflects true belief in God; this love springs not from moralistic preaching and dogma, but from an intimate encounter with God and the direct witnessing of His splendor and might. This experience erases the love for the self and for the world. In the emotional and cognitive expansion that accompanies this mystical encounter, the heart opens up to love God and all that is other than the self. This, in fact, is the ultimate goal of the struggle with the self, and this, according to all early mystics, is the true test of faith in God.

Conclusion First-​hand writings, composed in the second/​eighth and third/​ninth centuries in different parts of the Islamic world, throw light on the early stages of what became subsequently known as Sufism. They portray the pivotal concepts, terms, ideas, and processes which were bequeathed to later generations of mystics. The focus of this chapter, therefore, is on works written earlier than, and outside of, the later compilatory literature. Among the authors whose writings have been referenced in it are the following: Shaqīq al-​Balkhī, al-​Ḥārith al-​Muḥāsibī, Sahl al-​Tustarī, Abū Saʿīd al-​Kharrāz, and al-​Ḥakīm al-​Tirmidhī. These writers, in their own way and style, present a keen observation of the dual facet of “man” vis-​à-​vis God. On the one hand, “man” is described as a potential member of the spiritual hierarchy of awliyāʾ Allāh (the friends of God), known also by other appellations. The members of this hierarchy continue and perpetuate the divine guidance offered to humankind by the former prophets and messengers.Thanks to them, the world and the well-​being of all existing things in it are maintained and preserved. On the other hand, man is a fallible creature. His physical and psychological makeup stands in his way to reach the higher spiritual ranks, the true inner knowledge, and the nearness of God. Therefore, a constant war must be waged between the “spiritual” parts in the human makeup –​the heart and its layers and helpers –​and the “earthly” ones –​the self and its assistants. This war constitutes the “inner jihād,” which is associated with the program whereby the self is trained and educated.This program and the inner war entailed in it are progressive and transformative.They go through various “locations” or “stations,” such as fear, abstention, trust, repentance, longing, love, and more. Such observations laid the foundation for the later portrayals of the stages and stations on the path. The transformative process reaches peak points when the heart, free from 233

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the bondage of the self, is awakened and its inner eyes open to “see” transcendental and divine visions and to experience lofty events. Here the scenes described by these authors move from strenuous practices to expansive states of joy and content, whereby God’s grace, love, and benevolence are witnessed. Finally, early authors share the understanding that, by seeing one’s self and other selves on a par in relation to God, one’s inner transformation leads to ethical conduct and to ultimate “goodness” (iḥsān). This understanding stands at the foreground of virtues such as futuwwa (chivalrous acts of kindness) and īthar (giving preference to the other), virtues which Sufis of all eras and centers were urged to develop and perpetuate. The call to pursue these virtues through the purification of the heart makes Sufism, typologically, an ethical-​mystical system, namely a system in which behavior, conduct, and relationships are included in its transcendent outlook. Such standards and behavioral programs were based not only on individual purpose and inspiration, but also on adherence to the canonical models of Islam at large. The wisdom of the early mystics stems, according to their own words, from an unwavering adherence to Allāh’s words, the Qurʾān; the Prophet’s sayings, the Ḥadīth; and the religious law, the Sharīʿa. In this they had laid the foundation for the later vision of Sufism as the integration of three foci of knowledge and conduct: the sharīʿa, the ṭarīqa, and the ḥaqīqa. To illustrate, let me end this chapter by citing from al-​Ḥakīm al-​Tirmidhī’s answer to a question sent to him by seekers from the town of Sarakhs as regards Q 3:103 (wa-​iʿtaṣimū bi-​ḥabl allāh): The rope of God is the Qurʾān; it is the speech (kalām) whose one end is with the worshippers while the other end is with Him. Hence, it was transmitted in the name of the Prophet: “If you cling to God, who is there to avert Him.” He clings to this rope because he does not know who may avert him, unless by means of what He had clarified to him in this Qurʾān. Were it not for the Qurʾān, the worshippers would not be guided to what benefits them [in distinction] from what corrupts them. Therefore, he who is edified by the Qurʾān (fa-​man taʾaddaba bi-​adab al-​qurʾān), clings to God’s rope; namely, he is protected by God’s rope from anything that might avert him. (Ḥakīm al-​Tirmidhī 1992: 167–​168)

Notes 1 For a discussion on the problematics and significance of terms such as “mysticism,” “Sufism,” “asceticism,” and more, see Sviri (2012). 2 See English translation by Arberry (al-​Kalābādhī 1977); and see also Chabbi (1977). 3 For late antique antecedents and echoes of this theme, see Sviri (2016). 4 See also: “When God took Muḥammad His Prophet to Himself, He set up from among his people forty righteous men (arbaʿīna ṣiddīq) by dint of whom the earth stands; they are his household and family (ahl baytihi wa-​ālihi). Whenever one of them dies, another succeeds him and stands in his place” (Ḥakīm al-​Tirmidhī: 1992: 44). 5 Compare with “Apostleship and prophecy come to an end, but wilāya never ceases” (Ibn al-​ʿArabī 1946: I 62). 6 For example, the compiler, al-​Jullābī al-​Hujwīrī (d. c. 465/​1073), inserts a lengthy discussion on wilāya in the section devoted to “the Ḥakīmīs”, the followers of al-​Ḥakīm al-​Tirmidhī (1976: 210–​241). 7 Compare to the position of the quṭb and al-​insān al-​kāmil (Chodkiewicz 1993: 53–​54, 70–​73; see also Sviri 1999b). 8 Note that in the hagiographical literature he appears to have followed several teachers. See, e.g., al-​ Sulamī (1960: 212). 9 On the dreams of al-​Tirmidhī and his wife, see Sviri (1999b; 2016). 10 Compare to Michel Foucault’s hermeneutics (1988).

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Mysticism in early Islam 11 For a discussion on the term “self ” in relation to nafs, see Sviri (2002). 12 See, e.g., the following passage: “He who abandons the combat (al-​mujāhada) [against the nafs], the nafs snatches his heart and captures it; it thus loses all the commandments and the prohibitions and its cavity becomes the territory of the Adversary (wa-​ṣāra jawfuhu balda min bilād al-​ʿaduww). But he who fights with his heart till the nafs is captured, then the armies of the heart emerge (barazat junūd al-​qalb), its rule appears and its power is complete” (Ḥakīm al-​Tirmidhī 2002: 80). 13 For a detailed presentation of al-​Muḥāsibī’s world and thought, see van Ess (1961) and Smith (1935). For the most up-​to-​date list of the studies on him, see Picken (2011: 2–​13). 14 See, for example, al-​Tustarī on Q 8:72: “All the commandments for the sake of God are a struggle with the self (jihād al-​nafs); no struggle is easier than the struggle with the sword, and no struggle is harder than opposing the self ” (al-​Tustarī 2008: 82). For more on Sahl al-​Tustarī, consult the excellent study by Böwering (1979). 15 Often quoted in later literature is the expression: “He who knows his self knows his Lord” (man ʿarafa nafsahu fa-​qad ʿarafa rabbahu). See, for example, al-​Ghazālī: “The heart is that [in man] which knows God, comes near Him, acts for Him, and beholds what is with Him. The organs are followers, servants, and tools that the heart employs …. If man knows it, he knows his self; and if he knows his self, he knows His Lord” (n.d.: III 3). 16 For more on Rābiʿa, see Smith (1935) and Schimmel (1975). 17 For the terms “renunciants” and “renunciation,” see Melchert (2002b: 437 n. 47; 2002a: 407). 18 On him, see al-​Sulamī (1960: 54–​59). According to al-​Sulamī, Shaqīq may have been “the first in the region of Khurāsān who talked on the science of the mystical states (aḥwāl)” (1960: 54; see also Nwyia 1970: 213–​231). 19 This treatise was edited by Paul Nwyia in 1973, based on a Topkapı unicum manuscript. For bibliographical data and analysis, see Nwyia (1970: 213–​231). 20 Voluntary (or supererogatory) acts of worship are known as nawāfil; for mystics, their relevance for establishing a “synergy” between man and God is formulated in a tradition known as ḥadīth al-​nawāfil. The following translation is according to one of its canonical versions: My servant draws near Me with nothing that I love more than the religious duties (al-​farāʾiḍ) which I have imposed on him; My servant draws ever nearer to Me with supererogatory acts (bi-​l-​nawāfil), so that I love him. When I love him, I become his ears with which he hears, his eyes with which he sees, his hand with which he strikes and his foot with which he walks. Were he to ask [something] of Me, I would surely give it to him, and were he to ask Me for refuge, I would surely grant him it. See, e.g., al-​Bukhārī (1993: V 2385 no. 6137) in the name of Abū Hurayra; cf., e.g., al-​Kharrāz (1937: 8, 49). 21 Hence the accusation, often leveled against Sufis by Orthodox writers, of indulging in exaggerated practices above and beyond the prophetic sunna —​see, e.g., Ibn al-​Jawzī (n.d.: 152, 174) and note the admonition of a third-​/​ninth-​century Ḥanbalī master against reading books by al-​Muḥāsibī: “These are books of innovations and errors. Follow the tradition [of the prophet], in it you will find what will suffice you” (Ibn al-​Jawzī n.d.: 177). 22 See, for example, the intriguing comment made by Jaʿfar al-​Khuldῑ (d. 348/​959), who had allegedly collected many Sufi writings. When asked whether he had any work by al-​Ḥakīm al-​Tirmidhī, he replied: “I do not reckon him among the Sufis” (mā ʿadadtuhu min al-​ṣūfiyya) (al-​ Sulamī 1960: 454). 23 For the extreme and eventually forbidden practice of emasculation, see Sviri (1990: 198). 24 For groundbreaking studies on Sufi terminology, see Massignon (1997) and Nwyia (1970). 25 See, e.g., the saying ascribed to al-​Junayd (d. 298/​910):“Ḥāl is an occurrence that descends [and resides] in the hearts but does not persist” (al-​Sarrāj 1914: 335). 26 For the language of “lights” in the Qurʾān commentary ascribed to Jaʿfar al-​Ṣādiq (Nwyia 1967). 27 Versions of this ḥadīth, but with no reference to Moses, appear in canonical ḥadīth collections –​see, for example, Ibn Ḥanbal’s Musnad, traditions in the name of Asad b. Karz, the grandfather of Khālid al-​Qasrī: “Love for your brother what you love for yourself ” (2001: XXVII 214 and 217). See also al-​ Bukhārī,: “None of you is a believer unless he loves for his brother what he loves for himself ” (1993: I 14) and al-​Nawawī (2009: 65 no. 13). 28 Note that the closing statement “how small is their number!” is linked to the elitist view concerning the awliyāʾ and the khātam al-​awliyāʾ discussed above.

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PART III

Modern and contemporary reinterpretation of early Islam

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14 MODERNISTS AND THEIR OPPONENTS Reading Islam Simon Wood

This chapter is about modernists. In English, those referred to as such are frequently described more specifically as “Islamic modernists,” conveying the notion of simultaneously and mutually reinforcing modernizing and Islamicizing agendas. This specification might preclude a possible misreading, one implying that those who have been described as modernizing Islam over much of approximately the last two centuries have largely done so by minimizing it. The aim of that minimizing would be an Islam that, in general terms, resembles a European, post-​Enlightenment form of Christianity: privatized and for the most part absent from the public domain.Yet Islamic modernism has been a movement of the religiously committed, not an Islamic counterpart to the Enlightenment. Who are the modernists and how in their readings and deployments of early Islam may they be characterized and separated from their non-​modernist coreligionists? “Modernists” refers to those Muslims who have articulated a specific response to the major challenges facing Muslims as a people and Islam as a religion during the modern period. In particular, modernists have addressed the plain fact of Muslim weakness and backwardness relative to overwhelming European, Western, or Christian power, epitomized by Europe’s domination and often direct colonization of almost all of the Muslim-majority world, which reached its zenith around the 19th and early 20th centuries. A telling feature of that response has been the argument that significant responsibility for this, from the perspective of most Muslims, highly regrettable state of affairs lies with Muslims themselves. In particular, it lies with their leaders in the realms of religion and the affairs of this world. Indifferent to the Muslims’ changing circumstances, they followed a path that led to stagnation, ossification, and inattention to deviation in the realm of religion, and to quiescence or acquiescence to despotism in the political realm.They then failed to address and negotiate the consequences of that indifference. Making this argument, modernists have upheld the paradigm of early Islam, counterpointing the Islam of their own eras. This argument is associated with numerous figures.1 These include Jamāl al-​Dīn al-​Afghānī (d. 1897), originally from Shīʿī Iran and also known as Asadābādī, but adopting the identity of a Sunnī Muslim from Afghanistan (“The Afghan”). While he is a complex figure whose views were far from consistent –​it has been suggested that he was actually an atheist who

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harnessed Islam for political ends (Kedourie 1966) –​his identification with Islamic modernism is emphatic. Others include his friend, Muḥammad ʿAbduh (d. 1905), an Egyptian, and ʿAbduh’s disciple Muḥammad Rashīd Riḍā (d. 1935), a Syrian born in present-​day Lebanon. The views of this triad may be seen with those of others in the region who have offered prescriptions for reconciling Islam and modernity, including those who pursued different lines of argument, notably ʿAli ʿAbd al-​Rāziq (d. 1966), an Azharī Egyptian best known for his ideas on governance, stridently critiqued by Riḍā. The radical reforms and state-building of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (d. 1938) and his followers, while not a case of Islamic modernism, bore on it as embodying a competing vision. In the Indian subcontinent, aspects of the earlier eclectic work of Shāh Walī Allāh of Delhi (d. 1762) prefigure modernism (Afsaruddin 2007: 171, 226 n. 10). The work of Sayyid Aḥmad Khān (d. 1898) has also been seen as important and as within the parameters of modernism, in spite of his being viewed as too pro-​Western by others, including al-​Afghānī, who was highly critical of him. The poet Sir Muḥammad Iqbāl (d. 1938), regarded as having inspired the Pakistan movement, articulated another progressive and modern vision of Islam that was influential in the subcontinent. While grouping together a large number of individuals who were active in different times and under different circumstances is a risky operation, many authorities see the work of these and other figures as aligning in very broad terms with that of later and contemporary modernists. These include Fazlur Rahman (d. 1988), Rachid Ghannouchi, Abdolkarim Soroush, Tariq Ramadan, and others. Taken together, this forms a longstanding and ongoing tradition of modernism, with the triad of al-​Afghānī, ʿAbduh, and Riḍā regarded by some authorities as particularly influential (Jung 2011: 14, 231; Safi 2014: 388).2 This, to be sure, is very far from an exhaustive list of those who have been active from the 19th century onwards, and the work of others than those named above might well be highlighted. This chapter does not provide a comprehensive picture of modernism, or review the extensive and fast-​g rowing literature on the topic.3 Rather, drawing on some of the figures named above, I delineate a taxonomy that I hope enables us to capture modernism, and separate it from whatever is not modernism. I draw attention to some of the ways in which modernist readings of early Islam and prescriptions for modern Islam differ from those of their opponents. The modernist reading of gender has been addressed by others and is not explored in detail here.4 The chapter is concerned with Sunnī rather than Shīʿa or Ibāḍī Islam.

Modernists, traditionalists, secularists, and hardliners The literature on modernism presents a variety of issues to be addressed and negotiated in relation to nomenclature. Two seem particularly pertinent here. The first concerns the great variety of terms that, along with modernists and modernism, have been used to label those who are our focus, as well as their opponents, and how these differing terms are and are not equivalent. Second, there is the issue of qualifying and clarifying how we use English terms to describe people whose native language was not English, and whose self-​identifications would not translate to “modernist” but to something else that is not synonymous with it in all respects, such as “reformer,” “reviver,” or “renewer.” It was, primarily, non-​Muslim observers who identified and discussed something called “modernism.” As a construct, it has been more of the West than of the Muslim-majority world, and few Muslims today self-​identify as modernists (Safi 2014: 384). At issue is how Muslim peoples have attempted to reconcile, or not, the challenges of modern life with fidelity to tradition. One might say that there is something cross-​cultural at play in discussions of modernism, or of debates between modernists and their opponents, particularly those commonly regarded as “traditionalists.” For example, North American Baptists, Lutherans, 242

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and others were engaged with some of the same broad issues that their Sunnī Muslim contemporaries in Egypt, Libya, and elsewhere addressed during the decades around the turn of the 20th century: how can those who take religion seriously adhere to it in a way that “fits” modern life? In both North America and North Africa one can observe a debate breaking down along what can reasonably be identified as modernist and traditionalist lines. Further, in both cases the issue of the role of established religious leaders, or their failings, was to the fore. Yet when the view moves to consider what motivations informed such a debate, a cross-​cultural approach can only take us so far. It would seem fairly straightforward to observe, for instance, that Egyptians living under British rule (1882–​1952), subject to different laws than their overlords, witnessing concessions granted to foreigners, seizures of agricultural lands, and the khedive (the Turkish viceroy) losing effective control to the British in many areas, or Libyans responding to the Italo-​Turkish War (1911–​1912) and its aftermath –​the first people in the world to be bombed from an airplane were Muslim forces under attack by a European power  –​were working under distinctive conditions. These were unlike those faced by American Protestants engaged in debates about theological “fundamentals” and what subjects should be included in public schools’ curricula. It may appear to be an exercise in stating the obvious, but it nonetheless is worth highlighting a difference. Protestants engaged in debates about religion and modernity were largely engaged in an internal affair, responding to contingencies that may be seen as indigenous to their culture. By contrast, the engine driving the Islamic modernist project was an encounter with foreign and domineering non-​Muslim others, who, notwithstanding their professed indifference on matters pertaining to Muslim religious affairs, were frequently seen as inimical to Islam. Those who have examined modernism as a configuration of Islam articulated in response to that encounter, and dating from the 19th century onwards, have often seen it along with three other trends with which it has been in competition for Muslim hearts and minds. These are traditionalism, secularism, and what is frequently labeled Islamism or fundamentalism, but is probably better described as hardline revivalism, and, where appropriate, as militancy.5 The rise to prominence of the hardline trend is often traced to around the 1930s, largely postdating the high water mark of the instantiation of modernism inspired particularly by al-​Afghānī, whose anti-​colonial sentiment has nonetheless been a source of inspiration for it. This fourfold division has provided many scholars with a means of negotiating the great diversity of modern Islam (e.g., Afsaruddin 2007).6 It also aligns with some of the categorizations delineated by those under consideration here, such as al-​Afghānī in his views on traditionalist Islam and Westernization or secularization, and Riḍā, whose depictions of “reform” (iṣlāḥ), “ossification” (jumūd), and “Europeanization” (tafarnuj) fairly closely correspond to what writers in the West tend to label modernism, traditionalism, and secularism respectively. It probably goes without saying that comprehending Islam in terms of four categories entails prefacing the discussion with a raft of disclaimers. The categories are reasonably discrete, but certainly not always clearly or unambiguously so, and may overlap and subdivide in complex ways.This applies particularly to the legacy of al-​Afghānī and his followers.This has been drawn on by both modernists and by hardliners, whose ideas, while tending in different directions, have been viewed as aligning on certain points (e.g., Jung 2011: 267 n. 61). Further, scholars and others have had different ideas about which individuals and groups belong in which category. One scholar’s modernist (e.g., ʿAbduh and Riḍā) may be another’s fundamentalist or, to complicate further, “neofundamentalist” (Jung 2011: 15, 220 n. 7, 232, 247–​248; Wood 2008: 18 n. 2). Placing Wahhabism can also prove troublesome. There are also potential complications created by the differing terms that scholars and others have used to capture the categories. “Modernists” may also be referred to as “liberals” or “moderates,” “traditionalists” as “conservatives,” and 243

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“hardliners” as “puritans” (e.g., Abou el Fadl 2007 cited in Afsaruddin 2007: 222 n. 15). The number of terms encountered, along with variations in their usage –​sometimes synonymously, sometimes not –​might prove challenging, particularly for a non-​specialist. The oft-​used and evolving term salafī, typically Anglicized as Salafist, which depending on context, could label a modernist, a traditionalist, or a hardliner, brings its own set of complications. A salafī is unlikely to be a secularist, but beyond that uniform or definitive characterizations are elusive. Scholars of Islam who consider the work of figures such the Egyptian shaykh Ṣalāḥ al-​Ṣāwī, a self-​ identifying Salafī, may have a fairly clear and relatively uniform conception of Salafism, but for those outside of that very small subset of religion scholars the term’s referent may be evasive. It is unclear, for instance, whether recent forms of Salafism would generally be regarded as forms of Wahhabism, or generally synonymous with it, or not. Are those currently referred to as Salafīs and Wahhābīs to be understood as the same, similar, or different groups of people? The question lacks a straightforward or consistent answer.7 Disclaimers noted, while I have taken issue with applying the terms fundamentalism and Islamism to the fourth category (see above), I find the fourfold division useful. It captures a set of responses to the challenges created by Muslim encounters with what religion scholars tend to identify as “modernity.” These challenges were, to borrow Bruce Lincoln’s formulation, “bequeathed” (2006: 64–​67) to the Muslim-majority world through colonialism in its direct and indirect forms.The majority of the world’s Muslims live in lands that came under European rule or domination during the colonial period, at the height of which more Muslims were ruled by Europeans than by Muslims. The effects of European imperial agendas were also powerfully felt in Muslims lands that did not become colonies, such as present-​day Iran and Turkey. While modernity is a complex and contested notion, in this connection it can be said to capture a cultural paradigm wherein religion –​albeit with frequent exception –​is minimized: modern religion devolves from public to private, from communal to individual. This paradigm is particularly associated with the post-​Enlightenment West and the colonial project. This is in spite of that project’s frequent imbrication with missionary endeavors in the Arabic-​speaking and other parts of the Muslim-majority world, endeavors that may not align very well with modern conceptions of religion.8 Broadly speaking, colonized and dominated Muslim peoples have responded to this paradigm, engaged in often humiliating encounters with non-​Muslim others, in terms of the four categories suggested above.Those responses also include distinctive readings of how early Islam is or should be related to modern Islam.

Modernism and traditionalism: reforming and following In Cairo in 1898, a high point of European dominance of the Middle East, Riḍā established a journal entitled al-​Manār. It was published until his death in 1935 and for a few years thereafter. A complete set of the journal runs to approximately 30,000 pages.9 Inspired by al-​Afghānī, who died the year before publication began, the journal aimed specifically at disseminating ʿAbduh’s ideas, and more generally at strengthening Muslims and their cultures, equipping them to cogently respond to their situation as colonized and dominated peoples. To that end, following al-​Afghānī, ʿAbduh and Riḍā called upon Muslims to look back, to the norms of early Islam, and forward, by embracing a rationalistic, scientific mindset. The journal’s rhetoric took aim not merely at what ʿAbduh and Riḍā identified as the defects of Western culture, but directly took issue with Muslims who were opposed or indifferent to modernization within an Islamic framework, namely traditionalists and secularists. The title al-​Manār, “The Lighthouse” or “The Beacon,” neatly encapsulates the modernist agenda. Al-​Afghānī, ʿAbduh, Riḍā, and other modernists had found their Muslim contemporaries, 244

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so to speak, all at sea, floundering on the rocks. Al-​Manār was conceived as a beacon of guidance, illuminating a path to a sound, authentic form of Islam that, as the journal’s contributors took pains to emphasize, was fully at home in the modern era. This was necessary, and indeed was a requirement of Sharīʿa, because Muslims were without the robust and coherent leadership that the era’s circumstances required. ʿAbduh, for instance, was bitingly critical in his assessment of the Muslims’ leaders in the scholarly domain. He found al-​Azhar’s pedagogy arcane, deviant, useless, and even evil, focused not on words and ideas with use and meaning, but on irrelevant marginalia: “marginal scribbles” on post-​Qurʾānic texts (Gesink 2009: 166). For modernists, a sound form of Islam was one that, looking back, aligned with the norms of early Islam.This was to be established by following the example of the early Muslims, identified as the first generation, the Companions, or as the first three generations, the Companions, Successors, and Successors of Successors, the last of whom died around the early 9th century. These generations became known as al-​salaf al-​ṣāliḥ, “the pious forebears.” Thus the adjective salafī, which denotes someone who follows their example. By the time modernism emerged these terms had long been in use. They are found, for instance, in the works of Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328).Yet given the subsequent currency of al-​salaf al-​ṣāliḥ as a means of establishing authenticity through appealing to early Islam, it is notable that, worded as such, the term is not found in the earliest sources. This point has been addressed by the historian Asma Afsaruddin, who notes that the earliest usage of a similar term may be an expression related in Musnad Aḥmad. This refers to ʿUthmān b. Maẓʿūn (d. 624), an esteemed Companion, as salafīna al-​ṣāliḥ al-​khayr, “our excellent, pious forebear,” foreshadowing the term’s application to the Companions in general. In the works of al-​Ṭabarī (d. 923) salaf refers not to the first three generations but only to the first, the Companions, while the Successors among the khalaf, “those who followed,” are also esteemed. Thus, al-​Ṭabarī’s work suggests the idea formulated as al-​salaf al-​ṣāliḥ in progress. The earliest known reference to the salaf having the function of role models may be in a statement attributed to Abu Ḥanīfa (d. 767) and recorded by Jalāl al-​Dīn al-​Suyūṭī (d. 1505) (Afsaruddin 2007: 148–​151). For al-​Afghānī and other modernists the need for Muslims to take the salaf or forebears as role models was unequivocal.Thus, their movement became known as the Salafiyya which, particularly in its Anglicized from, Salafism, has also come to acquire a wider range of meanings than simply capturing the movement inspired by al-​Afghānī, and is also applied to groups that are quite different to it in their views on Islam and modernization.10 The modifying adjective, ṣāliḥ, derives from the root Ṣ-​L-​Ḥ, which, along with piety, conveys the idea of being in a pure, good, righteous, or proper state and whose derivatives are very common in the Qurʾān. These include iṣlāḥ, reform, or making things pure, right or righteous, commonly understood as implementing the well-​known Qurʾānic commandment to “command what is good and forbid what is wrong” (Q 3:104, 3:110), as in the statement,“I want only to put things right (al-​iṣlāḥ), so far as I am able” (Q 11:88).The term has come to have a particular association with ʿAbduh and Riḍā. Hence, in addition to describing the Salafiyya as the movement of the modernist, it is worth noting that “reformer,” counterparting the Arabic muṣliḥ, namely one who undertakes iṣlāḥ and makes things pure, would probably better align with the movement’s self-​understanding. There is nothing inherently or necessarily “modern” about doing iṣlāḥ. This is reflected, for instance, in a set of dialogues, regarded as recrafted or fictional, that Riḍā published in al-​Manār from 1900 to 1902 and subsequently as a book for the purpose of winning converts to ʿAbduh’s message: Debates of the Reformer (muṣliḥ) and the Traditionalist (muqallid) (Riḍā 1906). In the Qurʾān, iṣlāḥ or reform stands opposed to ifsād or corruption; the reformer opposes the mufsid or corruptor (Saruhan 2005: 675–​678; Merad 1960–​2007). In the discourse of the Salafiyya –​ al-​Afghānī’s 245

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prescriptions, ʿAbduh’s commentary on Azharī pedagogy, Riḍā’s dialogues –​another opposition is prominent, between the reformer and the traditionalist muqallid. Here, the modernist reading of Islam in its early and later instantiations is front and center (see Skovgaard-​Petersen 2001; Gesink 2009: 172–​176). Riḍā’s anonymous young reformer is in debate with a traditionalist muqallid shaykh, a local jurist who adopts the posture of practicing taqlīd, imitation or following precedent. Whereas imitating one’s shaykhs, Imams, and teachers, or following precedent, might seem unremarkable –​what, besides following one’s shaykhs, would be expected of the Muslim masses? –​for al-​Afghānī, ʿAbduh, Riḍā and others this way of practicing Islam had by their own era become extremely problematical. While taqlīd or simple “following” does not necessarily have a negative connotation –​the term, as such, is not a pejorative –​in much Islamic discourse, and especially modernist discourse, it has been viewed more specifically as blind, unthinking, or uncritical following. Al-​Afghānī, ʿAbduh, and Riḍā saw their peers, including many ʿulamāʾ and those who were –​or, more pertinently, those who ought to be –​responsible for the Muslims’ welfare, as having, in effect, elevated the words of the Imams of the madhhabs –​the schools of law, which flourished roughly from the mid-​8th through mid-​ 10th centuries –​above the words of God and His Prophet, and the practices of later generations above those of the salaf.Thus, the Islam of the late 19th and early 20th centuries had come to be based on madhhabism11 or adherence to the schools of law, fiqh, and unsound and even heretical practice, more than on the fundamentals of Qurʾān, the sound Sunna, and the way of the salaf. The emphasis on the madhhabs had for al-​Afghānī, ʿAbduh, Riḍā, and the dialogue’s reformer been a cause of factionalism, a grave error, and stagnation. Muslims had become overly concerned with fine points of law over which the madhhabs sometimes differed, or that were redundant, non-​Qurʾānic, or irrelevant to what ought to be the concerns of a modern community. In this vein, Riḍā also comments in his book on the Caliphate that rather than focusing on such pressing issues as how to revitalize sound Islamic governance and establish Muslim independence, “our ulama have been more concerned with issues such as impurity (najāsa), menstruation, buying, and selling” (1923: 32). Against taqlīd, modernists made a clarion call for ijtihād, personal intellectual effort or independent reasoning. This is based on proofs such as the Prophet permitting Muʿādh b. Jabal (d. 639), a Companion he had sent to Yemen as a judge, to use ijtihād in cases lacking a prescription or precedent in the Qurʾān or Sunna, and a ḥadīth averring that “whoever rules on the basis of ijtihād and does so correctly will receive two rewards, while whoever does so and errs will receive one reward” (Riḍā 1923: 94). In essence, modernists argued that Muslims should think and reason for themselves, and not unthinkingly replicate what they are given by their elders, teachers, and peers. In so doing, they would be following the example of their pious forebears, the salaf, and certain outstanding individuals amongst later generations, notably al-​Ghazāli (d. 1111), also a “reviver” of Islamic culture. And they would be departing from the practice of most of their contemporaries, recalling Qurʾānic illustrations of Abraham and Muḥammad, who challenged their own contemporaries while pointing to an earlier or archetypal purity (Safi 2014: 386). Al-​Afghānī rejects the idea held by his contemporaries that the door to ijtihād opened by the Prophet had subsequently been closed or discontinued in Islam: “What does it mean when it is said that the door of ijtihād has been closed? By which prescription12 has it been declared so?” (cited in Moazzam 1984: 16). For ʿAbduh, ijtihād was the means to reform and Islam generally, al-​Azhar particularly, by reviving the rational spirit of early Islam reflected by the prescriptions of the Qurʾān and embodied by the practice of the salaf. In Riḍā’s dialogues, the traditionalist muqallid shaykh holds to the position al-​Afghānī argued against: ijtihād is extinct, its door closed.Yet in the dialogues the youthful reformer outmaneuvers the muqallid shaykh, who unrealistically imagines that Muslims may resist the encroachment of the modern 246

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world, or remain in a self-​contained and entirely Islamic ideological enclave. Where the shaykh suggests that reviving unbridled ijtihād and dispensing with taqlīd would lead to chaos among lay Muslims, the reformer pointedly notes that lay Muslims were already in a state of chaos. Beyond being aware that God is One and believing that certain saints may cure certain ailments they were mostly ignorant –​Muslim ignorance is a prominent theme in modernist discourse, in ʿAbduh’s case sometimes elaborated in very disparaging terms –​practicing the taqlīd of one another. The solution lies in ijtihād on legal and social matters which, while beyond the abilities of most Muslims, may be undertaken by those who are sufficiently trained, namely muftīs, qāḍīs, and teachers. This would lead to purging work of the madhhabs’ Imams, a suggestion at which the shaykh recoils (Gesink 2009: 172–​174, 265–​66 n. 38).13 Isolation and imitation, then, would not provide viable Islamic solutions to Muslim problems. To the contrary, Muslims may avail themselves of whatever ideas and practices are useful, even those that at the time of modernism’s emergence were associated in the popular mind, and erroneously so, more with Western thought than with Islamic thought.Yet al-​Afghānī, ʿAbduh, Riḍā, and others unwaveringly called upon Muslims to embrace a scientific outlook, one that they suggested harmonized far more with authentic Islam than with Christianity. ʿAbduh finds Western progress explainable in terms of Europeans appropriating from Muslims universal ideals (al-​wijdān al-​ṣādiq) that had been embodied in Islam, while Riḍā stresses that the West was least advanced when it was “most” Christian, during the so-​called Dark Ages. The West progressed as it abandoned traditional Christianity. Muslims, then, similarly have nothing to lose and everything to gain by dispensing with a traditionalist and compartmentalized mindset, and embracing reform. Hence, there is no reason for Muslims not to take non-​Muslims as friends, or to reject something purely because it is viewed as having a non-​Muslim origin. While this is a modernist stance, it is not novel. The philosopher Yaʿqūb b. Isḥāq al-​Kindi (d. 873), born near the end of the era of the salaf, stressed that knowledge should be acquired “even it is brought to us by foreign peoples” (cited in Safi 2014: 387). Illustrating a similar point, Riḍā’s reformer brings up the Boer War (1899–​1902), a contemporary event. Would the shaykh reject a report on the war because it was British, i.e., non-​Muslim? To the contrary, the reformer finds that any properly attested report, Muslim or not, may be accepted describing such a report as mutawātir (Skovgaard-​Petersen 2001: 101). This term, meaning “consecutively attested,” denotes a ḥadīth or report from the prophet whose attestation is sufficiently multiple and mutually reinforcing that it would be sinful to reject it. Riḍā’s reformer here applies the vocabulary of Islam in a modern fashion. This turn exemplifies a notable element of the modernist position:  Muslims should take the approach embodied by ijtihād, that of an independent and rational mindset, and apply it expansively, both to Islam and to the world generally. This is a departure from conventional ijtihād, which had been juristic, and concerned the like of resolving unprecedented cases and issues such as marriage, inheritance, tax, and alms, and whose effects were incremental (see, e.g., Kamali 2007: 157). The far-​reaching modernist approach would enable Muslims to distinguish what is based on Qurʾān, Sunna (or what was regarded as the sound Sunna), and the way of the salaf from what was added by later generations of jurists and others, much of it extraneous, and some of it simply sinful. This led ʿAbduh, for instance, to be leery of Isrāʾīliyyāt and fitan traditions,14 and Riḍā to decry what he viewed as deviant and plainly un-​Islamic Sufi practices (see Riḍā 1934: 171–​172, cited in Hourani 1983: 225). Equally, modernists urged Muslims to take an independent approach to the world around them. This would enable them to identify elements of science and culture, including Western culture, that might benefit them. Riḍā, for instance, critiqued jurists who forbade alcohol without exception, noting its medical uses (Riḍā 1923: 87). The focus here is again on what is 247

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useful, rather than on what has been stipulated by contemporary jurists and their predecessors. And reassuring Muslim readers facing missionary and secularist attacks on Islam, Riḍā commented that they had nothing to fear from freedom of the press (a value, it might be said, that was upheld quite unevenly by colonial administrators): if Christian slandering of the Qurʾān prompts Muslim reflection upon it, that may prove a turn to the good (Riḍā 1956: 54; Wood 2008: 143–​144). Perhaps that might prompt them to right action? Again, Islam, as the Qurʾān shows in its frequent calls to “think,” “reflect,” and “consider,” is the true religion of reason and science. Generally neglecting this, the masses had been in a long sleep, a common trope in modernist discourse. The Russian reformer Mūsā Jārullāh Bigi (d. 1949), for instance, quotes the “prophesying” Arab poet Abu al-​ʿAlāʾ al-​Maʿarrī (d. 1057): “they progressed but we went to sleep” (cited in Kurzman 2002: 255).Yet the likes of al-​Afghānī and Riḍā strike a note of what would ultimately prove largely unfulfilled optimism: look at them now, prompted by their new circumstances and rightly guided, the masses are starting to wake up (Riḍā 1956).15 Altogether modernists saw the Muslim masses suffering the afflictions of traditionalist Islam:  sleep, disease, factionalism, stagnation, quiescence, and dependency. By contrast, their proposed reforms promised wakefulness, a cure, unity, progress, action, and independence.

Modernism and secularism: reforming and Europeanizing Modernists were no less critical of those who followed another path, that of imitating Westerners and/​or embracing such ideas as materialism and secularism. This is seen in various works by al-​ Afghānī, ʿAbduh, Riḍā, and others. These include al-​Afghānī’s 1878 Refutation of the Materialists’ Teachings, Explanation of their Depravity, and Proof that Religion is the Foundation of Civilization while Unbelief Ruins Culture (risāla fī ibṭāl madhhab al-​dahriyyīn wa-​bayān mafāsidi-​him wa-​ithbāt anna al-​dīn asās al-​madaniyya wa-​al-​kufr fasād al-​ʿumrān), translated from the Persian into Arabic by ʿAbduh, and generally known by the shorter title of a second edition, Refutation of the Materialists (1902). Al-​Afghānī positions himself as a critic of the views of Sayyid Ahmad Khan, which he regarded as too concessionary towards the British. He critiques the naturalist sect in India –​ Necari, listed as an official religion in the Census of India  –​and argues that only religion can maintain society in the face of the destructive effects of naturalist materialism (see, e.g., Goldziher and Goichon 1960–​2007). ʿAbduh and Riḍā were concerned to promote public commitment to religion, and their works include various critiques of Anglicization, Europeanization, secularism in other guises, or what was regarded as such.Their opponents here include Faraḥ Anṭūn, a Christian who became friends with Riḍā in Tripoli and traveled with him to Egypt in 1879. In 1901, Anṭūn founded the humanist journal al-​Jāmiʿa in Alexandria in which he argued that the Islamic worldview discouraged scientific investigation and that Islam’s unification of religious and civil authority was similarly a barrier to progress, points forcefully contested by ʿAbduh and Riḍā in the pages of al-​Manar (see Riḍā 1956: 59–​101; Wood 2008: 153–​208; on Anṭūn, see Reid 1975). ʿAbduh’s general position was that Europeans had erred by embracing secularism through separating the domains of rational investigation and religion, resulting in the flawed misperception that the two were incompatible, or that reason “disproves” religion.Yet the case of Islam is different, its scripture “orders us to investigate and employ reason … to achieve certainty about those things to which [the Qurʾān] guides us” (ʿAbduh n.d.: 36–​37, cited in Gesink 2009: 170). In this understanding, as with al-​Afghānī and Riḍā, there is no sense at all in which science or rationalism is “Western.” Rather, Islam is the true religion of reason, while Christianity is inherently at odds with a rationalistic worldview.Thus, embracing science makes a people more Qurʾānic and Islamic. ʿAbduh’s views on such topics as education, ethics, and politics were 248

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indeed influenced by Western ­figures –​Herbert Spencer, Leo Tolstoy, Auguste Comte –​yet he melded these influences with Islamic concepts. ʿAbduh’s investigations and elaborations here can be seen as both modern and Islamic, reason-​based and ijtihād-​based. This was an expanded and modernized conception of ijtihād. As Indira Falk Gesink has noted, ʿAbduh was not issuing fatwās for the masses on points of theology, such as whether the Qurʾān was created in time. Given ʿAbduh’s rejection of Anglicization, and in spite of his being perhaps the most prominent advocate of a modernist vision of Islam, he was accused by a variety of opponents precisely of Westernization. His efforts were hampered by the impression that he was too closely aligned with the British. The anti-​European newspaper Miṣbāḥ al-​sharq (The Lantern of the East) described him “spooning out taqlid of Westerners” to the Muslims, blindly imitating European customs and beliefs, using the same term –​taqlīd –​that modernists had deployed in critiquing their opponents (Gesink 2009: 183). ʿAbduh was deemed suspect on numerous grounds: he crossed lines between the madhhabs in dangerous ways; he abandoned norms; he collaborated with Christians, threatening stability and unity; and if his opinions on finance, religious endowments (awqāf), and free will were deemed unorthodox, or even heretical, that in itself indicated that he was unfit for a leadership role. One colloquial paper noted that both ʿAbduh’s efforts and the seizure of agricultural lands were called “reform”: what then was reform but implementing the will of foreigners at the people’s expense? ʿAbduh’s ijtihād appeared to be a tool in the hands of Empire. His compromised stature was further diminished in a variety of controversies involving the ḥajj, his travel to Europe –​the so-​called “Picture Scandal” –​and his Transvaal Fatwā of December 25, 1903. The last concerned meat slaughtered according to Christian custom, and strongly reflected a modernist approach. ʿAbduh’s focus was the Sharīʿa’s underlying goals and peaceful coexistence –​such that Transvaal Muslims not be isolated from their majority Christian neighbors –​and not on specific injunctions. He noted Qurʾānic verses sanctioning Muslims to eat non-​Muslim food, such as Q 5:5, “The food of the People of the Book is lawful for you and your food is lawful for them,” while glossing over a complicating restriction: one should not eat animals killed by a violent blow. Interestingly, while critiquing ʿAbduh for not referencing prior authorities and using expressions such as “I think,” some of his opponents also used the methods he and al-​Afghānī had advocated, taking an independent approach to Islam’s primary texts to achieve a more rigorous understanding of the religion (Gesink 2009: 192). Riḍā likewise devoted a good amount of attention to critiquing secularism, which he often refers to as Europeanization, as in his comments on tafarnuj, literally, “making oneself like the Franks.” Targets of his discussions included Anṭūn, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, and ʿAlī ʿAbd al-​ Rāziq. Riḍā opposed Atatürk’s Europeanizing reforms in Turkey, and described his own platform as one of moderation or moderate Islamic reform (al-​iṣlāḥ al-​islāmī al-​muʿtadil), avoiding the extremes of tafarnuj on the one hand and traditionalist ossification (jumūd) on the other (see, e.g., Riḍā 1923: 61–​62). Riḍā finds that the appeal that many followers of Atatürk and other Muslims find in Europeanization derives from their ignorance of Islam’s rich resources, which, properly understood, provide the keys to prosperity, social and cultural progress, and an egalitarian and just society. Riḍā was also among the prominent critics of ʿAbd al-​Rāziq, also a protégé of ʿAbduh. ʿAbd al-​Rāziq’s thesis, elaborated in his famous 1925 treatise Al-​Islām wa-​usūl al-​ḥukm (Islam and the Roots of Governance), was that Islam is “a religion, not a state” (dīn lā dawla). This has been regarded as a secularist position, yet ʿAbd al-​Rāziq presents his views as emanating entirely from within the Islamic tradition. Riḍā found ʿAbd al-​Rāziq’s views objectionable on multiple grounds, including what he saw as the rendering of Islam in Protestant-​like terms as purely spiritual, the reduction of the Caliphate to a purely temporal institution, and the legacy of the rightly guided caliphs being impugned (Kerr 1966: 179–​180). In his own proposals for the Caliphate, Riḍā had made considerable effort to present his ideas in orthodox terms, and 249

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affirm its canonical origins. And while Riḍā does give deference to the Caliph’s temporal role as ruler, his discussion shows an awareness of the need to find an alternative to the traditional form of the institution, one that stresses the roles of spiritual leadership and authoritative interpretation of law.

Modernism and hardline revivalism: adaptability and immutability Traditionalists, those criticized by modernists such as al-​Afghānī, ʿAbduh, and Riḍā, and those belonging later generations with a similar mindset, may well constitute the majority of Muslims. Yet their views on Islam in the modern world have been somewhat marginal. Ruling elites and regimes in many modern Muslim states, on the other hand, have tended towards various forms and guises of secularism, Egypt being a notable example. Yet while modernists and hardliners have, in the main, had less political influence or success than secularists,16 they have featured prominently in the discourse on situating Islam in the modern world. Hardliners, whom many authorities refer to as fundamentalists and Islamists, may also in some cases be referred to as “reactionary Salafis” (Afsaruddin 2007:  151), in distinction from modernizing Salafīs in the vein of ʿAbduh. Notable Sunnī hardliners include revivalists such as Ḥasan al-​Bannā (d. 1949), Mawlana Mawdūdī (d. 1979), Sayyid Quṭb (d. 1966), and those grouped with or seen as influenced by them, including some militants, such as ʿAbd al-​Salām Faraj (d. 1982), said to have inspired the assassins of Anwar Sādāt (Afsaruddin 2007:  166). It is worth noting and indeed emphasizing here that Mawdūdī’s case differs from those of the others named, all Egyptian and all assassinated17 or executed by the authorities. Unlike the Egyptians, Mawdūdī came to be in the situation of applying his ideas in real-​world situations, as he was involved in the political life of Pakistan after it was established, albeit the state was conceived in secular more than Islamic terms. This led him to what might be viewed as compromises on some of his hardline rhetorical positions, or to read them less than literally.18 Nonetheless, his expressed views have been regarded as notable examples of hardline positions. For both modernists and hardliners, invoking of the paradigms of early Islam has been key. Modernists uphold these paradigms in a manner stressing their adaptability and ready integration with modern culture. The point of focus is on generals, themes, guiding principles, and goals (maqāṣid) more than on specifics, details, injunctions, and rules. For al-​Afghānī and others, the Sharīʿa is flexible rather than immutable, and their discourses belie the notion that early Islam sets down a blueprint for organizing an exclusively Islamic society. Modernists capture and elaborate notions that, while not identical, can be compared to those of democracy, civil society, and equal rights. In this connection, the approach taken tends more towards the educational than the overtly or aggressively political, with an emphasis on a contextualized engagement with tradition that allows for evolution and change over time. By contrast, hardline revivalism tends more towards the political and, at least at the rhetorical level, envisions applying the fixed and immutable more than adapting the old or integrating the new. Differing modernist and hardline orientations towards early Islam may be seen in their views on state, Sharīʿa, and certain key notions. Hardline discourse sees an Islamic state as having existed since the time of Muḥammad and the first Rāshidūn or rightly guided caliphs, Abū Bakr (d. 634) and ʿUmar (d. 644).This is referred to as an Islamic dawla, a term meaning dynasty but having evolved to also mean state.19 Under this conception of statehood sovereignty is God’s and God’s alone. Mawdūdī and then following him Quṭb and others term this sovereignty the “ḥākimiyya.”20 It is a non-​Qurʾānic term, deriving from the root Ḥ-​K-​M –​ originally meaning adjudicating and subsequently ruling –​whose derivatives occur scores of times in the sacred text. Hence the discourses of Mawdūdian and Quṭbian hardliners eliminate or limit human 250

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authority. Further, these tend to reject the urge to find potential equivalences between Islamic and Western concepts. Thus, the Qurʾān-​based concept of consultation or shūrā21 –​the ruler, to rule legitimately, should consult with the people or their representatives on the conduct of affairs –​is seen as different to the Western notion of democracy. That authority flows only from God is sometimes buttressed by Q 4:59: “obey God and the Messenger, and those in authority (uli al-​amr) among you.” On this point Mawdūdī sees the key expression “those in authority” as referring to those who acknowledge God’s sovereignty. The law of this state is the Sharīʿa, which together with the Qurʾān and ḥadīth is depicted as valid for all times as places, and which ought to be understood and applied on a uniform basis. Thus, hardline discourse tends not to follow the path set by those who conceive of analogical reasoning (qiyās), consensus (ijmāʿ), and seeking that which upholds public welfare (maṣlaḥa) as sources of the law or new legislation. All of this has what might be regarded as an idealizing and totalizing aspect, with Islam conceived as a complete system or order (niẓām) more than as a faith. The resulting vision is based on what those who align themselves with modernism, or find in modernism more authenticity and historical awareness, regard as an uncontextualized reading of early Islam (Afsaruddin 2007: 155–​162; Mawdudi 1978: 42, cited in Afsaruddin 2007: 223 n. 28; Mawdudi 1976: 31, cited in Afsaruddin 2007: 223 n. 33).22 This sense is further seen in the hardline view of jihad and jāhiliyya, “the era of ignorance.” Where jāhiliyya had typically been understood as a term capturing the “ignorant” culture of pre-​Islamic Arabia, Mawdūdī influentially reworked the notion by applying it to the Muslim societies of his own day. In his understanding, most of his peers, and particularly their leaders, were ignorant of true Islam, and thus were untrue or impure Muslims, a theme elaborated by Quṭb and others.True Islam, then, is utterly different to most of its contemporary forms, as early Islam was utterly different to all that preceded it. The Islamic state, established through jihad, is destined to fundamentally alter the world order with Muslims predominating over those who follow other religions. Further, jihad, largely reduced to its military aspect,23 undertaken by pure Muslims, is to be directed not only against non-​Muslims, but also against impure Muslims. To those who embrace alternate readings, the hardline vision is here again supported by an uncontextualized if not simplistic reading of the first Islamic century, as seen in hardline readings of two oft-​cited Qurʾānic verses: “When the forbidden months are over, wherever you encounter the idolaters, kill them, seize them, besiege them, wait for them at every lookout post; but if they turn to repentance, make the salāt and pay the zakāt, let them go on their way, for God is most forgiving and merciful” (Q 9:5). Q 9:29 specifies that Jews and Christians must pay the jizya (head tax), adopting a posture of submission to the Muslims. Hardline readings show a tendency to apply these verses generally, rather than to restrict their import on contextual grounds to particular categories of Jews and Christians, those with whom the first Muslims may have been in conflict. Further, hardline readings have regarded such verses as abrogating the rulings of other verses that take a more pacific approach to relations with non-​Muslims, notwithstanding the difficulties involved in convincingly establishing claims about abrogating and abrogated rulings. In elaborating their vision some hardliners have also embraced what has been characterized as a “cult of martyrdom.” This collapses a multivalent concept to a near-​singular focus on its military aspect: a martyr is one who dies on the battlefield. It is dependent on the “excellences of jihad” (faḍāʾil al-​jihād) genre of ḥadīth, a genre that many authorities find contains much that is suspect. Additionally, some hardline readings resurrect a binary vision of the world as divided into the “abode of Islam” (dār al-​Islām) and the “abode of war” (dār al-​ḥarb). This is in spite of these notions being absent from most of the early period, coming into usage around the end of the 8th century and postdating most of the era of the salaf. Those critical of the hardline view here also note that by the 12th century the binary vision had little currency, and is itself 251

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an oversimplification, as along with “Islam” and “war,” classical jurists incorporated “abodes” that were at peace or in treaty relationships with Muslims (dar al-​ʿahd; dar al-​ṣulḥ) (Afsaruddin 2007:165–​167). Like hardliners, modernists draw on legacy of early Islam and the salaf, particularly the Companions. But their reading is quite different, and is often seen by scholars as more investigative and contextualized. Modernists have not had a uniform vision of an Islamic state, but have tended to emphasize that such a state is both adaptable and modern. A  revival of the traditional Caliphate is not a modernist goal.Yet there is a desire to revive the confidence and spirit of the period of the early caliphate. Integral to the modernist vision here are themes such as consultation (shūrā), consensus (ijmāʿ), allegiance (bayʿa), and the need to generally configure society and governance in a manner fitting contemporary circumstances.24 The need for consultation is particularly stressed.25 Al-​Afghānī sees the failure to adhere to the commandment on consultation as a principal cause of the backwardness of Muslim cultures and the despotism afflicting Muslim political life. For ʿAbduh the principle of consultation limits the ruler’s authority, and shows that there is no theocracy in Islam (ʿAbduh 1966, cited in Kurzman 2002: 55; Kerr 1966: 134). Riḍā makes frequent references to consultation, as in his books Christian Criticisms, Islamic Proofs (Shubuhāt al-​Naṣārā wa-​ḥujaj al-​Islām) and The Caliphate (al-​Khilāfa). He avers that because under Islam a leader who rightfully has that role –​that is, one who rules through consent, not through sheer force or tyranny (taghallub) –​is required to consult: the Muslims’ Imam “is no autocrat” (Riḍā 1923: 68). The centrality of consultation is sometimes supported by elaborations on two Qurʾānic verses –​“Consult with them about matters, then, when you have decided on a course of action, put your trust in God (Q 3:159)”; “they conduct their affairs by consulting one another” (Q 42:38) (see, e.g., Riḍā 1923: 38) –​ and reference to the actions of the first Muslims, including Muḥammad, Abū Bakr, and ʿUmar. Where these actions might appear to run counter to the principle of consultation, context and contingency are stressed. For instance, on the pledge to Abū Bakr having been made without full consultation Riḍā emphasizes that this was a falta, a precipitate or ad hoc move in response to exceptional circumstance and not a precedent. Where ʿUmar convenes a council of six to determine his own successor, Riḍā again notes the specificity of the situation. What is important is the principle, not the particulars of its implementation in a given case, in this case the number of counselors (Riḍā 1923:  12–​13). Here, then, modernists translate the guidelines discerned in early Islam into modern applications, as by Riḍā in taking the Rashidun’s reforms as a template, and by contemporary figures such as Ghannouchi, who find that Islamic governance should embody accountability, justice, and equity (Riḍā 1923: 9; Tamimi 2001: 94, 100; Afsaruddin 2007: 170). The modernist stress on the need for consensus in political life may be seen together with or as an elaboration of the principle of consultation.The practice of the salaf is seen as establishing the implementation of the consensus of the community or its leading representatives. To an extent and given that the selection of the rightly guided caliphs was not hereditary, it was theoretically informed by the principle of rule being informed by consensus, albeit that the historical record significantly complicates that notion. Hence, consensus serves to legitimize the political process (see also Afsaruddin 2007: 171). In his discussion of the Caliphate, Riḍā stresses time and again that authority, upon which legitimate rule rests, ultimately inheres in the community, referred to as the umma or the jamāʿa, whose consensus or will is embodied by its representatives. Such themes as consultation, public opinion (al-​raʾy al-​ʿamm), and consensus, then, are seen as illustrative of Islam’s representative or democratic character, as also by ʿAbduh and Ghannouchi respectively (Kerr 1966: 133;Tamimi 2001: 138). Further, it is felt that the choices made by the people will be reflective of the divine will: pious Muslims or their representatives 252

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will pursue the correct course of action. In this connection, although his career predates the full-​blown colonial encounter that was modernism’s main catalyst, Walī Allāh’s extension of the purview of consensus to the political realm is seen as a modernist move (Afsaruddin 2007: 171 nn. 9–​10; Safi 2014: 385). Modernists also differ from hardliners in their view of sovereignty. While upholding the notion of God’s ultimate sovereignty, they emphasize human freedom and agency in the affairs of this world, including political matters. Fazlur Rahman, for instance, argued that the Qurʾānic concept of divine sovereignty was not of a political or legal character (Afsaruddin 2007: 172 nn. 11–​12). The modernist reading of the Qurʾānic view of humans as God’s vicegerents on earth –​“I am putting a vicegerent26 on the earth” (Q 2:30)27 –​establishes human agency, as is further indicated by the rightly guided caliphs’ actions, actions that upheld the common good (maṣlaḥa) while safeguarding God’s revealed law. Here, modernists have differed from hardliners in not finding a full formula for governance in scripture. Riḍā, for instance, understands “those in authority” (ulu al-​amr) as referring to “those who loose and bind” (ahl al-​ḥall wa-​al-​ʿaqd), traditionally regarded as those qualified to represent the community by entering into and dissolving contracts and selecting and deposing caliphs. In his Qurʾān commentary, Riḍā suggests that this group may include leaders in a variety of realms –​political, legal, military, scholarly, commercial, industrial, editorial –​who bear responsibility for Muslims’ welfare (see Riḍā n.d.: 181., cited in Haddad 1989: 205–​206; Riḍā 1923: 19–​29; Afsaruddin 2007: 172–​173). These elaborations rework what is clearly understood as a flexible rather than immutable formula. Riḍā suggests that Muslims are to obey leaders insofar as they follow God and the Sunna, per the Qurʾānic verse cited above (Riḍā 1923: 27, 93), commanding obedience to God, the messenger, and those in authority (Q 4:59). Thus, Riḍā’s reading, in which different kinds of authority is dispersed to different individuals and groups, differs from more hardline views, which in some iterations tend more to the authoritarian or absolutist. Modernist discourse often highlights a distinction between ʿibādāt (worship) and muʿāmalāt (the affairs of this world), or between ʿibādāt and those muʿāmalāt having ethical import on the one hand, and those muʿāmalāt concerned with administration and convenience on the other (see Kerr 1966: 189). In either formulation, the position adopted is that while some rules set down in Islam are fixed –​those pertaining to worship and perhaps some aspects of affairs in this world –​some rules change and evolve. Here again the concern is more with the Sharīʿa’s goals (maqāṣid), such as the establishment of a society characterized by justice, equality, and mercy, than with its particular injunctions. In this conception the stress is on underlying rationales more than literal applications, resulting in an understanding of law that highlights its flexibility, and, in some cases, its checks and balances. Thus, modernists do not find that the Sharīʿa provides ready-​made answers to legal problems. Fazlur Rahman, for instance, states in plain terms that the Qurʾān is not a law book. For modernists and their sympathetic interpreters, hardliners and traditionalists often mistake fiqh, the work of human beings, for Sharīʿa, the work of God, or conflate the two notions. Here, there is a stress on ijtihād in a spirit of engagement and negotiation aimed at safeguarding the common good (maṣlaḥa). Modernists view the principles captured by such terms as maṣlaḥa and maqāṣid as clearly established under early Islam, even if they were not articulated as such (see Afsaruddin 2007: 174 n. 22, 175–​176).28 Thus, establishing what is new is permissible when it aligns with the general goals of Sharīʿa, and impermissible when it fails to align, or is otherwise excessive. This approach of adapting within limits is seen as following the practice of the salaf, some of whose unprecedented decisions were acceptable and some of which were not. It is related, for instance, that ʿUmar banned temporary marriage, an action mainly regarded favorably in Sunnī Islam.29 But he was called to account and corrected by a woman on a 253

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matter concerning the marriage gift given by the husband to the wife (mahr), leading him to comment: “A woman was correct, while ʿUmar was in error.” Riḍā relates this incident in illustration of Islam’s non-​authoritarian and consultative spirit, a spirit that modernists find Muslims in need of reviving (Riḍā 1923: 133; see also Afsaruddin 2007: 175–​176). Modernists also stress Islam’s adaptability by highlighting the distinction between its fundamentals (uṣūl) and the legal provisions (furūʿ) derived from them (Moazzam 1984: 15). The preeminent fundamental here is the Qurʾān. While modernists have not taken a uniform stance on the status of the ḥadīth, there is a clear trend towards reworking and diminishing its status.30 Modernists find that while Muslims should believe in the Qurʾān, they have full freedom to follow, rework, or replace specific provisions. Al-​Afghānī, for instance, refused to be bound by provisions set down by previous generations: just as they had on occasion dispensed with the work of their predecessors, so modern Muslims should be free to do likewise. This was so because “[t]‌he law of Islam was not dead but had a system fitted for the changing human needs of every age and so itself was susceptible of change” (cited in Moazzam 1984: 15, see also 41 n. 70). The question, then, is not whether a certain point was advanced a given jurist who one may follow, such as Qādī ʿIyād (d. 1149), but whether that point is convincing. ʿAbduh (see 1966: 73), Riḍā, and other modernists pursue similar lines, Riḍā’s writings frequently stressing a qualitative difference between fundamentals and provisions. On this point he also notes the “ease” (yusr) of Islam as one of the goals (maqāṣid) ignored or flouted by early jurists. Thus, for Muslims to feel bound by extra-​Qurʾānic juristic injunctions was an unnecessary hardship. In the Qurʾān, rather than creating hardship, God eases the way: “We shall ease you towards ease” (Q 87:8); similarly when speaking about certain things could create hardship: “God has kept silent about them” (Q 5:101) (Riḍā 1928: 12–​23, cited in Afsaruddin 2007: 176). The foregoing are only some of the issues showing the divergence between hardliners and modernists in their readings of Islam. This is also seen on other issues concerned with peace, war, and jihad besides those mentioned above, gender, where the notions of the common good and the distinction between unchanging fundamentals and changeable provisions come particularly into play (see e.g., Davary 2009), and numerous others.

Conclusion Judged in terms of the goals that modernists such as al-​Afghānī, ʿAbduh, and Riḍā set, their movement has generally been regarded as a failure. That was the verdict of Malcom Kerr, who wrote a very influential book on ʿAbduh and Riḍā in 1966, and while some of Kerr’s conclusions have been reconsidered or recontextualized by later scholars, his essential assessment holds. The goals of profound reform, renewal, and revival were unrealized, while the overriding predicament of Muslim weakness and domination at the hands of European powers remained. By around the middle of the 20th century Islamic modernism had been overshadowed by nationalist and secularist trends informing the movement for political independence, while the Islam of the Muslim masses continued largely in traditional forms, unaffected more than affected by modernist visions. Yet the Salafiyya left a rich intellectual legacy that has continued to provide inspiration for later generations of Muslims, those seen with them as embracing a modernist vision of Islam, as well as some hardliners. With the growth of the so-​called Islamic revival from the 1970s onwards and the persistence of social, intellectual, economic, and political disenchantment in much of the Muslim-majority world, some find that verdicts such as Kerr’s need to be reevaluated. 254

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Notes 1 For a wide sample of modernist views, see Charles Kurzman (2002) and Mansoor Moaddel and Kamran Tatattof (2003). Not all of the figures included in these anthologies fully fit the profile of modernism delineated in this chapter. 2 Safi also highlights Muḥammad Iqbal and Fazlur Rahman. Riḍā has been the subject of considerable scholarly attention in the West in recent years. It is interesting to note that writing in 1966 Malcolm H. Kerr deemed him a marginal and largely superseded figure, at least in terms of how he had come to be viewed by other Muslims (Kerr 1966). 3 See the bibliographic references by Roy Jackson (2006). On Wali Allah see translation by Marcia K. Hermansen (Wali Allāh al-​Dihlawī 1995). On ʿAbduh, see for instance Mark Sedgwick (2010); on Riḍā see Simon A. Wood (2008), Henri Lauziere (2016), Muḥammad Qasim Zaman (2012), and Umar Ryad (2009). 4 On modernist views on gender, including those of ʿAbduh and Riḍā, see for instance Ayesha S. Chaudhry (2013) and Asma Afsaruddin (2007: 176–​180, 190–​192). 5 On the utility of the terms fundamentalism and Islamism, see for instance Simon A. Wood and David Harrington Watt (2014), Ervand Abrahamian (1993: 13–​38), Gabriel A. Almond, R. Scott Appleby, and Emmanuel Sivan (2003), Gabriele Marranci (2009), Richard C. Martin and Abbas Barzegar (2010), Bassam Tibi (2013: 431–​449), and Simon A. Wood (2016). I find that the arguments of Abrahamian, Varisco (see Martin and Abbas 2010: 33–​50, 125–​132), Marranci, and others who have argued that these terms lack utility, and that we would be better off leaving them out of the conversation on modern Islam, have not been successfully rebutted. 6 Although secularism is not a primary focus of Afsaruddin’s book, her depictions of the other three categories align with those adopted here. 7 On the terms Wahhabism and Salafism, see for instance Khalid Y. Blankinship (2014: 150–​158). 8 On Muslim views of a discrepancy between the modernization of religion in Europe occurring simultaneously with European missionary endeavors in the Middle East and elsewhere, see for instance Riḍā (1956). 9 The last issue was published in 1941. 10 On the diversity of Salafism, see for instance Roel Meijer (2013). 11 In Arabic: taʿaṣṣub al-​madhhab, meaning being excessively or too rigidly bound to or reliant one school of law. 12 In Arabic: naṣṣ, denoting a definitive prescription in the Qurʾān or ḥadīth, or that results from the consensus (ijmāʿ) of the scholars. 13 The categories of taqlīd and ijtihād are not understood uniformly, nor are they always absolutely discrete. For instance, is investigating the credentials of someone before following their opinion an exercise in ijtihād, taqlīd, or both? (see Gesink 2009: 173). 14 Traditions derived from biblical tradition and apocalyptic traditions respectively. 15 See also al-​Afghānī (Kurzman 2002: 104). 16 The outstanding exception here is Ayatollah Khomeini. As a Shīʿī his career is beyond our scope here, but see Abrahamian (1993) and Lynda Clarke (2014). 17 Ḥasan al-​Bannā was assassinated in 1949, but the details of responsibility are not fully known. 18 In connection to this point, see Sayyid Vali Reza Nasr (1995) and Wood (2014: 133–​136). 19 Originally dawla meant “turn” or “rotation.” 20 Mawdūdī’s use of the term ḥākimiyya could be seen with the Khārijīs use of ḥukm, judgement, to refer to God’s direct judgement of human affairs (Afsaruddin 2011: 141; see also Afsaruddin 2007: 184). 21 Compare Q 42:38, which refers to the believers as those who “conduct their affairs by mutual consultation (wa-​amru-​hum shūrā bayna-​hum).” 22 That the hardline reading lacks context has been regarded as particularly evident in hardline reading of the role of women in early Islam. 23 The question of whether jihad has, historically speaking, been a multifaceted notion or has rather been primarily concerned with its military aspects is quite contentious. Some authorities have suggested that the conceiving of jihad as a multifaceted notion is an apologetic move (see Cook 2015). 24 Riḍā elaborates at length (1923; see also Afsaruddin 2007: 169, 225 n. 1). 25 Kurzman (2002) includes numerous examples of modernist discussions of consultation. 26 Arabic: khalīfa (caliph), here denoting one who succeeds to or inherits something. 27 See also Q 6:165: “It is He who made you successors on the earth (khalāʾif al-​arḍ) and raises some of you above others in rank.”

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Simon Wood 28 Afsaruddin notes that maqāṣid and maṣlaḥa hark back to figures such as al-​Ghazālī and Abū Isḥāq al-​ Shāṭibī (d. 1388) (2007: 175 n. 24–​25). 29 By contrast, Shīʿī teaching regards ʿUmar’s action as illegitimate, and upholds the validity of temporary marriage. 30 See Afsaruddin’s cogent discussion (2007: 178–​179).

Bibliography ʿAbduh, M. n.d. Risālat al-​Tawḥīd. Abū Riyya, M. ed. Cairo: Dār al-​maʿārif. ——​. 1966. The Theology of Unity. Musaʿad, I. and Gragg, K. trans. London: George Allen and Unwin.

Abou el Fadl, K. 2007. The Great Theft: Wrestling Islam from the Extremists. New York: HarperCollins. Abrahamian, E. 1993. Khomeinism: Essays on the Islamic Republic. Berkeley: University of California Press. al-​Afghānī, J.D. 1914. Radd ʿalā al-​dahriyīn. Cairo. Afsaruddin, A. 2007. The First Muslims: History and Memory. Oxford: Oneworld. ——​. 2011. Theologizing about Democracy: A Critical Appraisal of Mawdudi’s Thought. In: Afsaruddin, A. ed. Islam, the State, and Political Authority: Medieval Issues and Modern Concerns. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 131–​154. Almond, G.A., Appleby, R.S., and Sivan, E. 2003. Strong Religion: The Rise of Fundamentalisms around the World. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Blankinship, K.Y. 2014. Muslim “Fundamentalism,” Salafism, Sufism and Other Trends. In:  Wood, S.A. and Watt, D.H. eds. Fundamentalism: Perspectives on a Contested History. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 144–​162. Chaudhry, A.S. 2013. Domestic Violence and the Islamic Tradition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Clarke, L. 2014. Fundamentalism, Khomeinism, and the Islamic Republic of Iran. In: Wood, S.A. and Watt, D.H. eds. Fundamentalism: Perspectives on a Contested History. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 181–​198. Cook, D. 2015. Understanding Jihad. Berkeley: University of California Press. Davary, B. 2009. Women and the Qur’an: A Study in Islamic Hermeneutics. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press. Gesink, I.F. 2009. Islamic Reform and Conservatism:  Al-​Azhar and the Evolution of Modern Sunni Islam. New York: I.B. Tauris. Goldziher, I. and Goichon, A.M. 1960–​2007. Dahriyya. In:  Bearman, P.J., Bianquis, T., Bosworth, C.E., van Donzel, E., and Heinrichs, W.P. eds. The Encyclopaedia of Islam. 2nd ed. Leiden: E.J. Brill, II 95–​97. Haddad, M.O. 1989. Rashid Rida and the Theory of the Caliphate:  Medieval Themes and Modern Concerns. Ph.D. Dissertation, Columbia University. Hourani, A. 1983. Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 1798–​1939. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jackson, R. 2006. Fifty Key Figures in Islam. New York: Routledge. Jung, D. 2011. Orientalists, Islamists and the Global Public Sphere: A Genealogy of the Modern Essentialist Image of Islam. Sheffield: Equinox. Kamali, M.H. 2007. The Shari‘a: Law as the Way of God. In: Cornell,V.J. ed. Voices of Islam, vol. 1: Voices of Tradition. Westport, CT: Praeger, 149–​182. Kedourie, E. 1966. Afghani and Abduh: An Essay on Religious Unbelief and Political Activism in Modern Islam. London: Frank Cass. Kerr, M. 1966. Islamic Reform:  The Political and Legal Theories of Muhammad ‘Abduh and Rashid Rida. Berkeley: University of California Press. Kurzman, C. ed. 2002. Modernist Islam, 1840–​1940: A Sourcebook. New York: Oxford University Press. Lauziere, H. 2016. The Making of Salafism: Islamic Reform in the Twentieth Century. New York: Columbia University Press. Lincoln, B. 2006. Holy Terrors:  Thinking about Religion after September 11. Chicago:  University of Chicago Press. Marranci, G. 2009. Understanding Muslim Identity:  Rethinking Fundamentalism. New  York:  Palgrave Macmillan. Martin, R.C. and Barzegar, A. eds. 2010. Islamism: Contested Perspectives on Political Islam. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Mawdudi, A.A. 1976. Political Theory of Islam. Ahmad, K. trans. Lahore: Islamic Publications. ——​. 1978. Al-​Islām wa-​al-​madanīya al-​ḥadītha. Cairo: Dār al-​anṣār. Meijer, R. ed. 2013. Global Salafism: Islam’s New Religious Movement. New York: Oxford University Press.

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Modernists and their opponents Merad, A. 1960–​2007. Iṣlāḥ: The Arab World. In: Bearman, P.J., Bianquis, T., Bosworth, C.E., van Donzel, E., and Heinrichs, W.P. eds. The Encyclopaedia of Islam. 2nd ed. Leiden: E.J. Brill, IV 141–​163. Moaddel, M. and Tatattof, K. eds. 2003. Modernist and Fundamentalist Debates in Islam:  A  Reader. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Moazzam, A. 1984. Jamal Al-​Din Al-​Afghani, a Muslim Intellectual. New Delhi: Concept Publishing Company. Nasr, S.V.R. 1995. Communalism and Fundamentalism:  A  Reexamination of the Origins of Islamic Fundamentalism. Contention 4:121–​139. Reid, D.M. 1975. The Odyssey of Farah Antun. Minneapolis: Biblioteca Islamica. Riḍā, M.R. 1906. Muhawarat al-​Muslih wa-​al-​muqallid. Cairo: Matba‘at al-​Manar. ——​. 1923. al-​Khilāfa. Cairo: Maṭbaʿa al-​manār. ——​. 1928. Yusr al-​Islām wa-​uṣūl al-​tashrīʿ al-​ʿāmm fī nahy Allāh wa-​Rasūli-​hi kathra al-​suʾāl. Cairo: Maṭbaʿa al-​manār. ——​. 1934. al-​Manār wa-​al-​Azhar. Cairo: Maṭbaʿat al-​manār. ——​. 1956. Shubuhāt al-​Naṣārā wa-​ḥujaj al-​Islām. Cairo: Al-Muʿtamar al-Islāmī. ——​. n.d. Tafsir al-​manār. Beirut: Dār al-​maʿrifa. Ryad, U. 2009. Islamic Reformism and Christianity: A Critical Reading of the Works of Muhammad Rashid Rida and His Associates (1898–​1935). Leiden: Brill. Safi, O. 2014. Modernism. In:  Fitzpatrick, C. and Walker, A.H. eds. Muhammad in History, Thought, and Culture: An Encyclopedia of the Prophet of God. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-​CLIO, I 384–​389. Saruhan, M.S. 2005. Reform, or Islah. In:  Meri, J.W. ed. Medieval Islamic Civilization:  An Encyclopedia. New York: Routledge, II 675–​678. Sedgwick, M. 2010. Muhammad ‘Abduh. Oxford: Oneworld. Skovgaard-​Petersen, J. 2001. Portrait of the Intellectual as a Young Man: Rashıd Rida’s Muhawarat al-​muslih. wa al-​muqallid. Islam and Muslim–​Christian Relations 12:93–​104. Tamimi, A.S. 2001. Rachid Ghannouchi: A Democrat within Islamism. New York: Oxford University Press. Tibi, B. 2013. The Islamist Venture of the Politicization of Islam to an Ideology of Islamism: A Critique of the Dominating Narrative in Western Islamic Studies. Soundings:  An Interdisciplinary Journal 96:431–​449. Wali Allāh al-​Dihlawī. 1995. The Conclusive Argument from God: Shāh Walī Allāh’s Ḥujjat Allāh al-​Bāligha. Hermansen, M.K. trans. Leiden: Brill. Wood, Simon A. 2008. Christian Criticisms, Islamic Proofs:  Rashid Rida’s Modernist Defence of Islam. Oxford: Oneworld. ——​. 2014. The Concept of Global Fundamentalism: A Short Critique. In: Wood, S.A. and Watt, D.H. eds. Fundamentalism: Perspectives on a Contested History. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 125–​143. ——​. 2016. Capturing Islam:  Religion, Identity, and the Turn to Islamism. Journal of Religion & Society Supplement 13:90–​112. Wood, S.A. and Watt, D.H. eds. 2014. Fundamentalism: Perspectives on a Contested History. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press. Zaman, M.Q. 2012. Modern Islamic Thought in a Radical Age. New York: Cambridge University Press.

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15 THE GOLDEN AGE AND THE CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL ORDER The Muslim Brotherhood and early Islam Rachel M. Scott

Introduction Returning to a golden age is a common theme in many religious and philosophical traditions. Much of modern Muslim thought is characterized by the idea of the golden age –​with an emphasis upon the Qurʾān and the Sunna –​as the answer to Islam’s challenge with modernity. One of the underlying assumptions of such a concept is that in the post-​formative period, Islam departed from its true self. The task of contemporary Muslims, it is argued, is to resurrect this golden age and re-​enact it today. The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in 1928 as a socially activist anti-​missionary organization and, by the 1940s, had emerged as “the largest political grass-​roots movement in modern Egypt” (Lia 2006: 1).The Muslim Brotherhood is among those Islamic groups and activists who have called for a return to an original and pure Islam whereby religion and state were unified and sharīʿa law was fully applied. The organization’s view of a political order in the present and in the future is informed by a reference to the past ideal age, modeled by Muḥammad and the “Rightly Guided Caliphs” (632–​661 CE). It is often assumed that any organization that invokes a kind of golden age and advocates that Muslims should model themselves on the era of the Prophet means that it literally wishes to push back time and become medieval. Invoking a kind of golden age is often seen as unhistorical (Carr 1990), retrograde, anti-​modern, and a reactive response to trauma. Modern Western thought, while complex and multifaceted, often assumes “that history is not made unless significant change occurs” (Asad 2003: 14). The Moroccan writer Mohammed Abed al-​Jabri has criticized the “Arab mind” for being dominated by an ancestral model that makes modern Arabs “prisoners of ancient perceptions, conceptions and methodologies” and breeds motionlessness rather than motion (2011: 41, 46). However, this notion of a golden age is a broad category of thought which expresses a variety of ideas. While a particular relationship with the past is central to the thought of the Muslim Brotherhood, how the organization actually interprets the past and understands what impact the past should have on current and future political models is complex. Central to the 258

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Muslim Brotherhood’s view of the past is that it provides some kind of moral and political order that should be used as a reference point for building a new political order.Yet, the relationship that members of the organization envisage between a proposed political order and the ideal one embodied in the prophetic era varies. This chapter will discuss how three key intellectual figures of the Muslim Brotherhood have understood and used the period of early Islam. It will then discuss the organization’s political aspirations with particular reference to how the group’s reliance on the past impacts its perception of religious authority.

Intellectual origins The concept that the period of the Prophet and the four “Rightly Guided Caliphs” represents the epitome of a true Islamic society and community became an integral part of Sunnī orthodoxy from early on in its history. Sunnīs “agreed that things were better back in the early days. A widely circulated saying of the Prophet expresses things clearly enough: ‘the best people are my generation, then those who follow them, then those who follow them’ ” (Robinson 2003: 86). The period of the Prophet as embodying some kind of ideal model became a political tool of legitimacy.The Umayyads, for example, claimed “genuine religious legitimacy by making the impossible claim of replicating the model of the Prophet or at least that of the first four caliphs of Medina” (An-​Naʿim 2008: 62).This was despite the fact that those who expounded the concept had “first to forget –​or to explain away –​the fact that three of the four ideal caliphs had been assassinated” (van Ess 2001: 153). The idealization of the past and a sense of decline thus exists in varying ways –​including variations in its temporal boundaries –​within different genres in pre-​modern Islamic thought. However, according to Ronald Nettler, the “emphasis on seeking Islam’s true nature mainly in its earliest period in the Medina of Muhammad, thereby effacing [or at least marginalizing] the whole of its subsequent development … is qualitatively and quantitatively a departure from pre-​ modern mainstream Islamic thought” (2000: 51). The concept of the golden age has become particularly prevalent in modern Islamic thought as a way of providing an explanation for the colonial experience. The concept of al-​ʿaṣr al-​ dhahabī itself is not found in pre-​modern texts and is a phrase of European origin, which most likely came into Arabic in the nahda period. Although the term al-​ʿaṣr al-​dhahabī may well have been borrowed, it had a conceptual framework in which it was inserted. Reformers of the late nineteenth century tried to make sense of the rupture and dislocation caused by colonization, modernization, and industrialization. By the nineteenth century, parts of the Ottoman Empire had been controlled by the British and the French. Egypt had been occupied by Britain since 1882 and after the First World War, the Arab-​Islamic part of the former Ottoman Empire was carved up into nascent nation states under French and British tutelage. By 1920, the Ottoman Empire had thus been severed from a unified –​albeit this was more of an ideal than a reality –​Islamic empire. In the move to modernize and industrialize,Western traditions had been imported. Hodgson writes that for the Muslim world, industrialization and modernization was “harsh and drastic” (1974: 428). One of these ruptures in tradition involved the importation of Western legal codes. In the late nineteenth century, in the service of the development of the nation state, Muslim countries began to codify “traditional Islamic law in certain select areas, particularly family and personal status, but also certain areas of civil law” (Rosen 1989: 63). Andrew March argues that such codification constituted “a revolutionary transformation of the meaning and practice of the shariʿa” (2015: 838). In Egypt, the birthplace of the Muslim Brotherhood, support for codifying Islamic law was overtaken by the reformists, who equated secularization and nationalism with 259

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progress. Many saw the destruction of the caliphate as a positive development and contended that revival needed to involve emulating the West. They urged the importation of Western law. As a result, Islamic law was restricted to the sharīʿa courts, and sharīʿa courts no longer had jurisdiction over commercial and criminal cases, which were governed by Western law. Others were more circumspect about Westernization and secularization.The Islamic reformists Muḥammad ʿAbduh (1849–​1905) and Jamāl al-​Dīn al-​Afghānī (1838–​1897) rejected blind emulation of the West and laid the foundations of modern Islamic thought. When ʿAbduh died “he had inaugurated a new temper of religion and scholarship in Egypt to which … more than any other single man [he] gave … a centre of gravity and created ... a literature inspired by definite ideas of progress within an Islamic framework” (Cragg 2004: 11). Most importantly, he laid the foundations for a conceptual connection between the present and the distant, original past that bypassed the intervening period.This connection between a distant past and the present has informed much of modern Islamic thought. ʿAbduh used the concept of the pristine period of Muḥammad to distinguish the pure essence of Islam as a transhistorical concept and idea from the way it had development historically. He expressed this idea in terms of an accretion of tradition that had occurred around a pure essence of Islam. Such accretions, he argued, had caused Muslims to abandon the injunctions of the Qurʾān (2002: 56). For ʿAbduh, the golden age consisted of the Prophet Muḥammad, Abū Bakr, and ʿUmar. Under those two caliphs, he writes “men understood the Book [the Qurʾān] in its meaning and allusions” and abided by it (2004: 32, 123). For ʿAbduh, it was the death of ʿUthmān in 656 CE that did “irreparable damage to the structure of the Caliphate and brutally diverted Islam and the Muslim people from their right and proper course” (2004: 33). Although he acknowledges that “Muslims were consistently motivated by the spirit of Islam through all periods,” he argues that Islam achieved more in the first century than it did during the remaining ten centuries “of sword-​propagation” (2004: 146–​148). ʿAbduh implies that this decline was partly the result of foreign influences on Islam. The ʿAbbāsids, he argued, in overthrowing the Umayyad state, relied on the collaboration of Persians, many of whom had no interest in Islam religiously. As a result, he argues, atheism and other views inimical to belief in God emerged (2004: 35). Muslims, he argued, had distorted Islam’s perfection by closing the door to ijtihād (independent analysis of Islamic law) and blindly following taqlīd (unquestioned imitation of tradition). He called for the breaking the power of taqlīd over men’s minds and eradicating its deep-​seated influence (2004: 126). ʿAbduh advocates employing reason “in conformity to His sacred law.” The Qurʾān and Sunna were to be the true guides by which men possessing intellect could deduce detailed applications (2004: 123). There were no limits, he argued, to the employment of reason “provided that the sacred law is respected” (2004: 127). Although there is clear antipathy in ʿAbduh’s thought towards an overreliance on Islamic jurisprudence, he had not called for bypassing the schools of law and the writings contained in Islamic jurisprudence entirely. In fact he praises certain jurists, particularly in the early period, for giving “due place to the delivered tradition without neglecting the proud role of reason or overlooking the intellect” (2004: 33–​34). Nevertheless, one of the implications of such an approach –​and not necessarily one advocated by ʿAbduh –​was a rejection of the cultural brilliance of Islam in the intervening centuries. Later thinkers would develop this negativity about the middle period of Islam further. For example, Rashīd Riḍā (1865–​1935) took a restrictive approach which “caused him to reject the authority of many rules the classical jurists would have accepted” (Lombardi 2006: 85). Only those points of law on which Companions of the Prophet had reached a consensus were binding. Such an approach led Riḍā to argue that Sufism was a foreign and extraneous influence on Islam that was not there during the time of the Prophet and the four Rightly Guided Caliphs. 260

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Ḥasan al-​Bannā It is in this intellectual context during the 1920s and 1930s that Ḥasan al-​Bannā, a Muslim school teacher and moral activist, campaigned for the greater prominence of Islam in the public sphere. While ʿAbduh had developed new ideas and communicated his views via a thriving press, al-​Bannā and other Muslim Brothers assembled an organization with a solid infrastructure (Krämer 2010: 36). Al-​Bannā was the first to transform the elitist Islamic rhetoric into a populist political ideology (al-​Anani 2013: 47). The organization is still defined by his legacy today. Al-​Anani argues that “the endurance of the MB can be attributed, among other factors, to its resilient and distinctive identity that had been created and maintained by al-​Banna’s thoughts, worldview, and tracts” (2013: 42). The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in 1928, four years after the abolition of the caliphate in 1924, which is when, according to Yūsuf al-​Qaradāwī, “the one umma was torn into shreds and scattered into a variety of nations” (2000: 13). The organization’s ideology was fairly rudimentary in the 1930s. It was not until the “outbreak of the Second World War [that] the Muslim Brothers had developed from a local religious benevolent society into a significant political force” (Lia 2006: 1). By this time it had a diverse membership that was representative of every group in Egyptian society (Mitchell 1993: 12). The first repression of the movement by the Egyptian state occurred in 1941. It was during the 1940s that a significant part of Ḥasan al-​Bannā’s political and religious thinking was published. Such works came to form the society’s official ideology. Al-​Bannā was concerned with imperialism in all its forms. “I was deeply pained,” he wrote, “for I saw that the social life of the beloved Egyptian nation was oscillating between its clear and precious Islam, which it had inherited, protected, lived with and taken pride in for fourteen entire centuries, and this violent Western aggression (ghazw), armed and equipped with all the deadly material weapons of money, status, outward appearance, indulgence, power and means of propaganda” (Krämer 2010: 21). By al-​Bannā’s time, the language and terminology about Islam, sharīʿa, and the past had taken on new forms (Smith 1978: 117). Muslims increasingly referred to the term islām in a reified sense, which was, W.C. Smith argues, a consequence of apologetics (1978: 115). By this time, a clear consciousness of belonging to a “secular” vs. an “Islamic” camp or discourse had developed along with “the need for a distinction between an Islamic and a non-​Islamic character of discourses and concepts” (Salvatore 2001: 135). The concept of the sharīʿa was presented as a “civilizing idea of order” that was above and beyond state law and beyond traditional religious institutions (Salvatore 2001:  130–​133). This discourse of sharīʿa distinguished the sharīʿa as a normative idea from the “functioning legal system run by jurists” and accounts for “the modern and contemporary insistence on a sharp difference between human fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) and its imperfect institutions, on the one hand, and divine and perfect shari’a on the other” (Salvatore 2001: 129). The distinction between the golden age and Islam after that period paralleled, served, and reinforced the distinction between sharīʿa and fiqh. Al-​Bannā viewed the period of the Prophet and the “Rightly Guided Caliphs” as a foil for the present. The present state of affairs forms the antithesis of this original era. He lauds the community of spirit among early Muslims, arguing that the Companions of the Prophet used to have differences of opinion, but that this did not create essential differences between them or render them divided (2006: 76). He praises the concept of brotherhood that existed among Muslims, who, he argues, were not motivated by political power. Then, caliphs and commanders were not set apart from others and every man was “allotted the same amounts in property and payment” (2006: 100). 261

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It was these attributes, he argues, that resulted in the success of Islamic imperialism (2006: 112). However, such success did not last for long since in the thirteenth century “the factors of disintegration came to insinuate themselves into the fiber of this Qurʾānic umma” and brought the centralized Islamic state to an end (2006: 31). Although this decline occurred for various reasons –​including political differences, partisanship, and love of power –​al-​Bannā also noted the transfer of authority to non-​Arabs who, he argues, had “never absorbed genuine Islam” (2006: 32–​34). These factors caused the “unity of the state [to be] rent asunder, and the knot of the Caliphate [to be] undone for the first time” (2006: 34). For al-​Bannā, the solution to this disparity between past and present was to bypass the immediate past and go back to a more distant past and rely on the Qurʾān and the Sunna. He also went as far as to say that those sources should be “our only sources.” “All that is necessary to understand Islam,” he argued, “is confined to Allah’s book, the Sunna of His Apostle, and the biographies of the early Muslim pietists.” He argues that the latter are the paradigmatic models of the teachings of the Qurʾān and the Sunna (2006: 62). In emphasizing the priority of the Qurʾān and the Sunna, he implied that the interpretation of Islamic jurists could be bypassed. Everyone’s opinion –​save that of the Prophet –​is fallible. Even the opinions and rulings of the righteous early Muslims are acceptable only if they are “in agreement with the Qurʾān and the Sunna. In case of disagreement, the book of Allah and the practice of His Apostle are more deserving of our adherence” (2006: 6). Al-​Bannā argued that there was a direct connection between the Qurʾān and the contemporary project he espoused. He proposed that the latter would be a faithful mirror for the former and in this sense he expressed what Krämer defines as an “optimistic view of human potential.” He believed that forging a new political order modeled on the old was possible (Krämer 2010: 98). He argued that: If the reader wishes to understand the mission of the Muslim Brotherhood in a sense broader than the mere word “Islamic,” let him take up his Qurʾān and rid himself of whimsy and prejudgment. Then he will get to understand what the Qurʾān is about, and will see right there the mission of the Muslim Brotherhood. (al-​Bannā 2006: 62) However, al-​Bannā was not entirely dismissive of Islamic jurisprudence of the intervening period. He has praise, for example, for the ʿulamāʾ who used to “burst in upon kings and princes, past their gates and walls, censuring them, forbidding them, rejecting their gifts, declining what the truth was before them, and bringing them the demands of the nation” (2006: 142). While Rashīd Riḍā and Sayyid Quṭb argued that only the period of Muḥammad and the Rightly Guided Caliphs constituted the golden age, al-​Bannā took a broader approach arguing, “I should mention … that before the present age of darkness in which their pride has died, the Muslims never abandoned jihād throughout history, nor did they neglect it, not even their religious scholars, Sufis, artisans, and others” (Krämer 2010: 21). The early Islamic model provided the model by which al-​Bannā modeled his idea of the ideal contemporary practice. He called upon Muslims to improve their individual morals and character and to revive Islamic practices that had been forgotten by eliminating practices alien to Islam. This included, he argued, everything from greetings, expressions of joy and sorrow, dress and household furnishings, and daily schedules (2006: 20). Al-​Bannā modeled his own daily conduct upon the conduct of the Prophet and the early Muslims. For example, he was appointed leader of this nascent organization according to the oath of allegiance (bayʾa). The 262

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bayʾa was modeled on early Muslim practice when the community had paid homage to “Rightly Guided Caliphs” (Krämer 2010: 28, 119). While al-​Bannā was concerned with replicating the period of the Prophet, he remained a committed Sufi. In Ismailiyya, he frequented several orders and lodges and had been a member of the Hasafiyya Brotherhood. This was despite the fact that Rashīd Riḍā had been strongly anti-​Sufi, equating it with foreign and extraneous influences. This was also despite the fact that by the 1940s, antipathy towards Sufism had become commonplace in the Muslim Brotherhood (Krämer 2010: 96).

Dislocation and disconnection One of the themes of the Muslim Brotherhood and modern Islamic thought in general is that of dislocation and disconnection. This theme of disconnection was central to the early writing of Muḥammad al-​Ghazālī (1906–​1996). A prolific writer, he is one of the most important Egyptian Islamist thinkers of the twentieth century. Having graduated from the college of Usūl al-​Dīn in al-​Azhar in 1941, his intellectual career as a writer and thinker began in the mid-​1940s, when he became one of the Muslim Brotherhood’s most prominent writers and contributed to its magazine, al-​Ikhwān al-​Muslimūn, focusing on issues of social justice (al-​Qaradāwī 2000).1 Al-​ Ghazali published his first book in 1947. In December 1948, the Muslim Brotherhood was dissolved and a large number of its members were detained. This was followed by the assassination of the Brotherhood’s Supreme Guide. During this period of detainment, al-​Ghazālī emerged as a popular and effective preacher, teacher, and prayer leader to Muslim Brothers who were in custody. According to Yūsuf al-​Qaradāwī, al-​Ghazālī owed much of his knowledge about Islam to al-​Bannā (2000: 16–​17, 27). In 1953, al-​Ghazālī was dismissed from his position in the constituent body of the Brotherhood, reportedly after attempting to unseat the organization’s second Supreme Guide, Ḥasan al-​Hudaybī. In 1954, the Brotherhood was suppressed, its leaders were executed or tortured, and the organization went underground. In the 1950s and 1960s, al-​Ghazālī pragmatically shifted allegiances and “took up the state’s position against organized Islamic activism” and was “faithful to the general line of Azharite support of the Nasserite state in which he held a very high position” (Abu-​Rabi’ 2004: 224). Although he distanced himself from the organization under Nasser, in the early 1970s, he resumed his association with the Muslim Brotherhood. Following this, much of his professional life took place outside the confines of al-​Azhar and for the most part he functioned as a freelance preacher and writer. Al-​Ghazālī’s work contained similar laments on the status of the Arab world. He accused Muslims of having “drowned in a strange coma of research which the first ancestors did not know and if they did know, they would not have profited from it, would not have conquered any countries, and would not have established any civilization” (2003: 10). Every effort to take the future by storm, he argues, “with the thought of the age of decline will only increase our confusion” (2003: 11).The past contains painful memories, he argued, and the present is embarrassing (2003: 10–​11). Central to al-​Ghazālī’s thought was idea that the Muslim world had been dislocated from its true self, a true self that was to be found in the period of the golden age. He complained that Egypt is a nation whose “present is cut off from its past” with which it must be reunited (2006: 8). He identified a gulf between “our ideals which we have inherited from our religion and the ugly reality” (1952: 90). For al-​Ghazālī, the process of dislocation from this golden age was not simply a product of Western imperialism. He acknowledged that imperialism deepened the wedge between religion on the one hand and the state, society, and ethics on the other (2006: 8). However, he did not see 263

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imperialism as the only factor. Although he had some praise for the ʿulamāʾ during the time of Abū Ḥanīfa (d. 767), he wrote that it is a mistake to think that Islam “in as much as it is law, was suspended only a century ago” and that “before that Islam had been sound in its creed … and in its systems which prevailed in society” (2006: 14). He argued that the criminal and civil codes in use before the adoption of Western law were “only branches of the constitution (dustūr).” It was the “loss of this constitution (dustūr) that gave the opportunity for one Muslim ruler to abolish the legislation of the Qur’an and the Sunna at the stroke of a pen, to be replaced by the rules of the French Christian infidel state” (2006: 14). For al-​Ghazālī, the solution to this departure from the original constitution was to return to the past Islamic order (2006: 61, 15). The concept of dustūr used by al-​Ghazālī was unusual.2 He seems to have used the term to describe some kind of Islamic political imperative that the middle period of Islam only approximated but was never able to entirely fulfill. He was clearly linking the Qurʾān with the concept of a constitution, implying the political imperative of the Qurʾān and the linkage between religion and politics. It can be seen as a deliberate and modern term explicitly employed to express what he saw as the political imperative of Islam.

Sayyid Quṭb Sayyid Quṭb is considered the most influential theoretician of political Islam, particularly in the Arab world but also elsewhere. Quṭb, originally a secularist, had a profound transformation during his journey to the US (1948–1950). Upon his return to Egypt, he joined the Muslim Brotherhood, at which time he stated that “I was born in 1951.” His early thought, represented in his book Social Justice in Islam, corresponds much more closely with the Muslim Brotherhood of today, which has distanced itself from the radical implications of his later ideas. However, Quṭb’s later work, produced while he was in prison under the Nasserist regime, is more politically radical and revolutionary. Like al-​Bannā, Quṭb’s relationship to and understanding of the past was central. However, while al-​Bannā saw the period of early Islam as a general model to be emulated in some way, Quṭb –​while advocating this –​also took a different approach. Quṭb used the past as a way of understanding the present. Quṭb made a rigid analogy between the time of the Prophet and today. He found solutions to today’s problems in the Qurʾān and in the difficulties that Muḥammad had encountered. In doing so, Quṭb effectively disregarded the concept of context and historical change and imploded history. One of Quṭb’s main ideas, and one that represents a significant departure from the thought of his predecessors, was the concept of al-​jāhiliyya. For Muslims, historically, it refers to the polytheistic society of pre-​Islamic Arabia. However, Quṭb made the concept of al-​jāhiliyya ahistorical. It is no longer a past time in history but rather a condition or state. This condition or state was characterized by giving the right to make judgments and issue laws (ḥākimiyya) to other than God (1982: 557). Quṭb argued that ḥākimiyya belongs only to God. One of the principal characteristics of al-​jāhiliyya was that it was a destructive and corruptive force intent on eradicating the true Islamic path (Quṭb 1982: 555). Quṭb polarized the world into dār al-​ḥarb (every system on earth) and dār al-​Islām (Quṭb and his followers). Dār al-​ḥarb was to be fought and destroyed, and a Muslim state based on the sharīʿa would be established in its place (1982: 554–​571). In his notion of al-​jāhiliyya and dār al-​ḥarb, Quṭb advocated the universalism of Islam: all other societies and systems would be taken over. For Quṭb, Islam was a complete system that was also superior to all systems in the world (1982: 561; Nettler 1991: 102–​103). This completeness was established during the early period. The main purpose and message of the Qurʾān was political and social, not just spiritual. Religion 264

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and politics were inseparable. This political and social order would liberate humanity from the yoke of secular statehood (Nettler 1996: 194). Quṭb saw any individual, group, or society that did not live according to his conception of Islam based on the sharīʿa as constituting part of al-​jāhiliyya (1982: 556). He saw all Jewish and Christian societies as jāhilī societies: he saw non-​Muslim “institutions and traditions” as poisonous, and argued that they distort human nature and curtail human freedom (n.d.: 75). Since non-​Muslim societies were part of al-​jāhiliyya, Quṭb argued that they needed to be fought. However, such jihād did not preclude tolerating individual non-​Muslims, who could be tolerated if they submitted to the political dominance of Islam. Thus, while Christian or Jewish systems could not be tolerated, individual Christians or Jews could (n.d.: 70). For Quṭb, it was not only the Western world that constituted part of al-​jāhiliyya (1982: 556). It was also those members of the Muslim world who did not live according to the sharīʿa (for him this included all Muslim states).They were part of al-​jāhiliyya because “of the authority they give to human institutions” (Shepard 2003: 527). For Quṭb, they constituted the internal enemy against which jihād must be fought. In so doing, he made a direct analogy between the forces of al-​jāhiliyya that Muḥammad had faced in the early period and the forces of the Nasserist regime. Quṭb believed that the Egyptian regime and Egyptian society had turned their backs on Islam. Quṭb’s work was interpreted in different ways, and it was over this interpretation that the Muslim Brotherhood split (Kepel 1985: 27).While some members of the Muslim Brotherhood emphasized education to achieve their aims, others, drawing on the ideas of Quṭb and his analogy between the period of the Prophet and today, proclaimed Egypt a land of disbelief and legitimized jihād against rulers of Muslim countries who abstained from applying the sharīʿa. Some groups advocated armed revolution. For example, the group al-​Jihād was responsible for the assassination of Sadat in 1981 on the basis that –​in the eyes of al-​Jihād –​his actions had rendered him an apostate. While Quṭb’s ideas allowed for the possibility of tolerating individual non-​Muslims, there is another level upon which his ideas operated, which also reflects how he used the early period of Islam as an analogy for today. Quṭb took a number of verses in the Qurʾān which refer to the Prophet’s political disputes with the People of the Book –​namely the Jews –​out of their historical and political context and applied them to a universal and continuous struggle between Jews and Muslims. One such verse is Q 2:109, “quite a number of the People of the Book wish they could turn you (people) back to infidelity after ye have believed. From selfish envy, after the Truth hath become manifest to them” (Quṭb n.d.: 113).3 The occasions of revelation for this verse state that after the battle of Uḥud, a group of Jews said to Muḥammad “Could you not see what has happened to you? If you were truly following the truth, you would not have been defeated. Revert, therefore, to our religion; it is far better for you” (al-​Wāḥidī 2008: 7). However, rather than describing particular tensions and incidents at particular historical junctures, for Quṭb verses such as this described a permanent and essential characteristic of the People of the Book. In Quṭb’s exegesis, he referred to the war that the People of the Book, “especially the Jews,” conducted against the early Muslim community, and to the permanent renewed battle between Muslim society and its “traditional enemies who are still the same and their incentives are still the same” (1982: 566). Quṭb’s criticism of the Jews was particularly vitriolic: he used Muḥammad’s struggle with the Jewish tribes of Medina to explain contemporary challenges: writing in the 1960s, the state of Israel was foremost in his mind. In addition, Quṭb extended the analogy to other historical periods. He did this through the concept of the Crusade. Quṭb referred to the “crusading spirit,” which, he argued, was also intent on Islam’s destruction. Quṭb describes the crusader spirit as being,“latent in the European mind” (Quṭb 1970: 270). The crusader spirit, he argues, “runs in the blood of occidentals. It is 265

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this that colors all their thinking, which is responsible for their imperialistic fear of the spirit of Islam and for their efforts to crush the spirit of Islam” (Quṭb 1970: 275). Thus, just as the early Islamic community struggled against the People of the Book, and then again struggled against the Crusaders, contemporary Islamic society faces the same struggle. Quṭb thus explained contemporary political concerns in terms of eternal historical truths.

The Islamic political order Since its foundation, the Muslim Brotherhood has strived to construct a new political order based on the sharīʿa. Al-​Bannā was motivated by sharīʿa discourse that emphasizes the early Islamic period as the ideal one in which sharīʿa was applied and religion and state were perfectly unified. For him, the political order of Muḥammad and the Rightly Guided Caliphs was a perfect reflection of the Qurʾān (2006: 30). Based on the model of Muḥammad, al-​Bannā argued for the political imperative of Islam and stated that “Islam is a complete system (niẓām shāmil) which deals with all areas of life. It is a state, a nation, a government and a community” (1965: 7). The Brotherhood called for “reform of the government until it is truly Islamic” (1965: 13). The concept that Islam is a system that is modeled on the early period was a modern idea (Smith 1978: 117). It is unclear what the idea of Islam as a system would mean in practice. There are a number of indications that al-​Bannā and the Muslim Brotherhood had no specific program. Thus, in some respects, it can be said that the concept of the golden age was thought of less in literal terms and more as a moral exemplar of certain themes and ideas that were to be followed. Thus the golden age constitutes more of a call for action to improve the status quo than a model to be strictly followed. Lombardi argues that: Banna and the early Brothers accepted that the Qur’an and authoritative hadiths provided the contemporary Muslim only with generally applicable principles that he would have to apply in light of contemporary circumstances, rather than specified precepts that he should apply at all times. (2006: 104–​105) There are indications that the Muslim Brotherhood’s vision of politics was a pragmatic one that responded to contemporary realities. In fact, al-​Bannā praised constitutional government, which, for him, was compatible with Islam as it held rulers accountable. He argues that “the Muslim Brotherhood consider the system of constitutional rule to be the closest to Islam of all the existing systems of governance in the world.” The Brotherhood, al-​Bannā argues, “do not consider another system equal to it” (1939: 7). In addition, although he was basically against hereditary rule, he did not oppose the ruling dynasty in Egypt and King Faruq (Krämer 2010: 114). According to al-​Anani, “it is widely accepted that al-​Banna did not endeavor to overthrow the political regime in Egypt during the 1930s and 1940s” (2013: 51–​52). Yet at the same time al-​Bannā identified certain political imperatives associated with the Islamic political mission. For example, he was against multi-​party politics. While he held that multi-​partyism might possibly be viable in certain countries, he argued that it was not suitable for Egypt, which was divided and needed unity (Krämer 2010: 114). His disapproval of multi-​party politics has often been taken as a sign of the Muslim Brotherhood’s anti-​democratic character. It has also been taken as an indication that the Muslim Brotherhood literally wishes to turn back time and eschew the trappings of modernity. However, the Muslim Brotherhood has, for many years, been involved in and supportive of multi-​party politics. The years leading up to the Egyptian Revolution of 2011 and shortly thereafter indicate its engagement with 266

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multi-​party politics. Some Muslim Brotherhood members have argued that al-​Bannā’s disapproval was due more to the nature of multi-​party politics in Egypt at the time than to any sense of applying an original Islamic order in which political parties did not exist. Yet  al-​Bannā saw the duties of Islamic government as varied and extensive:  maintaining peace and order, enforcing Islamic law, spreading education, providing military security, protecting public health, overseeing public utilities, developing the resources of the land, guarding public treasure, strengthening the morale of the people, and spreading the call of Islam (2006: 11). By the 1940s, Krämer argues, the Muslim Brotherhood’s political “demands became more specific, moving beyond the general principles of moral uplift and individual reform” (2010: 117–​ 118). The Muslim Brothers called for the reorganization of government, social welfare policies, nationalization, the establishment of public enterprises, a reform of taxation, imposition of the zakat, labor legislation, cooperatives in the countryside, modern farming methods, the introduction of an Islamic banking system (Krämer 2010: 117–​118). What is particularly interesting about the Muslim Brotherhood’s view of the political order is the parallels it drew between the era of the Prophet and the modern state (al-​Bannā 2006: 76–​77). Al-​Bannā saw the Islamic state as having a wide range of tasks “to regulate the affairs of the community, ensure social justice and exert moral control” (Krämer 2010: 113). Like Riḍā, the Brothers accepted that a state had vast discretion to interpret and apply Islamic principles so as to advance social welfare (Lombardi 2006:  104–​105). For al-​Ghazālī, the imperative to unify religion and state derives from the fact that “in Islam there are … social duties which individuals should carry out with the mediation of the state (bi-​wasāṭat al-​dawla)” like jihād, zakat, and the legal punishments. Jihād cannot be executed on an individual level; it requires mobilization, organized leadership, and “the individual must, at a certain age, submit to the state” (2006: 45). Al-​Bannā, al-​Ghazālī, and Quṭb did not question whether the modern state was the appropriate venue for the application of a true Islamic order. The Muslim Brotherhood has not sought to radically alter the system but has sought to work within that and has accepted many of the modern state structures. This was clearly in evidence during Muḥammad Mursī’s brief tenure as president in Egypt (June 2012–​July 2013), during which time he worked within existing state structures and did not seek to dismantle them.

Religious authority The Muslim Brotherhood’s idea about what would constitute this ideal political order and what it would look like has of course varied during the organization’s history. In recent years, the Muslim Brotherhood moderated on a number of subjects. For example, Bruce Rutherford argued that the Muslim Brotherhood moderated on the question of the Copts and the moral role of the state. However, it did not moderate over women’s rights.This was because, Rutherford argued, “it needed to articulate an identity that had strong emotive and psychological appeal among its supporters,” and “the noble cause that the MB placed at the center of its identity was the defense of ‘traditional Egyptian values’ against encroachment by the West” (2013: 265). Although the ideological positions of the organization have varied temporally, they have also varied among individual members of the organization. Carrie Wickham has illustrated that the Muslim Brotherhood is not a unitary actor and that there are “ongoing disagreements within the organization over ideology and strategy as well as the shifting power balance among its competing factions” (2013: 3). Indeed, balancing the model of Muḥammad and the early caliphs with modern institutional and contemporary realities produces certain tensions and inconsistencies. This can be seen in 267

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the organization’s thoughts on religious authority. The Muslim Brotherhood’s position on this matter illustrates the complex implications of these visions of the past. During the time of the Prophet and the four “Rightly Guided Caliphs”, the mosque/​ university of al-​Azhar did not exist (it was not founded until the end of the tenth century). Religious authority –​according to the classical Sunnī perspective –​was held by Muḥammad by virtue of his position as prophet. According to this, religious authority was then held by the four “Rightly Guided Caliphs” by virtue of the fact that they were Companions of the Prophet and remembered what he said and did. This then passed to the ʿulamāʾ on account of their learning (Crone and Hinds 2003: 1–​2). However, the development of a more formal separate religious class took some time. It was not until the latter part of the second half of the ninth century that the ʿulamāʾ wrestled power away from the caliph (Crone and Hinds 2003). Ira Lapidus has argued that in early Islam religious activity emerged independently of the authority of caliphs (who were not the source of doctrine and law) and therefore that distinct spheres of influence relating to religion and state existed (1975). Wael Hallaq argued that “Islamic law and its legal system tried –​and largely succeeded –​to keep largely (although not entirely) aloof from the circles of politics” (2003–​2004: 250). The Muslim Brotherhood’s approach to the ʿulamāʾ as a religious class with elite knowledge is complex. Although the thinkers examined here emphasize the importance of going back to the Qurʾān and the Sunna and bypassing taqlīd, implying an eschewing of the idea of a distinct religious class with a monopoly on religious authority, at the same time al-​Bannā and al-​Ghazālī emphasized the importance of the ʿulamāʾ and the Schools of Law and their approaches. While he argued that following a madhhab was not mandatory, he also argued that it was not prohibited. Al-​Bannā argued that every Muslim who reaches a certain level understanding should “investigate the works of the four great Imams of Islamic jurisprudence and see which of them attracts him most” (2006: 6). An analysis of how the modern-​day Brotherhood conceives of the question of religious authority in the contemporary Egyptian political context is illustrative of this ambiguity. Article 2 of the 1971 constitution stated that “the principles of Islamic sharīʿa are a major source of legislation.” This was amended in 1980 to “the principles of Islamic sharīʿa are the major source of legislation.” This opened the question of who should speak for Islamic sharīʿa and who and what should manage the relationship between legislation and the sharīʿa. In the years since the Constitution of 1971, it has been the Supreme Constitutional Court that has overseen the compatibility of legislation with the sharīʿa. Clark Lombardi illustrates that the Supreme Constitutional Court’s interpretation of the sharīʿa has been in line with liberal constitutionalism and the liberal rule of law. He argues that it has drawn on a range of modernist theories of Islamic law (2006: 5–​6). The question of the role of the ʿulamāʾ became a particular source of contention when the Muslim Brotherhood issued a draft party platform in 2007. This platform stated that the principal frame of reference for sharīʿa would be the consensus of a body of ʿulamāʾ. It argued that: “the legislative authority must seek the opinion of an organization of great ʿulamāʾ,” and “the basic referential authority for the sharīʿa Islāmiyya is the consensus of the Muslim jurists, which is limited to the sharīʿa’s two principle sources, the noble Qurʾān and the strong Prophetic ḥadīth” (Muslim Brotherhood 2007: 10–​11).4 In addition, the opinion of Islamic jurists concerning aspects of the Qurʾān and the Sunna upon which there is juristic consensus must be sought. Beyond areas of consensus relating to the Qurʾān and the ḥadīth, the interpretations of the ʿulamāʾ constitute human endeavors and can be rejected (Muslim Brotherhood 2007: 10–​11). 268

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The platform caused a public outcry and many Muslim Brotherhood reformists voiced their discomfort with the amount of power that the platform gave to the ʿulamāʾ. The outcry –​ which involved accusations that the Muslim Brotherhood wanted to establish an Iranian-​style clerical state –​resulted in an important shift. The Muslim Brotherhood reformers –​in a way that was not denied by the party’s conservatives –​increasingly emphasized that the role of the ʿulamāʾ should be consultative and not legislative. They increasingly emphasized a more diffuse and democratic notion of religious authority (al-​Ghazzālī 2008; Abū al-​Futūḥ 2008; ʿIṣām al-​ʿAryān 2008). After the revolution of 2011, the Muslim Brotherhood reiterated this position, and in November 2011 the Secretary General of the newly established political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Freedom and Justice Party, Muḥammad Saʿad Katātnī, stated that: [O]‌ur party is not a religious party, it is a civil party … we reject a religious country to be governed by imams who issue laws, because the parliament is the only authority entitled to issue laws within the framework of the Islamic sharīʿa. The imams should have nothing to do with resolving differences in the interpretation of the law. (Hanna 2011) The party also stated that “there are no people who can take exclusive possession of legislation for the umma and are characterized by holiness” (Freedom and Justice Party 2011). The 2011 party platform states that the state envisaged by the Freedom and Justice Party is one in which “the Supreme Constitutional Court should supervise the constitutionality of … legislation” (Freedom and Justice Party 2011). In 2012, the Muslim Brotherhood was strongly represented on the Constituent Committee that drafted what came to be the Constitution of 2012. This was because the Freedom and Justice Party gained 47 percent of the seats in the 2011–​2012 elections to the People’s Assembly. In the new constitution, an article, Article 219, was added to define the “principles” of Islamic sharīʿa as stated in Article 2 as “full evidences, rules conforming to prevailing jurisprudential principles, and sources valued by the Sunni schools of law and the community.” While the Muslim Brotherhood appears to have sat on the fence regarding this article, it was spearheaded by al-​Azhar and the Salafī parties. Article 219 connected the principles of sharīʿa to traditional Islamic jurisprudence, and therefore to al-​Azhar and was, Brown argues, “at the insistence of those who did not trust how the Supreme Constitutional Court had ruled on the subject in the past” (Brown and Dunne 2013). In addition, an entirely new article on al-​Azhar was added. Article 4 (2012) states that: Al-​Azhar is an encompassing independent Islamic institution with exclusive autonomy over its own affairs, responsible for preaching Islam, theology, and the Arabic language in Egypt and the world. The Senior Scholars’ Council is to be consulted in matters pertaining to Islamic law. The post of the sheikh of al-​Azhar is independent and cannot be dismissed.5 The method of appointing the grand sheikh from among the Senior Scholars’ Council is to be determined by law.The state shall ensure sufficient funds for al-​Azhar to achieve its objectives. All the above is subject to law regulations. Both Article 4 and Article 219 appeared to strengthen –​although in an ambiguous way –​the role of al-​Azhar in the legislative process. At the same time, Article 175 of the 2012 Constitution

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stated that “the Supreme Constitutional Court … exclusively undertakes judgments about the constitutionality of laws and statues.” Although Article 219 was not tested prior to its removal from the 2014 Constitution, Article 4 was. Article 4 served as an important reference point during a political struggle that emerged between al-​Azhar and Salafīs, the Muslim Brotherhood-​dominated Shūrā Council and Muḥammad Mursī, and the liberal and secular opposition parties. The positions taken illustrate that the Muslim Brotherhood was not attached to the idea of religious authority as vested in a particular group of scholars attached to a particular institution. In this case the position taken by the Muslim Brotherhood has both an ideological conception of being rooted in the golden age and serves to be more democratic and less conservative. The political struggle that emerged was over the issuance of sukūk or Islamic bonds. Sukūk refers to a legal instruments, documents or deeds, or financial certificates, and commonly refers to the Islamic equivalent of bonds.Whereas interest-​bearing bonds do not comply with Islamic law, sukūk do because they are based on the concept of asset monetization, which involves releasing cash from an asset. The sukūk project was spearheaded by the Freedom and Justice Party and the al-​Nūr party early in 2012 with the aim of helping the gaping budget deficit and boosting foreign currency reserves as an alternative to international loans and foreign investment. In late 2012, the financial committee of the Shūrā Council submitted a project for the sukūk to al-​Azhar entitled “qānūn al-​sukūk al-​islāmiyya al-​siyādiyya” (the law of sovereign Islamic sukūk). Al-​Azhar rejected the project in December 2012 on the grounds that “it was not compliant with the sharīʿa and endangered the state’s sovereignty” (Goudineau and Moustafa 2013). Al-​Azhar objected that the program gave foreigners the right to own sukūk and proposed only allowing Egyptian people to own them. In February 2013, a revised draft of the sukūk law was presented to the Shūrā Council in which the term Islamic had been removed. In addition, a provision for not allowing the mortgaging of state-​owned assets was included along with a provision that a sharīʿa committee would oversee its implementation. It also stipulated that foreigners have no right to possess sukūk. The Shūrā Council then refused to submit the bill to al-​Azhar. Debate erupted in the Shūrā Council between the Muslim Brotherhood and the Freedom and Justice Party on one side and al-​Nūr and al-​Azhar representatives on the other. Al-​Nūr and the representatives of al-​Azhar argued that to be compliant with the constitution, the law should be submitted to al-​Azhar. ʿIṣām al-​ʿAryān of the Freedom and Justice Party responded by saying that al-​Azhar is appreciated and respected, but that he objects to its intervention and its transgression on the institutions of the state (2013).6 Rafīq Ḥabīb, former vice-​president of the Freedom and Justice Party, argued that al-​Azhar had overstepped its role and had gone beyond the question of whether the law is compliant with the sharīʿa. He argued that Article 4 gives the Senior Scholars’ Council a consultative role in matters of Islamic sharīʿa (2013: 12, 8). The Shūrā Council refused to submit the law to al-​Azhar and approved the law in late March and then submitted it to President Mursī. Succumbing to mounting pressure from the Senior Scholars’ Council and from the media and al-​Nūr, Mursī referred the law to the council in early April. On April 11, 2013, al-​Azhar finally approved a law that would allow the country to issue sukūk but said some articles that had been passed by the Shūrā Council should be amended. On May 8, 2013, while the Egyptian President approved the law allowing the government to issue sukūk, the law was deactivated after the ouster of Mursī in July 2013. After the event, ʿAbd al-​Khāliq al-​Sharīf, head of the Daʾwa section of the Muslim Brotherhood, defended the Muslim Brotherhood’s position against mandating that the Shūrā Council consult with al-​Azhar by invoking Ḥasan al-​Bannā. He argued that the Qurʾān and the Sunna are the frame of reference for every Muslim. This is historically verifiable he 270

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argued: the Companions agreed that everything that is in accordance with the Qurʾān and the Sunna is accepted. During that time “knowledge” existed but al-​Azhar did not exist. Al-​Azhar, he argued, has respect but it does not have unquestionable authority. What is unquestionable for Muslims is the Qurʾān and the Sunna and anyone can invoke its evidence (al-​Sharīf 2013).

Conclusion References to the time of the Prophet and the four Rightly Guided Caliphs as constituting a golden age or the epitome of the true Islamic order in which religion and state are unified have dominated modern Islamic thought. This has often led to the assumption that such thinking is rigid and inflexible and that the Muslim Brotherhood seeks to apply a pre-​modern political order. While a particular relationship with the past is central to the thought of the Muslim Brotherhood, how the organization actually interprets the past and understands what impact the past should have on current and future political models is complex. Inevitably, the ideal model of the Prophet and the four Rightly Guided Caliphs is filtered through the vagaries of modern political systems and through modern demands, priorities, and sensibilities.

Notes 1 Al-​Qaradāwī also relates that the Azharites were proud to be associated with him (2000: 13–​14). 2 Bernard Lewis illustrates that Muslim constitutionalists tried to find the origins of the concept of a constitution in Islamic law and tradition. However, he illustrates that “the vocabulary of constitutional government, in Arabic, Persian, and Turkish alike, owes nothing to the technical language of the sharīʿa, but on the contrary, draws from quite different sources.”The word dustūr, he explains, is of Persian origin (Lewis 1988: 113–​114). 3 Other verses that he quoted include Q 3:100, “Oh you who believe! If ye listen to a faction among the People of the Book, they would (indeed) render you apostates after ye have believed!” (Quṭb n.d.: 113) and Q 4:144, “Oh ye who believe! Take not for friends Unbelievers rather than Believers” (Quṭb 1982: 554–​556). 4 The hayʾat kibār ʿulamāʾ al-​dīn was established in 1911 and then abolished in 1961. The organization was re-​established in 2012. 5 It is rumored that this clause provided a protection against the fear that Islamists would depose Ahmed al-​Tayyib, who is known for his non-​Islamist leanings (Serôdio and Casper 2013: 57). 6 One could take al-​ ʿAryān’s position as primarily ideologically motivated. However, the Muslim Brotherhood is distrustful of the Senior Scholars’ Council because the majority of its scholars have been picked by Ahmed al-​Tayyib. The predominance of scholars on the Council who focus on philosophy is one indication. However, a number of members are not allies of Ahmed al-​Tayyib, such as Yūsuf al-​ Qaradāwī, Muḥammad ʿImāra, and Nasr Farīd al-​Wāsil.

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Rachel M. Scott An-​Naʿim, A.A. 2008. Islam and the Secular State: Negotiating the Future of Shariʿa. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Asad, T. 2003. Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity. Stanford: Stanford University Press. al-​Bannā, H. 1939. Risālat al-​nu’tamar al-​khāmis. www.ikhwanwiki.com. Accessed August 4, 2016. ——​. 1965. Majmūʿat Rasāʾil al-​Imām al-​Shahīd Ḥasan al-​Bannā. Beirut: Dār al-​Andalus. ——​. 2006. Six Tracts of Hasan al-​Bannā: A Selection from the Majmūʿat Rasāʾil al-​Imām al-​Shahīd Ḥasan al-​ Bannā. Accra, Ghana: Africa for Publishing and Distribution. Brown, N.J. and Dunne, M. 2013. Egypt’s Draft Constitution Rewards the Military and Judiciary. Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Carr, E.H. 1990. What is History? London: Penguin Books. Cragg, K. 2004. Introduction. In: ʿAbduh, M. The Theology of Unity: Risalat al-​Tauhid. Musaʿad, I. and Cragg, K. trans. and eds. Kuala Lumpur: Islamic Book Trust, 9–​28. Crone, P. and Hinds, M. 2003. God’s Caliph: Religious Authority in the First Centuries of Islam. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. van Ess, J. 2001. Political Ideas in Early Islamic Religious Thought. British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 28(2):151–​164. Freedom and Justice Party. 2011. Party Platform 2011. http://​fjponline.com/​view.php?pid=80. Accessed August 4, 2016. al-​Ghazālī, M. 1952. al-​Islām wa-​al-​awḍāʿ al-​iqtiṣādiyya. 3rd ed. Cairo: Dār al-​kitāb al-​ʿarabī bi-​Misr. ——​. 2003. Turāthnā al-​fikrī fī mīzān al-​sharʿ wa al-​ʿaql. Cairo: Dār al-​shurūq. ——​. 2006. Min hunā naʿlam …!. 6th ed. Cairo: Nahdat Misr. al-​Ghazzālī, ʿA.Ḥ. 2008. Interviewed by: Scott, R. May 27, 2008. Goudineau, A. and Moustafa, N. April 4, 2013. Sukuk Law in State of Flux until Al-​Azhar Review. Egypt Independent. www.egyptindependent.com//​news/​sukuk-​law-​state-​flux-​until-​al-​azhar-​review. Accessed September 16, 2013. Habīb, R. 2013. Al-​Azhar wa al-​ikhwān: al-​sirāʿa al-​muftarid ʿalā al-​murjaʿiyyat. Tahawullāt al-​Dawla wa al-​mujtamaʿa baʿad al-​rabiʿa al-​ ʿarabī. http://​rafiksourial.blogspot.com/​2013/​04/​blog-​post_​28.html. Accessed August 4, 2016. Hallaq, W.B. 2003–​2004. Juristic Authority vs. State Power: The Legal Crisis of Modern Islam. Journal of Law and Religion 19(2):243–​258. Hanna, M. November 27, 2011. Mohamed Saad Katatni: ‘Not a religious party’: What does the Muslim Brotherhood want for Egypt’s future? Al-​Jazeera. www.aljazeera.com/​programmes/​talktojazeera/​ 2011/​11/​2011112694418337373.html. Accessed January 2, 2012. Hodgson, M.G.S. 1974. The Venture of Islam:  Conscience and History in a World Civilization, vol. 3:  The Gunpowder Empires and Modern Times. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ʿIṣām al-​ʿAryān. 2008. Interviewed by: Scott, R. June 10, 2008. ——​. February 10, 2013. ʿIṣām al-​ʿAryān Addressing the Majlis al-​Shura (the Shura Council). www.youtube.com/​watch?v=uV0oFoNQX5U. Accessed August 4, 2014. al-​Jabri, M.A. 2011. The Formation of Arab Reason: Text,Tradition and the Construction of Modernity in the Arab World. London: I.B. Tauris in association with Centre for Arab Unity Studies. Kepel, G. 1985. Muslim Extremism in Egypt: The Prophet and Pharaoh. Rothschild, J. trans. London: Al-​Saqi. Krämer, G. 2010. Hasan al-​Banna. Oxford: Oneworld. Lapidus, I.M. 1975. The Separation of State and Religion in the Development of Early Islamic Society. International Journal of Middle East Studies 6(4):363–​385. Lewis, B. 1988. The Political Language of Islam. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lia, B. 2006. The Society of the Muslim Brothers in Egypt: The Rise of an Islamic Mass Movement, 1928–​1942. Reading: Ithaca Press. Lombardi, C.B. 2006. State Law as Islamic Law in Modern Egypt: The Incorporation of the Sharī‛a into Egyptian Constitutional Law. Leiden: Brill. March, A.F. 2015. What Can the Islamic Past Teach Us about Secular Modernity? Political Theory 43(6):838–​849. Mitchell, R.P. 1993. The Society of the Muslim Brothers. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Muslim Brotherhood. 2007. Barnāmij al-​ḥizb. www.ikhwanwiki.com. Accessed August 4, 2016. Nettler, R.L. 1991. A Modern Islamic Confession of Faith and Conception of Religion: Sayyid Quṭb’s Introduction to the tafsīr, Fī zilal al-​Qurʾān. British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 21(1):102–​114. ——​. 1996. Guidelines for the Islamic Community:  Sayyid Qutb’s Political Interpretation of the Qurʾan. Journal of Political Ideologies 1(2):183–​196.

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The Muslim Brotherhood and early Islam ——​. 2000. Islam, Politics and Democracy:  Mohamed Talbi and Islamic Modernism. Political Quarterly 71:50–​59. al-​Qaradāwī,Y. 2000. Al-​shaykh al-​Ghazālī kamā ʿariftu-​hu rihlat nuṣf qarn. Cairo: Dār al-​shurūq. Quṭb, S. 1970. Social Justice in Islam. Hardie, J. trans. New York: Octagon Books. ——​. 1982. In the Shade of the Qurʾān (Fī Zilāl al-​Qurʾān). 6 vols. Beirut: Dār al-​Shurūq. ——​. n.d. Milestones. Delhi: Millat Book Center. Robinson, C.F. 2003. Islamic Historiography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rosen, L. 1989. The Anthropology of Justice:  Law and Culture in Islamic Society. Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press. Rutherford, B. 2013. Surviving under Rule by Law: Explaining Ideological Change in Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood during the Mubarak Era. In: Arjomand, S.A. and Brown, N.J. eds. The Rule of Law, Islam, and Constitutional Politics in Egypt and Iran. Albany:  State University of New  York Press, 249–​278. Salvatore, A. 2001. After the State: Islamic Reform and the “Implosion” of Sharī‛a. In: Salvatore, A. ed. Muslim Traditions and Modern Techniques of Power. Münster: Lit Verlag, 123–​140. Serôdio, D. and Casper, J. 2013. The Development of Egypt’s Constitution:  Analysis, Assessment, and Sorting through the Rhetoric. Hulsman, C. ed. Cairo: Arab-​West Report: The Center for Intercultural Dialogue and Translations. al-​Sharīf, ʿA.Kh. 2013. Interviewed by: Scott, R. May 29, 2013. Shepard, W.E. 2003. Sayyid Qutb’s Doctrine of Jāhiliyya. International Journal of Middle East Studies 35(4):521–​545. Smith,W.C. 1978. The Meaning and End of Religion: A Revolutionary Approach to the Great Religious Traditions. San Franciso: Harper & Row. al-​Wāḥidī, ʿA.b.A. 2008. Asbāb al-​Nuzūl. Meri, Y. ed., Guezzou, M.  trans. Amman:  Royal Aal al-​Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought. Wickham, C.R. 2013. The Muslim Brotherhood:  Evolution of an Islamist Movement. Princeton:  Princeton University Press.

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16 SALAFĪS Past to present, present to past Jeffrey T. Kenney

Introduction All Muslims look to early Islam for guidance; Salafīs do so with a passion –​some would say vengeance –​that surpasses fellow believers and earns them the reputation as the puritans of Islam. In the broadest sense, “Salafī” designates those who seek to emulate the Prophet Muḥammad and hold fast to al-​salaf al-​ṣāliḥ or the pious forefathers, shunning later scholarly tradition for its deviation from the pure message of Islam. Reformers by orientation, Salafīs seek to recover a past that has become occluded by layers of interpretation, contributed by specialists whose reasoning took them away from the plain meaning of the sacred texts of Islam:  the Qurʾān and Sunna. Their solution is to return to these sources, and to allow them to speak clearly once again, as they had for earlier generations. The generations typically identified with al-​salaf al-​ṣāliḥ include the Companions of Muḥammad, the Successors of the Companions, and the Successors of the Successors. The time frame covered by these generations is ambiguous, with some Muslim scholars suggesting a period of 610–​750 CE, from the beginning of Muḥammad’s prophecy until the end of the Umayyad period, and others pushing the dating later, often connected to the life of Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal (d. 855), the classical legal scholar whose teachings have become linked to Salafī ideas and practices.The other classical figure said to have contributed to the formation of a Salafī trend, if not “school,” is Taqī al-​Dīn b. Taymiyya (d. 1328), a follower of Ibn Ḥanbal and a strident defender of theological purity against innovation (bidʿa) and popular expressions of faith. Much confusion surrounds usage and understanding of Salaf, Salafīs, and Salafiyya because of the ambiguous nature of reform and the inherent desire among Muslims –​but common in all religious traditions –​to be associated with the original message. The challenge lies in sorting out three different layers of meaning related to Salafī: first, al-​salaf al-​ṣāliḥ of primal history, who may not, viewed critically, be distinguishable from the second layer, the shaping of a “pious forefather” ideal by classical figures like Ibn Ḥanbal and Ibn Taymiyya in an effort to oppose the perceived errors of their time; and third, the tendency of modern Muslims to identify with the Salafī legacy to instill authenticity into their calls for reform. In the latter case, this has led to figures as intellectually divergent as Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-​Wahhāb, Jamāl al-​Dīn al-​Afghānī, and Ḥasan al-​Bannā to be classified as Salafīs (Shahin 1995); beyond vague associations with Salafī reform, however, it is difficult to understand the glue that holds together the eponymous 274

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founder of Wahhabism, a key modern reformer, and the Islamist activist who established the Society of Muslim Brothers (or Muslim Brotherhood).The modern landscape has become even more complicated by the emergence of various thinkers and groups asserting a Salafī lineage, vying for the mantle of Salafī leadership, and claiming –​aggressively and sometimes violently –​ that Salafīs represent orthodox Sunnism. So, who are the real Salafīs? This chapter explores an emergent, hybrid form of religiosity that resulted from the expanding influence of Wahhabism, currents of Salafī idealism, and, in some cases, militant Islamism. This “new religious movement,” as it has been called, consists of an amorphous body of Muslims (some organized into groups, some not) who claim to follow al-​salaf al-​ṣāliḥ not simply out of respect for the past but to carve out an exclusivist hold on it and use it to create a modern, reactionary identity (Meijer 2009).1 The Salafism under analysis here is a product of several interconnected challenges that began to emerge by the second half of the 20th century in many Muslim societies and the states that govern them, especially in the Middle East: the continued dissipation of religious authority, driven in part by statist attempts to control Islam; globalization of culture and economy; entrenched authoritarian politics; lack of jobs and economic opportunities; widespread corruption and crony capitalism; limited civil society; and discontent with the unfulfilled promises of post-colonial leaders. Salafism does not so much provide answers to these challenges as it takes advantage of the thwarted hopes and dreams that form in their wake. It is very much a modern construction, an attempt at myth-​ making in a demythologized age.This myth offers certainty in a world seemingly filled with the opposite, certainty specifically about correct Islamic creed (ʿaqīda), methodology (manhaj), and form of worship (ʿibāda) but extending to all aspects of life. In a very real sense, the coalescence of Salafism as a unique form of religiosity emerged at a time when the promises of other ideologies (like nationalism, Arabism, and Islamism) and development schemes (like capitalism and socialism) had run their course, when modernity itself seems to have failed. Thus Salafism is truly a modern and at the same time highly conservative phenomenon, which explains why Olivier Roy prefers to label it “neofundamentalism” (2004: 232–​234). It may evoke the past in naïve ways, but it does so with the full knowledge of modernity’s perceived shortcomings in the mind of many Muslims. Indeed, a sure sign of Salafism’s modernity is its global reach. Despite arising in the context of the Middle East, it has become a global form of Muslim religiosity. Its insistence on cleansing Islam of cultural influence, of recapturing an untainted Islamic essence, has allowed it to easily cross cultural and geographic borders that tradition might suggest are insurmountable. Opponents of this new Salafism have challenged its status as a real “school” of Islamic thought, but their very efforts to confront the movement speaks to its increasing strength and influence (Abou El Fadl 2007; al-​Buti 2010). Before elaborating on the trends within modern Salafism, it is important to explore the past that informs its various discourses. Modern Salafīs often seem to be waging the same fight against sectarian deviance that was waged by Ibn Ḥanbal and Ibn Taymiyya centuries ago, as if the theological battle lines and heterodox enemies were preserved in amber. For this reason, the sectarian past is very much alive and relevant to modern Salafī identity and to the current religious and political tensions inflaming Muslim societies.

A shared past In their writings, Ibn Ḥanbal and Ibn Taymiyya were responding to developments that had emerged as the Islamic tradition started to take shape, with the formation of various institutional expressions, patterns of theological and political interpretation, and influences from 275

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foreign cultures with which Muslims came in contact. Put differently, doctrinal differences and schisms had emerged within the community of Muslims, along with the resulting conflict and competition over legitimacy and authenticity. The appeal to al-​salaf al-​ṣāliḥ tried to resolve the situation by identifying an untainted, single strand of true Islamic belief and practice –​authentic Sunnism –​and a means of uncovering it –​prophetic tradition (sunna). This appeal was part of a broader trend that had taken hold over the course of Islam’s second century, and connected to those known as ahl al-​ḥadīth (partisans of tradition), to prioritize the tradition of the Prophet in opposition to the so-​called “living traditions” that had formed based on the personal opinion of scholars (Schacht 1950). Sunnism, under the intellectual direction of the legal theorist Muḥammad b. Idrīs al-​Shāfiʿī (d. 820), came to accept prophetic tradition, alongside the Qurʾān, as the gold standard of knowledge regarding matters of faith and law, but differences continued to divide mainstream Muslims over the role of reason and expressions of piety (Sufism and saint worship). The Ashʿarī school of theology, which emerged as the orthodox strand, succeeded by incorporating a number of interpretive and expressive trends that took root in the early period. By contrast, the Salafī purity of Ibn Ḥanbal and Ibn Taymiyya maintained that certitude of faith could be found only in the early model of the Prophet, and rejected later intellectual forms and pious expressions as deviant. For this reason, even Ashʿarīs have drawn the ire of Salafīs for compromising the true faith. The list of sectarian groups is long, some seventy-​three according to a famous ḥadīth attributed to Muḥammad: “Those who came before you of the people of the Book split into seventy-​ two sects, and this Ummah will split into seventy-​three sects, seventy-​two of which will be in the Fire, and one in Paradise” (Abu Dāwūd 2008: 155–​156 #4597). Lines of conflict formed around a theological-​political axis, with some sects being cast as more problematic, more threatening than others to Sunnī power and authority. For Salafīs certain early sectarian groups proved most deserving of attention, in part because every generation of Muslims seems condemned to struggle against their errors. 1 Jahmites: theological trend based on the teachings of Jahm b.  Ṣafwān (d. 746), who argued against speaking of God in terms of qualities or characteristics common to created things, either human or non-​human. Jahm and his followers were reacting to the anthropomorphic references to God in the Qurʾān, to the notion of God’s head, hand, or sitting on a throne. In contrast to what became more literalist orthodox teaching, Jahmites attached allegorical interpretations to God’s attributes, for example, God’s hand is his power or his sitting on a throne reflects his majesty. 2 Qadarites: faction that challenged the extent of God’s power (qadar) to determine events and insisted on an individual’s capacity to author acts and take responsibility for sin, a debating point related to the age-​old monotheistic question of free will and determinism. Though theological in origin, the question of human agency and responsibility emerged in a context of political ferment and raised the specter of otherwise subservient individuals threatening caliphal authority. One of the early articulators of Qadarite thought, Ḥasan al-​Baṣrī (d. 728), was a critic of the Umayyad governors of Iraq and voiced his views in a letter to the then caliph, ʿAbd al-​Malik. In the 8th century, some Qadarites, infused with a sense of their own power and responsibility, rebelled against Umayyad leaders. 3 Muʿtazilites: calling themselves the “people of unity and justice,” they were in many ways a continuation of the theological debate about free will started by the Qadarites. Their rationalist approach to God’s power and attributes, however, went well beyond Qadarite claims, severely restricting the all-​powerful image of the divine advocated by traditionists and empowering human freedom and reasoning. According to Muʿtazilism, God’s unique 276

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oneness was threatened by the anthropomorphic attributes listed in the Qurʾān, unless they are taken as metaphoric references, not separate existents that somehow comprise the whole of divinity as became Sunnī doctrine. For this reason, they adopted the unorthodox view that the Qurʾān was created in time, not coexistent with god’s “speech” from the beginning. God’s justice, for Muʿtazilites, was a binding constraint that compelled goodness and fairness, which put limitations on divine nature: god is required to act in accord with what is right (true) and just.Thus God cannot be capricious, and, as a result, humans have the power, through their own will and actions, to determine their fate by doing good. As a sectarian trend, Muʿtazilism survives as a symbol of the dangers that ensue when Muslims rely excessively on rational thought to understand God. 4 Khārijites:  rebellious group that “went out” or “seceded,” at the Battle of Siffīn (657), from the army of the fourth caliph, ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib (d. 661), who was later murdered by a Khārijite assassin. Khārijite uprisings plagued the central Islamic lands for almost a century, and challenged the power and authority of recognized rulers. Known for their piety and harsh judgment against anyone who commits a sin, including caliphs, Khārijites turned the question of who is a good Muslim into a destructive force. Their willingness to anathematize fellow Muslims –​pronounce the takfīr –​and wage jihād against them threatened social stability and undermined effective rule; it also led to harsh crackdowns by the authorities and earned Khārijites a reputation as intolerable and irredeemable extremists. In the context of modern Muslim societies, the image of the Khārijites is sometimes evoked to anathematize Islamist militants, including Salafīs. The Khārijites, along with the Shiʿites, emerged during a historical period known as the first civil war or fitna (656–​661), which witnessed a series of religio-​political disputes that gave shape to what became Sunnism. 5 Shiʿites: those who supported ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib, the cousin and son-​in-​law of the Prophet Muḥammad, to inherit the mantle of authority after the prophet’s death. Shiʿite claims rested on several interconnected points: that Muḥammad, prior to his death, had himself designated ʿAlī as his heir apparent; the importance of authority linked to kinship with Muḥammad; and the special, divinely ordained status granted to the leader (imām) in this bloodline. Tension over rightful leadership divided the early community, and became an ongoing point of contention as Sunnite and Shiʿite theological identity and tradition solidified. Some Shiʿites, known as Rāfidites, formally rejected (rafaḍa) the first three caliphs –​Abū Bakr, ʿUmar, and ʿUthmān –​in the Sunnī line of succession.The name “Rāfidite” has become common usage among Salafīs to emphasize the threat posed by Shiʿites to Sunnī hegemony and to maintain an irreconcilable wedge between the two factions. 6 Murjiʾites:  faction that emerged in reaction to the political and theological disputes surrounding the first civil war. Instead of taking sides in these disputes, and further dividing the community, the Murjiʾites “postponed” judgment of fellow believers, leaving it for God to decide. More particularly, Murjiʾites, in contrast to the Khārijites, avoided labeling sinners as lacking faith and thus casting them beyond the pale of Islam. Indeed, they established a minimal creedal test for inclusion in the community of Muslims in order to maintain unity –​a notion that alienated more conservative thinkers, even as it informed mainstream Sunnism. For Ibn Ḥanbal and Ibn Taymiyya, deviance extended beyond the usual sectarian suspects to include popular practices associated with the intercession of saints, visitation of tombs, and other Sufi-​related activities –​all of which, because of their late development, were regarded as innovative and thus heretical. Both figures defended the faith and paid a price for it, suffering at 277

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times public condemnation and imprisonment. It is this legacy of purity and sacrifice on behalf of the faith that drew modern Muslim thinkers to awaken and reinvent the notion of Salafism.

Wahhabism Often equated with Salafism, Wahhabism is better viewed as a precursor to and building block of the new religious movement under examination here. But the historical arc of Wahhabism provides grounds for the confusion and speaks to the bridging discourse shared by many activist Muslims bent on reforming society.The founder of Wahhabism, Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-​Wahhāb (d. 1791), set in motion a wave of revivalism that would transform the culture and politics of the Arabian Peninsula. Born into a family of Ḥanbalī scholars in the province of Najd, Ibn ʿAbd al-​Wahhāb followed a scholarly career path, moving from place to place to further the education he had begun under his father and to preach. He is reported to have left his hometown, al-​ʿUyayna, after local leaders grew concerned that his teachings about tawhīd threatened social and political stability. Whether he had already begun his critique of tomb visitation and saint worship is unclear, but his reputation for rejecting popular practices that appeared to stray from strict tradition was soon made. After spending time in Mecca, Basra, and his father’s encampment in Ḥuraymilāʾ, Ibn ʿAbd al-​Wahhāb eventually settled in al-​Dirʿiyya, which would become the base of operations for his religious instruction and the nascent Wahhābī state. He had long since adopted the title of sheikh as part of his aura of teaching authority. Ibn ʿAbd al-​Wahhāb’s preaching drew inspiration from Ḥanbalī doctrine, but it aimed to reform ideas and practices supported by some Ḥanbalī scholars at the time, including members of Ibn ʿAbd al-​Wahhāb’s own family. The key to his reformist thought was his three-​part definition of tawhīd: tawhīd al-​rubūbiyya (recognition of God’s unique lordship or divinity), tawhīd al-​ulūhiyya or tawhīd al-​ʿibāda (demand to worship God alone), and tawhīd al-​asmāʾ wa-​al-​ṣifāt (affirmation of unity God’s names and attributes).Viewed in the abstract, these notions are mere elaborations on one of the most basic theological claims in Islam –​absolute monotheism –​and were intended, as one defender of Ibn ʿAbd al-​Wahhāb put it, “to edify and build up the Muslim community” (Delong-​Bas 2004: 57). But there was nothing abstract about the way Ibn ʿAbd al-​Wahhāb utilized his purist understanding of tawhīd to critique fellow Muslims and challenge established authority. His approach to edification was to identify deviation from absolute monotheism (shirk) and root it out, and he found such deviation flourishing all around him: in requests for intercession; in the use of amulets and charms; in prioritizing material over spiritual gain; in leaving unfulfilled a sworn vow; in conferring authority on anyone or anything other than God, including the judicial rulings of past scholars (taqlīd); in the visitation of tombs and construction of ostentatious mosques (DeLong-​Bas 2004: 61–​77). And, according to Ibn ʿAbd al-​Wahhāb, a person guilty of such deviance, a mushrik, must not be considered a member of the community of Muslims: It is well known that the Messenger of God summoned men to tawhid many years before he called on them to [obey] the pillars of Islam. And it is also well known that [the message of] tawhid which was brought by Gabriel is the most important religious duty, more important than salat, zakat, saum, and hajj. How is it possible that someone who rejects one of pillars of Islam becomes an unbeliever, even if he acts in accordance with what the Messenger of God taught, whereas someone who refuses to profess tawhid, which is the religion of the messengers of God from Nuh to Muhammad, does not become an unbeliever only because he utters the formula la ilah illa llah? (quoted in Peskes and Ende 1960–​2007: XI 40) 278

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For Ibn ʿAbd al-​Wahhāb, the prevalence of deviance fit into a pattern of historical decline, one that both resonated with and recapitulated the developments outlined and condemned by Ibn Ḥanbal and Ibn Taymiyya. Or, more accurately, Ibn ʿAbd al-​Wahhāb evoked an established pattern of decline from early history to create a moral cause for action and a ready-​made role for himself as renewer of the faith (mujaddid). The pattern entailed an elaboration of dangerous innovation (bidʿa), naming those responsible for the decline –​the ʿulamāʾ –​and providing a means of restoring the true faith. These teachings, as one critic has noted, “were calculated to split the Islamic community and precipitate a struggle between Wahhabis and anti-​Wahhabis” (Crawford 2014: 71).The means he chose to achieve this end, takfīr and jihād, were drawn from the playbook of the Khārijites, a group with which Ibn ʿAbd al-​Wahhāb and Wahhābīs in general were often compared. Shiʿites were a particular focus of Ibn ʿAbd al-​Wahhāb’s criticism, and anti-​Shiʿite discourse continued to inform Wahhabism and Salafism throughout the 20th century and into the 21st. Unlike the reformers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Ibn ʿAbd al-​Wahhāb did not factor Western modernity and hegemony into his assessment of “what went wrong.” His was a Muslim-​centric vision, driven by discontent with Muslim political and religious leaders, both in the Arab world (tribal Arabia in particular) and among the Ottomans. His means of restoring the true faith took a theological and political direction. Theologically, he called for a return to the pure teachings of the Qurʾān and Sunna. Politically, he sought and eventually found a powerful patron who could help him transform his reformist preaching into socio-​ political action. Just as Ibn ʿAbd al-​Wahhāb drew on the pattern of decline established by earlier reformers, so too he utilized the ideal of al-​salaf al-​ṣāliḥ to reconnect with an authentic past that had been obscured by years of false interpretations and syncretic practices. Hence his rejection of taqlīd, imitation of juridical rulings, which he considered a form of shirk and an impediment to Muslims’ need to exercise their own interpretive muscles. He maintained that Muslims are fully capable of engaging in ijtihād or independent reasoning, as long as they interact directly with the Qurʾān and Sunna, and as long as this interaction is restricted to disputed questions. Most questions related to proper belief and practice –​and it is questions that drive learning and knowledge in Ibn ʿAbd al-​Wahhāb’s judgment –​can simply be answered through the plain meaning of the sources; Islamic tradition moved away from this uncomplicated method of dealing with questions because scholars had created a cult of their own learning around their schools of thought (madhāhib). For this reason, he avoided association with a particular school and recommended the same for all Muslims. He even came to distance himself from his Ḥanbalī roots, though he continued to follow the legal reasoning of various schools. His criticism of taqlīd and the scholarly tradition has, whether intentionally or not, given rise to one of the practical appeals of modern Salafism: Religious knowledge can be acquired easily; to become a scholar is not an impossible feat; and Muslims are endowed with agency, and indeed are duty bound, to acquire this knowledge for themselves through a personal effort. Acquisition of religious knowledge is a personally empowering and salvific process for every legally competent Muslim. (Haykel 2009: 45) The knowledge worthy of Muslim attention, of course, was the Qurʾān and Sunna, with particular emphasis on the study of hadith. The ahl al-​ḥadīth tradition was revived in the (pre-​) modern period in India and Arabia, part of a pattern of reformist thought that rejected taqlīd in an effort to renew the basis of authority; and the Wahhābī movement came to epitomize 279

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these efforts (Brown 1999: 27). A certain style of interpretative argumentation, rooted in ḥadīth study, also informed Ibn ʿAbd al-​Wahhāb’s writings and those of modern Salafism. Since the Qurʾān and Sunna were inherently clear and addressed all aspects of life, and since human reasoning posed the potential of introducing sinful innovations, narrative exegesis was eschewed in favor of a series of quoted passages amassed to elucidate a central point. In this context, the role of a scholar was, as one observer noted, “reduced to the archeology of divine texts … to simply unearth the truth that lies somewhere in the Qurʾān and Sunna.” Moreover, by minimizing the voice of the interpreter and maximizing divine evidence, the impression conveyed is that certainty is assured: “there is no room for interpretive differences or religious pluralism” (Wiktorowicz 2006:  210). In truth, however, Salafī scholars writing in this style  –​from Ibn Taymiyya to the present day –​always work within the interpretive framework of their time, factoring in relevant concepts and concerns, both of which influence the selection of passages (Ahmed 1998: 111–​112; Wiktorowicz 2006: 214–​215). By the time Ibn ʿAbd al-​Wahhāb had settled in al-​Dirʾiyya in 1744, his purist preaching had won him both supporters and opponents among tribal leaders and scholars in the Najd region and beyond. That same year, he signed a pact of mutual support with the emir of al-​Dirʾiyya, Muḥammad b. Saud, which led to the formation of the first Wahhābī-​Saudī emirate.With muscle behind the message, Wahhabism became a force for change in the peninsula, but it would take a century and a half, and painful growth pains, before it would evolve into an effective arm of Saudī state-​building. The Wahhābī-​Saudī relationship came of age, in the early 20th century, when the Ottomans and British were impinging on the region and competing for Arab land and loyalty; the self-​interest of Wahhābī scholars and the Saudī family, Al Saud, ensured its survival. Under the leadership of Ibn Saud, Wahhābī proselytizing became an instrument of Saudī tribal expansion and consolidation, and the Ikhwān, Bedouin converts to an activist Wahhābī lifestyle, were the foot soldiers for the implementation of this proto-​nationalist policy. Known for their unpredictability and untrustworthiness, Bedouin proved a challenge to Saudī leadership and efforts to shape them into a fighting force. The creation of a body of Bedouin fired by a sense of their own Wahhābī purity and superiority, the Ikhwān, gave Ibn Saud a model community with which he could refashion the entire peninsula (Habib 1978). The Ikhwān distanced themselves from their Bedouin origins by shifting from a nomadic existence to settled life in towns; and they, following the teachings of Ibn ʿAbd al-​Wahhāb, envisioned this transformation as a reenactment of the Prophet Muḥammad’s emigration (hijra) to Islam’s safe home in Medina, away from the paganism of Mecca. Settled areas, referred to as hujar (places of emigration), became outposts of Wahhābī instruction and bases from which the Ikhwān waged jihād on recalcitrant tribes assumed to be lapsed Muslims. Conversion and expansion went hand in hand, until the mid-​1920s, when the zeal of the Ikhwān ran up against the limits of international politics. Cross-​border raids on tribes in Jordan and Iraq jeopardized Ibn Saud’s deference to Britain’s imperialist policies in the region. With an eye on Saudī future political power, Ibn Saud tried to rein in Ikhwān aggression. Tensions had already developed between Ibn Saud and the Ikhwān, along with some Wahhābī ʿulamāʾ, over the ruler’s reputed willingness to compromise on Wahhābī purity by sending his sons to study in the land of infidels (Egypt and England), failing to force Shiʿites to abide by Wahhābī teachings, permitting apostate Muslims to use Muslim pasture land, and adopting foreign innovative practice like cars, telephones, radio, and the telegraph (Habib 1978: 122). A faction of Ikhwān continued to challenge Ibn Saud’s authority and modernizing efforts, but their rebelliousness proved no match for the growing organizational strength of Saudī rule. Though committed to Wahhābī teachings, Ibn Saud adopted a practical approach to negotiating modernity: “political considerations trumped religious idealism” (Commins 2009: 103). Still, 280

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the emerging Saudī state would differ dramatically from other Arab countries in its relationship with the clerical establishment. Saudi Arabia brought religious specialists into the management of state institutions to both legitimize government policies and subsume clerical authority under government control –​a common practice in emerging Muslim-​majority nations. But control proved elusive, for the Wahhābī ʿulamāʾ remained a powerful, independent force in the kingdom, shaping popular opinion and holding the Saudī establishment accountable for its stated support of Wahhābī teachings. Once flush with the revenue brought in by the discovery of oil, the Saudī state embarked on a missionary project to spread Wahhabism to other Muslim nations and the West. By the midpoint of the 20th century, however,Wahhabism was competing with a new reform movement, Islamism, that adopted a more activist notion of Muslim politics and the role of Muslim citizens in shaping religion–​state relations.

The role of Islamism Islamism has its own patterns of evoking and drawing upon early Islam, treated in part in the previous chapter on the Muslim Brothers. Here the concern is with the way Islamism has come to influence Wahhabism and contribute to the emergence of modern Salafism(s). Addressing the interplay of Wahhabism, Islamism, and Salafism also provides another opportunity to emphasize the problem of capturing in any of these name designations the intertwined dynamics at work in modern Muslim thought and activism. Some observers would reject Salafism as an imprecise analytic category, preferring instead Islamism, which at least has clear roots in modernist thinking about the role of Islam in emerging Muslim nation states. Indeed, it would be difficult to imagine a chapter focused on Salafism, like this one, if this edited work were written in the 1970s or 1980s, even the 1990s, when Islamism seemed the driving force of reform and rebellion in the Muslim world. But by the 21st century, the momentum of historical events had ratcheted up the competition over purity, authenticity, and violence among Muslim activists; and Salafism by this point had come into its own as a conceptual force for bidding up Muslim identity politics on a global scale. As Henri Lauzière has argued, this concept is more a modern mythic creation than a reawakening of a historical faction, but its power is no less effective (2016). Islamism, unlike Wahhabism, came of age as colonial powers were losing their grip and nationalist ferment was rising in places like Egypt and Indo-​Pakistan. It offered to Muslim peoples an alternative modernity to that of the dominant secular direction of nationalism and nation state-​building adopted from the West. It was a religiously based identity politics that not only reflected Muslim sensibilities, traditions, and values –​as secular nationalism often did through cultural discourse –​but also called for the establishment of institutions –​such as Islamic law and an Islamic state  –​that would shape both personal and public life. In its pure form, Islamism rejected nationalism because it imposed artificial barriers upon and thus weakened the Muslim world. In the way they operated, however, Islamists worked within the agenda of national polities, addressing the historic concerns and needs of citizens. Again, in its pure form, Islamism rejected democracy and elections because these placed human rulership and decision-​ making above that of God. But, in fact, Islamists engaged in political debates and elections when it seemed feasible to do so. The modern history of Islamism must be seen against the backdrop of the political-​religious ideal it promoted (actually, ideology) as it negotiated the real social, political, and economic conditions of Muslim-​majority nations. And perhaps the most pressing reality has been the authoritarian nature of regimes in these nations, especially in the Middle East, and their unfriendly attitude toward any political opposition but particularly an Islamist one that laid claim to true Islam and its capacity to address the problems of modernity. The debate about the underlying militancy or moderation of Islamist organizations has evolved 281

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against this backdrop, and has influenced the emergence of various splits and countercurrents within Islamism and reformist movements in general, with Salafism part of the interpretive mix. The Society of Muslim Brothers in Egypt, founded by Ḥasan al-​Bannā in 1928, was the first large-​scale Islamist organization in the Middle East. At the peak of its strength, in the 1940s and 1950s, it was reported to have almost half a million members, and an untold number of supporters. To demonstrate its Islamic credentials and the potential of the movement, the Brotherhood established a range of social, educational, and economic services: medical clinics, food distribution centers, tutoring for students, publishing houses, and small-​scale businesses. It was, as one observer has noted, a society within society (Mitchell 1969). In Indo-​Pakistan, the journalist-​ turned-​activist Sayyid Abū al-​Aʿlā Mawdūdī became the voice of Islamist revival, founding the Jamaat-​e-​Islami (Islamic Party) to promote an ideologically infused notion of Islam and thus organize the Muslim community for political action. Mawdūdī’s thinking about Islam, like that of al-​Bannā, was shaped by modern education and perceptions of the politics of the day, not traditional Islamic knowledge. With different intellectual and institutional sensibilities, Islamists like Mawdūdī and al-​Bannā read the traditional sources differently than the clerical class. They represented a new style of religious leadership and authority that appealed to a newly minted class of urban, educated Muslims, for whom the traditional scholarly elite often seemed out of touch with modern life. For al-​Bannā, appealing to the Salafī ideal was de rigueur reformist discourse that had little connection with Wahhabism per se. He characterized the Brotherhood as “a Salafiyya message, a Sunnī way, a Sufi truth, a political organization, an athletic group, a cultural-​educational union, an economic company, and a social idea” (Mitchell 1969: 14). This eclectic mix speaks to the all-​encompassing vision that al-​Bannā had for the Brothers. It also highlights a way of enacting Salafism that differed dramatically from that of Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia, where Salafism tended to be apolitical, anti-​Sufi, and firmly under government control. Before al-​Bannā’s death in 1949, he had made contact with Saudī officials to solicit financial assistance. The exact details of the discussions and the results remain hazy, but the Brotherhood established no offices or branches in Saudi Arabia (Lia 1998: 140–​144). Politics in the region, however, would alter the relationship between the Brotherhood and the Saudī state. The Arab nationalism promoted by Nasser and the Baathists in Syria and Iraq challenged the status quo in Saudi Arabia, causing people to question the legitimacy and efficacy of the royal family and religious-​based rule. A falling-​out between Nasser and the Brotherhood provided an opportunity for Al Saud to challenge secularizing Arab leaders and assert its Islamic credentials. Starting in the mid-​1950s and continuing for decades, the Brotherhood found itself under attack in Egypt, with thousands of members imprisoned and tortured. Accused of fomenting revolution, the Brotherhood was declared an illegal organization and the movement moved underground. A similar scenario was playing itself out in Syria. The Saudī government offered refuge to Brothers seeking a safe haven from the storm at home, and it drew on the professional background of these migrants to boost its own expanding development, particularly in the area of education (International Crisis Group 2004: 2). Many of the Brothers who arrived in Saudi Arabia had developed a new outlook as a result of the violent confrontation between authoritarian Arab states and Islamists. A militant faction began to rewrite the playbook of Islamist activism, downplaying the peaceful engagement of the past and establishing jihād as the new operational paradigm aimed at overthrowing corrupt, secular governments in the Islamic world. The Saudī state would discover too late that its invitation to the Brotherhood held a hidden danger to the religion–​state relations that had evolved in the kingdom, to Wahhabism –​its own version of Salafism. A key figure in the radicalization of Islamism was Sayyid Quṭb, someone who joined the Brotherhood later in life but went on 282

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to become the intellectual driving force of the organization following the death of al-​Bannā. Quṭb had produced a number of important works before Nasser’s crackdown, but it was his prison writings, particularly his militant primer Milestones along the Way (Maʿālim fī al-​ṭarīq) and his Qurʾān commentary In the Shade of the Qurʾān (Fī ẓilāl al-​Qurʾān), that earned his reputation as the godfather of Islamist militancy. It is important to note that Quṭb’s brother, Muḥammad, a Brotherhood member in his own right, would later take up a teaching position in Saudi Arabia and influence generations of students (Wiktorowicz 2006: 222). For Quṭb, the entire world, including Muslim societies, was immersed in the sinful state of jāhiliyya, a term typically used to describe the ignorance of pagan Arab society prior to the advent of Islam. Quṭb borrowed the idea from Mawdūdī, but he expanded its meaning and used it to condemn fellow Egyptians, especially government officials, as apostates (pronounce the takfīr) and fight them until they (re-​) converted to Islam. Egyptians  –​modern Muslims everywhere, actually –​had lost contact with the true faith and began to prostrate themselves to Western idols: nationalism, capitalism, and secularism. To rectify this situation, a vanguard of true Muslims, understood to be the Brotherhood, must be prepared to bring forth the message of Islam once again and wage jihād, just as the Prophet Muḥammad had taken up the sword to cleanse paganism from Arabia in the 7th century (Quṭb 1987). The coming battle between Islam and jāhiliyya, according to Quṭb, would lead to martyrdom for many, a kind of pain and suffering that reflected his own as a victim of torture in prison and on the scaffold after he was condemned to death for fomenting an uprising against Nasser (Kepel 1985). Quṭb’s militant ideas spread rapidly throughout the Muslim world and inspired numerous groups and individuals bent on “reform” through revolutionary violence. In Egypt, the two groups most relevant to this study are the Islamic Group (al-​Gamaʿa al-​Islamiyya) and al-​Jihād, both of which would later participate in the globalization of jihād (Wright 2006: 290–​296). The Islamic Group, led by Sheikh ʿUmar ʿAbd al-​Raḥmān, carried out a series of attacks against Egyptian Christians (Copts) in 1980s in Upper Egypt, where Islamists and Salafīs managed to assume a firm grip, especially in cities like Asyuit and Minya. Confrontations with the state were common, and Sheikh ʿUmar (often referred to as the blind sheikh) was arrested and jailed several times, especially after he issued a religious edict (fatwa) permitting the assassination of Anwar Sadat. He eventually made his way to the United States, settling in New Jersey, where he preached at a local mosque until being arrested, and later imprisoned, for involvement in the 1993 plot to bomb the World Trade Center (Kepel 2002: 283–​285). The Islamic Group would go on to commit one of the bloodiest acts of Islamist militancy in Egypt’s modern history, the 1997 attack that killed some seventy people, sixty of whom were tourists, at the Temple of Hatshepsut in Luxor. Al-​Jihād competed with the Islamic Group for leadership of the “vanguard” that Quṭb thought necessary for the radical transformation of Muslim society. Its name derived from the tract that the group’s main ideologue, ʿAbd al-​Salām Farāj, wrote to outline the way forward for true Muslims: The Neglected Duty (al-​Farīda al-​ghāʾiba). All Muslims, according to Farāj, were obligated to wage jihād, but the ʿulamāʾ had shunned their responsibility to teach this requirement of the faith because they had become pawns of ruling regimes. For Farāj, retreating from society to build an isolated community of the faithful –​as an earlier Islamist group in Egypt, Excommunication and Flight (al-Takfīr wa al-​hijra), had done –​was not an option, nor was trying to work within the existing system to change it through peaceful means –​as the Muslim Brotherhood had tried to do. Instead, he argued, Muslims must remove the infidel regimes at home that hold power and that allow the colonial rule to continue; only then will an Islamic state be able to be established. In what would become shorthand code among militants, Farāj distinguished between the “near” and “far” enemy, maintaining that the near enemy of infidel 283

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rulers was far more threatening and dangerous to Islam than the far enemy in Jerusalem or the West (Jansen 1986). Both the Islamic Group and al-​Jihād, in keeping with the operational mandate of most Islamist organizations, focused their violent activities on changing the situation in Egypt, the near enemy. But the Egyptian state, like many states in the region such as Algeria, Syria, and Tunisia, proved resistant to adopting Islamist ideas or to allowing Islamists to integrate into the political system through democratic openings. Moreover, these same states, typically buttressed by the military and security forces, were too strong and well entrenched among the economic elite to overthrow with the martial capabilities available to the militants; and the Muslim masses, while often sympathetic to Islamist efforts to reform society, were put off by violence. After decades of failure, suppression, and imprisonment, militant Islamists had seemingly run out of options on their home turf, and then the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan created an opportunity to wage jihād boldly and to rescue fellow Muslims from a godless Western aggressor. And the figure whose life embodied this transition was Ayman al-​Ẓawāhirī, a medical doctor and member of al-​Jihād, who traveled to Afghanistan, in 1985, after serving a prison sentence for the plot against Sadat. It was in Afghanistan, following the retreat of Soviet forces and the defeat of the Communist Afghan government, that the global jihād against the far enemy would take shape under the leadership of al-​Qaeda’s Osama bin Laden. But before this development in Salafism can be explored, the unfinished story of Islamism in Saudi Arabia, bin Laden’s home country, must be told. The influence of Islamist ideas in Saudi Arabia led to what Wiktorowicz has called “politicized Salafism,” though one might just as easily label it politicized Wahhabism or repoliticized Wahhabism given the early roots of Wahhābī activism in the peninsula (2006: 222). It is important to remember that many of the same discursive references to militant reform found in Ibn ʿAbd al-​Wahhāb’s writings –​ jāhiliyya, takfīr, and jihād –​were replayed a century later by militant Islamists. By the time Islamists were calling for violent action, however, Wahhabism had long been tamed by the Saudī authorities. Islamists reawakened these militant ideas in the context of a world of nation states, and they directed their anger at national leaders who failed to act according to Islamic dictates, and Saudī leaders were no exception.The occupation of the Great Mosque in Mecca, in 1979, is widely regarded as early evidence of Islamist influence in the kingdom. A group of young tribesmen, led by Juhaymān al-​ʿUtaybī, a charismatic ex-​religious student with a track record of anti-​monarchist activities, took control of the mosque to highlight their complaints against Al Saud. Adopting the name Ikhwān, a throwback to the shock troops quelled by Ibn Saud in the 1920s, the rebels demanded an end to financial corruption, clerical hypocrisy, Western cultural influence, and foreign workers. And in direct contradiction to accepted Wahhābī teachings, Juhaymān and his men rejected political quietism and the need to obey the ruler no matter his moral failures, hence their decision to challenge the government on such sacred ground (Commins 2009: 163–​165). With the aid of French special forces, and a fatwa granting permission for non-​Muslims to enter the sacred precinct, the Saudī government managed to extract the Ikhwān from their hiding places in the recesses of the mosque’s substructure. Still another event created a new reason for Saudīs to question the religious sensibilities and purity of Al Saud and triggered a large-​scale popular response among an emergent group of scholars: Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990, and the subsequent decision of the Saudī state to request American troops to position themselves on the eastern border. Once again, the Saudī state sought, and received, clerical approval for the presence of foreign forces in the country. But this act “sent shock waves throughout the Salafī community and was the single most important factor in accelerating its factionalization” (Wiktorowicz 2006: 222–​ 223). One of those factions was the Islamic Awakening (al-​Ṣaḥwa al-​islāmiyya) or Ṣaḥwa, a 284

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movement of Saudī scholars bent on changing the way Saudīs understood and practiced Islam. Prominent among the Ṣaḥwa were scholars like Salmān al-​ʿAwda and Safar al-​Ḥawālī, who had been educated, in part, by members of the Brotherhood. Frustrated with the Wahhābī clerical focus on legal details and ritualistic nuances, the Ṣaḥwa called for political activism, for an activist notion of religion in society and politics, much like Islamists had done elsewhere (al-​Rasheed 2007: 70–​71).The clerical establishment, according to the Ṣaḥwa, were out of touch with modern politics and incapable of understanding the complex issues at stake, regionally and internationally; and their obscurantism had kept Saudīs removed from important conversations that were transforming other Muslim countries, on matters such as women’s rights, social justice, international relations, and political participation. The Ṣaḥwa introduced these conversations to the wider public and, in doing so, challenged the religious and political status quo, but in a new key. In Saudi Arabia, Islamist-​inspired thinking created a different dynamic than it had within other countries in the Middle East, where the concern was with opposing, if not unseating, secular regimes. Ṣaḥwa Islamists contested “the monopoly over the divine held by a government based on religion,” and this hothouse religious environment intensified the competition among all the players, leading to the factionalizaton mentioned above (Lacroix 2011: 2).This “contested religious field,” as one scholar has pointed out, produced a proliferation of variant, contending streams of Salafism (al-​Rasheed 2007: 58).

Salafisms By the 1990s, then, Wahhabism and Salafism had become more complex, competitive ways of being Muslim in Saudi Arabia, and in the rest of the world. Saudī efforts to spread Wahhābī ideas had proven successful, and led to the emergence of communities of support throughout the world. And Wahhabism’s close companion, Salafism, rode this wave of success but outpaced it, because of its more generic link with the purity of al-​salaf al-​ṣāliḥ, and because some Muslim activists began to take issue with the particular Saudī brand of religion. All Wahhābīs still thought of themselves as Salafīs, but not all Salafīs viewed Wahhabism as an equivalent designation. Salafism has bred a great deal of disagreement and difference because of its compulsive puritanism, suspicion of traditional knowledge, and every-​ believer-​ a-​ scholar orientation. Wiktorowicz has identified three main strands that, while based on developments in Saudi Arabia, map onto the world scene:  purists, politicos, and jihādīs. “All three factions share a common creed but offer different explanations of the contemporary world and its concomitant problems, and thus propose different solutions. The splits are about contextual analysis, not belief ” (2006: 208). These splits have also been reinforced by intra-​Salafī verbal attacks, actually name-​calling, that evokes the sectarian divisions from early Islamic history.

Purists Numerically greater and geographically most extensive of the three, purists are best known for their strict adherence to and enforcement of creed (tawhīd or the oneness of God), and their adoption of distinctive styles of dress and comportment. Indeed, the focus on these characteristics of Salafism has led to them becoming markers by which purists distinguish themselves from other Muslims, whom they regard as of lesser faith, and other Salafīs, whom they view as distracted from the fundamentals because of involvement with politics or jihād. And Muslims in general identify Salafīs by the teaching and sociability patterns associated with purists, even when they have difficulty defining precisely what Salafism is (Haykel 2009: 34–​35). 285

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Put differently, Salafism has become a recognizable form or expression of Islam within the wider community of Muslims due largely to purists. The current direction of purist teachings differs markedly from that of the reformers who are typically linked with modern Salafism. As mentioned previously, reformers, such as al-​ Afghānī, Muḥammad ʿAbduh, and Rashīd Riḍā, spoke out against unIslamic ideas and practices that, because of their irrational basis, prevented Muslims from advancing along the path of modernization. These same reformers, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, imagined that they were returning to the original teachings of Islam, before the faith had become tainted by foreign accretions and clerical mismanagement, both of which profoundly weakened the community of Muslims. It was this generic notion of “return to origins” that suggested a connection to the Salafī heritage and awakened the modern use of al-​salaf al-​ṣāliḥ. Over the course of the 20th century, however, Salafism developed into a more coherent, identity-​driven movement spanning a variety of nationalist contexts that gave it life. It was, in fact, the gradual emergence of national politics, and nation states, that helped give rise to a new Salafī identity. In many Muslim-​majority countries, especially in the Middle East, secular nationalists emerged as the dominant political force, and the Islamists took up the role of tolerated or semi-​tolerated opposition. This political dynamic presented an opportunity for Salafī purists to carve out an identity niche of apolitical activists who foster an “ideology” of Islam as a comprehensive way of life, a total system as it were (Lauzière 2016). The term used to capture this totalizing aspect of Islam is manhaj, by which is meant the correct path or method to follow, and its modern understanding among Salafīs was first outlined by Nāsir al-​Dīn al-​Albānī (d. 1999), an Albanian-​born scholar, educated in Syria, with a long teaching career, including many years at the University of Medina (Haykel 2009: 47). The correlate of manhaj within the modern Salafī worldview is ʿaqīda or creed (tawhīd), and both are essential for leading a proper Muslim life. Purists acknowledge that they share the same creed with politicos and jihādis, but they differ on how the creed should be interpreted and enacted in one’s way of living (manhaj). If Islam is a complete way of life or method, it would seem logical that it include politics, but al-​Albānī rejected “all affiliation and participation with any formal group, be it a political party (ḥizb) or civic association (jāmiʿiyya) and therefore to eschew, on principle, all organized forms of political life.” Such affiliation, according to al-​Albānī, created division among Muslims and led to the sin of “associating” modern creations (government, states, political parties, etc.) with God (Haykel 2009:  47). For all these reasons, a purist like al-​Albānī believed that Muslims must obey those who rule over them, skirting the dangers of political chaos, though criticism of rulers may be offered in private. The purity of purists can be measured by their earnest attempts to avoid intellectual and social contamination, from both non-​Muslims and Muslims, including deficient Salafīs. “For purists,” as Wiktorowicz has pointed out, “Christians, Jews, and the West more generally are seen as eternal enemies determined to destroy Islam by polluting it with their concepts and values” (2006: 218). Suspicion of all things Western extends to ideas that Salafīs themselves may adopt in their analysis of the modern Muslim condition. Thus a figure like the philosopher Muṣṭafā Ḥilmī, whose embrace of tradition and critique of Western values might bring him favor among Salafīs, was rejected by al-​Albānī for his sympathetic use of Western philosophy (Lauzière 2016: 222–​224). The drive to remain free of contaminating influences creates an environment of ideological policing, with Salafīs constantly on guard against possible intellectual or behavioral failings of other Salafīs. Such an environment breeds isolationism, for this is the safest way to maintain purity. True to its Salafī-​Wahhābī roots, Saudi Arabia has shaped an isolationist culture and foreign policy, though necessary interactions with the wider world make it difficult to maintain and foster internal tensions. Purist 286

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Salafīs living in the West carve out spaces –​communally and mentally –​to lead the kind of life reflective of Salafī teachings, thus avoiding the sinfulness of Western culture. Some purists claim it is impossible to live as a good Muslim, holding true to the correct manhaj, in the West (Wiktorowicz 2006: 219).

Politicos As a whole, politicos share an interest and involvement in political systems, but their political bent has been shaped by particular developments within different countries, specifically state attitudes and policies toward Islam-​based opposition groups. Put differently, Salafīs, who otherwise tend to be quietist and removed from politics, become politicized in a context that causes them to rethink what it means to be Salafī. In Saudi Arabia, as previously mentioned, this strand of Salafism arose out of the combined impact of Islamist thinking and Wahhābī disaffection with government policies. The Ṣaḥwa movement emerged in response to the Saudi government’s request, in 1990, for US military assistance to protect against possible Iraqi aggression, following the invasion of Kuwait. As American troops entered the country, figures like Safar al-​Ḥawālī and Salmān al-​ʿAwda joined a chorus of opposition voices, across a liberal-​to-​ conservative spectrum, that challenged Al Saud’s domestic and foreign policies. For politicos, when purist clerics gave religious sanction to the government’s desire to welcome US troops onto Saudi soil, they demonstrated their ignorance of world affairs and the threat of Western interventionist policies. But these insights themselves were based on a “political analysis of American intentions in the Muslim world,” not traditional Islamic knowledge (Wiktorowicz 2006: 225). Thus the critique of the politicos focused on the failure of the Saudi state to protect the country from Western secular influences, which they considered a far more imminent threat than Saddam Hussein (Commins 2009: 181–​182). Ḥawālī and ʿAwda demanded that Al Saud live up to its Wahhābī-​Salafī credentials and take seriously its responsibility to protect Islam’s two most sacred sites from Western contamination. They argued that if Al Saud had acted properly, according to the dictates of true Salafism, the politicos would not have needed to become political. Or such was the way politicos chose to frame their activism and their charge that upholding Salafism went beyond mere adherence to and enforcement of behavior purity. In Egypt and Tunisia, some Salafīs developed a political voice and an activist political agenda as a result of the Arab Spring uprisings. With the fall of the regimes and the seeming emergence of secular politics, Salafīs and Islamists found it necessary to reconsider their options for remaining relevant to the new reality on the ground, and they began to reframe their discourses accordingly. Given the longstanding political activism of Islamists, they appeared better prepared than the Salafists to take advantage of the new opening (Mneimneh 2011: 24). In the build-​ up to elections, the first democratic elections in Egypt and Tunisia, both Islamists and Salafists softened their ideological edge and attempted to broaden their appeal by addressing practical concerns of fellow citizens (Kenney 2013). And the new messaging brought success at the polls. Whether the new messaging signaled a fundamental shift in Salafist thinking was unclear, and still is, but Salafīs certainly showed signs of adapting, even if only rhetorically, and the political field became more complex as a result. The self-​organization of many Egyptian Salafists into the Al Nour political party is illustrative both of [a]‌break within Activist Salafism, as well as of a new process of convergence between some Political Salafists and orthodox elements of the Muslim Brotherhood. Al Nour accepts the electoral system, softens the entrenched Salafist 287

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rhetoric toward non-​Muslims, and pledges gradualism in pursuit of its electoral goals of “reconstructing” society along Islamic norms. (Mneimneh 2011: 34) The Nūr Party, the political face of the Salafī Call movement, did not renounce its Salafist convictions; it merely submerged them within a political system that held out the promise of future power, real power that would allow Salafists to work within the system and use it for their own gain. The Muslim Brotherhood engaged in the political process with much the same style and purpose, and came out the victor when the Freedom and Justice Party, under the leadership of Muḥammad Mursī, took office in early 2012. The Nūr Party came in second in the elections. Still, success at the polls following the Arab Spring opening did not translate into successful governance for Islamists in Egypt or Tunisia; and as Islamists struggled to maintain public confidence and remain in office, Salafists, whose fortunes seemed linked to that of Islamists, were compelled to rethink their situation once again. The dramatic turn for Islamists in Egypt came when a popular movement to remove Mursī, Tamarod (tamarrud), working in connivance with the military, provided the pretext for the overthrow of the Mursī government in July 2013. The subsequent protests by Muslim Brotherhood supporters led to a harsh crackdown, with the jailing of thousands of members and the eventual dissolution of the Brotherhood, charged with being a terrorist organization.The Nūr Party supported the suppression of its Islamist rivals and thereby ensured its continuing role on the political stage. But Egyptian Salafīs, as a bloc, were divided on the issue of lending support to the Brotherhood, because they recognized that with the attack on the Brotherhood the fate of all those publicly engaged in Islamic reform was in jeopardy. And time has proven that concern correct. The emergence of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-​Sham (ISIS), renamed the Islamic State (IS), has cast a pall on all Salafist groups and made it more difficult for them, politicos included, to operate under the increased scrutiny of both government agencies and citizens (Fahmi 2015; Olidort 2015a). The survival of politicos, particularly in the Muslim Middle East, will depend on their ability to distance themselves from Jihādī-​Salafīs, even as they reach out to non-​Salafī Muslims and maintain their commitment to the ideals of Salafist purity. Salafī distinction is difficult to retain when negotiating the rough terrain of transitional politics, and for much of the modern period, rough passage has been the experience of all political players in many Muslim-​majority nations. It remains to be seen whether politicos can survive the transition to full political engagement, whether within a democratic, authoritarian, or mixed political system. Is it possible, for example, to wear the label “Democratic Salafīs” with pride, instead of bearing up under its weight as an accusation of defection from Salafism as occurred to the Nūr Party in Egypt (Olidort 2015a)? What will happen to the Moroccan Salafīs who recently aligned themselves with pro-​regime parties, and is such an alignment feasible for either Moroccan politics or politicos in the long term (Stitou 2015)? Will the authoritarian turn after the brief success of the Arab uprisings push more Salafīs into the Jihādī-​Salafī camp, or will the ranks of purists or politico swell instead? Two closing observations about politicos: First, like Salafīs in general, not all politicos engage with politics in the same manner nor do they all share the same purist conviction. This might, of course, raise questions about whether they are in fact Salafīs, but this is one of the fundamental, and nagging, questions that inform Salafī discourse and debate. Second, the ability of Salafīs to make their way in the world of politics is not simply a matter of schooling themselves in the intricacies of modern governance, reinterpreting their identity, and readjusting their goals (Fahmi 2015). These are all no doubt important developments, but equally important is the willingness of ruling powers to tolerate opposition of any kind. It is no exaggeration to say 288

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that Salafī identity, politicos and others, is dependent on the normalization of politics.The same must be said of Islamists.

Jihādīs Jihādīs or Jihādī-​Salafīs represent the most dramatic and threatening expression of Salafism, and for good reason. They have carried out, sometimes in gruesome fashion, acts of violence and destruction in Muslim-​majority countries and beyond –​acts that undermine social and economic stability and give rise to state security measures that detract from the rights of all citizens. In short, jihadist violence terrorizes, often without discrimination between Muslim and non-​ Muslim victims, and drives societies to prioritize security and adopt restrictive national policies. The expansive nature of Jihādī-​Salafism is captured in the definition provided by Abū Muṣʿab al-​Sūrī, an al-​Qaeda-​affiliated jihadist ideologue: It comprises organizations, groups, assemblies, scholars, intellectuals, symbolic figures, and the individuals who have adopted the ideology of armed jihad against the existing regimes in the Arab-​Islamic world on the basis that these are apostate regimes ruling not by what Allah said, by legislating without Allah, and by giving their loyalty and assistance to the various infidel enemies of the Islamic Nation. The Jihadi current has also adopted the program of armed jihad against the colonialist forces which attack Muslim lands on the basis that those regimes are allies fighting Islam and Muslims. (quoted in Lia 2009: 281–​282 n. 2) As this chapter is being written, evidence of the destructive power of Jihādī-​Salafī radicalism fills the news and dominates political discourse around the world. This is not the place to explore the global “civilizational debate” that parallels this violence. Suffice it say that Jihādī-​ Salafī “terrorism” is viewed by some as a nativist response to Western attempts to maintain global economic and political hegemony in a post-​colonial world (Gray 2003; Cooley 2002). The Jihādī-​Salafī strand traces back to the end of the Afghan war, when Arab mujāhidīn, flush with victory over a militarily superior Soviet Union, sought further outlets for their newly acquired martial abilities. These fighters, according to Kepel, “became the free electrons of jihad,” some returning to their home countries to reunite with militant groups, while others stayed on in Afghanistan to link up with others committed to maintaining the momentum of jihād (2002: 219). It was from these latter ranks that the leadership of al-​Qaeda, bin Laden and al-​Ẓawāhirī, emerged, as did the foot soldiers for the global jihād. Initially, immediately after the Soviet defeat, al-​Ẓawāhirī debated whether to return to Egypt and try, once again, to topple the secular regime that had imprisoned him and subverted the Islamist challenge. But it was the decision to remain in Afghanistan, now absent an effective central government and thus a safe haven for jihadists, that reshaped the landscape of Salafism.With the formation of al-​Qaeda, and later ISIS, Jihādī-​Salafīs became an international movement that no longer focused solely on toppling corrupt regimes in Muslim countries, like militant Islamists. Instead, its aims became more expansive and, at the same time, more driven by destructive acts that seemed disconnected from transforming the political status quo (Devji 2005). Moreover, while Muslims and Muslim countries were often the target of Jihādī-​Salafī violence, the discursive metanarrative of such acts highlighted the larger conflict between Islam and the West (Egerton 2011: 8–​17). Jihādī-​Salafīs became associated with global jihād because of two interconnected circumstances: (1) the forced alienation of Islamist from the domestic politics of Muslim-​majority countries, making it impossible for them to engage and adapt to politics as usual (Devji 289

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2005:  1–​2); (2)  the psychological and organizational transformation of militant activists in Afghanistan, a failed state from which terrorism against the West could, and would, be planned. Bin Laden became the voice of a new generation of radicalized Muslims whose “political” coming of age was on a foreign battlefield, not the limited civil society of their home nations, where Islamists gained their organizational experience and found their capacity to operate highly restricted (International Crisis Group 2004: 3). His message of resistance toward the West, especially the United States, found a ready audience among both militants and the Muslim masses who felt helpless to stop Western interference in their lands, and the attacks of 9/​11 served as a rallying cry: “So, as they kill us, without a doubt we have to kill them, until we obtain a balance of terror. This is the first time, in recent years, that the balance of terror has evened out between Muslims and Americans; previously the Americans did to us as they pleased, and the victim wasn’t even allowed to complain” (Lawrence 2005: 114). The “good terrorism” that bin Laden advocated served as a policy statement on behalf of the world Muslim community, which was ill-​served by current Muslim leaders, with the hope that this community would unite and eventually “establish the righteous caliphate” (Lawrence 2005: 120–​121). Of course, bin Laden’s appeal for justice on behalf of all Muslims lacked credibility on the surface of things. He was a self-​appointed leader with a relatively small following, hiding in a rogue nation that held little actual power on the world stage. But Jihādī-​Salafī politics has come to exist in precisely this alternative political reality. At war with the modern nation state, Jihādī-​Salafī organizations like al-​Qaeda and ISIS try to create a new politics, but one based largely on a destructive millennialism and martyrdom. ISIS has clearly been more successful at establishing something that looks and acts like a state, but its survival, much like that of al-​ Qaeda, seems dependent on the inability of existing nations to serve the economic, social, and political demands of their populations. The chaos of terrorism and of failed or failing nation states provides room for Jihādī-​Salafīs to operate, but, long-term, the potential for success looks bleak, short of the collapse of the current world order, a desire that forms the backbone of Jihādī millennialism. The retreat to millennial or apocalyptic dreams, and the martyrdom that often accompanies them, may inspire some; it has informed the militant rhetoric of Quṭb, bin Laden, and ISIS (McCants 2015; Kenney 2012; Kenney 2011). The majority of Muslims, including many Salafīs, however, seek a more mundane existence.

Debating differences from within and without The three strands of Salafism have significant differences that separate them and create deep antagonisms. Put briefly, purists believe that politicos and Jihādīs have sacrificed piety for political power; politicos criticize purists for focusing only on behavior details and Jihādīs for undermining social and political stability; Jihādīs reject purists as fastidious isolationists and politicos as compromised by their engagement in a corrupt, unIslamic political system. Internal divisions within the strands make the map of Salafism even more complex, as the dispute between the two major Jihādī-​Salafī groups, al-​Qaeda and ISIS, indicates.This confusion extends to the relationship between Salafīs and Islamists, who share an intertwined history but have developed into diverse kinds of relationships depending on the context. For example, in Saudi Arabia, there may be little difference between politicos and Islamists. In Egypt, by contrast, politicos and Islamists, after enjoying fairly close ties, have parted ways.The 2013 popular uprising against the post-​Arab Spring Islamist government of Muḥammad Mursī set the stage for politicos to join the chorus of denunciations of the Muslim Brotherhood and thus carve out a place for themselves in the political field, at least for now. And Saudi Arabia, which had once promoted 290

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and given shelter to Muslim Brotherhood members, now supports the return of secular rule and the outlawing of the Islamist organization in Egypt, proving that authoritarian interests can outweigh religious affinity. Divisions among Salafīs have been reinforced by the casting of sectarian aspersions, part of a history of denigrating opponents that draws on images from the Islamic past to inflict damage on a group or individual. Salafīs have tended to attack each other rhetorically with either the label Khārijite or Murjiʾite, both of which represent unacceptable innovation of belief and behavior (Wagemakers 2011). ISIS, in the first issue of its online magazine, Dabiq, claimed that one of its martyred, founding giants, Abū Muṣʿab al-​Zarqāwī, steered a course between these two sects: “he knew that Khilafah [the caliphate] could not be established except through a jamaʿah [group] that gathered upon the Kitab and Sunnah with the understanding of the Salaf, free from the extremities of the murji‘ah and khawarij” (Dabiq 2014: 35). ISIS, then, strives to be neither too lenient with fellow Muslims like the Murjiʾites nor too harsh like the Khārijites. Indeed, for ISIS, postponing judgment (irjaʾ) is the most “dangerous” of all innovations because it allows unacceptable ideas and practices to seep into the community and undermine true faith among those fighting in the path of Allah –​something against which Salafīs have long warned (Dabiq 2015c: 39–​40). It is rare to find a modern Muslim who embraces “postponement” as a viable solution to theological and political tensions that arise within Muslim societies, for doing so means casting oneself in the position of a deviant sectarian in the minds of many, whether militant or not. But the threat of ISIS has become so great, and the politics of sectarian division so intense, that one Turkish activist-​journalist did precisely that: valorized the Murjiʾites as an “antidote to ISIS” (Akyol 2015). The charge of being a Khārijite or neo-​Khārijite has burdened militant Islamists, and Islamists in general, since the midpoint of the 20th century (Kenney 2006). It is a comparison that evokes powerful memories of the death and destruction caused by the infamous 7th-​century group, and compels modern militants so accused to explain how their violence against fellow Muslims, especially rulers, differs from that of the Khārijites or, put differently, how their violence is justified since that of the Khārijites, by virtue of the judgment of Islamic tradition, is not. Both purists and politicos have accused Jihādī-​Salafīs of being Khārijites, with al-​Qaeda and ISIS receiving special attention, from fellow Salafīs and mainstream Muslims, because of their dramatic acts of violence (al-​Yaqubi 2015; Anon. 2010). Not surprisingly, al-​Qaeda and ISIS reject the charge as unfounded, even as they engage in behavior that resonates with Khārijite characteristics: pronouncing takfīr, waging jihād, and attacking recognized rulers. Bin Laden, for example, addressed the charge of Kharijism and sought to contextualize attacks that kill fellow Muslims: We should respond to some of the regime’s [Saudis] allegations, whose repetition has upset people both day and night throughout the past two years. It has accused the mujahidin of following the path of the Kharijites, but they know that we have nothing to do with such a school of thought. Our messages and conduct attest to this …. We believe that no sin besides that of unbelief make a believer step outside his faith, even if it is a serious sin, like murder or drinking alcohol. Even if the culprit died without repenting of his sins, his fate is with God, whether He wishes to forgive him or to punish him …. We do not anathematize people in general, nor do we permit the shedding of Muslim blood. If some Muslims have been killed during the operations of the mujahidin then we pray to God to take mercy on them; this is a case of accidental manslaughter, and we beg God’s forgiveness for it and we take responsibility for it. (Lawrence 2005: 262) 291

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ISIS, by contrast, seems unconcerned about the death of fellow Muslims and, at times, embraces it, but the organization takes offense when the Khārijite label is placed upon its fighters. It wants their actions, however bloody, to be perceived as legitimate according to Islamic law; and it wants its followers and the world to know that its method is in line with the Salaf of old. In a piece in Dabiq, entitled “An Explicit Ultimatum from the Salaf to the Apostates,” ISIS argues that, like the first caliph Abū Bakr, it challenges Muslims to follow God’s guidance or suffer the consequences of takfīr and jihād (Dabiq 2015b: 17). And to show just how concerned it is with avoiding the sins of the Khārijites, ISIS claimed, in early 2015, that it took action against a Khārijite cell discovered in its territory –​a move seemed gauged more toward polishing its image than actually eliminating the scourge of Kharijism (Dabiq 2015a: 31). Debates about who is or is not a Khārijite can center on details of theology, such as what constitutes faith (imān), whether faith includes acts, and the kinds of sin that lead to unbelief (kufr). But there is a good deal of politics behind these theological debates. For example, purists who attack jihādīs may do so based on theological commitments, but they also aid political leaders intent on suppressing militants. Labeling someone or a group as Khārjite provides the state with the “religious” authority or, at least, cover to eliminate the threat of violence and rebellion (Wagemakers 2011; Kenney 2006). Moreover, by attacking jihādīs, purists and politicos try to demonstrate their non-​violent nature and submission to existing state power, thereby ensuring their ability to remain active in society. For their part, jihādīs resent the fact that fellow Salafīs (that is, purists), supposed upholders of the true faith, undermine the call to jihād and dissuade young men from joining (Lia 2009). The label Murjiʾite creates theological challenges for those so accused, but it communicates quietism to ruling regimes and is therefore no threat. Many of these same debates play out in the West, within Muslim communities whose members, especially youth, search for identity as minorities in secular nations with dominant Christian cultures. Different generations of Muslim emigrants have faced different challenges, and most have found ways to integrate their religious lives into the social fabric of North American and Europe, though not without difficulty. Salafism is a relatively new challenge, and one that impacts both Muslim communities and non-​Muslim-majority populations who often misunderstand this expression of Islam and fear its impact on social stability. Indeed, some Muslim leaders in the West share this fear, and express serious concerns about the growing presence and appeal of Salafism. Militant Salafism, which is not identical with jihādīs because of restrictions on organization, draws a good deal of public and political attention, and purist Salafīs living in the West are actively trying to counter this trend. But it is the phenomenon of Salafism itself –​what it represents, why it appeals, and how it shapes young minds –​that worries mainstream Muslims. In Europe, the activist-​scholar Tariq Ramadan has bemoaned the fact that the “rigid, literalist” approach of Salafism appeals to “young people looking for sharp clarity or going through crisis” (2010: 49). In the United States, legal scholar Khaled Abou El Fadl labels both Wahhabism and Salafism as “puritan movements,” and offers one of the most pointed and devastating indictments of their inability to offer Muslims viable options for living a Muslim life in modern times: [T]‌he consistent characteristics of puritans is a supremacist ideology that compensates for feelings of defeatism, disempowerment, and alienation with a distinct sense of self-​ righteous arrogance vis-​à-​vis the nondescript “other” –​whether that “other” is the West, nonbelievers in general, so-​called heretical Muslims, or even Muslim women. (2007: 95) 292

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Conclusion If the Islamic past is a foreign country, then the current crop of Salafīs believe they have exclusive access. They claim to follow the original community of believers whose proximity to the Prophet Muḥammad guarantees their insight into the true foundations of the Islamic tradition, into what modern Salafīs identify as the correct Islamic creed (ʿaqīda), methodology (manhaj), and form of worship (ʿibāda). It is important to recognize, however, that this claim itself emerged in history and came to symbolize a reformist ideal of unfettered access to God’s guidance and plan for humanity. As such, “Salafī” is an assertion of Muslim ascendancy and privilege that, over the years, became a trope –​something that Muslims evoke to outbid the competition and to shape a monolithic understanding of what constitutes Islam and what is Islamic. Yet Salafīs have not always been associated with exclusivism and a fundamentalist mentality. The reformist agendas of al-​Afghānī and Muḥammad ʿAbduh, two figures often considered Salafīs, were attempts to bring Muslims into dialogue with the modern world, while at the same time preserving a solid sense of Muslim identity. Theirs was a reformism that sought to engage with changings times from a position of strength, not to condemn such change and isolate Muslims from it. Their “Salafism” offered a clear-​cut identity from which to rise to the challenges facing modern Muslims. Over the course of the 20th century, however, “Salafī” transformed from a vague notion of reform into a charged ideological assertion of living a comprehensive Muslim life, with all the exclusivist baggage associated with such an assertion. Moreover, this ideological assertion came with a judgment about the Islamic past that limited the ability of Muslims to regard with favor Islam’s historical complexity and diversity, its indeterminate boundaries and rich associations. This point is nicely captured in the late Shahab Ahmed’s recent masterwork of historical analysis, in which he critiques the Salafī approach to early Islam: It represents precisely an attempt by modern Muslims to uncomplicate human and historical Islam by re-​locating Islam to a moment before Muslims had the opportunity to complicate it with their various and contradictory attempts at meaning-​making down the centuries. (Ahmed 2016: 529) Such an uncomplicated view of early Islam, and Islam in general as it was and is lived across an expanse of cultures and societies, might be seen as an attempt to reinvigorate Muslim consciousness with a sense of clear identity and purpose. But it must also be viewed as a narrowing of the parameters of what is Islam and what is Islamic, and, as such, an attempt to restrict Muslim consciousness to one thing. Thus there is a certain irony that “Salafī” itself continues to be used in a variety of disparate ways, by Muslims and non-​Muslims both in the academy and beyond. Much like “fundamentalist,” “Salafī” conjures up a range of images and ideas, depending on one’s perspective. And while a common usage may be ideal, the tide of popular and academic practices makes it impossible to control (Lauzière 2016: 240–​241). “Salafī” will remain a slippery term. This is the challenge of understanding Salafīs and their relationship with early Islam.

Note 1 The subtitle “Islam’s New Religious Movement” in Roel Meijer’s edited work proved more a generic descriptor than an attempt to treat Salafism as a case of this phenomenon (2009).

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Salafīs: past to present, present to past ——​. 2002. Jihad: The Trial of Political Islam. Roberts, A.E. trans. London: I.B. Tauris. Lacroix, S. 2011. Awakening Islam:  Religious Dissent in Contemporary Saudi Arabia. Holoch, G.  trans. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Lauzière, H. 2010. The Construction of Salafiyya:  Reconsidering Salafism from the Perspective of Conceptual History. International Journal of Middle East Studies, 42(3):369–​389. ——​. 2016. The Making of Salafism:  Islamic Reform in the Twentieth Century. New  York:  Columbia University Press. Lawrence, B. ed. 2005. Messages to the World:  The Statements of Osama bin Laden. Howarth, J.  trans. London: Verso. Lia, B. 1998. The Society of Muslim Brothers in Egypt:  The Rise of an Islamic Mass Movement 1928–​1942. Reading: Ithaca Press. ——​. 2009.“Destructive Doctrinarians”: Abu Musʿab al-​Suri’s Critique of the Salafis in the Jihadi Current. In: Meijer, R. ed. Global Salafism: Islam’s New Religious Movement. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 281–​300. Lynch, M. 2010. Islam Divided between Salafi-​jihad and the Ikhwan. Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 33(6):467–​487. McCants, W. 2015. The ISIS Apocalypse:  The History, Strategy, and Doomsday Vision of the Islamic State. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Meijer, R. ed. 2009 Global Salafism: Islam’s New Religious Movement. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Merad, A., Algar, H., Berkes, N., and Ahmad, A. 1960–​2007. Iṣlāḥ. In: Bearman, P.J., Bianquis, T., Bosworth, C.E., van Donzel, E., and Heinrichs, W.P. eds. The Encyclopaedia of Islam. 2nd ed. Leiden: E.J. Brill, IV 141–​163. Mitchell, R.P. 1969. The Society of the Muslim Brothers. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mneimneh, H. 2011. The Spring of a New Political Salafism. Current Trends in Islamist Ideology 12:21–​36. Olidort, J. 2015a, September 28. Egypt’s Elections (Part 1): Al-​Nour Goes on the Defensive. Washington, DC:  The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. www.washingtoninstitute.org/​policy-​analysis/​ view/​egypts-​elections-​part-​1-​al-​nour-​goes-​on-​the-​defensive. ——​. 2015b, September 30. Egypt’s Elections (Part 2): Salafis Use Education to Campaign. Washington, DC:  The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. www.washingtoninstitute.org/​policy-​analysis/​ view/​egypts-​elections-​part-​2-​salafis-​use-​education-​to-​campaign. Peskes, E. and Ende W. 1960–​2007.Wahhābiyya. In: Bearman, P.J., Bianquis,T., Bosworth, C.E., van Donzel, E., and Heinrichs, W.P. eds. The Encyclopaedia of Islam. 2nd ed. Leiden: E.J. Brill, XI 39–​45. Quṭb, S. (1987) Maʿālim fī al-​ṭarīq. Cairo: Dar al-​Shurūq. Ramadan, T. 2010. What I Believe. Oxford: Oxford University Press. al-​Rasheed, M. 2007. Contesting the Saudi State: Islamic Voices from a New Generation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Roy, O. 2004. Globalized Islam: The Search for a New Ummah. New York: Columbia University Press. Schacht, J. 1950. The Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Shahin, E.E. 1995. Salafiyah. In: Esposito, J.L. ed. The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World. Oxford: Oxford University Press, III 463–​469. Stitou, I. June 18, 2015. How Morocco Plans to Contain Its Salafists. El-​Khoury, J. trans. Almonitor: The Pulse of the Middle East. www.al-​monitor.com/​pulse/​originals/​2015/​06/​morocco-​salafist-​sheikhs-​ regime-​isis.html. Wagemakers, J. 2011, “Seceders” and “Postponers”? An Analysis of the “Khawarij” and the “Murjiʾa” Labels in Polemical Debates between Quietist and Jihadi-​Salafis. In: Deol, J. and Kazmi, Z. eds. Contextualizing Jihadi Thought. New York: Columbia University Press, 145–​164. Wiktorowicz, Q. 2006. Anatomy of the Salafi Movement. Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 29:207–​239. Wright, L. 2006. The Looming Tower: Al-​Qaeda and the Road to 9/​11. New York: Vintage Books. al-​Yaqubi, M. 2015. Refuting ISIS: A Rebuttal of Its Religious and Ideological Foundations. Lexington: Sacred Knowledge.

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17 FEMINIST MUSLIM (RE)INTERPRETATIONS OF EARLY ISLAM* Aisha Geissinger

Representations of early Islam which include female figures appear in a wide range of classical Arabic texts, including sīra works, ḥadīth compilations, biographical dictionaries, Qurʾān commentaries, historical works, and legal compendia. These variegated depictions of female ­figures –​which include idealized portrayals of dutiful wives, outspoken and eloquent women, self-​sacrificing mothers, and fearsome female warriors –​play diverse literary roles in the texts within which they appear. In Muslim discourses since the 19th century CE that appeal to notions of religious and/​ or cultural authenticity, there has been a tendency to look to the past (even if only rhetorically) in order to legitimate actions in the present, particularly with regard to issues that are widely regarded as controversial. Accordingly, portrayals of female figures from early Islam in classical texts have been selectively drawn upon by Muslim intellectuals, authors, traditionally trained religious scholars (ʿulamāʾ), ideologues and activists of various political persuasions, as well as by Muslim feminists, in order to provide cultural and/​or religious legitimation for their respective stances in contemporary debates about gender roles, family, and sexuality. The result of this ongoing process has been the formation of what can be described as a reservoir of proof texts. This reservoir provides a range of mostly male actors –​politicians, ʿulamāʾ, thinkers, Muslim televangelists, and others  –​with the raw materials that they can use to construct their own ever-​evolving myths (in the sense of stories with cosmic meaning)1 of the early Muslim past. Through their abilities to reconstruct and re-​envision these pasts in ways that purport to provide usable models that can guide communal and individual decisions in the present, they contend for and wield authority, pronouncing on the cultural or religious authenticity of various ideas, practices, and contemporary developments. Muslim feminist discourses about early Islam often call into question, try to disrupt, or seek to share in the authority granted by this power of mythic construction. They generally do this in several ways: (1) by questioning or rejecting prevalent conservative interpretations of certain

* I would like to thank Walid Saleh and Laury Silvers for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this chapter, as well as the two anonymous reviewers for their feedback.

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well-​known proof t​ exts; (2) by claiming the right and ability to make their own, more woman-​ friendly selection of proof texts from within the reservoir; (3) by seeking to expand the boundaries of the reservoir to include aspects of the past that tend to be overlooked, but which they regard as having liberatory potential. Through these approaches, which are usually intertwined, they in turn create their own, more gender-​equal myths of early Islam. Yet another approach which is more controversial in Muslim feminist circles at present is the possibility of arguing that the past is insufficient as a guide for behavior today, due to the significant ethical challenges that it poses for believers. This chapter discusses several depictions of early Muslim female figures in classical texts, and examines the roles that they have been made to play in some Muslim feminist discourses. These examples illustrate the possibilities that some contemporary mythic constructions of early Islamic pasts present, as well as the constraints they involve.

What is a Muslim feminist rereading of early Islam? As is well known, the term “Muslim feminist” is often controversial, whether it is applied to individuals, writings, or interpretive methodologies. Some Muslims identify themselves and/​ or their interpretive approaches as “feminist,” “Islamic feminist,” or “Muslim feminist,” while others regard alternative expressions such as “Muslima theology” as more accurate descriptors of their work (Hermansen 2013: 15–​18). Among those who do describe their approach to early Muslim history as “feminist,” there are significant differences of opinion about methodology and parameters. For example, Omaima Abou-Bakr states that the “Islamic feminist” research that she undertakes is designed to promote “the interweaving of women’s perspectives” with “a faith position that subscribes to the Islamic doctrine and basic revelation,” and in this way activating “its ‘just’ and ‘fair’ principles.” She writes that while this process involves “critiquing patriarchal discrimination,” its ultimate objective is “reform and reconstruction,” and its impetus comes directly from the Qurʾān, which is “the most trustworthy and reliable source of Islam itself ” (2013a: 4–​5). Such an approach would not necessarily be incompatible with some liberal Salafī methodologies which claim to base their views on the Qurʾān and the Sunna as presented in ḥadīths that they deem reliable (e.g. Abū Shuqqa 1990–​1991). However, as we will see, some other Muslim feminist approaches raise questions about the adequacy of the Sunna, or even of the Qurʾānic text alone, as a basis for contemporary thinking about questions of social justice. For the purposes of this chapter, I use the terms “Muslim feminist” and “Muslim feminism” in the sense of “the basic understanding that all human beings are equal, that women have been discriminated against on the basis of gender; a rejection of this; and moves to put things right” (Badran 2006). Although Muslim feminists come from a wide range of ethnic and regional backgrounds, live in many different parts of the world, write in a number of languages, are affiliated with a variety of sects and movements, and can be of any gender, due to limitations of space this chapter deals mainly with women’s writings in English from Sunnī perspectives which circulate in North America. While such a sample has the advantage of being manageable yet diverse, it should not be taken as representative of Muslim feminist discourses worldwide, which are variegated and ever-​evolving. As will become apparent, Muslim feminist approaches to early Muslim history cannot be separated from other 20th and 21st century Muslim rereadings of early Islam. They are interrelated, in origins as well as in their developments up to the present time. Marcia Hermansen highlights a number of factors that have made contemporary Muslim feminist reinterpretations possible. Chief among these are Islamic liberalism, female social and political activism, feminism, 297

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feminist approaches to scriptures in other religious traditions, the rise of pietistic and Islamist movements which promote female access to the study of religious texts and provide some scope for women to play leadership roles, women’s access to the academic study of Islam in universities as well as to academic positions, and feminist scholarship on Muslim history (2013). To these, I would add two further considerations: first, the confluence of various cultural, political, religious, and sectarian agendas has promoted the publication of the Qurʾān, ḥadīth collections, and a large number of classical Arabic works since the late 19th century,2 sometimes in relatively inexpensive editions that enable anyone who can read classical Arabic to consult them with comparative ease. Footnotes provide background information necessary to make sense of the text, while headings and indices make it possible to look up particular passages quickly. These are books that are seemingly designed to be accessed without the mediation of a teacher –​and incidentally, make the extraction of proof texts all the more straightforward. Sources of these types are also increasingly available on CD Rom and online, sometimes in searchable formats, making them even more broadly accessible. A related point is that the translation not only of the Qurʾān but also a number of ḥadīth collections and a growing number of classical works into various languages is increasingly making it possible for people who do not know Arabic to achieve a general familiarity with these sources, and to draw their own conclusions as to what they “say” about gender roles. As more such translations are made available online, this process is accelerated. Second, the ongoing polemics and counter-​polemics (whether between Muslims and others, or between pietists or Islamists and other Muslims who do not agree with them) that use gender and sexuality as a proxy for their debates, as well as Muslim apologetics and activism on the topic of “women in Islam,” have popularized certain incidents from the sīra, as well as Qurʾānic verses, ḥadīths, and portrayals of women found in classical biographical works. As a result, such textual fragments have become fairly widely known to variable extents, even among Muslims who do not necessarily have the ability to access the sources that these are drawn from. Both of these factors continue to erode the hitherto near-​monopoly held by (usually male) religious scholars, thinkers, and ideologues on access to the reservoir of proof texts on gender issues, as well as their ability to act as gate-​keepers of their “correct” interpretation (Geissinger 2011, 2015).

Myth-​making and the power of selection Abū l-​Ḍuḥā related on the authority of Masrūq: “I saw the most senior among the Companions of the Messenger of God asking her [ʿĀʾisha bt. Abī Bakr] about inheritance shares.” And ʿAṭāʾ b. Abī Rabāh said: “Of all people, ʿĀʾisha was the best in legal discernment, the most knowledgeable, and the best in reasoned judgment overall.” (Ibn Ḥajar 1995: VIII 233) In her critique of several male-​authored medieval and contemporary interpretations of Q 4:34 –​ “Men are qawwāmūn over women …”3 –​Dahlia Eissa takes issue with the claim of Syed Anwer Ali, an attorney who wrote a commentary on some sections of the Qurʾān in late 20th-​century Pakistan, that this verse means that men are the divinely appointed guardians of women. Ali argues that men have been given this role because they are innately superior, while women are inherently weaker and intellectually inferior, and were created in order to serve males. Among the evidence he offers for this interpretation is Qurʾānic verses, the claim that while males are physically able to sexually coerce females the reverse is not the case, and selective invocations of modern science and psychology, as represented by the reported views of several Western 298

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European and American authors and researchers. Quoting the British sexologist Havelock Ellis (d. 1939 CE), Ali argues that women are emotional, impulsive, and averse to rules as well as to abstract ideas or analytical thinking, and as a result cannot be good at science (Ali 1989:V 59–​ 65). In response, Eissa quotes the above passage celebrating the knowledge and intelligence of one of the wives of the prophet, ʿĀʾisha bt. Abī Bakr (d. 58/​678), from a late medieval biographical dictionary of the prophet’s Companions which was compiled by Ibn Ḥajar al-​ʿAsqalānī (d. 852/​1449). She sardonically asks how could it be believed that women are intellectually inferior when even leading male Companions used to ask ʿĀʾisha for guidance as to how to fulfill their religious obligations (1999: 22–​23)? With this cutting rejoinder, Eissa lays claim to her own authority to navigate the terrain upon which internal Muslim debates in the 20th and early 21st centuries about women, gender, and family often continue to be carried out: the early Islamic past, as presented in classical Arabic sources. Her critique of Ali’s interpretation of Q 4:34 nicely illustrates how Muslim feminist discourses are both shaped by certain constraints that are produced by unequal relations of power, and also resist and attempt to subvert these. It is noteworthy that even though the male writer whose exegesis she is critiquing claims that his views are supported by modern science, Eissa does not elect to make a scientific argument. Rather, she apparently judges that a quotation from a late medieval scholar’s biographical work would be as convincing if not more so for her intended audience, even though ʿĀʾisha lived some 1,400 years ago, in a society which had ideas about human biology and gender that differ significantly from our own.4 Male Muslim authors who hold conservative religious views tend to enjoy the benefit of the doubt, coupled with what I  term the privilege of selection when framing their arguments about social questions. Therefore, even if they choose to use arguments based on rationalistic claims, to include quotations from non-​Muslim thinkers, or even to use terms such as “equality” or to selectively invoke modern notions of rights their ideas are less likely to be reflexively dismissed as culturally or religiously alien by conservative Muslim audiences. Female writers, however, are significantly more likely to be expected to perform “orthodox” Muslimness by squarely basing their arguments on classical texts, especially if they are arguing in favor of more rights for women. This double standard reflects gendered differentials of access to religious authority, as well as the continued salience of discourses –​generated by some non-​Muslims as well by Muslim social conservatives of various types5 –​which position Muslim women in particular as embodiments of cultural and/​or religious authenticity (Elsadda 2001; Zine 2006). Traditions that celebrate ʿĀʾisha’s intelligence and knowledge appear in Sunnī sources conventionally dated to the formative period (e.g., Ibn Saʿd n.d.: II 521–​522) onwards. They were incorporated into the reservoir of proof texts in the late 19th century (e.g., Booth 2015), and have been quoted up to the present day by Sunnī authors writing from a wide variety of perspectives. Some quote such traditions as part of a larger argument in favor of conservative standards governing female dress, behavior, and access to space, which in their view do not necessarily prevent women from receiving education or playing certain types of active social roles (Geissinger 2011). Others do so in the course of constructing the myth of the ideal pious woman who is religiously learned and possesses authority, yet upholds sharīʿa-​mandated gendered social hierarchies within family, mosque, and society, rather than questioning or destabilizing them (e.g., Nadwi 2007). This latter myth is designed to validate the aspirations of some women today to seek “traditional” Islamic knowledge,6 while at the same time to delegitimize any contemporary manifestations of female religious authority that threaten to relativize such hierarchies. Muslim feminist authors who elect to quote traditions from classical works which praise ʿĀʾisha’s knowledge and intelligence are thus contesting such conservative interpretations, 299

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and with them the notion that their authors are entitled to claim the authority to be the final arbiters of Islamic legitimacy for the community. Interestingly, Eissa avoids any reference to the well-​known ḥadīth appearing in the ḥadīth collections of al-​Bukhārī and Muslim, in which Muḥammad is reported to have described women as “deficient in reason and religion (nāqiṣāt ʿaql wa-​dīn).”7 As any reader reasonably familiar with the ḥadīths that are often quoted in contemporary discussions of gender, authority, and Islam could be expected to notice this omission, her choice to do so is striking. In so doing, she lays claim to the power –​typically wielded by conservative males –​to select from the reservoir of proof texts what she deems relevant, to place those texts at the center of the discourse, and to pass over the rest in silence.

Pre-​Islamic Arabia and women The question of what life may have been like in pre-​Islamic Arabia for women has been taken up in various ways by a number of Muslim feminist authors. For some, this is part of a larger project that seeks to restore Arab and Muslim women to history, in ways that attempt to avoid religious over-​determination. Representations of pre-​Islamic Arabia in classical Muslim texts are also often examined as a possible way to help understand the gender dynamics of Muḥammad’s community, as well as in early Muslim history (e.g., Ahmed 1992). Muslim feminist re-​readings of pre-​Islamic Arabia developed in relation to the various and varying modern interpretations of this period, including those by Arab nationalists, Islamists, and secular Arab feminists. The latter have often tended to focus on certain reputed features of pre-​Islamic Arabian life which they regard as positive, such as the worship of goddesses, and women’s ability to divorce their husbands, as well as the lives of certain women who reportedly played socially influential roles and resisted male control, including constraints imposed by some men in the name of the new religion, Islam (e.g., El Saadawi 1982). However, Islamists usually highlight aspects of pre-​Islamic Arabia that contemporary audiences are likely to deem horrific, such as female infanticide. Customs of this latter type are in turn utilized by some to argue that interpretations of Islam that they espouse which are highly restrictive of girls and women (and that they assume represents the practice of the first Muslims) constituted “liberation” from a virulently anti-​woman pagan culture  –​and remain liberatory, regardless of time and place. Depictions of female figures from pre-​Islamic times are few as compared to their male counterparts, and can be interpreted in various ways, depending on what one wishes to present as more (or less) important. Such widely different presentations of pre-​Islamic Arabia tell us far less about life in the Ḥijāz some fourteen centuries ago than about the continued political and theological salience of constructions of the past based on or influenced by the myth that a golden age once existed in which things were somehow “better for women” than they are now –​whether that time is presumed to have existed before the rise of Islam, or conversely, during the life of Muḥammad.They are also based on assumptions about what I term the translatability of the past into the present (discussed further below). Some Muslim feminist treatments of pre-​Islamic Arabia present it primarily in relation to and as a backdrop for the emergence of Islam. Jewish, Christian, and other religious communities in the 1st/​7th century have tended to fare similarly, at times being discussed primarily as possible sources of oppressive ideas or practices that had a negative influence on the early Muslim community, which by contrast is presumed by some to have “originally” been comparatively less androcentric.

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A Muḥammad of one’s own … on the authority of Mujāhid:  “Umm Salama said, ‘Messenger of God, men are mentioned, but we [women] are not mentioned.’ Then For Muslim men and Muslim women, believing men and believing women (Q 33:35) was revealed.” (al-​Ṭabarī 2003: XIX 110) In this occasion-​of-​revelation tradition, Q 33:35, a Qurʾānic verse that famously promises divine reward for faith and good deeds to believers regardless of their gender8 is revealed to Muḥammad, following the objection of one of his wives, Umm Salama (d. c. 59/​679), that his revelations were mentioning men but not women.9 Various versions of this ḥadīth –​which at times attribute the objection to other individual women, or to a group of women in Medina –​ are frequently quoted or alluded to in Muslim feminist writings. It is often interpreted as a telling instance of Muḥammad’s (and God’s) positive response to independent-​minded women who pose theologically challenging questions, as well as evidence that demands for gender equality, far from being something new or alien, are in fact rooted in Islam’s early history (Mernissi 1991; Ahmed 1992; Barlas 2002; Abou-​Bakr 2013b). In such readings, Muḥammad is presented as the bearer of a liberatory message. Relating to his wives and female followers as intelligent, committed believers rather than as subordinates intended to serve him, he is able and willing to accept women’s critical comments and to learn from them. Muslim feminist discourses about the life of Muḥammad and its implications for believers today take place in an environment which has been shaped by the following factors: (1) a long history of Muslim retellings and rewritings of Muḥammad’s life story, which present him as an idealized figure who equals if not outdoes the founders or holy figures of other religious communities; (2) a history of pietistic practices intended to commemorate Muḥammad’s life, from ritual retellings of his birth to writing poetry in praise of him; (3) a history of negative and sometimes hostile interpretations of Muḥammad’s life by outsiders, which in some of its present forms utilizes gender issues in order to argue at least implicitly that Muslims are fundamentally alien to Western societies; (4) the influence of “back to the sources” approaches to Islam in a growing number of Muslim communities worldwide, which hold that Muḥammad’s life-​example as known through ḥadīths authoritatively demonstrates what is permissible or not in all areas of life, including if not especially in issues related to family and gender roles; and (5) in some Muslim communities today, activists attempt to bring about certain types of social reform by popularizing select incidents from Muḥammad’s life story or highlighting aspects of his idealized character. Major themes which often appear in Muslim feminist discourses about Muḥammad include his attitudes to prevalent social norms of his time, his marriages, his interactions with his female followers, and the roles played by women in his prophetic career (and after his death, in passing on his teachings). There is often an implied or stated contrast between actions or attitudes attributed to Muḥammad and the rulings and opinions of classical legal scholars or contemporary Islamist ideologues. Some Muslim feminist representations of Muḥammad’s life have tended to take an apologetic tone, at times directing the blame for practices that their authors regard as problematic away from him to certain of his male Companions, such as ʿUmar b. al-​Khaṭṭāb (e.g., Mernissi 1991). They reflect shifting notions of what constitutes an “ideal” husband and father, as well as of how a male religious leader “should” conduct himself –​as is typical of most contemporary Muslim retellings of Muḥammad’s life (Ali 2014).

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Attention tends to be focused on the roles and contributions of female Companions, who believed in Muḥammad’s message and joined his movement, despite the risks and hardship that often accompanied such a choice. Muslim feminists depict Muḥammad’s community as one in which women  –​far from being meek followers or silent spectators  –​pledged allegiance, took part in congregational worship, debated the burning issues of the day, and fought on the battlefield, alongside their male counterparts (Ahmed 1992). To some extent, highlighting the agency of these women is intended to counter outsider narratives that present Islam as uniquely male-​dominated from its inception, as compared to (say) Judaism or Christianity. However, the main concern is often to counter social and religious conservatives’ efforts to restrict the roles and rights of women today. Interest in the contributions of female Companions to Muḥammad’s community is not only apparent in over a century of Muslim women’s writings (e.g., Booth 2015; Ḥusayn 2004), but also in books, pamphlets, and other materials authored by some Muslim men writing from various perspectives. Significantly, some of the latter were designed to popularize inspiring tales of female Companions’ heroism, while simultaneously promoting markedly conservative views about women’s roles. An interesting example is Mawlana Muhammad Zakariyya Kandhlawi’s Hikayat-​i sahaba, originally written in Urdu in 1938, subsequently translated into English, and widely disseminated by the Tablighi Jamaat, a pietistic movement founded in Northern India in the 1930s. Kandhlawi states in the foreword that he wrote it intending that mothers would tell these stories to their children. Its chapter about female Companions includes ḥadīth-​based anecdotes that variously present women accepting Muḥammad’s message despite their families’ opposition, making the hijra alone, or participating in jihād. Such stories are, however, interspersed with others presenting women in more stereotypical roles, as well as with admonitions about wifely obedience to husbands, and comments framing some of the more arresting stories as exceptional rather than as exemplary for Muslim women in general.10 While the overall message of the chapter promotes female seclusion, domesticity, and submission to male familial authority, it nonetheless also has the effect of popularizing stories in which early Muslim women act independently outside what would be regarded today as the “domestic” realm. Muslim feminist retellings of incidents from the lives of female Companions, then, are often less about reviving the memory of forgotten women than reinterpreting their significance in order to religiously legitimate their visions of a more egalitarian present. A fascinating example of this dynamic is the ḥadīth in which Umm Waraqa is instructed by Muḥammad to lead others in the ṣalāt: … al-​Walīd said: my grandmother recounted to me, on the authority of Umm Waraqa bt. ʿAbd Allāh b. al-​Ḥārith al-​Anṣārī: She used to collect the qurʾān, and the Prophet had commanded her to lead the people of her dār11 in prayer. She had a muʾadhdhin, and she used to lead the people of her dār in prayer. (Ibn Ḥanbal 1993: VI 433) Various versions of this tradition appear in several ḥadīth compilations, as well as in a number of classical biographical compendia.12 Given its presence in such sources, it is not surprising that some 20th-​century conservative Muslim male authors of inspirational writings directed primarily at Muslim women elected to popularize Umm Waraqa’s story, though in ways that downplay its potential to call existing gender hierarchies into question.13 That Muḥammad commanded Umm Waraqa to lead “the people of her dār” (gender unspecified in most versions of the ḥadīth) was also noted by several Muslim feminist authors in the late 20th century, and interpreted as an example of a woman acting as a prayer leader for 302

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men as well as women in early Islamic history (e.g., Ahmed 1992). As the question of woman-​ led prayer began to be openly discussed by some self-​identified progressive Muslims in North America in 2005  –​building on already-​existing discourses and lived practices among some South African Muslims, as well as some LGTBQ Muslims in North America14 –​ Umm Waraqa’s prayer leadership was presented by some as a precedent that could be followed today. In a widely read article, Nevin Reda interprets the ḥadīth quoted above to mean that “when the need for a second mosque [in Medina] arose, the Prophet chose a woman to act as the imam.” In her view, this in turn indicates that women today can lead men in prayer, so “[w]‌e should not be stating that he did not allow it and thereby present a false and misogynistic image of the Prophet” (Reda 2005). A number of refutations (and then, in turn, counter-​refutations) were written in response (Hammer 2012; Elewa and Silvers 2010–​2011). Although the main concern of the various authors was to address a particular legal-​ritual question  –​albeit one invested with a heavy symbolic valence –​this latter statement of Reda’s raises the stakes of the discussion from a technical matter of ritual law to the implications of this debate for Muḥammad’s image today, and in so doing amplifies the controversy. Writers supporting and opposing woman-​led prayer parsed the isnāds and the wordings of the ḥadīths about Umm Waraqa in order to assess their reliability, as well as the reported scope of her role as imām. Among the details that were discussed is the statement found in Ibn Saʿd’s biographical entry for her that she had a male and a female slave; during ʿUmar’s caliphate, they killed her in order to gain their freedom, but were subsequently apprehended and crucified (Ibn Saʿd n.d.: VIII 499–​450).This was a point of some attention for the discussants, because if it can be inferred that Umm Waraqa led her slaves in prayer, then at least one of her congregants was male.Yet significantly, no one on any side of the debate seemed to regard her ownership of slaves (whose desire for freedom was apparently so strong that they were willing to risk killing a free person) as posing any obstacle to the use of her story as a proof text in debates about appropriate gender roles in Muslim communities today. Slavery –​which includes men’s sexual use of their female slaves –​is presented as both unremarkable and morally acceptable in ḥadīth compilations, sīra works, and other classical sources, as well as in the Qurʾān itself (Ali 2008). Some Muslim feminists have drawn attention to the ubiquity of slavery in these texts, asserting that this undermines conservative Muslim constructions of the early or medieval Islamic pasts as golden ages (Ahmed 1992; Mernissi 1991, 1996). A more recent development has been to point to the ways that this poses complex ethical problems for Muslims who regard classical texts as religiously authoritative today (Ali 2008), as well as for feminists who read Muḥammad’s life “as an exemplary model that should inform contemporary relations between men and women” (Hidayatullah 2010). Nonetheless, some Muslim feminists continue to utilize such sources in their mythic constructions of egalitarian Muslim pasts without attempting to grapple with such questions. Looking to the past, even rhetorically, in order to legitimate developments in the present presumes that the past (1st-​/​7th-​century Arabia, in this case) is similar enough to the present that the former can provide a workable and authoritative model for the latter. The underlying presumption is that words such as “man,” “woman,” “child,” “marriage,” and “family” stand outside history, and mean the same in that time and place as they do in contemporary North American Muslim communities. Factors which play such a noticeable role in the portrayals of early Muslim society in the ḥadīth literature, such as tribal affiliation, free/​freed/​slave status, lineage, tribal and regional customs, and widely differential access to valued resources tend to be minimized or ignored, so that the past can become readily translatable into the present with a minimum of qualification or explanation. In this way, the past becomes a truer, purer version of the present, against which the present can be measured and forever found wanting –​especially 303

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where women are concerned. At the same time, the past becomes an imagined homeland. Believers are taught see themselves as direct addressees of ancient texts, and as a result, to read themselves into these sources.15 Some Muslim feminists have tended to adopt similarly conservative reading practices, and with them their accompanying assumptions about the translatability of the past (though re-​ interpreted along more egalitarian lines) into the present. Others, however, point to the limitations of this.

The Qurʾān and the ḥadīth literature Muslim feminist readings of the Qurʾān have typically approached the text as the verbatim word of God revealed to Muḥammad.To date, they have shown limited interest in examining the history of the text per se. Rather, the focus has typically been on its contents, and their ontological, social and legal implications for women today. Some regard gender equality as a foundational value in the Qurʾān (e.g., Barlas 2002; Abou-​ Bakr 2013a). The argument has also been made that the Qurʾānic text speaks in two modes: a hierarchical mode of “pragmatic regulations for society” in 1st-​/​7th-​century Arabia, and a mode of “ethical egalitarianism” which presents men and women as equals (Ahmed 1992). More recently, some have highlighted and critically discussed the text’s androcentric passages (Wadud 2006; Ali 2008), and even questioned whether gender equality is derivable from the Qurʾān at all (Hidayatullah 2014). Ḥadīths have typically furnished the bulk of information for Muslim representations of Muḥammad’s life and teachings. Some Muslim feminists have chosen to base their interpretations of the latter chiefly on the Qurʾānic text, while generally presenting the ḥadīth literature as a source of contamination of what they understand to be the Qurʾān’s egalitarian vision (e.g., Hassan 1999). Others, however, have engaged the ḥadīth literature from various perspectives. These include calling attention to the roles played by some early Muslim women in ḥadīth transmission (Ahmed 1992), searching for traces of female voices and subjectivity in certain ḥadīths (Kahf 2000), creatively reimagining what a ḥadīth compilation including “words of love for women” might look like (Kahf 2004), and proposing ways of dealing with ḥadīths that depict women in general as inferior, dangerous, and in need of male control. Fatima Mernissi famously argues that according to the standards of traditional Muslim isnād criticism, the well-​ known ḥadīth reporting that Muḥammad said that a nation having a female leader will not prosper is unsound and should be rejected. She also takes issue with ḥadīths that associate women with pollution, ill-​omen, and sin, pointing to other ḥadīths which present ʿĀʾisha charging that Abū Hurayra (the male Companion to whom some of these ḥadīths are attributed) had at times misquoted the prophet (Mernissi 1991). Although in Mernissi’s view, a number of ḥadīths credited to early Muslim women reflect their views fairly directly, she also regards the ḥadīth literature as a whole as androcentric, often strongly so (Mernissi 1991; Eissa 1999). Moreover, since she holds that Muḥammad found that he had to compromise with misogynists among his male followers in order for Islam to survive (Mernissi 1991; compare El Saadawi 1982), then it can be inferred that in Mernissi’s opinion, the ḥadīth literature would in any case fail to reflect his “original” liberatory intent overall. In a fascinating parallel development, some ʿulamāʾ and Islamist thinkers have also ventured to address ḥadīths which strike many contemporary audiences as anti-​woman. Although they tend to dismiss such ḥadīths as questionable when they are thought to have faulty isnāds, when they consider them to have sound isnāds then a reinterpretation is often attempted. For example, the ḥadīth in which Muḥammad is related to have said that 304

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women are deficient in reason and religion is reinterpreted as a joking remark (e.g., Abū Shuqqa 1990–​1991: I 275), though such a reading does not appear to have any pre-​20th-​ century precedent. Evidently, what is primarily at stake in such new interpretations is not the “meaning(s)” that any particular ḥadīth might have been held to have historically, so much as concerns about who has the right to interpret them for the community, as well as with trying to forestall or combat Muslim skepticism about the integrity of the methods used by traditional ḥadīth critics. Although some Muslim feminists find at least some such reinterpretations convincing, others do not. Critiques of ḥadīths of this type by Muslim feminists continue. Some are now carried out by women who (unlike Mernissi) have received advanced, specialized training in the study of ḥadīths and their histories of interpretation (e.g., Tuksal 2013).

Beyond the past The question of whether the early Islamic past contains all of the resources necessary to build gender-​equal communities today continues to be much debated by Muslim feminists. Some point to ḥadīths, legal rulings, and exegeses found in classical tafsīr works that they regard as deeply problematic, while asserting that the Qurʾān itself can be reread by Muslims today in more egalitarian ways, if it is approached as a performative text (e.g. Chaudhry 2013). Interestingly, a small but growing number of other Muslim feminists hold that not only are classical fiqh or the ḥadīth literature unable to provide a sufficient basis for contemporary thinking about gender equality, justice, mutuality in relationships, and consent, but neither is the Qurʾān in and of itself able to do so. Rather, one has to read beyond the literal meaning of certain specific verses (such as Q 4:34, with its directive to husbands to strike disobedient wives) in order actualize more general Qurʾānic values, such as tawḥīd and justice, in the world today (e.g. Wadud 2006; Ali 2008). Some other Muslim feminists, however, reject this view, Omaima Abou-​Bakr for example regards it as an “extreme” interpretation “which cripples and tears down the divine revelations, and voids the words of the Qur’an of any real content or serious meaning” (2014). In contemporary Muslim discourses on gender roles, family, and sexuality, constructions of early Muslim pasts often continue to be invoked in order to legitimate existing realities or new developments –​or to call for a return to practices that are said to have been normative in early Islamic history. Depending on who is carrying out the interpretation, such pasts can at times be surprisingly capacious. Constructions of the past offered today by ʿulamāʾ or Islamist thinkers with fairly conservative social views often read 19th-​, 20th-​, and 21st-​century ideas about gender, marriage, and family backwards into Muḥammad’s time (Ali 2008). Some elect to equivocate about aspects of the early Muslim past that many find troubling today (Chaudhry 2011, 2013), to appropriate vaguely feminist-​sounding terms, or even perhaps to borrow Muslim feminist ideas without acknowledging their sources (Shaaban 1995), while arguing for the continued validity of conservative interpretations. Somewhat analogous rhetorical maneuvers, in which one appropriates key symbols of other sects in order to undercut their subversive potential, have a long history among Sunnīs, and have arguably been a factor in enabling Sunnism to develop and retain its majority status.16 Selectively adopting certain Muslim feminist ideas while keeping them under the wing of an overarching gendered hierarchical discourse is a way of attempting to assert and maintain control over the authority to interpret the significance of the past for believers as a guide to life in the present. Nevertheless, the long-​term viability even of such a time-​honored strategy is questionable in the age of the internet. 305

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Notes 1 The term “myth” is not used in this chapter in order to imply any judgment as to the historical existence of the persons or veracity of the events discussed. Measuring contemporary discourses on gender by Muslim feminists and their interlocutors by the standards of historical-​critical scholarship has not been attempted here, as I have elected to focus on the internal discursive logic that shapes such confessional constructions of the early Islamic past. 2 For these processes in relation to the publication of certain tafsīr works, see Saleh (2010). Fatima Mernissi calls attention to the politics of modern re-​publications of books written by medieval Muslim scholars which detail restrictions that “should” be placed on women’s attire and conduct (1991). 3 Kecia Ali provisionally translates the entire verse as follows: Men are qawwāmūn in relation to women, according to what God has favoured some over others and according to what they spend from their wealth. Righteous women are qānitāt, guarding the unseen according to what God has guarded. Those [women] whose nushūz you fear, admonish them, and abandon them in bed, and strike them. If they obey you, do not pursue a strategy against them. Indeed, God is Exalted, Great. (2008: 118) In this translation of the verse, Ali leaves some key words untranslated, as their precise meanings in this context continue to be debated by Muslim feminists. 4 For late antique views of human biology and gender as reflected in certain ḥadīths as well as in classical Qurʾān commentaries, see Geissinger (2015). 5 A number of Muslim feminists call attention to the stereotypical assumptions and expectations held by some non-​Muslims, including white European and North American feminists, which dismiss any attempt by Muslim women to promote gender equality within their communities as inauthentically Islamic. They point out that such a standpoint rather eerily parallels discourses generated by some adamantly conservative ʿulamāʾ and Islamist ideologues (e.g. Zine 2006). 6 For American Muslim women who travel to the Middle East in search of “traditional” religious knowledge, see Grewal (2014). 7 For various versions of this ḥadīth, as well as an analysis of its transmission history, see Juynboll (1989: 371–​381). 8 The entire verse reads: “For men and women who are devoted to God –​believing men and women, obedient men and women, truthful men and women, steadfast men and women, humble men and women, charitable men and women, fasting men and women, chaste men and women, men and women who remember God often –​God has prepared forgiveness and a rich reward” (Abdel Haleem 2005). 9 For a critical analysis of the textual functions that this and other similar traditions perform in classical tafsīr works, see Geissinger (2015). 10 For example, the story in which a woman makes hijra alone is framed as a tale about having trust in God, and the reader is reminded that women are not allowed to travel alone except for an “obligatory emigration” (Kandhlawi n.d.: 180). 11 The question of what “dār” means in this context  –​house, complex of homes around a shared courtyard, neighborhood –​has a direct bearing on the significance of this ḥadīth as a proof text in contemporary Muslim debates about woman-​led prayer. No attempt will be made here to resolve this issue. 12 For a survey of a number of versions of this ḥadīth as it appears in sources of these types, see Calderini (2013). 13 See for example Siddiqi, who presents Umm Waraqa as an example of a pious woman who led other women in prayer and devoted her nights to teaching the Qurʾān (1982). The idea that she led women only is apparently derived from some variants of this ḥadīth (Calderini 2013). 14 For an overview of the origins and development of the movement for shared ritual authority, see Elewa and Silvers (2010–​2011). A catalyst for this discussion was Amina Wadud leading the Friday Prayer in New York on March 18, 2005; for a discussion of this event, see Wadud (2006) and Hammer (2012). 15 For an example of this dynamic as it pertains to the Qurʾān –​in which verses addressed to Muḥammad come to be read as addressed to the individual believer –​see Saleh (2004). 16 For examples of Sunnī exegetes appropriating Shīʿī symbols, see Saleh (2004).

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Bibliography Abdel Haleem, M.A.S. 2005. The Qur’an: A New Translation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Abou-​Bakr, O. 2013a. Introduction:  Why do We Need an Islamic Feminism? In:  Abou-​Bakr, O. ed. Feminist and Islamic Perspectives: New Horizons of Knowledge and Reform. Motawy, Y. trans. Cairo: The Women and Memory Forum, 4–​8. ——​. 2013b. Rings of Memory: “Writing Muslim Women” and the Question of Authorial Voice. Muslim World 103(3):320–​333. ——​. 2014.Trends and Directions in Contemporary Islamic Feminist Research. In: Makdisi, J.S., Bayoumi, N, and Sidawi, R.R. eds. Arab Feminisms: Gender and Equality in the Middle East. London: I.B. Tauris, 333–​343. Abū Shuqqa, ʿA.Ḥ.M. 1990–​1991. Taḥrīr al-​marʾa fī ʿaṣr al-​risāla: dirāsat ʿan al-​marʾa jāmiʿa li-​nuṣūṣ al-​Qurʾān al-​karīm wa ṣaḥīḥayn al-​Bukhārī wa Muslim. 4 vols. Kuwait: Dār al-​qalam li-​al-​nashr wa-​al-​tawzīʿ. Ahmed, L. 1992. Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern Debate. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Ali, K. 2008. Sexual Ethics and Islam: Feminist Reflections on Qur’an, Hadith, and Jurisprudence. Oxford: Oneworld. ——​. 2014. The Lives of Muhammad. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Ali, S.A. 1982–​1989. Qur’an the Fundamental Law of Human Life: Being a Commentary of the Holy Qur’an Keeping in View the Philosophical Thought, Scientific Research, Political, Economical, and Social Developments in the Human Society Down the Ages. 5 vols. Karachi: Hamdard Foundation Press. Badran, M. 2006. Feminism and Conversion: Comparing British, Dutch, and South African Life Stories. In: van Nieuwkerk, K. ed. Women Embracing Islam: Gender and Conversion in the West. Austin: University of Texas Press, 192–​229. Barlas,A. 2002. “BelievingWomen” in Islam: Unreading Patriarchal Interpretations of the Qur’an.Austin: University of Texas Press. Booth, M. 2015. Classes of Ladies of Cloistered Spaces: Writing Feminist History through Biography in Fin-​de-​ Siècle Egypt. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Calderini, S. 2013. Classical Sources on the Permissibility of Female Imams: An Analysis of Some ḥadīths about Umm Waraqa. In: Klemm,V. and al-​Sha’ar, N. eds. Sources and Approaches across Disciplines in Near Eastern Studies: Proceedings of the 24th Congress of L’Union Européenne des Arabisants et Islamisants, Leipzig 2008. Leuven: Peeters, 53–​69. Chaudhry, A.S. 2011. “I Wanted One Thing and God Wanted Another …”: The Dilemma of the Prophetic Example and the Quranic Injunction on Wife-​Beating. Journal of Religious Ethics 39(3):416–​439. ——​. 2013. Domestic Violence and the Islamic Tradition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Eissa, D. 1999. Constructing the Notion of Male Superiority over Women in Islam:  The Influence of Sex and Gender Stereotyping in the Interpretation of the Qur’an and the Implications for a Modernist Exegesis of Rights. London: Women Living under Muslim Laws. Elewa, A. and Silvers, L. 2010–​2011. “I Am One of the People”: A Survey and Analysis of Legal Arguments on Woman-​Led Prayer in Islam. Journal of Law and Religion 26(1):141–​171. Elsadda, H. 2001. Discourses on Women’s Biographies and Cultural Identity:  Twentieth-​ Century Representations of the Life of ‘A’isha bint Abi Bakr. Feminist Studies 27(1):37–​64. Geissinger, A. 2011. ‘A’isha bint Abi Bakr and her Contributions to the Formation of the Islamic Tradition. Religion Compass 5(1):37–​49. ——​. 2015. Gender and Muslim Constructions of Exegetical Authority:  A  Rereading of the Classical Genre of Qurʾān Commentary. Leiden: Brill. Grewal, Z. 2014. The Past is a Foreign Country:  American Muslims and the Global Crisis of Authority. New York: New York University Press. Hammer, J. 2012. American Muslim Women, Religious Authority, and Activism:  More than a Prayer. Austin: University of Texas Press. Hassan, R. 1999. Feminism in Islam. In:  Sharma, A. and Young, K.K. eds. Feminism and World Religions. Albany: State University of New York Press, 248–​278. Hermansen, M. 2013. Introduction:  The New Voices of Muslim Women Theologians. In:  Aslan, E., Hermansen, M., and Medeni, E. eds. Muslima Theology: The Voices of Muslim Women Theologians. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 11–​34. Hidayatullah, A.A. 2010. Māriyya the Copt: Gender, Sex and Heritage in the Legacy of Muhammad’s umm walad. Islam and Christian-​Muslim Relations 21(3):221–​243. ——​. 2014. Feminist Edges of the Qur’an. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Kahf, M. 2000. Braiding the Stories:  Women’s Eloquence in the Early Islamic Era. In:  Webb, G. ed. Windows of Faith: Muslim Women Scholar-​Activists in North America. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 147–​171. ——​. 2004. Lost Pages from Sahih al-​Bukhari’s Chapter on Menstruation. www.muslimwakeup.com/​sex/​ archives/​2004/​07/​002415print.php. Accessed May 13, 2008. Kandhlawi, M.Z. n.d. Stories of Sahabah. In: Tablighi nisāb. Arshad, A.R. trans. Lahore: Kutab khana faizi, 12–​272. Mernissi, F. 1991. The Veil and the Male Elite: A Feminist Interpretation of Women’s Rights in Islam. Lakeland, M.J. trans. New York: Basic Books. ——​. 1996. Women’s Rebellion and Islamic Memory. London: Zed Books. Nadwi, M.A. 2007. Al-​Muḥaddithāt: The Women Scholars in Islam. Oxford: Interface Publications. Reda, N. 2005. What Would the Prophet Do? The Islamic Basis for Female-​Led Prayer. www.muslimwakeup.com/​main/​archives/​2005/​03/​002706print.php. Accessed October 3, 2005. el Saadawi, N. 1982. Woman and Islam. Women’s Studies International Forum 5(2):193–​206. Saleh, W. 2004. The Formation of the Classical Tafsīr Tradition: The Qurʾān Commentary of al-​Thaʿlabī (d. 427/​ 1035). Leiden: Brill. ——​. 2010. Preliminary Remarks on the Historiography of Tafsīr in Arabic:  A  History of the Book Approach. Journal of Qurʾanic Studies 12:6–​40. Shaaban, B. 1995.The Muted Voices of Women Interpreters. In: Afkhami, M. ed. Faith and Freedom: Women’s Human Rights in the Muslim World. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 61–​77. Siddiqi, M.S. 1982. The Blessed Women of Islam. Lahore: Kazi Publications. al-​Ṭabarī, A.J.M.b.J. 2003. Tafsīr al-​ Ṭabarī jāmiʿ al-​bayān ʿan taʾwīl āyy al-​Qurʾān. al-​Turkī, ʿA.b.ʿA.M. Riyadh: Dār ʿālam al-​kutub. Tuksal, H.Ş. 2013. Misogynistic Reports in the Hadith Literature. In:  Aslan, E., Hermansen, M., and Medeni, E. eds. Muslima Theology: The Voices of Muslim Women Theologians. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 133–​154. Wadud, A. 2006. Inside the Gender Jihad: Women’s Reform in Islam. Oxford: Oneworld. Zine, J. 2006. Between Orientalism and Fundamentalism:  The Politics of Muslim Women’s Feminist Engagement. Muslim World Journal of Human Rights 3(1):1–​24.

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PART IV

Revisioning early Islam

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18 EARLY ISLAM An alternative scenario of its emergence Markus Gross

Introduction If intellectual curiosity, a fascination with the orient, or the growing need for experts on the Middle East prompts the decision of high school graduates to apply for the study course Islamic Studies, they will be taught roughly the same outline of a narrative about the origin of this religion as generations of students before them: a man later known as the Prophet Muḥammad was born in Mecca around 570 CE, received his first revelation at about the age of 40, founded the religion of Islam and started a new empire, which just one generation after his death had become the dominant power of the whole region due to the relentless war-​like efforts of his political and religious successors, the caliphs. Islamologists have of course done a lot of “fine tuning,” occasionally modifying the traditional picture, albeit only to a limited extent. The core outline, however, has been questioned by only very few mavericks of the academic community. Summarily, such scholars are labeled revisionists, although their findings and conclusions might differ greatly. The first generation of them appeared in the 1970s –​people like Günter Lüling (see 1974, 2003), John Wansbrough (see 1978), and Patricia Crone and Michael Cook (see 1977), but their opinions and research results have mostly been left out of standard works1 in Islamic Studies. At best, in some specialized articles they are mentioned as outsiders. But up to now they can hardly be found in introductory books, scholarly overviews, or encyclopedia articles. Ever since, a number of monographs and, even more important, anthologies have been published which at least partially belong to this category (“partially” because not all authors reject the traditional report completely). Chronologically the first series to be mentioned are the anthologies edited by Ibn Warraq (1998, 2000, 2002), in which he assembled both classic articles, many of which he translated himself, and modern contributions. The second series was originally published in German. Both the series and the academic society editing them are named Inârah. One of the founding members of the society was Christoph Luxenberg (pseud.), whose book Die syro-​aramäische Lesung des Koran (2000, 2007) aroused worldwide interest and led to both apologetic and polemical reactions. So far, eight anthologies have appeared in German, of which two have been translated into English (Ohlig and Puin 2005, 2009; Ohlig 2007, 2013; Gross and Ohlig 2008, 2009, 2010, 2012, 2014, 2017).

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Several renowned scholars have written about Luxenberg’s findings, including in three large anthologies (Neuwirth, Sinai, and Marx 2009; Reynolds 2008, 2011). Although Inârah anthologies are often mentioned, only Luxenberg is dealt with in detail, in part, perhaps, because many of the anthology articles are not in English. The fact remains that the entirely new scenario for the emergence of early Islam that has been sketched by this group of researchers is hardly considered. This chapter aims at rectifying this neglect, by summarizing at least some of the main contributions of Inârah authors and presenting the outline of an alternative history of early Islam.2

The traditional report and hard evidence The heading to this section contains the words “hard evidence,” an expression to be taken literally. What is meant are tangible objects like coins, inscriptions, and other artifacts, not literary texts written centuries after the purported events. Their importance for sound historical research can best be explained by taking a closer look at Volker Popp’s work (2009a). Popp’s point of departure is the approach of the famous German historian of Rome,Theodor Mommsen. Mommsen was aware that not everything Roman historiographers wrote could be taken at face value. Every student of Latin knows that Livy’s books are full of myths and fairy tales. So in order to find out “what really happened,” he started to collect Roman coins, or at least their plaster casts. His collection then enabled him to draw up a list of names and dates which could be assumed to be historical, as coins are undoubtedly contemporary prima facie pieces of evidence. As objects of everyday use, the information found on them was accessible to everybody, a fictitious ruler on a coin is therefore unthinkable. Moreover, they are not conservative as has sometimes been claimed: from the days of antiquity to modern times one of the first things a new ruler or regime does is to strike new coins, with new symbols and new slogans. If, therefore, Mommsen found that a Roman historian wrote about a certain consul of a certain year, and the coins of that year display other names, he could be certain that in this case the historian had either made a mistake or intentionally falsified history. His list of titles, names, and dates on coins thus provided the framework for his Roman History (Mommsen 1854–​1856), especially regarding the sequence of consuls and later emperors. A similar method is standard in Medieval Studies: There are many knights or small towns for which we do not possess written documents, but if their names appear on coins with a date, then they can be assumed to be historical. Thus coins allow for the drawing of a historical map, which provides the outline history of a region. Popp applied this time-​tested method to early Islam and came to astonishing conclusions: most coins which are considered “Islamic” have a date in the form of a number, a mint name, and a “name,” which can, however, also be interpreted as a title or a motto. The coins give us dependable information about where which ruler exerted power. Moreover, we can state that where there is no minting activity, there is no orderly government. The explanation often adduced, e.g., for the late attestation of coins from Mecca, that early Islamic rulers had “no time to have coins struck” cannot be accepted, as from early antiquity no new ruler could claim to be “in power” without coins displaying symbols of the regime change. The oldest coins bearing the form MḤMD/​T are from Persis and can be dated to the late 680s CE. The first mint activities considered Islamic, however, started a few decades earlier, around the year 641, interestingly the same year as the death of the Byzantine emperor Heraclius (r. 610–​641). Islamic tradition ascribes considerable kerygmatic importance to this undoubtedly important historical figure: the Prophet is said to have written letters to him, alleged autographs of which are still discussed on the internet3 and shown in museums. Another 312

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striking coincidence is this Byzantine emperor’s devastating victory against the Sasanian Empire. On the brink of utter destruction and to the surprise of his contemporaries, he and his Arab vassals managed to win the decisive battle against the Sasanians in the year 622. Syriac sources talk about the “year of the Arabs (ṭayyāye),” because his Arab vassals gained considerable autonomy after this battle. The Islamic calendar begins with the alleged emigration (hijra) of the Prophet from Mecca to Medina, also in 622. Robert Kerr, however, has given a different etymological explanation of the term hijra (2014b). According to him the term does not designate the “emigration” or “flight,” but is derived from the well-​attested root h-​j-​r, in Syriac mhaggrāye (Hagarenes, i.e., Arabs). The “hijrī” year would therefore be nothing but the Arabic equivalent of the Syriac “year of the Hagarenes/​ Arabs.” Only later was it re-​interpreted as the year of the emigration. Moreover, it seems quite awkward to start a new calendar with the commemoration of a flight, considering the many victories afterwards. Contrary to what is commonly believed, and partially due to translations like those in Hoyland’s often-​mentioned book (1997), early Christian contemporary sources never talk about Muslims and rarely about Arabs, but usually about Hagarenes, Saracens, and Ishmaelites. To translate these terms as “Muslims” is not appropriate. Uwe F. Schmidt enumerated the first attestations of the terms islām and muslim in European languages (2017), and the earliest attestation of the term muslim can be found in the Book of Ceremonies of Emperor Porphyrogennetos (r. 945–​959), exousiastès tôn mousoulēmitôn, more than three centuries after the first “Muslims” allegedly came into contact with the West. The first attestation of “Islam” is even later. Another argument adduced by Popp to demonstrate that the Islamic calendar is a later invention is the oldest inscription left by a caliph. It is the inscription in the baths of Hammat Gader, dated 42/​662–​663. Apart from the fact that it is written in Greek and not in Arabic, the date is given according to three alternative methods: the dating katʾ arabas –​“according to the Arabs,” often equated with the hijrī year4 –​the dating according to the city history, and finally the dating according to the Byzantine calendar (the so-​called indiction). What made Popp question the overall veracity of traditional Islamic historiography, however, is not only what can be found on coins, but also what cannot be found.The oldest coin struck in Mecca stems from the ʿAbbāsids and is from the year (of the Arabs) 202. The question whether Islam emerged in Mecca and Medina will be treated in more detail below. Other examples are the descendants of Muʿāwiya, his son Yazīd and grandson Muʿāwiya II, for whom there is no coinage at all. Thus, unlike many traditional Islamologists, who adhere to the outline of Islamic history as described by non-​contemporary works by al-​Ṭabarī (d. 923), Ibn Hishām (d. 834), Ibn Isḥāq (d. 768), al-​Wāqidī (d. 822), Ibn Saʿd (d. 845), al-​Bukhārī (d. 870), Muslim (d. 875), etc., Popp was even more suspicious of Islamic historiographers than Mommsen had been of Livy. If a place name appears on a coin, it can be assumed to be the name of a mint, e.g., Shiraz, Darabjird, Marw/​Merv, and if a number appears, it can be a date. So these are two coordinates which allow a location on a timeline and a map. Names on coins might be either the names of governors, princes, etc., or alternatively not names, but titles or mottos. Whenever Popp looked up these names mentioned by al-​Ṭabarī and did not find them, he believed the coins to be prima facie evidence rather than the works of a historian who had lived centuries after the purported events. In many cases, names did appear in al-​Ṭabarī, but not on coins. These figures Popp believed to be literary inventions. Additional skepticism was prompted by the fact that the sources of traditional Islamic literature often display very divergent views of historical events, descriptions, etc. (Gilliot 2008, 2012; Kalisch 2009, 2014; G.R. Puin 2008, 2014; Plato 2017). 313

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So the question arises why al-​Ṭabarī would invent people or whole historical sequences.The answer is that the ideology of his own era required corroboration by a sequence of rulers which resembled a sequence that the readers were familiar with, as part of their collective memory. So the saga of Muʿāwiya and his offspring is similar to the structure of the biblical narratives of the Book of Kings (Wellhausen 1902: iv), where the father and founder of a dynasty, who was judged an unjust ruler, was succeeded first by a tyrannical son and then by a weakling as a grandson, which concluded the downfall of his family. This is not history, but a topos, the aim of which was to demonstrate the intervention of God in history. What ideological reinterpretation means can be demonstrated with a modern example. In the Soviet Union (and nowadays in Russia) several encyclopedias have appeared which contain articles about figures from Russian history, such as Stalin, Lenin, and Trotsky. The description of Stalin and Trotsky and the way their activities are judged differs enormously in articles in different editions even of the same encyclopedia. In one edition, from the 1950s, “Trotsky” did not even appear as an entry, but “Trotskyism” did. A similar attitude can be observed everywhere and at all times. Today, a history of the British Empire would be written with a very critical and politically correct mindset (“what have we done to them!”), whereas a hundred years ago it would have praised the conquests (“carry the white man’s burden!”). A good historian must be aware that historiography might tell you more about the era when it was written than about the era it purports to describe. When al-​Ṭabarī invented or erased figures, it was to make history fit into the picture of his concept of a caliphate. Irregularities, however, had been discovered a long time before Popp. When George Carpenter Miles wrote his numismatic history of Rayy (1938), he sometimes found up to four different coins struck in the same year by different groups that tried to occupy or rule this city. Miles followed this up in the literature and found that in most cases only one or two of these rulers appear in the literary sources. Another example is the numismatist John Walker from the British Museum, who concluded that many inscriptions on the coins differ from the content of the traditional report (1941). A third example is Josef van Ess. In his prestigious history of religious thought of early Islam, he admits that there are hardly any early witnesses and, for the first century after the hijra, no more than a few inscriptions. Furthermore, he considers all (later) Islamic texts as “under suspicion of projection” (1991: viii). Consequently, he abstained from presenting the first century at all. Correlating the coin inscriptions with the literary tradition one often comes to the conclusion that the content of the inscription cannot be reconciled with the literary text. So there are two ways of dealing with such numismatic evidence: One can “read the literary text into the coin inscription,” filling in every gap with “knowledge” stemming from the historians, conjecturing, reinterpreting, and sometimes intentionally ignoring disturbing facts. Or one can break free from preconceptions and start from scratch. According to the traditional report, the Islamic conquest affected a territory which equaled that of the Roman Empire, stretching within a century from Spain and the shores of the Atlantic to Central Asia. Whether this conquest really took place the way it was described is another question of import. The conquest of Spain has aroused the interest of another Inârah member, Johannes Thomas. Most purported events of the conquest, as in the east, were described by historians only centuries after they allegedly happened. Furthermore, the reports differ considerably in geographical and other details. Already Albrecht Noth found out that the earliest report about the conquest in Arabic, the Futūḥ Misr of Ibn ʿAbd al-​Ḥakam, uses topoi from eastern descriptions of the conquest (al-​fataḥ). As we have seen, many of these topoi ultimately go back to models stemming from the Old Testament. The sources written in Latin are usually dated around the 8th 314

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century. Thomas showed that the view expressed in a recent Spanish publication that this text is the report of a “new convert to Islam” or that at least that it had been influenced by a Muslim dignitary, is untenable due to the material content of the text. Moreover, it is conspicuous that these texts assume the location of Mecca to be in Mesopotamia. Furthermore, central aspects of the biography of the Prophet were obviously not known to the authors. The Mozarabic Chronicle mainly follows the model of late Latin historiographers, especially Isidore of Seville on the one hand, and apocalyptic and eschatological patterns, as for example can be found in Isaiah, on the other. Details about the religious environment or about the per capita tax for non-​Muslims (jizya) cannot be found in these texts. The term “Christiani” appears rather as an ethno-​political category than as a religious one, comparable to “Muslims” in the Bosnian war or “Catholics” in Northern Ireland. The term exclusively designates inhabitants of the Iberian peninsula, not adherents of the religion in general. In later chronicles from Asturias no new religion is mentioned, instead they talk about a “Mohammedan rite.” The often-​publicized opinion that the year 711 marked a radical change in the composition of the population of Spain, that the majority now belonged to Berber and Arab tribes which introduced their egalitarian tribal culture, is due rather to romantic notions than to facts. Neither place names, nor ethnological research or material evidence support this view (Thomas 2008). Furthermore, Thomas demonstrated that the alleged tribal conflicts of the 8th century, which appear in narrations, go back to literary topoi (Marj Rāhiṭ) rather than to historical events (2010). As in the east, there is no archeological trace of any of the battles found in the description of the conquest. The decay of cities in Spain in the 5th and 6th centuries is paralleled by a similar development all around the Mediterranean and goes back to the fall of the Roman Empire rather than to an Islamic invasion. On the other hand, the architecture in 8th-​century Spain that some archeologists label “Islamic” is not significantly different from the remains of the Visigothic era (Thomas 2017). That the religion of the newcomers cannot have been Islam as we know it today is visible, for example, in the architecture of the famous Mosque-​Cathedral of Cordoba. Like a number of former mosques in Toledo it does not face towards Mecca. Moreover, in heterodox writings like the work of Ibn Masarra, for example, Iranian, Gnostic, Christian, Judeo-​Christian, and Jewish influence can be found (Thomas 2008, 2009). What cannot be denied is that there was an influx of Berbers who brought their Ibāḍī, Ṣufrī, and Khārijī ideas with them, which display similarities to Latin Donatism and whose presence in North Africa is attested even after the Arab conquest. So what did take place was not an “Islamic Conquest,” but rather a gradual demographic and political change, which led to the spreading of a new doctrine, which was still in the process of its emergence as a new religion. The research of Raymond Dequin (2012) concentrates on the era of the ʿAbbāsids. His findings show that they were in fact a branch of the Umayyads. The new rulers intentionally modified their genealogy in order to separate from the rest of the family; instead they created family links to the alleged Prophet. To give such a fictitious family genealogy5 more theological weight, the concepts of muḥammad (“the praised one”) as well as that of ʿalī (“the elevated one”) were historicized. According to Dequin, both terms were originally gnostic concepts denoting redemptory figures, originally going back to Christological notions. Moreover, Dequin has found evidence that it was not until after the ʿAbbāsids had taken power that the pilgrimage to Mecca was established. It should be added that the relevant passages in the Qurʾān allegedly describing the ḥajj are far from clear6 and allow completely different interpretations to that of the description of a pilgrimage. Moreover, the caliph ʿAbd al-​Malik b.  Marwān (r. 685–​705) was reproached for having diverted the pilgrimage from Mecca to Jerusalem (Goldziher 1971: 44–​45). It should be remembered that he was the man 315

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who had substituted Arabic for Greek and Persian in the financial bureaus and that he had issued an Islamic gold coinage, replacing the Byzantine denarius with its image of the emperor by a Muslim dinar with Qurʾānic quotations (Gibb 1960–​2007: 77). It seems rather unlikely that a ruler whose obvious aim it was to spread the language and the message of the Qurʾān should so blatantly try to weaken the new religion, Islam. Considering the missing material evidence from Mecca and the questionable appearance of the place name “Mecca” in the Qurʾān (see below), it seems more likely that he did not “divert” the ḥajj pilgrimage to Jerusalem, but rather that it had originally been a pilgrimage to this town, and that only later was it ostensibly “re-​directed” to its fictitious original location. According to Dequin, the model for this new holy site was the Buddhist Nowbahār (nava vihāra) in Balkh (Afghanistan), whose description by later Arabic authors strongly reminds the unbiased reader of the Kaʿba (see below). Another observation made by Dequin concerns the biography of the Prophet. The main source of information for all later descriptions of the life of Muḥammad is the Sīrat Muḥammad Rasūl Allāh of Ibn Iṣḥāq.The origins of the book are shrouded in mystery, the Arabic text mostly used today is the much-​changed, both abridged and extended, edition of Ibn Hishām. The nearly two centuries that separate the purported events described from the oldest version of the book disqualify it as a primary historical source. But even if the book should contain salvation history rather than history, the question still remains whether the figures described and the details of the biography might not have a historical kernel. One model for the depiction of the Prophet assumed by Dequin is Abū Muslim al-​Khurāsānī (700–​755), the man who, according to the traditional report, toppled the Umayyad dynasty and paved the way for the ʿAbbāsids. Numerous and vastly different versions of his origin can be found. The stories told about him display considerable parallels to details narrated in the sīra: Having been a successful military leader in a number of conflicts including a Khorasanian rebellion and power struggles within the Umayyad dynasty, he might have inspired the description of Muḥammad’s raids. Moreover, he is said to have led a secret society in Khorasan, which might have been the model for the Anṣār of the Prophet. His daughter was called Fāṭima, whose descendants claimed religious and political legitimation due to their descent, possibly the model for the Prophet’s daughter of the same name (Dequin 2012). The biography of the Prophet triggered the emergence of all later works of traditional Islamic historiography. Dequin assumes that the composition of the sīra as well as the well-​ known genealogies of Hishām b. Muḥammad al-​Kalbī, known as Jamharat an-​Nasab, had been commissioned by the ruling elite. These works were not published in many copies, but served as an internal court document on which other historical works could be based. This provided an outline that could be fleshed out with details and at the same time guaranteed the avoidance of too many internal contradictions. Dequin opines that the establishment of an “ʿAbbāsid worldview” and its organized proliferation goes back to the Barmakids, who up to the era of Hārūn al-​Rashīd promoted the composition of standard works of all fields and disciplines, frequently based on translations, but mostly anxious to give the impression that the new publication was an Arabic original.

The enigmatic Qurʾān Transmission history Several Inârah authors have spent years investigating some of the oldest manuscripts and especially the variants and different readings (qirāʾāt) to be found in them (G.R. Puin 2008; E. Puin 2008, 2009, 2010, 2012, 2014; Fedeli 2009, 2012; Small 2008; Gallez and Lamsiah 2014). The 316

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Qurʾān is said to have been transmitted orally and committed to writing only at the time of the caliph ʿUthmān. The variants, however, tell a different story. In many, but not in all cases, they represent phonetically very different readings, which go back to the same consonant skeleton without diacritical dots, the so-​called rasm. As Gerd R. Puin pointed out, if the Islamic notion of tawātur (widespread oral transmission) is correct, then the early reciters of the Qurʾān must have memorized phonetically very different variants (e.g., yayʾas vs. yatabayyan), which a generation later was first written down and miraculously led to the same rasm. The most logical explanation is that the primary medium of transmission was not the memory of reciters, rather written texts or manuscripts (without diacritical dots), which later were interpreted in different ways.7 The dogma of the oral transmission of the Qurʾān has been doubted before, for example by Mingana, who mentions the problem of the Arabic name Yaḥyā, which appears in the Qurʾān (e.g., Q 3:39, 6:85; 19:9, 19:12, 21:90), which corresponds to the Greek name John/​Johannes, the Syriac form of which is Yuḥannā (1927: 177).The two forms are phonetically very different, but a comparison of the written forms brings us to the solution: yaḥyā (‫ )يحيى‬and yuḥannā (‫)يحنى‬ have exactly the same rasm, the only difference lies in the diacritical points. It was a case of mis-​ reading, not of mis-​hearing, which led to the different forms of the name.

One or several authors? For Western scholars the question of authorship of the Qurʾān is perhaps the most sensitive issue regarding early Islam. Many modern scholars are anxious to find a formula that sounds scientific and at the same time does not irate Muslim believers. Angelika Neuwirth for example considers the Qurʾān to be something like the minutes of a dialogue between the early Islamic community (“Gemeinde”) and the proclaimer (“Verkünder”) (2010).8 This looks more like mental gymnastics than good scholarship: Every verse of the Qurʾān was either written or at least given its final shape by a human being, not by some intangible “dialogue.” And the question is legitimate whether those who gave this final shape to Qurʾānic verses were one or many (i.e., more than one), irrespective of the question whether they followed divine inspiration or their own creativity. Moreover, for a Western scholar the general approach should always be to assume a human author, not divine intervention. The impression one gets after an unbiased look at the different parts of the Qurʾān is not that it is the work of one author. The short surahs of the final juzʾ of the Qurʾān, the so-​ called juzʾ ʿammā, and the juridical parts of Medinan surahs display a drastically different style. Another problem becomes clear when the Qurʾān is not read in Arabic letters, but in transliteration (see Zirker 2013). In many cases a large number of relatively short verses, which cover not more than a third of the page’s width, are followed by one verse of up to six (!) lines, a good example being Q 74:31. The only conclusion is that such a verse is a later addition. Moreover, there are twenty-nine surahs, which do not contain the divine name Allāh, but rabb instead. A third designation for God is raḥmān. In biblical studies it is common to refer to the Yahwist and Elohist texts of the Pentateuch, a distinction based on the use of the respective Hebrew term for God. So it might not be too far-​fetched to postulate a set of Rabbist, Rahmanist, and Allahist texts in the Qurʾān. Considering all these facts the question remains what the common stylistic element of the Qurʾān is. Even Neuwirth herself did not present anything except for two features: the Qurʾānic loose rhyme (sajʿ) and a number of typical Qurʾānic expressions like wa-​allāhu yaʿlamu wa-​antum lā taʿlamūna “God knows and you do not know” at the end of a verse. As these expressions mostly 317

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appear without any connection to the rest of the text, they might have been added later to mark a specific text as Qurʾānic. How the question of authorship might be treated can be exemplified by asking whether the author(s) of the Qurʾān knew Hebrew (Gross 2014a).To answer it, we can look at an expression to be found in Q 112:1, which also appears in the inscription on the inside of the Dome of the Rock: qul huwa allāhu aḥad, “Say: He is God, the One!” It is conspicuous that the normal Arabic word required here would not be aḥad, but wāḥid or waḥda-​hu, a form that can be found on early Islamic coins: lā ilāha illā allāh waḥda-​hu. The possibility that Syriac is the donor language can be excluded, as the form of the word in that language is unspecific:  ḥaḏ. If, however, we consider the corresponding Hebrew text (Deut. 6:4), we find a parallel: šmaʿ yiśraʾēl YHWH elohēnū YHWH eḥad, “Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one!” Even Neuwirth sees this biblical verse as connected to the choice of words in this surah (2010: 200). So it seems plausible to assume that the author of this verse did in fact have at least some knowledge of Hebrew. The next form we will analyze is the name Isaac, in Arabic Isḥāq (with a sīn), which corresponds to the Hebrew Yiṣḥāq (with an emphatic ṣ). The Hebrew form means “he laughs” and is explained in Genesis 18:10–​12: God announces a son to the centenarian Abraham, which the latter refuses to believe, instead “he laughs”: wa-​y-​yiṣḥāq. In another verse it is his wife who laughs (tiṣḥāq). In the Syriac Bible the form is Īsḥāq, as in Arabic with a non-​emphatic “s,” and the etymology of the name is obscured, as “he laughed” is gḥeḵ in Syriac. So we can be certain that this Arabic name form does not stem from the Hebrew Bible, but from a Syriac source. That the Hebrew text was not known and the etymology not understood by the author of the respective Qurʾānic verse (Q 11:71) becomes clear when we read it: “And his wife, standing by, laughed (fa-​ḍaḥikat) when We gave her good tidings (of the birth) of Isaac (Isḥāq).” Although the root of the Arabic verb ḍaḥika might be etymologically connected to the root underlying Hebrew yiṣḥaq, this connection was not seen by the author of this verse. We can be certain that he did not know this text in Hebrew and probably did not understand the language at all. So the probability is very high that these two Qurʾānic verses (Q 112:1, 11:71) presuppose at least two different authors!

The theology of early Islam Karl-​Heinz Ohlig, the initiator of Inârah, argues that the theology in the Qurʾān and its view of Jesus –​not as the son of God, but only as a messenger (rasūl), a servant of God (ʿabd allāh), and a praised one (muḥammad) –​is much older than the concept of Trinity. This concept goes back to the First Council of Nicaea in 325 CE. So the Qurʾān can be interpreted as defending the old view against the modern Western/​Hellenistic interpretation of Jesus as son of God. According to the Nicene Creed, Jesus is of the same substance (“homo-​ousios”) as opposed to a like substance (“homoi-​ousios”) as God, who was thus first seen as a binitarian (and only with later Councils as a trinitarian) deity (Ohlig 2013b). These tenets were already strictly rejected by the ancient Syrian theologians such as Aphrahat (Bruns 1991), as well as later by the Qurʾān. Together with Luxenberg, but for different reasons, Ohlig opines that muḥammad –​“the praised one” –​is originally only an epithet of Jesus. If understood in this way, the sentence from the shahāda “muḥammad rasūl Allāh” does not mean “and Muḥammad is the Messenger of God,” but “praised be the Messenger of God.”That such a meaning is in accordance with Arabic grammar can be seen when we take the well-​known phrase from Christian liturgy (Mt 23:39): mubārakun al-​ʾātī bi-​smi-​al-​rabb (“benedictus qui venit in nomine domine,” Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord). Mubārak (“the blessed one”) and muḥammad (“the praised one”) can be considered 318

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synonyms, but also the second part of the sentence, “he that cometh in the name of the Lord” is next to synonymous to “he is the Messenger of God,” which would make the second part of the shahāda a quotation from the Bible. Moreover, a short perusal of the coin images examined by Volker Popp (2009a) shows that early Islamic coins are full of Christian symbols, among others, the cross. For Ohlig, the split between Christianity and Islam, i.e., the moment in history when they were felt to be two antagonizing religions, was as late as the year 800 or even later. Therefore we have “Christian” symbols on the oldest coins, but it was not the post-​Nicene Trinitarian Christianity we know, but a kind of Christianity which had a concept of Jesus much like that of Islam.

The “territory of emergence” of Islam Mecca and its attestation in the Qurʾān It is generally assumed that the place where Islam originated is Mecca, the holy city of Islam. As we have seen, the material evidence for this location is very scanty, the oldest coin stemming from the year 202 AH. Archeological investigation of sites in Mecca was either forbidden or, in modern days, is made impossible due to the building activities of the Saudi government (Destruction n.d.). But even in the Qurʾān, there is but one attestation of the alleged name Makka and one of an alleged variant: Bakka. A number of hypotheses have attempted to account for this (Gross and Ibn Warraq 2014). The most likely explanation for the form bakka was put forth by A. Regnier (1939, 2013). Q 3:96 reads:  inna ʾawwal bayt wuḍiʿa li-​al-​nāsi la-​alladhī bi-​bakka mubārak wa-​hudan li-​al-​ ʿālamīn, “The first House (of worship) appointed for men was that at Bakka, full of blessing and of guidance for all kinds of beings.” Regnier found a parallel in the Book of Psalms (84:6–​7): ʿōḇirê bi-​ʿemeq ha-​bbāḵāʾ maʿyān yišîṯû-​hû gam-​birāḵôṯ yaʿiṭeh môreh …, “Passing through the valley of Baca they make it a spring; The early rain also covers it with blessings ….” The Hebrew expression bi-​ʿemeq ha-​bbāḵāʾ etymologically corresponds to the Aramaic expression in the Pšiṭṭā: bə-​ʿumqā də-​ḇaḵṯā. In the relevant verses in both the Qurʾān and the Psalms we are dealing with a “blessed” place of worship, not a town: “full of blessing” and “covers it with blessings,” respectively. The corresponding Hebrew and Arabic forms are both from the same root: b-​r-​k. (Qurʾān/​Arabic: mubārak; Bible/​Hebrew: birāḵôṯ). The Qurʾānic passage is probably a reminiscence of the psalm, by the way the only biblical book mentioned in the Qurʾān by name: zabūr. The form makka is only attested in one verse: wa-​huwa alladhī kaffa aydiya-​hum ʿan-​kum wa-​aydiya-​kum ʿan-​hum bi-​baṭn makka min baʿd ʾan ʾaẓfara-​kum ʿalay-​him wa-​kāna Allah bi-​mā taʿmalūna baṣīr, “And it is He Who has restrained their hands from you and your hands from them in the midst of Makka, after that He gave you the victory over them. And Allah sees well all that ye do” (Q 48:24; Pickthall 1930). From the context it is not clear what exactly this verse alludes to. The expression bi-​baṭn does not make it very probable that a town is meant, let alone a holy place. The other Qurʾānic expression often taken as alluding to Mecca, or more specifically the Kaʿba, is masjid al-​ḥarām, “the forbidden place of worship,” which is equally unspecific. To sum up, if we did not know about Mecca from the traditional literature and modern Islam, and instead only possessed the Qurʾān, we would never think of this city as the holy place where the religion of Islam originated. Robert Kerr provides a lengthy explanation of how Mecca became the holy city of Islam and which traditions helped flesh out the narrative (2014c). Now if it was not Mecca, the question remains where the “territory of emergence” 319

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(Gobillot 2008) of Islam can be found. The most likely candidate is the region where the first Islamic coins were minted: the area around Marw (southern Turkestan on the Silk Road), the city the caliph ʿAbd al-​Malik was probably named after: Marw-​ān.

Buddhist elements The very thought of a historical connection between the emergence of Islam, a strictly monotheistic religion, and Buddhism, a religion without the concept of a personal god from a place as far away as India, seems to be absurd. From a theological or rather philosophical perspective a bigger contrast seems hardly possible. But if we consider the possibility that the territory of emergence of Islam was Arabic-​speaking pre-​Nicene enclaves on the Silk Road, where all contemporary religions and belief systems came into contact, then links between these two religions become much more plausible (Gross 2008, 2009). However, the differences are so fundamental that, should there have been an influence of Buddhism on early Islam, then we should not expect this influence to be visible in the beliefs and the ethics of Islam, but rather in superficial elements or formalities. However, when trying to find influences between two religions, we must bear in mind an important caveat: not everything that looks similar is linked or even means the same. So if we want to find out whether a shared feature goes back to parallel development or borrowing, at least one of the following criteria must be met: (1) the parallels coincide in at least one detail, which does not appear in similar cases; (2) the parallel in Islam contradicts what is normal in this religion; and (3) the parallel is only a parallel between Islam and Buddhism and cannot be found in other religions of the area. For example, the pilgrimage (ḥajj) is not explicitly described in the Qurʾān, important terms connected to it do not appear or they appear with a different meaning, e.g. ṭawāf, saʿy, ʿumra.9 With all these reservations, the following parallels between Buddhism and Islam can be found: (1) In Q 2:197 we find the expression al-​ḥajjʾashhur maʿlūmāt, “the pilgrimage (or ‘feast’ (the original meaning of the Hebrew equivalent ḥāg) [takes place] during the well-​known months.” It is conspicuous that the plural of “month” is used here, which presupposes a minimum of three months. As the ḥajj takes place only during one month, probably something else is meant. The time when most Buddhist young men become monks is the rainy season, which in Buddhism is marked by two big ceremonies. It lasts exactly three months. (2) The so-​called saʿy (running from Ṣafā to Marwa during the pilgrimage) is an activity totally unknown in normal Islamic life. It has, however, a parallel in Buddhist “walking meditation,” if the pace is slowed. Ṣafā (Aramaic: Rock) might designate Jerusalem (the Dome of the Rock) and Marw-​ā (the city on the Silk Road). The run then would symbolize ʿAbd al-​Malik’s travel from Marw to Jerusalem. (3) The clothes to be worn during the pilgrimage have a conspicuous characteristic for men: the right shoulder is uncovered.This is unparalleled in normal Islamic clothing, but exactly resembles Buddhist monks’ robes. For women, the veil, gloves, etc. are not only not obligatory, as in normal life in many Islamic countries, but forbidden. (4) The pilgrims’ clothes are white, and according to one ḥadīth may not be colored with wars, a substance which dyes them “between red and yellow,” exactly the range of colors of Buddhist monks of different denominations. White clothes are typical for Buddhist lay followers. (5) At the beginning of both the pilgrimage and an ordination as a monk the head is shaved and the body perfumed. (6) Both a Buddhist temple and the Kaʿba are circumambulated, a practice normally unknown in Islam. The direction in Buddhism is clockwise, except during funerals (as in Islam). (7)  The description of the Kaʿba resembles the one of the Nowbahār in Afghanistan, e.g., both buildings are veiled. (8) Some Islamic concepts are not 320

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explicitly treated in the Qurʾān, one of them being the niyya, “intention.” A similar concept is very important in Buddhism. It is known as cetanā (Sanskrit/​Pali: “intention,” a presupposition for the karmic impact of a deed). Another key Buddhist term to be considered in this context is sammā-​sati and sati-​patthāna (“mindfulness”). (9) There are several parallels in the life of Buddha and Muḥammad: before Buddha’s mother conceived she saw a white elephant in a dream, whereas the Prophet was born in “the year of the elephant” (a story later connected to a military campaign of Abraha from Yemen). (10) According to one tradition, Muḥammad was born, received his first revelation, and died on the same day. One of the most important holidays in Buddhism is Vesākha (also called “Buddha day”), the day the Buddha allegedly was born, entered the state of homelessness, attained enlightenment, and passed away (“parinirvāna”). (11) There is at least one parallel text in the Qurʾān and the Buddhist canon: Q 109 very much resembles the 8th speech of the first part (Sīlakkhandhavaggapāḷi) of the so-​called Long Discourses (Dīghanikāya) of the Pali Canon. If these features and elements should really go back to Buddhist influence, the question arises why they were introduced. Here a parallel case from Christianity can help: Christmas is originally the holiday of the ancient Roman sol invictus, a competing cult of late antiquity. The emperor Constantine had coins struck with the Christogram Chi Rho on one side and the symbol of sol invictus on the other. The re-​interpretation of the old holiday as the birthday of Christ facilitated conversions from the competitor cult. As newcomers they found something in the new religion that they knew already. Similarly it is imaginable that these (superficially) Buddhist elements were secondarily introduced into Islam. The fact that during the earliest era of Islam there must have been links between the Arabic-​speaking world and India is also demonstrated by the oldest dictionary of Arabic, the Kitāb al-​ʿayn, authored by Khalīl b. Aḥmad. The sequence of letters is not the one current in Arabic or any other Semitic language, but of the sacred language of India: Sanskrit (Plato 2017).

Epilogue: critical research and the Islamic world I am aware that both believing Muslims and traditional scholars of Islamic Studies must find the present chapter irritating. Still I believe that the alternative view of early Islam just sketched is more or less what would emerge from research, if Islam were not one of the major world religions with millions of often bellicose adherents. If we did not possess anything about the history of early Islam but manuscripts and medieval text editions, hard prima facie evidence (inscriptions, coins, artifacts, and excavations), and what “the others said about Islam (or rather the Hagarenes),” and if the standard historical-​critical methods, which are a standard in other disciplines, were applied to the letter, then this is roughly the picture with which we would end up. Of course, the inevitable question both for the scholar and the believing Muslim must arise: what would remain of the religion if the view just described should ever be accepted by mainstream Islam? Fred Donner has the following to say about Islam and Western research: The implication for those of us who wish to engage in such historical research is that we should go full speed ahead and not trim our sails to placate irate believers. We should, to be sure, try to explain to believers (and to everyone else) exactly why our work is not in any way a threat to their faith, perhaps along the lines suggested above, and make it clear to them that we do not dispute their right to believe as they wish; ideally, we should have believers as allies in our researches, not as adversaries. (2011: 36) 321

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I agree that we should not trim our sails, but I cannot help considering the rest of the quotation as the result of wishful thinking. Of course, one might opine that the “main tenets” of Islam, the assumption of an uncreated creator, of an immortal soul, of afterlife with the reward for good and punishment for bad deeds would not have to be dropped. But would not most believers of Islam claim that faith in the historicity of the Prophet, the Sunna, and the Qurʾān as the unalterable literal word of God are also “main tenets” of Islam? These truth claims would have to be given up. In order to see what it means for a religion to come to grips with modern science the example of the Catholic Church, the theory of evolution, and the big bang theory is instructive. It is true that these theories have been accepted by the Vatican, but it is also true that this was a painful process, and that along this path the Church has lost many of its members. In my opinion, good research and free thinking have a precious and costly prerequisite: doubt. Precious, because it leads to a constant process of questioning one’s basic assumptions, of never being content with what one has found out so far, and eventually to self-​improvement. Moreover, to quote Sir Peter Ustinov, what unites people is not faith, but doubt. But it is also costly, as it leads one to question even one’s basic convictions –​including faith. Still I think that the ultimate effects, even on a religion, can be positive: the Catholic Church today is a much more humane and likeable institution than it was during the Renaissance, and it can be hoped that enlightenment for Islam would have a similar effect. If we observe public “debates” in Islamic countries, for example about the ethics of a new law, the marrying age of girls, etc., the usual procedure is that passages from the Qurʾān and its commentaries, the ḥadīth literature, and the sīra are adduced to make a point.This would change for the better if the holy book of Islam were no longer the literal word of God, but only –​as in Christianity –​ an inspired book, and if the traditional literature were considered only books to be understood within the historical context in which they were written. Whoever wants every inhabitant of the Islamic world to have access to the achievements of a free, democratic, and enlightened society has to start with the historical-​critical investigation of the Qurʾān and traditional Islamic literature.

Notes 1 See, for example, the prestigious handbook of Arabic philology edited by Helmut Gätje (1987). 2 The question of the emergence of Classical Arabic, which the society has addressed, will not be discussed. See Markus Gross (2012). 3 It is communis opinio in the academic world that they are fakes (for pictures see Muḥammad’s Letters n.d.). 4 It is described as “perhaps the earliest purely Greek inscription … with a hijra date” (Islamic Awareness 2007). 5 It should also be mentioned that both the Gospel of Matthew and Ibn Isḥāq’s biography of the Prophet begin with genealogies. 6 See the section on Buddhist elements in this chapter. 7 There are more reasons to doubt the primarily oral transmission (Gross 2013). 8 This notion, in slightly different wording, appears throughout several chapters of her book. 9 It might be objected that the verbal roots appear as ḥajj al-​bayt and iʿtamara, but the context does not allow a clear text-​inherent interpretation.

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Markus Gross ——​. 2009. “Ibaditen”/​“Kharidjiten”/​“Mutaziliten”:  Kategorisierungsprobleme, Entstehungslegenden und synkretistisch-​gnostische Strömungen im Westen des arabischen Reiches. In: Gross, M. and Ohlig, K.-​H. eds. Vom Koran zum Islam. Berlin: Verlag Hans Schiler, 250–​321. ——​. 2010. Araboislamische Geschichtsschreibung und ihre Auswirkungen auf Geschichtsbilder von al-​ Andalus (8. Jh.). In: Gross, M. and Ohlig, K.-​H. eds. Die Entstehung einer Weltreligion I. Berlin: Verlag Hans Schiler, 140–​232. ——​ . 2017. Al-​ Andalus:  Historiographie und Archäologie In:  Gross, M. and Ohlig, K.-​ H. eds. Die Entstehung einer Weltreligion IV. Berlin: Verlag Hans Schiler, 547–​635. Walker, J. 1941. A Catalogue of Muhammadan Coins in the British Museum:  vol. 1:  Arab-​Sassanian Coins. London: The British Museum. Wansbrough, J. 1977. Quranic Studies:  Sources and Methods of Scriptural Interpretation. Oxford:  Oxford University Press. ——​. 1978. The Sectarian Milieu:  Content and Composition of Islamic Salvation History. Oxford:  Oxford University Press. Wellhausen, J. 1902. Das Arabische Reich und sein Sturz. Berlin: Verlag von G. Reiner. Zirker, H. 2013. Koran-​Transliteration. www.eslam.de/​begriffe/​t/​pdf/​quran_​transliter.pdf.

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19 QURʾĀNISTS Daniel W. Brown

Since the late 19th century the idea that the Qurʾān should serve as the sole source of Islamic faith and practice has been articulated by a variety of Muslim thinkers in a variety of places. The idea itself is easily articulated: If the Qurʾān stands alone as the pure revelation of God, perfect and incomparable both in origins and transmission, then it must be the exclusive source of guidance for the faith and practice of Muslims. This apparently simple extrapolation from standard Muslim beliefs about the Qurʾān might be uninteresting except that most Muslims through most of Islamic history have thought differently. While we find traces of Qurʾān-​only ideas attributed to early theological movements, notably the Khārijites, such ideas gained little traction. The classical position, powerfully argued by al-​Shāfiʿī, made the Sunna of the Prophet a source of Islamic law on par with the Qurʾān, and more important in practice. Since the Sunna could only be known by means of authoritative ḥadīth, the result was that authenticated ḥadīth reports from the Prophet became foundational to the structure of Islamic law, and the challenge of authenticating ḥadīth gave rise to one of the great intellectual traditions of Islamic civilization. The Qurʾān took its place as one part of a larger epistemological system, and the interpretation of the Qurʾān and its of application in the formation of Islamic norms was filtered and bounded by a variety of other sources and principles including, but not limited to, the Sunna of the Prophet. In the modern period we first see Qurʾān-​only ideas in the Subcontinent, specifically in Lahore and Amritsar, with the emergence of groups calling themselves Ahl-​i Qurʾān. Such groups remained vigorous into the 20th century, and following partition Qurʾān-​only ideas became politically important in Pakistan, especially during the Ayub Khan era. But Qurʾānist ideas were not confined to the Subcontinent. Similar ideas have found expression in Egypt, in Turkey, in Malaysia and in Nigeria, and they seem to have arisen in many places independently, without significant mutual influence. Ahl-​i Qurʾān ideas in the Subcontinent were articulated in Urdu, and seem to have had little impact outside of India and Pakistan. Turkish and Egyptian Qurʾānists were not reading Urdu, nor do they seem to have been reading each other. Qurʾānist movements, narrowly defined, have had limited influence, especially outside of the Subcontinent. We might be stretching the facts to use the word “movements” at all. Full-​blown Qurʾān-​only ideas have mostly been articulated by isolated thinkers and have seldom developed enduring institutional structures or a wide popular following. And while Qurʾānist ideas are easy

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enough to find on the internet, so are marginal ideas of every kind, and it is notoriously difficult to gauge the impact or popularity of such ideas. In comparison with the vigor, resources, and institutions of global Salafism, Qurʾānist ideas might seem negligible. But the importance of the topic extends beyond thinkers or groups that specifically identify as Qurʾānist. A much larger spectrum of movements and thinkers has tended to elevate the Qurʾān in practice without taking a dogmatic Qurʾānist position. Elsewhere I have labeled this tendency scripturalism and argued that it is of central importance to understanding changing views of the Qurʾān in the modern period. Qurʾānist ideas are thus just one manifestation of a more general set of trends that has raised three interlinked questions: (1) Does the Prophet’s authority extend beyond the reception and transmission of the Qurʾān? That is, is there any sphere of prophetic authority independent of the Qurʾān? (2) If revelation does extend beyond the Qurʾān, how is such revelation transmitted and manifested in history, and especially in the modern world? How can prophetic guidance be known? (3) If ḥadīth reports are the primary means of transmitting knowledge about the Prophet, how is the reliability of these reports to be assessed and sifted? These questions have been discussed in striking ways among modern Muslims, and Qurʾānist discourse has been one important catalyst to these discussions. Scripturalism, of which Qurʾān-​ only ideas are a specific instance, has emerged as a widespread tendency in modern Islamic thought (Brown 1998).

The formative period We know from al-​Shāfiʿī’s writings that some of his 3rd-​/​8th-​century opponents completely rejected ḥadīth as a source of Islamic law. Schacht incorrectly identified these early deniers of ḥadīth as Muʿtazilites; Hüseyin Hansu has convincingly argued that they were in fact a group of Khārijites (Schacht 1950: 40, 258; Hansu 2016). According to Shāfiʿī’s account, these early adherents of a Qurʾān-​only position argued that because the Qurʾān is “an explanation of all things” (Q 12:111) no source of authority outside the Qurʾān is necessary. Consequently the number of prayers, for example, remains unfixed, and the obligation to pray is fulfilled even by one prayer per day. Such characterizations, coming from al-​Shāfiʿī’s pen in polemical context, seem calculated to show that a Qurʾān-​only position endangers the community by undermining the most basic religious norms. Indeed, the Khārijite Qurʾān-​only position was invoked to argue that Khārijite scholars can be disregarded in establishing scholarly consensus because they reject the necessity of transmitted knowledge (Hansu 2016). By contrast, al-​Shāfiʿī’s early Muʿtazilite opponents did not reject extra-​Qurʾānic prophetic authority in principle, but rather worked from a broader epistemological position arguing that only what can be known with certainty can serve as a basis for Islamic legal norms. Reports judged merely probable are insufficient, and since most ḥadīth narrations fall into this category they cannot serve as an independent basis for legal norms. In practice this led to rejection of a majority of ḥadīth narrations, but with regard to theory it meant the Muʿtazila and their traditionalist opponents, including al-​Shāfiʿī, spoke the same language. The issue was not whether the Prophet’s words and example command obedience, but how and with what degree of certainty they can be known. For the Muʿtazila, some categories of knowledge offer certain knowledge rising to the level of incontrovertible proof and thus demanding acceptance. The senses and reason convey such certainty. So too does the Qurʾān. A report or practice so widely accepted that it becomes inconceivable that the report is inauthentic similarly conveys certainty. So, for example, it is universally accepted that the Qurʾān was revealed to the Prophet Muḥammad, that the Prophet prayed five times each day, and that he gave alms and fasted during Ramadan. Such universally accepted knowledge requires no chain of transmission for its authentication, and 328

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thus occupies a different category from ḥadīth reports (Hansu 2009). By contrast, isolated ḥadīth narrations can convey, at best, probable knowledge unless bolstered by the consensus of scholars or derivative from the Qurʾān. Ḥadīth reports are thus subordinated in practice to the Qurʾān, to ijmāʿ, and to the universally acknowledged practice of the community. The subordination of ḥadīth to Qurʾān was itself enshrined in a ḥadīth report: “When a ḥadīth comes to you from me, compare it to the Book of God and if it agrees with it then accept it, and it differs with it, leave it” (Brown 2008: 165). In the 3rd century, then, we encounter a full-​blown Qurʾānist position among the Khārijites, and a rather less than full-​blown Qurʾānist position among the Muʿtazilites. After the 3rd century the position championed by al-​Shāfiʿī won the day so thoroughly that even later Muʿtazilites defended the evidential value of ḥadīth reports narrated by a single transmitter. It was not until the early 20th century, beginning in the Subcontinent, that Qurʾānist ideas reemerged, and when they did they took a variety of forms that mirror the range of approaches that we see among al-​Shāfiʿī’s 3rd-​century interlocutors.

The early 20th century In 1900 Maulvī ʿAbdullāh Chakṛālawī, a prayer leader at an Ahl-​i Ḥadīth mosque in Lahore, began teaching that the Qurʾān alone is a sufficient basis for Muslim belief and practice, and that reliance on ḥadīth is unnecessary. Chakṛālawī first drew attention to his views by inaugurating changes in the prayer ritual at his mosque, and during the following two years he became engaged in polemical arguments with Ahl-​i Ḥadīth figures, who accused him of reducing the Prophet to the status of a postman. He was expelled from his position, and with the patronage of a wealthy supporter established a separate mosque for his followers, issued a journal, and called his new movement the Ahl-​i Qurʾān.1 The heart of Chakṛālawī’s argument was positive:  the Qurʾān is “a Book explaining all things” (Q 16:89), and is therefore fully sufficient and comprehensive, supplying Muslims with everything required for guidance. This apparently simple affirmation raised three problems that have become central to modern Qurʾānist discourse: (1) If the Qurʾān is perfect and fully sufficient, and no supplement is necessary to make sense of it, what is the point of Muḥammad’s extra-​Qurʾānic words and actions? (2) What is the sense of the Qurʾān’s instruction to obey God and the Prophet? (3) If Muslims do away with ḥadīth, how are they to bridge the resulting gap in knowledge on such basic questions as how and when to pray? This last question offered scope for Chakṛālawī’s ingenuity, which he put to work on his signature project aimed at showing that all the essential details of ṣalāt can be derived from the Qurʾān without reference to other data. From Q 17:78 he derived the required five daily prayers by finding that “the decline of the sun” in fact included three prayers (Qasmi 2011: 140). He arrived at the number of repeated units (rakʿa; pl. rakaʿāt) in each prayer by reasoning from Q 4:101–​102 that the maximum number of units in a prayer is four and that this number should be reduced for morning and night prayers because the relative difficulty of praying early or late made these akin to prayers during wartime, whereas daytime prayers were, by contrast, easy. Chakṛālawī was preoccupied with answering his critics by deriving the basic elements of actual Muslim practice from the Qurʾān, but he also introduced innovations. From Q 6:46 he taught that worshippers should grasp their ears as a sign of meekness while reciting the takbīr. He also rejected the call to prayer as an innovation, and altered the recitations that accompany ṣalāt (Brown 1999: 46). These efforts to derive the prayer ritual from the Qurʾān were a direct response to criticism from Chakṛālawī’s opponents, who saw the gap left by abandoning ḥadīth as a powerful 329

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argument against him. But his preoccupation with ritual also shows just how deeply rooted the early Ahl-​i Qurʾān were in Ahl-​i Ḥadīth ways of thinking. The Ahl-​i Ḥadīth (and the wider Salafī movement that emerged in parallel with it) had visibly differentiated themselves from other Muslims by small innovations in ritual practice, justifying these differences on the basis of their own readings of the ḥadīth and rejection of other authorities; Chakṛālawī advanced this a step. But while rejecting all authority except Scripture may be logically or theologically defensible, it is not a reliable recipe for cohesion. Disciples directly inspired by Chakṛālawī felt no need to agree with him. One of these, Mistrī Muḥammad Ramaḍān, for example, concluded that Chakṛālawī had not sufficiently freed himself from bondage to ḥadīth-​based Islam; Ramaḍān found only three prayers in the Qurʾān, reduced each prayer to two rakaʿāt, eliminated all recitations, and broke off to launch his own organization and journal in Gujranwala (Brown 1999: 46; Qasmi 2011: 147–​149). Seen in isolation the emergence of the Ahl-​i Qurʾān in Lahore looks a lot like a minor, local schism within the Ahl-​i Ḥadīth. And measured by numbers of adherents, it certainly was minor; the Punjab census of 1911 listed 271 adherents of the Ahl-​i Qurʾān throughout the entire province, with the largest contingent, 62, in Lahore (Qasmi 2011: 145). After Chakṛālawī’s death in 1916, the group muddled along, then disappeared altogether after 1932. But these developments also need to be seen in a bigger context, and as Qasmi shows, the Qurʾānist impulse in the Subcontinent was a response to trends much wider than these parochial Ahl-​i Ḥadīth roots suggest (Qasmi 2011: 112–​124). We especially see the these trends at work in the emergence of Qurʾānist ideas in Amritsar. Amritsar, like Lahore, was an important Ahl-​i Ḥadīth center, and Khwaja Aḥmad al-​Dīn Amritsari, the pioneer of Qurʾānist ideas in Amritsar, was closely connected with the Ahl-​i Ḥadīth. Aḥmad al-​Dīn’s adoption of Qurʾān-​only ideas was gradual. In 1914 he published a book that sought to derive Islamic inheritance law exclusively from the Qurʾān. But it was only in 1923 that he publicly repudiated ḥadīth and adopted a Qurʾān-​only position in the course of an exchange with a leading Ahl-​i Ḥadīth scholar. The following year, 1924, he established an association, the Ummat-​i Muslima, and began publishing a journal, al-​Balagh, to disseminate Qurʾānist views (Qasmi 2011: 170). Whereas Chakṛālawī defended the sufficiency of the Qurʾān, Aḥmad al-​Dīn emphasized its universality. He repudiated Chakṛālawī’s efforts to establish the details of ritual practice from the Qurʾān, and rendered the silence of the Qurʾān on such details a virtue. By leaving details undefined, the Qurʾān demonstrated its universal applicability to all times and places and allowed freedom for the specific application of its universal principles to change. Aḥmad al-​Dīn thus aimed to de-​Arabize Islam, widening the umma to encompass other monotheistic communities. He considered the direction of prayer unimportant, for example. Consequently, while he has no objection to Muslims praying toward Mecca as a sign of unity, the practice has no bearing on the purpose of prayer and monotheists of different communities should be able to pray together. Similarly, the use of Arabic is unnecessary, and the point of ablutions is simple cleanliness, requiring no detailed instructions (Qasmi 2011: 180). On the status of the Prophet’s extra-​Qurʾānic words and actions, Aḥmad al-​Dīn pioneered the argument, elaborated by later Qurʾānists, that the Prophet was an ordinary, pious Muslim, whose responsibility was to interpret and apply the Qurʾān in his own time and place; his exegesis of the Qurʾān held the same status as that of any other skilled and responsible exegete (Brown 1999: 63–​67). Here Aḥmad al-​Dīn reflects a widespread tendency in modern Islamic thought toward the humanization and de-​mythologization of Muḥammad. He also opens the door to a completely different sort of application of the Prophet’s legacy: if the Prophet acted as an ordinary exegete, then an ordinary exegete is also acting like the Prophet. 330

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In Egypt, as in the Subcontinent, the earliest modern articulation of Qurʾānist ideas gained little traction, but was nevertheless characterized by ideas remarkably similar to those of Qurʾānists in the Subcontinent.2 In 1906 Muḥammad Tawfīq Ṣidqī, an associate of Rashīd Riḍā, published an article in al-​Manār that asserted that the prophetic Sunna was temporary and provisional, applicable only to the Prophet’s generation. He admits that the Qurʾānic command to obey the Prophet gives Muḥammad authority, but that authority is limited to application of the Qurʾān and is thus purely derivative. Mutawātir Sunna carries weight as an indication of the continuous consensus of the community, but minute details of Muḥammad’s behavior were never meant to be imitated. Most strikingly, Ṣidqī follows the same path as Chakṛālawī in arguing that the canonical prayer ritual can be derived from the Qurʾān alone. Thus on theological and epistemological questions Ṣidqī mirrors his Indian counterparts (Brown 1999: 47). Where Ṣidqī departs from the Indian Ahl-​i Qurʾān, and also anticipates the direction of anti-​ḥadīth ideas in Egypt, is in emphasizing weaknesses in the preservation and transmission of ḥadīth. If the Sunna had been meant to be applicable to all times and places, it would have been recorded verbatim and preserved with great care, like the Qurʾān. Ṣidqī’s ideas had a short life-​span. His article set off a two-​year controversy in the pages of al-​Manār that ended when, in response to Rashīd Riḍā’s criticism, Ṣidqī recanted his views. Lively discussions of prophetic authority continued following Ṣidqī’s article, most notably in the controversy that grew up around writings of Maḥmūd Abū Rayya during the 1960s, but these controversies focused predominantly on methodological and technical issues related to the transmission and criticism of ḥadīth, largely ignoring the kind of theological and epistemological concerns that marked this first generation of Qurʾānists (Juynboll 1969; Brown 1999: 81–​107). What explains the emergence of this first generation of Qurʾānist ideas in the early 20th century? In the Subcontinent an obvious factor is close association with the Ahl-​i Ḥadīth; Ahl-​i Qurʾān ideas emerged as an extrapolation of the questioning of authority that was already represented among the Ahl-​i Ḥadīth. By arguing that religious authority resided exclusively in texts, the Ahl-​i Ḥadīth were already promoting a kind of scripturalism, and scripturalism is potentially disruptive to received systems of authority. Once the scripturalist genie is out of the bottle, it is very difficult to contain. As we have seen, disciples of ʿAbdullah Chakṛālawī were not at all sure that the Qurʾān required five prayers. Aḥmad al-​Dīn concluded that the form of prayer did not matter much at all. Other trends were also at work in both the Subcontinent and Egypt. The colonial experience of interreligious polemic encouraged an elevation of the Qurʾān at the expense of other sources. The ḥadīth literature was much harder to defend in interreligious encounter than the Qurʾān, and it was sometimes downright embarrassing. Under attack from Western scholars and missionaries, the Qurʾān was thought to measure up favorably to the Bible. The classical tradition could be jettisoned or rethought; the Sunna could be questioned; the Qurʾān was a last bulwark. Thus Aḥmad al-​Dīn, for example, had studied at a Christian mission school, was familiar with the Bible, and became sensitive to missionary critiques and increasingly troubled by what he considered to be unacceptable ḥadīth reports. Muhammad Tawfīq Ṣidqī showed similar sensitivity to the criticisms of Christian missionaries. The tendency extends beyond Muslims: We see similar scripturalist trends among Hindus in the Punjab, who retreated to the Vedas in a similar fashion. Sociological changes were also in play. The emergence of Qurʾānist ideas accompanies a widespread disenfranchisement of religious scholars and the emergence of literate lay people educated in a completely different way. Educated lay people like Muḥammad Tawfīq Ṣidqī –​ engineers, doctors, and lawyers –​had greater access to scriptural texts than ever before. Moreover 331

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they felt competent to read, interpret, and judge those texts. At the same time they lacked the painstaking traditional education, traditional tools of analysis, and institutional ties that would have socialized them in traditional ways of approaching texts. Qurʾānist ideas thus emerge as one consequence of the disenfranchisement of the ʿulamāʾ and the democratization of religious knowledge in the modern period. This trend continued and accelerated after World War II, combining with the post-​colonial political environment to give Qurʾānist ideas new directions and impetus.

Post-​colonial developments In the Subcontinent Aslam Jayrājpūrī, Professor of History and Islamic Studies at the Jamia Milli in Delhi, laid the foundations for post-​colonial Qurʾānist ideas. Jayrājpūrī began by distinguishing between ḥadīth as a source of history and Sunna as a source of religious guidance. He was willing to accept the value of ḥadīth reports for the transmission of historical data, but he rejected ḥadīth as a source of religious authority.To solve the problem of how to establish a solid basis for Muslim practice, however, Jayrājpūrī appealed to the notion of mutawātir Sunna, arguing that the overwhelming agreement of the community on the basic outlines of Islamic religious practice was sufficient guarantee. He was thus able to establish the existing ritual practice of the community on a basis independent of ḥadīth reports. Here he distantly echoes the position of the early Muʿtazilites and anticipates an argument that would later be put to sophisticated use by Fazlur Rahman.3 Jayrājpūrī’s most important impact was in a different direction, however, through his influence on Ghulām Aḥmad Parwēz, who became a successful and prolific propagandist for Qurʾānist ideas. Parwēz took up and further developed a novel understanding of the Qurʾānic command to obey the Prophet that Jayrājpūrī had pioneered. According to Jayrājpūrī and Parwēz, Muḥammad’s responsibility as Prophet was twofold. First, he was to faithfully deliver divine revelation; obedience to the Prophet in this sense means obedience to the Qurʾān. Second, the Prophet wielded God-​given authority as head of the nascent Islamic state. In this capacity as political, administrative, and judicial leader, Muslims of his generation were called upon to obey the Prophet as a divinely appointed human leader. Far from lowering the Prophet to the status of postman, the charge leveled against the Ahl-​i Qurʾān, Parwēz portrayed the Prophet as an extraordinary human leader tasked with implementing a Qurʾānic vision for his society and thus a paradigmatic model for all future Muslim leaders (Brown 1999: 69–​70). The proper function of ḥadīth is thus not to transmit revealed guidance, but to document the early history of Islam. The ḥadīth literature, taken as an historical source, documents the Prophet’s paradigmatic role as the first leader of the Islamic state. The authority of the Prophet was vested not in the person of the Prophet, however, but in the separate office of head of the Islamic state, and after his death it passed on to his successors, the caliphs, and, in modern times, to the central authority of an Islamic state. The Markaz-​i Millat, as Parwēz labeled this authority, carried on the Prophet’s extra-​Qurʾānic legacy in the modern world and is responsible for implementation of a Qurʾān-​based society. The duties of such an authority are wide, extending even to guaranteeing the unity of Muslims by establishing and enforcing uniformity in the ritual prayers. Parwēz thus distanced himself from the earlier generations of the Ahl-​i Qurʾān by shifting the burden for defining details of ritual practice from the Qurʾān, which he thought had little to say about them, to the Markaz-​i Millat. However, for the present he argued that, in the absence of a true Markaz-​i Millat, existing practice should be retained.

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Qurʾānist ideas in Pakistan reached their zenith with Parwēz, and “Parwēzi” became shorthand among his critics for the whole Qurʾānist movement. His peak of influence coincided with the martial law regime of Ayub Khan, who was sympathetic to Parwēz’s ideas and from whom Parwēz actively sought patronage, with mixed success (Qasmi 2011: 260–​265). Parwēz’s expansive view of the role of the state in implementing the vision of a truly Qurʾānic society was an excellent fit with Ayub Khan’s authoritarian modernist project, as was the distinction Parwēz drew between the permanent and the mutable in Islam. But in the end it was the sophisticated modernist hermeneutic of Fazlur Rahman that gained official favor and was institutionalized in the Central Institute for Islamic Research and the Council for Islamic Ideology. But even if he failed to attract the degree of patronage he sought, the Ayub Khan years provided a conducive environment for Parwēz to publish his ideas freely, and he was far more successful than earlier Qurʾānists in establishing an institutional base, centered on his Idara Tuluʿ-​i Islam in Lahore and extending to local branches of the organization in Pakistan and internationally. Parwēz published prolifically in both Urdu and in English translation, and his numerous video and audio lectures were widely distributed during his lifetime and digitized for online distribution after his death.

Digital Qurʾānists Parwēz’s writings continued to have a following after his death, but outside of Pakistan his influence has been limited. The future of Qurʾānist ideas turned out to be in developments that were not to rooted in the Subcontinent, or indeed in the majority Islamic world at all, but in the globalized, interconnected world of the Muslim diaspora. But although they grew up independently of earlier Qurʾān-​only movements these new manifestations of Qurʾānist thought in the 1970s and 1980s were also closely connected with the challenges of religious pluralism. During the 1970s and 1980s a growing global industry in interreligious polemic fed a busy market in literature offering rationalistic and pseudo-​scientific proofs of the superiority of Islam. Maurice Bucaille’s 1976 polemic, The Bible, the Qurʾan and Science, for example, which drew on European critical scholarship to expose the Bible’s irrationality, gained wide popularity among Muslims engaged in apologetics or interreligious polemic. A major public face of these trends was the hugely popular South African polemicist Ahmed Deedat, who travelled the world tirelessly debating any Christian apologist who would take up his challenge. Deedat’s muscular apologetic fearlessly and ruthlessly attacked Christian and Jewish scriptures as irrational and corrupt, contrasting these with the perfection and incorruptibility of the Qurʾān (Haron 2014). By the mid-​1970s the movement had a new emerging star. Earlier in the decade Rashad Khalifa, an Egyptian émigré to the United States, began working out an elaborate, numerical proof that the text of the Qurʾān could only have been the result of a miracle.4 The key was a heretofore mysterious reference in Q 74 to the number 19. When Rashad Khalifa surveyed the Qurʾān he discovered 19s everywhere: 19 Arabic letters in the first verse, 19 × 6 (= 114) suras, 19 verses in the first sura revealed to Muḥammad, which is also 19 suras from the end of the Qurʾān. The number 19 also provided the solution to longstanding puzzles. Thus Khalifa’s 1973 book, Miracle of the Quran, showed that the number 19 definitively explained the mysterious letters that head 29 suras of the Qurʾān. But this was just the beginning. Uncovering the full extent of the miracle required a Hewlett-​Packard HP-​1000 E-​series computer, and when Khalifa set the computer free to analyze the Qurʾān, it showed beyond any possible doubt that no human could have produced a text so elaborately embedded with so many 19s.

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In the late 1970s Ahmed Deedat picked up Rashad Khalifa’s argument, making it a new fixture in his polemics, and in 1981 Khalifa published The Computer Speaks: God’s Message to the World, a lengthy collection of dot-​matrix computer printouts which, he said, put to rest once and for all any doubt about the miraculous origins of the Qurʾān. Khalifa presented the results as unmediated by human influence: the book was, he announced, entirely written by his HP-​ 1000 E-​series computer; the Creator had left a coded message in the Qurʾān, awaiting the dawn of the digital age when the code could finally decrypted for the first time (Khan 2010: 115). A new age had dawned; faith is no longer necessary; all possible doubt has been removed, and belief has given way to knowledge. Bizarre as these ideas may seem, Khalifa’s arguments fell squarely within the mainstream of 20th-​century Muslim interreligious polemics, where they fed a hunger for evidence of the perfection of the Qurʾān. Hence Deedat’s vote of confidence, which gave a dramatic boost to Rashad Khalifa’s project. Nor should Khalifa’s preoccupation with numbers come as a surprise to anyone with a rudimentary exposure to the place of numbers in the history of religious ideas, where the symbolism, hidden codes, and potential mystery of numbers has been a focus of perennial fascination (Schimmel 1993). Khalifa offered hints, however, that he was not confining himself to standard apologetic tropes. He claimed that his analysis also showed, definitively, that the world would end in 2280 AD (Haddad and Smith 1993: 141) The following year, 1982, Khalifa published a booklet entitled Quran, Hadith, and Islam which made clear that his proofs of the perfection and miraculous origins of the Qurʾān had an important corollary. In 89 pages, mostly taken up with Qurʾānic quotations, Khalifa efficiently outlined a Qurʾānist system that will, by now, look familiar: Muḥammad’s sole function as Prophet was to deliver the Qurʾān; apart from delivery of the Qurʾān, Muḥammad is entirely human and fallible so that Muslims are forbidden to idolize him or seek his intercession or seek guidance from him; all essential religious practices including prayer, almsgiving, fasting, and ḥajj originated not with Muḥammad but with Abraham; ḥadīth and Sunna amount to a test from God which the majority of Muslims fail by falling into idolatry; and now that the era of definitive proof has arrived, no excuse is left to persist in idolatry by continuing to accept the authority of ḥadīth (Khalifa 1982). Perhaps the key point of interest here is the role Khalifa assigns to Abraham in filling the gap in information about basic religious duties that is left by jettisoning ḥadīth. Khalifa argues that knowledge of essential religious practices was transmitted by continuous practice from Abraham onward, and is therefore completely independent of Muḥammad or of ḥadīth reports, for even the Prophet’s enemies among the Quraysh knew and practiced ṣalāt (Khalifa 1982: 37–​50). Here we have a recognizable variant on the position pioneered by the Muʿtazila and developed in the modern period by Jayrājpūrī, that the essentials of religious practice are tawātur, so widely known and transmitted that they are beyond doubt and can be known independently of ḥadīth. Khalifa’s innovation is to bypass Muḥammad altogether. The early 1980s represented a high point for Khalifa. In 1981, the year of The Computer Speaks, Khalifa also published his first English translation of the Qurʾān, accompanied by commentary and 19 appendices, which he claimed was the first English translation by a native Arabic speaker. In 1982, in addition to his booklet on ḥadīth, he further disseminated his views in Quran: Visual Presentation of the Miracle. But his prediction of the end of the world and his rejection of ḥadīth aroused opposition, and by the mid-​1980s he was moving increasingly to the margins of Islam and following a script familiar to scholars of new religious movements. Early in 1985 he announced that he had found that the last two verses of Q 9 violated the 19 code and were thus shown to be fabricated. Later the same year he issued the Tucson Declaration of September 15 (1985 AD equated to 1406 AH, arrived at by multiplying 19 by 74) announcing 334

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the establishment of the United Islamic Nation along with the imminent fall of all existing Islamic regimes that refused to recognize the sole authority of the Qurʾān. That fall he declared that the identity of the Mahdi would finally be revealed. The announcement, when it came, turned out to be anti-​climactic; the Mahdi was, it turned out, the Qurʾān itself. But hostility toward Khalifa was growing. In 1987 the Saudi religious establishment sponsored a point by point refutation of his work, and the President of the Muslim World League declared him an apostate; in 1988 Ahmed Deedat dismissed him a charlatan. Rashad Khalifa’s final move came in 1988, when in a special issue of his newsletter, Muslim Perspectives, he declared himself to be God’s “commissioned messenger to the New World” placing himself alongside Abraham and Muḥammad. Just as Abraham was God’s original messenger, and Muḥammad brought the final Scripture, so “Rashad was blessed with delivering the religious proof of authenticity.” His calling was rooted in a validating vision: while on ḥajj in 1971 he was taken (“in the soul, not the body”) to meet the Prophets one by one. Each of them declared their belief in him as “the Apostle of the Covenant” and he was particularly struck by Abraham’s physical resemblance to himself. And there was further proof: the root from which Rashad is derived occurs 19 times in the Qurʾān, he was born on November 19, day 323 (19 × 17) of the solar year, and the number of Qurʾānic verses containing the roots R-​Sh-​D and Kh-​L-​F totals 1,463, which is 19 × 77 (Haddad and Smith 1993: 156). In 1990 Khalifa was murdered in the kitchen of Masjid Tucson, the mosque where he presided. Masjid Tucson continued to function after his death, and still does. More significantly, he deeply influenced three men –​Edip Yüksel, Kassim Ahmad, and Ahmad Subhy Mansour –​who proved tireless propagators of his core ideas, extending the reach of the Khalifa’s Qurʾānist ideas in Turkey, Malaysia, and Egypt and, perhaps more importantly, bringing Rashad Khalifa’s Qurʾānist ideas to the internet. Of the three, Edip Yüksel has exerted the widest influence and shown the greatest independence of thought. Edip Yüksel arrived at Masjid Tucson just a year before Rashad Khalifa’s death. The son of Sadrettin Yüksel, a prominent Turkish ʿālim, Edip was active in Islamist youth organizations in the late 1970s, and arrested and imprisoned for four years following the 1980 coup.5 He claims that in the early 1980s he was the best-​selling author in Turkey. According to his own account he was introduced to Rashad Khalifa’s ideas by Ahmed Deedat and began corresponding with Khalifa in the 1980s. In July, 1986, he received Rashad Khalifa’s Quran, Hadith, and Islam and experienced a dramatic “paradigm shift.” His father condemned him as an apostate,6 he went into hiding, and in 1989 he emigrated to the United States, sponsored by Rashad Khalifa. At Masjid Tucson he worked closely with Khalifa for a year before the latter’s death. In the early 1990s, following Khalifa’s murder, the Masjid Tucson community experienced a leadership struggle. Yüksel and those aligned with him opposed what he described as the emergence of a cult centered on Rashad Khalifa and arising from his claims to be a messenger. Khalifa had rejected the Sunna of Muḥammad on the grounds that the Prophet’s sole duty as messenger was delivery of the Qurʾān; now, according to Yüksel, some of his followers had become idol-​carvers, substituting the sunna of Rashad, for the Sunna of Muḥammad. The issue came to a head in the mid-​1990s and Yüksel was excommunicated in1995.7 Yüksel has hewn close to Khalifa on the latter’s core doctrine, that the mathematical structure of the Qurʾān, centered on the number 19, definitively demonstrates its miraculous origins, and that reliance on any fallible human authority, including the ḥadīth, is idolatrous. But in his application of Qurʾān-​only ideas Yüksel has broken free. He finds, for example, not five but three prayers in the Qurʾān and reports that some years ago he himself began praying three times a day. For the takbīr he also reports that he substitutes “Allah ul-​kabir” for “Allahu Akbar” since the former appears in the Qurʾān while the latter does not. He insists, however, that these practices 335

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are not binding on other believers, who are free to continue to pray more prayers than required so long as doing so does not spring from idolatry toward fallible human authority (Yüksel 2004). Yüksel’s great project has been to frame Qurʾānist ideas as essential to any project of Islamic reform. He subtitles his English rendering of the Qurʾān “a Reformist Translation,” advertises it as “non-​sexist and non-​racist,” and he has sought to portray himself as a central figure in a wide network of Islamic reformers, organizing international “Critical Thinkers for Islamic Reform” conferences and publishing a “Manifesto for Islamic reform.” With Yüksel, Qurʾānist ideas have come to a point where Qurʾānic interpretation is unbounded by any authority except the application of human reason, where expectation is drastically reduced for individual conformity to wider group norms, and where the only loyalty that matters is to the Qurʾān as the perfect revelation of God.

Qurʾānist tropes Particular expressions of Qurʾān-​only ideas have varied widely and been shaped by sharply different contexts. Al-​Shāfiʿī’s Khārijite and Muʿtazilite opponents are, contextually, worlds away from ʿAbdullāh Chakṛālawī’s colonial Lahore, and Chakṛālawī’s tortured attempts to recreate the five prayers from the Qurʾān have little in common with Yüksel’s reformist apologetic. At the same time we see recurring themes, reflecting the problems raised by a Qurʾān-​only position. It might be easy enough to throw off the constraints of ḥadīth. It is much more difficult to build any consensus about how the Qurʾān is to be interpreted in its absence. Thus the question of ṣalāt becomes a test case in every manifestation of Qurʾānist discourse from al-​Shāfiʿī to Yüksel. And it is easy to see why. Prayer is a central symbol of monotheistic piety in the Qurʾān. It is also a powerful, visible mark of the unity of the community manifested through its uniformity of practice. Thus we see a divide, often between first-​and second-​generation Qurʾānists, over how far to carry the logic of the Qurʾān-​only position. Does fidelity to the Qurʾān end in the freedom of each individual to decide for him or herself how to understand and apply it? If not, what is the basis for a shared understanding of foundational beliefs and practices? Can I pray however and whenever I want? Or does this level of freedom shake the very foundations of the tradition? To put the problem in terms of formative Islam: how can Muslims avoid the fragmentation that seems inherent in the Khārijite position? The trajectory of Qurʾānist thought toward increasing fragmentation faintly echoes the Reformation struggles of the magisterial reformers, who found the idea of sola scriptura appealing until more radical reformers actually took it seriously. Once unleashed, the idea of exclusive scriptural authority is difficult to contain. The magisterial reformers struggled mightily to bring it under control. Neither Luther nor Zwingli, for example, was willing to give up on the baptism of infants despite the complete absence of biblical warrant for it. And Zwingli was quite content to have other Christians who disagreed on this point drowned. The question of images was similarly troublesome. A central biblical text, the second commandment, seems to forbid images. Jews had always read it this way, and the Orthodox Church had found its own compromise; but for Western Christians images were everywhere. Yet when crowds of excited German Christians began to destroy images, Luther was appalled. Similarly, a fair amount of Qurʾānist discourse has been devoted to damage control and to finding alternative constraints on the interpretation of the Qurʾān. Solutions have varied from the Muʿtazilite appeal to the universally acknowledged practice of the community to Parwēz’s authoritarian vision of the Markaz-​i Millat. Most of these involve alternative readings of what it means to obey the Prophet, bypassing ḥadīth, but nevertheless invoking prophetic authority. 336

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Consequently Qurʾānist discourse raises problems that are inherent to Islamic notions of revelation, and therefore of much wider import than the limited spread of Qurʾānist ideas might suggest.

Notes 1 For background on the emergence of the Ahl-​i Qurʾān, we now have Qasmi’s excellent studies (Qasmi 2009, 2011) which place the emergence of the Ahl-​i Qurʾān within the social and religious context of colonial Punjab. 2 The foundational study of discussions of ḥadīth in Egypt is that of G.H.A. Juynboll (1969). 3 Although he viewed ḥadīth critically, Fazlur Rahman was not a Qurʾānist, and he harshly criticized Parwēz. Unlike Jayrajpuri and Parwēz he does reject ḥadīth as a source of normative guidance, but rather seeks to relocate the basis of its normativity. Ḥadīth continues to provide an essential link with the period of the Prophet by documenting how the early communities of Muslims understood and applied the Prophet’s “living sunna”; the normative legacy of the Prophet is thus to be found in this “living sunna,” the specific application of which is subject to change. Rahman’s ideas on Sunna are set out most thoroughly in his Islamic Methodology in History (1965). 4 For biographical accounts of Rashad Khalifa see Haddad and Smith (1993) and Khan (2010). 5 Details given here are from autobiographical accounts on his website 19.org and from an interview in Front Page Magazine. See Edip Yuksel (2004) and Jamie Glazov (2007). 6 According to rumor, when the killer of Sadrettin Yüksel’s first son came to him to beg forgiveness, Sadrettin replied that all would be forgiven if he killed Edip as well. 7 “What happened to Edip? Edip was excommunicated by those who could not handle his opposition to their idol-​carving” (Yüksel 1997).

Bibliography Ahmad, K. 1997. Hadith: A Re-​evaluation. Ali, S.A. trans. Fremont, CA: Universal Unity. Brown, D. 1998.The Triumph of Scripturalism: The Doctrine of Naskh and its Modern Critics. In: Waugh, E.H. and Denny, F.M. eds. The Shaping of an American Islamic Discourse: A Memorial to Fazlur Rahman. Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 49–​66. ——​. 1999. Rethinking Tradition in Modern Islamic Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brown, J.A.C. 2008. How We Know Hadith Critics Did Matn Criticism and How It’s So Hard to Find. Islamic Law and Society 15:143–​184. Bucaille, M. 1976. The Bible, the Qurʾan and Science: The Holy Scriptures Examined in the Light of Modern Knowledge. Pannell, A.D. and Bucaille, M. trans. Tripoli: Islamic Call Society. Gardner, M. 1997. The Numerology of Dr. Rashad Khalifa. Skeptical Inquirer 21:16–​17. Ghani, U. 2015.The Concept of Sunna in Muʿtazilite Thought. In: Duderija, A. ed. The Sunna and Its Status in Islamic Law: The Search for a Sound Hadith. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 59–​74. Glazov, J. December 4, 2007. From Radical to Reformed Muslim. FrontPageMagazine.com. http://​archive.frontpagemag.com/​readArticle.aspx?ARTID=29086. Haddad, Y.Y. and Smith, J.I. 1993. Mission to America:  Five Sectarian Communities in North America. Gainesville: University Press of Florida. Hansu, H. 2009. Notes on the Term Mutawātir and its Reception in Hadīth Criticism. Islamic Law and Society 16(3):383–​408. ——​. 2016. Debates on the Authority of Hadith in Early Islamic Intellectual History:  Identifying al-​ Shāfiʿī’s Opponents in Jimāʿ al-​ʿIlm. Journal of the American Oriental Society 136:515–​533. Haron, M. 2014. Ahmad Deedat: The Making of a Transnational Religious Figure. Journal for the Study of Religion 27:66–​93. Juynboll, G.H.A. 1969. The Authenticity of Tradition Literature: Discussions in Modern Egypt Leiden: E.J Brill. Khalifa, R. 1973. Miracle of the Quran:  Significance of the Mysterious Alphabets. St. Louis, MO:  Islamic Productions International. ——​. 1980. Quran: Visual Presentation of the Miracle. Karachi: Haider Ali Muljee Taha. ——​. 1981. The Computer Speaks: God’s Message to the World. Tucson, AZ: Renaissance Productions. ——​. 1982. Quran, Hadith, and Islam. Tucson, AZ: Islamic Publications.

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20 IN SEARCH OF AUTHENTICITY Modern discourse over homosexuality through early Islamic thought Sara Omar

Introduction Over the first five centuries of Islam, heated hermeneutical and legal debates arose over the sins of Lot’s people and the punishment of individuals who engage in male–​male anal intercourse. The Qurʾān, the major source for deriving Islamic law, loosely enumerates the sins committed by Lot’s people, but does not contain any explicit mention of the acts of liwāṭ (sodomy)1 or siḥāq (tribadism), or the prescribed punishment for individuals who engage in either act. Exegetes therefore debated the precise sins of Lot’s people, while jurists debated the categorization and punishment of individuals who engaged in these acts. Scholars’ cultural attitudes against same-​sex sexual acts, a byproduct of their historical context, shaped the way in which they approached and interpreted the Qurʾān. Traces of each exegete’s socio-​cultural context and theological propensities can be gleaned from their commentaries. Despite general condemnation of same-​sex sexual acts, scholars were unable to agree on precise interpretations of the relevant Qurʾānic passages. This question dominated the historical discourse and was never fully resolved. The nature of these debates however, has shifted. Although scholars historically agreed on the prohibition against same-​sex sexual acts but disputed the interpretation of relevant Qurʾānic passages and punishments, some Western scholars and activists are now questioning the prohibition on same-​sex sexual practices altogether. Hence, instead of debating the types of punishments to impose on offenders, some Western scholars are now attempting to lift the prohibition on same-​sex sexual acts and discussing the possibility of gay marriage. Although the nature of this debate has evolved with time, the sources and early juristic opinions cited as supporting evidence are largely the same. The only differences are the interpretations and subsequent conclusions drawn. And though the Qurʾān has served as the primary proof text for scholars on both sides of this debate, it has been and continues to be interpreted differently. This chapter will focus on such historical and modern disagreements over the interpretation of the Qurʾānic Lot narrative in order to highlight both the significance of the Qurʾān as a continuous source for Muslim practices and the fluidity of its text.

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Terminology and scope The two time periods (8th–​11th centuries and 21st century), languages (Arabic and English), and contexts (Middle Eastern Islamic scholars and primarily Western academics) under consideration here are vastly different. It would, therefore, be instructive to begin by defining the parameters of this chapter. Islamic legal discourse has historically revolved around acts rather than internal desires or identities. For this reason we find that early legal debates focused on definitions and categorizations of sexual acts (e.g., liwāṭ and siḥāq) and the punishment of individuals who engage in these acts, rather than the punishment of individuals who have same-​sex desires, thoughts, or fantasies. Muslim jurists did not and cannot punish unrealized desires. For example, in order to punish individuals for engaging in liwāṭ, that is, anal intercourse (oral or intercrural sex for example would not constitute liwāṭ), the jurists required the testimony of four reliable male eyewitnesses who could testify to having seen the physical phallic penetration,2 or the voluntary confession of the offenders themselves. Although the historical discourse over liwāṭ and siḥāq refers to specific and well-​defined acts and actors, it should not be confused or equated with the modern concept of homosexuality. The term “homosexualität,” which was first coined by the Austro-​Hungarian Karl Maria Kertbeny in the 19th century and popularized in the 20th century, has come to encompass sexual orientation, identity, forms of expression, and political and social rights. Hence, when examining contemporary discussions concerning same-​sex acts and homosexual identities, it is important to remain cognizant of the terms used by the interlocutors in this debate. Scholars and activists have struggled with translating key Western terms such as homosexuality and have debated the utility of such translations. As we will see, some scholars and activists, such as Samar Habib and Scott Kugle, have appropriated the term homosexuality in their work (Habib 2010; Kugle 2010),3 while others have problematized the modern deployment of this term (Massad 2015: 216).4 In an attempt to avoid projecting modern Western concepts onto early moments,5 I will refer to the original terms used by each of the figures under consideration. Hence, while examining early Muslim discourse of the 8th to 11th centuries CE, I will use the terms liwāṭ and siḥāq, and while examining modern discourse, I will use the terms invoked by each author. On the one hand, Kugle and Habib employ the term homosexuality throughout their works. On the other hand, al-​Qaraḍāwī and al-​ʿAlawani employ multiple terms in their discussion of same-​sex sexual acts, among them liwāṭ,6 a classical technical legal term meaning “anal intercourse,” and al-​shudhūdh al-​jinsī, a modern Arabic term meaning sexual “perversion” or “deviation,” usually used in a disparaging manner (Amer 2012: 384).7

The historical exegetical discourse The early Islamic tradition has played an important role in shaping contemporary Muslim discourse. Early exegetes’ definitions of key Qurʾānic terms have undoubtedly had a lasting impact on how many Muslims continue to understand these same terms today. Likewise, early jurists’ proposed punishments for those who engage in male–​male anal intercourse have set a legal precedent for scholars who wish to follow in their footsteps. Although some Muslim scholars examine various aspects of the historical tradition only to critique the validity of some of its foundational sources,8 or to selectively reference the opinions of jurists that support their own arguments,9 the single source that has consistently remained of primary significance for both early and contemporary Muslim scholars on both sides of the debate is the Qurʾān. As will be seen, though some scholars continue to follow the early exegetes’ interpretations of the Qur 340

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Modern discourse over homosexuality ʾānic Lot narrative, others are attempting to reform the prohibition on same-​sex sexual practices by primarily focusing on reinterpreting the Qurʾān. Since the Qurʾān continues to be the most

oft-​cited source for the majority of Muslim scholars on both sides of this debate, it will be at the heart of this chapter. Here, I will briefly point to the key Qurʾānic passages that posed hermeneutical challenges to early Muslim exegetes. In examining a number of different commentaries, I will illustrate early exegetes’ conflation of the sins of Lot’s people into the single sin of male sodomy, thereby highlighting how their socio-​historical context and theological propensities shaped their interpretations of the Qurʾānic Lot narrative. There are a total of fourteen chapters in the Qurʾān that contain verses with reference to the prophet Lot, his people, and/​or his wife.10 Lot’s people’s sins are enumerated one by one in the Qurʾān, some more clearly defined than others.These sins are: (1) their disbelief in God and rejection of His messenger, Lot (Q 22:42–​44, 15:10–​15, 26:160–​164 and 174, and 54:33), (2) practicing outrageous acts [faḥishāt] that no people before them had ever practiced (Q 29:28), namely, lusting after men (Q 27:55, 29:29, 26:165–​166, and 7:80–​81), (3) waylaying travelers, and (4) committing evil [al-​munkar] in their gatherings (Q 29:29). Additionally, the Qurʾān mentions that Lot’s people’s final punishment came when they attempted to attack his guests, God’s messengers (Q 54:37, 15:67–​70, and 11:77–​81). However, none of these Qurʾānic verses explicitly mention or define the acts of liwāṭ (as specifically male-male anal penetration) let alone allude to siḥāq (with few exegetes of this period interpreting Q 4:15 as meaning female-female sexual acts). Furthermore, the Qurʾān does not include the prescribed punishment for individuals who engage in these acts. In fact, it was the jurists who debated if liwāṭ constituted zinā and should therefore be punished in a similar manner with a fixed ḥadd penalty or if it should be defined separately from zinā and punished differently through a taʿzīr penalty (judicial discretionary punishment). Instead, the Qurʾānic word fāḥisha (pl. fawāḥish)11 (usually translated as indecency, lewdness, abomination, etc.), derived from the root f-​ḥ-​sh, has often been interpreted to mean liwāṭ, siḥāq, and zinā (illicit male–​female intercourse).12 Derivatives of this root are mentioned in the Qurʾān a total of twenty-​four times, only three of which pertain to the people of Lot (Q 7:80–​84, 27:54–​58, 29:28–​34) and eleven of which (Q 2:169, 2:268, 3:135, 6:151, 7:33, 16:90, 24:19, 24:21, 29:45, 42:37, and 53:32) are not explicitly linked to sexual behavior.13 This prompts the question, if the Qurʾān does not explicitly mention or define these sexual acts and their punishments, whence did Muslim exegetes produce the detailed accounts of the Lot narrative in their commentaries? Exegetes relied on a number of sources for their interpretations; among them are works of asbāb al-​nuzūl, which provided hints at the occasions of revelation, ḥadīth reports that claimed to trace back to the Prophet and/​or his Companions, and works of Tales of the Prophets (qiṣaṣ al-​anbiyāʾ), which were to a large extent shaped by the Israelite (isrāʾīliyyāt) traditions, with parallel narratives found in works of Midrash aggada. The content of the few exegetical reports reflect the way in which they evolved over time to accommodate the growing trend of conflating the sins of Lot’s people into the single sin of male–​male anal copulation. Such attitudes are undoubtedly the product of these exegetes’ historical context. They lived among a community of believers, including Jews and Christians, who had well-​established narratives and oral traditions. The widespread interaction between them allowed for the spread of lore and a symbiotic exchange of traditions, laws, narratives, discourses, and way of life. Not surprisingly then, such interactions facilitated the flow of oral traditions between them, and traces of Midrash aggada can be found in Tales of the Prophets and some of Muslim scholars’ commentaries. The exegetes’ socio-​historical context, inherited attitudes against same-​sex sexual practices, legal debates that were unfolding during their time, and their theological propensities all contributed to their interpretations of the Qurʾānic Lot narrative. 341

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If there is one single common feature in the majority of exegetical works of the 8th–​11th centuries, it is that their authors absolutely condemned anal intercourse, be it between two males on earth, between a man and the boys of paradise (ghilmān/​wildān) in the hereafter (Q 52:24, 56:17, and 76:19),14 or between a man and a woman (Q 2:223). However, they seem to have been unresolved over the details of the Lot narrative, such as their definition of the sins of Lot’s people and the object of their anal copulation (e.g., did they exclusively commit anal copulation with male travelers or with both the men and women of their city?). The lengths that the exegetes of this period went to in order to prove the repugnance and prohibition of male–​male anal copulation is in itself indicative of their vehement attitudes against this practice. As we will see, many Muslim exegetes elucidated the sins of Lot’s people and gradually reduced the seemingly separate sins into the single sin of male–​male anal copulation. By the early 10th century, every word that connotes immoral or reprehensible behavior in the Qurʾānic Lot passages was open to being defined as male–​male anal copulation. Furthermore, with the 11th century, we begin to see new glosses and details that reflect the exegetes’ changing socio-​cultural contexts, legal discourse, and theological and doctrinal propensities.

Conflation of sins to the single sin of male sodomy In addition to Lot’s people’s disbelief in God and rejection of His messenger Lot, the sins of Lot’s people are outlined in the following Qurʾānic passages: 1 And [remember] Lot, when he said unto his people: “will you commit abominations [fāḥishāt] such as none in all the world has ever done before you? Verily, with lust you approach men instead of women: nay, but you are people given to excess [musrifūn].” (Q 7:80–​81) 2 Must you, of all people, [lustfully] approach men, keeping yourselves aloof from all the [lawful] spouses whom your Sustainer has created for you? Nay, but you are people who transgress all bounds of what is right! [ʿādūn]. (Q 26:165–​166) 3 Must you really approach men with lust instead of women? Nay, but you are people without any awareness (of right and wrong)! (Q 27:55) 4 He [Lot] also said to them, “You practice abominable acts [fāḥishāt] that no people before you have ever committed. You [lustfully] approach men, commit highway robbery, and practice wickedness in your assemblies [al-​munkar].” (Q29: 28–​29) Some of the key Arabic terms in the Qurʾānic Lot passages are: al-​munkar, al-​fāḥisha/​fāḥishāt, al-​sayyiʾāt, taʾtūna al-​rijāl, shahwatan, musrifūn, fāsiqūn, ʿādūn, and yataṭahharūn. All of these words have a negative connotation implying some sort of transgression, but do not explicitly define the nature of these transgressions. It is these words the exegetes attempted to define in their commentaries. From the outset, one of the earliest exegetes, the Meccan, Mujāhid b. Jabr (d. 104/​722), conflates the seemingly distinct sins outlined in Q 29:29 into the single sin of anal intercourse.15 He argues that Lot’s people “lustfully approached men” by having anal intercourse with them and they “engaged in al-​munkar” by sexually approaching men openly in their 342

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gatherings (1989: 535). Likewise, Muqātil b. Sulaymān al-​Khurāsānī (d. 150/​767) goes to great lengths to define a number of the above-​mentioned key words and verses as the act of male–​ male anal intercourse. He defines “al-​fāḥisha” in Q 7:80 as “lustfully approaching men (ityān al-​ rijāl)” (2002: II 47), in Q 27:55 as “approaching men with desire instead of women (ityān al-​rijāl shahwatan min dūni al-​nisāʾ)” (2002: III 312), and in Q 29:29 as meaning “the sin of approaching men in their anuses during the night (ityān al-​rijāl fī adbārihim laylan)” (2002: III 381). He also defines “al-​khabāʾith” in Q 21:74 as “approaching men in their anuses (ityān al-​rijāl fī adbārihim)” (2002: III 87). Here, Muqātil further defies the linguistic structure of this verse by reducing the Arabic plural noun [al-​khabāʾith], usually translated as “abominable acts,” to the singular meaning of the abominable act of male–​male intercourse. Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad b. Jarīr al-​Ṭabarī (d. 310/​923) includes one of the above-​mentioned key words as also meaning male–​male anal intercourse. He argues that the meaning of “yataṭahharūn” in Q 7:82 is that Lot’s people wanted to evict him and his followers (the believers) for purifying themselves “from the anuses of men and women,” that is, for refusing to engage in anal intercourse (2001: XVIII 96). Here, though the verse “Expel them from our town, these men want to purify themselves [yataṭahharūn]!” does not contain any explicit mention of any sexual acts, al-​Ṭabarī nevertheless interprets the reason for their eviction as their refusal to engage in anal intercourse. Furthermore, instead of interpreting all of the sins enumerated in Q 29:29 as three distinct sins, al-​Ṭabarī suggests that each of these sins means male–​male anal copulation. He explains that Lot said to his people, “Verily, you have intercourse with men in their anuses.” And you “[w]‌aylay travelers and you block the travelers’ way who are passing through your cities so that you can do to them that evil act” (2001 XVIII 387–​392). And finally, while commenting on the third sin in this sequence, “and you commit al-​munkar in your gatherings,” he concludes, “they used to commit al-​fāḥisha whereby some of them would have intercourse with one another in their gatherings [i.e. having sex in full view of others]. … Furthermore, they would object to a rider [riding through their land] and would take him and [instead] ride him” (2001: XVIII 387–​392). Here, it is clear that al-​Ṭabarī glosses three potentially distinct sins as the single sin of anal copulation. Al-​Ṭabarī goes beyond any other exegete in imposing male–​male anal copulation as the meaning of many of the Lot passages by reading anal copulation into all four verses of Q 26:166–​169. He explains the meaning of “But they replied, Lot! If you do not stop this,” as, “If you do not desist from forbidding us from intercourse with men, then ‘you will be driven away.’ ” Here, al-​Ṭabarī interprets Lot’s people’s threats in response to his preaching against male–​male anal intercourse and explains that in response, Lot said to them, “I loathe and deny your actions of having intercourse with men in their anuses.” When Lot prayed, ‘Lord, save me and my family from what they are doing,’ he was praying, saying, “My Lord, save me and my family from your punishment, which you have in store for them for their practice of having intercourse with men” (2001: XVII 631). Al-​Ṭabarī’s insistence on reading all four verses here and many of the others as meaning male–​male anal intercourse seems excessive. Had al-​Ṭabarī read one or two of the Lot verses as meaning the prohibition on male–​male anal intercourse it would have been sufficient to convey this prohibition. It is worth considering why al-​Ṭabarī felt the need to overly stress this prohibition and interpreted male–​male anal copulation as the meaning of almost every negative word and verse of the Lot narrative that would permit.

Indications of cultural context and developing legal discourse Over a century later, Abū Isḥāq Aḥmad al-​Thaʿlabī (d. 427/​1035),16 also the author of a work of Tales of the Prophets (1950),17 offers a number of new details pertaining to the Lot narrative in his commentary that were not mentioned by al-​Ṭabarī or other exegetes of the 8th–​10th 343

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centuries. These details can be traced to al-​Thaʿlabī’s social context, works of qiṣaṣ al-​anbiyāʾ and Midrash aggada, and the heated legal debates unfolding during his lifetime. Consider, for example, the following narrative in al-​Thaʿlabī’s Qurʾān commentary, which attempts to locate the origins of Lot’s people’s practices and sins: al-​Kalbī18 said, the first to commit the act of Lot’s people [ʿamal qawm Lūṭ] was Satan (Iblīs), the cursed.This was because their lands were prosperous and people of the lands sought it.Therefore, Iblīs appeared to them in the shape of a young boy and he invited them to his anus, and was therefore sodomized in his anus. They transgressed and this [practice] increased among them. (al-​Thaʿlabī 2002: IV 259) This statement resembles the narratives found in works of qiṣaṣ al-​anbiyāʾ. For example, Abū Ḥudhayfa Isḥāq b.  Bishr (d. 206/​821), a storyteller, includes a similar report attributing Ibn ʿAbbās as saying that Satan (Iblīs) approached them [Lot’s people] during their discussion about what they mentioned [their fear of visitors taking their fruit during a drought] in the shape of a boy, the most beautiful boy the people had ever seen, and he invited them to himself. So they had intercourse with him and then they became accustomed to this. (Ibn Bishr al-​Qurashī n.d.: 193b) The theme alluded to in these reports, that Lot’s people had been prosperous and feared losing their wealth to wayfarers, can be traced even further to works of Midrash aggada. For example, R. Menaḥema explains that Lot’s people were prosperous and they “made an agreement among themselves that whenever a stranger visited them they should force him to sodomy and rob him of his money” (Midrash Rabbah I 438). The parallel statements attributed to al-​Kalbī and Ibn ʿAbbās refer to a power struggle between a prophet and his people and to the people’s greed and inhospitality towards strangers and travelers. Hence, the report in al-​Thaʿlabī’s commentary resembles reports found in works of qiṣaṣ al-​anbiyāʾ and the Midrash aggada. And since al-​Thaʿlabī authored a qiṣaṣ al-​anbiyāʾ work and was certainly familiar with this genre and its sibling in the Judaic tradition, these circulating narratives must have shaped al-​Thaʿlabī’s Qurʾān commentary on the Lot narrative. Other aspects of al-​Thaʿlabī’s socio-​cultural context seep through his works of exegesis and qiṣaṣ al-​anbiyāʾ. In his exegesis, he uses the word ghilmān, pre-​pubescent boys, to describe Lot’s guests (al-​Thaʿlabī 2002: V 181), and in his qiṣaṣ al-​anbiyāʾ he describes Lot’s guests, the angels, as taking on the guise of “handsome beardless young men [rijāl murd ḥisān]” (Brinner 2002: 175). Al-​Thaʿlabī’s usage of ghilmān and murd to describe the guests provides a glimpse of his context, which considered young boys or beardless men as the most desirable males. His word choices point to the cultural practice of pederasty embedded in his society and reflected in the poetry and literature of his time. Hence, this narrative, which exegetes prior to al-​Thaʿlabī read as male–​male anal intercourse, without any indication as to the male partners’ age, takes on a new dimension and becomes a narrative interlaced with homoerotic desires and sexual relations with pre-​pubescent boys or handsome beardless men. There are other developments in al-​Thaʿlabī’s exegesis of the Lot narrative not found in his predecessors’ exegeses. He cites a variant of an earlier report cited by al-​Ṭabarī, which indicates the transformation of its content to include the growing trend of reducing all of Lot’s people’s sins to the single sin of male–​male anal intercourse. For example, al-​Ṭabarī cites a report on 344

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the authority of Umm Hāniʾ who questions the Prophet about the meaning of “you commit al-​munkar in your gatherings,” to which the Prophet responds that “[Lot’s people] used to pelt wayfarers and would ridicule them” (2001: XVIII 387–​392). Al-​Thaʿlabī, on the other hand, cites a variant of this report narrated by Muʿāwiya in which the Prophet proclaims that the pelting and harming of wayfarers was for sexual purposes. Al-​Thaʿlabī provides the report in his commentary as follows: On the authority of Muʿāwiyya, he said, the Prophet of God (May God’s blessings and mercy be upon him) said,“The people of Lot used to sit in their gatherings and each one of their men had with him a sack that contained pebbles, whenever a wayfarer would pass them by, they would all pelt him.Whomever of them had struck him [the wayfarer], that person [who had struck him] was the most entitled to him [kāna awlā bihi].” (2002: VII 277) This report initially began with the Prophet defining al-​munkar for Umm Hāniʾ as the act of pelting and mocking wayfarers by Lot’s people.19 However, it evolves into a meaning again linked to male–​male anal intercourse; that is, the pelting was for the purpose of laying sexual claim to the wayfarers. Here, even al-​munkar, defined as something evil by the Prophet in the first report (recounted by al-​Ṭabarī a century earlier) develops through this report (recounted by al-​Thaʿlabī) into an evil act ultimately leading to male–​male anal intercourse. Al-​Thaʿlabī is the first exegete to include this addition to the report, which attributes this interpretation to the Prophet himself. The evolving legal discourse over the punishment of those who engage in liwāṭ can also be gleaned in al-​Thaʿlabī’s exegesis. For example, in a report cited earlier by al-​Ṭabarī, ʿAmr b. Dīnār says, “No man had ever been seen on top of another man until the time of Lot’s people” (2001: X 305). al-​Ṭabarī does not define Lot’s people’s anal copulation with men as zinā, a legal comparison still contested by jurists in the 4th/​10th century. Al-​Thaʿlabī, however, explains that the meaning of al-​fāḥisha in Q 7:80–​81 is “male–​male intercourse,” and adds that ʿAmr b. Dīnār said, “No male had committed zinā with another male except during the time of the people of Lot” (2002: IV 258). Al-​Thaʿlabī has inserted zinā in the report to describe male–​male anal copulation. This is notable as the question of whether to categorize liwāṭ as zinā was at the heart of the legal discourse on the punishments of those who engaged in liwāṭ. Those who defined liwāṭ as zinā contended that the offenders of liwāṭ should suffer the same ḥadd penalty as for zinā, while those who defined liwāṭ separately from zinā contended that offenders should suffer a taʿzīr penalty left to the discretion of the judge. Unlike the exegetes that preceded him, al-​Thaʿlabī uses the legal terminology of his time in his commentary.20

Theological propensities Other factors, such as theological and doctrinal beliefs, also shaped exegetes’ commentaries. For example, Jaʿfar b. Manṣūr (d. c. 346/​957 or 349/​960),21 one of the earliest Ismāʿīlī–​Fāṭimid missionaries (Hollenberg 2006), provides a unique interpretation of the Qurʾānic Lot narrative. In order to understand his commentary, we must briefly highlight some aspects of Ismāʿīlī doctrine. Within it, there are three stages of knowledge: the outward (ẓāhir), inner (bāṭin), and innermost spiritual (bāṭin al-​bāṭin).22 The literal meaning of the Qurʾān and the sharīʿa was viewed as the exoteric (ẓāhir) form while their inner symbolic meanings were viewed as the esoteric (bāṭin) form. The exoteric form was revealed through tanzīl (bestowing of the literal words) while the 345

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esoteric form was revealed through taʾwīl (spiritual or esoteric exegesis).23 It is“esoteric knowledge (ʿilm al-​bāṭin), a knowledge of the Truth (ʿilm al-​Ḥaqīqa) that, as such, gives rise to a new birth, a metamorphosis, the salvation of the soul.This spiritual birth (wildda ruḥāniyya) takes place in the world of taʿwīl, while physical birth takes place in the world of tanzīl” (Corbin 1983: 153). Furthermore, Ismāʿīlī doctrine of succession holds that divine revelation was entrusted to six speaker-​prophets (nāṭiqs),24 each of whom appointed a legatee (waṣī) to succeed him as the leader of the community, who were in turn succeeded by a line of seven Imāms. Whereas the legatee received prophecy, compiled a scripture, and was concerned with the outward shape of the religion (ẓāhir), the speaker-​prophets were bequeathed the scripture and, through divine light, the knowledge of its true meaning (bāṭin). According to Ibn Manṣūr, Abraham (the father-​nāṭiq) appointed his son Ismāʿīl as his legatee and Lot as his ḥujja (proof) (1984: 68). He entrusted Lot to preach to his people the acceptance of Ismāʿīl as Abraham’s appointed legatee and to follow his esoteric knowledge. However, Lot’s people refused to accept Abraham’s appointment of Ismāʿīl as his legatee and rejected his esoteric knowledge, instead persisting to follow Abraham’s initial exoteric message. Ibn Manṣūr’s exegesis of the Qurʾānic Lot narrative reflects these doctrines of knowledge and succession. In his Sarāʾir wa-​asrār al-​nuṭaqāʾ, he explains that God was chastising the people of Lot in Q 26:165–​166 and 7:81 for abandoning their “wives” and instead turning to “males.” However, he argues for an allegorical interpretation of each of these words, which surpasses the literal, exoteric meaning. “Women” or even Lot’s “daughters” in this narrative symbolize the spiritual and secret meaning of the positive religion (its bāṭin), the esoteric spiritual Truth i.e. “al-​rawḥāniyya” that Ismāʿīl was entrusted with as the appointed legatee. The “males” who were sought by Lot’s people symbolize the apparent and physical manifestations of belief “al-​munākaḥa al-​jismāniyya” (1984: 136). Ibn Manṣūr writes that every nation who “suffices themselves with following the apparent and physical manifestations of belief (munākaḥat aṣnāmihim al-​jismāniyyīn) instead of following God’s friends25 (munākaḥat awliyāʾih) who invite them to an eternal spiritual life (al-​ḥayāa al-​ dāʾima al-​rawḥāniyya)” are blameworthy (1984: 136). Hence, Lot’s daʿwa26 or preaching to his people against “approaching men instead of women,” was in essence a call against their adherence to the exoteric aspects of Abraham’s religion and an admonishment for refusing to embrace Ismāʿīl as the legatee with esoteric teachings. Lot’s people’s insolence, therefore, lay in their refusal to accept Ismāʿīl as the appointed legatee by Abraham and a rejection of his esoteric knowledge, which offered them a new spiritual birth (wildda rawḥāniyya) and a salvation of their soul. Accordingly, the Lot narrative has nothing to do with male–​male anal intercourse and everything to do with Lot offering his people a new successor (Ismāʿīl) who possessed the esoteric Truth, their rejection of him, and instead their insistence on continuing in their exoteric beliefs. Before concluding our discussion of the Qurʾānic Lot passages and early exegetes, it is worth reflecting on what these exegetes’ absolute condemnation of anal intercourse reveals; does it tell us more about the text of the Qurʾān itself, the exegetes, or both? The majority of exegetes of this period debated the definition of the sin(s) of Lot’s people and the object of Lot’s people’s anal copulation in the Qurʾānic Lot narrative. Through numerous interpretive glosses, many exegetes gradually reduced the seemingly separate Qurʾānic sins into the single sin of male–​ male anal copulation. This hermeneutical move to associate Lot’s people with the single sin of male–​male anal copulation was important in setting the foundational exegetical discourse. The details al-​Thaʿlabī adds and the language he uses while commenting on the Qurʾānic Lot passages reflect his socio-​cultural context and the legal discourse of his time. Ibn Manṣūr’s unique commentary, however, highlights how his theological and doctrinal beliefs shaped his reading of the Lot passages and resulted in a reading completely different from other exegetes’. Ibn Manṣūr’s interpretation of the Lot narrative is not about anal copulation at all, but is rather 346

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about prophetic succession and attainment of knowledge and  Truth. Hence, while exegetes’ theological propensities and socio-cultural contexts shaped their readings of the Qurʾānic Lot narrative and their definitions of the sin(s) committed by Lot’s people, exegetes’ approaches to the text as well as the fluidity of the text itself enabled them to produce such interpretations. That is, the ambiguity of key Qurʾānic phrases such as, al-munkar, al-fāḥisha/fāḥishāt, al-sayyiʾāt, musrifūn, fāsiqūn,ʿādūn, and yataṭahharūn, allowed the exegetes to limit and reduce the interpretive scope of these phrases to the single sin of male-male anal penetration.

Modern discourse through Qurʾānic hermeneutics Many Muslim scholars continue to condemn same-​sex sexual acts as sinful and endorse a death penalty for individuals who identify as homosexual. Some examples include Yūsuf al-​Qaraḍāwī (1926–​)27 and Ṭaha Jabir al-​ʿAlawani (1935–​).28 Both scholars categorically denounce same-​ sex sexual acts. In their writings these scholars cite the Qurʾān to support their vehement and unwavering condemnation, criminalization, and punishment of individuals who engage in male–​ male anal intercourse. Conversely, a number of primarily Western scholars and religious leaders29 have recently challenged this condemnation. Scott Kugle30 and Samar Habib31 are the leading voices in this endeavor. As we will see, though the nature of the debate on same-​sex sexual acts and homosexuality has shifted, the Qurʾān continues to occupy a central position in this debate. Scholars on both sides of the debate are returning to the same source once cited by their predecessors in order to support their competing positions. But whereas some scholars insist on interpretive continuity by echoing early interpretations of the Qurʾānic Lot narrative, others are challenging these interpretations and are calling for the reinterpretation of the same passages. al-​ Qaraḍāwī and al-​ʿAlawani, for example, are fully aware of the weight of the early tradition, and they cite passages of the Qurʾān without elucidating their meaning. To them, the Qurʾān’s meanings are self-​evident, when in fact they are simply relying on their predecessors’ interpretations. Kugle and Habib, however, assert that the Qurʾān does not prohibit homosexuality, but rather, the Lot narrative was condemning an entirely different matter, exploitative or violent same-​sex acts.They reinterpret the Qurʾān to support their argument for the permissibility of homosexuality, all the while probing early Islamic thought for opinions or individuals who could bolster their reinterpretation. Like their counterparts, they are also attempting to locate early authorities to support their position. Additionally, scholars on both sides of this debate are appropriating the Qurʾānic concept of fiṭra (the human’s innate constitution) to argue their competing views on same-​sex sexual acts, desires, and homosexual identities. Both factions are therefore, using the Qurʾān as the primary basis for their position, while seeking validity by citing early Islamic authorities.

Interpretive continuity through early Islamic thought In his book The Lawful and The Prohibited in Islam, al-​Qaraḍāwī argues, “Just as illicit sexual intercourse (zinā) and the means that lead to it are prohibited, so is sexual perversion (al-​shudhūdh al-​jinsī), which is known as ‘the act of Lot’s people,’ or ‘liwāṭ’ ” (1980: 164–​165). Furthermore, he argues, “The spread of this filthy practice in a society damages the lives of those who practice it, making them slaves to their lusts, causing them to forget all morals, customs, and propriety” (1980: 165). To support these assertions, he cites passages from the Qurʾānic Lot narrative, which he argues are sufficient proof for his position. He explains that Lot’s people “used to abandon their pure and lawful [relations with their] women in the pursuit of this shameless, filthy and illicit desire” (1980: 165). It is precisely for this reason that the Qurʾān has Lot questioning their practices in Q 26:165–​166 and the Qurʾān depicts 347

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them with “aggression, ignorance, excessiveness, degeneration, and criminality” (1980: 165). Al-​Qaraḍāwī also cites the Qurʾānic narrative of Lot’s people’s attempt to attack his guests in Q 11:77–​81 to support his repulsion at and prohibition of male–​male sexual practices. Most of his two pages dealing with this issue is dedicated to quoting the Qurʾānic lot narrative rather than explaining the meaning of these passages or outlining the legal arguments on this issue.32 He cites the Qurʾān alone, as if its meanings are self-​evident. And because there is an entire historical tradition that has demonized and reduced the story of Lot to his people’s practice of male–​male sodomy, al-​Qaraḍāwī does not feel the need to clarify the meaning(s) of these passages. He simply cites them and trusts that Muslims’ understanding of these verses is consistent with the predecessors’ position condemning sodomy. In fact, by presenting the verses without commentary, he is establishing the resoluteness and clarity of the text on this issue, a text presumably not in need of any further elucidation. Similarly, al-​ʿAlawani cites the Qurʾānic Lot passages to support his position against homosexuality without commenting on their meaning(s). He makes two assertions: “It should be clear that homosexuality is sinful and shameful” and that the intention of his fatwa (religious edict) “is to show the great deception placed by those who allege that the Qur’an does not find this homosexual crime reprehensible” (2015). The first assertion presumes that the issue is in fact “clear” and consequently resolved while the second accuses his opponents of being deceptive when claiming that the Qurʾān does not reprimand homosexuals. Al-​ʿAlawani limits the interpretive scope of the Qurʾān and implies that the Qurʾān only allows for the single prohibitive interpretation that he is offering. He does not critique or deconstruct opposing interpretations. Instead, he refutes some unnamed groups’ claim that homosexuality is permissible due to the absence of an explicit legal punishment in the Qurʾān. Although he highlights the flaws in this particular claim, he does not refute other major interpretations that contradict his own. Instead, he cites Q 7:80–​84, 27:54–​58, and 29:28–​35 in full and concludes: In all of these glorious verses, Allah, the Almighty, revealed the actions of the people of Lut with the term “abominable” [lewd, atrocious] and their village were named as villages that committed “wickedness”. Furthermore it is known that the word “fahisha” (abominable) in this context means the act of adultery and the actions committed by the people of Lut of (male) sodomy and (female) lesbianism. (2015) Here again, he asserts that the people of Lot committed “wickedness” and “abominable” acts, and that the meaning of the word fāḥisha in this context “is known” to mean adultery, sodomy, and lesbianism. However, he does not feel the need to elucidate who has defined the meaning of this key term in this way or how “it is known.” He simply asserts it as a fact. Like al-​ Qaraḍāwī, he relies on the authority of early Islamic thought to support his assertion.This is apparent when he invokes the “consensus” and “agreement” that “this community” has reached on the prohibition of both behaviors “(gayness and lesbianism).” However, he does not clarify which community he has in mind here, since there are some, such as Kugle, in the Western Muslim community who clearly disagree with this consensus. Hence, though al-​Qaraḍāwī and al-​ʿAlawani cite the Qurʾān to support their prohibition of same-​sex sexual acts, they do not elucidate its meanings. Instead, they rely on the majority of Muslims’ understanding of the text, which has been shaped by early Islamic thought. This process of interpretive continuity is cyclical. Early Islamic thought has shaped Muslims’ understanding of the Lot narrative today, but it is also this very corpus that continues to be invoked in order to corroborate arguments put forth by contemporary Muslim scholars. 348

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Reinterpretation through Islamic thought Some contemporary scholars, however, have chosen to break this cycle. Rather than continue to cite the Qurʾānic Lot narrative and rely on early Islamic thought, some scholars, such as Scott Kugle and Samar Habib, argue for an alternative interpretation of the Qurʾān to produce a “sexuality-​sensitive” (Kugle 2010: 41) or “queer-​friendly” hermeneutic. Kugle employs a liberation theology approach in his interpretation of the Qurʾān. The central principle of this theology is “striving for justice in solidarity with the oppressed” (2010: 35). Kugle adopts this approach in hopes of fighting against all forms of oppression, including “prior interpretation that used scripture to justify various forms of oppression” (2010: 38). Unlike al-​Qaraḍāwī’s and al-​ʿAlawani’s presentation of the Qurʾānic Lot narrative as “clear” and “absolute” in its meaning and condemnation, Kugle argues, “Interpretation is always ambiguous and contested.This ambiguity allows gay, lesbian, and transgender Muslim activists to articulate an interpretation of the Qurʾān that is ‘sexuality-​sensitive,’ attentive to homosexual experiences, and accommodating to their presence among Muslims” (2010: 39). Through this approach, Kugle argues that the Prophet Lot condemned same-​sex rape and denounced the use of sex as coercion against the vulnerable, and that the men of Sodom and Gomorrah committed lustful violence against Lot’s guests not out of sexual appetite but in order to deny Lot’s Prophetic mission by denying him the authority and dignity of giving hospitality to guests and strangers. (2010: 39–​40) The key assertion here is that Lot was specifically condemning “same-​sex rape” rather than condemning same-​sex sexual acts and homosexuality at large, which are inherently different. And just as al-​Qaraḍāwī and al-​ʿAlawani selectively cite classical legal rulings to support their position, Kugle reads an 11th-​century jurist’s interpretation of the Qurʾānic Lot narrative through his own interpretative lens to support and validate his position. Kugle claims that contemporary gay and lesbian Muslims’ interpretation of the Lot narrative confirm the interpretations presented by Ibn Ḥazm (d. 456/​1064) (Kugle 2010: 53). He argues that Ibn Ḥazm “Delves into the narrative to find the ethical principle that Lot’s Tribe violated and for which they were all punished. That principle was rejecting their Prophet and the ethical guidance he brought” (2010: 52). Kugle emphasizes that Lot’s people “rejected him [Lot] in a variety of ways, and their sexual assault of his guests was only one expression of their inner intention to deny Lot the dignity of being a Prophet and drive him from their cities” (2010: 52). Through Kugle’s translation, Ibn Ḥazm’s position is presented as God having destroyed Lot’s people due to their “infidelity and rejection [kufr]” alone, rather than to both their infidelity (kufr) and their sexual acts. In fact, Kugle overlooks or deliberately excludes two key words in his translation. He translates Ibn Ḥazm’s argument as follows, “The [divine] stoning which punished them was not for one type of immorality [fahisha] in specific, but was rather for their infidelity and rejection [kufr]” (2010: 51–​52). Instead, a closer translation might be, “It is more appropriate [to argue] that the punishment of lapidation that they [Lot’s people] received [from God] was not only for the fāḥisha that they committed, but was for their infidelity (kufr) and [wa lahā] for it [the fāḥisha]” (Ibn Ḥazm 1933: XI 384). Here, Ibn Ḥazm is using a style of refutation known as reductio ad absurdum, whereby he takes his opponents’ conclusions to their logical ends in order to illustrate their logical absurdity and the ways in which they contradict the Qurʾān. It is no surprise then that Ibn Ḥazm concludes his argument on kufr by declaring: 349

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Therefore, they [who claim that lapidation is the appropriate punishment] should not lapidate the one who commits the act of Lot’s people, except that he [the offender] be a rejecter of God and his prophet [kāfir], otherwise they [the pro-​ḥadd jurists] would contradict God’s ruling and nullify their use of the verse as their basis [for ḥadd]. (1933: XI 384) It is noteworthy that Ibn Ḥazm is not arguing that those who engage in male–​male sexual acts are blameless and should not be punished. Rather, he is arguing that if the pro-​ḥadd jurists punish males who engage in male–​male anal intercourse without additionally accounting for their infidelity (kufr) then the Qurʾānic basis for their position is unsound. This is because they are drawing a parallel between verses (such as Q 7:84) that highlight God’s punishment of Lot’s people through lapidation and their position to punish those who engage in liwāṭ with lapidation without accounting for infidelity. Since the pro-​ḥadd jurists do not stipulate infidelity (kufr) as one of the criteria for their punishment, there is a logical inconsistency in their argument and they in fact contradict the very source they claim to base their ḥadd position on, the Qurʾān. Ibn Ḥazm’s larger purpose in highlighting Lot’s people’s infidelity (kufr) was, therefore, to prove the logical absurdity of his opponents’ conclusions and the ways in which they contradict the Qurʾān.33 It was not an attempt to argue for a “sexuality-​sensitive” reading of the Qurʾān. Through his translation, Kugle, who accuses early exegetes of “focus[ing] very narrowly on anal penetration between men and ignoring the wider context,” is, in turn, focusing very narrowly on Ibn Ḥazm’s point about Lot’s people’s kufr and ignores his larger argument (ḥadd punishment has no scriptural basis) and style of refutation (2010: 53). Kugle’s depiction of Ibn Ḥazm is therefore misleading. Although Kugle acknowledges that Ibn Ḥazm “was no gay activist,” he nevertheless claims that Ibn Ḥazm’s “legal critique was fueled by his understanding that there are Muslims who are homosexual whose faith is no less than that of other Muslims and whose lives are just as dear” (2010: 52). Ibn Ḥazm set out to refute the basis on which the pro-​ḥadd jurists assert their legal position, which is not the same as supporting same-​sex sexual acts. Ibn Ḥazm’s personal view on male–​male anal intercourse can be gleaned from how he begins his discussion of this issue where he argues, The act of Lot’s people is among the grave sins [al-​kabāʾir], the abominable acts [al-​ fawāḥish] that are prohibited such as the consumption of swine flesh, carrion, blood, intoxicants, and a man and a woman committing illicit sexual intercourse [zinā], and the rest of the disobediences. Whosoever permits it [male–​male anal intercourse] or any of the other matters that we have just mentioned is an unbeliever [kāfir] and a polytheist [mushrik] whose property and life are not protected. (1933: XI 380) Although Ibn Ḥazm does not define what he means by the “act of Lot’s people” here, it is clear elsewhere that he is discussing reciprocal male–​male anal intercourse (1933: XI 385). It is ironic that though Ibn Ḥazm condemns those who permit male–​male anal intercourse and goes so far as to accuse them of disbelief (kufr), Kugle insists that Ibn Ḥazm is the “first sexuality-​sensitive interpreter.” Kugle’s translation of Ibn Ḥazm’s arguments and his portrayal of his views illustrate his eagerness to locate support for his interpretation within early Islamic thought, even if it means a selective and decontextualized reading of Ibn Ḥazm’s arguments. Just as al-​Qaraḍāwī and al-​ʿAlawani cite early Islamic thought to support their arguments, so too does Kugle search the same corpus for scholars who may support his “sexuality-​sensitive” reading of the Qurʾān. And just as al-​Qaraḍāwī and al-​ʿAlawani betray the classical tradition by 350

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selectively citing specific legal rulings that are in line with their position, so does Kugle appropriate Ibn Ḥazm’s legal arguments and mistranslates them through his desired interpretive lens. Kugle is not alone in doing this; Samar Habib also credits Ibn Ḥazm with making arguments that he never made in his work. For example, she asserts, Ibn Ḥazm argues that the story serves as a warning to those who would reject a true prophet, such as Lut in this story. Ibn Ḥazm stresses that it was Lut’s people’s insubordination and unwillingness to accept him as a true prophet that led to their destruction and not simply the fact that they engaged in homosexual acts. Furthermore, in Surat al-​Alraaf: 80–​84, Lut reproaches his people for abandoning women and engaging in seemingly exclusive homosexual behaviour, but, Ibn Ḥazm argues, this is certainly not the pinnacle cause of their demise since Lut is additionally disgraced by their attempts to rape his visitor …. If Lut’s people are, after all, homosexuals, the story stresses this as one of their questionable attributes, but their destruction does indeed seem to be caused by their rejection of Lut and their attempts to rape his visitor, rather than being caused strictly by their sexual behaviours with each other. (2008: 33; italics added) Habib therefore attributes to Ibn Ḥazm the following arguments: (1) the story of Lot serves as a warning to those who reject a true prophet; (2) it was Lot’s people’s insubordination which led to their destruction; and (3) the seemingly exclusively homosexual behavior is not the pinnacle cause of Lot’s people’s demise since Lot was additionally disgraced by his people’s attempt to rape his guests. It is my hope that I have elucidated Ibn Ḥazm’s argument above to the extent that it is now clear that Habib’s first two points are an inaccurate representation of Ibn Ḥazm’s legal position and Qurʾānic interpretation. As for her third point crediting Ibn Ḥazm with holding that Lot’s people’s insubordination and attempts to rape his visitors are the reason for their demise is also nowhere to be found in his work. Ibn Ḥazm does not assert that Lot’s people’s sexual actions were violent acts of rape against Lot’s guests. Rather, he describes Lot’s people as those “who penetrated and were themselves penetrated [qawm Lūṭ al-​nākiḥīn wal-​mankūḥīn],” indicating that he believes they engaged in reciprocal male–​male anal copulation (1933: XI 385). Both Habib and Kugle attribute Ibn Ḥazm with views that are not discernible from his work. It seems that in their search of authenticity and desire to locate an early scholar who could support and bolster their interpretation of the Qurʾānic Lot narrative they either inadvertently misread or intentionally misrepresented Ibn Ḥazm’s views.

Appropriation of the Qurʾānic concept of f iṭra Contemporary scholars are also appropriating the Qurʾānic concept of fiṭra to argue their competing views on same-​sex sexual acts, desires, and homosexual identities. Fiṭra has been understood to mean human’s innate constitution or internal disposition. However, the Qurʾān does not explicitly define what this innate constitution is. Instead, Muslims have debated the meaning of fiṭra in Q 30:3034 and have argued that it means being a pure monotheist (ḥanīf,) which is the original religion of all humans. However, “polytheists, as well as Jews and Christians, have distorted this natural religion, a religion that is preserved in Islam. Being a ḥanīf was initially understood as being a Muslim avant la lettre” (Giffel 2007: 43). Hence, exegetical discussions of 30:30 have historically revolved around fiṭra as meaning the original religion, rather than the original sexual orientation of humans. However, contemporary Muslim scholars on both sides of the debate have appropriated this concept in Q 30:30 to mean sexual orientation. For 351

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example, on the one hand, al-​Qaraḍāwī argues, “This repugnant act [of sodomy] is a reversal of the natural constitution (fiṭra), a lewdness of utmost filth, a corruption of masculinity, and a crime against the rights of women” (1980: 165). On the other hand, Kugle argues “some human beings simply are homosexual by disposition [fiṭra] rather than by choice” (2010: 2). Hence, scholars on both sides of this debate are using the same Qurʾānic concept of fiṭra differently to support their position on same-​sex sexual acts, desires, and identities in Islam. In a forty-​five-​minute interview on the television program al-​Sharīʿa wa-​al-​Ḥayā, broadcast by al-​Jazeera, in a segment entitled “The fiṭra instilled by God in His creation,” the television host, ʿAbd al-​Ṣamad Nāṣir, asks al-​Qaraḍāwī, “What is the meaning of fiṭra here [Q 30:30], which should not be altered?” He answers by arguing that a human being is born with an innate constitution to believe in a lord, but within the same breath adds that humans have “a natural propensity to have sexual inclinations towards the opposite sex, [that is] a man is sexually inclined towards a woman and a woman is sexually inclined towards [a man]. This is the natural order.” Even though al-​Qaraḍāwī acknowledges that fiṭra in Q 30:30 means the religion of Islam, which is how early exegetes interpreted it, he also expands its interpretive scope to encompass what he believes to be the natural and inborn disposition of sexual attraction to the opposite sex. Later in the program, he quotes a number of verses to support his position on polarity, verses that mention God’s creation of males and females (Q 49:13) and His creation of pairs (Q 4:1) so that each spouse finds peace with the other (Q 7:189). Although some of these verses mention spouse or mate (zawj), they do not specify the sex of the spouse. However, he insists, “a man finds peace with a woman and a woman with a man … internal disposition is towards the opposite sex because the Qurʾān mentions that the universe is based on the principle of opposite pairs not same pairs.”35 He gives other examples of how animals and plants are created male and female and even an electric charge has a negative and a positive polarity in order to assert that it is such polarity that allows the universe to function properly. If people all decide to content themselves with sexual relations with an individual of the same-​sex then after one or two generations humanity will end. Even the physical structure of each sex was created to complement the opposite sex. If humans pursue same-​sex relations then they are defying the fiṭra on which they were created. Through such arguments, al-​Qaraḍāwī appropriates the Qurʾānic term of fiṭra, traditionally interpreted as meaning the religion of Islam in Q 30:30, and instead uses it to make his case against same-​sex sexual acts. Hence, one of the main reasons he provides for his prohibition is that these sexual acts contradict humans’ internal disposition, the larger order of the universe, and has the potential to ultimately lead to the destruction of mankind. Similarly, al-​ʿAlawani indicates that his concern with homosexuality is the preservation of the “sound family” unit between a man and a woman and “the survival of human kind.” By prohibiting same-​sex sexual relations he is attempting to maintain the stability of society at large. It is for this reason that he holds that a “sound family can only consist of a man and a woman.” Furthermore, he argues, “humans are not animals controlled by their sexual instincts, answering the call of sexual desires every time it is aroused in them. Rather, it is their responsibility to know how they can orient this craving.” However, he does not answer how an individual who does not fit the heterosexual family model should orient his/​her craving. Is it through abstinence, heterosexual marriage in hopes of sexual “conversion”, or through other means? Instead, he warns, “viewing (material) desires as aims in themselves is a deviation from one’s natural disposition and a departure from the natural order” (2015). It seems that in this context he is arguing that even though one may have homosexual desires, he/​she should control them because they have “the willpower to choose” not to act on them. So, though those who have heterosexual desires have the legally sanctioned institution of marriage through which to 352

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fulfill their desires, those with homosexual desires should control their sexual instincts, which he compares to animalistic behavior. Like al-​Qaraḍāwī and al-​ʿAlawani, Kugle and Habib both appropriate the Qurʾānic concept of fiṭra, but only to argue their opposing position. Invoking the same concept of fiṭra, Kugle instead argues “Some human beings simply are homosexual by disposition [fiṭra] rather than by choice” (2010: 2). Here he uses this Qurʾānic concept to argue that “homosexuals have no rational choice in their internal disposition to be attracted to same-​sex mates” (2010: 2). It is noteworthy that the Qurʾānic concept of fiṭra ultimately forms the basis for both competing views that seek to prohibit or permit same-​sex sexual practices within Islam. Habib makes a similar argument and writes, “homosexuality, in many cases, is indeed fitra and in-​born and that it is precisely part of the Creator’s intention” (2008: 33). Elsewhere she argues, “we must not ignore the fact that homosexuality is something that one is indeed ‘naturally born with’ ” (2007: 140). Both Kugle and Habib use fiṭra to make a case for the permissibility of homosexuality. Although al-​ʿAlawani promotes controlling homosexual desires by not acting on them, Kugle provides a legal means for homosexuals to fulfill their sexual desires. He writes: What matters is not the sex of the partner with whom one forms a partnership, as long as that partnership is contractual on par with legal custom. Rather, what matters is the ethical nature of the relationship one has within the constraints of one’s internal disposition, which includes sexual orientation and gender identity. (2010: 3) Kugle and Habib view homosexuality as inborn, innate, and part of “God’s will in creation” (Kugle 2010:  5). They are re-​examining the Qurʾān, reinterpreting the Lot narrative, and redefining the Qurʾānic concept of fiṭra through their own interpretive lens as a means of legitimizing homosexual Muslims’ identity and sexual practices, providing them with an Islamic means of fulfilling their desires.

Conclusion Many early exegetes interpreted the Qurʾānic Lot narrative as an absolute condemnation of male–​male anal intercourse, even though they disagreed on the details of the narrative. These early interpretations have left a lasting impact on Muslims’ understanding of this narrative until today. Many Muslims now approach the Qur’an with the assumption that this narrative’s meaning is self-​evident and clear. Others, however, are shedding this early interpretation and instead arguing for a re-​examination of the Qur ʾān in order to produce a “sexuality-​sensitive” reading suitable for the modern context. And like their counterparts, they seek validation through the Qurʾān and early Islamic thought. They continue to locate early authoritative figures or traditions, selectively reading them through their own interpretive lens, to validate their interpretation. Since both sides of this debate are using the same Qurʾānic passages, the concept of fiṭra, and selectively citing early scholars or traditions to assert their competing position, one must pause to question what this says about the nature of the Qurʾānic text itself and these scholars’ insistence on not only using the Qurʾān as their primary source, but also their need to validate their competing position through early authorities and sources. The modern discourse over same-​sex sexual acts and homosexuality points to the central position that the Qurʾān continues to occupy. The Qurʾānic text of the Lot narrative as a whole has posed and continues to pose hermeneutical challenges to some Muslims. Competing interpretations of this narrative point to the text’s fluidity, a text that may lend itself to both of 353

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these conflicting readings, among others. As we have seen, some scholars have insisted on narrowly defining all of Lot’s people’s sins as the single sin of male–​male anal copulation, thereby condemning Lot’s people and anyone who follows in their path as having engaged in a sinful act. Others examine the narrative as a whole within larger Islamic ethical principles such as sexual diversity and justice, and conclude that a condemnatory reading of homosexuals is both inconsistent with these principles and this narrative that addresses same-​sex rape rather than consensual sexual relations. As our context and social realties shift so too does our interpretation of the Qurʾān. While Muslims have historically insisted on interpreting the Lot narrative as a prohibition against same-​sex sexual acts, some Western contemporary scholars are questioning this reading and are in fact reinterpreting the Qurʾān to offer alternative readings. However, scholars are not only seeking to reinterpret the Qurʾān in order to reconcile it with modern realities, but they are doing so through early Islamic thought itself, by citing early authorities and sources. All of the scholars examined here have used both the Qurʾān and some aspect of early Islamic thought in order to support and validate their position. Modern Muslim scholars are invoking the Qurʾān and early authorities as a means of asserting and legitimizing their competing position.

Notes 1 In Kitāb al-​ʿAyn, al-​Farāhīdī (d. 170/​786) defines L-​w-​ṭ as the name of a messenger who was sent to his people and “They rejected him, and they did what they did, so people have derived from his name an action based on those of his people who did this action” (2003: IV 110). 2 The required number of witnesses varied across and within the legal schools. 3 Samar Habib and Scott Kugle title their books Islam and Homosexuality and Homosexuality in Islam respectively. 4 Unlike Massad’s rejection of the recourse to Western terminology, the “assimilationist project” and what he calls “imposed identities,” Sahar Amer interrogates Arab activists’ almost exclusive reliance on Western terminology or Western paradigms, and instead proposes a “hybrid and intercultural queer theory” (Amer 2012). 5 Massad highlights a similar point (2015: 229). 6 There are a number of different terms used in early Arabic literature to describe various male–​male sexual acts and actors. Furthermore, there are various terms used depending on the genre, context, and time period. For example, Everett Rowson highlights some of these nuances and writes: Liwāṭ, formed from Lūṭ, is the general as well as legal term for homosexual anal intercourse, and technically may refer to the “activity” of either partner; lūṭī, on the other hand a term rare in the legal literature but otherwise common, always refers to the active partner, who, at least from ʿAbbāsid times, was inevitably exposed to less intense societal disapproval than the passive partner, and, indeed, whose desires, if not his acts were widely considered normal from at least the fourth/​tenth century. Furthermore, the lūṭī partner was not assumed himself necessarily to be acting from motives of sexual desire, and no single term refers simply to such a person, without reference to his motives: if he is paid, for instance, he is a muʾājir; if he agrees to be the passive partner in exchange for a turn as the active partner, he is a mubādil; if he is indeed acting out of sexual desire for the passive role, he is most commonly called a maʾbūn. The word maʾbūn carries strong connotations of pathology, and ubna is in fact frequently called a “disease” (dāʾ). (1991: 685) 7 For a glossary of commonly used Arabic words to refer to homosexuality see Amer (2012: 383–​384). 8 For example, Kugle examines the ḥadīths that command the killing of those who engage in male–​male anal intercourse and argues for their invalidity (2010: 73–​127). 9 This is not to imply that the legal debates on this issue are irrelevant. On the contrary, there were rich debates over the types (ḥadd or taʿzīr) and forms of punishments (e.g., death by stoning, sword, etc.) for those who engage in same-​sex sexual acts, which some Muslims continue to cite. However, the

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Modern discourse over homosexuality jurisprudence of same-​sex sexual acts is outside of the scope of this chapter. For an overview of the early legal treatments of liwāṭ and siḥāq see Sara Omar (2012). 10 These passages are Q 54:33–​ 40; 37:133–​ 138; 50:13; 26:160–​ 175; 15:58–​ 77; 38:13–​ 14; 21:74–​ 75; 27:55–​58; 11:70, 74, and 11:77–​83; 29:26, 28–​35; 7:80–​84; 6:86; 22:43–​44; and 66:10. 11 Linguistic analysis of “fāḥisha”: In Kitāb al-​ʿAyn, al-​Farāhīdī defines f-​ḥ-​sh as “every matter that does not comply with the truth (al-​ḥaqq).” He also provides the example of Q 4:19, “except where they have been guilty of lewdness (fāḥisha),” and argues that this verse means, “[A woman] leaving her house without the permission of her husband who has divorced her” (2003: III 304). 12 Many exegetes interpreted the word fāḥisha in Q 4:15 as meaning women who commit illicit sexual intercourse “zinā” with males. However, there were others who interpreted fāḥisha in this verse as addressing “siḥāq.” Among these exegetes is Abū Muslim al-​Iṣfaḥānī (d. 322/​933) who argued that Q 4:15 refers specifically to al-​suḥāqāt (females who engage in siḥāq or tribadism) whose ḥadd punishment should be imprisonment until death. He also argues that Q 4:16 refers to “people who commit liwāṭ (ahl al-​liwāṭ)” and their ḥadd punishment is to dishonor them through verbal and corporal rebuke (2007: II 98). 13 It should be noted that some of these eleven verses could be interpreted as alluding to sexual innuendos. For example, Q 2:169 and 24:21 refer to Satan commanding the believers to commit indecency “al-​faḥshāʾ.” 14 It should be noted that some later exegetes, such as the Turkish scholar Muḥammad Zīrekzāde (d. 1601)  and the Shīʿī scholar Niʿmat Allāh al-​Jazāʿirī (d. 1702)  interpreted these verses differently, suggesting that boys would be sexually available to men in paradise for pleasure (al-​Jazāʾirī 1990:  183). For more on the boys of Paradise in later commentaries, see Khaled el-​Rouayheb (2005: 133–​134). 15 The dating and authorship of Mujāhid’s Tafsīr have been a point of contention. For example, Fred Leemhuis argues that the work published as Tafsīr Mujāhid is actually a recension by Abū Bishr Waraqāʾ b.  ʿUmar (d. 160/​776) of Ibn Abī Najīḥ’s (d. 131–​32/​749–​50) transmission of Mujāhid’s Tafsīr (1981, 1988). Leemhuis directs readers to the doctoral dissertation by George Stauth (1969). For a wide-​ ranging survey of issues related to early transmission history which addresses the work of Leemhuis and Stauth, among others, see Gregor Schoeler (1985) and Jane McAuliffe (1991: 19). 16 For more on the life of al-​Thaʿlabī, see Walid Saleh (2004: 25–​53). 17 This work has been translated by Brinner (2002). 18 For more on al-​Kalbī, see Attallah (1960–​2007). 19 This is also the interpretation that Muqātil makes in his Tafsīr, where he argues, their committing al-​ munkar in their gatherings means “pelting with rocks” (2002: III 381). 20 ʿAbd al-​Razzāq al-​Ṣanʿānī includes the legal punishments for male–​male anal intercourse, but does not outrightly equate anal copulation with zinā in his commentary (1989: I 309–​310). 21 For possible death dates, see James Morris’ discussion (Jaʿfar b. Manṣūr al-​Yaman 2001: 53). 22 For a discussion of the different aspects of these dimensions, see Jaʿfar b. Manṣūr (2001: 92–​97). 23 “Etymologically, taʾwil means “to bring back or lead back to …, i.e., to bring the literal forms (zahir, shariʿa) back to the plane of spiritual Truth (haqiqa)” (Corbin 1983: 153). 24 Ibn al-​Manṣūr divides the six nāṭiqs into two sets. The first three nāṭiqs who were prophets, messengers, and Imams are Adam, Noah, and Abraham and they are the “father-​nāṭiqs.” The second set includes Moses and Jesus who were prophets and messengers, but not Imāms. And the last nāṭiq who like the “fathers” combines all three roles is Muḥammad. 25 “In the Ismāʿīlī context, the walī (pl. awliyāʾ) could refer to high-​ranking members or even the leader of the daʿwa” (Hollenberg 2006: 44). 26 For more on daʿwa within Ismāʿīlī doctrine see Farhad Daftary (2007: 98–​116). 27 “Earlier in his life Qaradawi was jailed three times for his relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood and subsequently stripped of his Egyptian citizenship in the 1970s –​driving him to seek exile in Qatar” (Schleifer 2014: 82). 28 Al-​ʿAlawani received his Ph.D. from al-​Azhar University and taught at Imām Muḥammad b. Saʿūd University in Riyāḍ for ten years. He was one of the founders of the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) in the USA in 1981 and is a former president of the Fiqh Council of North America. 29 These Muslim leaders include Imam Muhsin Hendricks of South Africa and Imam Daayiee Abdullah in the United States. They have founded a number of all-​inclusive mosques and have called for the reexamination of the Qurʾān and the Islamic legal tradition.

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Sara Omar 30 Kugle is a Muslim academic and activist. He is an Associate Professor of South Asian and Islamic Studies at Emory University. 31 Habib is a Research Associate at the Centre for Gender Studies at SOAS, University of London. 32 Al-​Qaraḍāwī spends a few sentences at the end of his discussion on the legal treatment of those who engage in male–​male sexual acts. He writes: Muslim jurists have disagreed over the punishment of those who engage in this abominable act. Should they be punished with the ḥadd of zinā? Should both the active and the passive partners be put to death? If so, then by which means: the sword, immolation, or being pushed off of a building? Although such punishments may seem cruel, they have been suggested to maintain the purity of Muslim society and to purify it from these impure, foul, and harmful deeds, which only lead to annihilation and destruction. (1980: 165) It should be noted that al-​Qaraḍāwī selectively highlights some of the ḥadd punishments (divinely ordained statutes for certain acts, sanctioned by punishments in the Qurʾān) that have been suggested by some early Muslim jurists while concealing the fact that jurists heavily debated this issue and some argued for a non-​capital penalty altogether. Such jurists include Abū Ḥanīfa (d. 150/​767), al-​Kāsānī (d. 587/​1189), and Ibn Ḥazm (d. 456/​1064), who argued for a taʿzīr punishment (discretionary punishment by the judge), usually in the form of imprisonment or flogging. 33 There are a number of examples of Ibn Ḥazm’s use of reductio ad absurdum style of argumentation. For example, he declares, “If they [the pro-​ḥadd jurists] say that she [Lot’s wife] used to aid them in that act [male–​male anal penetration], then we say you [the pro-​ḥadd jurists] must lapidate every person who aids in this act … otherwise you contradict and nullify your use of the Qurʾān as your basis.” Here, his point is not that everyone who aids those who engage in male–​male anal copulation should be lapidated, but rather, that for those who claim that Lot’s wife was lapidated along with Lot’s people because she was aiding them in their acts of sodomy, then they must also extend this punishment to anyone else who aids in this act. But again, since the pro-​ḥadd jurists do not punish those who aid other males in their acts of sodomy with lapidation, then their argument contains a logical contradiction. Another example of this style of argumentation can best be illustrated when Ibn Ḥazm declares, “And also, God has informed us that they [Lot’s people] sought his guests, but He blinded their eyes [Q 54:37]. This, therefore necessitates and without exception that they gouge out the eyes of those who commit the act of Lot’s people because God not only lapidated them [the men who sought Lot’s guests] but, first blinded them then lapidated them. And if they [the pro-​ḥadd jurists] do not do this then they contradict God’s ruling and nullify their supporting proof [for their ḥadd position].” The point that Ibn Ḥazm is trying to make here is not that those who engage in anal intercourse should have their eyes gouged out before they are lapidated, but rather that there is another logical contradiction in the pro-​ḥadd jurists’ argument since they do not require this as part of their penalty (1933: XI 384). 34 “So set thy face steadfastly towards the [one ever-​true] faith, turning away from all that is false, in accordance with the natural disposition (fiṭra) which God has instilled into man: [for,] not to allow any change to corrupt what God has thus created this is the [purpose of the one] ever-​true faith; but most people know it not” (Q 30:30). 35 A full Arabic transcription of this episode (al-​Qaraḍāwī 2006b) and the televised episode (al-​Qaraḍāwī 2006a) are available.

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Modern discourse over homosexuality Brinner,W.M. 2002. ʿArāʾis al-​majālis fī qiṣaṣ al-​anbiyāʾ or Lives of the Prophets as Recounted by Abū Isḥāq Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm al-​Thaʿlabī. Leiden: Brill. Corbin, H. 1983. Cyclical Time and Ismaili Gnosis. London: Kegan Paul International. Daftary, F. 2007 [1992]. The Ismāʿīlīs: Their History and Doctrines. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. al-​Farāhīdī, Kh.b.A. 2003. Kitāb al-​ʿAyn. Hindāwī, ʿA.Ḥ. ed. 4 vols. Beirut: Dār al-​kutub al-​ʿilmiyya. Griffel, F. 2007. The Harmony of Natural Law and Shariʿa in Islamist Theology. In: Amanat, A. and Griffel, F. eds. Shariʿa: Islamic Law in the Contemporary Context. Standford: Stanford University Press, 38–​61. Habib, S. 2007. Female Homosexuality in the Middle East: Histories and Representations. London: Routledge. ——​. 2008. Queer-​Friendly Islamic Hermeneutics. ISIM Review 21(Spring):32–​33. ——​. ed. 2010. Islam and Homosexuality. 2 vols. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger. Hollenberg, D. 2006. Interpretation after the End of Days: The Fāṭimid-​Ismāʿīlī Taʾwīl (Interpretation) of Jaʿfar Ibn Manṣūr al-​Yaman (d. ca. 960). Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Pennsylvania. Ibn Bishr al-​Qurashī, A.Ḥ. n.d. Mubtadaʾ al-​duniyā wa qiṣaṣ al-​anbiyāʾ. MS. Huntingdon 388. Bodleian Library, Oxford. Ibn Ḥazm, A.M.ʿA.b.A. 1933. al-​Muḥalla. Shākir, A.M. ed. 11 vols. Cairo: Idārat al-​ṭibāʾa al-​munīriyya. al-​Iṣfaḥānī, A.M. 2007. Mawsūʿat tafāsīr al-​muʿtazila: Tafsīr Abī Muslim Muḥammad b. Baḥr al-​Iṣfahānī. Nabhā, K.M. ed. 4 vols. Beirut: Dār al-​kutub al-​ʿilmiyya. Jaʿfar b. Manṣūr al-​Yaman. 1984. Sarāʾir wa asrār al-​nuṭaqāʾ. Ghālib, M. ed. Beirut: Dār al-​Andalus li-​al-​ṭibāʿa wa-​al-​tawzīʿ. ——​. 2001. The Master and the Disciple: An Early Islamic Spiritual Dialogue. A New Arabic Edition and English Translation of Jaʿfar ibn Manṣūr al-​Yaman’s Kitāb al-​ʿālim wa’l-​ghulām. Morris, J. ed. and trans. London: I.B. Tauris. al-​Jazāʾirī, N.A. 1990. Zahr al-​rabīʿ fī al-​ṭarāʾif wa-​al-​mulaḥ wa-​al-​maqāl al-​badīʿ. Beirut: al-​Irshād li-​al-​ṭibāʿa wa-​al-​nashr. Kugle, S.S.H. 2010. Homosexuality in Islam:  Critical Reflection on Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender Muslims. Oxford: Oneworld. Leemhuis, F. 1981. MS. 1075 Tafsīr of the Cairene Dār al-​Kutub and Mujāḥid’s Tafsīr. In: Peters, R. ed. Proceedings of the Ninth Congress of the Union Européenne des Arabisants et Islamisants. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 169–​180. ——​. 1988. Origins and Early Development of the tafsīr Tradition. In:  Rippin, A. ed. Approaches to the History of the Interpretation of the Qurʿān. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 13–​30. McAuliffe, J.D. 1991. Qurʾānic Christians: An Analysis of Classical and Modern Exegesis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Massad, J.A. 2015. Islam in Liberalism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Mujāhid b.  Jabr, A.Ḥ. 1989. Tafsīr Mujāhid b.  Jabr. Abū al-​Nīl, M.ʿA.S. ed. Cairo:  Dār al-​fikr al-​islāmī al-​ḥadītha. Muqātil b. Sulaymān. 2002. Tafsīr Muqātil b. Sulaymān. Shiḥāth, ʿA.A.M. ed. 5 vols. Beirut: Muʾassasat al-​ tārīkh al-​ʿarabī. Omar, S. 2012. “From Semantics to Normative Law: Treatments of Liwāṭ (Sodomy) and Siḥāq (Tribadism) in Islamic Jurisprudence (8th–​15th Century CE). Islamic Law and Society 19(3):222–​256. al-​Qaraḍāwī,Y. 1980. al-​Ḥalāl wa-​al-​ḥarām fī al-​Islām. 13th ed. Beirut: al-​Maktab al-​islāmī. ——​. June 4, 2006a. al-​Sharīʿa wa-​al-​ḥayā. www.youtube.com/​watch?v=Qg4RkgNfSAo. Accessed July 12, 2015. ——​. June 7, 2006b. al-​Sharīʿa wa-​al-​ḥayā. www.aljazeera.net/​programs/​religionandlife/​2006/​6/​7/​‫ةرطف‬-​ ‫هللا‬-​‫يف‬-​‫هقلخ‬. Accessed July 12, 2015. el-​Rouayheb, Kh. 2005 Before Homosexuality in the Arab Islamic World, 1500–​1800. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Rowson, E.K. 1991.The Effeminates of Early Medina. Journal of the American Oriental Society 111(4):671–​693. Saleh, W.A. 2004. The Formation of the Classical Tafsīr Tradition: The Qurʾān Commentary of al-​Thaʿlabī (427/​ 1035). Leiden: Brill. Schleifer, S.A. ed. 2014. The Muslim 500: The World’s 500 Most Influential Muslims, 2014/​15. Amman: The Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Center. Schoeler, G. 1985. Die Frage der schriftlichen order mündlichen Überlieferung der Wissenschaften im frühen Islam. Der Islam 62:201–​230.

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Sara Omar Stauth, G. 1969. Die Überlieferung des Korankommentars Muğāhid b.  Ğabr’s:  Zur Frage der Rekonstruction der in den Sammelwerken des 3. Jh.d.H. benutzten frühislamischen Quellenwerke. Ph.D. Dissertation, Universität Gießen. al-​Ṭabarī, A.J.M.b.J. 2001. Tafsīr al-​Ṭabarī:  Jāmiʿ al-​bayān ʿan taʾwīl al-​Qurʾān. al-​Turkī, ʿA.A.b.ʿA.M. ed. 26 vols. Cairo: Dār al-​hijr. al-​Thaʿlabī, A.I.A. 1950. Kitāb qiṣaṣ al-​anbiyāʾ. Cairo: Maṭbaʿat ḥijāzī. ——​. 2002. al-​Kashf wa-​al-​Bayān. Ibn ʿĀshūr, A.M. ed. 10 vols. Beirut: Dār iḥyāʾ al-​turāth al-​ʿarabī.

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21 TRUE HISTORY IN BLACK AND WHITE Reimagined origins in the Nation of Islam Herbert Berg

The Nation of Islam was the first significant Muslim movement in the United States of America. It (re-​)introduced Islam, the Qurʾān, and Muḥammad to thousands of African Americans, many of whose ancestors may have been Muslims when they were taken from Africa to be slaves in the Americas. But it also reimagined Islam as a racialized religion, in which the Qurʾān and Muḥammad, the two loci of both traditional narratives and skeptical counter-​narratives of Islamic origins, were cast in roles that explicitly negated white hegemony and opposed the religion of the status quo, Christianity. Although Wali Fard Muhammad, whose origins are as mysterious as his disappearance, founded the movement in Detroit, Michigan, in 1930, it was led by the Honorable Elijah Muhammad (d. 1975) for the next four decades. In those racially turbulent decades, Elijah Muhammad developed a unique, and many would claim heretical, formulation of Islam relying both on the racial teachings of Wali Fard Muhammad and his own reading of the Qurʾān. He had little access to, or perhaps interest in, the Sunna, sīra, and tafsīr. Free of the strictures that these sources might impose on his interpretative possibilities, this Muslim formulated a new Islam by reimagining Islamic origins in fundamental and remarkable ways. His re-​imaginations are also excellent examples of the genetic fallacy, for the origin of Black humanity and later of the white race solely determined their true natures, their current relationships, and their destiny. This perspective may explain why Elijah Muhammad was so fixated on origins, not only of Islam, but even more so of Wali Fard Muhammad, Allah, and the races.

Origins of Wali Fard Muhammad When Wali Fard Muhammad came to Detroit in 1930, Islam was virtually unknown among his African American audience. There had been a Muslim originally from Africa in the Americas as early as 1527, and later over half of the Africans brought as slaves came from West Africa, a region where Islam was prevalent. So perhaps 15 percent of those enslaved in the American colonies and later United States were Muslims when they first arrived. A few families managed to maintain their Islamic identities for a very long time on isolated islands in Georgia. And a few Muslims, such as Job Ben Solomon (d. 1773), Abd ar-​Rahman Ibrahima (d. 1829), Lamine 359

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Kebe (d. after 1837), and Umar ibn Said (d. 1864), were literate and so managed to obtain their freedom after much suffering and even return to Africa. But they are the “exceptions that prove the rule”:  the languages, cultures, and religions of African slaves were stripped away within a generation or two. Slavery as practiced in the United States erased their originally diverse African identities, ethnicities, and cultures, replacing them with a single racial identity and ethnicity, “the Negro,” and the religion of their slave-​masters, Christianity. By and large, if Islam was known by African Americans in the early 20th-​century United States, it was from Ahmadi Muslim missionaries who began to arrive in 1920 or from Noble Drew Ali’s Moorish Science Temple, which used the term “Moslem” and its own scripture, The Holy Koran of the Moorish Science Temple of America (more commonly known as the Circle Seven Koran), but which had no connection to the Qurʾān. Drew Ali’s knowledge of traditional forms of Islam, the Qurʾān, or Muḥammad was extremely limited (Berg 2009: 13–​18), but he did call on African Americans to return to their true identity, Moors, and true religion, Islam. Thus when Fard Muhammad began to preach his unique form of Islam in Detroit in 1930, it is not surprising that initially there was no one to gainsay him. His Islam emphasized some recognizably Islamic themes such as the evils of alcohol and pork, but he also focused on strong racial criticisms of the Bible and Christianity. He had come to bring freedom, justice, and equality to his African American brothers, the lost, now found, “Nation of Islam in the North American wilderness.” In his three-​and-​a-​half-​year ministry, Fard gathered 5,000 to 8,000 followers, including a second group in Chicago. But this success brought him to the attention of the authorities. He was arrested in May of 1933 and ordered to leave Detroit. Soon after departing for Chicago, he was arrested again. After meeting with some followers, he disappeared in 1934. Elijah Muhammad, reflecting on his mentor’s mission, wrote: He (MR. FARD MUHAMMAD, God in Person) chose to suffer three and one-​half years to show his love for his people, who have suffered over 300 years at the hands of a people who by nature are evil, wicked, and have no good in them. He was persecuted, sent to jail …. He submitted himself with all humbleness to his persecutors. … He was well able to save himself from such suffering, but how else was the scripture to be fulfilled? (1956a)1 Elijah Muhammad, though he had hitherto publicly only referred to Fard Muhammad as a prophet, began teaching that he was in fact Allah, who had been born to the tribe of Quraysh in Mecca in 1877, and for 42 years studied and traveled the world to prepare for his mission to return the lost Nation to Islam and Allah’s law. After departing, Allah continued to guide his successor, Elijah Muhammad, for decades to come.2 This myth of origins for Fard Muhammad, however, is challenged by the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s extensive file on him. Their records state that this Black Allah was petty criminal Wallace Dodd Ford, born in New Zealand (or in Portland, Oregon) in 1891 (or c. 1874) to a British father and Polynesian mother. In 1918 when arrested and released, he was using the name Wallie Ford. He was arrested again in 1926 for the sale and possession of alcohol and narcotics, resulting in his imprisonment in San Quentin. With his release in 1926, he made his way to Chicago and from there to Detroit. He supported himself as a street peddler selling silks, which gave him entrance to African American homes where he began his ministry. Later when he was arrested in Detroit, the FBI report on Fard Muhammad stated that in the official police report “Dodd admitted that his teachings were ‘strictly a racket’ and he was ‘getting all the money out of it he could’ ” (FBI n.d.).The fingerprints from the Los Angeles police and San

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Quentin penitentiary for Ford and those from the Michigan state police for Fard Muhammad were all identical. Not surprisingly, Elijah Muhammad, as his apostle, believed all these records to have been fabricated.3 That, after all, was typical of the lying white race, to obscure and erase the true history –​the true origins. Nowhere is that more evident for Elijah Muhammad than how the entire “true history of God” and his interaction with humanity had been hidden and distorted.

Origins of Allah(s), man, and Islam Perhaps uniquely among Muslim groups, the Nation of Islam see the origin of Islam stretching not just millennia, but eons before Muḥammad and even Adam and Eve. Although Allah created the world, it is not the Allah of today, Wali Fard Muhammad. [W]‌e all know that there was a God in the beginning that created all things, and do know that He does not exist today. But, we know again that from that God, the person of God continued until today in His people, and today a Supreme One (God) has appeared among us with the same infinite wisdom to bring about a complete change. (Muhammad 1958a) For Elijah Muhammad there had been many Allahs since creation. Each had ruled for a certain period, before giving way to the next Allah: There were more Gods than One God. We are just now coming into the One God. The One God is Present to Change the world into a new world … a world of His Choice and of His Making. But, between This God there were many other gods, from the Creation until today. Each God had a limited time to rule. The time of rule of Yakub’s made man (white man) was limited to 6,000 years. But, before this one[,]‌God had 25,000–​35,000 years to rule. Then, His Wisdom was replaced by another God. All of these Gods who rule from 25,000–​35,000 years, were Black People. Do not get the idea that they were gods of different colors, as we never had any colored gods until the Black god Yakub made a colored god. (1971a) These Allahs seem to have had no relation to one other, and there was no periodic ḥulūl or incarnation that connected them. Yet, given their life spans, clearly these particular  –​always black –​men were obviously not ordinary humans. Not only are these Allahs not eternal, they are not omnibenevolent nor even omniscient. One of the Allahs 60 (or 66) trillion years ago, after all, split the earth after he failed to unite humanity and then failed to destroy them. His idea was to force his rule upon the people of our planet and force all to speak the same dialect, which He was not able to do. Then he decided to destroy all, including the earth and Himself. He went to work by attempting to drill a tube into the earth’s surface. It must have reached approximately the center of the earth. Then He filled it with high explosives which we call dynamite. However, it was 30 per cent more powerful than the present dynamite. Then He set it off. This explosion blasted away

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a piece of our then-​earth, which according to the moon’s diameter is approximately 2,160 miles, or about ⅓ the size of our planet earth. (Muhammad 1969a) A broader conception of Allah is evident in some of Elijah Muhammad’s writings: a collective Allah. “The Holy Koran or Bible is made by the original people, who is Allah, the supreme being, or (black man) of Asia; … [he] makes history or Koran, to equal his home circumference, a year to every mile and thus every time his history lasts twenty-​five thousand years, he re-​news it for another twenty-​five thousand years” (n.d.).4 And yet elsewhere, “When we say ‘Allah,’ that Name means God and covers all Muslims. All Muslims are Allahs, but we call the Supreme Allah the Supreme Being. And He has a Name of His Own. This Name is ‘Fard Muhammad’ ” (1974: 57). With Fard Muhammad, however, Islam can be said to be monotheistic. He is the only god of this time. Allah’s embodiment was not problematic for Elijah Muhammad; quite the opposite was the case for most non-​Nation of Islam Muslims when they first heard it. For them it was a clear instance of shirk –​the act of associating something or someone with Allah. He repeatedly chastised both Christians and Muslims for their belief in an immaterial, wholly other God, that is, a “spook” god who is not human. When other Muslims challenged him, he dismissed them, writing: They are spooky minded and believe that Allah (God) is some immaterial something …. The ignorant belief of the Orthodox Muslims, that Allah (God) is Some Formless Something and yet He Has An Interest in our affairs, can be condemned in no limit of time. I would not give two cents for that kind of God, in which they believe. (1969c: 20) Although human, Allah is extremely powerful according to Elijah Muhammad. He can be in two places at once, and he sees, hears, and knows secrets. And he has power over the forces of nature (1992b: 121). But being human, Allah has not been credited with the creation of humanity. Elijah Muhammad merely states: The Original Man, Allah has declared[,]‌is none other than the Black Man.The first and last, maker and owner of the Universe, from him came all brown, yellow, red and white. By using a special method of birth control law he was able to produce the white race. … it [The Hoy Qur-​an] further teaches that they [white race] are not even their own creators. We created man (white race) from a small life germ, the soft pronoun we used nearly throughout the Holy Qur-​an makes the knowledge of the original man much clearer and of a more intelligent knowledge of how the white race’s creation took place. (1956b) Here chronological priority gives the “Black man” superiority over the “White man.” As noted above, “recorded” history began 60 trillion years ago with the making of the moon. In another variation of this story, Elijah Muhammad gives the origin of the Tribe of Shabazz and Islam as we know it: He has declared that we are descendants of the Asian black nation and of the tribe of Shabazz. You might ask, who is this tribe of Shabazz? Originally, they were the tribe that came with the earth (or this part), sixty trillion years ago when a great explosion 362

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on our planet divided it into two parts. One we call earth and the other moon. This was done by one of our scientists, God, who wanted the people to speak one language, on dialect for all, but was unable to do so. He decided to kill us by destroying our planet, but still he failed. We were lucky to be on this part, earth, which didn’t lose its water in the mighty blasting away of the part called moon. We, the tribe of Shabazz, says Allah (God), were the first to discover the best part of our planet to live on. The rich Nile Valley of Egypt and the present seat of the Holy City, Mecca, Arabia. (1956e) Having survived the ordeal of the separation of the moon from earth, Allah gave them “a thorough knowledge of self and his guidance” –​presumably Islam. But Islam is only identified as the religion 50,000 years ago. A “dissatisfied scientist” wanted people to be tough enough to endure life in the jungles of East Africa. “The father of the black African tribe went there 50,000  years ago from the tribe of Shabazz and his religion and the whole tribe of Shabazz was none other than Islam” (Muhammad 1957a). Thus Islam does not really begin with Muḥammad, nor Abraham or even Adam. It is far older than any of these prophets.The origins of this ancient Islam are not spelled out, but it seems that the innate and only religion of Black humanity has always been Islam. Perhaps as long as there have been Allahs, there has been Islam. In any event, viewed this way, the original and natural religion for Elijah Muhammad’s African Americans was Islam –​and they must return to it now. The story of how they came to lose that religion begins only 6,600 years ago, with a dissatisfied and malevolent Black scientist in Mecca: Mr.Yakub, the god and maker of the white race (Muhammad 1992a: 31–​32).

Origins of the white race5 Just over 6,600  years ago, according to Elijah Muhammad, the evil genius Yakub was born in Mecca. He was himself Black, but a born troublemaker. Having discovered the secret that opposites attract and the secrets of selective breeding, he began converting people by promising them luxuries. But his true aim was to gather people for his eugenics program. His proselytizing provoked so much turmoil in Mecca that he and his 59,999 followers were exiled to the Island of Pelan in the Aegean Sea. There Yakub wrote the Book of Revelation about the future of the white race he was about to “graft” (Muhammad 1958d). He set in motion a perverse 600-​year eugenics program that sought to selectively breed these followers into a lighter and lighter (and increasingly evil) race by controlling who married whom and by killing all the darker babies. After 200 years he managed to produce a brown race. Another 200 years later, the race was all “yellow or red.” And finally, after 200 years more, the result was an entirely pale white, blue-​ eyed race of people who were by their very nature wholly and irredeemably evil, devoid of any vestige of the good found within the black race out of which they had been bred (Muhammad 1957h; see also 1959c). This origin story was supported using both the Qurʾān’s and the Bible’s accounts of the creation of Adam and Eve. Let us take a look at the devil’s creation from the teachings of the Holy Qurʾān. “And when your Lord said to the angels, I am going to place in the earth one who shall rule, the angels said: ‘What will Thou place in it such as will make mischief in it and shed blood, we celebrate thy praise and extol Thy holiness.’ ” (Holy Qur-​an Sharrieff 2:30). This devil race has and still is doing just that –​making mischief and shedding 363

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blood; and the black nation whom they were grafted from (when your Lord said to the angels): “Surely I am going to create a mortal of the essence of black mud fashioned in shape.” (Holy Qur-​an Sharrieff, 15:28) The essence of black mud (the black nation) mentioned is only symbolic, which actually means the sperm of the black nation; and they refused to recognize the black nation as their equal though they were made from and by a black scientist (named Yakub). (Muhammad 1957c) Likewise, in the phrase, “Let us make man in our image” of Genesis 1:26, the “us” refers to the 59,999 “black men and women making or grafting them into the likeness or image of the original man” (Muhammad 1992a:  118, see also 128).6 The six days of creation each represent 100 years and so combined the 600 hundred years to breed the white race (Muhammad 1974:  58). And “breeding will tell,” as the saying goes, for the Original Sin and the Fall of Humanity refer only to the white race’s progenitors. “Adam and Eve (the father and mother of the white race –​Yakub is the real name) refused the religion of Islam (peace) because of their nature in which they were made” (Muhammad 1958c). Following Yakub’s instructions, this race then returned to the Holy Land, that is Mecca. There they tried to gain control by lying to the righteous. As was their wont, they engaged in “trouble-​making … causing war and bloodshed among the original black people, who had not suffered from wars, exploitation and enslavement before the creation (grafting) of this people by their father,Yakub” (Muhammad 1992a: 266). When the trouble they made inevitably led to bloodshed, the king had them rounded up and driven across the desert from Mecca to Europe. (“EU stand for hills and cavesides of that continent and ROPE means a place where that people were bound in” [Muhammad 1992a: 267].) They suffered divine chastisement for the first 2,000 years on this continent for their trouble-​making and for causing war and bloodshed among the original black people, who had not suffered from wars, exploitation and enslavement before the creation (grafting) of this people by their father, Yakub. (Muhammad 1992a: 266) The white race remained in Europe, “Isolated, they did not have any contact with the civilized world for 2000 years” (Muhammad 1958e). And without divine guidance, they lost all civilization and became savages. They went nude, became hairy, ate raw food, and even started walking on all fours. This history is also supported by the Qurʾān and has lessons for African Americans today: Chapter 7, 26th Verse: O children of Adam we have sent down to you clothing to cover your shame, and clothing for beauty, and clothing that guards against evil. That is the best. This is the message of Allah that they may be mindful. This is referring to the white race, after they stripped off their clothes and were naked in the caves and hillsides of Europe to remind them today that they were given clothes to cover their body and shame, and then He clothed them with beauty, the clothing that guards against evil. … Chapter 7, 27thVerse: O children of Adam let not the devil seduce you as he expelled your parents from the garden, pulling off from them their clothing that he might show them their shame. He surely sees you. He as well as his host from which you see them not. Surely He made the Devil’s to be the friends of those who believe not. 364

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Those who believe not is referring to the American so-​called Negro (Black Man). The devil becomes their friends and guardians and they adopt indecency and the devil’s way of civilization, and thus become the enemy of God and their Nation of righteousness (Black Nation). And therefore, their doom is that of the devil’s (white man). (Muhammad 1966)7 Back in their European exile, they lived in caves and tree tops, climbing the latter for protection at night and jumping from one tree to another. As Q 5:60 points out, some were cursed by Allah and turned into swine and apes. Elsewhere, Elijah Muhammad suggests that the curse was self-​ inflicted, when some sought to graft themselves back into the Black nation, succeeding only in producing the gorilla (1992a: 103–​104 and 119–​120).Why would Allah permit the existence of this evil race? Here Elijah Muhammad proffers Q 7:14, in which Satan asks for and is granted a respite until the day of resurrection (1992a: 134). All references to the devil and Satan in the Bible and to Iblīs and Shayṭān in the Qurʾān were always read as speaking about members of the white race, both collectively and individually. The white race remained in exile and in this wretched state until several futile attempts to civilize them began. Although the religion of Yakub before his fall had been Islam (Muhammad 1957a, 1957i: 31), it was not for his children of Adam. The first prophet sent to them was Moses and the last was Jesus. “Moses and Jesus are the most outstanding prophets in the history of the Caucasian race for the past 4,000 years” (Muhammad 1965a: 1). Both warned them to submit to the will of Allah; both failed (Muhammad 1965b). Moses managed to bring some of them out of the caves –​teaching them to believe in Allah, to wear clothes, to cook food, and to use fire; they became the Jews. Jesus’ mission was also solely directed towards the white race; he made no attempt to teach the Arabs and Blacks in Egypt and Africa (where he spend his youth), for he was never meant to be their prophet –​a point Elijah Muhammad emphasized to demonstrate that no African American should follow this Jesus.8 But ultimately they killed him, stabbed in the back while standing in the form of a crucifix (Berg 2017). As for Muḥammad, he is merely credited with the spread of Islam –​presumably not to the white race –​and keeping them “bottled up” in Europe for another 1,000 years (Muhammad 1992a:  104; 1956d).9 Thereafter white devils then sought to dominate the whole world, by murdering, pillaging, and raping.Their greatest sin was to enslave members of the original Black humanity for 400 years and rob them of their religion, Islam. In 300 years of slavery, we were lashed, beaten and killed; given no education; and reared and cared for like the slave-​master’s stock (horses, cows and other domestic animals). Our children were separated to different plantation owners. For the last approximately 100 years of so-​called freedom, the so-​called Negroes have been subjected to the worst inhuman treatment for any people who have ever lived on earth. They (the devils) have lynched and burned the so-​called Negroes during the past century as sport for their wives and children to enjoy! (Muhammad 1992a: 230) But their sin, even their existence, will not endure forever. The imminent destruction of these devils was heralded when the Great Mahdi, Allah in person, Mr. Fard Muhammad, came to Detroit in 1930 to find this lost Nation of Islam in the wilderness of America (Muhammad 1957d). 365

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The Qurʾān, Muh￱ammad,10 and so-​called “early Islam” Islamic origins, as traditionally understood or even as re-​envisioned by skeptical scholars, has no role in Elijah Muhammad’s teaching.The Qurʾān and Muḥammad are just not features in “early Islam” –​as he understood it.That is not to say the Qurʾān was unimportant. Quite the opposite: The book that the so-​called American Negroes (The Tribe of Shabazz) should own and read, the book that the slavemasters have but have not represented [sic] it to their slaves, is a book that will heal their sin-​sick souls that were made sick and sorrowful by the slavemasters. This book will open their blinded eyes and open their deaf ears. It will purify them. The name of this book, which makes a distinction between the God of righteous and the God of evil, is: Glorious Holy Quran Sharrieff. It is indeed the Book of Guidance, of Light and Truth, and of Wisdom and Judgement. But the average one should first be taught how to respect such a book, how to understand it, and how to teach it. (Muhammad 1957i: 50–​51; 1992a: 92) Furthermore for him, “to get a real Holy Qurʾan one should know the Arabic language in which it is written” (1957i: 50–​51; 1992a: 92). He also taught: “The Holy Qurʾan will live forever. Why? Because it has Truth in it. I will not say it has some Truth in it. It has all Truth in it if you understand” (1992b: 379). As is clear from the stories of Adam, Moses, and Jesus, Elijah Muhammad had no problem discerning those truths in the Qurʾān that corroborated his racial mythology. As for the Bible, it was more problematic for Elijah Muhammad: it “is now being called the poison book by God Himself, and who can deny that it is not poison? It has poisoned the very hearts and minds of the so-​called Negroes so much that they can’t agree with each other” (1957i: 12; 1992a: 94). The Bible was also a “graveyard” and it was better to be bitten by rattlesnakes than to read it without “understanding,” though it too had “plenty of truth” if properly understood (1958b). John Ali, the longtime National Secretary of the Nation of Islam under Elijah Muhammad, elaborated: “Mr. Elijah Muhammad is bringing a final truth to the people. He is revealing the secret of the symbols, parables, signs and prophecies of the scriptures. The Old Testament is a book of prophecy in parables, symbols and signs. The New Testament is a fulfilment of a prophecy whose time is now” (1973: vi). The Qurʾān, of course, was also primarily a book of prophecy in parables, symbols, and signs for Elijah Muhammad. But his understanding of the Qurʾān’s origin is yet another issue that separates him from many other Muslims. In the Lost-​Found Lesson 2, which is ascribed to Fard Muhammad but the bulk of which consists of Elijah Muhammad’s answers to Fard Muhammad’s questions, the origin of the scripture is addressed: 1. Who made the Holy Koran or Bible? How long ago? Will you tell us why does Islam re-​new her history every twenty-​five thousand years? Ans. –​The Holy Koran or Bible is made by the original people, who is Allah, the supreme being, or (black man) of Asia; the Koran will expire in the year twenty-​five thousand. Nine thousand and eight years from the date of this writing [sic] the Nation of Islam is all wise and does everything right and exact. The planet Earth, which is the home of Islam and is approximately twenty-​five thousand miles in circumference, so the wise man of the East (black man) makes history or Koran, to equal his home circumference, a year to every mile and thus every time his history lasts twenty-​five thousand years, he re-​news it for another twenty-​five thousand years. (FBI 1957)11 366

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Muḥammad’s role in delivering the Qurʾān is all but eliminated. One might wonder if it was just a matter of ignorance about the traditional account of Islam’s origins. That seems unlikely. In 1961 in the Mr. Muhammad Speaks newspaper, the son of Elijah Muhammad, Minister Wallace D. Muhammad (later known as Warith Deen Mohammad, who succeeded his father in 1975 and moved the vast majority of his followers to a more recognizably Sunnī Islam), wrote: The months of Ramadan is the month in which the Holy Quran was revealed (2:185). This month ended March 17, 1961. The Holy Book was revealed to an Arab who was born in Arabia about 570 A.D. Today Muhammad Ibn Abdallah is the only prophet of Allah to bring Islam for the whole of humanity …. After their death [Abraham’s and Ishmael’s] this House was corrupted by idol worshippers, and at the time when prophet Muhammad Ibn Abdallah received his first revelation, the Ka‘bah or House that God had chosen as a place of worship and a center for all the nations, had become a place of idol worship. (1961: 3 and 18) Elijah Muhammad expelled his son from the Nation of Islam several times for his less than orthodox (from the perspective of the Nation of Islam) teachings and perhaps his close association with Malcolm X. He was only fully reinstated just in time for him to assume the leadership of the movement when his father died. But the father must have been aware of the traditional account of the Qurʾān’s revelation at least from his son. Moreover, in a challenge to the traditional Muslim fast during Ramadan, he mentions that Muslims fast to celebrate the revelation of the Qur’an, which struck Elijah Muhammad as odd given that the Qurʾān was also said to be revealed over a 23-​year period.12 But those “origins” were not significant to him. As for the prophet Muḥammad, like the other prophets, he lived during a time when the white devil had already been grafted. As a result, Elijah Muhammad places his mission within his racial mythology. “Muhammad, an Arab, was a member of the black nation. The Jews and Christians are of the white race” (1956b; 1957i: 18; 1992a: 94).13 His role, like that of Jesus, was in part symbolic (Berg 2017): Muhammad, born in the Seventh Century after the death of Jesus, the last sign of that last one coming with Allah (God) in the judgement or end of the devil’s rule. Muhammad turned on the light (Islam) in the ancient house (Arab Nation) that had burned low since the time of Ibrahim (Abraham) and cleaned it up for the reception of a much brighter light of the Mahdi (Allah in Person) and His people, which will come from the West out of the house of the infidels. (Muhammad 1957f) Muḥammad had a new, bolder approach compared to the prophets Moses and Jesus who had been sent to the white race: “Muhammad (may the peace and blessing of Allah be upon him) gave them a setback from his teachings of Islam and by putting to death with the sword the disbelievers and troublemakers. This setback lasted until their finding of the Western Hemisphere” (1959a). Through Muḥammad, Allah made the “third attack” on the devils. (The first attack was the expulsion of Yakub and his 59,999 followers from Mecca to the Island of Pelan, and the second attack occurred 600 years later when Yakub’s newly created white race was exiled 367

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to Europe.) It is in this regard that Elijah Muhammad employed one of the few superlative descriptions (albeit only an implicit one) of Muḥammad: Muhammad and his work was far more effective on the devils than any other prophet of the past, for that which Islam and Holy Qur-​an did not accomplish, the sword did. Jesus made no effort to defend his teaching as Muhammad and his successors did. The sending of prophets serves as checks on the wild spread of evil by the devils. (1959a)14 Muḥammad’s efforts held whites in check for a thousand years, but in 1492 they escaped their European exile. This seems to have been his most noteworthy achievement, according to Elijah Muhammad (1957i: 29, 43; 1992a: 3).15 However, in another passage, Elijah Muhammad developed a somewhat less hostile relationship between Muḥammad and whites. The “imams (or scientists) of Mecca” made clear to Muḥammad that he could not convert the white race to Islam: Muhammad was told that he could not reform the devils and that the race had 1,400 more years to live; the only way to make righteous people (Muslims) out of them was to graft them back into the black nation. This grieved Muhammad so much that it caused him heart trouble until his death (age sixty-​two and one half years). The old scientists used to laugh at Muhammad for thinking that he could convert them (the devils) to Islam. This hurt his heart. (Muhammad 1992a: 116) Like Muḥammad, Elijah Muhammad had not been sent to convert whites; but unlike him, his heart was not grieved by this.16 In other respects, Muḥammad was very much a model for him or rather Muḥammad’s life was prophecy about him. For example, Q 42:7, which reads “And thus have We revealed to thee an Arabic Qurʾan, that thou mayest warn the mother-​town and those around it,” which seems to be about Muḥammad, is prophecy about Elijah Muhammad: But later Allah taught him Arabic and then He said in His Qur-​an that now I give to thee a Holy Qur-​an in the language of the people (whom he is among who did not speak Arabic) and now I give thee an Arabic Holy Qur-​an that I may warn the Mother city. This means that he received two books. One in a foreign language to Arabic’s [sic] and another in the original language. Both called Holy Qur-​an. (Muhammad 1964b: 5, 14; 1992a: 189) Otherwise, an Arab Qurʾān and a foreign messenger would provide an excuse to those who did not understand Arabic to continue in their disbelief. Thus, this verse was a prediction of the time when an Arabic Qurʾān and then an English translation was given to Elijah Muhammad by Allah (i.e., Fard Muhammad). In another, similar statement, Elijah Muhammad argued: So shall it be with the last messenger. His people must be taught about the true God and that God’s true religion which the slave-​masters did not teach them. The Holy Qur-​an backs up the truth of Allah, that He always raises an apostle from among a people whom He would warn. If Allah would warn America and the poor slaves who 368

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have been blinded and made deaf and dumb by their masters, should not that messenger be one of the so-​called Negroes instead of a so-​called Negro trying to learn from what Muhammad said to the Arabs nearly 1,400 years ago (1992a: 251) What is unique in this preceding passage is the use of “instead.”Yet another fault line developed between his Islam and other Islams.17 Elijah Muhammad was adept at drawing on the Qurʾān itself to support his formulation of Islam. His technique was fairly simple: most of the scriptural allusions to Jesus were prophecies about Fard Muhammad and those in the Qurʾān to Muḥammad were prophecies about Elijah Muhammad. His most sustained discussion of this unique relationship between Muḥammad and himself and its implications occurred early in his writings in 1957: As Moses’ birth, history and death as given in the Bible and Qur-​an was a sign of that which was to come, and I may add to the dislike of many Muslims, Muhammad’s life and history was also a sign of that which was to come at the end of the World of the Infidels, be it understood. He who is the last of the Prophets was clearly seen and made known to those Prophets before Him, and their life work reflects for us the life and work of the last Prophet, who is not really a prophet in the sense of the word, but rather an apostle or messenger, for He is the Answer and End of the Prophets. His call is unlike the others before him, for all of the Prophets before the last one had their call and mission through inspirations and visions for they saw not the Person of Allah (God) in reality –​only in visions –​but the last one is Chosen and Missioned directly from the mouth of Allah (God) in person at the end of the world. (1957e) Here there is an odd and underdeveloped distinction introduced between “prophet” and “messenger.” Perhaps Elijah Muhammad thought he could claim the title “Last Messenger” and leave to Muḥammad the title “Last Prophet.” In general, Elijah Muhammad preferred the terms messenger or apostle for himself. Yet by claiming a more direct and authentic revelation, he could hardly have appeased other Muslims with such semantic hairsplitting. In the following week’s column, Elijah Muhammad expanded on this explanation, including Muḥammad’s role in world history: Muhammad was born in the Seventh Century after the death of Jesus, the last sign of that last one coming with Allah (God) in the judgement or end of the world of the devil’s rule. Muhammad turned on the light (Islam) in the ancient house (Arab nation) that had burned low since the time of Ibrahim (Abraham) and cleaned it up for the reception of a much brighter light of the Mahdi (Allah in Person) and His people, which will come from the West out of the house of the infidels. That last Messenger is the One chosen by the Mahdi, Allah (God) in person, in the last days whom the Mahdi finds lost and enslaved by the infidels in the West, of whom Abraham made a sign with a small, unhewn black stone and set it in the Holy City of Mecca and veiled it over with a black veil and destroyed or discarded until he whom the sign represents is returned (the last Messenger and his followers). Jesus spoke of the future of that stone in these words, “The stone which the builders reject is become the head of the corner.” (Mark 12:10) Muhammad found the stone 369

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out of place and had it put back into its proper place.This act of Muhammad shows that he was not the fulfiller of the sign which the stone represents, but rather a prototype of that which the stone represents. Moreover, Muhammad’s replacing and repairing the sign of the work of the Mahdi, who would, in His day, raise and put into proper place that which the stone now serves as a sign of. (1957f) Elijah Muhammad added, “Oh, that you would only understand the Scriptures. The Christians think the stone was Jesus. The Muslims think that it represents Muhammad 1,370 years ago. … There certainly is a surprise in store for both worlds (Islam and Christianity) in the revealing of this last One” (1957f).18 It is not that Elijah Muhammad was unfamiliar with early Islam or Islamic origins. Muḥammad was an important, but polyvalent, figure for Elijah Muhammad. He was the opponent of white evil, he was a model for him to follow, and he was the prophet of the last messenger.

Conclusions What makes Elijah Muhammad’s quests for the historical Allah, Adam, Moses, Jesus, or Muḥammad so unique is not only that he presented “true histories” that seemed at odds with more traditional narratives, but also that he did so using traditional narratives, including those from the Qurʾān. He ended up creating Islamic origins that were much older, and not rooted in the Prophet Muḥammad or the revelation of the Qurʾān. Whence came this authority to reimagine Islam origins? “There is no Muslim in Arabia that has authority to stop me from delivering this message that I have been assigned by Allah, any more than they had authority to stop Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad. I am not taking orders from them. I am taking orders from Allah (God), Himself ” (Muhammad 1963: 4; 1992a: 329). Understanding origins or the “true history,” to use Elijah Muhammad’s phrase, is key to understanding all the important contemporary problems facing African Americans, in fact all of Black humanity. Political, economic, and social problems all ultimately rest with the origin of the white race. Their evil nature explains slavery, lynchings, rape, murder, exploitation, poverty, miscegenation, promiscuity, and the decline of families.The solution to all of these problems lies in separating oneself from this evil race and returning to the original religion of Black humanity.

Notes 1 A slightly edited version appears also in The Supreme Wisdom:  The Solution to the So-​Called Negroes’ Problem (Muhammad 1957i: 15). 2 Elijah Muhammad explained: I do not say really visions, but I  do have voices at times. … That comes when I  am not, say, really confining myself to expect something like that or seeking something like that. That just comes –​just so. … I know God. I was with Him about three years and about four or five months. I know His voice. And when He Speaks, I know it. … It is the Same Voice. In the past and at the present, I have not had to go into such things as fasting and praying that I hear Him or see Him. Whenever I hear him, it is just so. Just like something happens all of a sudden out of a blue sky, like thunder. … Whenever the time is necessary that He Speak to me. How often that takes place? I do not keep a record of it. … I have had Him Speaking to me in my ears now, in Person yes. There does not pass a year, that I do not Hear His Voice some time in that year. (Muhammad Speaks 1972) 3 See in particular The True History of Master Fard Muhammad (Muhammad 1996: ix–​xxix).

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Reimagined origins in the Nation of Islam 4 Elsewhere, however, it is said that 23 scientists produce a scripture every 25,000 years but then wait an additional 10,000 years before giving it to a prophet, as was the case with the Torah, Bible, and Qurʾān. 5 “Black,” it should be noted, included for Elijah Muhammad anyone who was not white: “the people of Islam are the black people, and their numbers are made up of the brown, yellow and red people, called races” (Muhammad 1992a: 68). 6 Elijah Muhammad argued, “We created man (the white race) from a small life germ, the soft pronoun ‘we’ used nearly throughout the Holy Qur-​an and makes the knowledge of the Original Man much clearer and of a more intelligent knowledge of how the white race’s creation took place” (1956c). 7 Only once is the devil white race identified with the jinn. In regard to Q 72:5–​6, “And we thought that men and jinn did not utter a lie against Allah; And persons from among men used to seek refuge with persons from among the jinn, so they increased them in evil doing,” Elijah Muhammad declared, “Jinn is the devil and men is the Black People” (1969b). 8 Elijah Muhammad was exasperated that there should be any African American Christians: There are any number of scripture in both the Bible and Holy Qur-​an that Jesus was a prophet sent to the House of Israel alone.We have no scripture of him teaching anywhere else but among the Jews. He was not a universal prophet (not sent to the whole world). He made no attempt to teach Arabs nor the blacks of Egypt or Africa. According to the history of his disciples, none of them carried Jesus’ name and teachings into the countries of the black nation. Paul, one of the greatest preachers and travelers of Jesus’ followers made no attempt to teach the black nation; nor travel into their countries. (I just can’t see how the so-​called Negroes think that he is their Saviour, when he didn’t save the Jews to whom he was sent, and he has not saved the so-​called Negroes from the slavery of white Americans). (1957g) 9 “Since 1492, the people of the white race have been allowed to spread over the face of the earth” (Muhammad 1992a: 267). 10 Parts of this section are adapted from Berg (2011). 11 As noted above, the 23 scientists produce a scripture every 25,000 years but then wait an additional 10,000 years before giving it to a prophet. Such was the case with the Torah, Bible, and Qurʾān (Sahib 1951: 70). 12 Elijah Muhammad also thought that fasting for such a reason was strange because the revelation of the Qurʾān should be an occasion to rejoice, whereas fasting aids in forestalling evil desires. Moreover, fasting for him is something one does in hopes of receiving something. So, he asked, why fast when the Qurʾān was first revealed without any fasting having taken place (1971b: 16–​17)? 13 Elijah Muhammad also stated that opposition to Muḥammad and Islam is rooted in white opposition to leadership roles for any black man (1957b). 14 In addition, Muḥammad, having learned that whites would not accept Islam, prevented them from speaking Arabic and wearing Muslim clothes (Muhammad 1959a). 15 The thousand-​year binding then freeing of the Devil of Revelation 20 was understood to be the years between Muḥammad’s birth in 570 CE and John Hawkins’ voyage for slaves in 1555 (Muhammad 1992a: 104). 16 He wrote that 12 leaders of Islam from around the world gathered in Mecca and decided that it was time to remove whites from the planet.The only delay was because the “so-​called Negroes in America” had to return to their religion and the god of which they had been robbed. To that end, a Messenger was sent (1964a: 3). 17 It should be noted that my use of “formulation of Islam” to describe Elijah Muhammad’s teachings and practice and my pluralization of Islam (i.e., that his Islam is one of many “Islams”) have been critiqued as being “nominalist” (Grewal 2016: 49–​50). Grewal argues “Ultimately, a nominalist approach does not equip us with the tools to capture how one set of religious claims becomes dominant over another in a particular context, occluding the structures of power that constitute orthodoxy and that shape the ways Muslims assign stigma and prestige in a particular time and place” (2016: 50). 18 Elsewhere he wrote about his Muslim critics: “Though they do have the Holy Quran, many of them do not understand the meaning of it and some of them believe everything that is prophesied in the Bible and the Holy Quran about a last Messenger or Prophet being or referring to Muhammad of 1,400  years ago” (1992a:  187). Following the translator of the Qurʾān that he employed, Maulana

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Bibliography Ali, J. 1973. Introduction. In: Muhammad, E. The Fall of America. Chicago: Muhammad’s Temple of Islam No. 2, iv–​x. Berg, H. 2009. Elijah Muhammad and Islam. New York: New York University Press. ——​. 2011. Elijah Muhammad’s Redeployment of Muhammad: Racialist and Prophetic Interpretations of the Qurʾān. In: Boekhoff-​van der Voort, N., Versteegh, K., and Wagemakers, J. eds. Transmission and Dynamics of the Textual Sources of Islam:  Essays in Honour of Harald Motzki. Leiden:  Brill Academic Publishers, 321–​345. ——​. 2017. Elijah Muhammad’s Christologies: The “Historical” Jesus and the Contemporary Christ. In: Gibson, D.-​M. and Berg, H. eds. New Perspectives on the Nation of Islam. Abingdon: Routledge, 174–189. FBI. February 21, 1957. Muslim Cult of Islam. FBI file 105–​60342. ——​. n.d. Wallace D. Fard. FBI file 100-​43165-​15. Grewal, Z. 2016. Destabilizing Orthodoxy, De-​territorializing the Anthropology of Islam. Journal of the American Academy of Religion 84(1):44–​59. Muhammad, Elijah. June 23, 1956a. Mr. Muhammad Speaks. Pittsburgh Courier 47:Magazine Section 2. ——​. June 30, 1956b. Mr. Muhammad Speaks. Pittsburgh Courier 47:Magazine Section 2. ——​. July 28, 1956c. Mr. Muhammad Speaks. Pittsburgh Courier 47:Magazine Section 2. ——​. August 18, 1956d. Mr. Muhammad Speaks. Pittsburgh Courier 47:Magazine Section 2. ——​. November 24, 1956e. Mr. Muhammad Speaks. Pittsburgh Courier 47:Magazine Section 2. ——​. January 5, 1957a. Mr. Muhammad Speaks. Pittsburgh Courier 48:Magazine Section 2. ——​. February 2, 1957b. Mr. Muhammad Speaks. Pittsburgh Courier 48:Magazine Section 2. ——​. June 29, 1957c. Mr. Muhammad Speaks. Pittsburgh Courier 48:10. ——​. July 20, 1957d. Mr. Muhammad Speaks. Pittsburgh Courier 48:10. ——​. July 27, 1957e. Mr. Muhammad Speaks. Pittsburgh Courier 48:10. ——​. August 3, 1957f. Mr. Muhammad Speaks. Pittsburgh Courier 48:10. ——​. August 31, 1957g. Mr. Muhammad Speaks. Pittsburgh Courier 48:10. ——​. December 14, 1957h. Mr. Muhammad Speaks. Pittsburgh Courier 48:10. ——​. 1957i. The Supreme Wisdom: The Solution to the So-​Called Negroes’ Problem. Newport News,VA: The National Newport News and Commentator. ——​. June 21, 1958a. Mr. Muhammad Speaks. Pittsburgh Courier 49:14. ——​. July 8, 1958b. Mr. Muhammad Speaks. Pittsburgh Courier 49:14. ——​. August 10, 1958c. Mr. Muhammad Speaks. Pittsburgh Courier 49:14. ——​. November 8, 1958d. Mr. Muhammad Speaks. Pittsburgh Courier 49:12. ——​. December 27, 1958e. Mr. Muhammad Speaks. Pittsburgh Courier 49:14. ——​. January 3, 1959a. Mr. Muhammad Speaks. Pittsburgh Courier 50:14. ——​. January 17, 1959b. Mr. Muhammad Speaks. Pittsburgh Courier 50:14. ——​. July 18, 1959c. Mr. Muhammad Speaks. Pittsburgh Courier 50:14. ——​. August 2, 1963. Mr. Muhammad Answers Critics: Authority from Allah, None Other. Muhammad Speaks 2:3–​4. ——​. August 28, 1964a. Build Own Society. Muhammad Speaks 3:1, 3 and 8. ——​. September 11, 1964b. Memo:  From the Desk of Muhammad; To:  The Original Black People! Muhammad Speaks 3:5, 14–​15, and 20. ——​. January 29, 1965a. The Day of America’s Downfall. Muhammad Speaks 4:1 and 3. ——​. May 14, 1965b. What is Islam? Muhammad Speaks 4:9. ——​. February 4, 1966. The Holy Qur-​An. Muhammad Speaks 5:10. ——​. January 17, 1969a. What Was the Idea of God Making the Moon? Muhammad Speaks 8:21–​22. ——​. July 4, 1969b. The Teachings of the Holy Qur-​an. Muhammad Speaks 8:19. ——​. October 17, 1969c. Black Man of U.S.A. and Africa. Muhammad Speaks 9:20–​21. ——​ . November 26, 1971a. Old World Going Out with a Great Noise! Disagreement Mounting. Muhammad Speaks 11:16–​17. ——​. December 10, 1971b. Opposition against the Muslims: Fasting. Muhammad Speaks 11:16–​17. ——​. 1974. Our Savior Has Arrived. Chicago: Muhammad’s Temple of Islam No. 2.

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Reimagined origins in the Nation of Islam ——​. 1992a [1965]. Message to the Blackman. Newport News, VA: United Brothers Communications Systems. ——​. 1992b. The Theology of Time. Rassoull, A. transcribed. Hampton,VA: U.S. Communications Systems. ——​. 1996. The True History of Master Fard Muhammad. Hakim, N.M. ed. Atlanta, GA: Messenger Elijah Muhammad Propagation Society. ——​. n.d. Lost-​Found Lesson 2. FBI file 105–​60342. Muhammad, W.D. 1961. Al-​Quran. Muhammad Speaks 1:3 and 18. Muhammad Speaks. February 11, 1972. Muhammad Meets the Press! Muhammad Speaks 11:3–​4. Sahib, H.A. 1951. The Nation of Islam. M.A. Thesis, University of Chicago.

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22 INVOCATIONS OF EARLY ISLAM IN US DISCOURSE(S) OF MUSLIM PLURALISM Justine Howe

As an ethnographer of American Islam, I have been struck by the similar ways in which many of my colleagues and many of my field subjects have invoked narratives of early Islam to adjudicate debates about Muslim religious pluralism.This chapter analyzes invocations of early Islamic history among three overlapping fields of American intellectuals: (1) university historians of early Islam, both Muslim and non-​Muslim; (2) Muslim theologians who also hold academic appointments; and (3) American Muslim public intellectuals. Through their shared interest in religious pluralism, many scholars in these intersecting fields have sought to demonstrate, to different degrees and to different ends, that Islam has embraced a religiously pluralistic worldview from its inception. Within this discourse, the Qurʾān is invoked above other historical sources, often to justify an ecumenism within which Muslims (past and present) embrace the other Abrahamic faiths as valid, if not equally salvific, paths to God. This chapter is intended to open up critical conversations among scholars of Islam about the categories we use to analyze the historical relationship of Islam to other faiths, especially Christianity and Judaism. Scholars trained in religious studies seem ideally situated –​ and perhaps even morally obliged in the contemporary political context –​to interrogate the assumptions and categories employed in the history of early Islam. The past decade has seen important, valuable corrections to accounts of Muslim origins that emphasized themes such as violent conquest and disregarded central sources, namely the Qurʾān. This chapter is not intended to diminish the contributions of these correctives. At the same time, it is essential to articulate the political and religious assumptions that have paralleled this historiography, especially because academic work on Islam has tangible, often unintended, consequences on contemporary Muslim communities. In both my classrooms and in public lectures on American Islam, I invariably highlight pluralistic themes. Frequently, I find myself responding to a prejudicial or adversarial question by citing the commonalities among Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. In doing so, I end up invoking the Qurʾān and early Islamic history. By uplifting narratives of original Muslim religious pluralism, I am attempting to combat negative and destructive images of Islam and to provide my various audiences with alternative narratives. At the same time, I worry that by subsuming Muslim communities under categories that conform to America’s normative

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(implicitly Protestant) assertion of political and religious assimilation, I risk foreclosing some of the equally valid, and potentially more authentic, identities and theologies available to contemporary American Muslims. By emphasizing commonalities, scholars risk narrowing avenues of distinctiveness. Before proceeding, it is essential to note that religious pluralism as we know it today is more than a religious practice. It is also an ideology forged in the crucible of recent American military conflicts. In the US, pluralism only emerged as a defining social aspiration during the mid-​to late 20th century. The popularity of the term “Judeo-​Christian” developed during World War II, when the American nation state first actively recruited Catholic and Jewish soldiers (Schultz 2011). As a popular moral value, religious plurality did not take hold until the height of the Cold War, when the US saw itself as the religious antithesis to “godless Soviet communism.” Although pluralism is often held up as an indisputable social good among historians of Islam, this chapter is premised on the broader emerging, critical recognition that practices of religious pluralism are actually fraught with ambiguity and unintended consequences for local religious communities. My understanding of religious pluralism thus follows Courtney Bender and Pamela Klassen’s argument that it is the “commitment to recognize and understand others across perceived or claimed lines of religious difference” (Bender and Klassen 2010:  2–​3). I prefer this definition for two additional reasons as well. First, Bender and Klassen stress that pluralism has been framed as a solution to contemporary political and economic problems. Second, even as the ideology of pluralism facilitates certain modes of Protestant ecumenism, it also restricts and constrains other forms of religious engagement. Only some religious practices (and particular categories of religions) benefit from, and are able to participate fully in, this pluralistic sphere. This is particularly true in Muslim-​majority contexts. As Elizabeth Shakman Hurd has also demonstrated, various actors, from the US government to local religious communities, advance the idea that fostering certain forms of interreligious dialogue and engagement will produce tangible political results, such as promoting democracy and human rights (Hurd 2015).

Academic histories of early Islam Origins matter a great deal to most religious communities, and these communal narratives are hardly uncontested. Rather, they are sites of ongoing, lived religious interpretation. The analysis of origins also lies at the center of the academic study of religion (Masuzawa 2005). In spite of the lessons we have learned from J.Z. Smith’s seminal dismantling of Mircea Eliade’s central theory, many scholars of religion continue to privilege questions of historical origins  –​and especially the history of religious places and founders –​when summarizing the essence of a particular faith (Smith 1987; Strenski 1987; Doniger O’Flaherty 1988; Lincoln 1999). For practicing Muslims and scholars alike, then, the early period of Islam has much to offer by way of capturing the essential message of Islam. Kecia Ali argues that the reception of biographies of the Prophet Muḥammad are based on the privileging of origins: The present and future of Islam cannot be understood apart from its origins, which are inextricable from Muhammad’s life. Thus, debates about Muslim origins form an inescapable backdrop for the modern Muhammad, whose biographers, Muslim and non-​Muslim alike, portray a figure of human, rather than cosmic import. (2014: 15)

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Ali’s observation is equally applicable to contemporary accounts of early Islam, many of which share a concern for connecting the “facts” of early Islamic history to the contemporary notion of religious pluralism. Whether Muslim or non-​Muslim, American readers share expectations for what counts as convincing and legitimate historical accounts. There has also been a concomitant European and American academic interest in the relationship of early Islam to other faiths. In particular, academic accounts of early Islam have tended to focus on whether the faith was hostile toward other religions, bent on destroying them by demanding conversion and subservience to the new faith. One of the first academic works to contest this representation came from Scottish historian of religion W. Montgomery Watt, whose biography of Muḥammad and essays on early Islamic history, published throughout the 1950s and 1960s, foregrounded the authenticity of Muḥammad’s revelations and their relevance for Christians in particular. Watt asserted that Muḥammad did not require conversion, if conversion is understood as a radical and irrevocable change from one distinct religious community to another. Relying instead on Qurʾānic chronology, he argued that only in the late Medinan period did the term “muslim” (one who submits to God) entail allegiance to a new religious faith, “Islam.” He pointed out that the Qurʾān favors the term “muʾmin” (believer) to describe followers of Muḥammad’s religious message. Christian terms such as conversion inadequately captured the religious experiences of the early community: The idea of entering a community of believers or of changing from one religious community to another was secondary. The primary thought was that a man is responding to the demand of God as mediated by a prophet … this response is always described in external terms, and no attention is paid to the man’s inner experiences. (Watt 1990: 41) For Watt, the Qurʾān required Jews and Christians to fulfill a basic, shared religious obligation with which they were already familiar –​to respond to the message of God’s prophets. As he noted, 7th-​century Arabs had no term for “conversion.” Contrary to the assumptions of his modern Christian readers, for whom conversion implied both a dramatic break in religious identity and a transformation of an internal state of being, Watt maintained that becoming a “believer” primarily required orientation toward a new prophetic message. It did not necessarily entail a new religious allegiance nor a wholesale transformation of a person’s relationship with the divine. This distinction had implications for Watt’s theological exploration of the significance of Muḥammad’s message for contemporary Christians. If Islam emerged as a distinct religious faith later in Muḥammad’s career, as documented through the Qurʾān’s own chronology and terminology, then its message was universal. For Watt, the Qurʾān offered profound insight into the divine for non-​Muslims, especially into the oneness of God. The contemporary turn toward religious pluralism has coincided with a renewed academic emphasis on the Qurʾān as a historical source.This move comes as a response to scholarship that has staunchly objected to Muslim accounts of Quranic compilation in the 7th century. Scholars such as John Wansbrough, Patricia Crone, and Michael Cook have argued that the Qurʾān reflects much later historical concerns rather than the religious and social circumstances of Muḥammad and early Muslims. These works run deliberately counter to Muslim narratives of Quranic compilation and early Islamic history, often carrying the implication that these accounts lack authenticity and reliability as sources for academic inquiry. 376

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As an alternative, Fred Donner, in Muhammad and the Believers: At the Origins of Islam, has attempted to re-​center the historical narrative around religious actions and motivations. He argues against “reducing” Islam to a “nationalist or nativist political adventure.” As he elaborates: It is my conviction that Islam began as a religious movement –​not as a social, economic, or “national” one; in particular, it embodied an intense concern for attaining personal salvation through righteous behavior. The early believers were concerned with social and political issues but only insofar as they related to concepts of piety and proper behavior needed to ensure salvation. (2010: xii) Rather than subordinate religion to politics or economics, Donner places it front and center, highlighting core beliefs and rituals that defined the early community: monotheism, belief in the Day of Judgment, affirmation of biblical prophecy, and belief in angels. This constellation would be immediately recognizable to contemporary Muslims as cornerstones of a distinct religion, Islam, except that Donner argues that at the moment of their articulation “Islam” as such did not yet exist, an argument that notable challenges to Muslim accounts of Islam’s origins. Like Watt, Donner draws on Qurʾānic terminology and chronology to claim that Muḥammad and his early followers primarily identified as “believers” rather than “Muslims.” He points out (as did Watt) that the Qurʾān overwhelmingly uses the term muʾmin over muslim. Muʾmin appears close to a thousand times; the term muslim, only seventy-​five. Although “muslim” is used in the Qurʾān, Donner shows that the term does not align with our contemporary conceptions of Islam as a distinct religion separate from other religions. Instead, it connoted submission to God as affirmed by biblical monotheism. Donner argues that not only does Qurʾānic terminology reflect crucial historical realities in Mecca and Medina, but also that it is essential for describing group formation among Muḥammad’s followers: The earliest Believers thought of themselves as constituting a separate group or community of righteous, God-​fearing monotheists, separate in their strict observance of righteousness from those around them –​whether polytheists or imperfectly rigorous, or sinful, monotheists –​who did not conform to their strict code. On the other hand, there is no reason to think that the Believers viewed themselves as constituting a new or separate religious confession (for which the Qurʾanic term seems to be milla, Q 2:120). … The reason for this “confessionally open” or ecumenical quality was simply that the basic ideas of the Believers and their insistence on observance of strict piety were in no way antithetical to the beliefs and practices of some Christians and Jews. (2010: 69) Early “believers” saw themselves as constituting a distinct group, insofar as they embodied pious ideals that set them apart from polytheists and less devout Christians and Jews. In Donner’s narrative, what was “new” about Muḥammad’s message was less its content and more its zeal. As such, Muḥammad required believers to demonstrate proper “righteousness” and embrace correct beliefs. Both of these requirements included Christians and Jews, provided they were willing to forgo certain “excesses” such as the Trinity. Relying primarily on the Qurʾān as well as the Constitution of Medina, Donner claims that Christians and Jews joined Muḥammad’s group, while maintaining their original religious affiliation. This is because becoming a “Muslim” (understood in the contemporary sense as belonging to the religion Islam) was simply not an 377

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available identity in Muḥammad’s lifetime. Similar to Watt, Donner suggests that to apply “conversion” to this religious milieu would be anachronistic and misleading. Moreover, to call the early community “Muslims” would be to fall into a similar error, projecting our contemporary construction of religion onto the past. Donner’s argument hinges on the intriguing idea that early believers were both militantly pious and ecumenically open. His proposition has raised the hackles of some historians. In a critical review, Patricia Crone argues that ecumenism and religious fervor are mutually exclusive. She maintains that while in some instances the Qurʾān refers to Jews and Christians as believers it is unlikely that Jews and Christians actually subscribed to the pious monotheism that Muḥammad promulgated. For Crone, Donner downplays the role of violent conquest in early Islam, choosing instead to uplift comforting “liberal” narratives of interreligious cooperation and pluralism (Crone 2010). However, it is far from clear that Donner intends to reassure readers about Islam’s violent origins. In many important respects, his narrative challenges expectations about the relationship between piety, religious belonging, and violence. Contrary to our modern expectations, early believers were inclusive of certain faiths while being zealously opposed to those that did not conform to their eschatological and pietistic vision. Not all Jews and Christians were included in the community of believers, and thus were subject to the pietistic objections of Muḥammad and his followers. Moreover, as Aaron Hughes has noted, by shelving ḥadīth and attesting to the later rise of “Islam,” Donner’s work also contests the accounts of origins offered by many Muslims themselves and largely avoids conflating contemporary conceptions of “Islam” with the historical religious identities in 7th-​century Arabia (Hughes 2012). At the same time, Donner’s use of ecumenism aligns closely with contemporary assumptions about religious pluralism. In Muhammad and the Believers, the term “ecumenism” signals the “confessionally open” quality of the early believers movement and minimizes the role of religious difference in 7th-​century conflict. For example, Donner understands Muḥammad’s conflicts with Jews as primarily arising from particular, historical circumstances and events rather than involving religious disputes. Religious beliefs and practices are central to the believers’ ecumenical outlook and then become noticeably absent in episodes of violence among the People of the Book. Equally important, the category has important resonances for an American public bombarded with images of Islamically inspired violence. Although “ecumenical” conveys a general sense of universality in the original Greek oikoumene, as the “inhabited world,” it was first used to refer to medieval Catholic Church councils that brought together representatives from various Catholic regions to decide matters of theological dispute. Most historians date the “ecumenical movement” as beginning with the Edinburgh Missionary Conference in 1910, in which multiple Protestant churches came together to discuss shared theological and social concerns. Participation by Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and evangelical churches came much later in the 20th century, and even then, remained controversial and divisive among many clergy and lay persons affiliated with these denominations (Buchanan 1978: 327–​328). Only recently has the term been expanded to potentially include interfaith initiatives among the Abrahamic traditions, as well as Hindus and Buddhists. If early believers did not comprise a separate milla, as Donner convincingly demonstrates, then it is difficult to see how the term ecumenical, with its implications of denominational and organizational difference, applies to the early history of Islam. The narrative’s potential to challenge contemporary conceptions of religious belonging and conflict becomes subsumed under familiar, “common-​sense” notions of religious harmony. Other histories more explicitly link Islamic origins to contemporary aims to promote pluralism, gender equality, and democracy. Asma Afsaruddin’s The First Muslims: History and Memory is an academic history written for a broader audience. In addition to providing a chronological account of the first three generations of Muslims, Afsaruddin also takes up the question of how 378

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this period has been appropriated by modernists and Islamists through the concept of al-​salaf al-​ṣāliḥ, or the Pious Forebears (2008: xiii). Afsaruddin notes that increasing numbers of contemporary Muslims have looked to the Constitution of Medina as: an early testament to the pluralist connotations of the term umma and to its actual realization in the earliest years of the Muslim community. In its deployment of the term umma, the Constitution of Medina clearly reflects Qurʾanic understandings of the term. It should be pointed out that the Qurʾan uses the term umma not only in reference to the community of Muslims but to the communities of Jews and Christians as well, and specifically to the righteous contingent within distinctive religious communities …. The Constitution’s emphasis on righteousness and upright behavior as constituting the principal requirements for membership within the Medinan community is thus shaped by the Qurʾanic perspective on umma. (2008: 7) In this telling, the Constitution of Medina represents the fulfillment of the Quranic ideal of religious pluralism, in which pious behavior trumps religious affiliation. Following from this pluralistic ethos, Afsaruddin argues that Qurʾānic verses referring to jihād refer only to Jews and Christians who fail to uphold monotheism or ignore the Day of Judgment, or those who exhibit outright hostility to Muslims (2008: 114–​115). Similarly, Carl Ernst in Following Muhammad:  Rethinking Islam in the Contemporary World points to the centrality of religious pluralism within early Islamic history. Ernst aims to disabuse contemporary readers of the assumption that Islam is inherently less tolerant than Judaism or Christianity. The Constitution of Medina, for example, demonstrates that “religious pluralism was a principle accepted as a basis for a Muslim society” (2003: 89). Moreover, Muḥammad’s later decision to expel Jewish tribes was a “political conflict and there was never any requirement that Jews and Christians convert to Islam” (2003: 90). This dissociation of the political from the religious serves to protect Islam from its usual pairing with forms of government antithetical to the separation of church and state, while asserting that pluralism is, at its heart, central to the origins of Islam. Assertions of Islam’s pluralistic origins do important political work. As Edward Curtis IV observes, “Practitioners of Islamic studies experience their work as a form of local, national, and/​or international politics, whether they like it or not … the politics of Islam take place all around us and are difficult to avoid” (Curtis 2014). Indeed, practitioners of Islamic studies and practitioners of Islam find themselves embroiled in debates over early Islam’s relationship to other faiths because these questions have immediate political consequences. I raise the question of unintended consequences for Muslim communities when scholars place religious pluralism and related categories at the center of their narratives, without attending to the term’s political and theoretical underpinnings. Much of my fieldwork has taken place with well-​educated, professional Muslims with a profound concern for the compatibility of Islam with liberal ideals, especially religious pluralism (Howe 2016). This particular group (though certainly not all American Muslims) turn to academic works on Islam such as those I explored above to provide justification for their vision of American Islam as equally deserving of recognition as an Abrahamic faith. But these conversations are by no means straightforward even among American Muslims committed to this project. Engaging in religious pluralism as currently practiced in the US creates additional questions and concerns, both deeply familiar and profoundly contemporary: What is distinctive about being Muslim? How do we know what the first Muslims were really like? Is Islam superior to other 379

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faiths? If I believe Islam is superior am I less American? Are we giving up something essential by affirming the salvific efficacy of Judaism and Christianity? These are not hypothetical questions. Framing Islam within the established “Judeo-​ Christian” tradition puts tremendous pressure on American Muslim communities. In his preface to F.E. Peters’ The Children of Abraham, John Esposito claims that Muslim historians have a responsibility to “alert students and scholars, religious leaders, and the general public to the fact that there is a ‘Judeo-​Christian-​Islamic tradition.’ ” For Esposito, this project is not merely a matter of correcting the historical record, but also of prime importance for “contemporary interreligious relations,” “international politics,” and for the lives of Muslims who are engaged in “the testing of the boundaries of the notions of liberalism and pluralism” (2004: ix–​xiii). Perhaps uniquely so, Muslim communities –​wherever they are located –​are called upon to answer for geopolitical forces far removed from their local religious lives. Participation in interfaith action does not merely mark local theological and communal boundaries; it potentially situates American Muslims in broader struggles such as military action against Islamic extremism. This makes it possible for Esposito to connect international politics and interfaith activities in local mosques and to speak about the early period of Islam as bearing directly on the political concerns of the present. These high stakes mean that scholars must be even more vigilant about the categories we invoke, and the ways in which they open up, while also constrain, how early Islam is invoked for contemporary ends.

Theologies of Islamic religious pluralism The political and religious urgency surrounding questions of religious pluralism has also led to the proliferation of Muslim theological works intended to advance the field of Islamic theology within the academy and to contribute to the distinctive, on-​the-​g round debates over pluralism in American Muslim communities. These scholars assume multiple positions of authority, both as academic experts and as practicing Muslims with particular conceptions of the Islamic tradition and its core values and boundaries. Scholars working in this vein include Reza Shah-​ Kazemi, Jerusha Lamptey, and Abdulaziz Sachedina. Much of this work has focused on the interpretation of the Qurʾān, with an eye toward generating new hermeneutics that justify a pluralist vision for contemporary Muslim life. This project, as Lamptey notes, is an urgent one, both for theologians and for American Muslims in meaningful relationships with friends, neighbors, and co-​workers (2014). In all of these theologies of pluralism, the Qurʾān is paramount both as a universal text and as the main source documenting Muḥammad’s and the early community’s relationship to non-​Muslims. Reza Shah-​Kazemi, in The Spirit of Tolerance in Islam, argues that tolerance is an original Islamic principle enshrined in its sacred texts and a historical reality manifested in Muslim societies, especially prior to the onset of modernity. The justification for Islamic tolerance is twofold, rooted in immutable divine intention and historical practice: Maximally, religious tolerance can be defined in terms of positive spiritual predisposition towards the religious Other, a predisposition fashioned by knowledge of the divinely-​willed diversity of religious communities. If the diversity of religions is perceived to be an expression of the will of God, then the inevitable differences between the religions will be not only tolerated but also celebrated: tolerated on the outward, legal and formal plane, celebrated on the inward, cultural and spiritual plane. (2012: 14) 380

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Shah-​Kazemi’s theology aims to legitimate “maximalist” tolerance, which in his view is far more desirable than “minimalist” or “secular” tolerance that is enshrined in the political systems of most Western democracies. For Shah-Kazemi, Islam is uniquely positioned to contribute to a maximalist vision of tolerance because, as he puts it, “tolerance of the Other is in fact integral to the practice of Islam; it is not some optional extra, some philosophical or cultural indulgence” (2012: 15). Far from requiring contemporary Muslims to give up their faith, Shah-​Kazemi asserts that to be tolerant is to fulfill what it means to be a Muslim. Islamic history is just as essential for establishing tolerance as a foundational principle.Taking on the conventional contemporary wisdom that Islam is uniquely intolerant of other religions, Shah-​Kazemi argues for the opposite view: throughout its history, Muslim societies have been the most tolerant and accepting of other faiths, especially when compared to their pre-​modern European counterparts. As evidence, Shah-​Kazemi uses the work of Bernard Lewis, the Orientalist scholar who has produced several unsympathetic accounts of Muslim declension and decline in the modern period. Nonetheless, Lewis confirms Shah-​Kazemi’s observation that Islam was more tolerant than Christianity for much of its history.The historical record buttresses the claim that whatever contemporary forms of Muslim religious intolerance exist today, they “must be seen as a deviation from the norms established by Muslim praxis, and enshrined in Islamic principle” (Shah-​Kazemi 2012: 3). Thus, it is not simply that hermeneutics yield the conviction that tolerance lies at the heart of the Islamic world view.This view is also confirmed by an academic reading of history, even one produced by a scholar who has been staunchly critical of contemporary Islam. Abdulaziz Sachedina takes a similar Qurʾān-​centered approach in his urgent call for religious pluralism, The Islamic Roots of Democratic Pluralism. Responding to what he sees as the rise of intolerance and rejection of religious freedom among both religious “fundamentalists” and secular Muslim states, Sachedina seeks to draw theological connections between the recognition of the unity of humanity in the Qurʾān and what he calls the rise of the modern “universal global community with a common vision and destiny” (2001: 6). His argument hinges on the distinction between private faith and public practice, such that: The position of the Koran is noninterventionist (i.e., human authority in any form must defer to the individuals’ internal convictions), in the public projection of that faith, the Koranic stance is based on the principle of coexistence, the willingness of a dominant community to recognize self-​governing communities free to run their internal affairs and coexist with Muslims. (2001: 24) Within this framework, the Qurʾān not only acknowledges the existence of multiple faiths, but also lays down the necessary theological principle that Muslims, when in positions of power over other religious communities, protect their existence as a recognition of the divinely sanctioned “fundamental unity of humankind” (2001: 27). Historically, Sachedina argues, this message was preempted by the doctrine of supersessionism, the concept that the Qurʾān displaced Jewish and Christian scriptures as the only expression of God’s will. This conviction in Muslim superiority coincided with the rapid rise of the Islamic empire, in which Muslim scholars gained the political position through which to argue Islam’s superiority over faiths. For Sachedina, this doctrine is a distortion of not only the universal message of the Qurʾān, but also Muḥammad’s understanding of his mission. Similar to Donner, Sachedina maintains that the Prophet Muḥammad sought to “restore the pure monotheism of Abraham,” a goal that did not require Jews and Christians to convert, nor did it deny the salvific potential of the Abrahamic faiths. 381

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US Muslim intellectuals This last category of intellectuals overlaps with the previous two, but also has greater influence over the American Muslim communities who look to them for moral guidance. Muslims find themselves in constant contact with a wide array of religious and non-​religious neighbors, friends, co-​workers, and classmates. As a result, a range of practical and ethical questions arise related to relationships with non-​Muslims, as well as how to respond to broader inquiries about the status of other faiths in relationship to Islam. In response to these everyday realities, American Muslim public intellectuals often take up pressing questions related to religious pluralism. These scholars and preachers often employ multiple points of religious, social, and political reference to reach their diverse audiences, many of whom have come to expect that scholars and teachers will speak in ways relevant to their experiences as American Muslims. Moreover, many American Muslim audiences demand that their scholars and leaders will justify their positions through multiple sources of knowledge including, though not limited to, the Qurʾān and Sunna. These sources provide the essential foundation even as they require augmentation from other texts. Perhaps the most successful scholar to employ multiple discursive frames is Shaykh Hamza Yusuf, the dynamic convert who maintains a broad audience through his speeches, recorded lectures, and his leadership of Zaytuna College in Berkeley, California.Yusuf ’s speeches and writings contain wide-​ranging reference to the classical Islamic tradition, Muslim scriptures, linguistics, contemporary pop culture, academic works, and personal anecdotes (Grewal 2014: 306).Yusuf ’s piece “Generous Tolerance in Islam and the Effects on the Life of a Muslim” exemplifies this style. Prompted to write after an episode of interreligious violence against Nepalese Buddhist cooks in Baghdad, Yusuf takes up the question of religious tolerance. Here, Yusuf explores the meanings of the root s-​m-​ḥ as generosity, nobility, and hospitality. He argues that Muslims ought to embrace al-​ḥanafiyya al-​samḥa, which he translates as “the permitting religion,” “the generous religion,” “the soft religion,” and “the easy religion” (Yusuf 2005). For Yusuf, contemporary conceptions of tolerance as “acceptance” are not part of his normative understanding of the Islamic tradition, in which tolerance is part of a group of moral qualities embodied in individuals and shaped within communities. Included in this “semantic field” is the conception of “vastness” (saʿa), which Yusuf glosses as “making room for others.” Through Q 2:255–​256, he links the vastness of God’s throne to the lack of compulsion of religion: Immediately after the verse of the Throne in the Qurʾān –​which better than any other verse describes the vastness of God’s Throne, encompassing the heavens and the earth, indicating that the vastness of God is simply not humanly possible to either grasp or contemplate –​we are told, “There is no compulsion in religion.” This great gift from God –​faith itself and an adherence to what faith entails –​is given without coercion for those who seek it. (Yusuf 2005: 33) Yusuf contrasts the generosity of samaḥa with its absence in the period of the jāhiliyya prior to the revelation of the Qurʾān. A  jāhilī person is “intolerant,” “driven by passion” and “impetuous, without self-​constraint” (2005:  37). In the final section, he moves from linguistic and Qurʾānic evidence to historical documentation of Prophetic tolerance. These references to academic histories do important work for Yusuf, establishing that the Prophet Muḥammad espoused principles and implemented practices commensurable with 382

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contemporary understandings of justice, particularly the “novel idea that people were created equal” (2005: 38). Based on historical documentation (and the absence of evidence stating otherwise), Yusuf argues that the Prophet Muḥammad was the first to reject racism, introduce rules of engagement in wartime, and outlaw revenge killing. These rules came not from the new faith of Islam as set out Muḥammad’s revelations, but rather that “the Qurʾān introduced to the Arabs a higher law, that of Jesus, the son of Mary, which encouraged the victim’s family to pardon the wrong” (Yusuf 2005: 39). He then goes on to quote Q 5:45–​46: And we prescribed in the Torah for the Children of Israel: A life for a life and an eye for an eye, and a nose for a nose, and an ear for an ear, and a tooth for a tooth, and injuries in retaliation; but if anyone forgoes retribution for charity, that is an expiation for his own wrongs. And those who do not judge by what God has revealed, they are the ones being unjust. And we caused Jesus the son of Mary to follow [this law] verifying what was in the Torah, but we amended it with the Gospel with guidance and light. Yusuf thus creates a “usable past” for contemporary American Muslims, in which both the Qurʾān, as a timeless, universal scripture, and historical documentation work together to prescribe an ethical vision for the treatment of religious others. For Yusuf, the question is not whether Islam embraces Judaism or Christianity as salvific faiths, or whether Muslims ought to attempt to convert the “People of the Book.” As such, he ignores less flattering portrayals of Jews and Christians in the Qurʾān, as well as doctrinal areas of difference. Instead, the passages on the People of the Book that he selected are overwhelmingly positive in their descriptions of Jewish and Christian faiths and, moreover, allude to a primordial religion of Abraham.What contemporary Muslims need to focus on are the ways in which they fail to meet common Abrahamic imperatives to work for “justice” and display “mercy” towards others. This ethical project connects contemporary Muslims to the early community and thus supersedes other questions regarding theological differences or the status of different faiths in Islam. It subsumes the question of religious pluralism under broader ethical norms and limits established by God. Another public intellectual and convert, Dr. Umar Faruq Abd-​Allah, offers a slightly different path to pluralism via early Islamic history. In the 1970s, he converted to Islam after reading the biography of Malcolm X. Shortly thereafter, he enrolled at the University of Chicago Divinity School to study Islamic law under Fazlur Rahman. Abd-​Allah completed a dissertation on the formation of the Maliki madhhab (legal school), published in 2013 as Malik and Medina: Islamic Legal Reasoning in the Formative Period. He taught for several years at American and Canadian universities before taking a position in Islamic Studies at the University of Jeddah in Saudi Arabia. Abd-​Allah returned to the US in 2000 as scholar-​in-​residence and chairman of the Nawawi Foundation, a Chicago-​based educational organization founded to “provide relevant, meaningful Islamic teachings to America’s growing first-​and second-​generation Muslims –​teachings firmly rooted in authentic scholarship and taught in a way that is dynamic and applicable to the modern world” (Nawawi Foundation n.d.). With credentials in both the Western academy and Islamic networks in the Ḥijāz and Africa, he is a prominent figure known for his expertise in Maliki fiqh and Sufism. Since leaving the Nawawi Foundation, Abd-​Allah has served on the faculty of Darul Qasim, one of the most prominent Muslim organizations in Chicago, which has an array of educational and religious programs that cater primarily to 383

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the area’s South Asian Muslim, Deobandi-​oriented community. Abd-​Allah remains a popular speaker especially among second-​and third-​generation Muslims and converts in Chicago. In a paper published by the Nawawi Foundation, Abd-​Allah takes up the question of cultural and religious diversity in Islamic history in order to address what he sees as the spread of a “shallow, parochial understanding of Islam as a counter-​cultural identity religion” that reflects the rise of Islamism among American Muslims (2004: 2). Exhorting his largely American audience to establish a “robust” American Muslim culture, Abd-​Allah first draws upon academic anthropology to define “culture” as “the entire integrated pattern of human behavior,” including language, politics, dress, and crucially, religion. For Abd-​Allah religion is distinct from culture only in its highest universal expressions; it is primarily and intimately intertwined with local cultures: The Prophet and his companions did not … drastically divide human societies into spheres of absolute good and absolute evil. Islam did not impose itself  –​neither among Arabs or non-​Arabs –​as an alien, culturally predatory worldview. Rather, the Prophetic message was, from the outset, based on the distinction between what was good, beneficial, and authentically human in other cultures, while seeking to alter only was what clearly detrimental. (2004: 4) “Respecting other cultures” is not an empty relativist maxim, but rather a “supreme Prophetic Sunna” and original religious practice of the Muslim community.This includes the cultures and religious traditions of one’s enemies. Abd-​Allah tells the story of ʿAmr b. al-​ʿĀṣ, a Companion and military leader in Muslim campaigns against the Byzantines, in which ʿAmr praises the Europeans for their “excellent qualities,” including their care for the weakest in society and opposing political oppression, qualities that were “both compatible with Islam’s ethos and universally desirable as human qualities” (2004: 5). Broadly speaking, Abd-​Allah’s focus is on establishing the textual and historical foundations for cultural pluralism in contemporary American Muslim communities. Drawing on a ḥadīth particularly relevant to the US context, Abd-​Allah recounts the story of the Arfida, a group of black African converts who performed dances and played the drums near the Prophet’s mosque in Medina. When the Companion ʿUmar b. Khaṭṭāb tried to stop them, the Prophet Muḥammad told him that it was perfectly acceptable for them to express their religiosity through those cultural forms. As related in al-​Bukhārī and Muslim, the Prophet justifies his instructions in religiously pluralist terms, “Play your games, sons of Arfida, so the Jews and Christians know there is latitude in our religion” (Abd-​Allah 2004: 5). Indeed, this “openness” and “objectivity” to religious and cultural difference defines not just the Prophet’s early community and the Salaf, but also, for Abd-Allah, reflects the consensus of the Islamic legal tradition. Notably, Abd-​Allah does not take up the question of religious pluralism directly. Instead, by emphasizing difference and diversity as central to the Sunna, he implies that Islam’s spread did not entail the “predatory” or forced practices of conversion, whether to the religion of Islam or to Arab cultural practices. This claim has important political and religious implications for contemporary social interactions and developments in the contemporary US. First, the early period establishes the crucial legitimating basis for cultural and religious pluralism. Moreover, Abd-​Allah shares with Hamza Yusuf a broad concern for demonstrating the authenticity of his views through multiple sources, including the sacred texts of Qurʾān and ḥadīth, as well as academic methodologies, in this case, anthropological definitions of culture and historical narratives that deemphasize the role of military force in the establishment of Islamic civilization. 384

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Not all American Muslim intellectuals embrace a pluralistic vision of early Islam. Yet even those who oppose this construction must still contend with demands on Muslims to demonstrate that Islam embraces Judaism and Christianity as equals, or at the very least, capable of achieving salvation for their followers. For example, numerous questions related to the status of Jews and Christians appear on the popular fatwa website run by the Canadian-​based educational foundation SeekersHub, led by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani. SeekersHub specializes in providing madhhab-​based guidance for North American Muslims, with particular emphasis on Ḥanafī fiqh. Many inquiries concern ethics: the permissibility of non-​Muslims praying in a mosque, concerns over interreligious marriages, and the legal status of kosher meat. Others take up interpretative and theological questions about pluralism: Question: I have been told since childhood that the only religion that is accepted is Islam and I did some research online and I saw the verse “And whoever seeks religion other than Islam, it will never be accepted of him, and in the Hereafter he will be one of the losers (3:85).” So I would like to understand the below verse properly and not be confused. Could you please help me understand this matter the right way? Verily, those who believe and those who are Jews and Christians, and Sabians, whoever believes in Allah and the Last Day and does righteous good deeds shall have their reward with their Lord, on them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve. [2:62] Answer: There are numerous verses and prophetic narrations that clearly establish that the only religion acceptable with Allah is Islam. One such verse is the one mentioned in the question, namely, “Whoever seeks a religion other than Islam will never have it accepted from him, and shall be of those who have truly failed in the next life.” (3:85) Another verse states, “Indeed the true religion with Allah is Islam.” (3:19) …. Based on the above and similar proof-​texts, the consensus of Islamic scholarship is that the concept of the universal validity of religions is a heterodox belief that has little proof in the primary texts of this tradition. (SeekersHub 2012) Citing Q 2:62 and 3:85, this lay questioner draws on two of the most common verses in debates over Muslim stances on religious pluralism. Interestingly, the muftī, Ustadh Salman Younus, does not take up the interpretation of Q 2:62; rather he reaffirms the meaning of Q 3:85 and supplements it with similar verses and relevant ḥadīth. But the affirmation of Islam as the only “acceptable” religion does not preclude salvation for those remain ignorant of the message of Islam. Nor does acknowledging the salvific exclusivity of Islam entail that Muslims should treat Jews, Christians, and other non-​Muslims as inferior. Instead: people of other faiths are part and parcel of the societies we live in. They are neighbors, work colleagues, and relatives. We do not look down on them and nor do we make the belief that Islam is the true path an excuse to shun them. Rather, we aspire to implement the prophetic statement that religion is nothing but sincere counsel and seeking to spread the good. (SeekersHub 2012) Yasir Qadhi, the Salafī scholar associated with the Maghrib Institute and professor of religious studies at Rhodes College, has argued along similar lines. Qadhi maintains multiple audiences 385

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through his public speaking and writing for Maghrib and other major Muslim organizations, such as ISNA, serving as the basis for his popularity among American Muslim youth in particular. For Qadhi, as with Rabbani and his colleagues at SeekersHub, there is an identifiable “Islam” present in the Qurʾān and beyond, one which defines itself against other faiths and that cannot be subsumed under a universal Abrahamic faith. He stakes out this position from his perspective as a believing Muslim with significant knowledge of early and classical Islam as well as an “academic” approach in which objectivity is the primary goal. Qadhi rejects the notion of an overarching monotheism, arguing that instead what Muḥammad preached in 7th-​century Arabia, as recorded in the Qurʾān, was a faith clearly distinguished from, and presented as superior to, the religions of the People of the Book (Qadhi 2013: 116–​117). In this reading, neither the Qurʾān nor 7th-​century history bears out a pluralistic ethos, an orientation that Qadhi attributes to the friendships that contemporary Muslims inevitably form with people of other faiths: The claim that the Qurʾān itself promotes a vision of soteriological pluralism cannot be supported …. No matter how politically correct or theologically generous or ethically pleasing such a reading may be, in the final analysis, it is a reading that simply does not emanate from the Qurʾān but rather from external judgments of how things ought to be …. Such genuine and sincere feelings might well form the basis of one’s personal convictions, but it would be problematic to project such sentiments onto the Qurʾān. (2013: 117) In Qadhi’s telling, classical Muslim scholars actually conform more closely to his standard of “objective” analysis, interpreting the Qurʾān as it was intended and without projecting “external judgments” onto the text. Moreover, for Qadhi, the exclusivism of the Islamic tradition generally does leave an opening for a kind of pluralism, though one he admits is deeply unsatisfying to pluralism’s proponents. Much like Hamza Yusuf, Qadhi maintains that determining the salvation of Jews and Christians is not the primary issue with which the contemporary Muslim ought to be concerned. Qadhi reminds his readers that the Qurʾān never speaks about the salvation of individuals, but rather about the acceptability of “paths.” Thus, humans cannot evaluate the salvation of individuals; only God judges the merits of each person. Both the fatwa and Qadhi’s piece push against the pressures to conform to a particular model of pluralism in the contemporary US, one which presumes that Muslims, should they want to gain entrance as members of a fully recognized and equal faith, must in turn recognize the Judaism and Christianity (and possibly other faiths such as Hinduism and Buddhism) as salvific faiths. While they must wrestle with the questions that continually emerge in this “after pluralism” moment, these scholars also attempt to resist the logic of this implicit requirement, choosing to assert that in fact, Qurʾānic revelation and Muḥammad’s community recognized a distinct faith, “Islam.” While it affirmed monotheism and biblical prophecy, from the beginning it represented something new and superior. It is this distinctiveness that lends meaning to contemporary Muslims; without it, Muslims are left with a faith that lacks full expression of Islam’s salvific potential. The logic of pluralism is also subverted by Qadhi’s focus on individual ethics, in which the question of salvation is bracketed such that American Muslims must focus on proper behavior toward others in accordance with the Prophet’s and the Salaf ’s exemplary treatment of well-​intentioned members of the People of the Book. Even as they assert the original existence of “Islam,” these approaches actually emphasize moral behavior at the individual level. Of the three bodies of literature reviewed in this chapter, Muslim public intellectuals are highly attuned to the significance of early Islam in relation to the realities facing contemporary 386

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American Muslims. Yusuf and Qadhi, who are not usually grouped into the same ideological camp, and take very different stances on the definition of religious tolerance in the classical Islamic sources they read, nonetheless reach very similar ethical conclusions for contemporary Muslims. That is, it is unnecessary to reach broader normative conclusions on the status of Judaism or Christianity. Rather, they seek to shape pious behavior of American Muslims toward religious others by drawing on a range of discursive resources. As constructed through academic sources, sacred texts, and Muslim scholarship, early Islam is explicitly and creatively put to work for desirable political and ethical ends: religious and social harmony among diverse social and religious groups. By foregrounding individual ethical action, rather than monolithic religious faiths, American Muslim intellectuals challenge the assumption that it is possible to speak of “Islam” as inherently tolerant or intolerant. Rather, individuals embody moral virtues, such as humility, that God requires and that produce intriguing possibilities of religious engagement.

Conclusion In these overlapping discourses of early Islam, religious pluralism has become a paramount topic of concern with crucial contemporary implications. Regardless of an author’s position on the relationship of the early Muslim community to other faiths, contemporary political circumstances require that the topic be broached. For the American public, regardless of religious faith, it matters what the Qurʾān and the historical record have to say about Jews and Christians, whether early Muslims waged war against other communities due to religious conviction (or for other motivations), and to what extent Islam recognizes the salvific potential of the other Abrahamic faiths. At stake is whether Islam is compatible with the demands of American religious pluralism and whether it can achieve equal status to Christianity and Judaism. As scholars, who often intend to create space for religious engagement through our work, we must also be aware of how our choices can constrain American Muslims seeking to achieve full citizenship and religious recognition.

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INDEX

ʿAbbāsids 3, 46, 69, 91, 136, 146, 148, 150, 188,

194, 195, 197–​8, 199–​202, 203, 204, 216, 219, 225, 260, 313, 315, 316, 354 ʿAbd al-​Malik 18, 41, 43–​4, 75, 146, 181, 185, 187, 189, 190, 191, 195, 197, 198, 204, 276, 315, 320 ʿAbd al-​Razzāq al-​Ṣanʿānī 57–​8, 60, 65, 67, 119, 120, 355 ʿAbduh, Muḥammad 3, 110, 242, 243, 244–​7, 248–​ 9, 250, 252, 254, 255, 260, 261, 286, 293 Abraham 16, 29, 164, 189, 225, 246, 318, 334, 335, 346, 355, 363, 367, 369, 370, 380, 381, 383 Abū Bakr 17, 38, 39, 40, 46, 84, 85, 90, 92, 93, 209, 223, 250, 252, 260, 277, 292 Abū Ḥanīfa 95, 245, 264, 356 ʿĀd 11, 162, 163, 173 Adam 13, 25, 71, 114, 225, 355, 361, 363–​4, 365, 366, 370 Afghāni, Jamāl al-​Dīn al-​ 3, 241, 242, 243, 244–​7, 248, 249, 250, 252, 254, 255, 260, 274, 286, 293 ʿĀʾisha 38, 58, 67, 74, 82, 115, 210, 298, 299, 304 Alexander 31, 32, 34, 103, 110 ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib 38, 39, 92, 93, 108, 120, 209–​18, 219, 220, 277, 315 Andrae, Tor 19, 56–​7, 111 asbāb al-​nuzūl (occasions of revelation) 1, 68, 117, 341 Ashʿarī, Abū al-​Ḥasan al-​ 91–​2, 95 Badr (Battle of) 1, 69 Becker, Carl 53, 66 Believers (muʿmin) 3, 11, 12, 21, 76, 59, 75, 76, 84, 91, 92, 98, 111, 141, 142, 164, 169, 177, 178–​89, 190, 191, 203, 220, 221, 228, 233, 236, 255, 271, 274, 277, 291, 293, 297, 301, 304, 305, 306, 317, 322, 336, 341, 343, 355, 376, 377, 378 Bell, Richard 15–​17, 40–​1, 42, 45, 50, 59, 68

Bible 29, 30, 32, 110, 111–​12, 120, 133, 318, 319, 331, 333, 363, 360, 362, 363, 365, 366, 369, 371, 381 bidʿa (innovation) 85, 92, 93, 107, 235, 274, 279, 280, 291, 329, 330 Buhl, Frants 51, 56 Bukhārī, Muḥammad al-​ 45, 66–​7, 86–​7, 94, 102, 120, 300, 313, 384 Burton, John 39–​40, 41, 42, 45, 46, 116 Byzantines 27, 28, 34, 75, 137–​9, 140, 141, 142, 144–​5, 159, 163, 170–​2, 179, 180, 181, 182, 185, 187, 188, 191, 196, 198, 199, 200, 202, 312–​13, 316, 384 Caetani, Leone 52, 53, 59 Calder, Norman 60, 95, 116, 121 Caliphs see Rightly Guided Caliphs, Umayyads, and ʿAbbāsids Casanova, Paul 43, 51, 57 Christians and Christianity 11, 13, 27, 31, 33, 45, 59, 75, 76, 105, 111–​14, 129, 133, 137–​9, 143, 146–​7, 159, 164, 165, 169, 171, 179–​80, 182, 184, 186, 188, 201, 203, 241, 247, 248, 249, 251, 264, 265, 286, 300, 302, 313, 315, 318–​19, 321, 322, 333, 336, 341, 351, 359, 360, 362, 367, 370, 374, 376, 377, 378, 381, 383, 384–​5, 386, 387; see also People of the Book, Syriac Christianity Companions 2, 3, 5, 18, 38, 39, 42, 66, 67, 69, 72, 80, 81, 82, 84, 88, 90, 93, 94, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102–​4, 105, 106, 108, 110, 113, 114, 115, 119, 120, 209, 217, 223, 224, 225, 232, 245, 246, 252, 260, 268, 271, 274, 298, 299, 301, 302, 304, 341, 384 Cook, Michael 52, 57, 116, 150, 190, 311, 376 Crone, Patricia 19, 20, 34, 44, 46, 53–​4, 57, 59, 76, 116, 151, 152, 169, 190, 311, 376, 378

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Index Gabriel 37–​8, 38–​9, 45, 89, 98, 225, 232, 278 Geiger, Abraham 26, 34, 111, 112 Goldziher, Ignaz 51, 52, 59, 60, 68–​9, 85, 94, 103, 105, 120 Grimme, Hubert 53, 54 ḥadīth 1, 66–​7, 79–​92, 101, 102, 106–​7, 113, 117, 234, 254, 268, 276, 280, 296, 298, 300, 302, 303, 304–​5, 327, 328–​9, 331, 332, 334, 336, 384, 385 ḥajj (pilgrimage) 82, 213, 249, 278, 315, 316, 320, 322, 334, 335 Ḥajjāj b.Yūsuf, al-​ 41–​2, 43, 44, 46, 195, 200 Ḥasan al-​Bannā 250, 255, 261–​3, 264, 266–​7, 268, 270, 274, 282, 283 Ḥasan al-​Baṣrī 44, 211, 276 Hawting, Gerald 59, 60, 116, 117 Hebrew Bible 11, 17, 31, 56, 98, 111–​13, 118, 133, 233, 314, 318, 319, 366, 381, 383; see also Bible Ḥijāz 19, 20, 34, 43, 53, 54, 66, 83, 115, 140, 151, 159, 160, 161, 162, 164–​6, 168, 170, 171–​2, 197, 300, 383 Hirschfeld, Hartwig 51 Hurgronje, Snouck 51–​2, 56, 59 Ibn ʿAbbās, ʿAbd Allāh 5, 82, 104, 120, 121, 344 Ibn Ḥanbal, Aḥmad 67, 79, 82, 84, 87, 88, 91, 92, 93, 236, 274, 275–​6, 277, 279 Ibn Hishām, Muḥammad 49, 58, 66, 71, 313, 316 Ibn Isḥāq, Muḥammad 52, 58, 65, 66, 67, 69, 71, 74–​5, 83, 313, 322 Ibn Masʿūd, ʿAbd Allāh 18, 39, 42, 46 Ibn Mujāhid 41, 42, 46 Ibn Taymiyya, Taqī al-​Dīn 109–​10, 111, 121, 122, 245, 274, 275–​6, 277, 279, 280 iʿjāz (inimitability) 25, 72 ijtihad (independent analysis of Islamic law) 93, 215, 246–​7, 249, 253, 255, 260 Imāmī (Twelver) 94, 108, 109, 209, 212, 214, 215–​6, 217–​19, 220; see also Shīʿa and Shīʿīs innovation see bidʿa Ismāʿīlī 108, 209, 214, 220, 221, 345, 346, 355; see also Shīʿa and Shīʿīs isnād 1, 52, 58, 59, 65–​6, 67, 72, 73–​4, 79, 80, 82–​3, 84, 86, 87, 88, 90, 93, 94, 102, 105, 107, 109, 120, 121, 303, 304 isnād-​cum-​matn analysis 45, 73–​4, 75, 76 isrāʾīliyyāt 25, 100, 103, 107, 110, 114, 120, 121, 122, 247, 341 jāhiliyya see Pre-​Islamic Arabia Jeffery, Arthur 27, 50, 52, 59 Jerusalem 19, 75, 101, 102, 151, 172, 180, 181, 185, 187, 190, 284, 315, 316, 320 Jesus 19, 25, 28, 31, 35, 55, 56, 57, 118, 179, 182, 186, 187, 189, 318, 319, 321, 355, 365, 366, 367, 368, 369, 370, 371, 383

Jews and Judaism 11, 13, 33, 45, 59, 75, 76, 101, 105, 109, 111–​14, 129, 130, 133, 146, 165, 169, 179–​181, 185, 189, 251, 265, 286, 300, 302, 336, 341, 351, 367, 374, 376, 377, 378, 383, 384–​5, 386, 387; see also People of the Book jihad 116, 227, 228, 233, 251, 262, 265, 267, 283–​4, 289, 292, 302 jizya (tax on non-​Muslims) 181, 183, 190, 195, 251, 315 Joseph 13, 29 Juynboll, G.H.A. 65, 73–​4, 81, 83, 84, 88, 89, 93, 94, 120, 306, 337 Kaʿba 19, 79, 82, 101–​2, 164, 165, 316, 319, 320, 369 Khārijites 75, 145, 210, 255, 277, 279, 291–​2, 315, 327, 328, 329, 336 Lammens, Henri 52, 53, 59, 66 Lüling, Günter 43, 46, 311 Luqmān 31–​2 Luxenberg, Christoph 3, 20, 26, 27–​8, 34, 43, 46, 311–​12, 318 Maghāzī 2, 57–​8, 65–​6, 67, 68, 75, 76 Mālik b. Anas 46, 83, 211 manuscript of Ṣanʿāʾ 18–​19, 39, 43 Margoliouth, David 26, 27, 51, 53, 84 Mary 25, 383 matn 58, 72, 73, 74, 80, 86, 94 Mawdūdī, Mawlana 250–​1, 255, 282, 283 Mecca 1, 3, 9, 19, 34, 40, 42, 43, 52, 54, 68, 74, 75, 76, 79, 101, 102, 120, 160, 164, 165, 170, 178, 184, 185, 191, 203, 217, 278, 280, 284, 311, 312, 313, 315, 316, 319–​20, 330, 360, 363, 364, 367, 368, 369, 371, 377 Medina (Yathrib) 1–​2, 5, 9, 19, 34, 40, 42, 52, 54, 56, 69, 75, 76, 83, 120, 142, 160, 164, 178, 179, 183, 189, 201, 203, 211, 213, 217, 218, 259, 265, 280, 286, 301, 303, 313, 377, 379, 383, 384 Messenger (rasūl) see Muḥammad Mingana, Alphonse 26, 111, 317 Moses 13, 16, 29, 30, 225, 233, 236, 355, 365, 366, 367, 369, 370 Muʿāwiya 103, 181, 183, 184, 200, 201, 210, 211, 313, 314, 345 Muḥammad 1–​2, 3, 4, 9, 11, 12, 13, 25, 26, 32, 37–​40, 43–​5, 49–​59, 65–​76, 79–​92, 98, 101, 102, 104, 111, 112, 113, 115–​17, 118, 134, 141–​2, 159, 160, 164, 165, 172, 177–​9, 182, 183, 189, 203, 209, 212, 216, 217, 223, 224–​5, 232, 234, 246, 252, 258, 259, 260, 261, 262, 264, 265, 266, 267–​8, 274, 276, 280, 283, 293, 300, 301–​3, 311, 312, 313, 315, 316, 318–​19, 322, 327, 328, 329, 330, 334, 335, 336, 341, 345, 359, 363, 366, 367–​70, 375–​6, 377–​8, 379, 380, 381, 383, 384, 386; see also seal of the prophets

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Index muʿmin see Believers Muqātil b. Sulaymān 25, 83, 105, 120, 342–​3, 355 mushrik (polytheist, idolater, pagans) 1, 69, 134, 159, 164–​9, 172, 178, 179, 181, 264, 278, 350, 351, 377 Muslim b. al-​Ḥajjāj 86–​7, 102, 300, 313, 384 Muslim Brotherhood 3, 258–​271, 275, 282–​3, 285, 287–​8, 290, 291, 355 Muʿtazila 91, 107, 109, 114, 121, 122, 214, 215, 276–​7, 328, 329, 332, 334, 336 New Testament 4, 6, 10, 28, 31, 49, 56, 60, 98, 111–​3, 118, 233, 366, 381, 383; see also Bible Nöldeke, Theodor 26, 49, 50, 51, 52, 59, 68, 151 occasions of revelation see asbāb al-​nuzūl Old Testament see Hebrew Bible; see also Bible orientalism 129, 136, 150, 381 Paret, Rudi 52, 54, 59, 60 People of the Book (ahl al-​kitāb) 3, 110, 179–​89, 190, 249, 265–​6, 271, 276, 378, 383, 386; see also Christians and Christianity, Jews and Judaism, Zoroastrianism and Zoroastrians pre-​Islamic Arabia (Jāhiliyya) 2, 72, 117, 118, 136, 140, 159–​72, 251, 264–​5, 283, 284, 300, 382 Prophet see Muḥammad qāḍī (judge) 91, 108, 195, 203, 247 Qurʾān 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 9–​20, 25–​34, 37–​45, 67, 68, 81, 83, 84, 88–​90, 91, 92, 98–​119, 141–​2, 144, 164, 165–​6, 168, 169, 177–​9, 180, 182, 183, 186, 189, 194, 203, 234, 246, 248, 249, 251, 252, 253, 254, 258, 262, 264, 265, 266, 268, 269, 270–​1, 274, 276, 279–​80, 296, 297, 298, 299, 301, 302, 303, 304, 305, 316–​18, 319, 321, 322, 327–​37, 339, 340–​1, 342–​3, 345, 346, 347–​50, 351–​2, 353, 359, 362, 363–​4, 364–​5, 366–​7, 368–​9, 370, 374, 376, 379, 380, 381, 382, 383, 384, 385, 386, 387 Qurʾānists 3, 327–​37 Quraysh 27, 34, 184, 334, 360 Quṭb, Sayyid 120, 250–​1, 262, 264–​6, 267, 271, 282–​3, 290 rasm (consonantal skeleton) 17, 19, 41, 42, 44, 317 Riḍā, Muḥammad Rashīd al-​ 3, 110, 242, 243, 244–​8, 249–​50, 252, 253–​4, 255, 260, 262, 263, 267, 286, 331 Rightly Guided Caliphs (Rāshidūn) 3, 92, 95, 98, 219, 249, 250, 252, 253, 258, 259, 260, 261, 262, 263, 266, 268, 271; see also Abū Bakr, ʿUmar, ʿUthmān, and ʿAlī Rippin, Andrew 43, 116, 119, 121, 122 salaf (al-​ṣāliḥ) 81, 90, 99, 100, 104, 105, 107, 109, 110, 113, 114, 120, 121, 245, 246, 247, 251, 252,

253, 274, 275, 276, 279, 285, 286, 291, 292, 379, 384, 386 Salafism and Salafīs 3, 5, 106, 107, 110, 114, 244–​5, 250, 254, 255, 269, 270, 274–​93, 297, 328, 330, 385 Sasanians and Sasanids 34, 138–​9, 140, 141, 142, 144–​5, 146, 150, 151, 159, 164, 165, 170–​2, 180, 182, 185, 187, 190, 196, 197, 198, 199, 200, 313 Satan (shayṭān, iblīs) 72, 227, 228, 334, 355, 365 Schacht, Joseph 58, 59, 60, 65, 67, 69, 73, 81, 84, 92, 93, 120, 219, 328 seal of the prophets (khātam al-​anbiyāʾ) 56, 70, 224, 226 Shāfiʿī, Muḥammad b. Idrīs al-​ 67, 82, 85–​6, 89, 90, 93, 94, 276, 327, 328, 329, 336 sharīʿā (Islamic law) 2, 46, 83, 84, 86, 88, 89, 93, 94, 183, 188, 194, 203, 214, 234, 245, 249, 250, 251, 253, 258, 259–​60, 261, 264, 265, 266, 267, 268–​9, 270, 271, 281, 292, 299, 327, 328, 339, 345, 352, 383 Shīʿa and Shīʿīs 3, 94, 100, 107, 108–​9, 121, 134, 209–​20, 241, 242, 255, 256, 277, 279, 280, 306, 355; see also Imāmī, Ismāʿīlī, Zaydī sīra 1, 2, 4, 6, 37, 44, 51, 52, 54, 60, 65–​76, 116, 117, 118, 189, 296, 298, 303, 316, 322, 359 Sufism and Sufis 3, 219, 223–​34, 235, 247, 260, 262, 263, 276, 277, 282, 383 Sunna 1, 2, 3, 4, 66–​7, 73, 79–​92, 93, 94, 95, 110, 113, 120, 203, 211, 219, 235, 246, 247, 253, 258, 260, 262, 264, 268, 270–​1, 274, 276, 279–​80, 291, 297, 322, 327, 331, 332, 334, 335, 337, 359, 382, 384 Sunnī 3, 82, 86, 88, 90, 92, 94, 100, 102, 103, 104, 105, 107, 108, 109, 113, 114, 121, 122, 209–​10, 218, 219, 220, 241, 242, 243, 250, 253, 259, 268, 269, 275, 276, 277, 282, 297, 299, 305, 306, 367 Suyūṭī, Jalāl al-​Dīn al-​ 27, 38, 46, 245 Syriac 3, 19, 20, 26, 27, 28, 34, 35, 43, 50, 122, 133, 138, 140, 143, 150, 151, 152, 160, 161, 170, 171, 177, 184, 191, 313, 317, 318 Syriac Christians 36, 34, 148; see also Christians and Christianity al-​Ṭabarī 27, 45, 46, 58, 66, 106, 107–​8, 109, 110, 121, 122, 185, 245, 313, 314, 343, 344–​5 tafsīr 2, 6, 66, 98–​119, 120, 121, 122, 305, 306, 355, 359 Thamūd 162–​3, 173 Torrey, Charles 26 Twelver see Imāmī Ubayy b. Kaʿb 18, 39 ʿulamāʾ 91, 106, 108, 120, 246, 262, 264, 268–​9, 271, 279, 280, 281, 283, 296, 304, 305, 306, 332 ʿUmar b. al-​Khaṭṭāb 38, 39, 40, 42, 46, 76, 79, 80, 81, 84, 85, 90, 92, 93, 115, 122, 181, 185, 188,

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Index 191, 196, 200, 210, 250, 252, 253, 254, 255, 256, 260, 277, 301, 303, 384 Umayyads 3, 39, 41–​2, 44, 46, 69, 75, 76, 83, 85, 103, 136, 143, 145, 146–​7, 151, 152, 184–​5, 186–​8, 190, 194, 195–​6, 197, 199–​201, 202, 203, 204, 211, 259, 260, 274, 276, 315, 316 umma 2, 3, 4, 66, 69, 71, 75, 76, 98, 99, 134, 135, 141–​2, 143, 150, 152, 178, 179, 180, 183, 189, 190, 252, 261–​2, 269, 276, 330, 379 ʿUrwa b. al-​Zubayr 52–​3, 58, 59, 65–​6, 69 ʿUthmān b, ʿAffān 17–​18, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42–​4, 46, 92, 93, 200, 210, 219, 260, 277, 317 Wahhabism and Wahhābīs 243, 244, 255, 275, 278–​81, 282, 284, 285, 286, 287, 292 Wansbrough, John 43, 44–​5, 46, 60, 66–​7, 68, 69–​70, 71, 76, 116, 121, 191, 311, 376

al-​Wāqidī, Muḥammad b. ʿUmar 57, 58, 65, 66, 67, 313 Watt, W. Montgomery 38, 39, 52, 54, 59, 95, 376, 377, 378 Weil, Gustav 49, 50, 51, 59 Wellhausen, Julius 26 Yathrib see Medina Zayd b. Ḥāritha 1, 44, 71 Zayd b. Thābit 38, 39, 40 Zaydī 203, 209, 214–​15, 216–​17, 218, 220, 221; see also Shīʿa and Shīʿīs Zoroastrianism and Zoroastrians 122, 139, 150, 159, 165, 177, 178, 180, 181–​2, 185, 186–​7; see also People of the Book al-​Zuhrī, Ibn Shihāb 52, 58, 65, 67, 83

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